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[Question]
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Tolkien wrote on The Silmarillion about Tol Eressea, an island that the vala Ulmo (a god-like figure) used to ferry the elves back and forth across the sea into the Western lands. José Saramago also wrote a novel (The Stone Raft), about the Iberian Peninsula breaking off the rest of Europe.
[Trouble is, I have asked a question where I was answered that breaking two continents apart very suddendly would be so catastrophic that people would very hardly survive, especially on the coast.](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/42520/calamity-breaking-a-supercontinent-in-days-would-there-be-any-survivors)
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I would like to write about a portion of land breaking off from the main continent and becoming an island. On top of that portion of land, there would be a city with people on it (their technological level would be ancient or medieval).
Now, I don't care about the damages on the city. But I would like that a substantial number of people would survive the event. And then that those people would be carried on top of that island from the continent of origin to another continent on the span of a lifetime
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My question is two-fold:
1. Is it possible for such an event to occur without the intervention of a god-like Ulmo figure? (Note: I want a geological explanation: No human intervention and no "*we thought we were on an island but it was actually the shell of a giant turtle the whole time*" kind of twist)
2. If there is no other way to explain it except for the intervention of a god-like Ulmo figure... how would the people fare on that island? Would the ferrying cause massive earthquakes and tsunamis throughout the entire journey that would kill all my travelers? Is there any way to avoid this? *(Edit: For clarification, the divine intervention would be limited to physically moving the island around, not protecting the city).*
*(Edit: I wouldn't like answers about moving land bridges, but true islands)*
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There are two options here that I can see:
1) Continental drift on this world is very, very fast. On Earth, you're looking in the order of centimetres per year, or metres per lifetime. For your story, you want somewhere around 100,000 - 1,000,000 times faster than that - 100K times faster would mean that the continents would be hundreds of km apart in the time it takes for a baby to die of old age (assuming a long life-span; halve it if everyone tends to die by 40) and 1M would give you thousands of km in that time (so trans-oceanic distances). If it's just continental drift carrying them apart, then no need for a catastrophic event - however, if the plates are moving in the order of 100m-1km per month, then it's hardly going to be unexpected either.
2) Your bit of land isn't much like any rock on Earth. The simplest option here is that through some strange set of geological circumstances, a bit of land is composed of rock that is less dense than water. If the two aren't very well attached (note that they're *not* continental plates here) then perhaps the light part could literally float away. Perhaps sea level rise causes the whole slab of rock to float up, whereupon currents gradually carry it away (maybe it moves slowly because most of the time it sits on the sea bed, and only moves at very high tides). Moving and stopping along the sea-bed would probably cause some earthquake-like issues, but nothing that couldn't be built around.
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I am surprised nobody has mentioned those yet...
## Icebergs
The main disavantage is that, obviously, it cannot sustain agriculture, but a population based on hunting and fishing and whaling could be based in an ice shore.
And [some of them are large](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg_B-15), with over 11,000 square kilometers and last for several years.
Although in Earth the bigger icebergs are produced from the very unhospitalable Antartida, [some of considerable size](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg#Recent_large_icebergs) (up to 260 sq km) may appear in more "comfortable" places like Greenland, and I understand from your question that your setting won't be Earth.
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Back in the last ice age there was a volcano near a lake that itself was near the ocean. The area was lashed by frequent storms dropping very heavy rain.
The rain tended to wash the pumice from the area down into the lake. By some handwavium process this fused into a solid mass of pumice.
Civilization comes along, people discover this area on the seacoast made of pumice--you can dig your home into it rather than actually build one. Cheap housing, people flock to it.
What nobody realizes is that once the ice age ended and the ocean level rose to normal the terrain of the ancient lake and surround is now below sea level. The great mass of pumice is actually buoyant but stuck in the mud. The constant tugging of the tides has been slowly wiggling it loose for millenia, one day it finally comes loose. The whole city bobs up (nasty earthquake for the inhabitants but not all that lethal), the area was flat enough that the bottom clears the terrain, ocean currents take over and off it goes.
Surviving an ocean crossing before running out of food and water will be problematic, though!
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## I missed the obvious
There are literal "[floating islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_island)", both man-made and natural.
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Just to put numbers on one potential answer...
Volcanic pumice floats, having a density of around a quarter that of water. An enthusiastic world-builder might suggest "well, the city was built on pumice".
The interweb reckons 60-120 tons per house. Let's be optimistic and say 50 metric tonnes on average, just to pick a sensible number. That doesn't include footings though. Pumice is incredibly fragile, so houses built on it will probably need a good metre or so of pad to sit on. Concrete weighs around 2.4 tonnes per cubic metre. If your house footprint is around 75m^2, that's another 180 tonnes per house. So just the housing takes 23 million tonnes. Now think about roads, which be the same kind of construction as house footings. Suppose we have 100km of roads in total (which is probably a very low estimate for a reasonable-sized city), all of them an average of 8m wide, then we need roughly another 2 million tonnes of concrete for the roads.
Let's allow each house another 75m^2 for gardens. Then the city has a total surface area of around 16 million m^2, meaning the city exerts an average downward pressure of around 1.5 tonnes per m^2.
Now we need this to float. On pumice which has a density of 0.25g/cm^3 (1/4 tonne/m^3), floating on water which has a density of 1g/cm^3 (1 tonne/m^3). If Pv is the pumice volume in m^3,
Pv = 1.5 + 0.25\*Pv = 2m^3
**So a 2m depth of "solid" pumice, across the whole city, would actually float it. As far as Mythbusters goes, this myth certainly at least rates "plausible".**
Interestingly, I started out with the intention of disproving this idea. But when I started putting numbers to it, the result has certainly surprised me!
Of course, the resulting floating city would be unstable as hell and prone to break up. Still, there are ways and means. If you supposed the city's geology had a granite (or other solid rock) base layer, maybe 3m deep, then this would be heavier than the city on top of it. If you can make the pumice layer thicker (maybe 5m), add another layer of rock on top of that (maybe 1m), and then add piles to tie the two layers together (these might be added as part of building houses), then the city has a granite "keel" to keep it upright, and a nice reinforced structure to stop the pumice taking all the stress and cracking up.
Of course it's vastly unlikely. But by the numbers, it doesn't look like there's anything which would theoretically stop this happening.
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the problem is the undefined limits of god-like. How much does physics matter?
Assuming: A. they are just applying force (that is to say the island physically moves and does not disappear and reappear at the new location)
B. it is done quickly (aka not on a geologic timescale)
C. it is a normal island, as indicated in the question.
given those assumptions then your island dwellers are screwed. friction alone may remelt the rock of the island. Even if it doesn't you will see richter scale 10+ earthquakes everywhere. not even tree's will be left standing. the displacement of water will create tsunami on epic scales. soils will liquify and pour into the ocean, taking almost everything with them. People just don't realize how much energy is involved in moving tectonic plates.
As for how to achieve it, I have no idea, that is going to depend on the capabilities of the entity doing it. But it will be entirely supernatural, I know of no natural mechanism that exists to achieve it within those assumptions.
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## The mountain cannot come to Mohammed
For centuries, villagers have traveled half a day westward through the low plains to reach the capital city of their kingdom. To the east lies a treacherous sea where the brave, lucky few that have returned describe a week-long trip through a watery hell, but the folks on the other side seem nice enough.
A record-breaking thunderstorm leaves the villagers scared and soggy but generally secure. A band of strangers rides in from the east just as reports of natural disasters to the west hit the gossip mill.
Centuries later astronomers would refer to the event as Near Miss 2893'5, signifying the 5th time Object 2893 had crossed Earth's orbit close enough for potentially observable effects.
Detractors insist this theory relies on unconfirmed conjecture of Object 2893's mass, and the real cause of the sub-continental flooding and emergence of new land bridges was the result of a breech of a local volcanic-formed lake system.
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All of the methods I can think of that would cause some portion of land to rapidly become an island without involving massive tectonic or volcanic upheavals or meteoric impacts involve something like a flood, storm, or river outbreak partitioning off the end of a peninsula. But none of those would actually *move* the land, just remove connecting lowlands to leave it separated. So, that leaves us with divine intervention. As to how the people onboard would fare, it really depends on how fast they're going and how the deity is moving them.
Let's look at the speed first. You ask for movement across an ocean within a human lifetime. For the sake of having some numbers to play with, let's say we need to move 2000 miles (roughly the width of the Atlantic between Brazil and Western Africa) in 50 years. That's ~40 miles a year, ~580 ft/day, or ~24 ft/hr.
All things considered, that's not actually very fast, *assuming* it's a steady movement. Last month, New Zealand suffered a [magnitude 7.8 earthquake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Kaikoura_earthquake). During the earthquake, a portion of one of the faults moved 33 feet in the space of two minutes. That's about forty times faster than the 0.4 ft/min we need to maintain for our journey, which tells me that we're not quite working at a "catastrophic earthquake" level of earth-movement, unless it's moving in fits and starts as opposed to maintaining a constant rate of movement. This leads to questions about our motive force.
If the deity moving the island is physically shoving a mountain across the bottom of the ocean, with all the grinding and friction that implies, that is going to build up a lot of frictional heat, and also effectively cause a continuous low-level earthquake on the island. If it's not able to maintain a steady movement, but rather moves it in shorter bursts between rest periods, that will dramatically increase the earthquake magnitude involved. But it's *changes* in the movement (acceleration) that are felt more than the *rate* of movement. Once the island is up to speed and moving steadily, the ride will smooth out laterally, even if there's some up-and-down bumps due to unevenness on the seabed. It's stopping and starting (or otherwise changing speed) that will cause the strongest shocks.
However, you already have a deity moving the island. For the purposes of your story, it can also soften/liquefy the base of the island as part of moving it, so that the island basically "skates" across the ocean floor rather than grinds. This would dramatically reduce friction and heat produced, and also reduce the rumbling/shaking felt on the surface. Picture an ice cube sliding across a tabletop for what I'm talking about. As a "natural" process, this would slowly eat up the base of the mountain/island and cause it to sink, so divine intervention would be needed to explain why that didn't happen.
At the rate of motion implied, there isn't any tsunami danger. Assuming the motion is steady, real-world currents already move much faster than the island is--if the current around the island is flowing in the direction of the island's movement, it would actually be pushing the island forward. (Heck, this could actually be part of the story -- the deity of the earth loosens the island so that it can move, and the deity of the ocean pushes it where it needed to go with its current.)
As for the inhabitants, the people on the island are probably due for a rough time, since they'll basically be dealing with a constant mid-level earthquake for fifty years. It's not ideal, but mankind is adaptable, and they'd make it work. Tents or single-level wooden structures that can flex with the motion would rapidly become the dominant architectural style. Stone walls would be kept low (e.g. boundary walls) and would need to be carefully engineered if used, and stone or heavy-timbered roofs would probably be considered a bad long-term idea, even if they were strongly built to begin with.
Water travel around the island shouldn't be an issue; like I said earlier, the rate of motion of the water around the island is going to dominate the currents around it unless it'd be otherwise completely calm, so navigation around the island won't be harder than around a normal island. The exception is that long-distance voyages wouldn't be recommended, unless you're certain that you know what course the island is moving in. Shorter trips up to a week or two shouldn't be a big problem as long as the weather remains clear -- the island's moving less than a mile a week, so as long as there's any reasonable promontory on it, it should be visible on a clear day from your departure point.
Honestly, what might be the bigger issue is the population relative to the size of the island. It's entirely possible that the resources of a small island could be depleted before the journey is complete. Fresh water especially could become a problem, if groundwater is disrupted and not replaced with sufficient quantities of rainwater. Again, divine intervention may be required. I'd suggest looking at modern-day Pacific islands to get an idea of what size island can support what size population long-term.
TL:DR - Try to do it via real-world methods and destroy your planet and everyone on it. Get a deity to move your island at a slow, steady, even rate, and you should be fine. Your sustainable population is probably about the same as any normal island, assuming a reliable water supply.
[Answer]
This only requires two conditions for it basically to work. (1) The land between the mainland and what will become the island is low lying terrain. (2) There is a sea-level rise due to the end of the Ice Age.
The seas simply overrun and submerge the lower land between the continent and the higher region that will become the island.
Elements of this answer have also been suggested by Loren Petchel and Patrick Trentin. However, this answer was devised before I saw their answer and comment respectively, but they did get in first and more power to them.
This answer provides a plausible geological mechanism for a geographical change of this kind. Locally the islanders wouldn't experience a catastrophic change, the rising waters could take place over months or even years. They could simply progressively adapt to their changing circumstances in becoming islanders.
The divergence from events in our world is the establishment of an ancient or medieval civilization in late stages or the end of an Ice Age.
EDIT:
Salda007 pointed out I had missed the part about moving the island from one continent to another with the span of a lifetime.
Can this be done by natural forces? Absolutely not, unless you want the mortals living on the island to perish.
Therefore, this intercontinental movement must be due to a godlike super-being. The island is levitated off its base, but the below the waterline, and then set in motion to cross the ocean. Godlike super-beings are well known for being sensible about islands from one location to another.
A levitated island will not experience any earthquakes or other seismic events. Its passage across the ocean will be gentle and stable. No sea sickness for the islanders. No shaking, rattling or rolling of their city too.
If the island moved too quickly, erosion would soon reduce the island to almost nothing. This is not good for any mortal islanders. So by moving the island slowly and in gentle manner the erosion is no more than of tidal motion and the island will be comparatively intact when it arrives at its new continent. The city on the island doesn't need any protection and the god can concentrate of moving the island physically.
Once the island reaches its destination, the god will need to prepare a platform for the island's base to settle upon and the island can be lowered to the sea-floor. The islanders and their city will have experienced the journey of, quite literally, a lifetime.
Remember to always sail with Deity Movement Islands! See the sea at the leisurely pace of your lifetime.
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You have suggested either a scientific explanation or a supernatural one,
and have some good answers regarding each path.
There is a third path: art.
How did Saramango explain things? Perhaps not at all satisfactorily
from a hard-science point of view, yet presumably the novel works anyway.
In the story "The Distance of the Moon,"
Italo Calvino adopted the (true) premise that the
Moon is gradually moving away from the Earth (spiraling outward in its
orbit), and wrote a story about things that happened when the
Moon was so close that people could climb from the Earth onto the Moon.
Even a moment's though will tell you this is nonsensical in several ways
(the cataclysms predicted upon your island's separation from the mainland
are nothing compared to what would happen from the Moon passing so close
to the Earth, for one thing)
yet it is a good story.
Another writer about a hundred years ago observed that many tall buildings
were being built on the lower tip of Manhattan,
and wrote a story in which part of that island broke off and sank
into the sea under the weight of those buildings.
Anyone with a slight knowledge of the geology of New York at the time
could have said this was impossible, yet the story was pleasing enough
to be published. (I read this story a few decades ago, so I do not
recall clearly who wrote it.
It is possible that the story I'm thinking of is
"The Tilting Island" by T. J. Vivian and G. J. Bennett, anthologized
in *Science Fiction by Gaslight* by Samuel Moskowitz, but I have not
found an actual copy of the book to confirm this.)
So whether your villagers can survive the trip without
explicit divine intervention is a matter of how you write the story.
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Assumptions: (1) the distance to be traveled is relatively short, (2) the sea is relatively shallow, (3) a volcanic fault lies approximately along the direction of travel, and (4) a series of wildly improbable coincidences are acceptable. The scenario envisioned is that of an island crawling amoeba-like across the sea...
The people are settled on a long low peninsula extending in the direction of another continent visible on the horizon. The fishing is good and they build a city on a hill at the very tip of the peninsula.
There are a series of earthquakes causing the ground that connects them to the mainland to suddenly subside beneath the waves, but they stay put as their city is unaffected and they are happy to be separated from their warlike neighbors. Following this, for a **decade** the land beneath the seafloor begins to gradually bulge upward like the lava dome in mount St Helens until it emerges from the sea first as a marsh and then dry land. Earthquakes on the hill where the city is built prompt the people to abandon it and move to villages on the new land.
The hill where the original city was built turns out to be a volcano and begins to erupt. Meanwhile some distance offshore another volcano erupts and emerges from the sea. The people live peacefully on the land between these volcanoes for some years as they both grow. The sea volcano produces copious lava that spreads into the sea and eventually connects it to the island where they live; another long tongue of lava spreads in the other direction. The sea-volcano dies down, but eruptions on the far side continue to raise land along the fault line as lava spills out in a chain of cinder cones. These deposit soil-like ash atop the lava. After another **ten years** the island is now a long linear reef anchored by two volcanoes, with more cinder cone islands further out.
But the volcano under the old city erupts more violently and the land continues to rise, and suddenly it blows its top like Santorini, leaving only a few rocks sticking out of the sea where the city once was. All that remains is a single temple atop a sea-stack, which the people take as a sign they will survive and be blessed on the islands.
Encouraged, the people build a new city on the far side of the now dormant sea-volcano. Thick ash has filled in a hollow between the volcano and a cinder cone and it has hardened into tufa, into which they dig cave-dwellings. Some grasses and shrubs even grow here on the surface of the fertile ash. Most of the rest of the island is bare rock.
The volcanoes further out to sea continue to grow, little cinder cones connected by sandbars like a pearl necklace made of embers and ash. The people explore but don't settle yet. Over the next **10 years** the nearer cinder cones fizzle out and grow cold, and grasses and shrubs colonize the fine ash on their slopes. The land that rose a generation ago is now sinking into the sea again, as the lava chamber that pushed it up has emptied. Thirty years after being separated from the mainland, the land is completely submerged and the people have all migrated to the new city in the tufa. Their economy is almost all fishing, and there is little fuel except driftwood, but it's a living.
The next event is a sudden earthquake. It turns out the fault is actually along a submarine cliff. A great submarine landslide takes 3/4 the sea-volcano into the depths, causing a tsunami that ravages faraway kingdoms. Incredibly the people's town is unaffected, now perched on the edge of a brand new cliff. Again divine favor is acknowledged. Prudent, the people begin to look for a new place to build, and find a location far away among the cinder cones, where the waves have filled a low lying area with sand and driftwood. A new town is built here and the people slowly migrate here, abandoning tufa-town.
Within **20 years** the remainder of the sea volcano has slidden into the abyss, along with tufa-town and several of the nearer cinder cones. Sand-town is well established and seems safe from the pattern of landslides, but the waves are eroding the cinder cones and it is apparent they will not last more than a few more decades. It is found that the furthest cinder cones lie near the mouth of a great river delta on the far continent. After several unusually stormy years, silt extends the delta until it connects with the chain of cinder cones, while the islands are eroding with alarming speed. The delta is new land and unclaimed, and seems tectonically stable, so the people begin migrating there where they build new villages.
As the last of the cinder codes are washed away by the sea, the people have completed a land-transition across the sea to a new continent in the span of some 50 years, leaving virtually no trace of the moving land bridge behind them.
[Answer]
Just thinking about the physics, an object in water is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the volume of water it displaces.
Weights for various materials
* Dry sand coarse - 1.6 tonnes per cubic metre.
* Topsoil (some moisture) - 1.44 tonnes per cubic metre.
* Ballast - 1.76 tonnes per cubic metre.
* Gravel - 1.92 tonnes per cubic metre.
* Water - 1 ton per cubic metre
If you want the island to have any kind of topography above sea-level it will need at least 2x the volume of open airspace beneath the surface for each square metre of total land mass (that exists both above and below sea-level).
If the island is a technological wonder of engineering (rather than a natural phenomenon), the weight of the vessel's construction materials and machinery (for propulsion and life support) would also need to be factored in, especially whatever is required for an internal structure strong enough to bear the weight of the land on top. Add a bunch of military and transportation hardware to supply the island and keep the pirates at bay and you're really cranking up the weight.
If we are talking about a highly advanced construction there is current, real-world research that's producing materials which are as light as Styrofoam and as strong as titanium but the costs and energy requirements for construction of a floating island using these materials would be vast - there would need to be a very good reason for having to build it.
<http://theweek.com/articles/582787/metal-light-styrofoam-strong-titanium--5-other-amazing-new-materials>
In modern ship design there is at least as much ship beneath the water-line as above (and that's without covering them in topsoil). So there would either be a large volume of open areas beneath the surface of your island, or a huge amount of expanding foam filler ;)
Since it has come up a few times; A cubic metre of pumice stone weighs 0.64 tonnes so you would need roughly 1.5x more to achieve the same effect as a cubic metre of air void. Let's say roughly approximately 3cu/m pumice per cu/m of land mass. That's a lot of rock beneath the surface and it would need to be perfectly impermeable.
Apart from that, the biggest problem will be scraping all the barnacles off ;)
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[Question]
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This world is background for erotica story which came into my mind.
Porn/erotica worlds are commonly totally unrealistic: Pizza delivery is always on time, always delivered by fit male at exactly the time when female just leaves shower...
While the world itself can be big hand-wave for the erotica story itself, my worldbuilding self wants to revisit the world after I write the erotica story.
**The question:** What needs to happen through a history to produce an alternate Earth where gender roles are in total opposite to ours, while keeping all biology the same? (Women giving birth is the main example)
Examples:
* Women are whistling on men
* Fit guy can get free drink from a woman at a bar
* Men are often treated only as sex symbols
* Seeing topless man is already part of erotica world
P.S.: Keep away the thought of totally low probability of this happening. I do not need "hard science" world, alternate Earth where this happen just needs to be plausible
[Answer]
There is a biological reason for gender roles being the way they are: Reproduction requires far more resources from a woman than from a man.
A woman can only bear a child about once a year, takes severe discomfort and health risk from the process, and is only fertile for a few decades of her lifetime. A man, on the other hand, doesn't need to do more to sire a child than to ejaculate.
This results in different mating strategies for the sexes. While women carefully choose who to mate with, men try to mate with as many women as possible. Also, men have a better chance to pass on their genes when women do use their limited childbearing capacity for their children instead of those of others, so men prefer women to be flirty with *them* but not with *others*.
So when you want the sexual gender-roles to be reversed, you need to somehow move the cost of child-bearing. Possible actions you could take:
* A child custody system which puts more responsibility on the father than on the mother. For example, a mother is allowed to disown her child after birth, but the father can not and will be forced to pay child support.
* In the early weeks of pregnancy, fetuses are removed to grow in artificial wombs. That way the mother has almost no discomfort from pregnancy and childbirth and can become pregnant again even before the previous child is born.
* Only have methods of contraception available which are under the control of the woman. In a world where the pill exists but condoms do not, a woman can choose if she wants to get pregnant from sex or not, but the man can not. Allowing women to have easy abortions but make it morally unacceptable to force a woman to have one is also a way to reinforce reproductive rights of women while lowering those of men.
* Limit the number of children a man can have by law. When a man risks a hefty punishment for fathering too many children, they will think twice before whoring around. To enforce this, your world needs a quick and easy way to determine paternity of a child.
* On the other hand, also have laws which encourage women to have many children, preferably from different fathers. Possible incentives would be [government-sponsored child allowance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_benefit) which exceeds the cost of upbringing or [special recognition of mothers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9daille_de_la_Famille_fran%C3%A7aise).
* Give political power to women who have many children. A possible system would be one where all national and regional issues are decided by public vote, only mothers can vote, and [they get one vote per child](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demeny_voting). That means a woman with many children will have it easier to have her political demands met.
The question is: What circumstances could lead to a society adopting such a model?
One reason could be that due to some very sexually active men in the past (maybe a caste of nobles not just demanding [jus primae noctis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_du_seigneur) but the right to sleep with any woman they want whenever they want?), the society is suffering from inbreeding. Also, it turned out that these men had latent but serious genetic defects which now appear randomly. This lead to a decline in population. The society needs more children, leading to lots of support and privileges for mothers. But they also need some "quality control" to breed out the defects, allowing women to disown children and enforce genetic diversity by not allowing a few men to father disproportionally many children.
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**Just wait a few decades**.
Gender roles (unlike biological sex) are much more fluid than most people realize. It's just that for many many centuries upper body strength (which men naturally have more of) translated into military and domestic power. As part of the shifting of our society towards a cognitive economy, muscle mass is becoming increasingly irrelevant in a world of robots with 1000x our muscle power. Moreover, a vast, pervasive, and efficient police system is increasingly enforcing for adults the "no fighting, no hair pulling" rule that kindergarten teachers attempt to teach the kids.
Women are currently earning 60-70% (80% in some countries) of all college degrees. As they get more and more educated, maintaining traditional barriers against them reaching the top of the pole in more and more fields is becoming harder and harder to justify with a straight face.
Therefore, it is certainly plausible (and is already the case for some subgroups of the population, such as African-Americans in the US) that there will be a time when the majority of the earning power goes to females. There'll still be educated males, and thanks to the fact that they don't get pregnant the educated ones might even do well, but the majority of cognitive jobs may well be held by women.
With the purse-strings often comes the 'wearing the pants in the house' bit. After all, if a couple has a kid and the woman earns 2x the man's wage, it's insane to keep her at home, but rather it makes more sense for the man to stay at home.
Rinse and repeat for a few generations, with rising role-models for women, shifting perceptions of what's culturally appropriate, etc. I will bet good money that you'd end up with a world where women are far more sexually aggressive, and (at least a significant subset) of men take on characteristics of sexual and social passivity that our current society describes as feminine.
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I think your question is impossible.
Gender roles emanate from biology, but the question is, "How do we completely reverse the gender roles without changing the biology?"
The answer is "You can't." It's like asking, "I have a car that doesn't fly. How do I turn it into a flying car without changing anything about the car?"
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frankly this is *VERY* hard to do in a believable manner without modifying the way reproduction works. This comes down to evolved behaviors which have been built into a psychology for thousands upon thousands of years. A simple culture change is going to have a difficult time overriding our ingrained evolutionary instincts. Those instincts are for men to woo and/or objectify women with a desire to have sex with as many as possible, and for women to be selective about who they have sex with. These are partially part of our evolutionary psychology.
Men stopping objectifying women, that is believable and desirable (and I hope will mostly come to pass over the next generation or two). However, women choosing to objectify men is harder. For that to happen women must feel they need to fight over men as mates, effectively that males are the harder sex to get to agree to reproduce. Considering how little it 'costs' a man to have sex (at least some men, I disagree with those that would father a child without thought of the welbeing of said child, but sadly those type of men are not in short supply) it is hard to believe that women would ever be fighting over getting a male as a mate.
Without the need to 'fight' for men some of the above, like buying drinks just to have the opportunity to start talking in hopes that *maybe* something will come of it, seem excessive. You basically need a system where getting male mates is as hard in your culture as getting a women to choose to be your mate is in our current culture, despite the fact that women pay a *MUCH* higher biological burden in raising children and thus have a much higher incentive to be selective *AND* a genetic predisposition to be selective which will still be present even if cultures change such that there was less of a burden on women (evolutionary psychology gets built over tens of thousands of years, it doesn't really 'catch up' with cultural changes that have been around for a mere generation). In other words it must be *harder* to get a male mate in your culture, and cost far more, then it is to get a female now; since your competing with biological predispositions which lean towards selective women and precocious men.
...at this point I feel I should stress that I'm talking about averages of huge populations, I stress that individuals can vary widely from this average, but culture is based on the 'average' and thus that is what were considering. I want to stress that it's usually dangerous to take any of the generalizations I use about averages and try to apply them to any single individual, male or female, and presume them to be true. Many will not fit these generalized statements.
As such the best way to believable make this happen is to work with the reasons we evolved the way we did before. Right now women pay a greater cost and are less available then men for reproduction. You need to culturally change these factors.
Phillip gave some good ideas for how to do this. Making men ultimately pay a significant financial cost for children would go a long way towards making them the sex that is selective and needs wooed; though I point out this only works if you know paternity as a certainty *AND* can find the man easily after the child is born, to enforce him to pay his rightful cost. That means better ways of hunting down the father and getting child support, but also making the father pay far more in child support.
The problem with the above option is that it's pretty much impossible to force the father to provide emotional support for the child (or the mother, plenty of kids are given up for adoption or just abandoned). biologically and emotionally if a man refuses to provide emotionally for the child the women is going to be placed in a position of crying for the child or abandoning them to foster care; which in *this* culture is seen like a horrible thing (in truth I think a newborn placed up for adoption has a very positive life outcome, going to rich families that desperately want you helps to ensure your well taken care of).
Thus I think a good solution is to tackle the other end of the spectrum. Make men less available for reproduction. The best way to do this is a well known trope in sci-fi, [a sterility plauge](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SterilityPlague). Make it such that men are less fertile. Only a subset of men are fertile, and they can only reproduce so much (multiple sexual partners decreases sperm count so much as to render them infertile, limited mating is required to have any chance of reproduction). This approach helps to make fertile men a higher commodity. If all women in the world desperately want children, but only a few men are capable of assisting them, then women would start fighting for the desire to 'catch' a perminate mate to have children with.
Couple the above idea with government supporting children, to prevent population from decreasing, so that there was strong incentive for women to have kids and you could get into a position where women would fight for fertile men.
Go a step further, and make women the primary bread winners or people in power (easily done using the plague option as well, via making men less common to be born due to early miscarriage of male fetuses, or due to men being relegated to 'baby making' and not having time to focus as much on a job) and you get a society that would actually objectify males sexually.
[Answer]
Men as sex symbols are possible in a world where virus killed men, unless they make themselves infertile eunuchs. Many men are around to do the work, but they are infertile and cannot make sex or procreate. The few remaining virile men are sex symbols, highly coveted by females.
[Robert Merle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Merle) wrote a book Virility Factor with plot like that.
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Just throwing an idea out there, what if the gender balance was different? In a population with, say, 90% male 10% female, any woman would be able to have their pick of men, and men would need to compete to be in with a chance. This could even reverse the "harem" trope, where one woman could have a "harem" of men, since being one of a harem (of men) would give you better odds than demanding monogamy.
An example of this in practice (gender imbalance empowering women, not male harems) is in China:
<http://www.newsweek.com/2015/06/05/gender-imbalance-china-one-child-law-backfired-men-336435.html>
>
> "But the demographic reality of modern China—that the number of boys
> so greatly outnumbers the girls—has far-reaching effects. And one of
> them—in the social sphere, in the everyday interaction between the
> sexes—is empowering women. In Chinese cities, the evidence of that is
> pretty much everywhere.
>
>
> Consider Cai Li (who asked her real name not be used in this article),
> a 34-year-old marketing executive in Shanghai: She is smart, engaging,
> hip and attractive. She is also the divorced mother of an 8-year-old
> girl. When she caught her husband, a Taiwanese businessman,
> philandering five years ago, she didn’t hesitate. “I divorced him as
> soon as I could,” she says. “He was shocked. He thought I wasn’t
> serious, that I wouldn’t do it because of our daughter. I said,
> ‘You’ll see.’ And within a week I had filed the papers [for divorce].
> And why wouldn’t I? Why should I put up with that? I have parents here
> in Shanghai who help take care of my daughter. I had a good job. Plus,
> if I want to get remarried, it’s not as if there’s a shortage of men,
> even at my age, who would be interested. [My ex] was crazy to think I
> was going to stick around.’’
>
>
>
Another quote from the same article:
>
> “I wouldn’t even go out with a guy who didn’t own a house, never mind
> marry him,”
>
>
>
This is in a population where the birth gender balance is 55% male / 45% female (peak, which was 2008, it's dropped since).
Unfortunately, this is self-correcting - now that women have more power, the birth gender balance is swinging back slightly, so you would have to have a problem that wouldn't self balance. Perhaps a fatal disease that effects girls, not boys?
Alternatively, I know some animals have a different gender balance at birth, depending on environment, or even changes in gender of living animals. Perhaps hormones released into environment, e.g. from birth control, could affect one or both of these? Bonus points for making a "1 generation delay" - babies born affected will have very few girl children themselves, so by the time anyone realizes, it's too late. People from rural areas are less (likely to be) affected.
I suspect that, even if the issue is resolved, and (another generation later) the balance is restored, the culture would have changed, and the perception will stick.
[Answer]
**Because it is natural!**
Although there are fundamental biological facts, different societies may interpret them differently leading to seeing different behaviours as natural. The gender-swapped society is the way it is because it was always that way and people assume it was the only natural/possible way. Consider some possible answers from your gender-swapped universe saying how impossible our society would be without changing biology.
*Men are natural beasts of burden* -- Men are stronger than women, so obviously men would do the physical labour while women do the book learning. History was inevitably going to be written by women.
*Women naturally want more men* -- Polyandry was a natural response to the historical scarcity of food. (This one is even kind of backed by real world wikipedia: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyandry>) It is natural that women would want to have many big strong men to tend her fields. Why would men want multiple wives? Before modern agriculture and contraception, having multiple wives just meant that you had to watch yet more of your children starve. There is a reason that "Childbearing hips" were never fetishizised but "Plough-pulling thighs" were!
*It is natural that women want more sex* -- What is "sex" anyway? Maybe "going all the way", or "normal sex" means something other than PIV in your culture. Obviously in even our real world highly sexualized activities don't need to have much to do with baby making (consider e.g. the LGBT community). So women can have "sex" with men they don't want to breed with. Perhaps "sex" is something more physiologically pleasant for women than men. Naturally women are going to have buy men drinks to get them in the mood. There would be biological facts about nerve endings and so on that prove that "sex" is objectively more pleasant for women. Baby making sex still exists but mainly to make babies, and it may be assumed that any civilisation that sexualized making babies would have collapsed due to overpopulation.
[Answer]
What about a matriarchal society?
---
In Mayotte (Indian Ocean), it is customary for a family to build a house for each of their daughters1, where they will establish their family. As a result, the house belongs to the wife and provides a stable environment for her children.
Similarly, in *Devlin's Luck* by *Patricia Bray* the province of *Duncaer*, home to the hero, works on the same basis: only women may own land, and thus houses.
1 *This tradition is all but disappearing with the French laws and a "modern" way of life arriving on the island.*
---
Thus, let us imagine a society which has evolved in a similar way.
As they cannot own a shelter, men are dependent upon women relatives or friends, much like today children are dependent upon their parents, and therefore society pressures them into finding a woman willing to welcome them in her house that is not obligated to (much like today stay-at-home celibates are pressured). This in turns result in women having their pick of men, as unlike them they are in no hurry to find a shelter and can wait for a more suitable candidate to pass by.
Of course I would expect marriage contracts to accommodate the insecurity of men and, likely, provide either stability or reimbursement should they be forced to leave; however this does not change the fact that ultimately women would have a significant power over their husbands.
I believe that such a society could very well lead to a "gender swap" as you wished it.
[Answer]
How about a society where pregnant women are in high esteem? They are thought to be more intelligent, vigorous and overall more able for high qualified jobs. Just let the medicine advance a little so that women are only hindered by their pregnancy in the last month or so. The benefits have to be real big - so you only get high management positions if you are a women and if you are pregnant. And you can only hold an important political position if you are regularly pregnant.
Men are widely thought to never can reach the potential of a pregnant women - and are mostly suited for house-work or raising kids. Business women usually give their child to one of the many men they sleep with, each one thinking he is the one and will be married, instead of just getting the kid dumped on him.
This will result in it being highly attractive for a women to sleep with many men for pleasure and for a high chance of getting pregnant (and keeping her image of a highly capable women), while men would only sleep with a women which will not only use them to dump of their child on them and get themselves pregnant from someone else again. - So many man stay at home, single-handedly raising children, trying to get by a meagre wage because all higher positions are for women only. And most men only sleep with a women, if they have a prospect of marriage, because that is the only chance of getting a rich wife and having a chance she will raise the kid with you...
If you sleep with many women, 9 months later maybe you have 3 kids on your doorstep which you have to raise alone. And try to get payments for them from the three successful women with their top notch female attorneys no one will take on the case of a broke down man-whore with 3 kids...
[Answer]
I think you're forgetting the biological urge of men to reproduce.
As long as this biological urge remains, men will keep trying to have sex with lots of woman. Better yet, this biological urge is probably the biggest reason that gender roles are the way they are right now. Men want to show they are better than other men in order to increase their chances of fulfilling their biological needs.
If you really want men to "tame down", you will have to find a way to repress these biological needs of men. For example you could think of altered foods or certain medication that lowers testosterone levels.
[Answer]
Gender roles are defined by what is masculine, and what is feminine. These are defined by physical, and social factors.
* Masculine traits include courage, independence, and assertiveness.
* Feminine traits include gentleness, empathy, and sensitivity.
Society is now trying to move away from labeling these traits this way, because they no longer apply to only one gender. Males or females can have masculine, feminine, or combinations of masculine and feminine traits
*In the past*, why were these traits encouraged in males and females by society?
* Women stayed home, and took care of children. It worked, they could be pregnant with the next child and take care of previous children.
* Since pregnant women were stuck at home caring for the children, men needed to do the physical activities of hunting, protecting, and providing shelter for his family. (*Also, males generally being stronger physically aided them in this role*)
---
**The answer**
To switch the roles, you would need males which are generally physically weaker than women, making women better at hunting and protecting the family. This means the males would be at home caring for children.
Lastly, being pregnant would have to have little to no effects on the physical activity of the women, and cause no harm to the baby.
[Answer]
Although this isn't a satisfying answer per se, you could invent just about any excuse you wanted. There are two questions here, one implicit and one explicit. One is 'how to make a world with the stated criteria that people will believe?' to which the answer (as you can see from the variety of the answers above and the frank disagreements in the comments) depends greatly upon the audience.
The other (implicit) question that some of the other answers attempt to address is 'how could this actually happen in real life?' which is not necessarily answerable: *we don't know how much of our gender role concepts are 'hardwired'*. We can't say 'gender trait x is a societal construct' or 'gender trait y is a result of natural selection/pre-historic conditions'. We simply don't know how much influence our biology has on our behavior vs. the influence societal memes have on our behavior (not to mention the ongoing interaction between the two).
The narratives we construct to explain these differences are interesting (and appropriate for this site) but short of non-informed consent generational human experimentation we aren't going to have a 'hard-science' answer.
] |
[Question]
[
You've got to love the rainbow, it's an awesome sight. But I don't want humans to have the pleasure of seeing the rainbow.
**What change to the earth, atmosphere and so on, is needed so that humans from approximately 2250 BC do not know of the existence of the rainbow?**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RPY6a.jpg)
**Some more details:**
* Human knowledge/technology between 2500 BC and 2000 BC.
* Preferably without affecting flora and fauna too much.
* I'm preferably looking for a change that does not affect the human body, such as the eyes (but I find answers exploring this option also intresting).
* Reality check based on the earth from about 2250 BC.
* **Bonus:** Preferably without changing the law's of nature, so it should in theory be possible to have this (reality-check).
* **Bonus:** Not only the rainbow, but also other ways of dispersing light should not be known/visible to humans (waterfall + sunlight).
I personally was thinking to change the atmosphere and fill it with lot's of water, so that all the light from stars or the sun is filtered before it reaches earth. But what would happen to plants and animals in this case?
[Answer]
You need to have direct sunlight that can be dispersed to see a rainbow. If you have only already dispersed light, no rainbow can occur.
If you have a permanently cloudy atmosphere (like it is the case on Venus), there never will be direct sunlight, and thus no rainbows.
If you need a solid physical explanation for it rather than a handwaving "different composition of the atmosphere", the best option would be tiny particles in the air that make it easier for water to condense. In the prehistorical past, massive volcano eruptions have darkened the earth for centuries due to the amount of dirt particles they emitted into the air. Of course, this is extremely detrimental to any form of life, so tune it down a bit and let the volcano eruptions be constant, but less intense, so that the clouds forming in the atmosphere are less thick and allow for enough sunlight to make life possible.
[Answer]
You need two factors to create a rainbow - suspended water droplets and direct sunlight.
If your weather was extremely dry then you remove the droplets, equally if it was always overcast you remove the direct sunlight.
So a desert dwelling people with water flowing in through rivers or underground aquifers would never see a rainbow.
Seasonal variations where you have a continuously overcast and rainy season followed by a dry season might also work, although you have a chance of rainbows happening during the transition.
Harder to explain than either of the above would be an area where rain only happens at night. It would be dry and clear during the day then when night falls clouds roll in and the rain begins.
[Answer]
**Monochromatic color blindness.**
<http://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/types-of-colour-blindness/>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CQAdj.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1zAyJ.jpg)
>
> People with monochromatic vision can see no colour at all and their
> world consists of different shades of grey ranging from black to
> white, rather like only seeing the world on an old black and white
> television set. Achromatopsia is extremely rare, occuring only in
> approximately 1 person in 33,000 and its symptoms can make life very
> difficult. Usually someone with achromatopsia will need to wear dark
> glasses inside in normal light conditions.
>
>
>
Many cases of colorblindness are genetic. In your world, through a founder effect, humans are colorblind. They will be aware that there are light effects that can be produced by clouds in rain, but they will not know the rainbow because they do not know color.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MCoQH.jpg)
[Answer]
# Monochromatic light
From what I know the rainbow phenomenon is only possible because the Sun light it involves is the superposition of “many” different wavelengths. Basically, the rainbow is just the separation of these wavelengths.
### A monocromatic star
So if you don’t want them in your world, you could envisage to turn the Sun into a monochromatic star. These kind of star seems to exist and be known as astrophysical maser ([thanks to this stack post !](https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/18047/is-there-a-type-of-star-that-emits-relatively-monochromatic-visible-light)).
**EDIT :** Unfortunately and thanks to @LSerni, it seems that the phenomenon behind these stars is not as simple at it seems to be and that they should be seen as any other regular "black body" star from their own system point of view... So let's try something else :
### An atmospheric filter
Another option is that the light emitted by your star is somehow filtered before hitting the Earth, leading to a monochromatic light. This filtering phenomenon already occurs thanks to the ozone layer, which stops some a part of the UV wavelengths. I’m not an expert, but a change in the atmosphere composition could certainly leads to a better filtering and even maybe to a monochromatic light on Earth…
Of course, this will have a lot of repercussion on the planet.
### A Stellar filter
Last possibility, an extra-atmospheric filter. Imagine a very dense stellar cloud that would stand between your planet and its star. As explained [here](http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/I/Interstellar+Gas+Cloud) such a cloud, if composed of hydrogen and heated by a very hot star, can lead to the emission of a monochromatic light. I don’t know if this kind of plasma cloud can be dense enough to totally bloc the star light and become the only source of glowing-light for your planet but if so it would certainly lead to an amazing sky!
[Answer]
They can't see the sky.
Maybe they live in a heavily forested area with a thick canopy and the sky isn't visible. They can find everything they need for life, and outside the forest, there are predators that easily fall humans, so they don't go out. Maybe the forest is extensive enough that they don't find a way out or bordered by sheer cliffs.
Obviously this cannot be true for the entirety of humanity (particularly because one phase of our evolution was supposed to have taken place on savannah) but it could be true for a small group or a collection of tribes.
[Answer]
Starting from your idea:
>
> I personally was thinking to change the atmosphere and fill it with lot's of water, so that all the light from stars or the sun is filtered before it reaches earth. But what would happen to plants and animals in this case?
>
>
>
## **Let's put a water canopy in the upper atmosphere**
This will have several interesting effects. First it will work to diffuse light so that there is not enough of the spectrum left to crate a rainbow should it hit water droplets again. It would also allow plants and animal to probably grow bigger and live longer than real-life equivalents.
Water would filter out many of the harmful rays of the sun (alpha and beta radiation for example). A water canopy in combination with the ozone layer would block most of the ultra violet radiations from the sunlight as well. Depending on the thickness of the canopy, you could still allow enough energy to reach earth for everything, while still filtering out the harmful stuff.
To continue down this tangent a bit further, this would also likely increase oxygen content and atmospheric pressure. So everything on earth would be much healthier and heal a lot faster.
## **Let's boost the humidity until there is no rain**
The more humid the air, the more saturated it is will water. If the air is completely saturated with water, then evaporation can no longer occur. If there is no evaporation, the water cycle stops and you have no rain. 100% humidity is not enough to cause rainbows (especially if there is a water canopy diffusing everything), and without rain, there will be no water droplets either (the primary source of rainbows IRL)
If you boost your humidity, any excess water will naturally congregate on the ground every night when things cool down. This, in addition to underground springs, will be able to let your plants grow without the need for rain.
To keep things from getting to hot with your 90-100% humidity, all you need to do is go back to your water canopy. A greenhouse effect will occur that spreads the heat energy evenly throughout the whole globe. Granted you won't have ice cap, but you will have an even, liveable, temperature (unlike IRL where if the ice cap melt everything either becomes a desert or a tundra)
## TL;DR
Diffuse the light with a water canopy and prevent rain with humidity.
[Answer]
Rainbows happen because water droplets in the air work like prisms. At just the right distance and With clear air, the refracted light reaches an observer's eye in such a way that the rainbow can be seen.
I see a couple good answers here that solve the problem by either [removing umidity from the air](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/106951/21222), or [limiting the view of the sky and incidence of light](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/106940/21222).
Let me add a third option: impurities in air. Dust, volcanic ash or other suspended particles other than water droplets may be present in the air in such a way that enough sunlight still reaches the ground for flora to thrive and for people to see, but the farthest distance people would be able to see would be reduced. In addition to that, these particles could break the "prism" effect of water droplets for long distances by spreading light like a light fog would.
With such an arrangement, there would be no rainbows.
[Answer]
An ice age cold enough that it never rains, only snows.
[Answer]
You need some way of pre-dispersing the Sun's light without diminishing its overall intensity, essentially "expanding" the Sun's image in the sky from a small, very bright disc to a large shape at least one quarter of the sky in size.
There is no "natural" way of doing it - you'd need a large refraction lattice positioned in low orbit. For short periods (a few thousands of years is probably already too much) you could imagine a very dispersed ring of ice crystals all around the Earth, a sort of super-Kessler apocalypse:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CRec2.jpg)
The ring (actually a hollow sphere) should be at least one third of Earth radius thick (I'm **not** too sure of this figure, I'd need to run some calculations), because it needs to balance the fraction of sunlight that will be reflected *away* from the Earth with the fraction of sunlight that would not have hit the Earth, but is now reflected towards it.
One possibly harmful consequence of this setup, however, would also be a **very** bright night.
[Answer]
Does a [Dyson sphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere) solve this?
I can't get my brain round the maths, but I'm wondering if it means you never get the right refraction angles to create the rainbow. i.e. there is never a case where the sun is behind you and the cloud in front because the sun is always directly above.
[Edit]
To frame this in the context of the question: A super advanced species built the Dyson sphere and has long since died out. Millions of years later a human like species evolves from one of the many other creatures in the sphere and never experiences rainbows (or night).
[Answer]
There is a school of thought in Creationism that promotes the Canopy Theory. That basically states that the atmosphere prior to the 40 days/nights of rain that caused Noah's flood wasn't like the one we know now. That's why the Rainbow was such a great sign to Noah and his family - they'd never seen one before.
So simply go back and alter the structure of our atmosphere, and you're there.
[Answer]
I'm not sure this would work as intended, but you just need to remove some air.
As we know: the higher you are the lesser air there is.
So if we could just remove some *(actually a lot of)* air - still have atmosphere to protect from UV and other stuff - water vapor couldn't get too high and form clouds so there would be no rain and no rain means no rainbow.
If there were no clouds I'd guess that earth would be really foggy and that would also stop you from seeing too far in case rainbow was somewhere. In my opinion fog wouldn't stop plants from growing or animals from surviving tho they'd adapt to the climate and evolve different.
Also if you could somehow get fog to last ~~forever~~ 500 years it could be solution all by itself
[Answer]
Visible light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. <https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/toolbox/emspectrum1.html> The wavelength of electromagnetic energy is inversely proportional to the frequency of the electromagnetic energy. This wavelength - frequency relationship is true because electromagnetic energy travels at the speed of light (for a specific medium) regardless of the frequency. Red light has a longer wavelength than violet light.
However, when it comes to light traveling through water, different frequencies (colors) travel at different speeds. That is why different colors refract at different angles when traveling through clear solids and liquids.
In my mind, the speed of light should be constant. That it isn't constant in water seems to be a change in the laws of nature.
Sorry that I didn't stick with your "laws of nature" constraint, but I find it illogical and unnatural that light behaves this way.
[Answer]
I would say (based on my limited knowledge of rainbows) that you would have to make the sun be always almost directly overhead, so that the rainbow would only appear underneath people (unlikely). Or, you could lower the humidity of the atmosphere, or even force your civilization into a canyon-like area, where there isn't much to see beyond a couple miles.
[Answer]
You don’t need to prevent rainbows. You just want to prevent surface-dwelling humans from noticing rainbows. So let’s add a new factor. I suggest a small, unpleasant, flying insect with an unusual life cycle. They only mate when there is moist air and a light source present. When both of these conditions occur, they immediately take to the sky. And there’s zillions of these things. They are literally everywhere. And they bite, or sting, or smell bad, or tend to fly up your nose, or all of the above. They have been around for longer than the humans. So every human knows to cover their head/get inside a house or cave whenever there is a break in the rain. Because the sky is about to become absolutely clogged with those obnoxious pests. This gives you three reasons why nobody has ever seen a rainbow:
1. humans actively avoid the sky when conditions are right.
2. So many bugs are in the sky, you can’t see the rainbows anyway.
3. even if some rays of light make it through the bugs, the humans are probably so preoccupied with shooing away biting insects that they aren’t going to notice the refracted light.
[Answer]
The arc of a rainbow is caused by the curvature of the Earth. If flat Earth was even remotely possible (it really isn't flat Earther's) then there would be no bow, possibly just straight lines.
In response to monochromatic sun's, how about a red giant star where the Earth was still in the Goldilocks zone. I am fairly sure you still get rainbows, only in 1 colour. Laser light still refracts and that is highly monochromatic.
Multiple suns could prevent you seeing rainbows. If the area was drowned out by light from different angles there would be no apparent rainbow. I have no idea of the solar system that would mean a planet always sees 2+ suns at all habitable locations but Issac Asimov tells a story of a society that never sees darkness in [Nightfall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_novelette_and_novel))
] |
[Question]
[
In this alternate history, [Tawantinsuyo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Empire) resisted all attempts at conquest. The reason is not very important; let's say a fluke storm killed all of Pizarro's men shortly after they started engaging the Inca, who, magically resistant to all Old World disease, adapted to modern weaponry rapidly. Any subsequent invasions they held off valiantly, and the shared enemy coalesced their previously divided nation into a cohesive, centralised country. The centuries passed, and over time they modernised with the rest of the world. Assume there was never any specific period of isolation; they had friendly and not so friendly contacts throughout the ages, they were just never conquered.
Now, in our history, the Inca had no conventional system of writing, in the sense of inscriptions or markings that can be read. Instead, they used a system of knotted threads called the [Quipu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu) for administration, and possibly, communication. They looked like this:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OmKUX.png)
Now, debate is ongoing over whether this system was phonemic or not. **I am going to assume that it was phonemic**, or that it became that shortly after its use diminished in our timeline.
So, assume that you can "write" everything using quipu. It has native representation for every sound, and thus everything you want to say. Imagine it can do anything our writing does, except it is made of rope.
My question is: would the Inca ever, between the 1530s and the 1990s when computers became commonplace, have needed to use paper notation and thus a standard script? Obviously Inca translators would have needed to figure out alphabets of other tongues, but I am talking native use, by administrators and peasants alike. Assuming that a quipu can *represent* anything a more conventional writing system can, is there any practical issue with writing with rope that paper does not have?
[Answer]
## Density
The problem with quipu is the information density. We don't know exactly how much literal information can contain a quipu, because we can't decipher the literal quipu yet. [This books](https://books.google.ch/books?id=kt9DIY1g9HYC&lpg=PA1340&ots=NNc_ALNAdS&dq=quipu%20%22amount%20of%20information%22&pg=PA1340#v=onepage&q=quipu%20%22amount%20of%20information%22&f=false) states:
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> Alothether 46 different items of information were kept on this recording device no larger than an ordinary kitchen mop.
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In this case, the author is talking about a numeric quipu. However, if we assume that the literal quipu were able to have a similar information density (and this is a bold assumption), then you would have about 50 "words" on a quipu the size of a kitchen mop. So, something like 20\*20\*2 centimeters and 500 grams.
A books holds on average around 300 words on a page.
So, to store the same amount of information that a **book of 200 pages** holds, you will need around 1200 such quipus, weighting **600 kilograms**.
## Images, maps and the likes
A quipu won't make it possible to represent anything else than words and numbers. Maps and schemas are vital to convey some types of information and are going to be extremely arduous to represent with knots on rope.
## Your question
In the points above, I explained why quipus can't efficiently replace paper. However, the Incas were doing relatively well before the spaniards arrived. So, maybe, if they are left alone as you describe, they could have kept going that way. I mean they did it for a long time, so probably nothing would prevent them to continue.
They are going to be limited in regards to information transportation, storage, diffusion etc... But for an empire of a limited size, it seems that this limitation is not a killer for a rather primitive civilisation.
Of course, your Inca civilisation isn't going to progress on every other topics as fast as a civilisation with paper would. And if they are competing for territory/resources with another civilisation, paper is a **very** strong advantage.
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## You'd need the weaving equivalent of a printing press
The printing press revolutionized "writing" and the spread of knowledge on paper. You no longer needed trained scribes laboring on each page of a book to copy it. This allowed literacy to spread across the population (eventually).
I expect that your Incas could make do with hand-knotted documents for administrative purposes, but they would slowly start lagging behind in development in the 19th century and more during the 20th. Inevitably your Inca scientists and intellectuals would learn to read foreign paper-based stuff and so start the spread of paper.
## A weaving "press"
The weaving press seems much more challenging than a printing press. The complexity of the knots in your example picture would be a challenge even for robots today. In addition you'd need a template (equivalent of the letter type plates printing presses used). It would need to hold instructions for the weaving/knotting machine that could trigger knots between threads at specific distances.
Unlike the metal letters in printing, the weaving instructions would be need to be translated, something like holes in a wooden slat that correspond to where the knots should be, with a hole between two threads meaning to tie the threads together. This would take specially trained people to translate the source rope to templates of high enough quality to be used by the machine.
The knotted ropes have some more scaling issues, mostly due to the lower information density and the awkwardness of blanket-sized "books". With some handwaving, you could make it work, though I wouldn't call it likely. It would definitely look awesome tough.
Also, good luck untangling your book after putting it away carelessly last night!
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It seems to me like the natural way to "read" the knots in Quipu would be with the fingers which puts me in mind of [Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille). As other posters have mentioned the fundamental problems with Quipu are information density and reproducibility. These are the problems your Alternative Inca will have to solve but coming from a background with a tactile alphabet they may develop novel solutions. Perhaps they will weave complex patterns that can be felt, or embroider information onto canvas, or punch it into papyrus.
Ultimately it's difficult to beat the density, durability, and reproducibility of paper books. Maybe when your Incas acquire paper technology they continue to use their own tactile alphabet to print the Quipu on paper.
Maybe they develop metal cylinders with information encoded in bumps. These cylinders are at first sized to fit in the hand and be read by touch but are later fed into machines (at first entirely mechanical) that reproduce sounds or have [a display](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display) that can be felt. Later the cylinders are miniaturized and the machines increase in complexity to read more information dense encodings. Mathematics, specifically information theory and compression algorithms become a specialty of these people. These machines progress to electromechanical and eventually [electronic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille_e-book) devices.
There would have to be a strong preference for this tactile alphabet so perhaps this culture places a very high value on tradition and history.
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I haven't tried using it, but quipu looks like a horribly *slow* way to record a message. Unless the old way of doing things was enforced with a hideous fanaticism, I can't see the Aztec scribes using quipu for very long once they saw how quickly a Spaniard could dash off a message with ink and paper.
This is most especially important in a military situation; if your opponent's messenger is five miles down the road before you've finished up the first paragraph, the situation is not optimal (for you).
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## Awful information density
As cyrus said in his answer, you can't mass produce anything with this system. but there is another problem: information density. Even if we stick with numbers, you need a new rope for each 3 digits. 203 956 for example would need 2 little ropes. And it's quite simple as there are only three types of knots, one for the hundreds, one for the tens, one for the units. dealing with text would mean either a ton of different knot, lot of ropes, or both.
This answer for example, would stick in a little piece of paper, but would need a lot of ropes to represent it. Paper is just way more useful, as you can keep and carry way more information in a way smaller object
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In order to flesh out your advanced Inca empire, you might want to research three subjects: Ada Lovelace, tree structuring, and the Yupana.
**Ada Lovelace**. She was the first person to realize and write down the idea that the Babbage analytical engine was suitable for recording and manipulating textual data like Shakespeare's plays. She described a kind of textual analysis that might resemble what are called Ngrams today. All of this was about a century before the invention of ASCII. It's not hard to imagine the incans developing a numerical coding scheme for phonemes. For the sake of density, they might even develop a numerical scheme for concepts, resulting in a recording of numerical ideographs somewhat analogous to Chinese writing.
**Tree Structuring**. The quipu is not only capable of recording numbers, but also capable of imposing a tree structure on the numbers. The secondary strings all tie to the main string, which has no knots. But the tertiary strings tie into secondary strings between two knots, and that location is capable of expressing the tree structure associated with the numerical data. The incas were already using this tree structure to convey some kind of information, in order to put the numbers into some kind of context. It's easy to imagine them developing this concept into the same kind of concept that was used in the 1950s to develop languages like Lisp.
**The Yupana**. The Yupana was a calculating device used by incans to manipulate administrative information, particularly to work out tax burdens. Functionally, it was a little like an abacus, but less tightly structured. This would make it easier to generalize to operations other than arithmetic. The incans might have developed along these lines. If the quipu is analogous to a stone age internet, then the yupana is analogous to a stone age calculator.
Using all three of these concepts plus a suitably imaginative view of inca development after 1537, it's not hard to imagine them reaching roughly the Gutenberg level of sophisitication by about 1600, when the British began settling North America. All without paper.
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# Information density vs Speed of information Processing
While paper offers higher information density (per grams) knots and quipu could offer support for faster information processing than paper:
* more advanced ways of modelling information (though this could do with a bit of hand waving) but a recent branch of mathematics known as [knot theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knot_theory) which would clearly apply to quipu could have been developped earlier in the inca empire and prove faster/better for solving some critical problems (war, logistics, ...)
* more structured way of modelling information books and paper favors linear data structure, quipus are better for trees and could be extend to graphs
* easier and faster ways to adjust information (changing knots and moving sub-knots from place to place).
# Others:
* might be longer lasting in the subtropical forest where paper rots very quickly
* knot-punk instead of steam-punk: you could even think of some advanced parallel processing where the incas found ways to "program" ant-nests for complex parallel processing by making ants walk certains ways on special quipus.
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I saw some ideas of translating an alien language, like in the movie Arrival. The steps make sense, but I thought of another scenario:
Imagine you meet aliens in space. They speak, but you can't understand them. Tthe normal way to learn their language is to point at things and try to get what they are called. But what happens when the things they point at are things we don't even know or understand? What if they see things in another perspective (maybe they have just one word for, light, fire, energy because in their eyes it's the same thing)?
Is it possible to learn their language in these cases?
Edit: Just want to add an example so people understand my point, imagine the aliens would see and travel through the fourth dimension, could we ever learn about it as human just by talking? Other example, the aliens have more colors than we have, our eyes don't see everything but their might see more, what would be it like if they try to explain us an additional color? We can't imagine it in our heads so it would just be random words right?
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It is absolutely possible for a trivial reason: everyone does it.
When we are young, and learning our first language, we absolutely don't understand the perspective of the adults speaking around us. Yet 100% of us learn to speak our native tongue.
The trick is that you have to actually learn the language. In school, we often kinda-sorta learn a language. We learn to map it to the way we think, word by word. As you point out, that can fail when we try to learn a language that groups things differently.
To learn such a language, you have to learn it as it's own entity, and slowly develop your own translation over time. One place I've had to learn this is in learning Chinese martial arts as an American. I'd say some of their concepts don't map 1:1 to English, but I'd be lying. Of the important concepts, almost all of them don't map. They simply view the nature of life (and thus combat) differently. It is almost completely impossible to learn concepts like Yin, and Yang, with their proper constantly-entwined-opposite nature just through lecture, much less pointing at things. Concepts like Chi are even harder; Shen may be hardest of all. (disclaimer: still trying to get a handle on that last word, myself!)
Such difficult terms are taught through interaction, not just one way communication. Not only will the teacher use terms like "chi" in their instruction, but they also observe your actions and strive to identify moments where their terms may be more meaningful to you. You may be struggling with tension at some point in a posture, and the teacher realizes that you "know" what to do, you just need a nudge. They might, in a commanding tone say "use the chi!" and that tone alone nudges you into doing what your body knew to do all along, you just weren't doing it. You then start to associate "chi" with the particular correction you just made.
Over years of practice, you eventually will develop your own understanding of the word and tie it back into your life. I, myself, have concepts of what "chi" is which stem from my scientific background, but that's only because that's a convenient way for me to think about it. I prefer to think of it as its own concept, and not translate it into scientific thinking if possible. That way I can continue to understand the nuances which I might miss if I assume that my scientific definition of chi is *the* definition of chi.
SO I would say the solution to this problem is interaction and persistence. Not only should one be trying to learn the language, but you should try to let them help you find situations which make it easier to understand their language. As they say in language classes, you'll know you've got it when you start dreaming in their language.
The hardest words to capture in this way would be those related to the warrior spirit or the fundamental essence of a society. The former is tricky because you must be put in stressing situations to uncover it, and the latter is tricky because you aren't them.
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Interesting concept for sure. I Believe though for your perspective of an Alien pointing out an object we don't know doesn't mean we can't learn that word. Think about the English language. We have words like *Croissant* that never got "translated" into English but left as their French wording and we adapted to use that word in relation to that food. Through context you would understand that XXX does XXX as you watch that object work/interact. Not everything has a direct translation.
Another example is the Navajo who used their language to talk in WW2. They didn't have words for things like a grenade so they used other words like eggs to represent the object.
In regards to your question about if they have the same word to represent 4 different meanings, though uncommon, we already have this in our own Earth languages. [Buffalo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo) for example can be used like 5 different ways depending on context.
It's not impossible to learn any language, but certain words may need to be just accepted as the name of something or the common tongue needs to come up with a nickname for it so they can use it in context.
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This is a hardy perennial of Science Fiction. It’s basically always possible to communicate with the aliens in the end, because otherwise you get an unsatisfying anticlimax. When the humans never do figure out how to communicate, you get a Big Dumb Object story. But even Arthur C. Clarke’s [*Rendezvous with Rama*](http://www.powells.com/book/rendezvous-with-rama-9780575077331/66-0) and [*2001*](http://www.powells.com/book/2001-a-space-odyssey-9780143111573/62-0) eventually got sequels where the aliens finally do talk to us and explain what was going on. Someone else already brought up the *Star Trek: TNG* episode, [“Darmok,”](http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Darmok_%28episode%29) which anyone who thinks about questions like this should definitely watch. (I’ll happily poke holes in it afterward, but it’s great.)
Learning alien languages has been handled a number of ways. Suzette Haden Elgin is a linguist whose feminist SF novel, [*Native Tongue*](http://www.powells.com/book/native-tongue-9781558612464/65-2), is written from the premise that this is only possible if you take an innately gifted child and teach her to see the world the alien way while she is still young enough. [A major part of the plot of the novel is the invention of a language for the thoughts of *women*, Láadan.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1adan) The author [really invented this language and taught it to people to see what would happen.](http://www.powells.com/book/first-dictionary-of-laadan-1110000196895/2-0)
Another, Eliezer Yudkowsky’s short story, [“Three Worlds Collide” (originally, “The Babyeating Aliens”)](http://lesswrong.com/lw/y5/the_babyeating_aliens_18/) is about first contact with two alien species with very different modes of thought. I’ll give one of the few SFW examples of his approach (the others are more, uh, interesting).
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> In the early days of my species there were those who refrained from
> happiness in order to achieve perfect skill in helping others, using
> *untranslatable 3* to suppress their emotions and acting only on their
> abstract knowledge of goals. These were forcibly returned to
> normality by massive *untranslatable 4*. But I descend from their
> thought-lineage and in emergency invoke the shadow of their
> *untranslatable 5*.
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On a side note, having one word where English has three or *vice versa* isn’t a big obstacle in practice: English has an especially large vocabulary with a lot of synonyms, so this happens often, and most other languages make distinctions somewhere that English doesn’t: Spanish or French have at least four ways to say *was*, with different verbs for temporary and permanent conditions and different tenses for completed and continuing actions.
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It already happened in the past on our planet. Think for example of when the first pioneers explored the present United States territory or some island in the Pacific Ocean and wanted to negotiate with the natives "right of property" or "exclusive usage", concepts that they didn't possess, and for which you can't even "point at things".
Nevertheless natives learned the language (and also the concepts, though through the hard way...).
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Another story you [should read](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19445) is [*Omnilingual*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnilingual) by H. Beam Piper.
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> As the story points out, even pictures with captions are not necessarily helpful, giving the example of a picture of a man using a hand saw. The caption could mean anything from "man sawing wood" to "Kaiser Wilhelm in exile".
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The story is about discovering that there is common ground after all: natural physical science, and the chemical elements in particular.
In the [story I’m working on](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/71048/alien-message-arrows-and-sequence-order), the sender doen’t presume anything about the senses of the recipient. Being a *message*, the recipient will naturally prepare it into a form that can be examined. A 2D diagram or schematic is a picture to us, but could be scent ot tactile or who knows what. Diagrams and maps and charts, in *content*, should be more universal.
And it’s not some guy on the street trying to spontaniously understand it. It’s a team gathered to ponder and study the project.
And, the two parties *want* to overcome this communication issue. So don’t point to an everyday object that is not itself known to your counterpart! Instead, start with things they both do know. This isn’t simply pointing, but requires preparing a set of diagrams.
In my story, an annotated map of the solar system (of the recipient) showing mass, periods, distances, etc. and a table of properties of chemical elements and isotopes, are “Rosetta Stones” representing things that *the recipient **does** already know what it is*.
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If you meet an alien and you start by pointing to the TV remote control, the dog, a slice of pizza (things immediatly at hand) and trying to share words for those, you are quite simply doing it wrong.
Start by finding things (and “things” may be abstract) they **do** have in common. Starting with a word for the remote control is silly, but if I opened the entertainment center cabinet door to show him a periodic table of elements I have hanging on the inside of the door, then it might take a little pondering because his culture formats it differently, but he might indeed know what that is.
If it's not a random introduction of two individuals, but *teams* of people working on the problem (complete with Internetlibrary-computer access), then you bet they can figure out what the periodic table is.
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Pointing to objects and naming them works - as long as the aliens are speaking (rather than a multitude of other ways to communicate - posture, gesture, odors, skin tone, hair/skin patterns, emr, etc. etc.) in our audible hearing range - and only in that range. The problem with this is that the aliens must think in terms of "thing-action-result" like our languages. I think a video (YouTube) would be much more effective than one-to-one pointing; at least to start. You've probably seen the movie First Encounters. The language there was colors and tones, and was learned (apparently) by computer-to-computer communication rather than person-to-person. Meaning digital communication would probably be much quicker than the very primitive "Me Tarzan, you Jane" approach. Your question assumes the stuff the aliens talk about is "things". Physics is more about processes and fields than "things" (arguably). So, we have no assurance that what we observe is relevant to the information they are attempting to convey. (I've not seen Arrival, yet). I expect that through repetition, we would eventually be able to understand the patterns which their language is based on. As long as ALL of the information necessary is perceptible to us. (For instance, we are just beginning to (crudely) be able to encode smells into language via computers. If they used smells (or chemical emissions) as an important part of their language, we'd have a real problem understanding them. But even that would eventually be cracked, I think. So, to answer your question. Assuming they communicate vocally in the same frequency range as we do is a real stretch (because even we use gesture and context, as well as the sex, age, and status of the speaker and listener, to determine what words we use). But assuming we can capture their language with our ears/eyes (and they ours)? Then we should be able to eventually understand them, I think. It would, imho, be a really dumb way to solve that problem.
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The main problem with the movie *Arrival* is that she's a linguist. So that creates the problem, she knows languages, but not the foundation she can lay it on.
To explain I will use the first anthropologist problem. They think that because "savages" didn't have words for something (like describing history) they don't know how to describe it. In fact they just told the story in form of a dance or carvings.
The second example would be pineapples - which I can guarantee are not called pineapples in native language.
The third example is potatoes - In English this is a word from *batatas* while in French they are "earth apples".
The fourth is Helen Keller - She didn't see water, she didn't hear it. She had no visual concept of it. Just like aliens with no eyes.
So to answer your question: you learn it as any other languages. They point to energy beam and call it *pewpew* so you assume energy beams are *pewpew* but later you learn that *pewpew* means beam while energy made from cold fusion used in energy beam is called *fiu*.
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I'm looking to create a syringe gun for um....reasons.
Don't worry about the specifics, I'm not looking to assassinate anyone (at least not too much), but I want to be the new Vaccination Vigilante®. I plan to have liquids of all sorts be added to this weapon, so microscopic syringes won't do. It needs to at least have enough capacity within the ammunition for me to use the below listed "fillings".
* Vaccines
* Bloods with viruses
* Poisons
* Toxic chemicals
* Filtered Apple Juice
* Paralytics
I also need it to shoot relatively far (400+ meters), remaining stable enough to inject into the incredibly thick skin of.....nevermind. The targets don't matter, assume normal human skin is the target.
**How can I create a realistic syringe gun given these "fillings"? Would a tranquilizer gun fulfill these capabilities?**
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A tranquilliser gun would fulfil all of those requirements, with the notable exception of range. Getting 400m range would become very tricky, for the following reason:
* In order to hit a target, you need velocity: velocity gives you a flatter trajectory, less wind-effect and makes lead easier to calculate for a moving target. As the range increases, these things become increasingly more important (as the round will also slow down more the further it flies).
* A tranquilliser gun however needs - by its very nature - to have a low velocity, as it fires a large projectile and isn't supposed to have any destructive effect.
The only way I can think around those conflicting requirements is to have a guided projectile - essentially a miniature cruise missile. That way, it can fire at a low velocity (and maintain a steady velocity) out to a long range. A small rocket motor, wings and a miniature guidance system would be needed - laser SACLOS or possibly beam-riding would be my suggested guidance system.
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**Quite simply, you won't.**
You have two main problems.
### 1) Projectile
Bullets are just pieces of metal. They might even be highly engineered pieces of metal (or even ceramics) depending on the round. What a weapon shoots is a *round*: the combination of casing, propellant (gun powder), bullet, and primer (which ignites the powder).
A syringe gun doesn't have those components, because a "dart" is not a bullet. It is not a "dumb" projectile meant to penetrate, or otherwise injure the target. Therefore its a lot more fragile, it can't take the forces which are exerted on the bullet.
### 2) Aerodynamics and force
When your dart slams into the target it must achieve 3 things:
* Be aerodynamically stable and hit the target
* Deliver its payload into the target's body successfully
* Not hit the target so hard that it penetrates it (like a bullet does), or so weakly that the payload is not injected
But darts, as we've established, are not bullets. They are not nearly as aerodynamic. And they carry no propellant (not that they could survive the pressure generated by igniting a serious amount of gunpowder), therefore they must be fired using compressed gas.
And so, right off the bat, you have 2 major impediments to shooting a target at 400 meters. Shooting a dart full of liquid 400 meters out would require a heck of a lot of pressure and force. So much, in fact, that the dart probably won't survive, and such a gun would require some serious pressure tanks to operate off of.
Second, darts are fired out of smooth-bore guns, they are not made to be shot out of rifled barrels. This all means that they will be way more aerodynamically unstable than a bullet. Hitting something at 400 meters is essentially a pipe dream (pun intended).
### Conclusion
Dart guns are meant to deliver a payload at short to medium ranges, and must typically be well aimed, as the dart should not impact the target in the eye, for example. What you're looking to make is some sort of dart sniper rifle, and that won't work.
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I have given this matter much thought. One could make a fine syringe arrow. A 10cc syringe would be the tip of the arrow, the shaft of the arrow tipped with the rubber gubbin and acting as the plunger within the syringe. An arrow is stable in flight. 400 m is doable (ok, you might need a footbow). On striking the target the (small gauge) needle would go in to the hub, penetrating clothes and so on. Kinetic energy remaining in the arrow shaft would depress the plunger, expelling syringe contents into the unvaccinated.
The syringe bow would be quiet. The previously unvaccinated would probably be less quiet.
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In order to get the range you desire without increasing velocity so high you put a giant hole in your target, you need smart munitions. You would either need a self-propelled munition (e.g. tiny rocket), or a munition that can decelerate before impact.
A tiny rocket would be complicated and would need to include a guidance system.
An [air burst round](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_burst) could be interesting, because if properly constructed it could use a [shaped charge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge) to send the liquid into the target as a high-velocity stream (like a [jet injector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_injector)), while ejecting the solid matter back away from the target as low-velocity dust. The [xm25 cdte rifle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM25_CDTE) has similar exploding rounds.
A **[tranquilizer gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquillizer_gun) with "smart darts"** is probably the best solution. The gun would fire the dart at much higher velocity than a standard dart gun, but then the dart itself would deploy a parachute immediately before impact in order to reduce it's velocity to non-lethal energy levels. Honestly, the technical challenge isn't that large. I wonder if that kind of smart dart might be marketable for animals in the real world...
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Others here have pointed out the impracticability of firing a large projectile (the syringe) over large distances at less-than-lethal impact velocities. I particularly like the cruise-missile syringe proposals.
I'm going to go for something different. Don't fire a syringe.
Freeze the payload (the vaccine, the apple juice, etc) before firing into a long (ish), thin, aerodynamic shape. Use a laser rangefinder on the weapon to allow the weapon to determine the correct muzzle velocity for the range to allow the icicle to penetrate the target at the lowest speed to prevent damage but ensure penetration.
Use a low-acceleration method such as compressed air to fire the projectile to ensure it doesn't shatter in the barrel.
The ice projectile will then melt inside the target.
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You could conceivably craft a projectile whose terminal velocity is non-lethal yet still stable in flight, and then a fire control computer could aim dumb payloads at severely parabolic trajectories. It wouldn't be so much a gun as miniature artillery, but I could picture it fitting in a backpack, so still portable...
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I agree that range is the primary consideration. But if you're willing to flex that requirement, say hello to my little friend [Joerg Sprave](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o13HJQIVXho). He also has a how-to video so you can build this contraption yourself! Has a number of advantages and disadvantages over traditional tranquilizers, but the main advantage is that it's more fun this way ;)
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[Question]
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The GURPS roleplaying supplement New Sun, based on the Book of the New Sun novels by Gene Wolfe, describes a particular sword as having a hollow channel in its core containing mercury. According to the material, this causes the blade's weight to "shift backward when raised and rush forward when swung" (words in quotations are the entry's exact phrasing).
I assume this is supposed to give forward strikes more force, but I honestly wonder- would such a design contribute to or take away from a sword's effectiveness?
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You'd get "dead blow thrusts", while normal swinging (due to centrifugal force) almost always pushes the mercury to the tip of the sword. You'd essentially be swinging around a sword with a heavier tip and mostly hollow blade, except while thrusting, where you get the "dead blow" effect.
Until you realize what a thrust really is. Having the hollow blade + mercury in the middle is useless, because a dead blow thrust is useless. A thrust is a singular motion - by the time the dead blow action kicks in, you've already fully penetrated your target to your swords maximum potential, especially since the little bit of dead blow weight from the mercury pales in comparison to the amount of force you're pushing into the sword when you thrust.
This: *...causes the blade's weight to "shift backward when raised and rush forward when swung"* does not happen.
So really what you have is a poorly designed, weakened sword.
In this case, your assumption that this is supposed to give forward strikes more force is flawed.
Such a design, however, does take away from the sword's effectiveness (if you're looking at the effectiveness from a "how long will this thing last/how likely will it break" standpoint.
Actual effectiveness in combat will depend on the training of the user.
Clarification: A "Dead blow" is when a part of the force of a strike hits the target after the weapon has landed. For example, a "dead blow" hammer is often hollow on the inside and filled with sand (or something like that) - when you swing the hammer, the hammer first connects with the item you're trying to hit, but the force from the sand doesn't connect until a split second later; when the sand travels from the back of the hammer to the front due to the hammer stopping. The point of a dead blow is often to distribute the energy of a strike over a longer period of time, and to minimize rebounds.
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Angular momentum would be conserved.
While swinging, the centripetal force would cause the liquid mercury to flow in the channel and move out along the blade. This would increase the mass at the end of the lever arm increasing the force of the blow. The increased force is not free energy, it would slow the rotation of the swing. This increased momentum would also make the super swings more difficult to control.
This variability of rotational speed and higher than expected force could be useful at initially confusing an adversary, but it would likely also confuse the wielder unless they had trained and adapted their fighting style for it.
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> ...would such a design contribute to or take away from a sword's effectiveness?
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I would not worry about the weight effects of such a blade too much.
Making a blade hollow and filled with mercury, *especially* when you make the blade big / hollow enough for *significant* amounts of mercury, will give you a sword that is **much more likely to break** than solid designs.
You might feel a certain effect swinging or thrusting the blade. But as soon as your blade encounters another blade in a clash, you will be standing there, sprinkled in mercury and holding a broken sword hilt. While your opponent laughs at you, and cuts you down.
Which makes any effects that mercury might have *while the blade is intact* pretty secondary.
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> would such a design contribute to or take away from a sword's effectiveness?
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This would contribute to that exact sword's effectiveness.
That [sword](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminus_Est) is an [executioner's sword](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executioner%27s_sword) - a tool specialised for job that is heavily different from swordfighting (like, they don't even have a sharp point for thrusting).
Design is supposed to make this particular sword perform better at axe's job of chopping off immobile kneeling prisoners' heads in one blow.
There were hollow batons filled for about 1/3 with birdshots in '90s in Russia and I've also heard of table tennis rackets with empty handles and a moving weight inside them but I am not sure that this were done because of actual practical benefit or not.
Quick test shows that moving weight kinda works - the blow that feels equally hard feels easier to make so there could be some practical benefit. However, weight's position is messed up after contact with the target - or after other sharp change in movement - so it does not look like easily controllable effect in a fight.
That being said, for all intents and purposes other than chopping off immobile kneeling prisoners heads off in a single blow, it would be pretty lousy sword. From fighting standpoint, it's harder to control, it has a structural weakness in important point *and* it is way harder to replace - all that in exchange for a better performance at a blow you won't ever get time to prepare or deliver.
I haven't read the book though. If in that world that sword performs good *in a swordfight* then it should be attributed to the same thing that makes dragons exist and magic work.
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I searched, though I couldn't find much...
It was all about having a moving centre of gravity. Generally in a sword you want the centre of balance to be close to the handle, usually around your guard. This way, it is easy to swing the sword around to attack or defend. However, when making a slashing attack, you want your blade to have a lot of weight to bring to bear on your opponents sword/armour/person therefore increasing the amount of momentum you can deliver to break something or to carry through them and make a deeper wound. The problem is that a heavy blade that is agile requires that much weight again in the pommel to balance the whole thing out. Heavier swords are tiring to swing during a long battle.
To solve this, the theory went that you would create a hollow channel filled partially with a movable mass. In this case mercury, which was dense and a liquid to easily move along this channel. When your were on guard with the sword upright, the centre of balance would rest closer to your grip and you would have an agile sword. Then when you swung, the weight of the mercury would concentrate closer towards the blade and give you a more powerful strike, all without having to add extra weight to the sword as a whole.
However, the sword might be kinda brittle (hollow, and only partially filled. So the mercury cannot fully absorb the force). And anyways, this is only good for one attack. If you're going to defend, this seems difficult, and you'd be put off balance by the shifting mercury.
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A sword has a balance point - its weight center. There seems to be no consensus about at what exact distance from the hilt the balance point should be, but there is a firm consensus that it should be quite closer to the hilt than to the other extremity. Anyway, part of handling a sword is adjusting to its balance point. The sword you describe is *unbalanced* by definition: its balance point changes with every movement, making it much more difficult for its user to adapt. It *could*, I guess, be useful as a sword that has only one specific use (such as a sword used exclusively for beheadings of prisoners - see RedSonja's comment) in which the shift of balance would be predictable. But for an actual fight, where it is necessary to make several different movements, it would be a **very** lousy sword. If you have to parry, for instance, you want your balance point to be between your hand and the point of impact of the enemy sword, otherwise the momentum of the edge will work against your ability to keep hold of the weapon. You definitely don't want to not know where the balance point of your sword is.
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This sounds like a good thing in theory only. There are a number of "perpetuum mobile" designs premised on similar misconceptions. But angular momentum and momentum are not magically increased but preserved, so as the mercury travels through the centre of mass, its part of the angular momentum is taken over by the sword, meaning that the sword will *resist* swings. When the mercury hits the end of the channel, its moment is consolidated with that of the sword, meaning that if this does not happen at the precise moment where the tip hits a target frontally, the sword will get yanked out of your hand. Generally you will be required to *time* all of your technique to the handling of the sword and evasive action will have just as hard an effect on your sword grip than what you intended to deliver at your enemy.
It's like fighting with a ball-and-chain flail blindfolded. Except that the chain has more degrees of freedom, so it's more like a spear with a sliding spiked ball on it. How much use is this going to be for swinging?
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Just swing around a 1/4 filled bottle of water and you'll find that it makes for a difficult to control "weapon". Even for an executioner sword, it would feel clumsy and the executioner might overshoot, applying the force of the swing in the wrong place.
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As a sword goes, it would be ineffective. Swordsmen are quite picky about the balance of their sword. Having the balance shift during combat would not be popular. Also, mercury has a nasty habit of amalgamating with other metals and making them weak. You'd have to be choosy with your metallurgy.
That being said, there is something to this story. The [Seven Star Staff](http://www.smilingtiger.net/7star.htm) is one of the weapons of Baguazhang, one of the internal martial arts of China. The Seven Star Staff consists of a length of bamboo with 7 cavities, each of which is partially filled with mercury. It's a staff, not a sword, but it's along the right lines. The theory was that the weapon would strike you, and then the mercury impact would truly hurt you. I'd also argue much of the benefit of it is that the internal state of the staff is hidden unless you're holding it. Given how much the mercury matters, not being able to see where it is in each of the cells could create quite a disadvantage for one opposing the Seven Star Staff. It certainly fits with the styles popular with the internal martial arts of China!
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Yes it could be useful. I am not sure what the book describes though ... never read it but as far as physics goes you'd get a lot faster initial movement in a sword.
Everyone here have missed the point of swords weight being trade on its length in fencing, extra length is useful but some cases one might use a short sword that can be concealed. A sword that is bound by length has the extra weight option if the wrist can take it. It's not like anyone ever concealing a short sword has a need to confuse its opponent but thrusting a weapon is something that don't really need a lot of momentum and its the slashing that needs it... to be effective.
Although I haven't really held a real sword or done any fencing it might really feel like the sword has a mind of its own ...or a soul... but think of it this way - space shuttle burns most of its fuel just to get to off the ground. And everyone knows that you'd never actually conceal a weapon I mean whats the point of having one if you cant post pics of yourself with it on Instagram.
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Humanity is very powerful, our simple unique trait of sapience allowed us to conquer the planet with little to almost no resistance. In the popular science fiction series Planet of the Apes; apes, with the help of disease, are able to defeat humanity once they are given sapience.
Let's assume I want to be able to easily kill humanity using a similar method. I was inspired to use the method of giving a different species sapience by Planet of the Apes. But first I must choose my species. What species, given sapience, has the best odds of defeating humanity.
Two points must be addressed to avoid over broadness:
* The chosen species does not need to be able to defeat humanity. They
just need to have better odds when compared to other species.
* Since there are literally millions of possible species available lets limit it to vertebrate land dwellers. As they would be best able to gain this sapience.
To address Aify's concerns by Best, I mean that the species must at least stand not only a chance but when compared to other answers, clearly has a higher likely-hood of defeating humanity.
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If you are limiting answers to land vertebrates, then it would be rats, followed by pigeons.
Rats are smart. They can learn how to avoid almost all kinds of traps. They reproduce really fast. And last but not least, they are vectors for deadly diseases.
If they consciously put those traits to work against us, we would need to fight really hard to extinguish them. Just think of it, we hate the buggers and have failed to kill them all so far. And while it may be true that we tolerate them because it's cheaper to have things as they are now, if we were forced to fight them to extinction, it wouldn't be without huge damage to our side.
Pigeons are the closest thing to winged rats, but they don't reproduce underground. We could take them all by attacking their nests. Tough, but not as much as rodents.
Other species wouldn't fare so well against us. Amphibians and reptiles got nothing on us as it is right now. Wild mammals and birds are becoming extinct by the second. Farm animals, like cows and goats, can at best commit mass suicide and force humanity to go vegetarian or start raising lizards for cattle.
Dogs could give us a couple hours of fight, but they are easy to take down. Even if it weren't so, if they became sapient they would also have to learn how to hunt, or else they'd starve. Eating humans is a no-no, we're too hard a prey and don't reproduce fast enough to make it sustainable.
Domestic cats would fare better on getting their own food, but have you ever seen a house cat kill a human? Me neither.
If we could break your vertebrate rule, I'd go for roaches. They'd basically be rats on steroids. We can't defeat them without extinguishing ourselves in the process, period. The movie *[Joe's Apartment](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116707/)* comes to mind, with its theme song that says "we have been here for a hundred million years and we'll be here longer than you!"
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# An Extremely Important Point To Remember
Sapience does not include knowledge or higher intelligence.
Most people, when thinking about sentience or self awareness, automatically include high intelligence to come with it as a combined package. This assumption is incorrect. We (humans) have some very dumb individuals in our society who are barely socially functional at all. Yet they are as much conscious about themselves as the rest of us are.
Now as far as self awareness goes, *probably* most mammals are already self aware. Many mammals have enough brains to overcome their natural drives and plan their actions by the best of their experience and skills. Dogs (specially German Shepherds) and dolphins are prime examples of that. Also don't forget the chimpanzees.
Another thing which ***does not*** come with sapience, is knowledge. When people talk about some animal gaining human level self awareness, they automatically also think they would have all the knowledge of human inventions, communication and social structures. This is not the case.
For example, a herd of wild buffaloes will only charge directly at human populations when given a motive. They would not go planned and take out military outposts at night and block the roads with jammed vehicles (dragged to the road).
# Which Creature Has The Best Chance Of Defeating Humanity?
If human-level knowledge is available to the creatures, then it is definitely going to be mosquitoes. Once they have the intellect and the knowledge of the diseases they are able to spread, there's no stopping them!
At first, all of Africa will be swept clean by the pandemics of malaria, dengue and yellow fever. Arabian peninsula, Asia, South America, central America, parts of Europe and most islands would follow. While humanity will survive in far north and south, the global dominance of humans would end within a decade, if not just a few years.
Wasps and hornets also have an amazing chance at this. However, intelligent wasps would not go on an all-out war with humans and ring the alarms immediately. Instead, they would first multiply in numbers and then begin to invade suburban homes at night, one after the other. When hornets charge a house, it will be a silent, but extremely horrible raid. A thousand hornets raiding sleeping occupants of a house one night. Every human individual will be stung by 30 or more of them. Eyes, hands and throat will be the targets of stings. This will impair the ability of the target humans to:
* use cellphones to call for medical help
* pick up and use any available bug spray
* breathe (with swollen throats, breathing will be extremely hard)
The morning will see corpses of horrific corpses laying around in a suburban house. It will send a wave of panic in the region, but it will only help the hornets. They will make their hives near or inside human houses so that aerial spraying of insecticide no longer remains an option. They will continue to take one locality after another until the social structure collapses and all technological advancement is reversed. Once again, humans will be able to survive in extreme latitudes, but their dominance over the planet would be over.
Rats *could* have had a chance, if we were living in early 20th century, but rats (or any other mammal) holds no chance. Rat holes can be easily sealed and they can be easily starved to death by keeping all food items locked and not letting them feast on wasted food scraps. Cats too, do a great job of eradicating rats from a household.
Dogs might have had a chance. But there are just too few of them. And once humans understand the threat they are facing, we would quickly and easily eradicate all of them with guns and helicopters and whatnot.
Hares could have a chance by destroying all crops worldwide and throwing the human population into a global famine. However, I wonder if hares would survive after feasting heartily on pesticide-riddled crops we have. Also, we have a good chance of eradicating feral hares with airguns, traps, hunting dogs and poisoned baits.
All in all, I think only some species of insects (or arachnids) have the potential of launching human genocides and ending their reign of planet Earth.
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# Edit To Add: The Killing Potential Of Mosquitoes
Some members have suggested that mosquitoes are not as much of a threat as has been declared in this answer. And that [mosquito-borne-diseases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito-borne_disease) have a low mortality rate.
Remember that [mosquitoes already kill around 725,000 people **each year**.](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/15/which-animal-kills-the-most-humans/) A total of around 0.2 *billion* people are temporarily debilitated by malaria alone. And this is for mosquitoes which do not have any self awareness and their brains have a far lesser intelligence level than a cheap cellphone.
The diseases spread by mosquitoes include, but are not limited to malaria, elephantiasis, yellow fever, dengue fever, zika fever, chikungunya fever, polyarthritis, Rift Valley fever, Ross River fever, certain kinds of encephalitis and West Nile fever.
Members claiming that mosquitoes are easily contained and exterminated should keep in mind that *West Nile virus was accidentally introduced into the United States in 1999 and by 2003 had spread to almost every state with over 3,000 cases in 2006.* ([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito-borne_disease#Virus)). And then again, this was for mosquitoes with no sapience (as we think) and almost no intellect at all.
Mosquitoes with self awareness and social communication skills have the potential to virtually wipe out human population from their entire areas. First stage would be to multiply by at least 10 times. The second stage would simply be to infect as many people with as many diseases as possible.
The initial death toll would be around 300 million people, if not more. Furthermore, mosquitoes not only spread diseases to humans alone, but also infect cattle and other pet animals. Also, no combined, urgent, international team would be formed against this deadly threat because the governments would never know that it is not a natural mosquito infestation, but an extremely potent attack by mosquitoes.
In case of vertebrates, it would be immediately known that they are working cohesively against us (humans) and this will help making focussed decisions easy. On the contrary, even if humans do learn that mosquitoes are working collectively against us, it will take at least several years (maybe a decade), during which the losses would already be irrepairable.
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**Hollywood has already shown us the way - Planet of the Apes.**
Hard to say for sure which of the other primate species would be the strongest competitor for dominance, but if I had to pick one, I would go with the gorilla.
Several primate species share some important characteristics.
Upper and lower body strength and the ability to walk upright at least somewhat allows tool use, esp. when they also have opposable thumbs. Sufficient cranial capacity for higher brain function.
Respectable visual acuity, stereoscopic focus and tri-chromatic (color) vision is another advantage not shared by many other animals.
Lifespan is long enough to allow a productive lifespan even after extensive training.
They have group dynamics that support the raising of young that will be even more important with true sentience as this seems to require a longer childhood. They will naturally be able to infiltrate and grow in human society as their increased intelligence makes they valuable as workers, etc. They human-like features gives them an advantage as humans tend to have more empathy for them than other animals.
And of course, gorillas are naturals at guerrilla warfare. Yes, I know, lame, but I could not help myself.
Given high intelligences, apes would be able to successfully engage humans in warfare as they could operate many human weapons without modification. Gorillas are too large to operate jet fighters, tanks, etc. as they are designed as a tight fight for humans some other equipment require modifications too (guns where there is no room for the large trigger finger, etc.)
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Sapience, to be effective at world domination, must be accompanied by the ability to build, i.e. manual dexterity, so I would imagine any animal with decent manual dexterity would suffice. (By decent, given sapience, I imagine a rat might be able to write and build.) They could make up for size and strength by intelligent design of machines, as humans do.
Pick an animal with an advantage over humans, for example, a much higher reproductive rate, and the combination should be convincing.
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This question is a little tricky. Most animals have a pretty good sense of awareness. Dogs, cats, most other mammals, some reptiles, and some fish all have more or less the required self awareness now.
Also missing is a reason to expend all that energy. For example, let's take the dog. Why in the world would my dog want to kill me. I am it's primary source of food. It's much easier to roll-over and sit, then it is to hunt other animals. That's the entire reason that dogs are such good pets.
So to answer your question, we need a "reason" as well as a "means". There is also the issue of numbers and ability. For example a lion is a mean animal, and could easily kill a whole household of humans. But after the hunt the lion needs a long time to rest. Lions are horrid "runners", yes there fast, but if they can't eat a massive amount of food after their run they stave. So lions aren't going to be able to run much.
Finally were going to have to address adaptability. Humans can do one thing really well. That's adapt. After the first billion of us are killed by our new enemies, we will just adapt. Move to colder climates to avoid reptiles and such. What ever is going to wipe us out is going to have to be able to adapt to the different climates around the world. Not many animals can live outside a specific climate.
So what I'm looking for in a new overlord master is adaptability, large enough numbers, and some kind of "reason". I have two candidates.
**Canis latrans (Coyote)**
A lot like dogs, but different. These things are massively adaptable. They can live in almost every climate. They eat nearly everything. They reproduce "fast enough". They can easily kill humans. There smart, and out cities are already home to thousands of them, not to mention the ones in the wild. The can hunt in packs or alone. They are hard to see, and difficult to hunt. Now let's be clear if a military action is called against all Coyotes then there in trouble. But that's true of almost anything that doesn't violate "rule two".
What the coyote is missing is a reason. They scavenge. So just like possums or raccoons it's almost better for them if we humans keep making a mess and providing them ample food to live off of without hunting. The closest thing I can come up with for a reason is our "new" (historically speaking) desire to be eco-friendly. By producing less waste, while still living in cities were reducing their food supply. Less waste means they need to hunt more, but because we keep other animals away, they could turn to hunting us.
**Ursus arctos (brown bear)**
Much like the Coyote ,these things can live nearly anywhere and eat most anything. They like meat the best, but they can totally live off of veggies. There tough as hell to kill, and one could easily kill several humans. Matter of fact, the only reason they don't is because there are other food sources around. Were just not worth the trouble.
They reproduce fast enough, but they are only really in rural areas. They are much easier to spot then a coyote, but much harder to kill. Again if we figure in a military action, then there gonna have a hard time, but, once again, that's true for anything not breaking rule two.
As to reason, they already have one, and they already are a nuisance. As we expand our population centers, they get reduced area to hunt in. n rural areas this is a real problem, as, at times, they will turn around and actually hunt humans. If they were to make some kind of effort to do so on a large scale, we would be in some serious trouble. As it is now, we try to kill all of the bears that kill humans. We don't succeed. In a lot of cases we simply "give up" the area to the bear. "That's bear country, stay clear of there." If they tried to have a more focused area, they could really push us back.
**A note not asked for**
The largest problem for humans should an animal species decide to come at us is arrogance. We would spend, probably decades, blaming ourselves. Something along the lines of "Were the smart ones, so we should have known better then to build over their habitat. We need to do better at taking case of the ecosystem." Other ideas like "It's our job as the dominant species on the planet to make sure that our wildlife has what it need to survive. In the case of the *attacking animal here* we failed. We need to work together as masters of this planet to ensure that *attacking animal here* has enough resources to survive." It's very likely, that we wouldn't even realize that we were in a conflict, till it was far too late.
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Housecats.
They're already on the path to world domination. An extra injection of sentience would only hasten their plans.
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Frogs -
Which, under the guidance of their leader "Dandelion Ponddweller of house Lillipad, first of her name, mother of tadpoles, rightful queen of the swamp, lady of the flies", could launch a single coordinated attack on humanity by poisoning food supplies and unbalancing ecosystems that would reduce the human population to a meagre fraction of its current state almost over night. And bearing in mind that she commands some of the deadliest assassins known to man, able to move almost completely unnoticed and to kill with a single touch, the stragglers would soon follow.
How then could it be anything else?
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Ants or some other form of insects, what the lack in size and strength the make up for in numbers. and it would be pretty hard for us to kill them all so even if they fail once they can rebuild and try again.
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Technically we have the same Sapience of most animals on earth , +13 on the SQ scale, no more and no less ,self awareness is already the same across all mammals,reptiles and even some fish.
If you mean human-intelligence then I'd bet Rats as suggested previously.
rats mate with 500 different partners per year leaving a minimum of 2000 descendants , this number could grow up to x5 times as much if they learn to use medicines to prevent infantile deaths.
They need no training or weapons just a great determination to exterminate humans and they could take over the world before we even notice.
If you wanted to count also insects and non vertebrates then Bees could exterminate 90%-95% of life on earth in a few months because they decide if nature has to live or not.
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One of the most common answer tropes to the "start-your-life-over-at-x-age-with-all-your-current-memories"-question is people saying that they'd buy Bitcoin or invest in Stock XYZ that they know will be successful to easily become multi-millionaires.
Now, with publicly traded stocks, I don't see a big problem because they (generally) actually correlate to a real-world value. For example, if I buy a \$10,000 worth of cheap Apple stock in 2005 for \$1 (and didn't sell), I'd likely be a multi-millionaire today. Sure, my buying the stock probably marginally influenced the current price that trading day, but in the grand scheme of things, I find the "butterfly potential" rather low.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, is far more volatile. For example, in 2010, I could buy Bitcoins for single-digit cent amounts which would be worth individually over \$50,000 dollars today. So, if I spent \$1000 bucks buying them at ten cents a pop, I'd have something north of \$500,000,000 today. Unfortunately though, I'm worried that by disrupting the timeline and buying some Bitcoin, it never becomes valuable for some reason. For example, maybe some of those ten thousand Bitcoins I bought would've been used by influential people in the early Bitcoin community, and my buying-and-holding strategy would take those early coins out of circulation, thus putting a damper on someone's eventual Bitcoin evangelicalism. Now, a potential solution to this problem would be to mine them myself, and thus I'd only be increasing the overall mining difficulty slightly which might not influence the timeline as much.
So, the question:
**In the earliest days of Bitcoin, how many Bitcoins (and when) can a time-traveler buy while avoiding disrupting the timeline too much and ensuring that the price still eventually spikes into >10k territory?**
And, as a secondary bonus question:
An appreciable amount of Bitcoins in existence are "lost", so what would happen when my time traveler attempts to sell her (potentially) multi-billion-dollar wallet composed of coins that were thought lost? Also, would it even be possible to convert Bitcoins into USD at such a scale?
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## Frame Challenge: It will butterfly in your favor, not against you.
By buying and holding bitcoins you are making the buyer's market for bitcoins more scarce. So instead of devaluing it, by refusing to sell them you are actually making them MORE valuable in the future. If anything, this will cause the value of bitcoin to grow even faster making it an even attract for influential early investors, not less.
The important thing here in terms of influential early adopters is to make sure that you never clear the entire market on any given day; so, instead of going back to a certain time and acquiring all of the coins available for sale that day, you should go back an acquire some of the coins every day over a period of time until your budget is spent.
If you reduce the stock of new available coins by 50% each day, and a fixed number of should be buyers show up each day with a certain amount of cash-in-hand to buy up the whole stock, then those selling will increase their prices to meet the demand. In this way, those early adopters still went and bought \$100 dollars worth of bitcoin, but instead of buying 1250 coins, they bought 625 coins worth the exact same total amount of \$100.
The other way you prevent yourself from crashing the market is to make sure you do not pose the threat of becoming a majority owner (by buying up 50% of the total bitcoins) Now, keep in mind that you do not actually need to be sure to own less than 50% of bitcoins, you just need to make it look like you don't. By splitting up your holdings into multiple wallets, you can hide the fact that there is a person amassing and holding coins, then once the market grows enough for your stockpile size to no longer matter, you can consolidate your coins into a single account. Having a single wallet by 2020 will make confirming your identity during your off-ramp much easier for complying with anti-embezzlement laws.
The value of bitcoin will not take a dive until you decide to sell all of your coins thus flooding the market. The good news is that even if you devalue the market by selling out, the available stock in 2020 is MUCH larger than it was in 2010; so, selling out would have a relatively small impact on the coins available in market compared to when you bought them; so, your big sellout itself would not cause the market to crash or overextend buyer's interest, but it could trigger the bubble to bust if everyone else starts panic selling as a result of your actions... but at that point, you've already made your fortune.
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# Be the Butterfly
Nobody knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is. Who's to say it wasn't you right from the start? Go back in time and be Satoshi Nakamoto. Create Bitcoin using what you already know and mine the early coins. Satoshi Nakamoto is worth almost $35B.
This way you haven't changed history at all and still gotten super rich.
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### Don't buy - use advances in GPGPU tech to become the first person to use the GPU to mine bitcoin
Every 210,000 blocks, the block reward for solving the hashing problem of the accumulated transaction history halves. [It started at 50BTC.](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/block-reward.asp). This problem is computationally expensive. Initially it was done on the CPU. Eventually it only became economical to do on the GPU. Now it's only economical to do on specialised hardware. If you beat that jump from CPU to GPU, you can make bank.
Before you leave, download a copy of an [openCL GPU miner](https://github.com/tcatm/oclminer), print it out if you have to (it's tricky to memorise - it's nasty nasty code) travel back to August 28th 2009, and immediately go (ie wait in line in front of the apple store for opening if you have to) to purchase the new Snow Leopard OS X PC with OpenCL 1.0 support, released that day, and install the prototype bitcoin client (release January 2009 - so 7 months old).
Bitcoin has been growing for 7 months - every early action that is going to be of importance has already happened, there's thousands of people mining already, just they're not being very efficient about it.
While everyone else is using the CPU to mine at 100,000 hashes per second, you can jump onto the GPU and blitz through those first easy blocks on hardware of the day at ~20 million hashes per second. GPU mining started being possible for everyone else mid 2011, and when they start GPU mining, you have 10 years of performance optimisations made to the algorithms on top of them.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/sDZY0.png)
This graph represents the entire network hashing capacity through history, the bottom line there that should be labelled "0.0001" ([yeah good axis label trimming right](https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate)) is 100 million hashes per second. The network as a whole is mining ~250 million hashes per second, your mining 20. You are accumulating 10% of the worlds bitcoin on your single computer.
If you stop on Christmas day 2011, you're looking about ~700,000 bitcoins in your possession of the 8 million already in circulation at this point in time. You've moved the graph only slightly upwards, and [4 million have been lost](https://fortune.com/2017/11/25/lost-bitcoins/), so you're skimming off the top is barely worth a mention.
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Or even better, bring back the specialised hashing hardware. It's USB compliant, looks like a flash drive, and you can get drivers and control software for Windows XP so it should run on these computers. That might be too greedy however, if anything risks scaring off those early investors it'll be someone getting multiple gigahashes-per-second that early.
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Nearly a million coins were "supposedly" mined by Satoshi and don't currently directly effect bitcoin market price, nor have they ever. Simply time travel back and mine coins under the "guise" of Satoshi by replicating the way that those coins were mined. As such, the coins would be considered Satoshi's and no one is the wiser other then a slightly different difficulty graph early on which would simple be attributed to Satoshi having turned on another CPU to mine with. There is currently evidence of the fact that Satoshi did possibly turn on other CPUs to also mine with, there are peculiar patterns to the mining to suggest such. This could be Satoshi, or evidence of time travelers doing what I explained. There is no way to tell until the owner of the coins reveals themselves.
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It depends on how much research time you have here in the future before you depart on your journey into the past.
Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of coins have been purchased and lost over the years by hard drive crashes, forgotten wallet passwords and other calamities of fate. If you could find the current day incarnations of those individuals who suffered those permanent coin losses and interview them about the details of their loss, you could then go back and arrange to meet with them just before each of their catastrophes to buy the coins from them, giving them a too good to refuse profit with the single condition that they forevermore tell people that the coins were lost in a calamity of fate.
[Answer]
I think you could treat this problem stochastically.
How many X can I take out of a dynamic system before Y happens? Where X could be molecules of water on Mars before Y the seas dry up, or X could be atoms of O2 before Y I can no longer breathe.
You could model this as a liquid, where the amount of movement of X in the system is fairly low. In that case, the reaction rate depends on the total size of the system and the concentration of the reactants. Applied to currency, the total digital currency economy is only 830 million dollars in 2020, according to Yahoo Finance, and say one digital currency is 50% of that your heat of reaction is added value on your currency, it’s not necessarily linear, but taking 5%, 10%, 50% of your currency out of the system to sit on the sidelines reduces your “heat” creation by about as much. Rate = k A, where k is some constant and A is the concentration of the digital currency remaining to “react” in the marketplace.
So let’s compound this continuously to look at the damages over time:
The compound interest equation is I = Pe^(rt) , where I is total value at time N, P is how much principle you start with (which isn’t changing so you can ignore it), r is interest rate and t is time (in years). So, let’s say you take 25% out of the economy 25 years ago. I = 1 e^((1 - 0.25) x 25) = 139 million, if I did the math right. That’s after your time traveler has done his work. What was lost? e^(1 x 25) = 72 billion.
That’s likely exaggerated since the base interest rate is hardly 100%. Feel free to play with the numbers. But, it doesn’t take much to do a lot of damage.
[Answer]
Historically, you want after the guy who bought in at ~$10 and evangelized to all of his rich friends - which started the run up. Prior to that, it was geeks who were buying pizzas with bitcoins - and going nowhere.
You want that guy to get his at a good price (so he's invested in evangelizing); and buy/mine after he starts talking it up to various other rich people (which will help him sell it on FOMO grounds), so they bring money to the game.
Can't recall his name right now, but read some history of bitcoin.
Of course, if you go back in time, tell Satoshi to modify it so it's not a clusterfuck - and you won't have all the splintering and BS that's going on now. Of course, maybe it's for the best. Candide, anyone?
[Answer]
**Don't buy - just take some that would otherwise be lost.**
1. Find someone who mined coins in 2009-2011 but lost them in the original timeline.
2. Go back in time, stealthily hack them and copy their wallet.dat . You can take advantage of any exploits discovered since then.
3. Wait and Profit!
For an extreme example, there was an exchange bitomat.pl that irretrievably lost many coins because they used temporary server instance that was shut down and no backups. However these coins addresses are known and it might raise suspicions. To avoid timeline disruption, it's best to take coins that everyone, including original owner, forgot/wiped the address. There are plenty of cases, as bitcoin was deemed worthless for years.
[Answer]
You are thinking too small.
If you can go back once,
then you should be able to go back multiple times.
1. buy gold when the us was still on the gold standard (pre 1972 I believe).
Use this to setup a long term relationship with a bank for storage (i.e. multiple safe deposit boxes).
2. buy sun microsystems when it is a penny stock.
3. buy apple when it is a penny stock.
4. buy 100,000 or more bit coin.
5. buy star wars toys and keep them in mint condition
6. buy rookie baseball cards.
7. assuming you can get back far enough, buy early edition dc comics
8. buy x-men 97
9. buy as many boxes of early pokemon as you can.
10. buy as many black lotus cards as you can.
11. buy editions 1 - 3 (or more) of the TMNT comic.
Each of those should have little, direct, impact on the other and can be stored in a bank vault for a long duration.
[Answer]
First of all, time travel is not real.
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, we can all agree that time travel is science fantasy. This means, for story telling, that as long as the system of time travel that we are employing is internally consistent, anything goes. The joys of reading time travel stories are to watch the author concoct and deploy wonderous structures that work (that is, are consistent) and see how the characters flounder their way through the plot.
So you get a large cauldron, throw in questions of free will, block universes, butterfly effects, and grandfather paradoxes, then stir vigorously. What could possibly go wrong? We hope all sorts of things go splat otherwise why bother to read the story.
One key question that the author must answer is, can a time traveler change things in the past that eventually change the future and to what extent. The **block universe** says that everything that could happen has already happened (at least in some sense); The timeline is already baked and all you time travelers can just pound sand. The **multiverse** says that every outcome of every event creates a new universe; each change that the time traveler makes sends the traveler into a brand new universe (cue the sound of sand being pounded). The **fluid timeline** transforms the time traveler's nudge into widely sweeping changes up (or is it down?) the timeline; metaphors for the fragility of life and mind-twisting paradoxes abound. Every author makes up their own system; there is no central authority that governs the genre.
So the question is, how do you want this world that you are building to work? Once you make that decision, the question becomes, can you convince the reader that there is some sanity in the system?
A final comment about butterfly effects with respect to time travel within a fluid timeline. The time traveler makes a change in the past and the timeline re-arranges itself so that empires fall and women's fashions change. The engineer in me wonders where all of the energy to make that happen comes (came?) from. The events of the timeline, already in place, suddenly are uprooted and transformed into something different. I read a lot of time travel fiction and I have never seen an explanation that makes any sense of that effect. There are stories in which the timeline "resists" all efforts to create changes. I am thinking that **these storie**s have the right of it. Just a thought for the conversation.
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[Question]
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I saw a movie where oil companies stumbled upon these fictional underground aquatic deep-sea animals that survived on eating and digesting the oil where they lived. They had squid/octopus-like bodies and were as smart (possibly smarter) than dolphins or apes (not us, though).
These are the conditions:
* very high pressure since they lived in deep underground caves filled with high-pressure water
* very intelligent
* social
* oil (petroleum) eating
**Is it possible for an animal to survive and develop the ability to eat oil in these conditions?**
[Answer]
The biology of such a creature is plausible - oil is an energy-rich substance and there are bacteria that can digest it. These creatures may have a symbiotic relationship with such bacteria. The real question is why they would be intelligent.
Most intelligent animals eat a wide variety of food sources (they need to learn which are good for eating and which are not, and remember the tricks for eating each kind of food) and many are carnivorous to some degree (they need to outsmart prey). Grazers are rarely very intelligent, and sucking on oil wells seems to be pretty similar to grazing. However, there is one intelligent species that may have evolved with an ecology similar to your oil-eaters: Elephants.
It is theorized that elephants evolved their substantial brains not so much for the sake of finding food, but for finding water. When resources are rare, far apart, clumped together, and tend to vary in how accessible they are (pools appearing and disappearing seasonally), it is important to be able to remember where those resources are in order to migrate between them. It is also important to remember what conditions are associated with the appearance or disappearance of a given pool (heat and rain). A social hierarchy may develop as herds migrate together, and older individuals may remember pools that younger ones do not.
An analogy can be made between elephants searching for water and these sea-creatures searching for oil. Oil wells are rare and far apart, and many are fed from deeper sources or shale that slowly replenish the easily-accessible reservoirs over time, at least until the deeper wells are depleted (presumably the biological mechanisms of these creatures are not quite as effective as the best human equipment, so they are only able to access the most easily-accessible wells). Finding new oil wells is difficult (perhaps the creatures have some kind of natural sonar ability) so being able to remember to return to the old wells decades later will be a major survival advantage, as will judging how quickly each well tends to refill. As with elephants, this will likely result in a complex social hierarchy with elderly leaders that remember the old wells, migrating in huge herds across the ocean floor.
[Answer]
**It is totally plausible. You would need commensal microbes to do the metabolic work.**
Consider cellulose - loaded with energy but difficult for metazoans to digest. Those that can digest it (e.g. termites, ruminants) have commensal bacteria in their guts which have the metabolic machinery to handle cellulose. The metazoans house these organisms and keep them safe; in exchange the microbes release the nutrition in the cellulose and nourish their hosts.
This same model could work with petrochemicals. There are microbes which can digest these energy rich compounds. <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3815313/>
and one would expect that just as termites house cellulose-digesting microbes, metazoans in environments rich in petrochemicals would house petrochemical digesting organisms.
[Answer]
Others have covered that biologically this is quite plausible, but the main issue I see is most petrochemicals have a very short life near oxygen, and have no scope for squeezing a little bit more out by some form of anaerobic process.
The problem with large life is that they need oxygen, but oil requires an anoxic environment to be created and persist.
The oil eating organisms are all bacteria because of the lack of oxygen.
Your creature is either going to need to process the most difficult oils (tar) or spend its time traveling between the surface and depths of the sea.
So in summary you have either beasts roaming the land searching and digging for tar or perhaps some deep diving cephalopod consuming methyl hydrates formed on the edges of continental shelves, or drinking from natural seepage above reserves.
[Answer]
It is not only possible, oil eating animals *already* [exist](https://www.google.com/search?q=how+does+oil+eating+bacteria+work&oq=does+oil+eating+bac&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l2.17689j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8). On top of that, oil is extremely close to fat chemically, as they are chains of hydrocarbons. Essentially, every animal on the planet eats some form of fat from other animals, even from some plants. Oil and petroleum are full of energy. Its no stretch for an animal to evolve to take advantage of that as a good source.
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[Question]
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In the near future Science Fiction novel I am writing, the personality and memory of a person are transferred to an artificial brain after a fatal accident, creating an artificial intelligence with the personality and memories of an actual person.
* Reading out the personality and memories of a person from their brain requires that the brain is intact, for otherwise parts of the personality or memories would have been lost and the artificial copy would be incomplete.
The artificial brain is then placed into a real human body.
* This step requires medical technology that would also allow to transplant a human brain, because if a computer can be connected to the nervous system of a human body, then a human brain can be connected to the nervous system of a human body with the same procedure.
In my story, the original brain cannot be kept alive and the creation of the artificial copy is the only way that person can survive.
But this narrative necessity creates a plot hole:
**If the brain was intact (so that the personality and their memories could be 'read out') and transplantation to a new body would have been possible, why did the physicians decide to implant an artificial brain instead of transplanting the original?**
I need a medical or technical solution to this logical contradiction. I don't want there to be an immoral decision (e.g. reading out the personality destroys the brain and the 'evil' scientists chose to kill a person to test their experimental technology). The scientists in my story want to help the person, and transferring the personality is the best they can do to keep the person 'alive'.
*I'm using the [science-based](/questions/tagged/science-based "show questions tagged 'science-based'") tag to signal that I need an answer that appears scientifically plausible and doesn't employ hand-waving or magic. I want a solution to my problem that a neuroscientist might find reasonable.*
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One possible answer is that the receiving body rejects the donated brain, as often happens in actual organ transplantation, but I would prefer to be able to use the person's own body or a clone of it as recipient of the artificial brain.
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*Note.*
The question is not about the technology required to "download" the personality from the brain or how an artificial emulation of that downloaded personality might work. Please consider these as given.
[Answer]
# Either Progressive Disease Solution or Hardware Upgrade
The brain was intact but only for a limited value of the term "intact".
Since brain transference is a procedure for extreme medical emergency, then the downloading of the character's brain is a desperate attempt to save the individual before irreversible brain damage takes its toll.
This could be in the form of some sort of disease which is causing the deterioration of the brain tissue, a medical condition like a stroke or traumatic injuries due to something like a vehicle accident or terrorist attack. There is still enough blood flow and brain activity to allow for the downloading to take place, but the ability to save the organic brain is highly doubtful due to the illness/injury being dealt with.
The fact that the medical team is doing a "hail Mary" pass can also add both dramatic tension to the scene (will they be able to complete the procedure before brain death?) and can also be used to set up some parts of the story. If the brain has been traumatized, then some of the short term memories may be lost, leaving the character with a "gap" that needs to be filled. Other possibilities may suggest themselves.
A "non medical" reason to do this is to allow the character to gain special abilities. If the artificial brain is more capable than an organic brain, then for certain types of people (say a 22nd century Elon Musk) or for people working for things like spy organizations, the extra "computing" power of an artificial brain would provide a huge advantage. It might even be possible to insert other people into an artificial brain, allowing the carrier to either assume other personalities when needed, or to "confer" with expert advisers on difficult problems.
So the two major possibilities which suggest themselves are saving a person from irreversible brain damage or death, or a voluntary transfer to a new and much more powerful platform, allowing the character to gain extra abilities.
[Answer]
**[Paranoid Schizophrenia.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia)**
The brain is malfunctioning, it perhaps contains a [brilliant intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beautiful_Mind_(film)) or valuable information, but the [dopamine receptors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine_hypothesis_of_schizophrenia) respond abnormally.
The artificial brain to which it is uploaded is designed to correct such unbalanced perception and thinking and so the mind is enabled to re-write it's own thinking on a new and more reality-based perceptual basis, thus developing a paradigm of cognition more conducive to socialisation and "good-will" to all.
[Answer]
Ever tried to get toothpaste back into the tube? Brains usually swell when removed from a warm body.
Even if they didn't, you can't just shove a fresh brain into an empty skull - every cranium is a different shape, even among identical twins.
A machine brain, though, can be small enough that it is one size fits all (as long as the recipient body doesn't have microcephaly). You can fill in the empty spaces with some paste.
[Answer]
# Infection/Cancer
The organic brain is healthy for now but has been infected with some problem that will destabilize it in the near future. Deep-seated tumors are easy solution: brain cancer can leave a patient functional for decades and then kill instantly as the tumor crosses a particular size boundary where it cuts off a key section of the brain.
Any viral infection could have the same effect. An infection opens the story possibility that the infection was deliberately done by some malevolent actor (seeding brain cancer is harder). The downside is it is less obvious how an infection is leaving the brain healthy enough to function currently — there are viruses that would do that, but you’ll spend more time explaining the medical to average reader, whereas cancer is pretty well within typical zeitgeist (at least for US audiences).
[Answer]
I've read your question a couple of times and as I see it, you have not stated that the brain has to be removed to be "Read".
As such, it could be "Read" while still in the dying body. Given the delicate nature of the cerebral cortex, the brain could die of shock once it is severed. This could also apply to a cloned brain: it doesn't survive its removal from it's growth environment to be able to be placed in a new body.
As such, only artificial brains will work.
The body, being more robust and "re-startable", could be resuscitated once the new brain is attached.
[Answer]
Uploading to a synthetic brain isn't a necessity. It is just common sense.
The synthetic brain is superior to the original wetware in so many ways, that a person would have to be crazy to not upgrade.
* Synthetics have greater memory capacity
* They run faster.
* They run longer... potentially forever.
* They aren't reliant on blood flow to sustain cognitive functionality.
* They come with on/off switches on all pain-reporting nerves.
* Inter-cranial cellular voice and data communications are available
* Upload-able knowledge sets (in case you ever want to fly a helicopter)
* Daily backups
* Total VR (like regular Virtual Reality, but delivered with individual nerve cell granularity; indistinguishable from real life.
With all these advantages and more, everybody goes synthetic, so finding a doctor who knows how to do a wet-to-wet transfer is going to be pretty tough. Besides, synthetic brain transfer is covered by conventional insurance. Doing something weird like transferring into a cloned biological brain... that is going to be a very expensive, cash-in-hand proposition.
It is this last, economic aspect which is the real barrier. The insurance companies don't want to have to pay for a new wet-to-wet biological brain transfer every few decades when each organic brain wears out. It is much cheaper for them in the long run to pay for synthetic one time and then just plug that immortal brain-box into cheap replacement bodies every time any of the non-cognitive systems break down.
[Answer]
What if you change the method of transferral? Right now you assume that the brain is somehow capable of transmitting its entire state to a machine, but while we can transmit thoughts we can't really transmit the exact configuration of our brains and their connections that make our personalities.
So instead (if your story allows) you can make it a deep and detailed scan of the brain that determines every nerve connection and the position of every chemical in the brain. This is processed by a computer into intelligent data that the artificial brain can use to simulate your personality, knowledge and intelligence. Unfortunately the deep scan is invasive and will damage and kill the brain it scans.
Alternatively when you connect the brain to a computer the connections will eventually deteriorate the brain or the interface itself. If the brain deteriorates you die, if the interface deteriorates you can suddenly lose control of parts of the body if you don't have tons of expensive and invasive maintenance every few months, which you kind of have to avoid.
[Answer]
You know how you can plug a monitor into pretty much any computer and it'll work?
Human brains and their bodies do not work that way. While the function of moving one's arm is, in fact, localized to one area of the brain, the specific neural connections that allow one to control one's arm are just that -- specific to that person. Same goes for every minute biological function that the body performs.
Thus, a brain transplanted straight into another pile of meat would work, but it would promptly die -- the "breath regularly" function in the brain would get rewired to the "wiggle your toes" nerves in the body. Attempting to blink would release the subject's bowels. Etc. All in a completely random fashion.
There are two options to ameliorate the situation. 1) Put the subject into a coma for months or years while the brain re-learns how to work its new body (the body, meanwhile, will require near comprehensive life support). Or 2) put the subject into a computer, map out the neural "interface" of the individual (i.e., figure out that brain's version of "breath", "blink", "wiggle toes", etc, and reconfigure the body to match the brain (or vice versa).
Depending on the computing capacity of your timeline, this may or may not work. For context, though, there are 100 trillion neural connections in the brain. Even today, copying that much data is relatively mundane (difficult, and not something an individual would do on his PC, but definitely doable at scale. If each neural connection is a byte, that's 100 terabytes of data). So the "copy brain to computer" bit will be relatively easy. Evaluating each connection and ascertaining its function? Frankly, it can take as long as you want it to take.
*Alternative*: "What, do you think we have empty humans just lying around? Even if we could stockpile them, it takes energy to keep them alive! Way too expensive. Gotta grow 'em fresh!"
[Answer]
It takes time to grow a clone.
If someone has serious long-term health problems, growing a clone and transplanting the brain is a reasonably safe process.
If someone is badly injured, but gets to the hospital alive, the doctors can put the brain in a generic body, then give the person anti-rejection drugs for a few weeks until their clone is ready.
If there was an accident where X people were seriously injured, but there are only X-1 generic bodies available, that's a problem. The patient is already dying, the nearest ready body isn't even in the same city, and then a doctor remembers that his friend was working on an brain scanner.
[Answer]
It is an interface issue. Your technology has one step that converts the brain to computer data
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> Reading out the personality and memories of a person from their brain requires that the brain is intact, for otherwise parts of the personality or memories would have been lost and the artificial copy would be incomplete.
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It has a second step that connects that computer data to to a prepared body.
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> The artificial brain is then placed into a real human body.
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You don't say if the "real body" is a clone or a donor body (ethical consideration ignored)
As your artificial brain is an improvement on the original human brain. Your artificial brain is able to identify and orginize the correct connection for each communicating nerve. This task would be impossible for the human surgeon connecting an organic brain.
In short, because the artificial brain is connected in mass to the spinal nerves, and it figures out on it's own what goes where.
[Answer]
**Backups.**
The procedure backs up the full information taken from the brain in separate storage, which enables the building of a second artificial brain.
Mental clones are forbidden by law (or are they? plot potential here...), but the second brain can be built to replace the first one in case of another terrible accident.
Every night while the patient sleeps, their brain transmits differential information via intenet to the backup facility, so they'll just lose the last day of memories if they get destroyed. Functional immortality.
(This is actually a common hope of future technology in the real world's transhumanist community.)
With such a feature, a biological brain transplant becomes obviously inferior. The scanning technology necessarily destroys the biological brain.
This creates a spinoff plot hole: why is not everyone *else* doing it, even when perfectly healthy? To close it, make the procedure sufficiently expensive and *very* risky, say 90% risk for a 20-year old and getting higher for older brains, becoming borderline completely impossible for the very old.
[Answer]
Why not stick with the reason why we don't [transplant brains](http://www.neuwritewest.org/blog/brain-transplants-are-they-possible) now? There are too many blood vessels to cut and reattach. In order to transplant a brain, we'd have to cut each blood vessel going to the brain, attach it to a temporary blood vessel, keep it supplied with oxygenated blood, and repeat for each blood vessel until all the originals are detached. Then we would have to transfer to the new body, removing the temporary attachments and making permanent ones.
Transplanting a brain would be a tremendously difficult operation.
By contrast, attaching an artificial brain would be much easier so long as it doesn't rely on blood for delivering fuel. Then you just have to connect the neurons, not the blood vessels. And you don't need to worry that the brain will die during the transfer, as it is powered separately (e.g. by battery).
Keeping the brain alive in the old body is much easier than transplanting it. That just requires keeping the blood supply flowing and oxygenated. Perhaps ensuring sufficient nutrition. Presuming your brain download can be done in a day or two, that doesn't seem like an intractable problem.
This still sort of handwaves at the problem of doing the download or building the artificial brain, but I see those as outside the scope of the question. The reason why they don't do a brain transplant is that they can't. It's too difficult. This is science-based in that that is one of the problems that they face now. So it just isn't fixed in your story.
[Answer]
neurodegenerative diseases can gradually destroy a brain, especially if it was a genetic condition. Transplanting the brain won't help, and the brain is still intact in the sense that such a condition is yet to set in. So if there is a chance for a brain transplant, your be far better off with the artificial brain rather than having to scan the brain and transplant to an artificial brain anyway once the condition have set in.
Alternatively, if your patient is of some especially rare serotype for certain antigens present in his/her brain, and his/her body condition does not permit time for a cloned body, then there may not be specially prepared bodies of the serotype available, which means that an organic brain transplant will always meet lethal rejection reactions. Maybe immunosuppressive drugs doesn't work for this specific rare serotype antigen present in this brain. Then an artificial brain maybe the only option.
[Answer]
I once wrote a paper on the feasibility of a brain transplants. There was a website at the time offering to do it for half a million (body included). The major problem I have with brain transplants in sci-fi is that you want to transplant the entire central nervous system which includes the spinal cord and eyes/ears. Peripheral nerves regenerate while central nerves do not. You would start by cooling the brain down to reduce the need for oxygen. Then cut all the peripheral nerves and blood vessels. Then pull the CNS out of the outer meninges and move the CNS to the new body. Finally reconnect nerves and blood vessels.
I also think there's a right way to transfer an organic brain to an artificial brain which is slow and neuron by neuron.
I think if you combine these two ideas you're left with many diseases that would fit your story. Huntington's disease for example is what Thirteen had in the House TV show.
But also common things like blindness, spinal cord injury, cancer, and multiple types of degenerative brain diseases.
[Answer]
## You want scientists in your story to be ethical and helpful? You need blanket ban on brain transplants. Period.
You said:
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> I don't want there to be an immoral decision (e.g. reading out the personality destroys the brain and the 'evil' scientists chose to kill a person to test their experimental technology).
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Answer me then, have you considered other side of brain transplant? What happens to replaced brain? Since you make it unambiguous that brain hosts entirety of personality (which might not be entirely true, between Spinal Cord and Autonomous Nervous System, there has to be feedback causing reactions, wants or desires which we would classify as part of personality), then we can simplify issue I'm approaching to following question:
What happens to **replaced personality**?
**Your world needs to redefine murder.** Murder isn't killing of a body, it's possible for body to survive without brain activity for years even today (insert joke about your designated dumb-and-hated demographic), murder is killing of a mind. **Death is death of personality.** It would be interesting to refer to those who suffered trauma necessitating emergency brain digitisation, because body can't sustain brain under any conditions any more, as post-mortal.
**So, where or how do you get body to transplant into without going all-in on capital E Evil?**
**Evicting someone from body is as evil as it goes.** Toss in debts, body repossession and you have a canvas for very ugly cyberpunk dystopia. Something similar was done in [Freejack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freejack).
**Paying someone to give up body is no better.** It's same ugly cyberpunk dystopia with immortal upper class. Fantasy would do that with vampires or other [undead](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheNecrocracy) literally feeding off of peasants (metaphor for all upper classes ever feeding off of lower classes proverbial lifeblood is lurking somewhere here).
**Growing brain-dead clones?** Assuming you can grow clone fast and in dedicated cloning vat, **how do you ensure there was no brain development since zygotal phase? Otherwise you end up killing severely mentally challenged human.** Perhaps severely enough to be nonfunctional, but killing still.
**Only using bodies that had brains removed in unfortunate, but genuine accidents?** There are two issues.
First, **how do you guarantee genuineness of accidents?** Between Panama Papers, recent Epstein revelations and occasional reports about organ black market showing how much rich and powerful can get away with even today, how do you know there are no covert hit squads faking accidents people for hyperlites? Homeless in good health and other people not missed by many would be cheap and easy to disappear, perfect for lower upper class, but truly rich could afford to stage and cover up accident of, say, less known football players to enjoy young, strong body.
**Second, if you have some phlebotinum that can prevent first issue, what about families of deceased one?** Donating organs of someone dead is quite a bit different than your friend or family member suddenly becoming complete stranger in most literal of senses. I have a hard time imagining this becoming acceptable, but I admit, my imagination might simply be failing me.
## Therefore it is my opinion that if you want to have non dystopian world, you need a blanket, consistently enforced, ban on brain transplants.
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[Question]
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A group of scientists has been slaving away largely in obscurity for two decades, with very few publishable results. Suddenly, one of them has an epiphany, which turns out to be instrumental to enabling them to succeed at what they are attempting to do. This happens around year 2020 or so, on Earth, inhabited by humans. We are talking about the scientific Holy Grail.
The scientists *have figured out a way to make net-positive-energy cold fusion possible.* The process can run on ordinary tap water, and provides enough energy to power itself as well as leave some energy for other uses.
What's more: in retrospect, the process turns out to be scientifically sound, is repeatable, and is *scalable*. (The exact workings of the process are not relevant to this question, and are left as an exercise for the reader.) A patent is quickly filed for and approved essentially world-wide, and the details of the process get published in the scientific community. It is a truly world-changing event.
After some 15-20 years of refinement and miniturization, the technology has been refined to the point where it can be delivered in a box approximately the size of a large refrigerator, can run on any kind of dihydrogen monoxide (with or without a reasonable amount of contaminants, so can run on both tap water and sea water), is no more dangerous than most household appliances, the technology has a proven track record, and a reasonably-sized unit (think the size of a pair of large refrigerator and freezer) can deliver a net of a few dozen kilowatts of electricity. An outside source of electricity is required when turning on the unit, which can be provided either from electricity mains or from a rechargeable battery; both types are manufactured and sold.
At this point, household units in 10 kW and 25 kW rated sizes are available for approximately the price of a brand new, nice utility car (think somewhere in the range US$ 50k-100k plus inflation), other sizes are available as well to individuals, and industrial units capable of substantially higher power outputs also become available but at a much larger cost and physical footprint; the cost of the unit rises slightly slower than linearly when plotted against the unit's rated power output, and the volume of the unit rises roughly linearly with rated output. One of these units can be expected to keep working with minimal maintenance for 15-20 years in a household setting, and can be connected directly to the water mains or refilled manually. (For comparison, this works out to a cost of about 3-4 cents plus inflation per kWh delivered for the household-type units around year 2040, plus the cost of water.)
In earthly settings, the amount of water consumed by the process is small enough to not really be significant, but the requirements are large enough that energy considerations are still important in non-ground-based operations (and spaceflight in particular). Hence, in practice, this technology reduces (and moves up front as mainly a capital cost rather than an ongoing cost) but does not eliminate the cost of electricity. Because a large fraction of the cost is an upfront capital cost, the effective cost per kWh rises if the unit is used below its rated maximum power output, but because the larger units are more expensive, there is an incentive to purchase a smaller unit if that is deemed sufficient (and then not have to replace it). In principle, multiple units can be connected in parallel to provide both additional power as well as redundancy, but for technical reasons this is rarely done in households.
Given that the capital cost up front of one of these units is fairly high but not insurmountable for a large fraction of (but not the entirety of) the world's population, that smaller units are more affordable up front, and that they can provide a reasonable amount of electrical power for a single household at little ongoing cost and with little maintenance:
* What is the short-term and medium-term (up to a few decades, say 2040 through 2080) effect on private individuals and households?
* What is the short-term and medium-term (up to a few decades, say 2040 through 2080) effect on industries and production?
Answers should focus on how electricity is used within the society. Well-reasoned, logically and scientifically sound answers please, but scientific citations not needed.
[Answer]
# It's not that big a deal
I'm not sure how you expect 'relatively cheap and abundant (but not free or limitless) electrical energy' generation to change current society... if the solution you propose is not substantially different from existing solutions.
>
> At this point, household units in 10 kW and 25 kW rated sizes are
> available for approximately the price of a brand new, nice utility car
> (think somewhere in the range US$ 50k-100k plus inflation)
>
>
>
Wow! That massively better than the $25,990 it'd cost to install a 10kW solar installation!
>
> Here is a snapshot of residential solar pricing as of March 2014.
> Recently, we quoted a homeowner $25,990 for a 9.12kW rooftop solar
> electric system. <http://thirdsunsolar.com/knowing-solar/residential-system-costs/>
>
>
>
Oh wait... it's not. And remember your technology isn't available today, it's available in `2020` + `some 15-20 years of refinement and miniturization`!!! For comparison, the above source claims:
>
> 3 years ago, we quoted a 7.2kW system installed on the same home
> rooftop at $49,263. Prices have fallen a lot!
>
>
>
Furthermore I suspect a cursory glance at existing solutions will remove many other competitive advantages for example 3~4cents/kWh is not particularly cheap for bulk generation. The lack of granularity or peak generation at small scale suggests that a grid will still be used to distribute power as it is today.
Maybe the fusion generator will be used as portable, low maintenance power source for certain applications - transport, space and military come to mind but even there how is it revolutionary? Nuclear power can and does already fill these needs... this might at best be an incremental improvement.
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# But Solar isn't fair, those numbers are for 'peak' power only!
Several comments suggest that comparison to Solar is misrepresentative because it does not always generate the stated capacity (e.g. cloudy day, night etc).
I agree, this is greatly simplified the maths. However, I suspect that the maths are still accurate (even if not precise) when considering all factors in balance.
>
> The average for solar is nothing like half. I have recently installed
> solar (in a fairly sunny part of southern England), and my 3.8kW
> capacity should generate about 3800 kWh per year, which is 1000 hours
> of peak production, which is about 11.4% of the peak capacity. --Mike Scott
>
>
>
Correct, solar does not give continuous generation in residential situations. On the flip side residential situations do not use power in a continuous manner. Since the fusion option has no ability to provide 'peak' power, *both* systems would have to be heavily over-provisioned in a trivial deployment.
>
> You clearly know exactly nothing about the energy industry.
> A solar panel only produces during the day when it's sunny... This
> would be an huge change to have 10kW available on demand. Storage
> costs are much much larger than generation costs for sources like wind
> and solar. -- Sam
>
>
>
The energy industry includes a range of existing and upcoming technologies like [Tesla Powerwall](http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall), [Molten Salt Batteries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_battery), other methods of [Grid Energy Storage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage) or simply balancing various inputs over a grid.
Take the Tesla power wall for example, according to [this link](http://cleantechnica.com/2015/05/09/tesla-powerwall-powerblocks-per-kwh-lifetime-prices-vs-aquion-energy-eos-energy-imergy/) the cost per kWh of usage is roughly 10~12cents when bought upfront. In contrast, as GiliusMaximus points out in the comments to the question, the fusion device would likely cost of *30 cents per kilowatt hour* for standard residential needs!
>
> In order to provide full-time power you'd need 8 times the peak
> capacity PLUS a major energy storage system which needs to be factored
> in. Since average US household consumption is a bit over 10kWh/day
> (2013), the solar portion alone will run (per the price given) more
> than $200k, 4 times the Mr. Fusion Sir system quoted. Plus storage
> cost, of course. -- WhatRoughBeast
>
>
>
Issues regarding peak vs continuous power has been addressed earlier, so it's trivial to see where this argument falls flat. In short, the maths here fails to recognise that if assuming solar receives 3 hours of peak production a day, and is combined with a battery system, it only needs to be 3~5kW in size to power a 10kWh/day household.
However, for arguments say here's an compare on a pure output measure - regardless of it's usage.
The fusion system produces non stop 25kWh for \$100k! This is clearly stated in OP. Over 20 years this is about 2~3cents a kWh!
However it's also clearly stated that it'll be closer to 2040 when this is achievable, and that the \$100k in today's dollars. It's incredibly important to note that many of the systems we've been talking about - solar and battery in particular - are reducing in cost!
This [source](http://cleantechnica.com/2014/09/04/solar-panel-cost-trends-10-charts/) (lots of pretty graphs) notes that solar has gone from *"\$76.67/watt in 1977 to just \$0.613/watt today [2014]"* that's a drop of about 12% of cost per year, even with inflation! Should this continue then in 2040 the cost of power will be... \$24.52/kW installed, or a reduction of 96% of cost!
Given 3 hours of 'peak production' a day, and a twenty year lifespan this would be 0.11cents/kWh or ***20 times cheaper than fusion!***
*In case one is wondering, [battery storage is also dropping in price](http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/energy_resources_materials/battery_technology_charges_ahead), say 9% per year, for a total price reduction of 90% by 2040 - or from 11cents/kWh to 1.1cents/kWh - assuming no breakthroughs etc*
# But a compact, cheap, and powerful energy source could change the world!
Some criticism of this answer claims that it misses the real benefit:
>
> This answer is pretty shortsighted where a highly compact, cheap, and
> powerful energy source could change the world. -- Aron
>
>
>
It's important to note that I **completely** agree with this statement. Such a power-source would be revolutionary! However *this* power source is none of those things:
**It's not compact!**
Being as large as *"approximately the size of a large refrigerator,"* - which'd be around 1300liters in size (Remember to count the volume of the entire unit, not just usable volume).
For contrast a quick search trivially finds a [10kw generator](http://www.gegenerators.com/standby-generators/home-generators/10kW-HGS-GE) that's less than 400liters in size and only costs $3k. Car engines are also quite small. Is a large fridge is going to replace your mobile phone battery to give you unlimited power?
A compact power source is a big deal, but this is *not* a compact power source.
**It's not cheap!**
As noted by this and several other answers, the proposed fusion power source is not cheap. Not only is it not especially competitive today, by the time it eventuates (2040) it might be an order of magnitude more expensive than alternatives. So any imaginations of revolutionary free power supercharging our economy or making accessing space trivial are stillborn.
**It's not powerful!**
Need a big powerful energy source? Take a look at the A4W reactor - there are two of these in the USS Abraham Lincoln - generating a combined power of over 1GW!
Based off of the OP, assume for every 1300liters of fusion volume it produces 10kW of power. It'd need 100,000 of these, costing say $2,500,000,000 and taking up 130ML of volume - that's 40% the volume of a very large crude carrier supertanker!
The volume of the reactors in the USS Abraham Lincoln is hard to find (for some reason the military aren't sharing that), but given the whole thing only [*cost $4.726 billion in 2010 dollars*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Abraham_Lincoln_(CVN-72)) It's hard to imagine that in 2040 a fusion reactor at more than half that cost and a volume 1.2x greater than the ship's displacement would be considered a significant improvement by the military.
**This is the problem, it's a solution nobody needs!**
The sad fact of this reactor, as magical as it sounds, is that it's too big, too weak, too expensive and too late for anyone to care. It's a commercial dud.
Mobile phones and cars use small powerful batteries. Not cheap enough to compete with other energy sources, any usage in the grid will have minimal impact.
Big transport may be interested, as this may be a low-cost replacement for hydrocarbons. However I suspect that this device will be so bulky and *heavy* as to strictly limit its usefulness.
Geographically isolated locations would love a low maintenance, reliable power supply. But a solar + battery combination already achieves this and is looking like it will be cost effective. Whether you just want to be off the grid, camp in the wilderness or live in space or mars, it's a killer combination.
[Answer]
>
> household units in 10 kW and 25 kW rated sizes are available for approximately the price of a brand new, nice utility car (think somewhere in the range US$ 50k-100k plus inflation)
>
>
>
This isn't economically viable.
My electric bill today is around \$80/mo. If I invest \$19k today, and I can get a 5% annual return on that investment, that will pay for my electrical expenses for 100 years. Why would I buy a \$50k device?
Or to to solve the annuity equation another way, if a \$50k investment today means I don't have to pay for electricity for 100 years, your device represents a 1.49% annual return. It's about as revolutionary as a savings account.
Or one more way, assuming a 5% annual return and a life of 100 years, your device will need to save me at least \$209 per month to be economically viable.
Of course, these are all assuming the device has a life of 100 years with no maintenance or fuel costs. And that I'll live 100 years. And that the government doesn't charge me personal property tax on the reactor.
>
> Because a large fraction of the cost is an upfront capital cost, the effective cost per kWh rises if the unit is used below its rated maximum power output, but because the larger units are more expensive, there is an incentive to purchase a smaller unit if that is deemed sufficient (and then not have to replace it). In principle, multiple units can be connected in parallell to provide both additional power as well as redundancy, but for technical reasons this is rarely done in households.
>
>
>
Sounds precisely like our current electrical distribution system, no? We have the technology for diesel-powered household electrical generation today. Why doesn't everyone use them?
People don't like capital expenses. Neither do companies. That's why cloud computing like AWS is so popular. There's no reason you can't build your own datacenter, but that's a large capital expense. Solution: let Amazon make the capital expenses for you, then you just pay some operating expense.
It's also more efficient to pool the resource demand of many users. My last electric bill was 680 kHh for the month, which works out to a mean power of 931W. But I'd need a much larger generator unless I want to pop the circuit breaker every time my AC compressor kicks on. Low duty cycle loads like AC compressors mean a high peak load for which I must buy a lot of excess capacity. Sharing capacity with neighbors makes a lot of sense because it averages these peak loads out.
So I think in the end, you'll still have electrical utilities for the same reasons we have them today. The industry won't look very different: it will just be a little cheaper, assuming you can solve the problem of economic viability above.
And of course there are still economies of scale. The larger units are a little more efficient.
But you'll also have to consider distribution costs. Roughly speaking, half of my electric bill is distribution. The distribution system could be simpler if electricity were more locally generated, but for the reasons already mentioned I don't think that would happen with the parameters you've set.
So in all, I don't think you are looking at much of a revolution. In summary:
* the device needs to be a lot cheaper
* distribution is still hard: peak loads are problematic
I think you'll need to make some additions to your scenario to have something feasible. Ideas:
* also introduce some revolution in electrical energy storage, making it inexpensive and efficient. This addresses the issue with peak loads (though it would also be a huge money saver for traditional electric utilities)
* stipulate that fossil fuels have profoundly increased in cost (though you'll have to address why this cold fusion device is better than wind, solar, and today's nuclear power)
[Answer]
**Depends on the technology utilised**
Firstly, you state it utilises water, of any type, of a refrigerator-esque size (how long is a piece of string? How big is a refrigerator?). The first concern that immediately changes it's viability is it's environmental impact, not it's cost.
Does it permanently consume water? IE would it deplete water reserves? Even in small amounts, this would make water progressively less and less available. Sure, without oil we'd lose the current economy, but humanity could survive. Without water? Erm... nope!
Also, as a cold fusion reactor, is it at any risk of producing anything harmful? IE, if it returns water, does it pollute the water returned? Could it, when damaged, emit radiation? People will not have technology in their home that will cause them harm, even if that's via a minor accident. Oil is cheap but how many people do you know store petrol in a house? Most don't: it's a possible fire hazard.
But, assuming it's almost the infinity power generator of it's day and turns trivial amounts of regenerable water into chemicals that can be safely dealt with by a non-expert individual and has zero risk of giving them radiation poisoning via alpha, beta, gamma radiation etc...
**It's actually useful**
I disagree strongly with my peers on it not being revolutionary for cost, because they are only thinking of houses and people with small incomes who aren't very entrepenurial. As a 'refrigerator sized unit', this would have a huge impact: think vehicles, large boats (which travel by sea), space tech, military and anything else that demands portability.
**Maritime industry**
Essentially, anything travelling by sea would use this technology. You would revoluntionise the maritime industry because there would be no risk of oil spillages from overturned boats, there would be no need for nuclear reactors (think submarines and aircraft carriers) which have a possible radiation hazard and waste.
Cruises would be able to greatly reduce costs: no more using oil, but endless sea water!
You'll revolutionise cooling systems that use water: because they draw in water to cool down systems. Think along the lines of backup systems.
**Search and rescue**
You'd change the face of rescue operations: sea operations could go on indefinitely (you can grow plants using special bulbs that demand lots of electricity), and countries with no natural resources or electrical outputs (think Africa) where cost of electricity is prohibitively high, would also benefit greatly. Sure, people say in the first world electricity is cheap, but what options do you have in a ghetto? As a charity you can't just build a nuclear plant - but a refrigeration unit that only takes water? Genius.
Think of those sea-craft that dump tons of water onto forest fires? They would become incredibly efficient because their water load is also their fuel - which means, so long as the pilot isn't fatigued, they can fly for as far as they can carry water!
**Water supply**
You'd change the face of desalination plants, which take water to be desalinated: not only could they draw power from the water, but they'd be part of the process (it can use sea water to convert sea water into drinking water). This would change agricultural demand overnight as deserts become irrigated by sea-water powered desalination plants.
**Environmental**
One key issue, though, that it would change (assuming it's non-harmful) is environmental waste. Now, people will try to argue that because they pay less for 'normal' electricity, it's better, but that's a false economy: because the cost comes from the funding of dictatorships via oil purchases, through oil spills in the ocean, through the waste produced by radioactive materials that will take millions of years to become safe and viable.
Overnight, you'd remove the threat of nuclear terrorism (unless your water generator becomes a water bomb...?), but also chemical catastrophes - oil explosions, toxic spillages, overturning vehicles (which deliver the necessary chemicals to neutralise, convert, cool or stop [in the case of a reactor] a runaway system).
Environmental groups would support this. Governments would turn to this. Charities would use it. People who are rich enough to afford this would buy it because it means they aren't at risk from a blackout, or being cut off if the company doesn't get paid, or require a wireless meter along with it's wireless radiation.
Think underground bunkers, where being trapped with a leaking nuke plant is a bad idea or a system that requires oil in a limited supply.
**Electric cars**
Being able to refill a car with water as fuel is awesome, and anyone who thinks it'd have no use is shortsighted. No longer will your cost of petrol be at a premium! Think aircraft too... depending on water conversion efficiency (cars can get away with constantly refueling... but aircraft can't).
**Community**
One way that would solve this is, given it's a 25kW system, assuming it's output is based on water input, if it was purchased as a community to be shared, it's cost would divide optimally. Assume every person uses only 5kW per whatever unit of time you're care for (your calculations are unclear if it's 25kW per hour, a year, etc), you'd immediately divide the cost by 5. \$10,000 per person. Assuming it lasts for ten years and you use electricity roughly \$3,000 per year on the 'normal' system, in 4 years it will have paid itself: for 5 people.
You'd see two things occur:
**War**
Oil dictatorships, oil corporations, the nuclear industry, energy providers... would actively seek to cover up or destroy this research (perhaps even going so far as to kill anyone involved), because it would move people out of their reach: if everyone can get water to power their systems, where do they get a profit? They don't. So they would have to crush it as an alternative - before it even got out.
People would detach themselves from the grid. As there would be fewer and fewer people on it, the cost for everyone else would rise (sorta like insurance). It might even be power companies install the units themselves in their own power plant, but retain the control: no-one becomes free, and the power companies make a massive profit margin.
You'll be supplying power to the military, who, having water as a fuel source, would be able to build much larger systems and generate more power. Think lasers. Think lasers like the ones attached to the US navy prototype ship. At the moment, it takes a lot of power: but having numerous of these onboard would mean they'd start arming other ships with lasers.
This is a bad thing because it merely advances the weapons, but doesn't end the war.
What happens, really, is down to humanity... life saving tool that stop pollution? Or an energy monopoly that increases profits and powers dangerous weaponry and vessels?
[Answer]
The portable energy box as described isn't spectacularly better for fixed installations in the developed world. 3c/kWh is not going to set the world on fire. However, what it does revolutionize is transport. Suddenly "range anxiety" of electric vehicles is a non-issue, especially for large vehicles. The truck, bus and rail fleets would rapidly go electric. Transition away from fossil fuels would be accelerated.
I think a lot would depend on what the fossil fuel state is in your 2040. Has oil gone over $100/barrel again? Way over? What about domestic natural gas, which Europe is currently dependent on? What your technology might allow is the prevention of poverty and conflict resulting from an economically forced transition away from fossil fuels.
Electricity "too cheap to meter" would be more revolutionary, but only up to a point. It might allow for energy-based "basic income" and some commodities to be made free by society.
[Answer]
### It may not be cheap enough
Seconding the other answers, 3c/kWh is not that cheap, and to add to the misery, it has a large upfront cost for the consumer. Fusion would have to be in the <0.5 cents/kWh to be a revolutionary technology. Might need to play with those numbers in a spreadsheet a bit, and check this [source](http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm)
Moreover, your described setup:
>
> household units in 10 kW and 25 kW rated sizes are available for approximately the price of a brand new, nice utility car (think somewhere in the range US$ 50k-100k plus inflation)
>
>
>
..does not seem to come around to costing 3c, unless you assume that households actually consume about 87000 kWh per year, about 7-8 times the average household consumption. You could get around this by having neighbors share a unit, or having apartment and condo buildings install a few. Is still seems like maintenance would be easier in a centralized location though. Additionally, almost all processes have benefits of scale, and if as you stated performance in terms of power output scales with volume, if you move from your average refrigerator size, say $0.6 \times 0.6 \times 2 = 0.7 m^3$ to a generating unit the size of $6 \times 6 \times 20 = 720 m^3$ you should be able to generate about 1000 times as much power for a mere 10-fold increase in size in each axis. It would likely cut on maintenance costs significantly.
We can't assume near-zero maintenance, anything that has unfiltered water running through it will have deposits and calcium buildup that will need to be fixed more than once every 20 years. Additionally, since we're talking fusion, there will issues of radiation shielding and such. Regardless, it's always cheaper to change one big filter once a year than 1000 small ones, nevermind dealing with lost keys, scheduling, etc.
[Answer]
As many others have pointed out, the system itself isn't going to change a lot outside of large vehicles that would be able to be converted to pure electric power as they could carry their own box.
However, there is something that does not seem to be touched on in the question and is very important when dealing with electrical power. How has battery technology advanced and/or been affected during the time leading up to this discovery? I consider this to be the real tipping point here because of the issue being raised about peak power. Unlike some sources of power, electrical energy can be stored to at least some extent. As such, if the battery technology has improved along the way to this cold fusion break through, then not every single person or household would require a box to themselves.
I'm not going to bother with the math, others can do that if desired, but assuming a decently capable battery, I would gather that the ability of the machines to be shared would increase greatly. Instead of using them as direct energy feeds to a grid system, they would act more like trickle chargers working constantly to keep a system of batteries charging. The batteries would function as the actual source of power as far as households and the like would see, and during peak times they would drop power, but would ideally have a capacity to deal with that for some time and then recharge during periods of lower usage demand.
Efficient batteries would mean that the magic boxes could be more of a shared purchase, while the batteries would be the majority of the personal costs. Each household/business would have to decide how much power they need and can afford to store and make their battery/box purchases accordingly.
Or power companies would be the ones buying the boxes/batteries and continuing to dole out power to each customer as needed, charging in a manner similar to cell phone companies where you would have a certain amount that you were entitled to based on your payment plan, then extra fees if you go over. They would just purchase more boxes and batteries as demand for services rises. I consider this to be the most likely outcome as it would require the least amount of change to implement.
[Answer]
# Large Scale Household Feasibility
This is more like a one-time expense versus monthly electric bills type investment. The feasibility of the product depends on the prevailing cost of electricity in 1st, 2nd and 3rd world countries for the life of the product. As in, how much does a normal household totally pay in electric bills for 15-20 years. The product must be at least 15-20% cheaper than the net electric cost through power lines for 15-20 years to be considered seriously.
Another important factor in determining the feasibility is the price of competing power generation systems such as solar panels and petroleum based electric generators. Considering that bio-fuel research is making a steady progress, grass or algae based petroleum products extraction methods could prove a strong competitor to this product, although this product *appears* to be more environment friendly. Data in this context is not provided by OP.
Yet another thing missing from OP's provided information is the type of electricity generated by the product. As in, whether it is AC or DC current. Considering that most large products in household use (such as TVs, refrigerators etc) run on AC electricity, a DC generator would require an additional toolkit to convert the output to AC.
# Feasibility In Specific Environments
The product would be welcomed in locations where electricity provided by power lines is unreliable (on geological fault lines, high frequency of power lines in limited are resulting in tripping etc). Larger units of this product would be used by the government (or other power production authorities) in locations where it is economically unfeasible to install grid stations due to low population density or terrain issues (mountainous and desert environments).
Secret military research labs would quickly adopt this product instead of having to install their own dedicated power plants. It would also be used as standby power source for scientific labs and healthcare facilities, specially in areas mentioned in above paragraph.
# Impact On Current Prevailing Power Supply Systems
The overall impact (nationwide) on the prevailing power supply systems would depend on the feasibility of the product, as discussed in the first paragraph.
It is expected to replace the prevailing power supply systems in all first world countries within 20 years. The process would be a chain reaction. The more houses shift to this product, the higher would the cost of electricity get for the remaining houses (because the power plants' expenses are the same as before, but the customers have decreased) which would encourage them to move to this product as well.
The 2nd world countries are difficult to predict. Too many factors are involved, especially the annual earnings of an individual.
The product would mainly be a failure in 3rd world countries. The unit price is simply too high for it to succeed in these countries.
[Answer]
One interesting development is that it makes transportation cheap. Enabling people to travel more freely.
Another is that it makes currently uninhabitable or marginally habitable places on Earth very viable for large populations (think desert regions on the seacoast - Saudi Arabia & Los Angeles). Cheap electricity makes water distillation plants economical. Or imagine an isolated homestead alone in the Rockies and connected only by microwave relay stations to the outside world. With the excess electrical capacity you melt your water from snow pack. Or perhaps a small village decides to go live on Antarctica. With cheap electricity they could provide for most of their basic needs without outside intervention (a steady diet of seal and penguin might benefit from fresh produce raised in the aquaculture sheds).
Very cheap electricity makes certain space launch infrastructure (e.g. coilguns and launch lasers) a cost effective method of getting into space.
Very cheap electricity makes the production of certain materials much cheaper (think steel & aluminum).
Theoretically given energy and enough of the right chemicals, we could construct food (looks at closed cycle habitats that NASA is working on).
I know you're not so interested in space applications but something like this would be tremendously useful (essential?) to spacecraft, colonies, and stations.
[Answer]
"The cost of the unit rises slightly slower than linearly when plotted against the unit's rated power output" implies there will be HUGE power stations built along bodies of water...much like they are now connected to the same power grid there is now. Taking the quote to its extreme it is possible that a single generator would be built somewhere and wireless transmission would be used to get power to everyone for free, but that would be a political nightmare (whose going to pay the initial costs when anyone can tap the power for free) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower>.
Desalination would become much cheaper, so more land could be made arable in poor areas so that would be a huge impact.
Electric cars would be instantly more popular.
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I'm going to add to the complaint pile. For base load energy sources where most of the cost is capital (not fuel), such as hydroelectric and nuclear power plants, a goal is to get the cost to be around \$4000.00 per KW; on the other hand, $10,000 per KW is considered pretty high and would nearly make electricity non-competitive. For comparison, the massive James Bay hydroelectric complex built by Hydro Quebec (publicly owned) cost \$20 billion and produces 16,500,000 KW, or a bit over \$1000 a KW. Your device runs around \$5000 per KW, so really isn't that great compared to existing power sources. Another problem is you would have to be grid connected to make it worthwhile, because you'd either have to shut it off at night (making it hard to get a payback) or you'd have to sell your night-time energy on the grid to other users (plus 10 KW is a lot for a household to use).
I'd propose that you make the units sell for more like $20k for 10 KW. That would actually be a breakthrough.
[Answer]
What you're describing will have a profound impact, but not on the everyday life. Not directly.
Your fusion refrigerator is too expensive, bulky and weak to be adopted by a wide audience. Even for transportation you'll have to wait for return of investments for too long.
However, they will replace RTGs as a power source of choice for machinery designed to be as non-requiring maintenance as possible.
Space probes flying further than Mars orbit, lighthouses in frozen hellholes (though they're using solar now), deep water unmanned installations, etc. Such a discovery will revolutionize how these things are designed and used. And, indirectly, it will affect the everyday life, slightly.
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[Question]
[
We have some characters living in a wetland biome (freshwater swamp, specifically) without access to trade from other areas. What kinds of options do they have when it comes to using the natural resources a swamp provides to make clothing? We've done a lot of research on the natural resources in a swamp, but we've only come up with lots of reeds and the different types of trees. We haven't found adequate information about bark cloth, either, and don't think that our characters would be able to manufacture viscose rayon from bamboo. We know that it's not a suitable environment for hemp seed or cotton, and certainly not wool. Part of the problem is that our swamp is not well drained. We're picturing something like the Louisiana Swamp.
Update: We’ve gotten lots of helpful ideas. Thank you!
[Answer]
**[Jute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jute).**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ohZ94.jpg)
([Source](https://www.orissapost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ANCHOR-Balasor.jpg))
Jute is an ancient and versatile fiber crop, and according to wikipedia is still second only to cotton in amount produced. It requires standing water and so is perfect for your ecosystem. Jute is used for rope and fabrics like burlap, but historically clothes were also made of jute fabric.
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I think your best bet, as long as your characters aren't vegan, is probably animal skin/pelts. Muskrats, beavers, otters, and moose often live in swampy areas (not sure about the moose and otters in Louisiana though), and they provide pelts that can used for clothing. Even if your swamp is in a fictional world where none of those animals exist, there are likely to be animals filling similar niches, which may well have skin suitable for clothing.
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**Palmetto and flax:**
In a lot of warm places in the world, native people don't wear much in terms of clothing in swampy areas, or didn't until outside influences came.
Seminole indians living in Florida swamps traditionally used leather for breechclout or saw palmetto fibers to weave more extensive garments <http://www.bigorrin.org/seminole_kids.htm>, and the trade in [saw palmetto fibers](https://www.jacksonvillearboretum.org/2018/08/02/the-uses-of-saw-palmetto/) in North America was quite extensive (evidence of it ranged as far north as Wisconsin). Saw palmetto grows in areas NEAR swamps, but not in them, but no swamp is an island (pardon the pun).
Linen is produced from [flax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax) , which grows best in cold climates. However, it is one of the oldest domesticated plants, and the Egyptians made extensive use of it. It can be found growing near the waterline in cranberry bogs. The Maori used [swamp flax](https://www.temotukairangi.co.nz/planting/native-plants/swamp-flax#:%7E:text=About%20Swamp%20flax&text=It%20will%20grow%20in%20dry,in%20open%20ground%20along%20riversides.) for fiber and there are many related species that are useable for fibers and cloth.
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What about wild [cotton tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populus_heterophylla)?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hWWVG.jpg)
You can also use [banana tree fiber](http://en.sanyatour.com/news-media/news-media-sanya-news/banana-clothes-a-stylish-heritage-clothing-of-hainan-li-people/) unless that's considered bark clothing and too advanced for your people, it seems like Louisiana has banana tree when I google it (though I don't know if the species can be made into clothing or not). I assume this swamp is in a more warm or tropical area right?
>
> Hainan province is home to many ethnic groups; the Li and Miao people are particularly prominent on the island. The Li were the
> earliest settlers of Hainan. Their first-recorded appearance on the
> island has been traced back to 3,000 years ago.
>
>
> The cultural heritage of the Li people includes many ancient and
> beautiful handicrafts, including the Li brocade, a unique textile
> product invented by the Li people.
>
>
> Another source of pride of the Li people is a type of clothing: their
> extraordinary “banana clothes” are made from the bark of Musa Basjoo
> banana trees.
> Musa Basjoo banana tree bark is a source of natural fiber. The fiber has superior mechanical properties, high modulus, and tensile strength.
>
>
> Banana clothes (芭蕉衣)
>
>
> 1. To make a banana clothing item, the Li people first peel off the dry bark of a wild Musa Basjoo banana tree.
> 2. The bark becomes soft after being boiled out and soaked for nearly half a month. The fiber comes out in strands by using a bamboo chip to scrape the softened tree bark.
> 3. Fiber yarn is then produced by connecting the strands end-to-end by the deft hands of a Li woman.
> 4. Banana clothes are made on a traditional weaving machine. The fiber yarns are dry and breakable and need to be moistened with water
> constantly while weaving the clothes.
> 5. The banana clothes are light, thin, breathable, and highly valuable; a piece of banana clothing takes three months of cooperative
> work by eight people.
>
>
>
Also you may can try swamp milkweed, from google seems like it can be made into clothing too, for warm clothing, if your swamp is in a cold region.
Outside of plant base you can use animal leather or fur, including reptile and frog skin.
Also I think you can also try using spider silk if it exists as an option.
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[Cyperus papyrus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyperus_papyrus) -> paper, mats, cloth, sails, cordage, sandals
[Phragmites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phragmites) it is like Cyperus but more rough -> baskets, mats
[Typha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typha) it is like cottonwool but less durable -> paper, pillow, fiber, heat insulation
[Rice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryza_sativa) -> Rice paper, rice paper clothing
To make coth rainproof it is possible use seashells like roof tiles.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/h0icY.jpg)
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## The marshes of Louisiana are one of the best places in the world to grow cotton
The problem is your assumption that freshwater marshes can be "not well drained". Standing marshes are formed by banks of high ground trapping water, but in a swamp, even the high ground is wet and water permeable meaning water will tend to slow drain through it or erode it away. If the banks were too solid, they would form a sump and you'd get a saltwater marsh, but because it is a freshwater marsh we know that it drains enough to prevent this. This tells us that it's water levels will rise and fall throughout the year. Even if the area never fully dries out, it does mean that for atleast part of the year, large sections of your wetlands will be exposed, and able to be farmed.
Before the American Civil War, 2/3s of the world's supply of cotton came from the US Gulf Coast states (primarily Louisiana and Mississippi). Cotton prefers to grow in the alluvial soils created by the floodplains of major rivers like the Mississippi, particularly in marshy delta areas which is what the freshwater swamps of Louisiana are. Cotton is hard on soil; so, most farmland becomes unsuitable for cotton production after just a few years, but in river delta regions regular flooding brings fresh silty deposits which remineralize the soil. So, you let your land flood in the wet season, then in the drier season you plant your cotton where the water has receded.
Since cotton is arguably the best natural clothing material and you are describing a perfect environment for growing it, it seems to be to be the obvious choice.
Reptile leather was also very common in the fronteer days of Louisiana. Snake and alligator skin boots were the norm and are still common finds in Louisiana novelty shops. There are also plenty of furry animals to hunt like black bears, deer, and racoons, but those will generally make less favorable clothing given the environment.
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You received many cool answers so far for a commoner. The most stylish (and probably rare/expensive) would be crocodile/alligator skin clothes for leaders.
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**Feathers**
Consider mesoamerican featherwork as a reference: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_featherwork>
Feathers can be turned into cloaks, headdresses, costumes, and adornments.
<https://pages.vassar.edu/realarchaeology/2017/09/20/why-are-feathers-so-important-in-the-aztec-culture-piecing-together-the-puzzle/>
<https://www.huntington.org/verso/2018/08/stunning-and-sacred-cape>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/eSna4.jpg)
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In a medieval fantasy world I am imagining, there are bear-men living in villages, with your medieval houses, roads and such. They also have farms with various vegetables, fruits and grains (wheat, lettuces, apples...). And of course, honeybee farms. Note that they don't tend to livestock like cows or chicken, only bees.
They live apart from other sentient beings, secluded in their lands in an oceanic, tempered climate. These bear-men are able to do pretty much all of what humans can do and even more, since they are as strong as grizzlies.
Finally, while the existence of magic is known, mostly proven and most simple spells are affordable, long-lasting enchantments over wide parcels of terrain cost a fortune and are complex to maintain. Magic is therefore not in the reach of your standard peasants. Moreover, these bear-men aren't really fond of magic. If they can avoid using it, the better!
My question is: Given the fact they enter into a hibernation state every winter (like bears do), how much would that affect farmland and honey production? If having your farmlands unattended for this long has a strong negative impact, is there a way to mitigate this (crop choice, preparation...)?
*Addendum from comments : My bear-men* have to *hibernate/sleep during winter, unlike real world bears. Although they can be awakened in case of urgency, it's detrimental to their health and they become really grumpy when doing so. Please do not disturb, let bears sleep peacefully!*
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In medieval Europe, farmland essentially was left unattended over the winter months, because there's not too much you can do with it.
The cycle was to sow in spring, and reap from summer through to autumn. At around late autumn, there would be the big harvest festival, when the community would have its greatest abundance of food, this would be an excuse for a big feast and celebration, both to enjoy the fruits of their labour, but also to pack on a couple of layers of body fat to last through the winter. Surplus food would be stored, smoked, preserved, or pickled in some way to make it last through the meagre months of winter. Your bearmen would probably just skip this step of getting food ready for the winter, and just gorge themselves as much as they can at their harvest festival, and then just settle down to bed.
The problem they *might* face, is that among human populations, winter would traditionally be the time for non-agricultural labour, building and maintaining homes, weaving cloth, manufacturing tools, etc. If the bearmen are asleep through winter, this means they'll have to fit these jobs in between the other agricultural work they need to do throughout the year, which might make the pace of life more strenuous, or might trigger an earlier adoption of specialised trades among bearmen society.
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### No - if food is available, bears don't hibernate.
>
> Bears in zoos will not hibernate if food is available, though they will slow down and sleep more than usual. Some zoo bears are fed year round, and do not hibernate.
>
>
>
>
> Hibernation for bears simply means they don’t need to eat or drink, and rarely urinate or defecate (or not at all). There is strong evolutionary pressure for bears to stay in their dens during winter, if there is little or no food available. But bears will leave their dens on occasion, particularly when their den gets flooded or is badly damaged.
>
>
>
[Source](https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=349)
So your bears will go slow in winter, they'll stay indoors, and sleep more. But they'll be able to do the odd check on their fields. They'll be able to do basic farm maintenance all winter - eg repair a fence that breaks.
Even if food runs low, most of your society can hibernate, and 1-2 bears can wake up for a few hours a day to do farm maintenance.
---
### But what if they must hibernate anyway?
Even if they do hibernate for some reason; like the link explains, when hibernating and something bad happens (like a flooded or damaged den), bears will still wake up and solve the problem before returning to sleep. It would be reasonable to expect that your bears would rise from hibernation for urgent issues too.
So the idle fields in winter will still be protected against intruders, weeds don't really grow in winter, and any emergencies will be fixed. Your fields will be fine.
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## Pros
* Whether using modern agricultural practices or ancient, land likes to lay fallow for a season. Over-use can draw too many nutrients from the soil too quickly, leaving it less (sometimes much less) productive. The period of time during your Bear-Men's hibernation would contribute to the land being more productive during the agricultural season.
* Land lying fallow might contribute to hiding the Bear-Men during this period of heightened vulnerability. The land would quickly sprout weeds (and perhaps be under snow, you didn't mention anything about seasons so that's just an observation), leaving the area to look more wild than a fully-fenced or well-cultivated farm.
## Cons
* While bees in their natural state need no intervention by people to happily survive, bees in skeps do. Bees naturally create hives in well-protected areas.1 Skeps aren't particularly well protected, even when set up to be. Without the Bear-Men to watch over them they could be struck by disease, knocked over by wind or animal, or stolen. (Please keep in mind that I'm not a bee expert. It might be natural to lock the dormant bees in their skeps into a secure location, eliminating this as a con.)
* Settlers might come in and take over the land! No one's there, right? This depends on how your Bear-Men hibernate (in huts? in local caves?) but either way, since they're not there to fight for what's theirs, it's plausible that they might wake up to find an armed village where theirs once was.
## Production
However, in terms of production, unless your Bear-Men happen to have the ability to grow Winter Wheat (or similar), there is no drop in production. Generally speaking, agricultural production stops during the winter or colder months.
* Bees don't hibernate, but they're not productive during the winter/cold, either. They do consume honey during that period of time, so your Bear-Men would need to be sure the skeps are well enough stocked for their hibernation period or they'll lose the bees either to starvation or to abandonment (i.e, they run away looking for food).
However, you didn't mention anything about the seasons or when the Bear-Men hibernate. If they're hibernating during the growing season, then they would want to choose crops like dry wheat that can be basically ignored while they slept (and hopefully nobody comes along and harvests it before they wake up!).
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1 *One of the best-protected hives I've seen was a friend's house in Texas. The bees moved into his soffits and a portion of the attic difficult to access from the attic crawl spaces. By the time the family called an expert (from a local bee-keeping company) to remove the hive, the hive had grown **humongous.** About one ton of honey was removed from the attic and soffit spaces. The expert happily took the honey and the queen, and all the bees followed the queen. The problem was gone... except for a considerable amount of repair.*
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**I'm going to go with 'probably yes'**
Interestingly, this is one of the issues encountered by transhumant societies when they bump up against sedentary agricultural ones.
'Transhumance' is a livelihood pattern where people move (typically with livestock) from one fixed location to another on a seasonal basis. So herders who graze their flocks in the highlands during summer, and down in the lowlands during winter. It's a way of making more efficient use of marginal land that wouldn't sustain people year-round.
The reason conflict occurs is that this naturally leaves viable lowland territory empty for half the year, proving a tempting opportunity for sedentary agriculturalists to move in and set up a new village, not knowing that the land is already claimed by herders (and not understanding why they need it if they spend most of their time in the hills).
It's a bit flipped around as your bear-folk leave their pastures unattended during winter rather than summer, but could stil be a source of conflict between them and their neighbours. I'd be annoyed if I woke up from an extended nap and found some upstarts had built a village on my fields!
If your bears are transhumant pastoralists it would also give you a reason for them to hibernate. If most of them hibernate through harsh winters, leaving only a nominal guard over their flocks, they would be able to inhabit even more marginal land effectively than humans. You'd find them living in some very inhospitable places indeed, which would protect them somewhat from human encroachment. Luckier bear-people that live in more plentiful areas could not hibernate and live just like anyone else.
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I've been playing with different conceptualizations and types of armor for historical settings, especially armor with magic enchantments or made from weird materials. I was stuck thinking about lightweight protection and remembered that mithril shirt from the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings.
To those who haven't seen or read it, the mithril shirt is described as being stronger than steel but as supple as linen. This latter property confused me when the wearer got stabbed with the force of a battering ram, since the shirt would be fine, but the person wearing it should be suffering massive blunt force trauma and internal bleeding. Heck, with that degree of flexibility, you could even justify the shirt being forced inside the person wearing it.
With that in mind, would a silk shirt or coat that is (for all intents and purposes) indestructible, be useful as martial protection, or would it just be over-designed pajamas? For the purposes of this thought experiment, imagine the wearer of this shirt being struck by an arrow, a knife, a spear, and an ax.
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Silk armor was used for this purpose by [several real historical armies.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_armour) It's not going to STOP the blow the way I think you're imagining, but it does a few very useful things. It cushions the blow quite a bit, and against piercing weapons the silk will bind up around the point. So, to your point, it DOES get forced into the person wearing it, but that's actually one of the key benefits.
In the case of arrows it makes them much easier to remove without causing further damage, AND by keeping a layer of material that [has its own antibacterial properties](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23784754) between your innards and whatever you got stabbed with, it dramatically reduces the chances of infection.
So, if you want armor that will completely protect the wearer from getting slashed or stabbed, silk isn't going to do that. You need something very rigid and strong like plate armor for that.
BUT, if you want very lightweight, comfortable armor that doesn't slow you down, and makes it much more likely that you're going to SURVIVE being slashed or stabbed, silk will do that all day long and twice on Thors-day.
EDIT: I feel like I need to address a misconception I'm seeing in a number of responses, and emphasize the counterargument others have raised. If your indestructible silk has the same flexibility as real silk does, and you're wearing it loose, it **will not prevent sharp force trauma**. I have personal experience with this. It was denim in my case, not silk, but a sharp steel edge opened up a gash four inches across in my leg all the way down to the bone without actually cutting through the denim. You'd need to have padding underneath to prevent the silk from just forming an edge around the blade. Otherwise you still get wounded, it's just a very **clean** wound.
EDIT the Second: I didn't REALLY address indestructible silk versus the normal kind very well, so I'll elaborate a bit. Assuming that indestructible silk (like mithril) is rare and expensive, and if you have some you want to use it as effectively as possible, there are a couple ways you'd do it.
If you're a wealthy urban noble and you're worried about assassins and duels, then you can use it all by itself under more normal clothing, with all the pros and cons I noted above. You would ESPECIALLY want to make sure you've got matching GLOVES, because being able to protect your hands and arms from getting sliced during a rapier duel or knife fight is a HUGE advantage. The general wisdom in knife fighting is just accept that your arms and hands are going to get cut all to hell, and to keep your opponent from hitting anything vital until you can beat him, and hope you don't die of blood loss first. Rapiers are sharp, but don't have a lot of mass behind them so against a weapon like that, the silk will often cause what would be a deep stab into a glancing poke.
Now, if we're thinking about battlefield armor where you're expecting to get hit, and hit HARD, all day long, then you'd want the silk to be part of a gambeson or suchlike, with the silk layered over nice thick padding everywhere except the joints. If it were me, I might want a tough layer of leather over the top of that in certain places for things like fire, because silk doesn't really prevent heat transfer all that well.
All that would only slow you down about as much as a really heavy wool coat would (I used to have a Surplus Swedish Army Greatcoat I was very fond of), but would allow you to at least survive just about any human-scale armed strike I can think of, and would shrug off entirely anything that wasn't a direct hit.
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Its going to be extremely practical, with advantages and downsides compared to solid armors. Although it depends on how flexible exactly it is how good/bad it might be, less flexibility can help divide the forces across a larger bodily surface area. There are solutions for this.
Against arrows its going to be useful, it wont be pleasant getting hit but it'll not be lethal until you get hit by dozens to hundreds as you are slowly pummeled to death. Gives you time to get out of the way or have a few words with whoever is doing it, preferably with a sharp object.
Against knives it's useful. The opponent wont be able to cut you directly and it'll basically be a punch. However, if the material is too flexible the edge of the knife will still concentrate this punch force and make for a more dangerous punch. Ultra flexible and the material might just envelop the knife's edge and be almost as sharp as the knife, cutting you anyway indirectly!. Dont make it too flexible!
A spear is similar to a knife but on a stick and easier to put more force behind the jab.
An axe is similar to knife as well, but with more weight and a different trajectory behind it.
If you have access to this the weight and freedom of movement are its key advantages, and being able to wear this on a long march and still have energy to fight is going to be useful. Any flexibility issues can be solved by using leather armors beneath to spread (and cushion) the forces of a blow to your armor. Potentially even something like a thick layer of something light and cushioning, like wool, could work as well.
Edit because of popular comment: this fabrics most important purpose would be as a top layer over padded material. Getting stabbed or similar while only wearing a thin silken indestructible vest is still going to be worse than a normal punch. Similar to plate armors this wont do much against maces, flails and other blunt force objects where only more and more padding will provide protection.
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When we talk about bulletproof vests, we have to keep in mind that, compared to being pierced by a projectile, anything which gives less damage is to be preferred.
Bulletproof vests work by:
* spreading the impact on a larger surface, thus giving, for the same force, a lower pressure
* spreading the momentum over a longer time, which following the relationship $m \times \delta v = F \times \delta t$, results again in a lower force
But still the inflicted damage is non zero. Blunt traumas can be a consequence, broken ribs too.
So, to answer your question, yes, it would be useful to lower the damage consequent to an attack, but it won't completely avoid any damage.
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This actually might work in a very limited way, but it needs rigidity added.
You could have this silk armor as a base layer, then add a chest plate, shoulder pads, helmet, and braces and have competent armor as all your vitals are now protected. All your laceration prone spots are protected by the silk. Add leggings if horse combat is required.
The rest of your body is largely bone and muscle, and can take a blunt force hit fairly easily comparatively speaking. The trade off for speed and flexibility might be worth the extra vulnerability.
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It could work but not by itself.
It needs to be over some kind of ridged structure to keep it stretched tight.
The reason it won't work by itself is that it will deform and allow kinetic energy to be transferred to the body behind it.
Yes, you won't get cut but that doesn't help you if the blow from the axe shoves the silk shirt through your sternum and heart. The only good thing is that you can pull it out of the body, wash it off and then give it to someone else.
Also, silk is flammable. Does being indestructible stop that or does it leave the wearer in a burning shirt that they can't get off?
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If your 'indestructible' silk armour is as thin and flexible as pyjamas then its biggest flaw is as you've already noted: it does little to protect against blunt force trauma. It's still really useful and practical for keeping out the point ends of axes and arrows but it does nothing to stop the wearer from being clubbed to death.
This silk armour would be much more effective when worn over a gambeson or thick furs. They'd provide exactly what your super silk lacks, padding to cushion against blunt force. When paired I think the combination would prove superior to plate mail, as it'd provide as much protection(actually more since plate does little against a mace or warhammer) while being much lighter, inhibiting mobility a lot less and also insulating against cold.
TL;DR: Frodo should've worn a gambeson as well
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The reduction to blunt force damage will be related to the softness and thickness of the material. In the case of thin silk armor, probably not very much. This could be increased by wearing the armor loosely, making for a sort of air-barrier.
However, if the armor was tightly fitted to the person's skin, then the force required to pierce someone by forcing the silk into them will be the same as the force required to compress their entire body; it would be a significant help against arrows and knives.
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# If it is truly indestructible, then YES!
If your silk is really indestructible, then a little bit of molten-metal forging will not bother it at all.
So make fiberglass armor out of it.
Except, don't use glass fibers, use the silk.
And don't use silly resin, use the hardest steel you can lay your hands on.
!!not the toughest, you want **hard**!!
If you have the means to forge diamond, that would be ideal.
The addition of utterly unbreakable strands in the hard material will render it as resistant to damage as mere physical material can get. To penetrate this composite armor, you would need to break each and every bond between the steel and the fibers, just to enable a local breakthrough. But your steel is saturated with millions of unbreakable strands.
**In effect, to penetrate a hard steel bound to unbreakable silk substrate, you would need to powder the steel finer than the gaps between the silk strands!!**
Impact aside, I can see a 1mm layer of this armor stopping a railgun projectile. The anti-Yamato-Battleship type railgun.
Funny things happen to material sciences and physics when one starts throwing around terms such as "infinite" and "completely indestructible"
footnotes:
For the silk to be truly indestructible, it must not stretch. At all.
It must not break, ever.
This means its Young's Modulus needs to be.. infinite.
This also mean that the speed of sound in the strands is.. infinite.
This means that any mechanical stress applied to an object comprised of these strands, is simultaneously and equally applied to every strand, ever position in the object, equally.
It does not matter if the impacting object is a pin of a bowling ball, the impact is distributed to the whole object, equally.
I have absolutely no clue how one would go about even bending a strand of the stuff, much less penetrating armor made out of it. You could cut a black hole in half with this stuff!
I think we should quantify "indestructible" with some numeric, non-infinite number. For the safety of all existence.
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Silk was generally worn the the undergarment for reasons noted above. It's worth noting though that Kevlar an carbon filament armour is usually part of a composite involving resin to provide stiffness.
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It would be perfect for armor, look at the medieval gambeson.
Granted the Gambeson was a reasonably bulky piece of clothing and wearing it was the equivalent of walking around in a heavy winter coat all day, so it might not be entirely what you are looking for in terms of armor, but it is the lightest effective armor known during medieval style period. It was the primary armor used across most cultures of the time as it was cheap and easy to create and repair.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambeson>
It is made of many layers of quilted wool or linen cloth, approximately 18 to 30 layers and was great protection from most common threats a soldier would face on the battlefield.
The thickness of the fabric allowed it to act as padding against many blunt force trauma weapons, while not foolproof it did lessen the impact by a good deal, which is why it was often worn under maille, plate, and brigandine armors to pad against blunt force.
Against slashing blows the gambeson would have the upper layers cut, but unless a mighty blow was struck by a very impractically sharp sword it would not cut all the way through.
Against piercing weaponry such as arrows it isn't perfect defense as they would still penetrate through by pulling the weave apart, but if thick enough, could stop the occaisional arrow or dagger thrust.
Now if your Gambeson was made of indestructible silk the whole ballgame is changed, because now it would be impervious to slashing cuts, there is no way a blade would be able to slice through no matter how sharp.
However that being said, against blunt trauma due to it's layered cushioned structure, it was a good cushion allowing for the wearer to shrug off most things short of a pretty hefty mace. If the fabric had enough layers, I'd wager it could turn a most likely fatal hit from a rifle into a big bruise.
Against piercing weaponry it would improve quite substantially, because anything short of a thin point designed to pierce this armor would be shrugged off like a slashing weapon, However this would lead to the development of needle-like arrows and blades that can poke between the fibers of the fabric, so it wouldn't be foolproof but way better than anything else available short of full plate armor.
So, in short, your silk armor could work very well, but only if properly layered.
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There are few things cooler than a fish that can walk on land, or a rodent that can fly, but despite all the amazing adaptations evolution has seen fit to create upon this Earth, I cannot think of an animal that is equally skilled in two transportation media, let alone all three.
So my question is this: **can you envision a creature that can move equally well through water and air, as well as on land?** Specifically, I'd want it to be able to hunt in all three areas, as probably the main reason for evolving this way would be to find more food sources. So, what would it look like, how would it move, where would it sleep, et cetera.
The best thing I can think of currently is a duck. I'm hoping someone can come up with something more fearsome (corkscrew genitalia aside).
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**Dolphin Bats**
Dolphin Bats are a family in the mammal-analogs of Persius 8. They vaguely resemble Terran bats with some adaptions for water (hence the name), and range from 10 cm to 2 meters in length depending on species. They are omnivorous, preferring small animals and insects but also occasionally eating berries and fruits when hunting is scarce.
Dolphin Bats live in coastal areas. Depending on the time of year, they either hunt in the water, in the air, or on the land. Due to its unique orbit and inclination, Persius 8 has dramatic storms for half the year, during which it is impossible to fly. The other half of the year has a more standard climate structure.
During half of this storm period, Dolphin Bats hunt underwater, feeding on the fertile ocean life. However, halfway through the storm season the Dolphin Bat's natural predator - the Carnival Shark - starts to reach adolescence (see Bryer's Appendix B for details). At this point they are forced out of the water, and hunt on land for the remainder of the storm season. At that point they return to the air, feasting on the large amount of insects that appear during this time period.
Dolphin Bats have several unique adaptations to each environment. They put on significant weight during the storm season to allow for better water adaptability, building significant additional muscle mass on their legs (which they use alternatively for swimming, and then later for running). The Dolphin Bat's primary weapon is a sharp beak, which works equally well in each environment. At the end of the storm season the Dolphin Bats lose muscle mass in their legs and bulk up their wing muscles to start the cycle anew. Dolphin Bat "fur" also seems to change, becoming more oily during the storm season for water slicking.
Due to this cyclic nature, which is driven by climate and predators, Dolphin Bats are never fully adapted to all three environments at one time - at each point in the year they will be optimized to only one, although they are still somewhat capable in the others.
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**Kingfishers**:
Creatures that move *hunt* equally well throughout air, land or sea. All your terrains are belong to us.
 
Wiki excerpt:
[Kingfishers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingfisher) feed on a wide variety of items. They are most famous for hunting and eating fish, and some species do specialize in catching fish, but other species take **crustaceans, frogs and other amphibians, annelid worms, molluscs, insects, spiders, centipedes, reptiles (including snakes) and even birds and mammals**. Individual species may specialize in a few items or take a wide variety of prey, and for species with large global distributions different populations may have different diets.
Woodland and forest kingfishers take mainly insects, particularly grasshoppers, whereas the water kingfishers are more specialized in taking fish. The red-backed kingfisher has been observed hammering into the mud nests of fairy martins to feed on their nestlings.
Kingfishers usually hunt from an exposed perch, when a prey item is observed the kingfisher swoops down to snatch it, then returns to the perch. Kingfishers of all three families beat larger prey on a perch in order to kill the prey and to dislodge or break protective spines and bones. Having beaten the prey it is manipulated and then swallowed. The shovel-billed kookaburra uses its massive wide bill as a shovel in order to dig for worms in soft mud.
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Just to totally change angle of thought, I'm trying to go small scale. Everyone's going "big" thinking "bigger is better", however, some of the most aggressive and versatile creatures out there are smaller insects.
Especially the flyers .. they don't fly like birds .. they almost defy physics with the way they fly around ... so what if we went smaller, and started with an insect, or even spider-like thing.
Hmm, a flying spider that swims? O.o I'm going to have nightmares tonight for sure .. *sigh*
Praying mantis are pretty agressive, and can fly. Basically they currently - as is - are Land = Air. Moving an insect into water, shouldn't be too tough?
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I was thinking water would be the hard part here, though .. however, I just remembered, there's a diving beetle that seems to handle land/water just fine :)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_diving_beetle>
They also fly naturally ;) .. so there you go ... got "Diving Beetle" in addition to "Duck" ;)
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Need it be based on a terrestrial vertebrate? If the creature is essentially hydraulic, it could use the same heavy contractile tissue to divert power to legs, wings or body as required. power transmission and bracing within the wings could be along tendons for lightness. the creature could pounce on land or become airborne from a standing jump from land or water by releasing compressed energy in gas bladders in the legs - along the lines of the compressed-rubber-ball mechanism used by fleas. Hard-tissue trigger-catches could provide the quick release for the leg springs, and similar catches could keep the wing tendons under tension for a gliding take off without the need to power the wings until the creature is aloft. The bladders could be a development of the hydraulic system and might even be liquid filled at other times to act as quasi-muscles at other times. Hydrogen, ammonia and steam are all lifting gasses under terrestrial conditions, and all three could be biologically generated. Unlike hydrogen(?), Ammonia and steam could be quickly reabsorbed, so the bladder could act as a swim-bladder or even aerial balloon if you like. Being hydraulic, the creature could use peristalsis to swim. If it uses external water as the transmission fluid, this system could double as a gill. The bladder mechanism might develop as a lung.
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Something bird-derived seems to be the best bet. You can get birds that are good runners (like ostriches or [phorusrhacidae](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae)), good swimmers (penguins) and good fliers (birds of prey).
## Issues
Why not all three? I'd guess the problem would be with buoyancy; flying birds need to be very light in order to be able to fly for significant periods of time. If they get heavy, like chickens do, then they can only manage short-range gliding. Likewise, ostriches have powerful legs that are rather heavy, so there would be some trouble hybridizing a runner with a flier.
You could solve the first problem by giving a flying bird some ballast bladders; simply put, when it wants to dive, it will fill these with water in order to make itself neutrally or negatively buoyant (and maybe also swallow some pebbles or something). Wings can double as fins (as with penguins) and they can keep the feathers from getting wet by insulating them with a layer of oil like ducks do.
Letting it both run and fly will be more difficult; like I said, powerful legs will weight the bird down, and there's not much incentive to run if you can fly, anyways. Some birds that also fly get around by walking (like flamingoes), but those are pretty fragile and probably wouldn't do very well in a fight.
## Result
So what could a universal bird look like? I'd imagine something eagle-sized, with notably longer legs, to make it a good runner (so, a predatory flying turkey, basically). It'd have a sharp, raptor beak that would be its primary weapon, and sharp talons which it would use to either grab prey from above or hang onto it while pecking it to death. In water, it would fill its ballast bladders and hunt by snatching fish or other prey with its beak. Its neck would also be longer than an eagle's, somewhere halfway to a heron, since that seems to be advantageous to birds that hund on the ground.
## Open Questions
Here's a couple of outstanding issues I wasn't able to figure out:
* Webbed feet or talons? Webbed feet seem better for locomotion underwater, but might get in the way on the ground and talons are better for grabbing
* Is this actually feasible with real-world bird muscle and such? Someone would have to run the numbers.
* Can you actually have wings good both for flying and swimming? It's a headscratcher, but since birds have *extremely* variable wing geometry, I'm inclined to think it could be arranged.
* Is it actually advantageous to be able to navigate all three of these environments? Essentially, you're trading specialization and peak characteristics for versatility, which gets tricky if you need to compete with specialists in each environment.
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Is it strictly necessary for the creature in question to be able to hunt in all three environments *simultaneously*? If not, there's a rather simple solution: metamorphosis.
A butterfly navigates air well, but it starts off life as a caterpillar that can't fly at all. A frog begins life as a tadpole that can only live in the water, but eventually morphs into a form that handles both water and land. Based on similar examples in our world, you could construct a creature that goes through different physical forms during different phases of life.
These creatures might start off life as aquatic creatures with the ability to hunt things on or near the water's surface (think of a [lungfish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungfish) that could briefly glide like a [flying fish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_fish) or walk on water like a [basilisk lizard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basiliscus_%28genus%29)). Later in life, they could go through a metamorphosis where their gills disappear and their lungs take over, their leg muscles develop significantly, and their fish-like fins morph into bat-like wings. The result could be something similar to a [flying dragon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_%28genus%29), but with wings that are more developed.
The advantage to this approach is that you avoid some of the problems that others have mentioned regarding triple-threat creatures, such as creatures light enough to fly being too buoyant to hunt well underwater. You also end up with something that's not unbelievably different than existing creatures. Animals that hunt in two of the three media are not uncommon, and the changes during metamorphosis would be less drastic than what we see with some Earth creatures (e.g. butterflies).
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The type of creature that flies well is radically different from one that swims well or can burrow into the ground. From an evolutionary standpoint, there is rarely anything to be gained by changing a design of a creature that survives well in one type of environment. In order for a predator to exist that navigates all three media equally well, there would have to be a good reason.
You mentioned the lack of food, however the lack of food means there are few animals in any one environment to sustain a predator. You don't typically see creatures evolve to surpass problems like this because the changes are too radical. It is a bit like asking why gazelles in Africa didn't evolve wheels or wings to escape the cheetahs. Such changes don't happen overnight, and they certainly don't get it right on the first try. Progress in evolution tends to be favorable to conditions that encourage a particular trait. Any mutation in a gazelle that doesn't immediately improve speed is going to get eaten by the cheetah before it has a chance to pass on its genes to its offspring, all the moreso if a gazelle, in the process of evolving "wheels" becomes triple jointed.
Generally creatures that can fly have very few natural predators, since they are the most ellusive of all creatures to catch. Even then, most of these predators are creatures that attack nests, and not while flying because it is very difficult to catch your prey that way. The only way something like this would be possible is if there were predators that easily caught prey in the air. Just like you see flying fish leaping out of the air to temporaneously escape a predator in the water, you might begin to see birds that can dive into the water to escape a flying predator. Once you have creatures that can do this, you might then see an evolution of the predators themselves that could dive with the birds in order to catch them.
However, it wouldn't make sense to have a predator exist without sufficient prey, and this type of prey would only exist with this type of predator (oddly enough, in the food chain, one wouldn't exist without the other). And if this predator does so *despite* having many food sources, you can see that such a creature couldn't exist.
Evolution encourages traits which cause that creature to perform better without losing any edge, and this type of predator would require too much of a change that it would deteriorate too much its ability to catch prey in other environments to merit the change in the first place.
However, you tend to see many strange creatures in environments where there are many creatures, not few. Perhaps such a predator could exist, but not because there is lack of food but because it itself is prey and must escape predators better specialized in hunting only in the air, or only in water.
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What about snakes? They move well on land, can swim, and there are even some that can glide...
<http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/flying-snake/>
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I'm going to have to venture a 'no' answer here.
Out of the current species on Earth, a diving fishing bird might best suit your description, but each species tend to specialize...whats advantageous in one environment isn't in another.
And that's the basis of my 'no' answer...a generalized creature that's semi good in every environment will be out competed in all environments by specialized creatures.
Air : Most adaptions to hunt on land and underwater come at the detriment to flight abilities. Legs capable of walking/hunting are nothing but hindrances while flying and this puts them at a large disadvantage when competing with birds of prey that are highly specialized to exist in the air.
Water: Sorta the reverse of above...movement through water is significantly different than movement through the air and trends towards strength over agility. Gills are a distinct advantage here, but kinda useless in the air (in fact, exposed gills/breathing system is a distinct disadvantage for a land based creature that needs to be able to take a hit). A Shark is the ultimate water hunting machine and will out perform / out hunt any creature that is also capable of flying. Seals and whales would (and do) consider almost any flying creature in the water a very easy meal opportunity.
I could do the same for a land based creature as well...powerful jaws and claws are a good method of hunting...neither of which lend itself well to flying. The light bone structure of a creature that can fly would easily make it susceptible to damage from predators (or even prey for that matter). A creature that has gills as well as lungs find themselves with exposed openings in a land fight (gills damage easily)...they might as well be walking around with big targets on them.
Evolution tends to prefer specialization and not generalization...simply because a specialized creature will always out compete a generalized creature in its specialized environment and you are left with a creature that is capable in all environments but unable to compete in any of them...which is a pretty good way of ensuring a species extinction. I'm pretty sure this is why you don't see creatures like this on Earth and find it's highly unlikely that you'll find them in other environments
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A flying penguin?
A swimming dragon?
A winged snake?
A swimming flying squirrel?
A flying humanoid?
A spiked floating hot-air puffer-fish/balloon/tumbleweed?
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I'm actually trying to work on a similar concept, apart from two things: the creature is capable of a certain amount of metamorphosis (wings and aquatic adaptations are formed and destroyed as needed, like a tadpole tail) and it does not require nutrition or oxygen from outer sources, meaning it isn't constrained by issues like the amount of energy spent keeping all these parts. However, if we're going for a more traditional predator approach, if suggest either a flying creature like those found in tropical forests, which is also adapted to swimming. Sure, animals like secretary bird and the roadrunner can both run and fly, but their flight isn't as great as an owl's for example. On the other hand, a flying creature that is maneuverable like those found in tropical forests (harpy eagles, as an example) could also fly close to the ground, having the advantage of observing the land from high up, avoiding detection.
With land and air mostly covered, there's water. Both flying and swimming are actually very similar activities (transversing a fluid
), with the main difference being the density of the fluid. In this case, a bird or pterosaur which had fin- like tail or other swimming structures, like a water jet, could benefit from their naturally aerodynamic form, needing mostly a way to become heavier, which could be circumvented by having special structures that could hold the liquid they're swimming through or even denser things, such as rocks, being later expelled and making them light again. Hope it helped.
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[
I've read the other answers relating to this area (and discovered to my disappointment that my great ideas have been done before... hey ho). But I'd like to get the science right.
I have a nation of humans on a planet which they have arrived at through colonisation and a little light terraforming, but which basically is habitable for them. I want usable metal to be rare, so that the metals they have brought with them are basically all they have.
I understand that stars with planets generally need to have higher metallicity, but I'm talking about usable metal deposits. The humans have lost most of the technology which brought them there and are at a broadly mediaeval-ish level of development (hindered by lack of metals but boosted by having been taught skills they might not have discovered by themselves.)
Could an earth-like planet form without accessible traces of iron, gold, tin, copper, lead etc? Might some of these be more frequent than others?
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>
> Could an earth-like planet form without accessible traces of iron
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Without iron, you'd need a completely different biochemistry, and would in practice condemn the newcomers to a slow death. Iron is essential for hemoglobin synthesis and humans need to acquire it from food: from vegetables (most green leaves) or already concentrated in muscle tissue (by animals that still need to graze on iron-yielding vegetables). Similar considerations hold for copper, zinc, manganese, selenium and other trace metals.
Now the problem is that when you **do** have enough iron in the biosphere, iron oxyhydroxides begin to precipitate - all it takes is the appropriate environment (not at all uncommon) and voila, you get [bog iron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_iron) and can begin smelting. You would need some mechanism to prevent this; possibly some bacteria that sequester iron in metallorganic compounds that can not be refined without a lot of metal-based technology. Then most iron would find its way there, and you would need to harvest the bacteria to survive; at the same time, you could do with way less iron in the environment, and for both reasons there would not be iron(III) available to precipitate freely - and what little did, would be again eaten back by the bacteria.
Nutrients trade would be quite the enterprise on your planet - without careful husbandry of bacterial beds, people would suffer from all sorts of malnutrition syndromes.
(Now that I come to think of it, the bacteria might have been gengineered by the original colonists just to allow the planet to be settled, by concentrating/processing the required nutrients).
# Let's do this
We start with a mostly silicate-carbon, metal-poor planet orbiting around a Population II (or the hypothetical Population III) star. It is uninhabitable due to unavailability of all except the lightest metals, but it sits smack in the middle of the Goldilocks zone of a suitable star, so terraforming is economically sound.
**This is designed to become an agricultural/pastoral world**. It exports, if anything, elaborated [CHON](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHON). Technology will be well-nigh impossible (and this might actually be a desirable trait: whoever said, e.g., that the colonists were volunteers?)
What little dense elements the planet had (iron and nickel, essentially, together with any heavy metals from the Population III dust) has sunk towards the core, and is not practically reachable, but there's a nice asteroid belt not too far out. Ice comets are launched at the planet, while asteroids - they, too, metal-poor - are ground down to pebbles and dust, and the latter electromagnetically separated - in space, you can build the equivalent of an enormous [mass spectrometer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_spectrometry); particles with relatively high content of desirable elements are condensed again (sinterized?) and launched towards the planet. This goes on for a *long* time (self-replicating Von Neumann robots might come handy - of course they'd have to balance the need for metals and heavy elements to build *themselves*).
All the projectiles burn in the atmosphere, and water vapour and metallic ashes start floating down (metallogenic hits would be targeted towards the center of the continents to avoid losing metals to the seas). After many years, the surface is covered with a thin layer of metallic oxides, that rains force to seep downwards.
At that point the planet is "seeded" with algae, cyanobacteria and very basic (and sturdy) life-forms, that begin the transformation of the soil and the oxygenation of the atmosphere.
Other years pass by, and plants are seeded on the planet. These are much more aggressive and efficient in recycling the topsoil.
Water and mineral meteors will still be sent into the atmosphere: carbon dioxide, water and ammonia from the Oort cloud equivalent of this world will supply all the CHON we might ever want.
We start needing to sequestrate hydrogen; one (risky in the long-term) possibility is to stabilize it to methane (carbon is abundant thanks to carbonaceous chondrite meteors) and store in in undersea [methane clathrate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate) beds. Natural oil is another possibility, using biological Fischer-Tropsch processes to form oil reservoirs.
Several organisms are seeded, tailored to ensure a uniform spread in topsoil elements. Similar to worms, they would break down possibly dangerous concentrations of elements while aerating the soil (and there goes our bog iron).
Finally, there is oxygen enough to sustain Earth fauna, which is seeded from frozen ova by artificial robot wombs.
The whole "planet factory" could have been sent on a straight, high-acceleration trajectory towards the target planet, while a colonization ship follows. Such a scheme is presented in Robert J. Sawyer's *Golden Fleece*: the colonization ship spends the first four years, subjective time, going round and round the Solar System, accelerating to the speed of light. Then it sets off for a forty light-years travel to Colchis. There it will decelerate for another four years subjective time. The fifty years of the interstellar leg of the journey only take a few subjective days due to relativistic time-dilation, and the travelers will have experienced only a eight-year voyage, which is doable without suspended animation or complex generation ships.
>
> Except that the whole scheme is a hoax. Colchis, at the beginning, is a uninhabitable planet whose probe images have been faked. The ship computer alters the flight plan so that the ship spends some additional subjective weeks, *corresponding to thirty thousand years*, whizzing around the Solar System at a much higher speed than officially planned. In this time, AI probes will land on Colchis and terraform it to match the fake images.
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There are four mechanisms I can think of that you can go to for this; Impoverished Crust, Quiet Land Hungry Sea, Mineralisation Skew, Excessive Traces, so here's the short notes for each mechanism:
1. Impoverished Crust, the world as a whole is extremely rich in metals but they're all deep in the [Core](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_core), the Mantle and Crust are almost purely composed of light metal Silicates, you get a geologically active world, possibly more so than Earth even. There's enough traces of heavy elements, including metals to support a, slightly spare, biosphere but [Metallurgy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extractive_metallurgy) is out.
2. Quiet Land Hungry Sea, on Earth with the exception of [Limonite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limonite) and similar Hydroxide Ores, most ore bodies form in the Oceans due to either Oxidation of chemically dissolved elements in seawater or anaerobic processes that form Sulfurous compounds in the seafloor oozes. The metals in these ores have come from the land, they're eroded from primary igneous minerals and washed out to sea chemically dissolved in river water. These ores are then [Uplifted](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orogeny) by geological processes to the point where they're accessible. On a world without major tectonic activity, like Larry Niven's [Destiny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destiny%27s_Road), elements are still washed into the sea and mineralise, but there are few places where the tectonic mechanisms to return those elements to land are active.
3. Mineralisation Skew, without exception, that I can think of, commercial [Ores](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ore) on Earth are limited to the following forms, Oxides, Sulfur compounds, Hydroxides, or Carbonates, these all have one thing in common; they're relatively easy to [decompose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_decomposition) through heat and/or [reduce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smelting#Reduction) with Carbon leaving elemental metal behind. In a world where Silicates dominate metallic geochemistry thermal smelting does not work because Silicate minerals are basically fireproof. This will also complicate biological uptake of certain elements as primary minerals in the [Regolith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regolith) will be much harder to break down.
4. Excessive Traces, ultimately what elements, including metals, are accessible in a particular planet's crust isn't really about what's there but what form it is in and what extraction techniques you are able to employ. Iron forms several "pure" compounds that can be used as ores, [Pyrite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrite), [Hematite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hematite), and [Magnetite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetite), but it also forms a host of "impure" ones including, [Ilmenite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilmenite) a Titanium-Iron oxide and [Chalcopyrite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcopyrite) and [Bornite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bornite) which are actually used commercially as Copper ores. Ilmenite has a far higher smelting temperature and requires specialised equipment to extract the Iron because of the Titanium "contamination", similarly Chalcopyrite and Bornite make poor ores of either Iron *or* Copper in basic thermal smelters due to contamination with the other metal, trace Iron in Copper, or Copper in Iron, has the effect of making the desired metal brittle and unworkable. In this way relatively high levels of rare elements like Titanium and Tungsten would "pollute" ores of metals that can be extracted using simple, "low-tech" methods.
Please Note in all cases Aluminium will be present in vast quantities but not accessible with Medieval technologies. Gold may also be available in quantity under any of the proposed scenarios as it doesn't participate in rockforming mineralisation so it is relatively mobile and it sticks together when atoms come into contact with each other, in short Gold concentrates wherever it occurs.
If you want/need elaborations let me know.
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> Could an earth-like planet form without accessible traces of iron, gold, tin, copper, lead etc?
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Possibly. However, it would be hard to provide an environment suited for living organisms, as many biochemical processes require the presence of trace minerals, e.g. iron is needed for hemoglobin. If you wanted to make that environment habitable, you'd need to introduce a way of replenishing access to said trace minerals.
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> Could an earth-like planet form without human access to "industrially" usable amounts of iron, gold, tin, copper, lead etc?
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Sure. Multiple possibilities:
* Even out the concentration of metal (ions) over the whole surface. Organisms only need trace amounts, so they should be fine for the most part. Could be formed by having an large ocean evaporate over billions of years.
* Have few ore deposits only available in hostile environments unsuitable for prolonged human activity, e.g. near active volcanoes, under deserts or in rocky mountain ranges. Maybe those ore deposit locations are known, but to use them more advanced technologies would be required (including a way to feed all miners etc.). These deposits could additionally be spread out, so if you'd need multiple different metals, you'd have to support multiple mining outposts a large distance apart.
* Just have a very small amount of land mass above the ocean level. Mining operations get a lot harder if you have to worry about dozens of meters of water above your miners heads.
* If you can't limit access to metals themselves, limit access to fuels: To smelt metals from ores, you need vast amounts of heat - which in turn requires access to fuels. The easiest accessible fuels available on earth are wood and coal - but those might not be present on the target planet (maybe someone forgot to include trees in the terraforming process? And coal needs a lot of time and organic matter to form, so there might not be any if living organisms were only recently introduced to the planet).
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You could model your planet on the "dwarf planet": [Ceres](https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/ceres/indepth).
>
> Ceres is more similar to the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus,
> Earth and Mars) than its asteroid neighbors, but it is much less
> dense. One of the similarities is a layered interior, but Ceres'
> layers aren't as clearly defined. Ceres probably has a solid core and
> a mantle made of water ice. In fact, Ceres could be composed of as
> much as 25 percent water. If that is correct, Ceres has more water
> than Earth does. Ceres' crust is rocky and dusty with large salt
> deposits. The salts on Ceres aren't like table salt (sodium chloride),
> but instead are made of different minerals like magnesium sulfate.
>
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Ceres low density is because if it has a metallic core (like Mars or Earth) it is much smaller than those of the big league planets. Ceres might be rock (siliceous materials like the earth crust) at the core. As noted in the excerpt there is proportionately more water and mineral salts than on earth. I see in some articles mention of graphite on the surface as well.
You could scale up a Ceres-like body (perhaps formed of an agglomeration of Cereses?) to make a world of the size and gravity you wish for your story. An agglomeration of compositor asteroids would also lead to the possibility of one part of your planet having a very different composition than the rest.
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Sure, there are no guarantees in crust composition of planets.
However, one way to certainly reduce composition is to just say it was mined out by another race millennia's ago depriving it of various useful minerals.
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It turns out that the Earth is actually low in gold and silver, compared to the rest of the solar system. The type of magnesium found on Earth is also different (tends to be heavier) than magnesium found in the rest of the solar system.
So we know that a planet can form with less of some metals than it should have and that the resulting planet can be habitable by us (in some circumstances).
The question is then how does that happen... The short answer is, scientists think the gold, silver, and lighter magnesium evaporated[1](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23645.epdf?referrer_access_token=dVEHo1IlQN3DN7SNPZF9cNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Ny_Q2rm7r38PyYpmIKQBEexEf53ZeDqlzO96W98ForzO-Yhv2_6BcnMuvHwpnrMosWevRV_OsXbnItGeyP2KRG0ZeMhtAOCgMhQjM72TAieygbXXV8vTgF9NabnNmywcrw-npf2woYqRussgfMpTP39xLnk30EJcPQxNbWKQl5OrjignywkEbppLtKzziPeMJ2M3P9AVcsZAGiupfGDuXBwlV4bAY35yIeyzQGFhDXKKtV4YM9UMMbrh63cha2Pm8TJ8xpZXBUNG12x9-uWJ1gNpuWDNoiowgBDYBvRepW6g%3D%3D&tracking_referrer=www.washingtonpost.com),[2](https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v549/n7673/full/nature23899.html).
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An octopus is one of the most intelligent non-human species on Earth, can manipulate objects, and has lots of other interesting adaptations (e.g. the ability to change color). But, an average octopus has a life expectancy of [less than five years](http://animals.mom.me/life-span-octopus-7703.html).
What evolutionary adaptations could cause the average octopus to have a longer lifespan of 40 years or more on average?
[Answer]
## Actively raise young
Octopuses, or at least the bigger examples of octopuses like the giant pacific octopus, are fairly big, and really smart. Those are usually the hallmarks of an animal with a fairly long life, but octopuses live fast and die young for one major reason: they devote their lives (or rather, the end of their lives,) to protecting a huge number of eggs, which then hatch and drift up to the surface, where they effectively live as plankton. Since parenting stops when the eggs hatch, it makes sense, from a reproductive fitness standpoint, for octomoms to work themselves literally to death protecting their eggs and ensuring that a high percentage of them hatch.
If young octopuses, rather than drifting free, were intensively cared for by their parents, who actively protected them and hunted to provide them with food, there would be strong evolutionary pressure for parents to remain fit and healthy, at least until their young were relatively mature.
Parental protection and feeding would also provide a strong motivator for females not to [kill and eat their mates](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/octopus-chronicles/female-octopus-strangles-mate-then-eats-him/). While, for a single female, guarding her eggs until they hatch without eating means that a single large meal is more important than a second parent, if octopuses needed to actively hunt to ensure the survival of their young, there would be a strong pressure for cooperative parenting to evolve. For males, at least, this would lead to significantly longer life spans.
## Live in groups
Another behavioral change that could lead to longer life spans would be group living, particularly if the octopuses were able to cooperatively defend each other and their young. Octopuses living in such and environment would stand to benefit from the presence of larger octopuses to protect them from attacks, and if some sort of long-distance signalling were evolved, would also have a greater ability to spot and avoid predators.
Octopuses are also capable of learning from one another. In group-dwelling octopuses, it might make more sense for individuals to have long life spans, in order for young to more effectively learn how to survive in their environments.
[Answer]
# Be bigger
Larger animals tend to live longer. Obviously, it takes longer to mature to a larger size, so as the animal gets larger, it will take longer to reach its sexually mature size. The creature will then undergo whatever adaptations it needs to so that it lives longer.
# Be smarter
The smarter a creature is, the more it can learn in its lifetime. If a creature then applies this intelligence to increase it's survival chances, the creature's evolution will point it in the direction of longer life, because more accumulated knowledge will be more useful. A more intelligent creature will evolve to live longer.
# Don't die after laying eggs
The Pacific Giant Octopus females stop eating to monitor their eggs after they are laid. Then they die. This is obviously not conducive to a long life. In order to have long lives, female octopuses should evolve to be able to breed and lay eggs more than once. Perhaps they can form pairs and have the male octopus help watch the eggs.
[Answer]
**You need to entirely rework their circulatory and respiratory systems, take it easy, and watch the salt.**
Even though it's already at around 40-50 beats per minute (humans average 60), make their hearts beat even slower. That's going to be tricky though, because octopi have some pretty funny stuff going on with their circulatory system.
Common octopi have three hearts, one on each gill and one main one. For [reason?] the main heart stops when they swim around. Because of this, they have to store some backup oxygen in large blood sinuses behind their eyes and in their gut, for in cases of "physiological stress".
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> The [octopus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_octopus)’ **heart rate does not change significantly** with exercise, though temporary cardiac arrest of the systemic heart can be induced by oxygen debt, almost any sudden stimulus, or mantle pressure during jet propulsion. Its only compensation for exertion is through an increase in stroke volume of up to three times by the systemic heart, which means it suffers an oxygen debt with almost any rapid movement. The octopus is, however, able to control how much oxygen it pulls out of the water with each breath using receptors on its gills, allowing it to keep its oxygen uptake constant over a range of oxygen pressures in the surrounding water. –Wiki
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**Don't make it have to swim around too much.**
That might sound like a no-brainer, but it is especially important to octopi because of their means of locomotion via the location of their gills, and the oxygen requirements of a high functioning brain. Although they have an exceptional ability to extract oxygen from water through their gills and their skin, the efficiency of their circulatory system (and in turn, their respiratory system and cognitive ability) is inhibited when they swim.
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> the octopus uses a jet mechanism that involves creating a much higher pressure in their mantle cavity that allows them to propel themselves through the water. As the common octopus’ heart and gills are located within their mantle, this high pressure also constricts and puts constraints on the various vessels that are returning blood to the heart. Ultimately, this creates circulation issues and **is not a sustainable form of transportation**, as the octopus cannot attain an oxygen intake that can balance the metabolic demands of maximum exertion.
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> Shadwick and Nilsson concluded that **the octopus circulatory system is “fundamentally unsuitable for high physiologic performance.”**
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**Make it as big as possible.**
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> As animals get bigger, from tiny shrew to huge blue whale, **pulse rates slow down and life spans stretch out longer**, conspiring so that the number of heartbeats during an average stay on Earth tends to be roughly the same, around a billion. –[kottke.org](http://kottke.org/13/02/does-every-species-get-a-billion-heartbeats-per-lifetime)
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*Can you think of an appropriate environment that would be safer?*
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> They are exposed to a wide variety of temperatures in their environments, however their preferred temperature ranges from about 15 °C to 16 °C. They have an acceptable ambient temperature range of 13-28 °C, with their **optimum for maximum metabolic efficiency being about 20 °C**.
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The receptors on its gills allows it to keep its oxygen uptake constant in a wide range of oxygen levels in the surrounding water, so that you can play with, however
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> It has been shown that octopuses have an **average minimum salinity requirement of 27g/L**, and that any disturbance introducing significant amounts of fresh water into their environment can prove fatal.
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This likely complicated by the fact that
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> they are conformers. This means that **they adapt to match the osmotic pressure of their environment**, and because there is no osmotic gradient, there is no net movement of water from the organism to the seawater, or from the seawater into the organism.
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[Answer]
An octopus is an intelligent creature, stuck with a "reproduce once, lay thousands of eggs, and then die" life cycle. To benefit from a longer life and evolve to have one, a lot would have to change. Of course what you'd choose to include in a story is up to you.
Let's start simple. For a male octopus to live longer, he may just need a mutation that deactivates (or fails to activate) the "death genes" after mating. Then he may be able to live as long as he can avoid being lunch or any kind of injury. So if you just want one octopus swimming around, contemplating the cruelty and wonder of life for years, you're done. But for the mutation to spread, of course it would need to give his offspring some advantage.
A female octopus lives for a time after laying her eggs, to protect them and fan water over them so they have enough oxygen. She does this to the exclusion of feeding herself (perhaps she has death genes, as well, so feeding is irrelevant). To live longer, as it is now, she'd have to abandon her eggs (or at least care for them less). Of course that's not an advantage, and may stop her genes from getting into the next generation entirely.
If they became cyclic maters, and cared for the eggs together, that would bring more of their genes into future generations. But there's a reason they don't live that way now. Too many would strain the food supply. And an octopus lives a solitary life, avoiding predictors through cunning and stealth—too many in an environment would make predictors more familiar with their tricks.
So unless they somehow happened to find an environment that had no predators and lots of food, they'd need to deal with both food and safety in very different ways. Perhaps it's my species bias, but I tend to think of ways to do this that would mimic human advancements.
Manipulate the coral to grow into protective structures. Promote growth of other species, like farming. Form a symbiotic relationship with another species, like we did with wolves, to help protect the underwater structure and farm from predictors. I don't know what an octopus could bring to such a relationship, but they are much better at escaping than fighting, so they'd need muscle. Obviously they'd need to be social to do all this, and learn to communicate.
Octopus can manipulate the environment. They are strong, and smart. But I doubt they could evolve this way. For one thing, they don't have stamina, and building and maintaining such a system would take a lot of work. They have copper-based blood (like a Vulcan); it evolved to deal with the pressure at depth. Compared to our blood, it is less efficient at carrying oxygen, and it is thicker and harder to push around their circulatory system. So they tend to expend energy in short bursts, and then they are exhausted.
So I'm not really sure what natural conditions would allow them to benefit from a long life. Perhaps if a new sea opened up, an octopus with multiple mating cycles would help fill up their niche faster, but the situation would eventually stabilize and be similar to existing seas.
I keep thinking it would have to involve another species, to evolve naturally. Perhaps if they developed a very close symbiotic relationship, they hitch a ride and get protection in exchange for pulling off lampreys and companionship...? Intelligent creatures on land seem to have some recognition of other intelligent creatures, and sometimes reach out to them. But intelligent land animals are already social, so an octopus may not think this way.
I hope that gives you some ideas to work with.
[Answer]
# Live in a pacific enviroment
There are two ways to envolve based on the dangerous-level of the enviroment:
* **Dangerous:** in a dangerous enviroment you can't live much years because each second you live there is a small chance of die by a depredator (or disease, hunger, thirst, heat, radiation, etc, all bad things), so it's necesary for you be prepared to live much years, you will die before that! It's less energy and resources costly kill you and have childs that recuperate your body.
* **Not dangerous:** in a "heaven" enviroment you can live a lot of years because no one or nothing will try to kill you. Here it's more easy to stay alive that having childrens and them grow up.
To live more, having ofsping need to be an more expensive than staying you alive.
**PD:** Also I am agree with the kingledion [answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/84919/35041).
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[Question]
[
This is a drawing by my daughter which inspired one of the elements in my story/world:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/K5d9U.jpg)
The perspective is a little bit mixed here (certainly I don't have a 15 meter-high volcano in this world), but for the sake of this question let's assume that such planet is between 1 and 2 kilometres in diameter or 500-1000 meters in radius. Planets like this are sold by various agencies in the world of my story.
Given the fact that the whole story is set in exactly the same universe, as ours (only a little bit into the future), with exactly the same physics and other laws, the question is, if such planet:
* could exists naturally (what are the limits here) or
* these companies are selling artificial creations.
What is the smallest possible planet that can exists naturally in our universe? Must I assume that such small planets cannot exist naturally?
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**Edit**: *Here are some answers to the questions given in comments. In short, think about compressing Earth to as smallest size as our current physics allows*.
1. The planet must be habitable, with gravity as close to Earth's one as possible.
2. Any round rock orbiting the sun or other stellar body does the trick. Meeting IAU's or other definitions is not needed.
3. Buildings required. Other stuff as well. Full recreation of Earth's look & feel very welcome. This should be private planet as we now understand a private island.
4. Escape velocity and other physical, chemical or geological parameters as close to the Earth as possible. So, again, a rock in space, not a small gas body.
5. Again, circling the Sun or other stellar body. No comets lost in space, please. Light and day-night conditions and yearly seasons as close to Earth as possible, please.
6. No rain, snow or clouds needed, though nice to have. Breathable atmosphere is a must.
7. This should be a habitable planet, but for a single person or a small group of people. As you can see in the image, we don't need more than 3-5 story buildings. So the fact that breathable atmosphere would be as thick as 500-1000 m above the ground isn't necessary a problem.
8. Extremely dense core sounds like a good idea, but that might ruin the "as close to Earth physics as possible", if I am not mistaken. And it would also most likely fail under "habitable", as we would need some underground water sources etc.
9. A black hole in a center of a planet certainly sounds good as long as above conditions are met.
10. Asteroid might work as well as long as above conditions are met.
The planet must be habitable and easily accessible. So, if by any mean, planet's atmosphere would be filled with some orbiting rocks or other space trash, disallowing any easy navigation and landings, then this is out of question.
The company wants to sell a fully-featured product, where you can spend the rest of your life. Not just a rock in space, that you can show off on your pictures, but that you cannot land on and live on.
[Answer]
Assuming by "planet" you mean a roughly spherical body - encompassing both [dwarf planets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet) and "true" planets - then the smallest naturally occurring body is somewhere between [1 Ceres](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)) (dwarf planet) and [4 Vesta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Vesta) (not a dwarf planet because it's insufficiently round). Ceres is about 900-950 km across; Vesta more like 450-600 km. An object of only a few kilometers' diameter would be much too small to round itself under its own gravity.
There are certainly rocky bodies of that size in the solar system, and with care and attention you could shape them into spheres, but it would be very rare for them to be found that way in nature.
[Answer]
I'll start looking at this from a slightly different perspective than Cadence's: surface gravity. Let's say that we want the Little Prince's planet to have Earth-like surface gravity. This means that its mass and radius obey
$$\frac{GM}{R^2}=g=9.8\;\text{m/s}^{2}$$
If we want $R=1000\;\text{m}$, we see that the planet needs to have a mass of about $M=10^{17}\;\text{kg}$, giving it a density of $\rho\approx35000\;\text{g/cm}^{3}$. For comparison, the density of Earth is approximately $5.5\;\text{g/cm}^{3}$; an iron planet would have a density of $\sim10\;\text{g/cm}^{3}$. The Little Prince's planet will be comparable in density to a white dwarf!
Let's go back to thinking about size. How low can we truly go and have our planet still be round? This is an ongoing topic of research; 400 km in diameter is a number that gets tossed around a lot - which, interestingly enough, is almost exactly the size of [the moon Mimas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimas_(moon)). But this number really depends on the composition of the body, and I've heard even lower limits proposed: [$\sim$200 km in diameter](https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1004/1004.1091.pdf) is the lowest I'm aware of. At Earth-like densities (likely an overestimate), this gives us a surface gravity of $0.15\;\text{m/s}^{2}$ - much lower than we're used to on Earth!
[Answer]
# There are a few issues with having "planets" this small
### 1. When your planet has a radius of 1000 m, the height of an adult human, is a noticeable percentage of the radius (on the order of 0.15 - 0.2%) and small buildings are closer to 1% of the radius!
To work out the surface gravity at the surface, we need to use the following equation
$$g = \frac{GM}{R^2}$$
The units of $g$ are $\text{m/s}^{2}$.
The components of this equation are:
* $G = 6.67259\text{ }\*\text{ }10^{-11} \text{ ; units: }m^3\text{ }kg^{-1}\text{ }s^{-2}$
* $R = 1000 \text{ ; units: }m$
* $M = \rho\text{ } \* \text{ Volume}\text{ ; units: }kg$
+ $\text{Volume} = \frac{4}{3} \pi R^3\text{ ; units: } m^3$
Substituting this all in we get:
$$g = \frac{6.67259\text{ }\*\text{ }10^{-11}\text{ }\*\text{ }\rho\text{ } \* \frac{4}{3} \pi R^3}{R^2}\text{ ; units: } m/s^2 $$
$$ = 6.67259\text{ }\*\text{ }10^{-11}\text{ }\*\text{ }\rho\text{ }\* \frac{4}{3} \pi R\text{ ; units: } m/s^2 $$
$$ = 6.67259\text{ }\*\text{ }10^{-8}\text{ }\*\text{ }\rho\text{ }\* \frac{4}{3} \pi \text{ ; units: } m/s^2$$
So the key variable for targeting a particular gravity is $\rho$. If we want to target a $g$ close to that of Earth ($9.798\text{ }m/s^{2}$[source: NASA factsheet](https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.html)), then we need a value of $\rho = 35,055 \text{ }g/cm^3$ (ie approximately the density of some black holes and white dwarf stars!). It also gives our planet a mass of $1.47 \* 10^{17}$ kg (when we change the radius later for analysing surface gravity changes, we will need to keep the planetary mass constant).
If we go with that, then we run into a separate issue...that the force of gravity changes appreciably over scales as small as the human body (which would be an issue for small things like distribution of blood over the body).
For example, right at the surface $g = 9.798\text{ m/s}^{2}$, but, only 2m out from the planet's surface it changes to $g = 9.759\text{ m/s}^{2}$, and, were we to have a 2-3 story building, approximately 10m high, $g = 9.605\text{ m/s}^{2}$.
If we normalise $g$ so that it is instead $10\text{ } m/s^2$, to make these values easier to parse, then our required density becomes $35,778.07\text{ } g/cm^3$ and our comparison becomes:
For example, right at the surface $g = 10\text{ m/s}^{2}$, but, only 2m out from the planet's surface it changes to $g = 9.960\text{ m/s}^{2}$, and, were we to have a 2-3 story building, approximately 10m high, $g = 9.803\text{ m/s}^{2}$.
### 2. If we make the density of the planet low, to counteract this drastic change in surface gravity over different parts of the human body, we will make the escape velocity of the "planet" significantly lower
The equation to calculate escape velocity is:
$$v\_\text{escape} = \sqrt{\frac{2GM}{R}}\text{ ; units: } m/s$$
If we were to change the density of our small planet, down to that of Earth ($5.51\text{ } g/cm^{3}$[source: NASA factsheet](https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.html)), then our mass becomes $2.3 \* 10^{13}$ kg and we get $g = 0.00154\text{ m/s}^{2}$.
From the perspective of our corporation, this is much more desirable, as they need to source a significantly smaller mass of material (by a factor of 10,000!).
However, if we have a surface gravity that low, then working through the numbers we end up with $v\_\text{escape} = 1.755\text{ } m/s = 6.32\text{ } km/h$. This is low enough that a human would likely easily be able to reach that speed. Usain Bolt has achieved speeds of $10.44\text{ m/s}$ or $37.58\text{ km/h}$, so a speed of $6.32\text{ } km/h$ is certainly within the capability of a regular human.
## Conclusion
The primary parameters that we would need to balance are the radius and the density of the planet. To mitigate the most severe gravitational and escape velocity problems, we would need our planet to be significantly larger and have a surface gravity pretty significantly lower than that of Earth.
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### Notes
The source of a number of the values I've used for Earth comparisons is the [NASA Planetary Factsheet for Earth](https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.html). For $g$ in particular is has this definition:
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> Equatorial gravitational acceleration at the surface of the body or the 1 bar level, not including the effects of rotation, in meters/(second^2)
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Defined [here](https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/fact_notes.html).
[Answer]
This can be broken down into several sub questions
What constitutes a “planet”? By current standards such a small body could not be classified as a planet because it would not have a strong enough gravitational field to sweep its orbit clear of debris.
Can a spherical body of 200 km diameter form naturally? No at 200 km it is unlikely, as gravitational forces are barely sufficient and the object is likely to be at least slightly oblate or potato shaped like a large asteroid. But under some special circumstances I’m sure it could happen. A small asteroid might be diverted into an elliptical orbit close to the sun making it partially molten or more plastic and capable of pulling itself into a spherical shape over time. Such a body might then be ejected further out into the solar system by another planet.
Can such a body have an atmosphere? No it cannot have any meaningful atmosphere as the gravitational forces would be so low. Even by artificial means of using very dense metals like platinum and tungsten to build such an object the gravitational pull would still be very weak and insufficient to hold on to an atmosphere.
[Answer]
**Naturally occurring, the answer is no on SO many levels.**
You will not get a round shape that small, you can't get a molten core on something that small, your Oceans and atmosphere will float away... I mean, the problems are so numerous this seems like it should be a hard no, but when it comes to building worlds, I'm no quitter; so, I will try to propose something that would at-least in theory work.
**How to do it artificially**
So this is a bit of a frame challenge since this is not a near future tech solution, but if you are a really advanced civilization there might be a way. First you will need something with the gravity of Earth, but smaller than 1km in radius. Using <https://planetcalc.com/1758/> I have estimated that for a 1000m radius world to have 1 Earth Gravity at its surface, it would need a mass of about 1.5e17 kg, but a planet made out of the same stuff as Earth would only have a mass of 2.3e13 kg which would result in only 0.00015G... not nearly enough to have a nice usable world. A neutron star however has a density of at least 3.7e17 kg/m3 meaning that if you were to extract about 1/2 of a cubic meter of pure neutrons from neutron star, and if you could stabilize this mass without it suddenly exploding (BIG IF: see comments), you could use it to make a planetary core able to produce Earth like gravity at a 1000m radius. Then you just start piling on good old fashioned rocks and stuff.
If you want your planet to have tides, axial wobble, etc, you can repeat the same process to give it a small moon.
As for volcanic activity, that will just be a matter of introducing the right amount of radioactive elements to maintain a molten mantel, but without melting the crust.
I also noticed your world only has one ice cap which suggests that your planet is at least partially tidal locked toward the sun. This means that your "north pole" will be stuck in perpetual day light. Perhaps the extra tidal forces explain why there are more volcanoes here. Then your tropical zone will be more of a perpetual twilight; though, with enough wobble, you could still have a sort of day/night cycle here. Then the South pole would be always in darkness.
Lastly, there is the issue of an atmosphere. Escape velocities are not your friend here meaning that even if you have Earth like gravity at your surface, that gravity will fall off way too quickly to hold an atmosphere. To solve for this you will need to basically install a giant fish bowl surrounding the planet to hold the air in.
[Answer]
Naturally occurring solid spherical objects of the requested size are very rare. There are likely some somewhere in our vast universe, but none have been discovered. Solid objects of that size do not have enough gravity to make themselves spherical. They also cannot hold an atmosphere. It would be easier to build a solid sphere of that size than it would be to find one.
If very low gravity and lack of atmosphere are acceptable, the companies selling these objects would likely make them by crunching some small asteroids into spherical shapes. If they must have Earth-like surface gravity, these solid spheres would have to have an extremely high density, higher than that of a white dwarf. The gravity would be far too weak for stabilizing normal matter at this density, so the object would explosively decompress itself. Matter composed of different quarks might be stable at such high densities. It would not be very realistic to have a solid sphere of the requested size with Earth-like surface gravity.
Instead, a shell could be constructed around a black hole with sufficient mass. This would have to be artificial. It would still have difficulty holding an atmosphere, but since there are shells anyway, maybe another shell could be added to hold in the atmosphere. The shell(s) would require a system for adjusting their position to keep the black hole in the center. Despite black holes being thought of as scary, this setup would be quite safe if implemented correctly.
One difficulty with the black hole idea would be transporting the planet-like thing. You couldn't just attach an engine to it because the black hole cannot be attached to anything. Moving the outer shell would not move the black hole since they are not attached. It might be possible to magnetize the black hole, but something that would definitely work is a gravitational tug. A massive object orbiting the planet-like thing could accelerate slowly, and the planet-like thing, including the black hole, would be accelerated too because of gravity. Alternatively, the planet-like thing could be built at its destination, avoiding the problem of moving the black hole to the destination. Another difficulty would be creating the black hole, but I believe a civilization advanced enough to have a market for personal tiny planets would have technology capable of doing this.
In conclusion, they would be artificial and either take the form of small spheres with little gravity made of rock taken from asteroids, or spherical shells with black holes at the center. They would have a shell, or extra shell, to hold in the atmosphere if the atmosphere is desired.
Edit: I put the information in paragraphs. Also, hawking radiation would not be a concern for the black holes that I mentioned. To have Earth's surface gravity at the minimum requested radius, 500 meters, the black hole would require a mass of about 3.7x10^16 kilograms. A black hole of this mass would have a luminosity of about 0.26 watts, and take about 1.3x10^26 years to evaporate.
[Answer]
Short Answer:
No, such a tiny world can not be habitable for humans naturally. And by far the easiest way to artificially make a world of that size that is habitable for humans is to build an inside out version, a hollow cylinder that rotates to provide simulated gravity and uses its walls to retain its atmosphere.
Long Answer:
If you ask about the minimum size and mass a world needs to naturally become roughly spherical, you will learn that it is about a million times the volume and mass of your little worlds. The vast majority of tiny worlds in the question are much too irregular in shape to look spherical. So a tiny world of that size would have to be artificially shaped by an advanced civilization to become spherical enough for your purposes.
After shaping such a tiny world into the proper shape, the next step would have to be provide it with an artificial breathable atmosphere.
How long could such a tiny world retain an artificial breathable atmosphere once it was created?
You should obtain a paper or electronic copy of *Habitable planets for Man*, 1964, by Stephen H. Dole if you plan to write a lot of plausible science fiction set on habitable exoplanets.
**Section added June 28, 2020**
In chapter Four The Astronomical Parameters the section on planetary properties on pages 53 to 67 discusses the property of the planet necessary for human habitability.
Dole says that planet needs to have a surface gravity of less than 1.5 g to be habitable, which according to figure 9 on page 31 corresponds to a planet with a mass of 2.35 Earth, a radius of 1.25 Earth, and an escape velocity of 15.3 kilometers per second. (page 53).
I note that you specify the surface gravity of your planet, but not its escape velocity. The ability of a planet to retain whatever atmosphere it acquires depends of the chemical composition of that atmosphere, the escape velocity at the outer edges of the atmosphere where gases escape, and on the average velocity of the air particles in the escape lawyers of the atmosphere.
Dole says that in order for a planet to retain atmospheric oxygen, its escape velocity should be:
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(page 54)
Dole calculates that the escape velocity of the smallest planet capable of retaining atmospheric oxygen can be as low as 6.25 kilometers per second. According to figure 9 that corresponds to a planet:
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I note that a surface gravity of 0.49 g is 4.9 times as much as the 0.1 g you specified.
Dole then makes two separate rough calculations of the minimum sized planet necessary to produce an oxygen-rich atmosphere.
Dole calculates 0.25 Earth mass in one calculation, which he considers too low, and in the other calculation 0.0.57 Earth mass, which he considers too high.
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(page 56).
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(page 57).
I note that a surface gravity of 0.68 g is 6.8 times the 0.1 g you specify.
**End of section added on June 28, 2020**
Since 1964 there are two developments which may affect the minimum mass of a naturally habitable planet.
Titan, the large moon of Saturn, which is much smaller than Dole's minimum mass, has been discovered to have a dense atmosphere with a surface pressure higher than Earth's.
And there is a new theory that Earth might be as small as is possible for habitable planet. Earth has plate tectonics. Venus, which is slightly smaller than Earth, does not. So if, repeat if, plate tectonics are vital for a planet to be habitable, Earth is about as small as a habitable planet can get.
It may not matter whether the minimum size and mass of a naturally habitable planet is that of Titan or that of Earth, since both Titan and Earth are literally billions of times as massive as the tiny worlds asked about in the question.
So those tiny worlds could never be massive enough to be naturally habitable.
Forget about naturally habitable. Since those tiny worlds have to be artificially reshaped to become spherical, terraforming them by adding artificial breathable atmospheres would not be too much more trouble.
But how long could such tiny terraformed worlds keep their artificial breathable atmospheres? I once read that if the Moon was given a breathable atmosphere, it would lose it into space in a thousand years. And the Moon is billions of times as massive as the tiny worlds in the question.
I doubt that they would retain artificial atmospheres long enough that providing those artificial atmospheres would seem worthwhile.
Their ability to retain their atmospheres would have to be increased by millions or billions of times to make providing artificial atmospheres worthwhile.
One method of doing that would be to find tiny worlds made of super dense material, and then put thin lawyers of normal material on top of them while terraforming those worlds.
And in fact, there is a classic science fiction story where that is done. In Jack Vance's "I'll build your dream Castle, 1947, the protagonist finds tiny asteroids made of white dwarf degenerate matter and terraforms them into tiny habitable worlds.
[http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?57659[1]](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?57659%5B1%5D)
Of course white dwarf star degenerate matter is highly compressed because of all the matter on top of it. Once that matter is removed, the white dwarf matter would expand into normal matter. I think there was a question a week or two ago where it was established that there was a minimum amount of degenerate matter necessary to avoid expansion. So you should look that up.
This question is about a story idea similar to "I'll build Your Dream Castle":
[https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/117195/5km-artificial-planet-with-same-gravity-as-on-earth/117208#117208[2]](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/117195/5km-artificial-planet-with-same-gravity-as-on-earth/117208#117208%5B2%5D)
And some of the answers should be informative.
A comparatively low mass black hole within the tiny world would gradually swallow all of its matter, but would also increase the surface gravity and escape velocity, perhaps making the world spherical and enabling it to retain an atmosphere. I have not calculated whether a world of your desired radius could have a black hole of the right mass inside it for a period long enough to be worthwhile before being swallowed and destroyed by the black hole.
Another method to retain atmosphere would be to have have some hypothetical artificial gravity generators, to give the tiny worlds high enough surface gravity to be healthy for humans for long periods of time, and to increase their escape velocities enough to retain dense breathable atmospheres for long enough for the purposes of the story.
I believe that in the classic science fiction novel *The Legion of Space*, 1934, by Jack Williamson, many worlds in the solar system were terraformed, given artificial breathable atmospheres, and used generated gravity for human comfort and to retain those atmospheres.
Another way to retain the atmospheres would be to generate some sort of force field around a world that would prevent air molecules from passing though it somehow.
I note that another factor which causes worlds to lose atmosphere is sputtering, being hit by particles of solar wind that knock particles out of the atmosphere. A strong planetary magnetosphere helps block the solar wind and helps retain atmosphere. I note that a stronger magnetosphere tends to be associated with a higher mass almost as much as the escape velocity does.
So your tiny worlds would have to have artificially generated magnetospheres to repel solar wind. Possibly those magnetospheres would have different generators from the generators for the force fields holding in the air and the generators for the artificial gravity, but possibly the generators could be combined.
Another way to retain atmosphere might be to put a shell of linked nano machines around the world. I think I remember reading about the Moon have a shell of linked nano machines to hold in an artificial atmosphere in a story somewhere.
Of course a regular roof supported by columns could be build around such a tiny world as in this question.
And that idea leads back to the idea of building a cylindrical space habitat that spins to imitate Earth's surface gravity and relies on its walls to hold in and retain the atmosphere.
Added June 28, 2020: The answers, including mine, to this question may be of interest:
[https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/179529/what-is-the-most-energy-efficient-mode-of-travel-by-a-land-animal-on-a-terrestri/179565#179565[3]](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/179529/what-is-the-most-energy-efficient-mode-of-travel-by-a-land-animal-on-a-terrestri/179565#179565%5B3%5D)
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That probably doesn't directly answer your question, but as far as science-based goes, the Little Prince's planet is actually an asteroid: « l'astéroïde B 612 » (as the grownups call it).
One condition nowadays to be called a planet is that it needs to have cleared its orbit from everything else. That's important for your consideration because it means it would be dangerous to place (if it was artificially made) more than one such "planets" graviting around the same celestial body, as there are risks of collision!
Another criteria handwaved in the Little Prince is the atmosphere: such asteroïds cannot maintain one because the gravity is too low. And even if it had one, only your feet could breathe, atmospheres are usually thin compared to a planet's diameter..
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Highly inspired by [How would we fare against an interstellar RKKV Attack?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/116342/how-would-we-fare-against-an-interstellar-rkkv-attack)
Lets repeat the setup of the original question:
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> In this hypothetical scenario, in the present day, astronomers detect an object entering the heliosphere, at a distance of roughly 90AU, from the direction of the Proxima Centauri system. Observations indicate that this is an interstellar alien vehicle, featuring a fairly primitive (well within present-day humanity's capacity to build) Project Orion style nuclear pulse rocket design, with a velocity of roughly 3.5% of the speed of light, and a mass of roughly 1M tonnes- but that it's also unmanned, made largely of solid metal and coated in ablative heat shielding, and heading in on a direct collision course with the Earth.
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The original question gave 10 days to humanity to react. Top voted answer right now is, that in that short amount of time, all you can do is to panic.
So, it brings me to the question set in the title:
**What is the shortest amount of time for humans to come up with any saving scenario?**
Assume "current day" scenario
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This started as a comment so apologies if it reads like one
Maybe I'm misunderstanding things here, but Earth is a very small target to hit, (in the grand scheme of things) if they knew the trajectory, (which yes would take a lot of time) then used a sufficiently high yield series of nukes, in a Radial in/out normal/anti-normal direction, then the $Delta V$ requirements to miss Earth are tiny by comparison to destroying the projectile or slowly it down
I ran it through Kerbal Space Program, using the real solar system and realism overhaul. A 100 tonne object travelling at 40000 m/s (a lot lower speeds and smaller object i admit but KSP is just a game, it can't really handle factors that high), but when the correction maneuver was done as it passed Neptune's orbit, it required a mere 0.6 m/s Anti-Normal to go from hitting earth dead center to missing completely, a series of nukes detonated along its axis could provide enough Anti-Normal or Normal directional $\Delta V$ to alter the RKKV's path to completely miss earth...
However... the Voyager 2 probe took off from earth in 1977, and arrived at Neptune in 1989, now in theory we could get there quicker if the relevant planets were in the right places to allow gravity assists, but we wouldn't be knocking it down to a few months it could knock it down to 10 years and that's just travel time...
Not including time to design and build and test the rocket used for this which my gut says (yes pulling a number out my stomach) would be about 3-5 years.
So probably 15 years total, and assuming they'd probably launch several rockets with different collision positions through the solar system in case one or more launches failed.
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3.5% of light speed is too much for current technology to prepare effective countermeasures, no matter how much lead time we are going to have.
No engine that we currently can build is capable of providing enough thrust for an intercepting missile. "Project Orion" builds speeds that high over the course of months and years.
The only thing that we can do - and only if we know attacker's trajectory well in advance - is to deploy massive amounts of sand and pebbles on this trajectory. The idea is that at 3.5% light speed, collision with a few pebbles will make attacking vessel disintegrate, and further collisions will disperse plasma cloud enough so Earth will survive.
My estimate is that we need to deliver at least 10,000 tons of material to interplanetary orbit. That's 67 [SpaceX's BFRs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFR_(rocket)). This may be doable within 10 years, but, as I stated before, we need to know well (months) in advance the exact trajectory of the attacker.
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How long we need to prepare very much depends on the target.
A few key points:
The RKKV is under power. Meaning its nuclear pulse engine is still active and it's presumably on automatic guidance to hit Earth. It has been adjusting its trajectory during its approach to the solar system and is likely already on its final course.
We cannot accelerate anything substantial to those velocities, that's simply not something we have the tech for, maybe if we survive the strike we might be able to build something like the RKKV ourselves, but it'd be an extraordinary venture.
In the current description, we have about a month before impact, that's nowhere near enough to do anything useful beyond hurling a "black box" of sorts containing information and maybe biological samples into orbit.
But assuming we have prior warning, some time-traveller or whathaveyou has told us it's coming and we know where and when.
We have a few options.
1. Evade it
2. Hunker Down
3. Destroy it
4. Divert it
Evading is self-evidently impossible, if we could move our planet out of the way we would laugh at the problem of stopping a weapon like this. However this option does encompass escaping using every spacecraft available and attempting to restart humanity in space or on another planet, not infeasible, and if we were in a real desperate money-no-object hurry we could conceivably put enough material and people into space for a sustainable community.
Hunkering down, our current most reasonable option, build bunkers, stockpile resources, batten down the hatches and pray. Even something is catastrophic as an RKKV is unlikely to kill everyone, survivors with enough resources and time can rebuild the world.
Destroying it is not possible, not in isolation, we're talking about a million tons in a vacuum. However its velocity gives us some options, at 3.5% of the speed of light it has a hell of a lot of energy behind it. So we can put something reasonably chunky in front of it and watch it produce an explosion bigger than anything we've ever made before. No nukes required. The only question is whether that will appreciably disperse its mass before it reaches us.
Unlikely.
Our better option is to Divert it using the same method. Instead of planting something big in its path, we instead smack something big into it at an angle, Clip it edge-on with an asteroid perhaps. The blast will be off-center from the RKKV's center of mass and therefore divert its course. Alternately we could outright hit it in the side with our asteroid, assuming we could nudge one hard enough and accurately enough to hit such a fast moving target.
We would need to set this in motion a *long* time in advance and be prepared for the target to make minor course-corrections to avoid the asteroid.
That last point is one possible weak-point though.
The RKKV is able to adjust course, it has to be. Nobody wants to launch a weapon, wait 100 years only to realise it smacked into an asteroid they didn't realise was there.
While it undoubtedly did its final course corrections before we even saw it, the hardware is still there. Meaning that if its control-systems detect an obstacle it should automatically take steps to evade. So we could potentially mess with it by pushing asteroids into its path and forcing it to recalculate its course until it's too late and it misses.
More directly, if we can establish any kind of communications with its guidance systems (or spoof its telemetry) we could force it off course using its own thrusters. It wouldn't take much to make it miss.
Time-frames:
Evade - The more time, the better, but as things stand, we could put a crate of frozen embryos and seeds into space within a few weeks if we had to.
Hunker Down - The more time, the better. Right now the main goal would be to stock up and shift our infrastructure to be more robust, years ideally, but we could make do with the few weeks given in the initial question.
Destroy it/Divert it - hitting it at a distance that would make a difference requires literal years of flight-time for any projectile, assuming it can't change course to avoid. Whether the goal is to divert it or not. We'd want to hit it outside the orbit of Jupiter at least. for comparison, the Galileo space probe made the flight to jupiter in Six Years. Call it ten years because we need time to build and test the mission beforehand.
Spoofing using asteroids to force course-corrections would be a huge project, we're talking a decade at minimum to fit asteroids with the engines and guidance systems to do what we'd need. This is also not a surefire method because we're assuming the RKKV is going to try and alter its course at all, it may simply smash through any obstacle we're able to move.
However the plans to electronically spoof it or directly gain control over its telemetry have some promise, ideally a couple months or more should be enough to do it via radio signals and experimentation. Though it does very much rely on the RKKV being able to listen for telemetry instructions, which it may not be doing. If this is the plan, it's a gamble and should be done in parallel to other options.
This also relies on it being within communication's range, something we will struggle to achieve much beyond the heliosphere. so that sets a hard limit on our time-frame for this at about three weeks.
Dunno about you, but the prospect of hacking into an alien flight-telemetry system using a ping-time of upwards of a day, figuring out any encryption and security systems and working out how to send legitimate commands..all in the space of about a week and a half (to do it before the RKKV passes through jupiter's orbit) utterly terrifying. I mean, no pressure right? it's only the planet :P
That'd be a hell of a movie though.
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**Slap Dash super Weaponry**
Supposedly after the movie independance day came out some formerly soviet physicists were drinking and talking about how to actually stop such a force. They did some good old fashioned drunken napkin math and came up with a really cool idea.
STEP 1: Begin evacuating a very very large area. This thing is gonna hurt when you fire it.
STEP 2: Dig a hole into bedrock as close to perfectly cylyndrical as you possibly can. It will need to be a several hundred meters in diameter and about a kilometer or more deep.
STEP 3: fill it with water about 1/3rd to 1/2 of the way up.
STEP 4: place a thermonuclear warhead of atleast 300 megatons suspended pefrectly in the center of the water's mass. A Full yield tsar bomba in other words.
STEP 5: Plug the hole with copper a few dozen meters deep.
STEP 6: BOMBS AWAY!
When the nuke is detonated the bedrock will contain the massive detonation for just the briefest amount of time. The heat and pressure will instantly vaporise the massive volume of water into steam. This will fire the several ton copper plug out of the hole. It will be moving at least a small percentage of the speed of light ("only" a mere 2 to 3 percent). Obviously you will need to do some very serious math to ensure the weapons "barrel" is pointed in the right direction. It is very, VERY difficult to aim, and relies on the target following a predictable path and not employing any evasive manuevers. Also theres the small problem of irradiating an area the size of north america when you fire it, but honestly thats a plus. Aliens who might survive will think twice about invading, afterall if we're willing to do that to ourselves imagine what we might do to them!
Its just a thought experiment, the point of which was to deliver enough energy to a massive object to be garunteed of destroying it. A blob of near plasma copper moving at a percentage of C impacting another object moving at a percentage of C is going to deliver so much energy upon impact that no known matierial in the universe could hope to stop it.
Im not really sure how long it would take to do. Atleast a few years if the various world powers all chipped in. Also somebody has to agree to be ground zero cuz firing this thing is going to throw fallout that covers an area bigger than most continents.
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Bringing the man on the Moon starting from scratch, or better from a speech, took about 10 years.
Considering that the challenge is, in a 0-th order estimate, comparable, I would start with that number in mind. Then I would double it with a "safety coefficient dictated by engineering common sense".
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> What is the shortest amount of time for humans to come up with any saving scenario?
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20 years at least, if the funding, the support and the drive are similar or higher to those experienced by the Apollo program.
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I'll stand by my an answer in the previous thread:
Intercepting an ICBM is hard because you get very little time to react, and most interceptors will pass the ICBM's trajectory in a splitsecond. This isn't a problem with the RKKV as its going straight for earth, the only hardships are getting something traveling along the trajectory and getting enough stuff there.
As this [converted ICBM shows](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepr_(rocket)), to get it to the moon you can only carry a maximum of 500kg of cargo... But the rest of the missile is still there.
So what you do is empty as much of your ICBM's as possible and launch as many as possible in orchestrated launches. The goal is to get as many missiles as possible in the RKKV's trajectory simultaneously so it connects with as much mass as possible, and increases the chance of a hit.
Upon connecting the RKKV is likely shattered and partially vaporized. This does not automatically save earth as a 1M ton plasmasphere at 3,5% of light is still going to be catastrophic and carry almost the same destructive power. That's why you want as much mass and countervelocity to impact with the RKKV before impact with earth.
This is one point where the high velocity is both a blessing and a curse. The sphere wont have spread out much between waves of ICBM's, meaning that all waves after the first hit will get hit by the shattered RKKV pieces and plasma. It also means that you want to hit the RKKV as far away from earth as possible to spread the pieces out as much as possible. Regardless, between the RKKV impacting their ICBM's and the RKKV hitting earth, there's likely just minutes if not seconds due to the immense speed and the relative low speed of our ICBM's.
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# Don't use physical projectiles
Physical projectiles take a long time to get there, are slow to build and expensive to launch. they also need proper timing in their launch phase and you literally need the planets to align for them.
# Use light instead.
Science has come up with some really powerful lasers. I believe the most powerful current laser is around [5.3 petawatts](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/physicists-are-planning-build-lasers-so-powerful-they-could-rip-apart-empty-space), and the scientists who created that one are working on a 10 PW model by the end of this year. There are also plans for a 100 and even 180 PW model, although those are created by different scientist groups.
Ablative heat shielding means that if it gets hot enough, it breaks away. After enough time, this ablative effect can cause the ship to change direction similar to how an impact or an explosion nearby would. This technique is called laser ablation, and besides being [the end result of a what-if XKCD](https://what-if.xkcd.com/13/), [it is also a promising method for space propulsion.](https://www.psi.ch/lmx-interfaces/BooksEN/Claude_JPP_2010-1.pdf)
# Timescale
The main problems to solve here are:
1. A powerful laser;
2. A way to target the projectile with the laser that keeps most of the energy intact;
3. A way to power the laser;
4. an orbital platform so we don't ignite the atmosphere.
the 10 PW laser is scheduled for the end of this year. the 100 Petawatt laser is scheduled for 2023, but with extra funding we might be able to shorten that. The other stuff can be done mostly in parallel.
Assuming we can prove the threat and put enough money into the project, we might be able to get the entire system (laser, targeting system, orbital platform, energy source) ready and functional in about 5 to 10 years. That of course depends on technological advancement speed and the effort put into the endeavour.
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I'm going to ignore the political aspects -- I'm tired of political snark, anyway -- and look at the time it would take to come up with a technical solution assuming the political will was there. I will also assume that it's on a purely ballistic trajectory, because if it can dodge, I would suggest prayer as the only efficacious course left.
We can't rendezvous with it with any projected technology. OTOH, we do have the ability to intercept it as far out as the orbit of Mars without developing any new technology. So I see two potentially workable schemes.
One is the **Load of Crap** plan suggested above: put a lot of crap in the way and let the collision turn a solid object into a spreading cloud of debris. This ought to work pretty well as long as the collision takes place far enough from Earth that the debris cloud has expanded a lot (ideally to much larger than the Earth by the time it gets here.
There's a trade-off where the sweet spot isn't obvious. Closer to earth we can hit it with more mass and hit it quicker and hit it more accurately, but further away gives more time for the mess to disperse into harmless pieces. Working out the optimal distance is something you'd pay a first-rate research firm $10M to figure out.
The second approach is to **nudge it** so that it misses the Earth, by exploding nukes *next to it* -- basically doing an Orion drive course correction. Again, this would have to be done a long way away to be effective, but it looks like the energetics are pretty good. The hard part would be triggering the nukes at just the right time.
We have dozens of rockets completed or within a year of completion that could launch a ton or so out to 100,000,000 miles and get there pretty quickly. We have many more that could get a small mass there more slowly. So, use salvos.
The first salvo is the hottest rockets launched about a year after the decision to go. In parallel, ICBMs and the like are converted and launched to hit it later. (If it's diverted enough so that it misses, who cares if they're wasted. And if not, they'll be where they need to be.)
So I'm guessing 1-2 years from the Go signal to modify existing rockets and launch them and then for them to get to the rendezvous. Salvos continuing as it gets closer until the object hits or misses.
The closer the intercept to Earth, the quicker the response, but there's still an unavoidable slug of time needed to develop the new program and sensors, ready and launch the rockets with their new payload. My gut feeling is that it would be very hard to come in under a year, though for a rocket that was ready to go, the time might be halved.
It's hard to see how we could detect the object far enough away to have a year or two to prepare.
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**RADICAL EDIT**
OK, if we were dealing with a much slower object, we could start planning a feasible solution within an acceptable timespan. After all, heck, this comes from Proxima Centauri!
BUT! This things moves at such a speed that all calculation for a barrier or interception are thrown out of the windows as soon as you're done with calculation to interception in a given area. And that because we do not have the resources to create an equally fast mean to respond. We don't have the tech.
So, all in all, we have only the time to brace for impact. The advantage of having this kind of object coming at that speed makes it easier to calculate the impact area.
This said, we have about 15 year to prepare for the worst. Building a space station or a moon colony would just deplete precious resourcers and time and help spread panic as everyone would want to embark for the stars. Not to mention that after Earth is hit there would be no one coming anymore for a long time.
And since the impact, for how much serious it will be, will not destroy life wholesale, there's better hope staying on Earth to rebuild.
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I think if we had ten years the chances would still be against us. I am assuming the large object headed our way was moving as fast as our fastest rocket in space today maybe elon musk big fucking rocket style.
If it was moving any percentage of the speed of light. I think we would need 30 years. By then we could have a sustainable post on Mars as a very sad backup.
Then we would have to mine what’s left of Earth for our resources from homebase Mars.
In that case I want to be an archeologist space dude.
Blessings
How cool would it be to rescue the Bull from wall street in orbital debree, or fragments of the statue of liberty. One of the faces from mount rushmore, or a bent half of the Eiffel tower stuck onto half of the smokestack from a nuclear power plant in california. Or even a ginormous old landfill site floating stable like around the debris cloud from earth impact
How would something like this affect the moon?
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In my space western setting, I went nuts with the time scale, so now I have a faction living entirely in space stations (with planets used for transit and agriculture, but that's irrelevant for now), which is about 5000 years old.
How can people keep their space station preventing from falling apart for such a long time?
Or if it's unfeasible, what would be the fastest way of replacing them? Using the planets for temporary habitats, while sounds good, is mostly against the point of the faction: they refuse living on planets.
On the other hand, I can loose on this principle, but before doing so, I'd wait for suggestions here.
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The space station needs multiply redundant systems for all its systems. Fortunately, it is in space where the deterioration of machinery is minimized. Space probes and satellites routinely exceed their estimated working lives (except those that malfunctioned early in their careers).
Space station personnel will receive expert training in space station from birth especially if this is their heritage. Folks who are born and die on space stations need to be extra well versed and educated in all aspects of space station maintenance.
Your space station should be equipped with an army of repair and maintenance robots. There should be diagnostic sensors in every suitable location to detect the slightest system or structural failure. Every system and component needs to checked and rechecked for good running. This will be part of your space station's design. Easy access to all systems for checking, inspecting and, when needed, repairing.
Space station longevity begins with good systems and structural design. Make sure yours is designed for millennia. Do not you cut too many cost corners. The life of your space station and the lives of those living on it don't come cheap. You don't want them going cheaply either.
Make sure reliable supply routes are handy. For those occasions, when all your normal systems and procedures for maintaining, repairing and sustaining your space station fail. This could be the usual space piracy, interstellar wars, space whale rustlers or a rogue black hole.
Keep handy a goody supply of raw materials that can be converted into manufactured components. Have access to an external energy source by using large solar power collectors or nuclear based power generators (this can be fusion all the way up to antimatter). The power is needed to make and process components.
Recycle, recycle, and, don't forget, to recycle. To ensure long term survival, the golden rule is waste not. Defunct components are raw material. Use them again and again. Even if this means reducing to their constituent elements. Remember that's why your power generators are there.
Maintain friendly relationships with your neighbours. They are an excellent source for replacement parts and raw materials. Considering most of your raw materials will be extracted from asteroids, moons, and, sometimes, even planets. Territorial claims over who can access and use the material in those astronomical bodies may be in place. If you trespass on their asteroids and remove matter without permission you get a missile up your probic vent.
Be nice and respectful. It's a good idea to look after the neighbourhood. Even if they own the local system's asteroids, they might be grateful and let you extract minerals for shipping to their habitats, so in return you could be allowed to take some for yourself.
Good design, good work, well trained space station personnel and robots, good relationships with neighbours and suppliers, and leave nothing to chance. Take care for it, and it will take care for you.
Five millennia, hah! This baby's good for at least fifteen.
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You have solar power, I presume you have reasonably intelligent robots, the solution is to take a clue from biology: Constantly, whether it is needed or not, replace every molecule of the space station with newly fabricated parts, smelt down the old parts, bring in new steel or whatever from asteroids. Make so no part of your station is ever more than 20 years old, and that goes for the robots too. All it takes is a constant investment of energy, which you should have in abundance from the sun. Make sure you are replacing those solar cells or furnaces while you are at it.
I say from biology, because our own bodies do the same thing; the only reason we grow old is we did not evolve a perfect replacement system or way to identify what needs to be replaced, so our telomeres get short and cells stop functioning properly. For a machine you don't have to emulate that, just emulate the idea: constantly retire the parts and replace with new parts. The atoms of iron, carbon and other metals never age; extreme heat will rejuvenate them, and you can recast them into steel just as good as new.
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**Added due to comments:**
* I did not address high energy particles; those are atomic size and I assume can't cause any kind of *strucural* failure (unless in a beam intended for an attack); and if they did alter some steel, we can have sensors tell us where. On aircraft for example, we can run a tiny electric current through a part at one end and detect the shape of the signal at the other; if there is any change in the shape the composition has changed: cracks, rust, deformation, getting wet, etc. Similar to a motion detector: For a motion detector every position produces a different echo pattern, but it doesn't have to know what the pattern means: Just that if the pattern changes, something has moved.
* I also did not address attack, or asteroid strike: At some point anything can be overwhelmed by sufficient force. I was only addressing deterioration.
* A little more added to discuss outgassing: I presume we can liberate the gases from asteroids, moon, or other materials. Beyond any structural issues I presume this station is also self-sufficient, or it cannot maintain itself.
Simple polished aluminum in a parabolic arc (or partial dish) can focus enough sunlight to melt, or indeed vaporize, anything. The parabola can be piecewise; meaning an arrangement of flat panels with centers on a parabola, but easily replaced should they be damaged by micrometeorites or debris.
Any heat source is energy; we can use to convert to mechanical energy (Stirling engines, closed-cycle-steam engines) which we can convert to electricity. Remember the electro-splitting of water into H and O: That does not only apply to water; we can liberate gases from other compounds as well. We can melt rocks, turn them into vapor, and using distillation techniques (closely monitored heat so some compounds vaporize while others remain liquid) and centrifugal separation (of liquefied rock, spun *hard* to separate elements by atomic weight then cooled to retain that separation) we can obtain very pure elements; and remix them to our desire. We can obtain any gases we need to replenish the air and fuels on the station. Solar does it all; and in many ways it is easier in micro-gravity space without any atmosphere. Most benefits of gravity we want we can get with centrifugal force, and control to a fine degree.
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**Minimize moving parts.**
**Make nondurable parts modular and easy to replace**
Moving is what wears things out. Your Methuselah stations must have the minimum necessary moving parts. A favorite way to make artificial satellites is to hollow out some natural structure. An asteroid full of tunnels should be good for 5000+ years.
If something has to move, have it move as seldom as possible. Move one thing many times rather than a lot of things occasionally, and plan to replace the one moving thing regularly.
If something must move a lot, expect it to wear out and have it be easily replaceable. I like the idea of things being modular and easily replaceable because that offers narrative possibility: modules could be recognizable by age and characterized by features of that age, coexisting with newer and older modules. Sort of like walking through an old city with an awareness of architecture: you see how the past integrates with the present. Occasionally you recognize something really old which has persisted to the present. I read an account of the observatory on Haleakala which said that as you walked through the workrooms, you could find computers from every era, each still at its station performing some task which it did so satisfactorily that it did not need to be replaced.
Items could also be made regenerable, if that is a word. For example, an airlock with seals somehow made of ice, which replenishes itself from an immense reservoir as small amounts sublimate off into space. Or at certain wear-prone places (hangar bay?) the nickel-iron of the asteroid could periodically be melted and recast in place to accommodate wear and gradual shape change.
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Over the course of five millennia, every part of the station will fail. Every integrated circuit, every hull panel, every airlock will fail.
To bypass this problem, your people will need to be able to replace every single part, including their manufacturing equipment. So not only are they going to need a lot of manufacturing capability, they need multiple sets of manufacturing hardware, in separate sections so that damage to one section doesn't completely cripple them.
In addition, everything will need to be decentralized so that no failing or damaged component will cause an emergency. Decentralized life support, decentralized power, decentralized storage. And every part of the life support and power grids is going to talk to every other part, so that way damaged parts don't cause cascading failures. If one module reports depressurization, the adjacent modules will need to cut off air to prevent the entire station from getting depressurized. (Hopefully after everyone is out.)
Now that you have that setup, you can now lose any module or device to damage, age, or because you're replacing it. With this system, you construct new modules and systems as the old ones start failing. As long as you have a trickle of raw materials to replace losses, you're golden.
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Most of the answers are about the need for redundancy and maintenance, which are probably a good way to go, but there is another option I think should be mentioned, which could function with little maintenance or repair.
## The basic idea is to construct a self regulating biological ecosystem within a very over engineered hull.
In general engineering there is the concept of a safety factor; for a given design parameter, such as thickness of material, calculate if it will break under the expected load, if it is close to breaking you increase the thickness by the safety factor to account for errors and unforeseen situations. In general the higher the safety factor the more robust the design.
As an example for your space station: hull thickness, measure meteorite impact rates (micro and otherwise), solar wind ablation, radiation embrittlement or other parameters likely to lead to hull failure and make the hull thicker until it doesn't fail for your 5,000 year desired lifetime. You are likely to need a **very** thick hull to do this, I'm thinking around a km at a minimum to account for some large meteor impacts. This would be difficult and expensive, but not impossible, and your extra thick hull would add passive radiation shielding as a plus.
Some key points in addition to an extra thick hull:
* Use a biological ecosystems to regulate the air and provide food and water, and recycling of wastes, this is going to take up a lot of space requiring a big internal volume.
* Use large solar reflectors and very thick windows to allow for passive solar heating and energy input for your ecosystem.
* Possibly use spin to provide artificial gravity.
* Minimize moving parts or computerized systems as far as possible, and when necessary use redundant systems that are modular for easy maintenance and replacement. The likely problem areas will be airlocks or docking systems for ships.
The ecosystem may require balancing if you are moving large amounts of materials on and off the station, i.e. if each ship that docks fills up on water, eventually your habitat ecosystem turns into a desert not producing enough oxygen to keep the station alive. You would need to keep a strict mass balance on incoming and departing ships or more likely provide periodic resupply of critical elements.
What I have in mind is similar to the [O'Neil cylinders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder) or Kim Stanley Robinsons [Terrariums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrarium_(space_habitat)).
Effectively you are making an artificial planet, specifically designed to be solar powered and require minimal maintenance and function for a very long time.
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Start with rocky asteroid material mashed together until it forms a sphere about the size of our Earth. Put it into rotation around a Sol sized star for long lasting energy source, give it a molten core, and an atmosphere filled with a nice biologically conducive array of gasses. Make sure the distance from the star is in that star's Goldielocks zone. Give it a quick little spin for some nice weather effects.
Sure, it's going to *seem* like a planet to everyone else, but these guys will know it's actually their self-renewing, self-maintaining, redundant energy systems, millennially lasting space station. How will they know this? Well, because THEY made it.
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# The Context
It's 2015, and I am a nuclear-armed nation in the midst of a 2nd cold war. Fearing nuclear annhilation by my antagonistic neighbours, a computer was developed - to act as the dead man's switch. In case a nuclear first strike wipes out the chain of command/obliterates the populance, this computer should be able to automatically launch an nuclear counterattack.
# The Problem
How should the computer evaluate if the nation is under attack or not? Assuming the scientists tasked to design this device are very cautious, and would not want to risk an accidental nuclear war - they would have to have multiple conditions that would need to be fulfilled before an attack is issued.
Several conditions that come to mind include:
* Watchdog servers in different geographic regions. If these minimalist servers fail to ping back with an response, a condition would be met.
* Radiation/overpressure sensors - things to detect an nuclear blast.
* Transponders on surface ships in harbor - if transponders suddenly all go out, an attack can be deduced, etc.
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It would be a three step process, in many ways similar to the concept of "[secure second-strike-capability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_strike)".
# 0: Ensure Secure second-strike capability
Place secure second-strike capabilities in a location that is secure from nuclear attack. Your options are underground bunkers (can be iffy against direct attack), moving underwater, moving over the road network, moving over the countryside, in the air, or in space (that would break some international treaties).
# 1: Detect nuclear detonation over protected area
Nuclear detonations are extraordinary events, in terms of the physical effects they produce, and as such they can be detected through a large variety of ways.
**Forensic seismology**: the shock waves emanating from nuclear tests/blasts are quite strong – a 2009 North Korean underground nuclear test registered as a 4.52 on the Richter scale.
**Light flash** - nuclear blasts are bright. A Network of sensors over the protected area can detect the characteristic nuclear double flash.
**Soundwaves** *Hydroacoustics* or *Infrasound* - nuclear blasts are loud. A Network of sensors over the protected area can detect the telltalle signs.
**Radionuclide detection** - nuclear blasts are never clean burning, they create a vast amount of short- and long-lived radionuclides that can be picked up in the wind by a network of sensors placed over a protected area.
**Satellite surveillance** can detect nuclear blasts over a protected area.
# 2: Evaluate impact damage.
### 2.a. Evaluate damage to chain of command
Hardened electronic life-sign monitoring ankle bracelets on either the top officials or their body-guards, or manually answerable encoded radio pings can act as keepalives. If a certain high fraction of the chain of command goes dark outside of regular maintenance and simultaneously, the chain of command can be assumed to have been severed. The program will move to the next step, evaluating whether the nuclear wipe-out condition has also been met.
### 2.b. Evaluate damage to protected area
A series of satellite or even video monitoring feeds can be fed to image analysis software and be used if atomic flashes are detected to assess the level of damage. Moreover, damage to the existing sensor network placed sensibly around high value targets (like urban and industrial agglomerations), damage to weather stations, TV and radio stations, traffic signal infrastructure, CCTV networks, all can be assessed and a damage score calculated. If a critical threshold is passed post-nuclear flash, the nuclear wipe-out condition can be assumed to have been met.
# 3: Trigger retaliatory counter-measures.
This part is simple. If the nuclear wipe-out conditions are met, deploy all surviving nuclear assets. Rain righteous death upon all enemies, guilty or not.
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The computer should first have a large set of sensors, as you suggested.
The most important ones would most likely be radiation and temperature sensors, and a really large number of them, spread wide enough and placed in well secured areas (military bases, police stations etc) so they cannot easily be fooled in a large enough number.
Only if a sufficiently large number of signals suggest a massive attack should your dead man's switch come into place: The computer should send an email (or similar) to a largeish number of people, containing a pass phrase. If none or not enough of those emails are replied to after a reasonably long time (say, two days?), or don't contain the correct answer to the pass phrase, the computer should assume that there are not enough people left to prevent a counter-attack and execute it.
This way you should be able to make sure that a false alarm does not trigger a war, and that no single person, or small group of people, can intentionally set the thing off.
[EDIT] To make things clearer: The email (or whatever system is implemented) does not start the coutner-attack. It is a check system to prevent it: The computer basically states: "i am about to counter-attack: give the correct answer to interrupt that". And only if enough correct answers are given, the counter-attack will be cancelled.
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For a device like this, a false positive to launch a nuclear attack is absolutely unacceptable.
Your problem is significantly easier than designing a system that detects an imminent attack such as the [Able Archer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83) exercises where the US and USSR almost started a nuclear exchange. Detecting an actual attack just requires measuring the destruction of infrastructure.
**Sensor Networks**
The core idea behind these sensor nets is a large set of continuous loop fiber optic cables that run out from the Dead Man Switch bunker(s) to the various cities across the country. If the loop is broken then the sensor has detected an event that matches the profile of a nuclear attack. This way, instead of attempting to detect whether something no longer exists, we have proof that it does exist, because of the continuous fiber loop, right up until it doesn't. When the sensor 'fires', have it emit a signal indicating "I have fired" then cut the fiber loop by pyrotechnic charge. This gives us an additional layer of assurance that this is not a false positive event. Distribute the fiber runs so that someone with an errant front-loader doesn't trigger nuclear war.
**Sensor Types**
* Embed fiber into various critical landmarks such as the legislative building(s), major military complexes and major economic buildings. If the building sustains heavy damaged then the loop will be broken.
* Thermobaric sensors to detect the intense heat and pressure of a nuclear attack.
* Radiation sensors to detect the fallout from a nuclear attack.
* Seismic sensors to detect the signature of a nuclear blast in a specific area.
* Optical sensors to detect the flash of a nuclear attack.
* EM sensors to detect the electro-magnetic pulse of a nuclear explosion.
* Radio sensors to detect when radio stations on all bands stop broadcasting.
Spread these sensors out across the country so that if a single sensor fails, it can be isolated and repaired quickly.
**Benefits of Fiber Optic Loops**
They're incredibly difficult to hack. Breaking the fiber is instantly detectable. There are no electro-magnetic signals to interfere with or snoop on. The light in the fiber can be encrypted with crazy strong [quantum cryptography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography) so that it can't be faked, to guard against if the cable was very carefully compromised and an attacker injected light into the fiber to make a tripped sensor appear like it didn't. The very long loops essentially increase the Dead Man Bunker's sensory reach to include the whole country.
**Sensor Synthesis**
All of these sensor nets must form a consensus that an attack has occurred. Deciding to take action based on data from sometimes faulty information is an example of a [consensus problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science)) in computer science. Information scientists can develop a sufficiently strong algorithm to tolerate sensory false positives.
Any one of these sensor types is insufficient to trigger a counter attack. For example, an earthquake may destroy the legislative building but the thermobaric, radiation and flash sensors won't trigger, so no counterattack is executed. If the fiber loops take many different geographic paths then an earthquake is unlikely to take out enough loops to initiate a launch.
**The Real Dead Man**
All of these sensory networks can only show that an attack has occurred but not if a retaliation is warranted. Removing humans completely from the equation also removes intuition and compassion. The [1983 Nuclear False Alarm](http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/5-cold-war-close-calls) was halted because a human was in the loop and he judged, correctly, that the early warning satellites were malfunctioning, not that an attack was underway.
In the Dead Man Bunker(s), there's an adult human who must give the final order to launch the attack based on information the sensors provide.
**Timeout Period**
Every year, the system will automatically disable itself unless in the days before the expiration date, the system is reauthorized. This prevents a zombie attack by a system that everyone forgot about (I'm not sure how they would forget but it could happen). And it forces the country's leadership to reevaluate whether it wants a deadman switch every year. Popular sentiment may change and the yearly reactivation is a good time to check that.
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**Easy way: Employ real "dead man"**:
Get set of highly motivated and patriotic people. Set them in (say) 14 day set of duties.
The duty will be: You are going to be locked in the bunker from outside for 14 days. With food and water reserves for 14 days. Your most important task is: Press a button at random intervals.
If you fail to press a button, nuclear attack is going to be triggered. That's why its called "dead man switch"
The duty of other guys will be simple: Once your duty is done, they have to unlock you from the bunker, refill food and water and lock someone else from the group in the bunker.
If the people from the group live through "ordinary lives" otherwise, you make sure that nuclear attack from your side is triggered only if there is major event happening.
And if you make these groups all around the country, with condition that at least one button in one of these bunkers needs to be pressed, you made sure that you trigger nuclear attack only in case of major events.
**It is almost impossible to automate this process in current tech.**
* Seismic detectors can trigger "nuclear attack" event also in case of normal event (like volcano erruption)
* Networks can go down, electricity can have outage (especially if you check for wide areas)
* The detector itself can go false alarm.
Yes, most of the systems can go to really really accurate settings of 99.99999999985% probability that the nuclear war alarm is actually real and happening.
However, if you replace computer with motivated people, you can go 100% and for cheaper price
And to me, in cases of triggering nuclear war, this counts
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Interestingly enough, the physical details of the implementation are relatively unimportant. If it ever actually triggers, it's already failed.
Consider the [MAD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction) doctrine:
>
> The MAD doctrine assumes that each side has enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the other side and that either side, if attacked for any reason by the other, would retaliate without fail with equal or greater force. The expected result is an immediate irreversible escalation of hostilities resulting in both combatants' mutual, total and assured destruction.
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In other words, by the time this system activates you've already lost. The only benefit to having it trigger is you cause your opponent to also lose, which is kind of iffy in my opinion.
Therefore, the primary goal of your system is **not** to accurately detect that your nation is destroyed. The point of your system is to act as a deterrent, and for that you need to do two things:
1. Secure it, so it can't be disabled or hijacked. Bury and harden it in shelters so it can't be taken out with a first strike.
2. Make it very, very obvious that it exists. Deterrents don't work if your opponents don't' know about them. So this can't be a secret system, it needs to be very in-their-face, lots of press. Leak at least some of the top level details, make sure they know its there and that it's real.
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Such a system has existed in Russia/USSR for decades. Google "Dead Hand"; there is a decent Wikipedia article on it. Horrifying.
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You want to have a very high certainty that the system is:
* going to react accordingly to what you intended.
* arbitrarily not likely to be triggered after a false alarm.
* reliable and valid.
* arbitrarily not likely to be revealed to the world so its utility is corrupted.
## Human and *dead man trigger*
The solution here is what was said in an earlier response: you just lock people in a basement with no other purpose than pushing a button at regular intervals. This seems nice because it's a direct reflect of what would happen in the countries near by. If no one pushes the button then it's almost certain that a disastrous event happened which prevented humans to come pushing the button... or is it? I mean, after all humans are humans. Especially if you select untrained regular people to be your "dead-men" you're facing a big problem. People are easily corrupted, manipulated and they are likely to leak out secret information that would help some enemies to prevent the automatic strike back to occur.
Let's imagine the following scenario: one of the people involved into the "dead man" process leaks out crucial information about how it works. This information are eventually revealed to an unfriendly country. This enemy send some people at different locations to infiltrate your system in order to be able to replicate its signal. The enemy finally unleash its nuclear power then simulate the signals until he finds out a way to permanently disable the threat.
This is mere one (and maybe not the most clever) among all the possibilities one could imagine to break in your system.
## Automated processes
One could think of an automated process as highly reliable because it lacks human common flaws and does not feel anything. It just does its job and that's all but there are several limitations to a machine doing this kind of job. First of all it highly depends on the implementation of the machine by the creators. Since you said they are very cautious one could assume they would not make **much** mistakes but still... they would make a few at least.
Making a few mistakes could lead to a systematic bias in the system which could lead to a catastrophic result.
An automated process lacks the human intelligence which would allow someone to decide that the launch of nuclear missile has been triggered by error and has to be cancelled. If the sensors which are saying to the central system whether a attack has been made or not is deficient and works in a bad way the central system has no way to figure it out. This is therefore very dangerous and I doubt seriously that such an automated implementation would be chosen by very smart scientists.
Plus, no matter how secure your system is, it can still be infiltrated and corrupted to react in a way you didn't expect. For example an enemy could trigger your secret auto-defensive system intentionally in order to build himself a very nice reason to strike you back and destroy you without being bothered by any other countries.
**EDIT:** To answer the "mail solution" in an answer below (because it raises an interesting problem).
To solve the problem of false alarm one could say:
* Send mail to people and wait for response.
* Put some people in a confined box and wait for signals.
* etc.
But those are just some implementations of an abstract conceptual solution to a more general problem: how do I check the existence of something?
No matter how clever this system is, this is just a ping. So... how can I be certain that what I see is what it is? How can I be certain that the answer comes from where I think it comes? How can I be certain that I waited long enough?
Any signals can be rerouted, modified, blocked, etc.
## Let's do this with an Artificial Intelligence?
So what to do? Since we have human which are not reliable but flexible, cheap and "intelligent enough" to make proper decisions. Machine are reliable but the threat of a systematic bias, mechanical flaws or bugs is very likely and would result in an uncontrolled launch of nuclear missile.
One could think of artificial intelligence in order to have the best of the two worlds, a very docile and unbreakable mind which could "evaluate" a good behaviour in any unpredicted situation... this machine could also verify its own integrity and fix any bias and bugs it would find. Like a learning machine would do. We give this AI the goal : "fire a strike back if someone attacks us". And we let it implements the most optimised solution.
This is an even worse idea. This goal could be subject to perverse instantiation : the machine will not do what we had in mind.
## Conclusion
My conclusion is that building a weapon which can decide to kill on its own is a pretty bad idea unless **you find a way to be certain that the system is safe**. Then whatever the system you chose, it will work since you designed it to be **unbreakable**. They way does not matter because I think **this is not achievable with hard-science level of rigour**.
## Conclusion (bis)
**Just assume your system works :)** for example you can say that in your world, your sensors are **overwhelmingly reliable**. You can push the probability as far as you want by checking into your system with arbitrarily good precision.
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## First Warning
The computer receives input from existing nuclear tracking systems. This allows it to identify potential launches around the world. It makes a note of each launch, the type of weapon launched, and the country it was launched from. Monitor ground systems dedicated to detecting radiation; I don't know how many cities already have these, but install more of them in major population centers.
## Second Warning
For each launch, the computer performs calculations to approximate the weapon's trajectory. If a weapon is destroyed prior to reaching a target, that data point is discarded. If a weapon's calculated path puts it inside the country's borders, issue an alert message to people of authority and any defense system already in place. Continue tracking of all non-discarded data points in real time to be certain a missile hasn't changed course.
For each ground detection of radiation, issue an alert message to people of authority. There's no way to know where ground devices originate from, so the computer takes no additional action at this point.
## Retaliation
If a launched missile detonates inside the country's borders at an altitude that can cause harm, initiate a launch sequence on your own missiles and send an alert message to people in authority. Authority figures have a certain amount of time, say, thirty minutes, to abort the sequence. The computer requires an 80% concurrence to stop its own launch sequence.
For ground detonations, there's nothing the computer can do. We don't want to retaliate against every nation that has nuclear capability, especially if a rogue power obtained a nuclear device. Human operators can force the computer to start a launch, but it sends a request for confirmation from authority figures and requires an 80% concurrence before it can start.
## Last Resort
Monitor the Internet. Within an hour of any nuclear strike anywhere in the world, it's going to hit every news feed on the Internet. If the detonation occurred inside your country and someone takes credit for the launch, or the news identifies the assailant (again, 80% concurrence among all news feeds), the computer initiates a launch sequence and sends an alert message to authority figures. An 80% concurrence from authority figures within the time limit (30 minutes) forces the computer to abort the launch.
## Risks
* Sabotage of detection systems
* Loss of connection to detection systems
* Interception of alert messages
* Improper alert responses
* Loss of Internet connection (recommend using satellite link)
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# Monitor the internet.
If every reputable news website in the world suddenly has "Country X nuked!" as the headline and worldwide social media explodes over the topic (with your own country being surpisingly silent about it) and nobody cancels the started countdown, unleash hell.
Only counter is to shut down the entire internet. At which point, most of civilization is going to start falling apart *anyway*, so it doesn't matter anymore.
(You could add "the internet suddenly disappears" to the list of things that start the nuke countdown, of course.)
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By the time the nukes have landed, it's too late: the first strike has already hit all (or at least most of) your missile silos. You have nothing to shoot back with.
For this reason, most actual nuclear defense systems attempt to detect the delivery mechanism: the Ballistic Missile. You could look for the large IR signature of a missile launch, or use sophisticated radars to detect the missile body. Also, potentially correlate with known/suspected/possible launch sites. Finally, provide a message to the user.
The user then has a few minutes (missile time of flight) to decide if it is a real attack or not before retaliating. This the done by a person: no sane government would leave this to a computer program.
Bonus points for this system: if you detect the missile in flight, it may also be possible to shoot it down. It functions both as MAD and as missile defense.
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I'm surprised nobody mentioned the 1964 movie "Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb." They actually dealt with this exact problem, and just how badly it goes when you try to do what you are trying to do. And, spoiler:
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> They couldn't find a way to fix the mess it made
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Fundamentally, your goal is to remove humans from the control loop for weapons designed to end humanity. Phrased that way, you can see why it is particularly difficult to make it safe. What you are trying to create would be considered to be an afront to humanity.
If you had to do it it: it would include:
* 1,000+ duplicate computers all over the US, all analyzing the same data. No action can be taken without a supermajority. Remember, these are computers in a post-nuclear fallout type era. Faults happen. Even the slightest possibility that a computer fault could occur should be watched with extreme suspicion. Literally everything is in the balance
* As part of the interface, the computers should use Rivest's "how to share a secret" system or something similar to ensure not only are the computers instructed to not fire without a supermajority, but they actually lack the ability to unlock the launch codes without it. Of course, because that's just an algorithm, this should not be the only safeguard.
+ The conditions for a launch should be immaculately discussed. We are literally talking about a lose-lose case for all of humanity, written down into the memory banks of a computer. For example, how long does the chain of command need to be interrupted? What probability do the computers need to see in their statistical analyses before concluding that the chain is interrupted. If the president is out of communication, do they wait longer than if the entire chain is destroyed? These are humanity-sized questions that you're going to have your scientists answer. Answer them wrong, and a terrorist who acquires a nuclear weapon suddenly goes from being able to threaten a city to threatening all of humanity, and you are the one who empowered them.
+ Room for error. You are not only putting the entire fate of humanity in your hands, you're putting it in the hands of the enemy (as seen in Dr. Strangelove). If your foes make a mistake, and try to correct it, are you going to obliterate humanity over it?
With all of this in mind, there is a reason that many argue that *no* nation should have nuclear arms. Even some nuclear arms are potentially too dangerous to entrust to the humans in charge, much less entrusting armageddon for the human race to a computer.
If you look at our weapons, we have a human in the loop on most of our firearms. Even Phalanx, which is mostly automated, has a kill switch with a human behind it. Removing that human element from nukes is considered a bad idea.
If you want to see how it has been done, research the Titan Missile Silos. They are an example of what a cold war era US, utterly fearful of the USSR, considered "acceptable safety." Its actually quite extraordinary how many safeguards they managed to integrate.
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There's a lot of talk about sensors here, but I'm going to take a different approach: How would **you** (a human) determine that the nation has been wiped out and that you should launch your counter-offensive?
Suppose a mass attack had taken place and that you had somehow survived. How would you know? Look outside? Check television, Internet and other media? Get yourself a radiation detector? On the flip side, how do you know, for example, that it *hasn't* happened while you were writing this question?
The point is that whatever you do, that's probably what you would want an automated system to do, preferably with less emotion and perhaps with more speed and precision. If you weren't sure if your front garden has been landscaped ala-post-apocolyptic style, you might ask others and try to form a general consensus. You might attempt to gain insight from others with more knowledge than you. In the end, you will make a decision (even if that decision is "I'm not sure").
A downside to all human decision making is that not everyone plays fair. Some will try to deceive you, even if there is no gain for them - but in a decision that is so important (like wiping out several billion humans) you would likely be very careful in your assessment and employ thorough, trusted and redundant checks.
Deliberately no specifics in this answer as there are plenty from others, but if a machine could make a "better" (a very imprecise definition) decision than a human - it would likely result in the end of the human race anyway.
In the spirit of <http://isitchristmas.com>, I guess you could have <http://isitnucleararmigeddon.com> which your computer could constantly monitor.
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A simpler answer that sidesteps the entire question of sensor detection is to require that it be proactively armed. Completely decapitating nuclear strikes rarely come "out of the blue", but rather, can be expected to come after a period of increased tensions. Take as an example the well-known "[DEFCON](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFCON)" system that the US uses. Rather than trying to automatically detect and retaliate to a nuclear strike, one would simply arm the counterstrike system when the DEFCON meter hit a certain value, say, DEFCON 2. The counterstrike system would then start a countdown timer, of say, 2 hours. Every 2 hours, National Command Authority must give the appropriate countersign to the systems computers to reset the timer. Should they fail to do so, the weapons launch.
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I am creating a speculative evolution project for school (and partially for leisure) and I need a planet for my organisms to live on. I have a rough idea of what it may be like but I'm no expert in planetology and other planet-related sciences.
My planet has/is:
* A dense atmosphere
* Larger than Earth
* Only 16% of the planet's surface is water
* Most of the land is covered in thick rainforests
* 150% more water than Earth
* Most of the planet's water is in the atmosphere
* 34% oxygen ratio
* The water in the atmosphere is water in the form of fog
* the meridional circumference is 47609.52Km
* the equatorial circumference is 47632.13Km
* surface area is 606862704.1Km²
I need advice on how to turn this into a plausible world capable of sustaining life.
Edit: I just realized I had my facts wrong and I had meant to say that there are large amounts of liquid water in the atmosphere. I'm not sure how drastically this changes the situation of my planet. I apologize for the inconvenience.
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**A dense atmosphere** - as Jackom5 has clarified, atmospheric pressure and temperature determine water's preferred state. We want to keep the planet cool enough to support life as we know it, so let's interpret "dense" as "dense-looking". The atmosphere appears dense because it is full of water vapor. When actually measured, it is pretty close to Earth's norms in order to not challenge the planet's life-friendly status. If you need it to really be denser, then that just raises the necessary air temperature. Higher temperatures are not a deal breaker, but given that Earth-borne thermophiles haven't evolved above bacterial size, it might limit the varieties of organisms which can live on your foggy world.
**Larger than Earth** - does not necessarily mean higher gravity. You can have your bigger planet, but let's make it less dense than Earth, so that our style of living beings could walk around in the fog and so that some of that life could fly. Flying through fog must be cool.
**Only 16% of the planet's surface is water** and **150% more water than Earth** - is not a problem. If we make your oceans incredibly deep with steep cliffs instead of gradually sloping floors, they can hold almost half of a greater than Earth supply of water while taking up a lot less surface space than our oceans do.
**Most of the land is covered in thick rainforests** - as Ash offered, this can only help with the real challenge which we will be getting to soon.
**34% oxygen ratio** - okay, but it will make stuff a lot more combustible. Good thing that there is a lot of moisture in the air or your rain forests would live in constant jeopardy from wild fire.
**The water in the atmosphere is water vapor** - isn't really an issue. I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure the only way that water can be in an atmosphere is as water vapor.
Which leaves the real challenge of your post...
**Most of the planet's water is in the atmosphere**
Others have already written about why this is difficult on a life bearing planet. Environments where water boils are not conducive to living organisms which prefer to keep the water inside them in its more useful liquid form. As previously stated, if Earth's thermophiles are to be trusted, high temperatures also seem to have a negative effect on the upper evolutionary threshold.
So let's make the high humidity a comparatively recent occurrence. Let's let the planet's life evolve in a nearly perfect earth equivalent environment; with clear skies, lots of sunshine and whatever else it was that made the miracle happen here on Earth. Let's let that life crawl out of the seas and start living on dry land.
...then let's boil the oceans!
Massive undersea volcanoes open at the bottom of those incredibly deep seas and start filling the planet's atmosphere with steam. Let's turn the heat down a little. We don't want to boil our young life. Just keep those oceans simmering slowly, while the life evolves and adapts to their changing world.
Give the recipe a billion years or so, with the water constantly steaming off of the oceans surfaces, riding gentle winds till they cool, condensing as dew, then gathering into puddles which grow into ocean-bound streams.
Your world is now permanently fog bound, muggy and slippery. Not my first choice for a vacation spot, but the life that could evolve there should be very interesting!
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[Evapotranspiration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evapotranspiration), *because* the planet is covered in vegetation the rate of water moving from the ground/rivers/oceans into the atmosphere can be accelerated if the rate at which that vegetation gives up water to the atmosphere is high enough. This creates a world of thick mists and clouds because the atmosphere is permanently at or above it's water vapour saturation.
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Speaking in terms of chemistry the liquid and gaseous phases of water are in dynamic equilibrium. In order for most of the water to be water vapor, the world would have to be incredibly hot.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fJhZx.png)
The other option would be to have an incredibly low pressure which would not be consistent with your dense atmosphere.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kBqJH.png)
Neither of these options seems plausible.
Now if you wanted a world with significantly more gaseous water than Earth but still within reason, I would suggest a mixture of increasing the temperature, by moving the planet closer to the sun, and decreasing the pressure, by decreasing the presence of other gases in the atmosphere. This would allow for a consistently high concentration of water vapor comparable to a foggy day on Earth.
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You want a planet like Teneba. Hal Clement had great skill in creating worlds with unusual chemistry. In his novel, the combination of mass, temperature and pressure results in a world very close to water's critical point.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_to_Critical>
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Many other excellent answers already, but I want to throw out one more: evolution.
You are constructing a planet that is very different from Earth in many respects, albeit similar in others (has an atmosphere and is capable of sustaining liquid water, for instance). Presumably, your planet also has an atmosphere that is composed primarily of oxygen and nitrogen (and water vapor, obviously), although you only mention the oxygen.
Yet you are implying the assumption that plants work essentially the same way as plants on Earth would.
If such a planet really exists (which is entirely within the realm of possibility), plants would actually evolve to fit the conditions on that planet. Actually, the whole biology might look different; you may not even have the plant and animal kingdoms we have on Earth.
But assuming that plant and animal kingdom had evolved similar to earth, plants may not use their roots to absorb water and (water-soluble) nutrients; they may use their leaves to collect gaseous water vapor, then liquefy it and pump the water into the soil around their roots to extract nutrients.
Or plants may form a symbiotic relationship with bacteria (or other organisms) that can deliver nutrients from the soil around it, in return for the plant providing water to the bacteria. Or maybe plants on that planet don't need nutrients at all; photosynthesis may be enough. In that case, the plants on your planet may not even need roots. Since the planet is larger than Earth, you would also would have higher gravity, which may make roots unnecessary.
You may also want to think about photosynthesis in this context. Maybe the star for this planet provides a different light spectrum than our sun does. That may favor a different type of photosynthesis that may use water differently, or not at all.
The bottom line is that almost any mechanism you can come up with is plausible, as long as it does not lead to internal contradictions.
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You say that most of the planet's water is in the atmosphere, and that only 16% of the surface is water, which begs the question of how much, exactly, is "most" of the water? Are you just talking about surface and atmospheric water? Because groundwater is a vital part of any water cycle.
The topography of the planet is one interesting place to start. If you have very large mountains and valleys, the mountains might be cooler and allow rainforest growth.
The distribution of land and water is another question to consider - for example, if most of the water is based around the equator, with deep oceanic trenches to counteract the heat, and heat exchange between equatorial and polar regions is limited, then in higher latitudes, cooler temperatures may promote rainforest growth.
The length of day should also be defined - slow rotation would mean longer nights and more time for condensation onto plant leaves or soils. I think your original criteria might allow for rainfall as long as subsequent evaporation occurs quickly enough.
Non-gaseous content of the atmosphere is important, as rain cloud formation happens when water vapour condenses on cloud condensation nuclei (e.g. dust, salt, soot), so abundant quantities of these would encourage higher levels of precipitation, and subsequently be more conducive to rainforests.
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Try doing it with geography. The (condensed) water flows into a vulcanic are where it evaporates. You might consider a vulcanic equatorial.
(((In case you want to go crazy, an example for this equatorial can be that the top half-shell rotates one direction, while the bottom half-shell rotates opposite way)))
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A lot of liquid water in the atmosphere means tick, heavy clouds and powerful winds to keep them from precipitating too fast (at least, that's how liquid water is kept in the atmosphere on Earth).
Keep in mind that those clouds will probably be snow at the top, conflicting with the "liquid" part. You cannot avoid the temperature gradient in the atmosphere and you will actually have to think about some energy source to sustain the gradient and the winds. The sun will probably won't do, the clouds will reflect most of the sunlight and it will be quite dark on the surface.
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For most sci-fi movies/tv series ship bridge/main control room is exposed (external part of ship). Examples:
* *Star Wars* Star Destroyers
* *Stargate* Dedalus/Destiny/Atlantis(top of main highest tower)
* *Star Trek* Enterprise
* *Prometheus* USCSS Prometheus
* ...
Why such crucial place is exposed so even small enemy ship can destroy all control equipment/kill officers? Is not better to hide bridge like in *Battlestar Galactica* deep inside central part of ship with thick hull and observe everything using sensors?
I know that for beautiful views and drama it has to be done like this so even very weak opponent could take down "Goliath" but I wonder if there are any other advantages of locating command center in external part of ships.
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# Hubris
Maybe it's just a thing to show off or inspire fear. "Our ship is so powerful/awesome, we put one of our most important rooms directly near the outside of our ship." This could also be a simple tradition; people put the windows on their bridges simply because it's always been done that way.
# Humility
Maybe the vulnerability of some of these ships highlight their civilian or nonaggressive roles they are meant to play. Warships ought to be as secure as possible; civilian or nonmilitary craft may want this weakness to keep their commanders humble. It can also highlight the vulnerability of the craft, making it an obvious non-military target.
# Terrible Defensive Capabilities
Perhaps this ship, as mentioned by the poster in the comments, relies on some other form of defense. If that defense is circumvented or defeated, it could be that *no amount of other armor* would help. If it doesn't matter where your command is, may as well give them a view!
# Stealth Detection
Maybe the sensors can be fooled by some technology, but this technology cannot hide from human vision. For instance, the [SSV Normandy from Mass Effect](http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/SSV_Normandy#Technology) can hide from sensors, but not from visual scans. You'd want the decision making people to be able to detect stealthy ships, and this window may be the simplest way to do it.
# Really Strong Glass / Claustrophobia
Maybe the glass is just as strong as the material around it? If so, you can counteract potential claustrophobia by putting in a window without sacrificing structural integrity. Chris Hadfield, a real astronaut, talks about this concern [here](http://www.npr.org/2013/10/30/241830872/astronaut-chris-hadfield-brings-lessons-from-space-down-to-earth). Alternatively, simply have a window *somewhere* may help with Claustrophobia in general, and it just happens to be on the bridge.
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So, right off, it's always nice to be able to see where you're going. For many vessels, this means you have to put the command center in the front, and usually on the top, so your driver has clear line-of-sight on where they're going. And since the driver is usually the one in charge, everyone else who's important is also going to end up there.
And for the most part, this isn't a problem. For non-military vessels, you shouldn't be worried about anyone blowing up your bridge, so you can really put it wherever you want to (which might explain the *Prometheus* and to a certain extent the *Enterprise*). But like you said, it's the warships you're worried about.
Now, I will say there's no real reason to expose your bridge in a giant spaceship. Human sight will do absolutely nothing for you in the vastness of space; it's likely the bridge crew won't really have much to do at all in a battle, leaving the fighting up to computers that have the ability to crunch the astronomical amount of numbers required to actually hit a target that's thousands of kilometers away.
But this raises a good point: *no one should be able to hit the bridge anyway*. Space is huge, and many sci-fi warships are also mind-bogglingly large. If you have an enemy ship making a beeline for an impromptu meeting with Death on your command deck, then you should have plenty of time to see this and respond accordingly. The same guns you use to shoot down missiles should be designed to stop anyone bridge-bound from hitting their target. Even if these countermeasures fail to stop a few missiles or lasers or other sci-fi projectiles, the chances of those projectiles being able to lock onto and hit the bridge are probably low enough to not consider.
Now, this flies in the face of many sci-fi cliches, such as super-close-range dogfighting and horrendously bad aim when trying to stop the good guys. But really, why would the Super Star Destroyer let any ships get close enough to ram it? Especially when that ship is passing directly over literally all of their guns.
So you get to choose: either it shouldn't be easy to take out the bridge but it is, or bridges should have more protection but don't. Either way, I don't think it's going to end up making sense, but there's so many other problems with space battles as depicted in sci-fi that this is really just a minor issue.
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There are only two advantages in having a non-core bridge:
1. External visibility in the event of systems failures rendering cameras and/or monitors inoperable.
and
2. Reduced expense: there is no need to have cameras and monitors when the crew can just look out a window.
A surface-mounted bridge is really justifiable only for craft capable of atmospheric landing, and is almost completely unjustifiable for any but the smallest combatant craft.
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Regarding the Enterprise from Star Trek, it has been suggested (not sure from what source or with what authority, although I would imagine in some designer sketch or obscure tech doc you might find support) that **the bridge is actually a module that can be replaced for an upgrade**. It would make sense that, of any part of the ship that might require frequent upgrade, the bridge would be it. The bridge module change from the original U.S.S. Enterprise from Star Trek (1966) to the refit enterprise that appeared in Star Trek: TMP is detailed in this [fan-written article](http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/constitution-refit.htm).
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It seems rather clear that having an exposed bridge, with only a layer of glass between it and the depths of space, is a vulnerability. Even if the glass is as strong as steel, it's still exposing the command center to the enemy's view and opening the possibility of command capability being taken out with one shot. For water-based ships, this could be an accepted trade-off to allow for visual sighting even if sensors are failing, but in space this is useless; your starship should have been reduced to so much space junk by the time the enemy gets close enough for the human eye to see them.
From a **combat** perspective, therefore, an exposed bridge is worse than useless. But what about the **non-combat** perspective? Those starships are presumably crewed by living beings. Humans can become claustrophobic in tight quarters (and a starship will not have much in the way of open space), which will become all the worse as time goes on without any relief; imagine a submarine crew that had to remain submerged for weeks on end (ignoring the problems of air and food and water) and what such confinement could potentially do to their mental health. You really don't want to have your crewmen suffering from nightmares, paranoia, reduced efficiency and concentration, and so on when you're about to enter hostile space.
Having windows on your starships would help to avert the possibility of mental breakdowns and generally low morale due to claustrophobia at a relatively low monetary cost, and the bridge is naturally where some crew members will spend a significant fraction of their waking hours. Leaving the primary bridge exposed might be a necessary price for the preservation of the crew's mental health. There is presumably an auxiliary bridge buried at a sensible depth within the ship for emergencies (like the few occasions of actual combat), but there might not always be time to get to it if combat begins abruptly (an ambush, a diplomatic occasion gone wrong, etc.). If starships are fragile enough, it might not even matter very much that the bridge is exposed when one clean hit destroys the average vessel.
As a bonus, you can always advertise the panoramic views as a selling point to lure in new recruits for your suicide miss- sorry, I meant to say your heroic battles! Everybody loves that awe-inspiring view of the cosmos, and never mind the hideous aliens hiding out there waiting to blow your ship to pieces or the endless tedium and strict discipline of daily shipboard life!
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This is an older but not too old topic that I thought I would fill in anything that may have been overlooked. I'm thinking practicality of naval vessel design as we expand into space. (It should be noted any civilization with the technology and energy to easily navigate space would not have the same motivations for war that we have today).
Once you can technologically live in space, things like territory, resources, etc. are no longer an issue. The Sun alone provides enough energy to have a huge fusion swarm with quadrillions of people living more comfortably than even the richest of people today can live. I can assume this because here, we are already assuming vast space armadas are able to be built, which would require the same technological levels. So almost anything you would fight over is something that would be far less worth the hassle and threat to swarms of living habitats surrounding the Sun - remember if something were destroyed in space such as a ship, then all that debris becomes unintentional weapons fired in random directions, something the neighborhood is not going to be very appreciative of happening when the fight is over something trivial.
Again, once in space, any kind of resource you could want is much easier to obtain, unless it's a very abstract desire. A single small asteroid or comet is far more valuable than all of Earth's resources because it's much more abundant because it's concentrated which also makes it much easier to get. There would be little gravity well to escape as well. And there's plenty of these objects that it would take a ridiculously long time to run out of them.
But say everything around a star was consumed. If you could do that, than you'd have the technology to do star lifting (gathering resources directly from your star). While to us that's a hard thing to do but technologically possible even today, a civilization we are describing would have no problems doing it. Google star lifting if you want to learn more.
So when discussing such a topic, you already have to make assumptions which you will base your next predictions and reasoning (logic) off. In this case, a space navy capability already assumes a lot about technologies humanity will have gained or mastered in the future.
And there will not be a logical reason to conduct warfare since everything wars are fought over today are generally logical and cold with a trumped up reason (i.e. "I want your gold so I'll tell my people that your people are some sort of threat to my people's existence". Or something like that. The logic is really about getting at some resource). Of course, we would hope at that stage in civilization, we will have become a more secular society and one that has a very sound grasp of the human mind so we will have generally solved many issues that cause abnormal and hurtful behavior such as depression, suicide, homicide, etc., even in cases where it's purely biological since again we should not have any problems providing for people in terms of very high living standards.
We will also assume FTL is either impossible or not yet achievable for some unknown reason. Even without FTL technology and with today's technology, humanity could spread across the entire galaxy in only a couple dozen million years. Which isn't very long at all for cosmic timescales. We could even practically spread out to other galaxies if there became a compelling reason to do so. That would take more time to do, but even if speaking in terms of billions of years, that's still small over cosmic timelines.
With FTL in the picture it just makes any reason to go to war all the more irrational and unlikely (bug again this is where things become more unpredictable). What biological relics will we retain that served an evolutionary purpose at one point in time but would only serve as an illogical motivation in the future. It's worth noting also that human species will start to be more meaningless of a term as any population will evolve (through technology or just biology) as time passes and different environments are settled. So there are a lot of things that could happen which even using my reasoning for having windows will no longer make sense.
Okay, with that out of the way, the reason for windows or a bridge that stands out boils down to easy rationale: **Psychology plus practicality.**
In the context of modern warfare, even today in naval warfare, windows are not necessary. They have no military value even if your "sensors" (whatever they may be) go out. Ship-to-ship combat has not been fought face-to-face by capital ships for over a century. And in most modern warfare, even a destroyer has been made into the equivalent of a battleship since offensive weaponry simply outpaced armor decades ago. And ever since the ability to launch planes to attach ships was a reality, the effective "gun" range of an aircraft carrier is as far as a plane can fly. Where any gun has maybe 60 miles in extreme context. Say 18" battleship guns with rocket assisted projectiles (which in modern field artillery only gets maximum ranges of about 20-30 km depending on sizes).
I should mention I was a fire officer for a battalion. So me and my 5-man crew served as the brains of any indirect fire support requests. So besides my degrees in math MS and physics BS, I have practical experience in training and applications. So two things emerge from that. The practicality of having large vessels tends to decrease with time, as they simply become large targets, and appear stationary to weapons and vehicles that move at velocities faster than sound.
While I cannot say with certainty what a space navy would look like, I would say it probably wouldn't look very recognizable to any comparable water based navy except for submarines. The barring factor being what size is a practical war vessel. It's simply too difficult to foresee what technologies will lead naval ship sides to evolve into. Small ships are more maneuverable and by any foreseeable technology will be the largest factor in survival, especially when talking about defending against object in space where velocities alone can turn bullets into weapons with the energies of nuclear weaponry (simply from kinetic energy though).
So this is the practical part of the problem. If your ships are not particularly large to begin with, or the size has no bearing on how protected you are should you actually be hit with a futuristic weapon, then it doesn't matter where your bridge is. In fact, the concept of a bridge may become antiquated. And everything will be spread out as much as possible so the ship remains as functional as possible if any one section of it is hit (assuming that being hit is even survivable, which would make large unmaneuvarable ships unlikely as it's a larger investment and risk without any payoff).
Something I can't account for is whether countermeasures in the future to shoot down projectiles being fired at you or shielding against energy-based weapons makes sense to have on larger or smaller craft. There are some conceivable energy weapons which no amount of shielding would protect you from and would radiate the crew of the vessel to death but leave the ship intact. It's worth looking at why a sci-fi novel or movie is trying to do. They very often try to be symbolic and relatable to us. So things are written even knowing the plot is flawed scientifically.
Give an alien invasion of Earth for instance. It would not be a contest if they decided they wanted to kill us. They would send down meteors, viruses, nerve gas, etc and we would die off quickly and helplessly to the point of extinction if they wished it. But that would not make for a good story. So the author often needs to take great liberties in giving humanity a way to win. Such as aliens traveling between stars but not having antivirus software like in *Independence Day*. Since aliens are meant to usually represent a deep fear of the dark, unknown monsters seared into our brain through evolution, not a true scientifically accurate description of how a war with a hyper advanced space civilization would play out. We haven't even put 1000 people in space total yet. We realistically would have the same chance to win against them as a crippled Bambi would have against a healthy Godzilla.
Next comes psychological reasons, which would be more likely to occur. But I'm basing it off of today's psychology which could drastically change. Future humanity will likely augment brainpower in some fashion. Even if some people object to it there will always be those willing to do it. Those people will likely be the ones to survive more in the future. Between that and more people becoming less afraid of such changes as time goes on, we are unlikely to fathom what future psychology will be like. I will also point out that the reasons apply for any intelligence that I gave in the first paragraph. Whether silicone or carbon based brains should not matter.
But sticking with what we absolutely know, a window serves a vital purpose. Purely psychological ones. It's why people are heavily screened for signs of mental illness before being able to serve on a submarine. We generally don't do well in closed spaces where we also can't see the Sun ever. So windows serve simply as a way for people to stay connected to the outside world psychologically. Just being able to see or be outside on a ship makes someone feel much more connected to the world. And someone in a submarine may get the same freedom to communicate, but would still feel more isolated and cutoff from society.
Humanity is much more of a social animal than some people realize. But most people seem to perceive this at least on some level. And the aesthetic environment can drastically alter the mental health of the personnel on a ship. It's easy for an engineer to design a ship to be as efficient and indestructible as possible. But engineers have historically never been in step with reality when it comes to warfare. Especially if they know nothing about it and, combined with a lack of understanding human psychology, end up designing terrible weapons that never get off the paper.
A good example of this could be a simple one I once encountered at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey. They had designed a superior mortar system - on paper. The only problem is the system was supposed to be portable and contained a baseplate that would have realistically required robotic assistance to carry. Again, engineers are not good at designing things practical for people. They are great at making weapons that are perfect for robotic weaponry, but not for a person who is physically and psychologically under stress enough just being in war.
So you could argue all you want about how unnecessary that raised bridge is (which it is today - even on a ship there's no need for a raised over exposed bridge with windows), but even to the commanders it had a psychological effect on when making decisions. Note: even in navigating ports, visual sight is not technically necessary anymore. The bridge being exposed but over-towering is also psychological. It gives the crew somewhere to look to symbolically to gain courage. Or something to at least instill discipline and remind people there is command and control aboard a ship, so it's not without rules or regulations no matter how big or small.
In large cases, it may also serve to intimidate an enemy (or potential enemy/ally) as a projection of the actual power you control. Again, this takes a lot of liberties, since there's a large difference between a naval ship in water and one in space. I am not overly familiar with space psychology but I do know even with windows on shuttles and the space station that people are rigorously tested for any psychological signs of being incompatible with the challenges of space. Even then, a lot of astronauts still have trouble coping with space. I can only imagine that will become harder to manage the further away from Earth people travel. There will only be a feeling of further isolation as distances in space grow and communication isn't even instantaneous anymore from the FTL issues.
Originally, the crews that landed or orbited the moon could not even communicate with Earth on the far side before satellites were so prevalent. Some did pick up odd radio signals from the direction of Saturn. Nothing to suggest aliens or anything unnatural but when isolated, in deep, dark, and cold space, it doesn't take much to make a crew become more anxious, paranoid, etc. A space armada would likely be spaced out to a point where visual contact with friendly or enemy craft will not occur. Just as is often the case in modern naval warfare. So again, I can only use today's psychology and personal experience in war to go on. I tend to think these issues will become easier to deal with given more time and technology, but I have to speculate based on what I do know. Which is only today's psychology.
On a side note: you should be aware that all things in space give off something called black body radiation. So no matter what tricks you may try to pull off, it's virtually impossible to have a truly stealthy space craft. You'll never get it cold enough to look like the background radiation or even close enough to miss at least a suspicious notice. We have crazily accurate abilities to map the background radiation to a thousandth or even more of a kelvin/Celsius. So getting just your body to blend in with this background would take impractical amounts of effort. The effort would actually most likely only draw more attention to your craft since it would be something very anomalous to any civilization. Much more than a natural phenomenon or spacecraft not trying to hide would appear. Which would only most likely make you more likely to be found and make an opponent more likely to judge you to be hostile or have some nefarious business if you don't want to be seen approaching.
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One possibility exists for spacecraft that rely on the laws of physics rather than handwavium gravity control: centrifugal force.
A spacecraft which rotates to provide artificial gravity for the crew might have a "tower" with the bridge sticking out from the main body of the spacecraft. The tower would serve two purposes; to have a relatively high gravity area for the command crew (who might have to either be subjected to variable gravity due to combat manoeuvres or visiting planets), and when the ship is not rotating (for example when moving towards a docking station) it would serve as the "weather bridge" or pilot house for close quarter manoeuvres.
Of course, when action stations are sounded, the bridge crew goes to the CIC (combat information centre) buried in the centre of the ship.
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For the most part bridges on combat craft would probably be toward the center of the ship with lots of bulkheads and air tight doors around it.
Where a window makes sense is if there is a chance that the cameras might go out.
The thing is that it almost doesn't matter. When you have a chunk of metal moving at thousands of meters a second it's not going to slow down for much of anything short of capitol ship level armor.
You just want to have a few layers that can be closed between the bridge and vacuum.
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I'm guessing it is because most people think of space ships like we think of aircraft. You need to see where you are going and you get beautiful views. Basically they are thought of as really large airplanes, or even Navy ships where the Captain commands from a height where he can see the whole ship and enemies.
As you pointed out, when one thinks about it, in a space craft this is really pointless, and any craft that engages in combat, it is suicide. A command center, should be just that, in the center, protected by the ship. Even star trek rarely uses the main viewer as a window, it is always 'zooming' in to get a better look. It would also help protect the bridge from any stray particles that happen to make it through or around an shields and strike the outside of the ship when traveling at high speed. Hate for a pebble to 'decapitate' the ship traveling through space.
On top of that the speed at which things move in space and distances make it mostly pointless to be able to 'see' with the naked eye. Space ships are much more likely to be like submarines, using sensors to navigate.
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Why is the human brain located in the head only covered by a thin layer of bone. The spine is critical but not even fully covered. No redundancy either.
One answer is that the brain is in the head because it is closest to four out of five sensory loci there. Sight, hearing, smell, and taste are all located in the head, so there is as little delay from traveling along the nervous system as possible.
Another answer is that it doesn't matter as much as you might think. Let's say that we move the brain from the head to the abdomen. We'd have more surrounding tissue there. But assuming that the senses stay in a smaller head, damage to the head can still leave the person blind, deaf, or without the ability to feed. Obviously inability to feed is fatal, but even loss of sight or hearing was probably often fatal until relatively recently. Someone who can't see to hunt or who can't hear approaching predators is likely to die unless someone else obtains food.
Now ships aren't human, command centers aren't brains, and the exterior is not the head. But many of the same issues arise. Which is more likely for most ships: a focused attack from someone else? Or a sensory failure where the ship's sensors are no longer transmitting data? Note that an external window compensates for the latter. Which is probably why most planes and spaceships that we have now have an external window in the cockpit.
If there is a sensory failure during battle in a ship with the command center buried in the middle of the ship while, then the ship is likely lost. Its enemies can aim at it and move around to the weak spots, but it can't see where its enemies are and fire back. Even outside of battle, this can still matter. Consider a ship traversing an asteroid field. Sensors fail. It can't steer and so ends up hitting an asteroid. If it survives that, it hits another.
Once the people get better at building redundant sensors and start fighting in more battles, that calculation can change. Perhaps they develop ships that can still fight after significant damage.
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I was thinking about another post here how there most likely could be two bridges on a ship especially a large one. A top mounted bridge for observation and non combat duties and then a central part of the vessel further down into the ship that would be used during combat. For example in TNG there is the battle bridge which serves a different purpose, saucer separation, but still it would make sense that if the sole mission of ship at a certain time was combat to have central operations in a more secure area.
Another aspect of bridge location in TNG especially is that they have all kinds of shields. Navigation shields for regular traveling around and then defensive shields for combat or anomalous situations where extra protection is required. Also technology and armor could be at such a level where the top of the ship is just as secure as the interior. To make a loose comparison modern kevlar armor is much more effective at protecting soldiers today than if the same soldiers wore metal armor like in the middle ages.
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Here's one to ponder: what would an immortal eight-year-old be like after one thousand years?
In most stories involving immortality, the immortals are fully formed adults. When those stories do involve children, often those children are effectively presented as fully formed adults with the body of a child, **or** they are presented as being "frozen in time," that is, even after a thousand years they still act, think, and behave like a regular child.
But a thousand years is a long time. They'd inevitably see some crazy stuff and have to work through it, sometimes alone. And the brain of an eight-year-old is *physically incapable* of certain reasoning.
So: **how would the wisdom of a thousand years manifest through such a physically underdeveloped mind?**
If this concept has been explored anywhere, I haven't seen it and please let me know. I can't quite figure out the right Google phrasing to find anything worthwhile.
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Have a look at real-world instances of children who appear biologically frozen in time and parallel their behavior as an indicator of how your immortal child might act.
Examples include:
* [Nick Smith is 21 years old, and stands less than three feet tall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cVXLwKS4S0)
* [Gabby Williams is 8 years old and appears to age very slowly, Geoffery 29 years old but also appears to age slowly, and a 31 year old woman who is still the size of a toddler](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idHLgSuDbSs)
Be aware that these real-life examples are most likely attributed to some form of brain damage so subjective comparisons would have to be made to the behavior of normal children of that biological age as well.
**An underdeveloped mind may be incapable of understanding concepts which come only through achieving certain biological and psychological milestones as a result of the brain continuing to mature after birth.**
Also note that children of a certain biological age may be incapable of understanding certain concepts due to an underdeveloped brain. While an underdeveloped mind may be able to amass knowledge, they may forever be incapable fully realizing certain concepts which mark "milestones" of development.
I find it but there is a video somewhere that shows how a child of a certain age can't understand that a puppet who doesn't observe something has no knowledge of that thing. For example, the adult shows a puppet to the child and a ball. The puppet is put into a box and the ball is placed into a colored bag. Then puppet is removed from the box and the child is asked if the puppet knows which bag the ball is in. The child always thinks that the puppet knows because the child saw where it went. Or something to this effect. I would love it if someone could find this video for reference.
**A developed mind with an undeveloped body would be incapable of truly understanding things that they would otherwise NEVER experience, despite their immortality.**
Some things may be extremely difficult or impossible to fully comprehend without personal experience. For example, you could explain the chemical and psychological drive to procreate and its associated physical attraction but that kind of understanding would be limited to observation only. For example, a child might see someone as "beautiful" through visual characteristics but wouldn't truly understand or have an opinion of what is personally "sexy" to them; only what it is to other people.
Here is an interesting list of which you can choose whether you child would be able to experience given their exceptional lifetime while considering others of which they may not:
* [18 Things You Will Never Understand Until You Experience Them Yourself](https://www.elitedaily.com/life/motivation/cant-understand-experience-yourself/954658)
Additional things to consider is how a child sees the world through their eyes. There are lots of great videos on the subject:
* [A typical child on Piaget's conservation tasks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnArvcWaH6I)
* [100 Kids Explain What They Don't Understand About Grownups](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLj2q2BhJF8)
* [Can Babies Tell Right From Wrong?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBW5vdhr_PA)
* [A Child and a Puppet: How Children Learn Language](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cTE86ZNs1c)
* [Babies help unlock the origins of morality](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/babies-help-unlock-the-origins-of-morality/)
Other references which may be useful:
* [The World's Cleverest Child and Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z32NnlIpsz8)
* [Kids need structure](https://www.ted.com/talks/colin_powell_kids_need_structure/discussion)
* [Babies on the Brink](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WanGt1G6ScA)
**There is almost always a moment of shock and awe for the unprepared.**
I also think it's very interesting that ALL of these biological children and stunted adults are interacted with VERY differently from an actual adult. Whether it's because we perceive them as being immature or less experienced than ourselves, there always appears to be a moment of shock associated either with the individual expressing themselves well BEYOND the observer's perception or expressing themselves well BELOW the observer's anticipation.
**The child has complete faculties but acts young by choice, without choice, or as a form of deception.**
To take things to another extreme, consider the possibility is that your child may appear biologically young and, while possessing the complete faculties of an adult, CHOOSE to live and act according to the perceived age afforded their physical limitations either because they enjoy it as a lifestyle, because it is demanded by their underdeveloped form, or when it is convenient as a form of deception.
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There's a story on this by P. J. Plauger, *Child of All Ages*. [It was mentioned on SF.SE](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/161159/70477). Here's my summary from my answer:
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> In the story, Melissa has the body of a preteen girl but is over two thousand years old, fluent in dozens of languages, and is well educated in many fields. She stays alive using a formula that her father developed which preserves life, but it only works for those who have not undergone puberty. Melissa's greatest problem now is finding a way to live as someone who is treated as a legal child with very few rights.
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To be more specific, Melissa in the story is presented as *very* well educated with a general adult outlook on most things, but she has been affected by others *treating her* as a child.
In the end, she
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> walks into a movie theater showing cartoons intended "for children of all ages" and decides that that term describes her perfectly.
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The answer to this is quite subtle and detailed and there is seldom agreement among even the medical fraternity about how much a child's mind is capable of as it develops. Zhro's answer is quite good in that it explains a lot about how the young child's mind learns, but it's controversial insofar as many gifted children learn and behave in a manner that we would normally associate with adults; many are specific cases of [Asperger's Syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome) or more generally with the Autism spectrum. My goal is to provide that alternate view.
It is almost impossible to tell what parts of a child's development is a function of prior learning (or lack thereof) and what parts are a function of neurophysiological development (or lack thereof). But, in the case of some gifted children and certainly some (not all) cases of Asperger's, there's a clear case that learning and behaviour can cut both ways; sometimes the knowledge and the ability to learn is independent of physical age, other times, not so much.
To that end, an 8 YO child who's been that way for a millennium will have the depth of perspective one expects from someone that age and will be wise, knowledgeable and reasoned about many intellectual subjects. They will likely have a preferred style of art, music, food, etc. which is sophisticated insofar as it is drawn from a breadth of experience over time. Just **how** wise, knowledgeable and reasoned that person is will of course depend largely on how willing the person was through that millennium to explore, try new things, read, gain insights through thinking about those new experiences, etc. This is indeed no different to the rest of us. I've met many 'young' 70 YOs and a few 'old' 20 YOs in my time, and the difference usually comes down to experience and curiosity on the part of the individual.
That said, there will be some things our millennial (if you'll pardon the strange use of the term) won't have experienced because of the physical limitations of their body. Some of those should be evident, others not so much. Leadership for instance is something you wouldn't expect a millennial trapped in an 8 YO body to have vast amounts of experience in. This is largely due to the fact that many people would struggle to take a child with a high pitched voice seriously as a leader, regardless of their capability. The pains and difficulties of living in an older body, being a parent, public speaking; the list goes on. Our millennial isn't going to want to draw attention to his or her self for a start, so by virtue of that very fact many experiences the rest of us would take for granted (or at least aspire to) would be missed.
So your millenial is going to have a patchwork of development. Some areas will reveal a much deeper understanding of life, others will show him or her as almost naive.
Of course, this all assumes that the human mind can live that long and continue to store memories. We know for instance that human brains change as a person ages, and about the longest we've known one to function is around 150 years. True we can assume that our millennial has some advanced regenerative capabilities given that he or she has lived a thousand years already, but what we **don't** know is whether or not that regnerative capability would also impede the laying down of memories. If regneration also supports the brain, then it's entirely possible that our millennial would struggle to remember all but the most significant events in his or her life because the regeneration is wiping out memories to restore the brain. Conversely, if regeneration does NOT support the brain, our millennial may remember everything, but could be brain dead by 200 for all we know.
All in all, there are a quite a large number of variables in play here, but there's nothing to say that a perpetual 8 YO couldn't have a relatively normal development path (given their unique physiology), at least for a couple of centuries.
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Methinks an eight year old child that is one thousand years old would be very much like they were when they were eight years old.
Like the op states, the age of 'eight' is more defined by the maturity level of the brain, and if the brain matures no further than that of an eight year old, then the child is, well, an eight year old. If the brain developed any further than that of an eight year old, they would no longer be an eight year old.
That is, for a brain to be a thousand years old, and still be that of an eight year old, there would be no plasticity. No maturity. No building on experience. Every day would be like the last. The brain would be frozen in development. There would be no experiential change. There would be no neuronal development, no brain maturation.
Think Piaget's stages of cognitive development. As the brain grows older, and matures, the brain is able to handle more complex thought processes. An eight year old would be forever stuck at the eight year old developmental level. Otherwise, they would not be eight years old. Thus, every experience would be processed the way an eight year old mind would process it. There would be no maturation of the cognitive approach. The wisdom of a thousand years would be no different than the wisdom of a month.
Of course, the really big problem in human immortality, is in human memory. Our brains do not have infinite memory capacity. I can not foresee any possibility of our brains being able to store one thousand years of memories. So even if the BODY were one thousand years old, could we say that the MIND is one thousand years old? How many years of memories could it store? And what happens when it runs out of storage space? Does it over-write the past memories, or does it just stop recording new ones?
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It depends on the person. I have webcast technicians in my team as young as 11 years old that are absolutely professional. If they weren't short with piping voices you would think they were adults when they are on duty. I have had a couple of 8 and 9 year olds try out as techs. They learned the skills easily, but they were unable to maintain the necessary focus after the novelty wore off.
I just about died laughing during one webcast when the technical director on duty ripped into one of the camera men for texting his girlfriend instead of operating his camera (live webcast, no second chances). This 12 year old that looks and sounds like he's 10, and whose feet don't reach the floor when he's in the chair, has earned enough respect as a technical director that the cameraman who is almost twice his age accepted the scolding readily.
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In my own searches, I have noticed a remarkable number of wise philosophers suggest that we should strive to be like children. Of course, they refer to different aspects of being a child, but there seems to be a common thread that children "get it" in a way adults do not.
Accordingly, after 1000 years, ten lifetimes, I like to think this person may be wise. I think it would be enormously fitting if they simply enjoyed the moment, and was a child. (tenses are tricky, but I think I got that right)
But if you looked them in the eye, you would see not only the sparkle of the imagination of a child but... something more. And then it'd be gone. You'd just get to see it for a brief moment, but it might change your life forever.
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As others have said, we don't really know. Which means that you as a world builder can decide on whatever fits your story best. But one can speculate:
People's behaviour is mostly dictated by society around them. This is also true of children. Your immortal child will behave the way people around them expect them to behave, mostly.
If they are the one and only immortal and have power because of that, they are probably behaving in a very adult manner simply to be taken seriously.
If they are the one and only immortal ruler, but is only a puppet for their advisor(s), they will do whatever their advisor(s) tell them to.
If everybody is young and immortal, they are likely to be much more playful.
Basic personalities are formed while people are *very* young, though they get embellished later. Your immortal's personality will have been formed during their *actual* childhood, thousands of years before present of your story. You might want to add flashbacks.
Their brains are not fully developed, so they are probably *not* smart. This makes the "puppet ruler" scenario rather probable.
Children learn languages very easily, far younger than eight. Your immortal will know *all* the languages.
*Some* children pick up social skills quickly, some do not. Expectation is the key, though there is probably also individual differences.
Their motor skills are probably lacking, the relevant brain paths are simply not there.
They will have very many memories, but they will be badly organized due to lacking brain development. They will forget *a lot*. Even a fully functional adult brain forgets a lot, especially when the years pile up. This child will be worse, much worse.
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A 1000 years old human with the body of an 8 year old child would certainly be capable of complex, abstract reasoning because he/she would have had lots of time to allow for the formation of his/her brain. The major difference at the core of both the thinking and the acting of such an old person would be the child-like sexuality.
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I'm amazed there are so many answers, and none have really touched on the reality of life for someone with a mental handicap.
My uncle was reckoned to have a mental age of around 4-5, with a side helping of autism. The autistic element naturally made him averse to changes in routine, obsessions over certain things (concern over the bin men wanting to take his TV, for example), but in so many other ways his ability to process and his mental model of other people was the same as a young child. My gran apparently tried to get him work with a local groundsman, trimming hedges and the like, but he would simply wander off home when he lost concentration.
And yet he was able to learn skills. So unlike a 5-year-old child, he could cook, make hot drinks, run a budget after a fashion, and so on. In spite of the 5-year-old brain, he still had decades of life experience to draw on.
I can easily see your immortal working the same. Lots of simple skills, acquired over the years - but no real understanding of what's going on, and still easily tricked or abused by ill-intentioned people.
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In addition to the plethora of physical/biological/psychological limitations, this person would experience *cultural* limitations as well - there aren't a lot of situations in which a society would allow a child to just roam free as an adult would. Even a thousand-year-old child would likely be treated as a child for the majority of their life, and as such, may *never* gain much more knowledge and experience than their 8-year-old peers.
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Some excellent answers here, but most focus on the biology and psychology of the immortal child.
One aspect of the growth of the mind is life experience.
The immortal child can be born immortal or made immortal later on, and in his/her first 8 years he/she would develop as a normal child.
But once the immortality is discovered (staying the same for 20+ years), his/her life would be turned upside down.
In superstitious times, he/she would be either treated as god or demon. In modern times, maybe a prisoner in a government-funded secret lab, working on breaking the secret behind the immortality. Or living as a fugitive, sometimes sheltered by good-willed individuals. That would force the child to grow up mentally.
I think you might find the behavior something similar to the kids in Akira, or war zone orphans. Only a whole lot more skilled and cunning due to accumulated experience.
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Part of you premise is flawed, or at least requires further consideration:
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> And the brain of an eight-year-old is *physically incapable* of certain reasoning.
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This "physical incapability" (which is not universal to begin with, just statistical) is almost certainly just a consequence of bounds on the rate at which the brain develops and solidifies associations, which in turn acts as a limiting factor against learning things which are wrong. It's quite unlikely (and I'm not aware of credible research suggesting) that there's a deeper physical reality behind it, like endocrine changes that have to happen in order for special parts of the brain to develop with these capabilities.
As such, in order for this sort of limitation to apply to your immortal who's actually 1000 years old in a consistent and believable way, I think you'd need to have some sort of bound on the development of associations/experience/memory. This could itself make for a really interesting story.
Short of that, though, it seems much more plausible to me that an immortal who eternally looks like an 8 year old has to put serious active effort into behaving believably like an 8 year old.
So, to answer the question, I think either:
* They'd behave like a really experienced adult in a child's body, probably trying very hard to hide it, or
* They'd behave like someone with the inability to grow mentally in most or all ways, including development of new memories.
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# Background
Say hi to Jane Doe. Jane is a writer and, after years of writing and rewriting, has finally achieved what she believes is her greatest, most personal piece of writing ever.
And she has a crazy idea. She wants to make her work even more personal and craft, from scratch, one book to put her novel in.
She will make an entire book using nothing but things she created herself, getting help from strictly nobody. Then, she will make her own ink and write the novel inside the book by hand.
Any tool she uses must also be the result of her own work. So if she has to chop trees in order to make paper, she will use an axe she crafted herself. And if she is going to collect ink from squids, she is also going to kill - or capture - those squids herself.
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> Basically the idea is that she won't buy or borrow anything to craft her book, neither will she ask someone to do some specific work for her.
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# Question(s)
## Is Jane's project achievable ?
Then if it is, I would like to know :
* **what processes she can use to make the crafting the least hard as possible** (e.g. use papyrus instead of standard paper)
* **how long it would take**
* And as bonus points **what constraints of struggling points she is likely to encounter**.
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# Additional info
* Jane lives in 2017. She can learn to do about anything thanks to the wonders of the internet.
* Jane lives in a first world country, most probably in Western Europe.
* Jane is in her thirties.
* Jane can travel if needed and is ready to spend money on it (this is about the only way she sees herself spending money on this crazy project)
* Jane won't give up because it is too long, too hard, or because she doesn't have the skills (yet).
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# Edit for clarification
Jane **won't** buy or borrow tools or anything involved with the process of crafting.
However she **would** use documentation, transportation (plane, boat, whatever), backpacks or anything that doesn't belong in the crafting chain.
So yes, she can travel by plane to somewhere, put resources in her backpack and fly back to her house illuminated by electricity.
I hope everything makes more sense now :)
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You might want to watch this talk, for ideas.
<https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_thwaites_how_i_built_a_toaster_from_scratch>
It's not going to be as hard as you think the hardest part will be making her tools to make her tools. It will probably only take a few years assuming she has some handy farm land, and most of that will be growing time.
**Basics**
She will need to make a stone axe becasue she is going to need one or two buckets, quite a bit of lumber,and two smooth flat boards.
She will need a stone knife for carving.
She is going to need a cup or two for mixing, clay would be best.
She needs to harvest a bee hive for wax and possibly honey.
She is going to need a lot of various size rocks. including at least one dished rock for grinding.
**Paper**
She is going to need a bucket, two flat smooth boards, and a lot of rocks to grind the pulp and press the boards, the more weight the better. If the can lever up a small boulder that will work better. She is going to need sand to polish the pressing boards or she can harvest and smooth slate if she can get a quarry to agree to let her.
She needs a screen which means she has to make her own thread, although long hair (horse or human) would also work, but she is going to need a lot of it. the screen frame can be made from wood branches
She is going to need fiber for thread and pulp for paper, [Flax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax#Preparation_for_spinning) will work for both of these, It's fairly easy to grow and process, and it can be used for both. Processing it can be done entirely with wood and stone tools up to the screening step. She can also harvest paper wasp nests and cotton as additives to make slightly better paper and thread.
If she wants really white paper it gets a bit harder her best bet is to make it with fly ash, If she considers scavenging it from a coal plant ok its fairly easyto get, If she has to harvest and burn the coal to make it herself she is going to need to harvest her own coal which can be done by hand or with her stone axe. She will need a lot of it. Then she is going to need to harvest some clay and wood to make an earth oven to burn it and harvest the fly ash.
**Pen**
She can work with a simple pen made from a feather (search the woods), and some wax and thread. Plenty of youtube videos on how to do this.
**Ink**
Ink can be made fairly easily from eggs, honey, and soot. If she insists on squid ink then she needs to make a fishing spear and/or net and go catch several dozen squid, octopi, or cuttlefish depending on size. there are youtube videos on how to harvest it, you just need a knife and a container.
**binding**
She is going to need thread and wax or glue, we already covered all this except for glue, if she can find a dead deer by the road she can cut the hooves off and use the oven to make a workable animal glue although any hoof, claw, or leather will work. The bones will come in handy for other tools as well. The glue does have to be boiled for a long time, which means she will need some kind of earthenware container.
Here is the site of an artist who makes books.
<http://uacreativephoto.com/artist-heather-f-wetzel-her-book-making-tools/>
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Jane is going to need three things, something to write on, something to write with and ink.
In some cases she can combine something to write with and ink into one thing, such as in the case of a charcoal pencil.
# Something to write on
If she's willing to use rice paper she could save some time.
No need to cut down and grind up a tree when you can [harvest grains and grind them up with a rock, soak the pulp and then cook the water out](http://makezine.com/projects/make-edible-paper-3-easy-steps/).
If she's willing to hunt or trap animals, and has the stomach for skinning and tanning them, she could use leather sheets either as a cover or as the pages themselves.
If remember correctly, Survivor Man, Les Stroud, was able to kill and skin a bunny with a dead fall trap and a sharp rock.
So no need for complex spears or bow and arrow there.
Binding the pages might prove hard.
If Jane does have leather, it can be cut into thin strips and a pointed stick could be used to poke holes through the paper.
# Ink
Ink can be made from black walnuts' stain.
In a pinch she could experiment with local wild berries and see if any of them can properly stain her paper.
# Something to write with
A quill can be made from a common feather, or a stiff reed.
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Really this boils down to where Jane decides to make her compromises. **Depending on how loosely Jane defines outside help the task will be fairly straight forward or utterly impossible alone.** Without some compromises Jane isn't going to be able to create something recognizably bookish because it takes a tool to create every single tool. It is this long chain of increasingly refined tool creation interrupted by inevitable failures along the way that will doom Jane if she doesn't compromise.
You say that Jane can use the internet does this mean that Jane can use the internet for initial research that she must memorize prior to starting the process of constructing her book, or can she use it throughout the process every time she gets stuck? You say she can spend money on travel to acquire raw materials. Can she spend money on a backpack to carry the raw materials back home or does she need to carry all raw materials by hand until she fabricates her own backpack? Similarly can she use an existing container to hold her ink or does she need to fabricate that? These decisions are just the beginning. Can she use electric lights to extend her working hours thereby getting assistance from others in the form of viable working hours? Some materials potentially could be spoiled by animals. Does her living in a city and effectively using the other people as a deterrent constitute outside help? If she buys a farm to help her produce animals to be slaughtered for their hides, or other raw materials, does she have to bootstrap every farm system alone? Does she have to provide her own shelter since the comforts of a modern home will impact her health, level of fatigue, and mental clarity for the tasks she must perform?
**Once we define all the little compromises Jane will make we need to address what she defines a book as...** For example the absolute simplest version would be to find a dry cave, and write the book on the cave walls with charcoal. Does that count or does the book need to be distributable? Can she crack open bamboo with rocks, flatten the bamboo into strips and write the book on the strips with charcoal? Now the book is theoretically distributable but it still doesn't really look bookish. If she uses clay tablets then the "pages" can be rectangular which will look more like a book but can't be reasonably bound.
**Her best bet in my opinion for something that looks like a book** would be to make paper out of cotton, and use a hand spun cotton thread to bind the book. It would be easier to bootstrap a cotton farm than something to handle livestock, not to mention figuring out how to pulp wood. She could use fire to fell, and hollow out trees to make the vessels for processing the cotton and find a flat rock for drying the cotton pages. With that part done writing on the cotton pages should be fairly easy to figure out.
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## Reality check: The first chapters rot before Jane finishes
The art of preserving written material is going to be hard for Jane to learn on the fly. If she makes the smallest mistake, the only tell-tale signs will come months later, in the form of a terrible smell and a heart-breaking **loss of her work**.
Consider this: A three-hundred page novel may take Jane as long as **two years** to write out.
The Bible took 4 years to write out, working [14 hours a day](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2320210/Man-copies-Bible-hand-working-14-hours-day-years.html) with modern pens and paper.
Many of the natural materials people are suggesting would **rot in the time-frame required** for Jane to finish the novel.
Either Jane must:
* Keep the book in the fridge, only taking it out to add pages. This is no guarantee, and actually risks more condensation damage.
* Use modern desiccants and preservatives.
* Live somewhere very cold and dry.
* Spend years learning, and demonstrating, the art of preserving until she is confident enough to invest her time writing again.
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## Yes of course, she can
The question is how much time she wants to spend getting ready to write. *She can either write the novel or master every industrial art between the Stone Age and Gutenberg, and then write her novel.*
**Simplest Novel Ever:** The simplest of novels could be written on clay tables fired by the sun or in a simple kiln. Use a sharpened stick or rock to make impressions on the clay. Making enough clay tablets and finding appropriate sticks is time consuming but Jane is highly committed to this method so it's okay. She wants to write not invent civilization from scratch.
**Introducing metal working:** Starting with bronze, Jane has many more options for what she can write with and what kind of "paper" she can use. However, the trade-off is that she's going to spend most of her time mining, smelting and smithing to get the tools (and replacement tools) that she wants. Bronze tools make chopping down trees much easier.
**Making her own high quality paper:** The higher the quality of paper, the more time will need to be spent on building the tools and machinery to make that paper. Simple rough paper with rough pulp won't take very long to make. Fine paper from smooth pulp and bleaching will take longer.
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A lot of the answers here have mentioned paper. That's not a great way to go about making a book from scratch. Making a book-sized amount of paper is an *immense* amount of work.
Parchment is a much easier way to go. All Jane needs is some animal skins (and thanks to [persistence hunting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting), that takes basically zero tools, though she'll want a hand-axe for the skinning and scraping), a way to stretch them (rope, vines, or sinews, tied to some convenient trees), and some alkaline soaking solution (burn a tree, use the ashes). She'll rack up quite a body count by the last chapter, but at least she won't need to lathe any rollers.
From there it's a relatively simple matter of the ink (lots of potential recipes, depending on what plants she has to hand) and the binding (she'll have a lot of sinews to use, but plant fiber might be better). Probably not worth catching birds for their quills... broken reeds will suffice. She can use boiled leather for the cover.
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Jane CAN grow the trees, shave them down, make paper pulp and so on, or she can raise a bunch of sheep, hand slaughter them with a knife she made (which she learned how to do from a local blacksmith, over the course of two years) but this is 2017.
*If the goal is to make it personal and do EVERYTHING, including the tools from scratch, this is going to take a decade or longer just to learn the skills to build the tools she would use.*
As to growing things--she would have to make the fertilizer herself--or raise things to make the fertilizer...this includes, trees, cotton, papyrus, rice and what have you...she'll need to make a plow and what not, which she must make herself, by hand. Oh, and to get the water to the field, or to the animals I guess she won't be using a hose made in a factory, because that's a tool to keep her plants and animals alive? Because that would be a tool to get water there. If you are having her make the axe to cut down trees, this fits right in. And if she has animals, I suppose she'll have to make an enclosure and carve out a water trough.
At some point, this gets ridiculous.
Ink is, by far, the easiest thing to make from scratch. But if you use the recipe with honey, eggs and soot involved, you will need to raise chickens, keep bees, and learn how to make a fire without a match or lighter. The beekeeping is the trickiest because she will have to make the boxes from scratch. If she wants to protect herself from stings, is she allowed to wear a bee keeping outfit she did not make? I think she can. I think that's ok. Same with the thick leather gloves she'll need for the metalworking, and the apron. I mean, we have to draw the line somewhere. Can that line allow her to buy a net if she decides to go for squid catching instead? Otherwise we can add net-making to her skills.
The good news is that the bees wax can help with binding. But she will likely need a needle and thread--so it's time to learn how to make thread with that cotton or those sheep. And she'll need to make the needle as well. Can she buy the loom, though? I hope so.
Speaking of livestock, is she allowed to buy feed for them? Or does she have to grow that as well? Originally you said she would not buy or borrow anything--and so I guess she'll have to catch the bees or something? And the livestock and the seed for any plants would have to be bought. Any metal for a letter press or tools would have to be bought.
Speaking of buying things, man, Jane is going to need a lot of land, depending on the length of the book. That's something we need to know, because that will tell us how much she will be growing and what she will need.
Stumbling blocks:
Jane will need a lot of land, if only to grow things.
Jane will need a lot of time depending on the length of the book.
Jane will have to be the entire supply chain from start to finish.
Jane will need to not have a job.
Jane will need to have a lot of money, if only to buy livestock, land, and seeds...
[Answer]
To make printed books she needs to
1. make paper,
2. make a device to cast [sorts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sort_(typesetting)) (BTW, *this* is what Gutenberg actually invented),
3. make a letterpress,
4. design and cut one or more typefaces,
5. cast the sorts,
6. compose the pages,
7. print them,
8. cut them and bind them.
All these crafts are widely practiced by artisans and amateurs, at least in Europe and America.
As an alternative she could have her book printed on demand by countless service providers, or she could choose to have her book published in digital form.
I intentionally did not provide links except to clarify what a *sort* is in this context.
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# Jane's project is achievable, but requires a large time investment.
The first choice Jane has to make is what material the book will be written on, which is dependent upon her definition of book.
Parchment, such as vellum, requires the hunting and skinning of animals. While rabbits would be easy to catch, their hides are small and Jane would need a large number of rabbits to make her novel, dependent on how small she is able to or willing to write. A single calf, on the other hand, can yield about 3.5 medium sheets or double that if folded. However, if Jane is not willing to buy calves from people, she will have to start a cattle or sheep ranch. She will require tools for skinning. The skin has to be washed by soaking in water and then dehaired by soaking either in a fermented vegetable bath or in a lime bath. Both of these should have their own separate soaking places to save on time, so at least two pits or vats are required. A frame is also needed for stretching out the parchment after it has been dehaired. Any remaining hair would be removed by a knife at this point. From skinning to writing-ready parchment might take up to two weeks depending on the temperature of the dehairing bath and how quickly Jane learns the process.
Tablets or steles are easy in terms of resources, but would require a large amount of space to make a novel. All Jane would need is a source of stone, clay, wood, or wax and she could get started. Clay tablets can be sun-dried or fired in a kiln with the later being more durable, so Jane might need a kiln. Wax tablets can be wax covering a wooden tablet and have the benefit of being editable--simply heat up the wax to about 50 degrees Celsius and start the tablet over again. But Jane would likely need to take up beekeeping. For steles Jane would need a method of moving the stones or wood into position. All of these would benefit from being housed in a cool, dry building.
Paper can be made out of a variety of plant materials. While wood pulp is common today, flax, cotton, hemp, bark, bamboo, and papyrus sedge are other materials that can be used. While papyrus might be one of the easiest papers for Jane to make, it doesn't last long in the climate of Western Europe. Xuan paper and washi, made from the bark of trees, such as mulberry, are probably Jane's best bet for papermaking. First Jane would have to collect the bark and allow it to dry. The bark needs to be pounded and washed--the order depends upon the type of paper. Bleaching may also be done, though Jane need not use the chemical, as traditional bleaching involves the action of the sun and water. A screen, either of metal or bamboo, is needed for forming the sheets. The sheet can then be pressed by another screened frame (like a mould and deckle) or placed on a heated stone. Winter is a better time for this papermaking because it reduces the chance of rot. This is a simplification of the process. The benefit of this process is that Jane would be able to travel to China, Japan, or Korea and be able to find places where traditional papermaking is carried out and possibly become an apprentice.
Bark or bamboo can also be a decent writing surface in itself. I once wrote a poem on some birch bark. Bones could also suffice. It really depends on what Jane means by book.
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Once Jane has figured out the material to use, she can then figure out what she will need to write with.
A chisel and a percussion tool, such as a mallet or hammer, would be required if she intended to carve her novel into stone or wood. These could be fashioned out of stone, though if she was willing to take the time and effort to smelt copper or iron, then she could use metal tools.
A stylus would be required for the clay or wax tablets. Any material would suffice as long as it was pointed.
A brush and paint could be used with a variety of surfaces. For instance, Jane could paint her novel onto steles or tablets. Or she could chisel out the words and then fill them in with paint to make them stand out. Various animals could be used as the source for the bristles, including sable, rabbit, hog, ox, and goat. Egg tempera is one form of paint that would be easy to make.
A pen or brush and ink could also be used with a variety of surfaces. A pen can be made from reeds or quills, both of which wouldn't be hard to get. Some sort of knife would be required to make these pens. Inksticks are made from soot and animal glue (made from the boiling of animal connective tissue). To get the ink from an inkstick, it is ground on an inkstone and a little water added. Iron gall ink, which can be used with pens on parchment and paper, would be another possibility.
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The other consideration for Jane is how to collect the book together. Steles, for instance, would be stood in a field or room. If she went with paper or parchment, some sort of binding would be needed. Thread could be made from cotton, silk, or linen. Bone could be used for the needle. The cover could be made from paper, leather, parchment, wood, metal, or a combination of those materials.
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This process will likely take Jane several years if not decades. Not only will she need to learn a variety of skills, but she'll have to deal with growing times for plants and/or animals. And not all of what she produces will be usable, as she may have a tool break (possibly ruining what she was working on) or have a batch of paper ruined because of mold. When done right (and stored in the right conditions) many of these materials will last for hundreds if not thousands of years, so Jane won't have to worry about her materials spoiling on her once the process has started. She'll just need to get the requisite level of skill in several different areas to be able to make the quality of material she needs. And her desire to make all her tools will be one of the biggest time sinks, as she'll need to learn skills that won't help her at all with actually creating a book and spend time making tools to make better versions of those tools to make the tools she needs to make books. Because it involves such a long time frame, the biggest struggling point will actually be sticking with the project. Jane will be spending a long time with not much to show for her efforts, which might be very disheartening.
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Simpler ways:
* clay tablets fired or sun dried - thick/heavy book, fast to finish
* strips of bamboo with either:
+ "incision writing" - flint flakes/splinters, the same as the ones used to split bamboo and give a flatish appearance to the strips
+ "polymer ink" - see [lacquer tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicodendron_vernicifluum) (rationale: viscous, doesn't diffuse into the fiber)
**The absolute easiest way to "write" that book that I can imagine**: use [Quipu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu) with fibres obtained from... umm... "medicinal weed"; bonus: Jane Doe will have a hell of a good time writing that book.
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A lot of games feature some sort of wooden armor, but it's usually pretty low-level and mostly useless. However, I think that with a knowledge of flora and a healthy dose of imagination, there exist possibilities for plant-based armor that can actually provide some useful protection. Maybe papyrus is as strong as Kevlar, or there is a certain type of pinecone that is malleable. I don't know.
But you! Do you know? Is there a historical precedent for plant-based armor, or perhaps a plant that would be kind of useful for armoring?
If I had to choose, I'd ask for medieval-level technology, but I will definitely upvote any answers that are sufficiently interesting.
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# Historical examples
You won't see much plant-based armour in historical records, the already mentioned paper armour notwithstanding. As best as I can tell, the primary reason for this is that leather tends to be superior to most plant materials you can find. It's easier to process and form, and easy to combine with other materials to form composite armour.
That is not to say plant-based *components* were not used; besides the obvious use of plant fiber for textiles to make brigantine and other similar armours out of, for a long time, resin was the basis for most glues and laquers used in armourcrafting.
Japanese armourers would use resin-based laquer on metal or leather scales, improving their durability and - in conjunction with silken cord also used in copious quantities to hold the scales together - were able to fashion a composite armour of sorts, that was surprisingly resilient to piercing, given the low-tech materials used.
Romans would combine wood and glue to make plywood, out of which they would fashion [scuta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scutum_%28shield%29), which were used by the legions to great effect.
# Options for plant-based armour
Assuming that plant-based components or strengthened textile armours are not good enough for you, ther are a few pre-requisites for purely plant-based armour to appear in the first place:
1. Armour-quality/sheet metal is either too expensive or unavailable
2. Leather is either unavailable or there is a strong cultural taboo against using it
3. There still are metal-based weapons, or weapons of similar performance characteristics, necessitating use of armour
In that case, you can either take the cheap option, or get more creative.
The cheap option is that you posit the existence of a plant, maybe some kind of reed or something related to sugar cane, that has similar characteristics as leather and can be unrolled into sheets which you can process much like you would leather.
If you have to get creative, then processing is going to make or break this approach. @fredsbend already mentioned a couple of options involving selective breeding and exotic processing. One idea that I particularly like is "feeding" the plant metal (or some other) compounds so that they get incorporated into the fibers; this would let you create the equivalent of modern composite materials with relatively primitive means.
But in the end, if you were to create purely plant-based armour, your best bet is probably plywood. Even if you only have wood (and peoples like Pacific Islanders were able to fashion quite impressive weapons out of hardwoods), you can finely slice it to get veneer, which you can soak in water to make it more malleable and then layer on a form to create your armour pieces, rotating each layer to make sure there is no single "grain" direction that would make the piece prone to cracking.
For glue, you would use some kind of resin, and some other similar solution for the lacquer. Hopefully the result will be both resillient and flexible; the latter property will be more important (and likely provided by the resin more than the base material itself), as it will keep pieces from breaking of when hit hard.
If you have an exotic plant like the kind I described earlier, you would probably use it in much the same way.
Depending on the exact mechanical properties of the armour, you can either fashion an entire cuirass out of it (if it is sturdy enough), or use it to create segments for a lamellar armour, or scales for, well, scale armour. The nice thing about making an armour this way is that it's pretty easy to shape and you don't need a furnace or a blacksmithing workshop to make it work.
The end result will be a lot more laborious than leather armour would be (although it might end up being cheaper), and not as good as quality steel armour (or armour made out of fantasy metals), but hey, it beats getting skewered.
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I've heard of Chinese Paper Armour that was made by laminating sheets of paper. Mythbusters even did an episode testing it out.
The results are summarized [here](http://mythbustersresults.com/paper-armor) where they say:
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> Ancient Chinese armies used armor made from paper that could give the same protection as steel armor.
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> **Plausible**
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> Kari spoke with antique armor expert Greg Martin, who explained that paper armor was in use as early as 600 BC and was built up from layers that may have been impregnated with resin or shellac. The Build Team tested several formulations for penetration resistance and found that a thick layer of folded paper, with no resin, gave the best results.
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> Using an armor sample of either 1/2 in (13 mm) paper or 1/32 in (1 mm) steel placed over a block of clay, they tested resistance to blunt force, swords, and arrows. The paper did as well as steel in the sword and arrow tests, failing only the blunt-force test, so the team decided to build a full suit of paper armor to match against a period-accurate steel counterpart.
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> Each team member ran one of three timed courses in both armor types to evaluate speed, endurance, and agility; paper outperformed steel in all three. Finally, they attacked the suits with arrows, swords, and two different firearms—an 18th-century flintlock pistol and a 19th-century .45 revolver. Both armor types resisted every attack except the .45, leading the team to classify the myth as plausible. They pointed out, though, that the paper armor could quickly begin to disintegrate if it got wet or took repeated blows (both of which happened during the full-scale tests).
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I'm not aware of any particular examples in history, but if your world allows for plants that don't actually exist we can consider a few different options.
The first is that instead of fashioning an armor plate out of the plant material would be to cultivate the plant to grow it for you. There are numerous examples of plants being manipulated into different shapes by different methods. One idea I had would be mushrooms. Mushrooms, like many other fungi, produce cell walls of Chitin. Chitin is the same strong material that makes up insect exoskeletons. If there was such a mushroom that grew large enough and the cap turned hard if processed correctly, then you could make some decent armor plates from the caps. With some clever work, you could manipulate the caps to grow in more specific shapes that would better fit the body. Building a framework that forces the cap to grow into a shape might work. Unfortunately, light manipulation is not possible since mushrooms do not photosynthesize.
Some nuts have extremely hard shells and seem to be naturally cross-hatched (a desirable feature in any armor). If there were such a plant that grew nuts large enough, they could be used as armor plates. And also like the mushrooms, they could be forced into certain shapes with a framework.
Many animals have evolved armor structures made from several different materials (e.g. scales, shells, nails). Unfortunately, no plants that I know of have evolved anything similar in strength to animal structures. But whose to say that it could not happen? As long as you can give a decent biological reason why an armored plant evolved armor, then your world will be believable. The first obvious thing would be intentional breeding. Human selective breeding has done some very interesting things with the plants we use and eat. A more natural approach would require a change in your environment that necessitates armor for the plants' survival. So there would have to be at least one creature, weather characteristic, etc. that can relatively easily tear apart that armor. If it is some kind of large creature, people would be marvel at its strength and prize its teeth or claws or whatever it uses to tear apart the armor. This means your plant armor is now upstaged by the far more interesting animal. The animal could be a small insect, perhaps. People won't marvel at a termite.
The problem with wood armor is that it is only strong along one line of the three dimensions. Along the other two lines, it splits very easily. This could be resolved with crosshatching, which most armor even today does despite the material it is made from. If there were such a plant that grows rapidly and wire-like and was also hard, like bamboo or oak, then it could also be cultivated and manipulated to grow into the shape that you need. The effect would be a hard fabric-looking piece of armor made from wood-like material. I'm not sure how you might manipulate the plant to grow this way or of a natural pressure that would make this evolve.
While still considering non-existent plants, you might consider compounding a unique plant with an interesting processing method.
One way you might process a plant based material would be accelerated petrification. There is some evidence that some woods partially petrify in the right conditions (i.e. mineral bath). Your "plant smiths" could carve the shapes they want then soak them in a solution that hardens the plants like stone. They would still be susceptible to cracking, but probably a bit stronger than regular wood. Conversely, your people that use this plant based armor might just be fortunate enough to live next to a petrified forest. So they essentially make stone armor, but it came from plants originally.
Another idea is a plant that is unusually high in mineral count. You can construct a plant that is so high in iron that it is not uncommon to find thin sheets of it within its fibers. Your armor workers could use this plant to make essentially metal armor, except the difference is that they don't mine the metal ore. They grow it. Again, I'm not sure of selective pressures that would make this plant, but I would bet that at least a soil very high in iron (or whatever mineral) is necessary.
The last two ideas are probably not what you were thinking when you said plant-based armor, so I'll stop there.
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The first and most obvious example is the idea of Bamboo armour allegedly used in feudal Japan, but ( as mentioned in the comments below ) [Japanese armour](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_armour) was in fact made of leather and metal. Although there is not historical evidence for it, the springy yet tough nature of bamboo suggests to me that it could potentially be used at least as a component of practical armour. There definitely *is* evidence of paper armour from China. These certainly have some advantages in a warm climate and also they are plausibly relatively inexpensive.
Some [Laminar armour](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminar_armour) from parts of Siberia used wood and leather.
There are not a huge number of examples though, possibly because to provide useful protection wood needs to be considerably thicker than metal and although it would probably be lighter, it would also be more bulky and cumbersome. Given that being able to evade a blow is usually more effective than being struck on armour, the trade-off may not be worth it for the protection afforded.
Of course, one area in which wood was often used defensively was shields- I don't know whether those count as armour or not.
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First and foremost is what are you trying to stop? Arrows? swords? axes?
Silk was an effective body armor because of the number of layers, and as the others pointed out paper was used as well, IN MANY LAYERS. But it depends on what you defend against. Bamboo would be useful against swords, it has a a good resistance to cross cutting, but an ax or an arrow head that hits along the grain might split it.
Burlap in many layers could act similar to silk and possibly stop arrows from penetrating flesh. Though if you were going that way, I would go with [hemp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp). It is one of the strongest natural fibers, cheap and easy to grow and can actually be [comfortable](http://store.hempest.com/catalog/).
Like silk, it would be less likely to reduce movement and that is always a bonus when in combat.
A wooden shield or an embossed shield would/could be a great added advantage. Most shields were metal bound wood, for several reasons, wood is lighter, cheaper and easier to manipulate.
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## Wood
If you've ever tried to chop a piece of wood across the grain, you'll know it's quite a resilient material. Like a bike helmet, or a crash zone on a car, it absorbs a blow by sacrificing a part of itself.
A direct impact on a thickish piece of wood backed by flesh will be effectively absorbed at the expense of some of the armour's integrity. A slash would be ineffective. Only a piercing weapon moving at speed like an arrow, or a chopping weapon moving with the grain would penetrate.
## Sacrificial armour
This suggests a form of armour that is designed to be destroyed over the course of a fight. The combatants slowly degrade each other's armour with axe blows. The first to breach the opponent's armour will win.
Of course, this assumes the presence of chopping or piercing weapons. Are weapons similarly made of plant material?
## Bamboo
My understanding (from my sensei) is that Karate was originally developed to allow an unarmed blow to pass through the gaps in slatted bamboo armour. Bamboo is light, tough and flexible and will protect against slashing and blunt weapon attacks. The weak point is in the joints.
## Laminate
Wood has a grain. An impact against the grain is blocked by the fibres. An attack that follows the grain can easily split the entire block. Laminate materials such as plywood layer slices of wood at 90 degrees, binding the grain together.
Plywood is an extremely tough material. A thin piece easily bears the weight of a man. It can also be curved and shaped against a mould. Once the glue dries, the laminate piece retains its shape.
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Some great answers here already. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the quilted cotton armor worn by the Aztecs ([Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichcahuipilli), [another link](http://pintsofhistory.com/2011/08/10/mesoamerican-cotton-armor-better-than-steel/)). I've read that the Spanish conquistadors would sometimes shed their steel body armor (which made them feel very hot in the Mexican climate), and use the native cotton armor instead, which was much more breathable and flexible while still providing good protection.
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Armor, like all warfare, has always been dependent upon context.
Under what conditions will this armor be worn? What weapons is it defending against?
If you are thinking of using wooden planks in place of metal plates, you probably are not going to produce anything worthwhile. Wood is going to interfere with movement due to stiffness, yet not provide significant protection in return. Fortunately, armor made of many layers of fibers has been used to great effect, and would provide significantly better protection for the weight (though entail considerable labor). The multiple layers absorb and distribute the force, offering the wearer considerable protection.
The Greek linothorax was built of many layers of linen glued together. This made it stiff yet still pliable, and it was considerably lighter in weight and cooler than wearing a bronze cuirass. The glue of choice was made of animal fat, but surely a plant derived lacquer would suffice. Some have suggested that these were reinforced by metal plates, but no actual evidence of that has been found, while experiments with reconstructions of just linen proved very resistant to both arrows and slashing weapons.
Various quilted armors have been used as well. Medieval gambesons were linen or wool coats quilted together and stuffed with more wool or scrap cloth. This could certainly be just linen for a vegan solution. While often used with metal plates or underneath mail, many such quilted armors were meant to be worn on their own.
Wood shields have been heavily used - their low cost and light weight made them popular.
My favorite shields would be viking round shields, but they were generally covered in rawhide which considerably strengthened them to resist splitting.
The Romans laminated sheets of wood together to make their iconic scuta carried by legionnaires. These did use a little metal for the boss in the middle and later to reinforce the edges, but are not strictly necessary (center boss could be a hardwood).
Less impressive shields have been made of just wooden planks with straps for a grip - they work just fine for warding off many blows or deflecting incoming missiles. They are cheap and plentiful, and won't wear out your arm after a few minutes of fighting (big metal things are fine on horse, but gets onerous if actually carried and held in hand).
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There's the greek linothorax and the medieval European padded jack, which was frequently of linen. Linen is a fiber from the flax plant.
<http://www.uwgb.edu/aldreteg/Linothorax.html>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambeson>
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Plant based fiber armor isn't a farfetched idea. Paper and wood armor may seem absurd but scientists today are working on cellulose based artifical fibers and nano fibers to increase the durability of wood for hurricane resistant buildings.
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So, I have an empire, many political notes about which can be [found here,](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9966/how-would-an-empire-survive-weak-crown-authority) although I will put more relevant notes here as well.
There are many fantasy races, all of them some form of animal person, they are of varying size and capabilities. Notably, within this setting, humans are actually regarded by themselves and the other races to be human person. [They have a pantheon of common divine creators, as noted here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9350/how-would-eating-killing-rearing-an-animal-be-like-when-an-animal-person-of-tha).
Due to the circumstances of their creation, they are actually the same species, so they can and do quite often marry between races. For genetic inheritance, [gender-based races](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenderEqualsBreed) are a thing, so the male children are the same race as the father while the female children are the same race as the mother. The children are no worse than any actual "pure-breeds".
So, how do I allow these people to not fall into all-out racial based wars of the 10th century world?
Do note that minor racism would be allowed, like some races thinking other races are not as clean as them, I just want to make sure that these races can be quite different, and would rather work together within their nation rather than their race.
To clarify, how to make promote nationalism amongst these different races so that they would work together to be able to beat other nations/kingdoms, both in a military and a economic standpoint, to make the bonds of nationalism stronger than racism
For example, kingdom A has a notable dog people, human, and cat people population; kingdom B has a notable dog people, cow people and horse people population. Even if the dog people of kingdom A do not quite like the cat people of kingdom A, they will work for kingdom A, against kingdom B, against their own race.
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Nationalism means a feeling of superiority over other nations which serves as a way to differentiate oneself from them. Possible ways to achieve such superiority without promoting racism are:
* Religious fanaticism: *"Elbonia is the holy land of our great gods who love everyone no matter which race they are. Except those sinners in Elbinia who do not worship them as much as we do, and when they do they do it completely wrong. We as loyal servants of the gods must destroy Elbinia!"*
* Moral superiority: *"The Elbinians are horrible people who embrace slavery, commit genocide, enjoy public executions and don't wash their hands after going to the toilet. We Elbonians respect the rights of every species and would never do such a thing."*
* Ideology: *"The Elbonian system of a social market economy is so much superior to the Elbinian system of liberal decentralized socialism."*
* Cultural superiority: *"Elbinian music sounds awful, their artists are talentless, their festival rites are ridiculous, their food tastes awful and their architecture just has no style. We Elbonians have so much better taste."*
* Cult of Personality: *"Our great leader King Bob IX of Elbonia is so much better in every way than Emperor Charlie II of Elbinia. We will follow his orders to the grave!"*
None of these statements must necessarily be true. The differences between the nations in these aspects can just be superficial, purely subjective or completely made-up preconceptions. Nationalist propaganda often likes to exaggerate the facts a bit. Nationalism is a great tool for rulers to stay in power, because it helps to unify the population against an external enemy while distracting them from any internal problems.
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There are a few relatively simple answers to this.
First, have nationalism be based on religion. You mentioned that there is one pantheon, which presumably actually existed (with physical evidence existing to back that up). Even with that, different kingdoms may place different levels of importance on different gods, and that may be used to fuel some of the nationalism.
Second, have nationalism be based on language. We see this sometimes in real life now in places like Wales, where the [national anthem](http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Functions/anthem.html) references the language a number of times. France is also very nationalistic in regards to their language, with [l'Académie Française](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise) focusing on keeping the language the free from outside influences.
Third, have an ideological separation (separate from religion) that separates them. This was seen in the Cold War where western countries which were very different ethnically, culturally, and racially joined together against the Soviet bloc because of reasons of religion and political/economic ideals. Similarly, China has managed to unite (more or less) despite the fact that there are 56 different ethnic groups in China, and a lot of that has to do with strong ideological beliefs (along with a strong government).
The general idea of a common enemy will bring people together despite their differences. England worked with France to fight Germany in WWI even though France and England were long-time enemies and England's monarchy had kinship ties to Germany's monarchy.
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A good example would be to imitate real life in this case, namely the mighty empire of Rome. It doesn't really matter what race you are, so long as you are a citizen of the state. As long as the dog/cat/hamster/oompaloompa -person from the kingdom of x cares less about the fact that they are a dog/cat/hamster/oompaloompa and more about the fact that they are x-ian, they will dislike whichever kingdom their own kingdom dislikes. If x goes to war with y, the x-ians will see the y-ians as enemies, regardless of whether or not the y-ians are also dog/cat/hamster/oompaloompas.
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For most of human history, countries (and especially empires) were just like as you described them in your question. The concept of a nation state is relatively recent. Even in the Middle Ages, it was usually not language which bound people together, but the intricate system of alliances and feudal contracts. Being part of the same nation meant having your rights granted to you by the same king. People often considered being the same nation with people of a different mother language, and considered being a different nation from other people speaking the same language.
One of the last such countries to exist was the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. By the beginning of the 20th century the spreading of nationalism and the idea of a nation-state made such an empire unsustainable. However, a few generations before that, such multi-ethnic countries were the norm rather than the exception.
A less-known example is France before the 18th century. Most of the country didn't speak a common language, most regional dialects and languages had little in similarity to the modern French language. Look up the Breton language: most regions of France in that period had their own language. They were not part of a nation because they shared a common language, they were part of a nation because they shared the same king and the same laws.
Of course, all these real-life countries were inhabited by humans (so no different fantasy races) but if you swap ethnicity with fantasy races, you could end up with similar concepts.
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I think it is important to clarify the definition of nationalism here. As defined in the [Encyclopedia Britannica](http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/405644/nationalism):
* **nationalism**, ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual or
group interests.
Except that is doesn't have to be nation-state, the loyalty can be toward the state in case there is more than one nation or race in the country. But it's easier to do when it's more uniform. The different groups will join because they have certain things in common or certain enemies. The cause rallying them may vary.
I see a contradiction here between a feudal state and promoting nationalism. As I mentioned, with nationalism, the people are loyal to the state. In a feudal system, there is a whole system of aristocrats where everyone has a suzerain to whom they own their loyalty, except the Emperor. In order to make it possible, you need to make the people loyal to the state instead. That is no easy task considering the actual powers of the Emperor.
One way to do this (this might become a bit off topic so I will explain briefly), is to make the aristocrats useless. Without coordination, these lords are separated when it comes to fighting an enemy. Being members of the Empire is no grantee to have help form the others. The Emperor might have the moral authority to gather allies in order to defend the Empire. But, every time a local lord must depend on the leadership of the Emperor to defend it's territory, he is at risk of being marginalized, slowly. With a constant threat form the nomadic tribes nearby, this system of defence can become institutionalized (made official). Meaning that it could become an automatism that the Emperor lift troops and money from it's members to defend the Empire. Thus I just answered you other question [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9966/how-would-an-empire-survive-weak-crown-authority). It also mean that the Emperor could take the right to collect taxes across all the Empire. The lords might not like it but they can't do much about it since they can't defend their land appropriately by themselves. That is more or less what happened in France by the of the reign of Louis XIV. The nobility is still there but aside form some ascetic powers and some privileges (like not paying taxes), they are powerless. The loyalty of the people go toward the king or the state. In the case of absolutism, the king is the state: ''L'État c'est moi''. That is still not pure nationalism unless the king is considered to be a civil servant like Frederick 2 of Prussia. I think he was a good civil servant but I'm not sure. Eventually, the ideal nationalism would be to have a relatively weak king like the British Crown, with only limited power (the monarch is a symbol of the state). As long as they put the state before everything else.
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I suggest you start your thinking from the tribe/clan. Members of the tribe (which may be of any of your races/species) are more important to each other than non-members. As I've sometimes heard it expressed in small towns, "He may be a (member of despised group), but he's OUR MODG." Or the fact that my dogs & horses are more important to me than roughly 99.99999% of humans :-)
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I think the best approach may be to have a religious incentive to mix-morph breeding. It is believed that your family becomes weak if its blood grows too thin in one type or another (too little cat blood; too little wolf blood, etc.). By reinforcing cultural values which form mixed-type families, everyone would grow up in a diverse family and be likely to attribute positive values with diversity. Without racially motivated tribes, people would naturally fallback to nationalism.
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The nationalism could be based on cultural differences such as customs, dress, or diet.
One example that springs to mind is [The Butter Battle Book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butter_Battle_Book) by Dr. Seuss in which a war is started because the two nations disagree about how to eat toast. You can [watch it animated on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXEI3AzI-es).
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I am trying to figure out the feasibility of using Anti Matter to bombard the surface of a planet from a position in space.
My gut feeling is that its not very feasible. Wouldnt the Anti Matter react with the upper atmosphere and explode up there instead of on the surface?
Could the Anti Matter be successfully contained in something to deliver itself to the surface so it could explode there? Or is dropping/firing such a container from space problematic as the container would heat up and vibrate whilst entering the atmosphere?
My guess is that if you were sufficiently advanced enough to have Anti Matter based weapons, they would only really be effective in space. Using these weapons on a planets surface or anywhere surrounded with matter would have the risk of the weapon going off too early, or even worse, taking you out.
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**Lets take a look at destructive power.**
Matter-antimatter annihilation yields all of the available resting energy of both the antimatter and the matter it's annihilating. This may be more than you expect. In fact it's at least 43 kilotons per gram. The kinetic energy of the impactor is nothing compared to that. Since your aliens are looking at weaponising this stuff then I'm going to guess they have the capacity to make and handle a lot of it.
So lets assume (for fun) that our aliens are throwing around munitions on the same order of size as a small naval shell, say 500 kg. Each kg is 43 Megatons. You've lobbed enough antimatter into the atmosphere to theoretically yield 21.5 *GIGA*tons. The Tsar Bomba, largest nuclear bomb ever detonated, was only 57 megatons (1.3 kg), and that had a mushroom cloud that reached above the stratosphere and an 8 kilometre wide fireball. Tsar Bomba's fireball was prevented from reaching the ground by the shockwave it produced (it essentially blew itself back into the sky), but that same shockwave entirely levelled a town 55 km from the blast zone and caused third degree burns at 100km.
**So: Do you need containment?**
Not really. If you can make enough of this to be viable for use in warfare then you can just aim for the planet and hit go.
As soon as the antimatter hits the atmosphere (which it will be doing really early on, even if the atmosphere is thin) it's basically going to turn into a rocket engine trying to power it's way back up to the stars by blasting all the normal matter below it out of the way. BUT! Unless you skim the shot off the atmosphere then it shouldn't be able to do that until it gets pretty far through the atmosphere. Most of the matter in the atmosphere is concentrated in a layer about 15-18km thick. Remember how big Tsar Bomba was? Even if your munition doesn't get anywhere near the ground it's still going to devastate it.
The advantage to antimatter weapons is that they'll keep exploding until they're completely consumed: Exploding high up in the atmosphere is still exploding: still creating a huge shockwave, and still creating huge problems for everyone below (like blinding people). Essentially you're going to have a Tsar Bomba going off *continuously* until all the antimatter is used up.
If it doesn't have sufficient time to turn itself around and leave the atmosphere before utterly fragmenting then it's just going to turn into a raging fireball, and it's likely that fragments of it will in fact be propelled downwards by air hitting the projectile from above (as air does have a bad habit of enveloping things), causing the 'explosion' to descend even closer to the ground.
And this is assuming that you didn't already give it enough power to hit the ground: If you've launched it downwards on a steep orbital re-entry path then it will be going fast enough that the outer layers of antimatter won't be able to create enough of a 'burn' to generate any meaningful thrust (due to the fact that it's annihilating it's reaction mass and blasting any further fuel away in an undirected fashion). It will, however, leave a wake of unprecedented destruction behind it on it's way to the ground, whereupon it's going to be surrounded on all sides by matter it can annihilate with.
Other answers have addressed that containment is possible. I'm just going to go out on a limb and say if you've got the ability to make any reasonable amount of antimatter then it *really* isn't necessary.
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## Of course it's plausible.
The only thing that's slightly more out there in the realm of science-fiction is where they got the antimatter.
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As you know antimatter is identical to ordinary matter in every way except that the particles it is made of have an opposite charge.
This means by manipulating magnetic/electric fields it can be effectively contained within a space surrounded by a vacuum because the antimatter particles get repelled to the center of the canister.
Now as you also know, so far we've only been able to successfully contain antimatter for a very short time (about 16 minutes). To be clear though this is not because longer containment is physically impossible, but rather because how to do so properly is a partially unsolved problem of engineering. Importantly we are [working on this issue](http://gizmodo.com/5765109/work-begins-on-worlds-largest-antimatter-containment-unit) and many believe we are close to solving it. And honestly, if your people can somehow find or create significant quantities of antimatter (enough for a bomb) then they've already solved it.
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So what do you do now that you've got some contained antimatter? Well, just launch it from orbit. The electromagnetic field will persist within the atmosphere but will certainly fail when what generates it gets destroyed on impact. When that happens all the antimatter is free to interact with normal matter and... boom. You get a very, very big explosion.
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Antiprotons can be trapped in electromagnetic field. Since your bombs will be quite small, with the right materials, atmospheric entry of small shells will be possible. Find a way to trigger bombs when they hit the surface, and you will be done. That is easier than regular shells, once electromagnetic field is gone, antimatter will eat through the outer shell.
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Based on your initial description, it sounds like you are sending "naked" antimatter" to the planet, and yes, it will interact in the upper atmosphere.
Of course, this isn't going to be much of a help to the people below, positrons will interact with electrons releasing gamma rays at a distinct 512 KEv energy (anyone outside the battle zone picking up the signature will have no doubt at all what just happened), while anti protons will interact with protons releasing a blast of high energy subatomic particles. As you can see in the diagram of a theoretical antimatter rocket, this stew of pions and other charged particles breaks down in time to other particles as well as releasing gamma radiation.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vx6FI.jpg)
*Antimatter reaction*
So the surface would be struck with a blaze of high energy radiation, followed shortly by the shockwave created by the atmosphere heating by the radiation release.
This would also affect everyone in space, since the radiation release would be spherical. Satellites and spacecraft in orbit would be irradiated by the high energy gamma rays and particles as well, which might even put the launching spacecraft in danger.
The best way to overcome these issues would be to enclose the antimatter in a containment trap which is programmed or designed to disintegrate at low altitude or on the ground, putting the energy right on the target where you want it to go.
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As you have already commented the most effective way would be the ion trap. The two most common types of ion trap are the Penning trap and the Paul trap. A possible alternative could be the use of Optical tweezers, but this method can not contain the antimatter for a long time.
Also you have to take into account that there are different types of antimatter, you cannot define everything with the term antimatter and expect to treat it equally. Neutral antimatter is a different type of antimatter, which is not affected in the same way by ionic traps. **Last but not least, you have to keep in mind that it is not yet known how antimatter is affected by gravity and that could be a big problem for your bomb.**
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It depends what you want your bombardment to accomplish.
Can you technobabble up an explanation for delivering antimatter from space to a planet's surface? Sure, that's just *Star Trek*'s photon torpedoes. It's likely to be very unpleasant for any inhabitants. and will scar up the surface.
Can you fire raw antimatter directly at the planet? Sure. It will react with the atmosphere in spectacular ways, and the fallout will be unpleasant for any inhabitants, but the surface may not be strongly affected (depends how much antimatter you use).
Can you fire raw antimatter at relativistic speeds so it makes it down to the surface? Sure, probably. You must really hate those guys. I don't even know how to estimate what that might do, but it will be unpleasant for any inhabitants and probably scar up the surface (depending how relativistic the speeds are).
Can you use your antimatter in an engine to just drop rocks on the surface? Sure, anything massive enough to survive reentry has some nasty bombardment characteristics ([Heinlein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress) overestimated, but [Pournelle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment) didn't). Following the theme, it will be unpleasant for any inhabitants, and probably scar up the surface.
In general though, you aren't going to achieve any non-exterminatory objective with antimatter. [Figure out what you're trying to do, and do that](https://www.clausewitz.com/readings/OnWar1873/BK1ch01.html#a) instead of focusing on the loudest toys.
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The major problem with an anti-matter kinetic energy weapon is that it will act exactly like a meteor. You surely have seen the wonderful sights we have when we get meteor showers like the Leonids?
Unless the anti-matter is protected by a containment field which fails automatically when it reaches the surface, you are going to have your anti-matter KEW disintegrating when it hits every matter atom in its path on its route to the surface. When enough matter particles interact with your anti-matter weapon, it's going to disintegrate. If it's a large enough chunk of the local asteroid belt, it's going to have a worldwide killing effect.
One possibility is that the spaceship and crew are matter and the planet is anti-matter. Nobody thought to check that possibility, so you get disastrous gamma radiation affecting both the planet and spaceship.
Sending down an exploratory vessel, perhaps with a diplomat or two, and having it disintegrate in the atmosphere of an anti-matter (to them) planet is not the best way to start diplomatic negotiations. The planet may think it was a weapon. The spaceship knows it was an accident but has no way to prove it. Voila! Instant interstellar war. Any linguistic team would probably include scientists -- physicists, chemists, mathematicians, and other natural sciences -- since that would be the easiest way to establish common words. The properties of carbon and oxygen don't change from one world to another. But if the best diplomats and scientists you have with you have just been killed in this matter-anti-matter, you have a major problem.
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In my fantasy world there's the race of trolls, vastly inspired by the ones one encounters in Baldur's Gate 2 ([see here](http://orig10.deviantart.net/c9ed/f/2011/187/3/a/troll_animation_by_cyderak-d3l59cx.gif "troll")).
Millennia ago, they've been driven underground by orcs and elves, as well as occurring humans later on due to lack in numbers and technological advancement. The dwarves at first tolerated their presence but as the trolls are mesmerized by the sparkle of gold and the resulting raids on dwarven mining sites they drove them back to the surface in a couple of millennia. Now the trolls live in a huge cave system in a mountain and the close outside valley bordered by a river in the west and another mountain range in the north keeping among themselves and travellers off.
They're 2.5 to 3 m (~8'2'' to 9'10'') tall if they stood upright and despite their somewhat sleek look, they have stronger bones and muscles than humans to support the increase in weight. As they spend most of their time in more or less tiny caves they adapted quickly to a bent walk setting them at eye level with humans at most.
They also have a highly efficient regeneration allowing them to regrow severed limbs including the head in mere hours for use and fully in a few days. Even without head their heart keeps pumping and as long as their blood doesn't run cold and doesn't clot their regeneration works. One can slow it down by the use of fire or acid as the fire closes the wound (the key to the regrowth of limbs on salamanders is that their wounds don't close) and the acid eats into the flesh destroying regrowing cells. This is but a temporary solution. Driving a blade into the heart of a troll also can't kill it, as minor wounds get healed quickly enough for not requiring the heart to beat and keep the blood flowing. The only way to finally kill a troll is to cut out his heart since this is the only way to stop the regeneration ability powered by the remaining blood as it takes too long to regrow a heart and thus the blood runs cold.
Is this somewhat plausible to not explain it with "magic"? Is such a high regeneration possible? Could it be explained with an organ responsible for constant stem cell creation or anything like that? Can such a high regeneration ability be able to adapt their walk in, say, 10k to 20k years without causing chronic pain in their backs while also not decrease their size much? What about the regrowth of the brain, how could that be possible? I know I'd have to deal with memory loss. What about the energy consumption. Is it possible to regrow a head without being able to eat? Maybe leave it tiny at first with a very small brain and then regrow according to the amount eaten? Are stronger bones and muscles in combination with their rather sleek look enough of an explanation to make their body size possible? Is there anything else I missed that makes their physical presence impossible? Why do I have so many questions?
**EDIT:**
**High regeneration is absolutely necessary.** Their fighting strategy is to catapult themselves with copied ballistas from stolen dwarven blueprints over walls of cities ignoring all the resulting injuries. If they're not able to get back on their feet and start fighting within minutes to few hours, that strategy is doomed.
However, as this would result in bruises, broken bones and other inner injuries rather than cut off limbs, regrowth of limbs can take its time. Also, they do not have to regenerate fully very quickly but only so they're in fighting shape. As they're still taller, stronger and tougher they'd at least not be in disadvantage to humans. Also, surprise is on their side.
Now again the question, would that be possible? Imagine a person falling down a couple of stories on a plastered road, he's dead.
**EDIT 2:**
I'm trying to clump together what I got as answers and comments until now. Thanks to everyone so far.
The trolls stay slim with strong muscles and bones making them heavier but also reduce blunt trauma upon falling and give them slight resistance to flails and the likes. Their slimness partially compensates for that. Height also stays the same as nobody knows how large they've been before they were driven off underground, thus the occurrence of a slight reduction could have happened anyway. They have a hard time standing upright and usually do so only on rare occasions like intimidating others or taking a look over obstacles. They have a rather slow metabolism and generally lead a life with less movement than humans do. They train and enslave kobolds to gather food and do any other kind of work such a small being can handle, so the trolls themselves don't have to move as much. If they engage in physical activity they burn their energy quite quickly, so in combat they get exhausted somewhat fast making them a much less dangerous enemy afterwards. Don't get pleased too quickly though, you won't survive that long. This leads them to being great sprinters and jumpers with their long legs but earns them the last place in the New York marathon. Also, if necessary, they eat parts of their enemies to regain energy, they love the taste of human infants even more than the sparkling of gold.
**Regeneration:** Wounds without removal of body parts like stab wounds or broken bones regenerate rapidly at first. Blood clotting starts quickly and an effective stem cell creation and deployment process generates tissue closing open wounds and stitch together bones within minutes. The latter leads to skeletal deformations in numerous cases. Final healing process can take up days to few weeks depending on severity and requires quite some food and rest. In order to cope with the fast beginning of the healing process trolls have an energy reserve in form of a round belly. Refilling this reserve additionally delays final healing process. This, in combination with a vast distribution of endorphins to suppress the pain, lets them engage in combat incredibly quickly after experiencing physical trauma.
**Regrowth:** Fast plot clotting and stem cell creation helps with regrowing limbs as well and the process starts quickly, too. The belly fat pad does barely help though, so a disfigurement leads to the troll instinctively evade the battlefield, thus desertion is no rarity. Once out of danger the injured needs a lot of food and rest. Regrowth takes few months up to a year. If possible, hours to days later the body enters a form of hibernation, only interrupted to eat, speeding up the process vastly (maybe half the time?).
**Beheading:** Now to the fun part. Upon decapitation the body immediately shuts down any non required functionality. Loosely coupled brain cells scattered across the torso adopt control of the organ functionality, which is absolutely required to keep the body alive. This makes the body nearly impossible to kill as you have to destroy it entirely in order to prevent it from functioning. Rudimentary redundant memory cells enclosed in the spinal cord store basic memories so the regrown brain doesn't start at zero, body functions like walking and important personal memories forming the basic character. It would be possible a beheaded troll becomes a different one if their "society" would actually encourage personal individuality. The scattered brain cells in the torso are also able to weakly process optical stimulus, so the first things to regrow are eyes and mouth so the troll can identify, consume and process food to gain energy. From then on the hibernation state mentioned earlier is the way to go with the full development of the brain being the last to occur, as it takes up to several years to fully function correctly. In the process, the body can manage more and more activity so the sleeping phases of the hibernation state shorten after some months. In the early time the troll behaves very animalistic only trying to satisfy the most basic instincts.
In all three cases the blood stream takes control of the stem cell distribution, so the troll can't regenerate anymore when you cut out his heart. Also, before engaging in combat they eat as much as they can to gain a highly possible energy buffer.
Does that sound plausible now? The only problem I currently see is the energy consumption until the mouth has developed. What about photosynthesis and water? Could that give the body enough energy to slowly heal if not doing anything else? How about collecting necessary nutrients through the skin?
**EDIT 3:**
I've finally managed to write it all down and will mark Hankerecords' post as answer as it has helped me the most. Thanks to everyone for helping :)
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This is something that does not and cannot exist in our world, most definitely. Lizards and salamanders can regrow their tail, but [it takes a lot of time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizard#Shedding_and_regenerating_tails) (several weeks) and a lot of energy and, as the wikipedia article says, the new tail is not made of bone but of cartilage. Of course, this is unpractical for our trolls, so they would need to regrow bones. That would take an awful lot more time, at least with a biology similar to those we know. So I would say that such a regeneration could only be explained by magic or, at most, by simply stating that their body acts differently than the human one. They would need a really slow metabolism (but highly efficient in terms of energy output) to survive while regenerating.
Some species have the ability to not only regenerate limbs, but also organs (like the [starfish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_(biology)#Echinoderms))
Some species, like the planaria, [can grow an entire new body starting from a portion as small as 1/279th of their total size](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planarian#Regeneration), but they are worms, nowhere near the complexity of 2.5-3m tall dudes.
The complete regeneration of their head *might* be feasible if they had some sort of system that resembles that of ovule fecundation, but rather than generating a new being generated just a brain. Of course, this would not only mean memory loss, but a 3m tall guy with the brain of an infant.
To make it possible for them to survive without a head, other than a really slow metabolism (and possibly a way to "freeze" their body, something similar to winter hibernation, like bears do), they would need their vital organs to be able to work without receiving signals from the brain. This is not possible in our body, but they may have some sort of "very small brains", one for each organ, that tells the organ what to do when it's not receiving any electric signal from the head. Of course, such a body would be a lot more complex than ours, since then each organ would have to be able to "communicate" not only with the brain, but with each of the other organs.
Or, you know, you can always say it's magic ;)
They would need a reeeaally efficient regeneration system to be able to regrow a limb in minutes, and they would need a f■ckload™ of energy to be able to do that, so, as said before, a very slow metabolism, and possibly an enormous stomach to store as much food as they can a couple hours before a battle.
If they only need to be fast at regenerating inner injuries, while limb regrowth can take time, it's more feasible, as they would "only" need a really good stem cell system that would stop blood loss really fast and completely seal the wound in minutes [see this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_(biology)#Tissues). I guess a species with a body capable of regenerating limbs, including their head, would be able to heal from inner wounds really fast without major problems.
As for the communication between the organs, you may even have an organ the only purpose of which is handling said communication, possibly placed in a protected area (behind the heart would be ideal, as that would mean that if this organ is injured then it means the heart has been taken out, and if it hasn't, than the "communications organ" would be able to regenerate). This way, the brain would only need to be connected to this specific organ, which would take all the decisions regarding organs, so that the absence of a brain would be irrelevant to the functioning of vital organs.
Regarding their posture, I think they might be able to adapt and avoid chronic pain after a few generations. As a result, though, they would lose the ability to stand up correctly over the time, and I think a loss in height would be inevitable as shorter individuals would be more agile in their environment and would live healthier lives altogether, increasing their chance of survival and their chance of carrying their genes on to the next generation.
I think it could be feasible for them to survive without a mouth, provided that the pharynx and larynx (and windpipe and throat) are the only open "passageway", as all the veins going to the head have to be shut down immediately after decapitation to prevent bleeding to death.
If the throat remains accessible, they may be able to ingest food in fluid form, or at least really soft (unless they have a really acidic stomach that can break down whole pieces of food without problems, which is entirely possible considering they don't need to digest quickly due to their slow metabolism).
If the larynx and pharynx have been cut off with the head, for example, the regeneration process may "know" that, in case of decapitation, it needs to develop a sort of valve at the outermost part of the throat and trachea, to prevent them from ingesting or breathing unwanted "stuff". This valve could then be lost (and simply spit away) once the mouth is fully functional.
In this scenario, they could eat *a lot* of food through this hole, hibernate and simply rest for a few weeks until the mouth is ready.
[For reference, see how cockroaches survive without head.](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-cockroach-can-live-without-head/)
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Bamboo can grow 35 inches per day. That's about 1.46 inches (3.7 cm) per hour. I think that's about the upper limit on the growth of a large complex organism.
There are many reasons why this is easier for a plant than an animal. Matter can be neither created nor destroyed. For an animal, food is broken down and basic nutrients are carried by the circulatory system to provide the energy and amino acids to create new proteins. An inert animal only has the resources it brought with it. In a plant, photosynthesis allows it to use primarily water and carbon from the air surrounding it in the continuous construction of new cells.
Additionally, a stalk of bamboo has really two purposes: structural and vascular. A cross section of bamboo basically has radial symmetry and looks the same no matter where you slice it. An animal's limb is made of more kinds of tissue. Muscle must be anchored to bone in some places and move freely in others. Joints require careful matching of physical features and a system of lubrication. In all cases the growth of one sort of tissue outpacing another could be disastrous, so you're limited by whichever component grows the slowest. Animal growth is just very carefully orchestrated by comparison.
Finally, animals have a much much higher metabolism, and that requires a much more active circulatory system. Insects lack a heart and you can see they are rather limited in size, yet trees grow to enormous size without a heart, because it's not really important that materials in their circulatory system reach their destination quickly. We also have a lot of specialized organs, while most of a plant's needs are satisfied by a few different kinds of tissues that are not grown in just one vulnerable point. All of this explains why my lawn can get run over with a mower and fare much better than I would. Your trolls would have to survive trauma in the first place to be able to heal or regrow, and you will be just as hard pressed to find an explanation for their durability.
You can make your trolls a bit more feasible by making them a bit more like bamboo I guess. Their excretory system could rely more on their skin, and liver and kidney functions could be performed by tissue just under the skin throughout their body. I guess your trolls would be quite stinky. They could be made of more flexible material than bone, like cartilaginous fish. They could be cold blooded and possess a very slow metabolism. That would limit them to very sedentary lifestyles, and fast movement in only quick anaerobic bursts. With reduced metabolic needs, a reduced blood flow might be accommodated by the valves that already exist in our blood vessels and rhythmic contractions throughout the circulatory system.
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Healing takes energy. In the case of regrowing a missing part (compared to just *repairing* an existing part), you also will require mass to use to build the new part.
So, starting with the assumption that such regeneration is possible, your Trolls will need to have substantial energy stores that will be burned at a tremendously high rate when such rapid healing and regeneration is required. A troll that has recently required heavy healing and / or is malnourished, is simply not going to be able to heal at such a rate.
If you require that healing simply requires consuming mass quantities, then you have the additional time to break down the food before being able to use it to heal and regenerate.
As to the missing brain, their nervous system may be much more decentralized or redundant, or perhaps personality and memory engrams are encoded into the spine so that a newly grown brain can be given the patterns of thought and memory of the original brain.
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## A slightly sci-fi suggestion
If the trolls were, in fact, a collection of giant single cell creatures (up to a few inches or even a foot or so across) which have decent control over internal structures, and a limited ability to morph their external membrane, who have learned to mimic creatures around them, you could accomplish this.
Imagine: a society of ameboids, mostly animalistic or of low level intelligence, with the occasional "general" being born of high intelligence among them.
After years of predation, despite the ability to hide via mimicking, a general discovered that instead of eating other ameboids, it could form vascular and neural links with and then control other non-general ameboids. Once the linkages are formed, however, they cannot be severed without killing off the non-general ameboids.
With more mass, larger creatures can be mimicked, and even hunted. The general ameboid forms the central neural cluster and main heart. Part of the linkage process overwrites the neural pattern of the non-general ameboids, effectively lobotomizing it, which is why it can't survive on its own, nor regenerate another troll upon severing.
It could possibly make semi instinctive use of genetic material to learn how to grow new things (bones, claws, useful organs, and so forth).
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I'm going to focus on the goal, raining trolls, rather than the question.
To make it rain trolls, you need trolls that can fall a great distance without dying.
One method is regeneration. This is a traditional property for trolls, so makes a whole lot of sense, apart from that pesky science thing.
Another method is not breaking in the first place. SO many ways to do this.
Feather-falling (parachutes, wings, magic, super-low-density bodies, etc).
Hard-close-fitting shell and acceleration-resistant innards. Not OP as others claim because when they stand bipedal, they expose their soft underbelly, like a pillbug.
Airbags. Not sure how this could work.
Crumple zones. Maybe they have four legs, but only need two?
Fluid bones/cartilage, hardened by pressure or muscular action. This one seems possibly doable. It gets you a crumple zone/airbag effect in the limbs that can then, like erectile tissue or tentacles, reform to a hard column. It resolves the whole "fix broken limbs" thing. I suspect that the end result, if you did the math, would be "splat", though.
Super-heavy bones. Bones made to withstand impact. You'll rip open some flesh around the bones, perhaps, but the bones themselves are thick and yet flexible, more like steel than marble.
Landing on soft things. Target landings to hit people. Requires some level of aimed or directed flight. I just like this one because it seems most trollish.
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I think what you are looking for is the T-1000, not a troll.
But to get to your question in a more serious manner, how would you address the concern of restoring memory/intelligence in the case of a head that needs regenerating? I presume that's where the brain will reside. Even if you have several "mini-brains" to control the limbs and vital organs (octopi have something like this) there must be a central data repository, less those mini-brains aren't so mini and there is parity across the hive minds (brains in a RAID array?) Such a network of brains would require an immense amount of energy, but you already have an energy problem to solve given the whole regeneration thing.
Energy aside, without the ability to restore memory, when your trolls are catapulted into the enemy's fortress and suffer severe head trauma, they will awaken on the other side of the wall without a clue as to what happened. They'll be persuaded by the enemy to join their ranks and fight against you, only the enemy will be gentler to the trolls and won't catapult them so they won't forget who they're fighting for.
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Thinking about regrowing a head and brain... no, not at all possible. The brain (brain stem) controls all those picky little things like breathing and heartbeats, lose that and they won't survive enough to be regenerated... new personality is the least of their worries, it might be months for them to develop enough *and* re-learn enough to even breathe.
But, but - they're not human. A different species, even. So...why do their brains have to be in their heads?
I'm thinking the brain, or even just the brainstem, could be located in the trunk (for better protection) - maybe in the neck, or spine, or between organs in the torso, anywhere well-protected. Neck would be close by for migration, but still vulnerable to decapitation damage, while lower in the spine might be workable (and spinal column is fairly well protected). On the other hand, it might be hidden - under the curve of the hunched over spine, or even at the other end of the spinal cord form the neck. Few would be looking for a brain in the pelvis (or ass) and also, think of all the jokes. it has to be hidden or protected or both, since *damage to this brainstem is still very, very bad* - but if nerve or brain injuries can heal over time, minor-ish accidental injuries to it might be survivable (with many aftereffects). The "head", then, is just a limb wired with sensory capabilities, and perhaps extra brain matter for processing capability and memory storage (essentially, an external hard-drive) - especially if you *want* memory loss and so on for story-purposes.
It will take a lot of energy to regrow the head, with the added bonus of needing to energy (which means food) while healing and headless - perhaps if they're more social, they can expect a friend to be pouring (or poking) food down their belly while they're incapacitated - a simple valve system (either *quickly* produced at cut point, or at regular intervals anyway) would let the throat breathe and possibly swallow without the mouth. On the other hand, if they need to be more self-sufficient - they might draw on bodily resources for the most urgent repairs (fat plus muscle consumption might be enough to regrow just the head), while other healing can wait for more resources.
Or, more direct self-cannibalism might be used - pulling bone and muscle from elsewhere in the body *whole* to rebuild the head with, instead of just consuming tissue for energy/re-budding from scratch. I'm thinking tall and hunched means there's some "extra" spine and back that can be utilized - after all, what will it matter if they're 'straighter' or shorter until they can eat enough to bulk up again. Or they might have a bodily storage on top of their shoulders (rather than all of it being extra curved spine) - something like a camel's hump, and containing fat stores for energy, or raw materials for healing head injuries. I'm also imagining the head being crudely "re-purposed" from the shoulder or hunched-over bits of spine (folding up and over like an inchworm, and leaving the original much shorter), since that will be 'cheaper' than budding off a new head, and those kinds of repairs (height, or arm) can wait for extra resources.
Or maybe this mechanism isn't limited to *just* the head, but in general - a kind of low-level instinctive ability to repurpose their (adjacent!) tissues for patchwork closing wounds when resources or time for proper healing is scarce, could help explain the super-regeneration. They would slowly get shorter or smaller as they lost mass, and "re-purpose" what's left as best they can into a smaller whole body instead of a bigger one missing parts, and restore the mass (and height) with food energy as available. A few hundred leaps in evolution and some serious training down the road might get you limited cosmetic-level shape-shifting, but at this point it's an automatic instinctive healing process, and also possibly buggy as heck.
Ok and moving on, what about, 'can only be killed by cutting out the heart' - I'm thinking also no. Not only are there too many ways to be injured, healing itself is expensive as anything. I would expect starvation to kill off a troll relatively quickly, since it needs resources to heal and maintain itself. Significant levels of trauma will also kill a troll, since they would have to keep healing - stuff like being dismembered or continual pile-up of littler injuries until they kinda starve to death expending energy to heal. I expect vulnerability to temp shifts, since their metabolism has to be tailored to the regeneration - extra work from heating or cooling could be very bad. Getting the brain (well, brain stem) will also be fatal - though it might be hidden, or armored, or the attacker doesn't know to target it specifically (and minor incidental injuries can be healed). So cutting out the heart *can* be the most practical method for killing one in combat, even if it isn't the *only* way.
What else... Your regeneration is kinda insane, but you already knew that. Between the immediate clotting, reasonable patchwork, and the longer-term regenerative behavior, this is a biologically *expensive* system. There should be lots of drawbacks - especially if they're also big, tough and resilient (to resist injuries), and also powerful and dangerous (to prevent injuries from existing), as usually those big, powerful, dangerous *use* those traits to avoid being injured so much. Usually those kind of traits trade off for the dealing with the same problem (most creatures specialize rather than pay for all costs), so they need a reason to still *need* all that regenerating. Like maybe a really powerful predator, or dangerous environment, which they cannot match with force of arms or innovation alone. Doesn't matter what it is, just think of a reason nothing's come along with a better trade-off to the problems this regeneration system is gonna fix.
As for your catapult-orcs, this is a nasty business. Injuries will be frequent, huge, and crippling, and quick-regen doesn't cut it as a *primary* method of compensating for that (though it works excellently as an all purpose backup for everything that could go wrong). Does it help if the catapults have slightly better aim, or the internal layout of the cities crowded enough, that most orcs could expect to land on roofs and jump down separately? The shorter fall, and/or having their falls broken by thatched roofs collapsing under them, could reduce injuries quite a bit. Could they figure out (or the stolen plans include) some kind of catapult-capsule for traveling in? Probably originally for catapulting supplies or messages, or maybe just to make firing irregularly shaped orcs easier, that just happens to also absorb impact by crumpling to let them remain in useful condition. Just lashing them to a crude wooden or wicker framework and firing would help - the wood can snap and shatter apart when it hits, slowing the falling orc enough to survive (it can hack out of the remaining framework afterwards), and the regeneration deals with any non-prevented wounds. Luxury models might be stuffed with *straw* for actual cushioning.
Note - you've got them hunched over quite a bit, and I've leaned on that as well, but there's no reason for my adaptions to be as recent as being driven underground. Is there a reason they couldn't be hunched before (and use the hunch for extra storage, misdirection, and/or regeneration reasons)? That might be why they stayed tall instead of shrinking down to size, since they already had a coping method in place. Also the above ground peoples might not have remembered the hunch, or mixed up "height while extended" and "height while usually walking" while the orcs were out of sight, or just assumed the hunch was from living underground instead of a pre-existing trait.
Ok, I can't think of anything else. I hope this helps.
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perhaps you could explain it with some of their cellular structure breaking down into liquid, then travelling to the site of the wound and reorganizing to repair it. This would be a good way to explain fast regeneration with relatively minimal energy, though the trolls would start to run out of spare tissue after a while, steadily getting smaller and weaker.
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[Question]
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To expand the territory of the EU, one can consider recreating [Doggerland](http://education.nationalgeographic.com/maps/doggerland/) by reclaiming the lost land from the sea:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0TNCB.jpg)
Had our ancestors had more technology, they could have dealt with the sea level rise by building levees and pumping stations so that this land area would not have gone lost to the sea in the first place. But we can still get it back using land reclamation methods. The question is then how much this would cost.
[Answer]
The costs @o.m. answer points in his answer are only the tip of the iceberg:
* The Baltic Sea will become inner sea (or a big big lake). Sea trade with Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany and Benelux (bye bye, Rotterdam harbour) will be stopped.
* Major sea ports like Liverpool, London, Rotterdam, Le Havre become just piles of scrap. All trade towards/from Germany, UK, Ireland, Benelux, Denmark, Sweden will need lots more of overland travel (less efficient than sea trade).
* The Gulf current will be interrupted. Climate in Scandinavia / Baltic countries will probably become way harsher. There is risk of drought in Benelux, North Germany, Poland.
* Increased political tension with countries that lose access to sea, including Russia.
Or, to put it more explicitly, the cost would be zero because nobody is crazy enough to even propose such a monstruosity.
UPDATE:
Additionally, you have another issue with rivers.
Currently, rivers are at sea level when they met the sea. In your map, rivers like the Rhine or the Thames are supposed to flow for hundreds of even a thousand kilometers through what previously was the sea floor. You will have to channel those rivers, giving them some descent so that they do not overflow and, when they met the sea, you will need to raise that water to the sea level to prevent the rivers from flooding your new lands... and it is **a lot** of water.
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The [Dutch](http://www.unmuseum.org/7wonders/zunderzee.htm) paid 7 BN for 1000 square miles.
* A larger project will have a better ratio of dike length to protected area. For a circle, the diameter grows with $\sqrt{\text{area}}$. On the other hand, people might insist on internal dikes for safety reasons.
* A larger project will have dikes further out, and probably in deeper water.
I don't know how much it will cost, but it will be **very** expensive, and living in Doggerland would require eternal vigilance to prevent erosion. Much cheaper to irrigate the Sahara.
[Answer]
The cost would be too much to be practical.
The size of the submerged areas of Doggerland varies depending on how much you want to include. The range seems to vary wildly from [9,000](http://www.abroadintheyard.com/if-doggerland-had-not-drowned/) to [18,000](http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/12/doggerland/spinney-text) square miles. To put that amount of land reclamation into perspective, let’s look at the Netherlands. At nearly one sixth of the country’s entire territory, the Netherlands have reclaimed about [2,700](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reclamation) square miles of land.
From a magnitude perspective, that comparison actually makes it seem feasible. Unfortunately, you also need to consider depth.
The Zuiderzee in the Netherlands, on which the Flevoland was built, is only about [15 feet deep](http://www.unmuseum.org/7wonders/zunderzee.htm). During the time period where Doggerland was above water, the sea level was [400 feet lower](http://www.abroadintheyard.com/if-doggerland-had-not-drowned/). That’s an enormous difference that complicates both a land fill strategy as well as utilization of levees.
The Zuiderzee Works in the Netherlands cost [$7 billion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuiderzee_Works) and decades to construct. Extrapolating this to a landmass that is anywhere from 3 to 6 times larger and 10-20 times deeper, you could very easily be looking at tens of trillions of dollars without even including yearly maintenance.
To make matters worse, you’re trying to reclaim land that is going to be harder to maintain with every passing year. Sea levels are rising once again… why spend this money to reclaim land that will be extraordinarily costly to protect when you could instead shore up land you’re already losing?
[Answer]
# Tremendous
*Direct Cost*
In Ruwais, in the UAE, cut and fill for a 1km x 1km (at a depth of 10m, including above and below the gulf bed) and all the associated costs, with cheap labor, came to about 1,000AED ($367USD) per m2 surface. Your land take appears to be 600bn sqm (3 "UKs") and about 20x the average depth.
High-level estimate of 4,404 trillion (plus 20 % contingency for such a project) comes to let's round it to **$5,000 trillion USD = 5 quadrillion USD (see comments)**.
*Associated Costs*
Now you can calculate the tremendous loss to trade, tourism, coastal real estate, and the administration and maintenance of this land.
**Was it worth it?**
[Answer]
**More money that we have** since reclaiming Doggerland would require building a very long continuous wall of concrete. It ain't gonna happen. Ever.
Let's say our ancestors wanted to stop land loss at 200 meters below 2015 water levels. I couldn't find figures for the perimeter of Doggerland so let's set a minimum bound for required perimeter as the coastline of the UK at 17,819.88 kms. The base of the Hoover dam is 200 meters thick and 221 meters tall.
[Concrete by the square meter](http://www.lmcc.com/q_and_a/concrete-cost.asp) costs \$104/m^3 or \$104 billion/km^3
So, for a simplified concrete wall that stretches 17820 kilometers, is 200 meters at the base and 200 meters tall, we need:
$A = \frac{h\_b b}{2} = \frac{200\* 200}{2} = 0.02 \text{km}^2 \* 17280 \text{km} = 345.6 \text{km}^3$ of concrete.
345.6 $\text{km}^3$ \* \$104B = 35 trillion dollars. This is half the [world's annual GDP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete#Building_with_concrete). $345.6 \text{km}^3$ of concrete is 32 years worth of [earth's concrete production](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete#Building_with_concrete) (as of 2006).
This estimate doesn't include anything in regards to redundant walls, flood control walls, water pumping energy costs, pump costs, ecological damage, economic damage and so on and so on.
[Answer]
For scale, the [Burchardi flood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burchardi_flood) of 1634 destroyed the island Strand. Two thirds of that land are now sea, the remaining third being the islands Pellworm and Nordstrand. Between them, the Norderhever tidal race (which did not exist before 1634) has reached a depth of 30 meters, and is constantly getting deeper, threatening both islands. There is not much mankind can do against it at this point.
It's one thing to dike off an inlet, like the Dutch did. It's another thing to dike off open sea, or even fortify an island against tidal forces.
So, diking is a non-option. You would have to lower the sea levels by some means until Doggerland reappears again.
During the Holocene, when Doggerland was last dry land, sea levels were over 100 meters lower than today. (Their rise is what possibly gave birth to the Deluge and Atlantis myths.)
Since you can't just "pull the plug" and drain the water away, the only way to do it is to cool off the globe until glaciers start growing. During Holocene, glaciers covered massive parts of the North American continent, to which the Canadians would probably have a thing or two to say...
This is not a matter of cost. It's just physically impossible.
Not to mention that humankind has a *terrible* track record regarding terraforming projects. Things virtually *always* turned out for the worse.
So, my verdict:
**Not a question. No-one would even consider this in earnest.**
[Answer]
**A few (dozen?) nuclear warheads, at ~$100M a pop, if you believe Ewing and Donn's *[A Theory of Ice Ages](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/123/3207/1061.long)* from *Science* magazine.**
Here are the steps to recreating Doggerland. As a bonus, Doggerland gets recreated *as it existed before 16000 BC*!
(Protip: buy land in northern Mexico, the Sahara, the Arabian Peninsula, or another similar place first.)
1. Detonate enough explosives north of Greenland and Ellsmere Island to detach the Arctic ice cap from its land-anchors. You'll want to do this in early September, as that's when Arctic sea ice is at its [minimum extent](http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2015/09/2015_arctic-minimum/). I don't have any clue how much megatonnage that requires, but the ice is only [a few meters thick](https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/characteristics/difference.html), albeit along a ~300 mi stretch.
2. Sit back for some scores of years, perhaps even a century. Ice sheets will have swelled across the Canadian shield, Scandanavia, Siberia. Sea levels will drop as all of that water is deposited in the form of miles-thick glaciers. *How far?* About as far as your diagram above. *How do I know?* 'Cause that's where the extraction of water from oceans and deposition onto ice sheets stopped last time.
In case you're skeptical--fair enough--here's the summary of Ewing and Donn's theory of what happens during step 2:
(2a) ice sheet detaches (because of global warming, historically, but we kick-started that), rotates freely and melts quickly.
(2b) Ice free arctic sea has moisture liberated (kinetically, not thermally) by polar easterlies much more rapidly off of choppy waves than off of snow/ice.
(2c) So it snows *a lot* across the Canadian shield, Scandanavia, Siberia.
(2c, continued) I said **a lot**: every day, feet per day; have you ever lived near lake-effect snow? Imagine that year-round, year after year.
(2d) Continuous water extraction from Arctic causes inflows through Bering Sea, Greenland Sea, and Baffin Bay. This water's warm, and keeps Arctic from freezing. (Extraction is also driving up salinity, keeping Arctic from freezing.) The extracted water falls as snow on glaciers, growing southward. (Any snow that falls on water melts, and is re-extracted. Heat of fusion ping-pongs back and forth, so the only extraction that matters is that which falls on land/glacier.)
(2d, continued) Extraction continues until sea levels drop enough for landbridges across Bering, Baffin, and Greenland Sea to reemerge. Arctic flash-freezes without warm replenishment.
(2e) Doggerland looks like it did during the last ice age. Unfortunately for me (because of the mile of ice on top of my home), so does the rest of the globe.
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[Question]
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I love books,
This love brought me to gather hundreds of books of all different types. When I disappear, like all old men's belongings, these will be scattered, thrown away, sold, burnt.
Let's imagine a vault with a modest technology, that could keep these books safe for the next 500 years, up to the point where it will be considered of an archeological and cultural value, so that they will form a collection.
There is a long list of items to be taken care of:
Buying the property? Avoiding looting? Make sure great great grand children not looking after their "gran'pa treasure"? Preserve from humidity and light, ground movements? Keeping the secrecy?
Books last for centuries in the dry areas. Shall I prefer a lost cave in an arid region? Or the cold summits of some isolated Canadian mountains?
[Answer]
## There are about four solutions that have actually worked in history
Interestingly, this is not just a hypothetical question. Librarians and archivists already seriously study how they can preserve documents for centuries.
An example of an important case that has received a lot of attention is that of blueprints for major pieces of highly durable infrastructure, which might be expected to interact with the development of a city for centuries. The general conclusion is that there are currently *no* electronic methods that are reliable on anything approaching this time frame, so the first step is always to get digital blueprints transferred to (archival quality) traditional media.
Once you have that, well, there are quite a few examples of libraries of books preserved for 500 years. There are a few examples of much, much older books.
**1. The desert method**
As you already observed, dryness helps to preserve books. There are three main things that destroy books -- although their relative importance depends on the material used for the pages.
a. Some modern papers inherently self-destruct from chemical break down. This was much less of an issue before pulp paper was developed in the nineteenth century, but always has some effect, and may be exacerbated by exposure to light. However, these reactions require the presence of water. Keeping the paper (or papyrus, etc.) extremely dry will slow them down immensely.
b. Insect and vermin attack can rapidly destroy books. A desert environment is not entirely free of these pests but it does help.
c. In humid environments, fungal attack is also a serious issue. It can occur to some degree in drier environments but halts altogether in extremely dry conditions.
The classic example is the [Dead Sea scrolls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls), some of which are as much as 2300 years old. Most people have heard of them; fewer people realise that in total there are over 900 documents found in 11 different caves. The degree of preservation varies. Some of the scrolls that were simply stacked on the bare earth have disintegrated to fragments and have taken decades to partially reconstruct. However many were stored in earthenware jars with loose fitting ceramic lids. This seems to have given them better protection against insects, and traces of moisture in the soil after (the rare) rains. Some of these scrolls could be simply opened and read, millennia after they were placed there.
This is not a unique case. As another example, the [Oxyrhynchus Papyri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyrhynchus_Papyri) were documents discarded in rubbish pits by a desert community. With no more protection than shifting desert sands, many are still legible 1400 years after they were simply thrown away.
A potential advantage of this approach is that it is very cheap. Desert land costs pennies an acre, and the only other thing you need is some pots. And no long term personnel tasking.
**2. Give them to an institution which will preserve them**
Many of the most notable examples of well-preserved ancient documents have been in the care of long-lived institutions that intentionally take care of them. Often these are religious institutions; some are academic; and there are a smaller number of examples by governments or long-lived family businesses or estates. A particularly famous example is the [*geniza* of Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Geniza). In Jewish custom, a geniza is a storeroom for revered or sacred documents. In the late nineteenth century this one was discovered to have over 200,000 documents, mainly in excellent preservation, dating back as much as 700 years. Some included hand-written, personally signed letters from famous mediaeval personages.
Of course it helps that Cairo is also arid; but there are equally excellent examples in the Vatican's libraries, and those of ancient universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. The key is that it is not required to try to solve the preservation of the documents once and for all time, because the self-perpetuating institution will monitor and maintain them.
This does, of course, raise the secondary question of what institutions can be relied upon to last 500 years. Sure, any schmuck can found a cult, but most of them don't outlast the founder! Usually, it will be better to donate them to an institution that has already shown it has the chops for the *really* long haul.
**3. The opposite of secrecy: duplicate them extensively**
The great majority of ancient documents that we can still read today do not exist because we have a copy that is millennia old; they are available because they were popular, revered or important, and accessible for copying. If enough copies are made, some will survive to the next generation of duplication. This interacts well with the previous point if the institution has a mission to disseminate documents as well as to preserve them -- such as the *scriptoria* of mediaeval monasteries.
**4. Transcribe them to durable materials**
It is hard to keep books for a really long time because paper, parchment and papyrus are easily destroyed. However books have been produced on much more durable materials. Nowadays a holographic copy can be laser etched into stainless steel. In Sumer, 5300 years ago they pressed them into clay tablets. If the document was important, they fired the clay; otherwise they just let it dry. The fired versions are close to indestructible.
[Answer]
Your biggest problem is the books themselves.
Unless the books are made of an acid free paper, they will deteriorate anyway.
See [The Deterioration and Preservation of Paper](https://www.loc.gov/preservation/care/deterioratebrochure.html)
Now the next question, does anyone need to read it during the next 500 years? If nobody has to read them, you could seal them away in a nitrogen atmosphere inside sealed barrels and they should last but if they are being handled, not so much.
[Answer]
Let's assume you don't have the money to reprint the books into a medium that is more stable than wood-pulp paper. Let's also assume you want to be them readily available, so that discards scanning them into tech that will get obsolete faster than writing.
Your main enemies are the natural acidity of the paper: As the lignin decomposes will make the paper dark and brittle, and sunlight will speed the process. There are factors that contribute to the decomposition of the books: these are sunlight(again), which can make inks and pigments fade, and the humidity which can increase the speed of acid release and unbind the adhesives that hold the books together. Finally, there are factors that can contribute to the endangerment of the collection, namely natural disasters and human intervention.
Let's try to address them in order.
* Paper acidity can be neutralized by dipping the books in an alkaline solution. This is a common practice for books made after the introduction of wood pulp paper and will prolong the life of the books as long as it's periodically dipped. As you don't want these books to be regularly attended, we can scratch periodically, but this would be a mandatory step.
* If the content is more important than the form, you can unbind the books and then laminate the pages in plastic. This will prevent humidity to affect the paper and can hold the ink (specially if it's pigment and not tint) even if the paper itself deteriorates. If form is more important or you don't have time/patience to unbind the books, vacuum wrap them individually in PET (that is more stable than PVC and will take longer to decompose).
* To avoid sunlight, you should make your vault subterranean, as you probably already were thinking of that.
* To prevent degradation by natural disasters and human intervention you should built your vault in a place that is remote and a region that is tectonically stable. This will prove difficult as much of the places that would be suitable (for example, the atacama desert is one of the dries places in earth) are also mineral rich and/or tectonically active.
So we're looking at a small two layer concrete coffin, covered in some kind of moisture absorbing salt, with just enough space for the books to be, situated in a rocky, medium-altitude, sparsely populated and mineral depleted place (the bottom of a mineshaft would be a handy place to put the vault).
Let me suggest an easier way, if I may. Assuming you have the money to do all this, you also can have the money to set up a **trust fund** with the purpose of preserving your library. Most museums started this way (and in my city of Barcelona, we have the Frederic Marés museum, which is basically a place where a very rich garbage collector put everything, from cigar rings to stolen gothic sculptures). What is more, if your interest in preserving the books is more like showing what a normal person of your era would collect you can talk with a museum that deals with ethnology (the study of the human cultures) and propose the fund with that purpose: they will be probably more than happy to catalog and preserve your books. If you live in United States your best bet would be the Smithsonian.
[Answer]
The easiest solution to this is put them in the vault, use an oil absorbing rag, wipe all of the books down, vacuum seal the rooms, and then use vacuums to pump the room empty of all existing air.
In the absence of air, acids cannot Oxidize. I would also recommend removing all light, as light can also cause damage to books, paper, paintings, color, and parchments.
This is how the Vatican handles the most rare and valuable artifacts it possesses.
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There is this method - to store the information on glass. Although I am not sure you can call that book.
Although it sounds impossible, I am sure it will easily last 500 years.
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> A standard-sized disc can store around 360 terabytes of data, with an estimated lifespan of up to 13.8 billion years even at temperatures of 190°C.
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<https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/16/11018018/5d-data-storage-glass>
Paper books will most probably disappear in a hundred years and will be seen as relics. For that reason, it makes sense to preserve them as paper books, but if you want the information, check the link.
[Answer]
Put a few of these:
Into one of these:
This is a time capsule from MIT that is supposed to be opened only in 2957.
This way you can store billions of books using very little money and space. You wish to extract the batteries from the eReaders before putting them in the capsule.
To keep it away safe from harm such as floods, animals, kids and luddites, you can add a protective casing against radiation and send the whole thing to orbit. Before anyone says that this is too expensive: [convince a space agency that this is a school project and they might do it for you for free](https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/home/CubeSats_initiative).
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[Question]
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Are there any industry-proven strategies in creating truly scary monsters? The scariest monster to date ( this is opinion ) is Alien.
Are there any proven strategies in horrory/scary/fierce creature design that character or movie designers reference?
[Answer]
Fear is a defensive reaction that helps us avoid threats we can't effectively deal with. So making something scarier has too parts: First, you make the threat bigger and more real. Second, you erode the perceived ability of the characters to deal with it. Fundamentally, being scared is the feeling that you have lost control over something valuable to you.
**Making the threat feel real**
This is actually pretty hard problem and probably something you should ask in the Writing SE instead of Worldbuilding. This is because your fictitious monster does not actually pose a real threat to the reader and trying to convince people otherwise would be counterproductive. Most writers wish to make a living with their writing, not to become suspected terrorist.
This requires building up the fear gradually so that the reader can share what the characters are feeling. The reader is at the beginning at a safe location feeling safe and secure. The characters should feel the same. After the first contact, the reader will be curious about what happened what the monster is, the characters should match this by making efforts to study what happened, find the monster, and so on. Once it become clear the monster is a real threat to characters the focus turns to finding out how to stop it. Then survival and finally escape. In a stepwise progression the story **follows** what the reader is thinking.
Stories with multiple characters have an edge here since different readers think a bit different and it is easier to have what reader is thinking match what a character is thinking, if you have multiple characters. Standard storytelling tricks to make the reader empathize with a character apply.
The other important thing is to make sure that what the characters fear is something the reader would fear as well. This generally means falling back to the universal fears. And it should be multiple different fears. People deal with single fears all the time. A reader who is a soldier might be pretty good at dealing with fear of getting killed and be unmoved if characters get terrified simply because they might die. A monster doesn't need to kill anyone, zombies for example just change people and make them loose their minds. Both of which are things most people are scared of. Especially if it then makes them turn on their loved ones. Such betrayal is also something most people deeply fear.
Basically you just pick something people value and then take it away. And a scarier monster takes way a wider variety of things. And feeling in control, safe, and secure is definitely one of the things almost all people value. So in any monster story that should be one of the things to be taken away.
**Erosion of control**
In fact, taking away the control is so fundamental to this kind of story that you should consider it separately.
First, it is a genre convention to simplify the task of the writer by restricting the options the characters have. The normal is to have the characters at an isolated location so that they can't easily escape or call for help. A tyrannosaurus is lot scarier if the military can't come and shoot at it with weapons designed to kill tanks. The equipment available is usually limited as well. Your "bulletproof" alien is either less scary or less believable, if the characters happen to have an anti-materiel rifle or heavy machine gun available.
So you start of with the characters having clearly defined and hopefully believable limits on what they can do. Less limited they are easier it is to make it believable, more limitations in turn makes writing easier. This is largely a matter of personal preference and genre convention. Cthulhu Mythos generally sticks with the limitation of being human. Similarly vampires, zombies and other regulars tend to be able to deal with all of human civilization being available to characters. That is what makes them so cool, I guess. But as a writer, remember this is because they have lots work by other writers helping them. If you make a new monster, you'll have to solve all the issues yourself and that can be a pain. For example, many zombie apocalypse stories greatly underestimate the firepower available to modern military and even the police. This works because it is an established genre convention, but a new monster would not enjoy the same free ticket.
As for the erosion, just make the characters resourceful and brave. Show being confused and then coming up with a reasonable strategy. Show them being indecisive and hesitant, and then committing to decisive action. Show them being scared, shocked, and terrified and then dealing with it and recovering. Show them doing everything right and still failing to deal with the threat because they did not know that their plan had no chance of working from the beginning. It just doesn't work against this monster.
So information about the monster and the threat should be carefully controlled. The characters and even the reader should always feel that the plan should work. It isn't actually necessary to even share why the plan failed. But both plans and outcomes should have enough variety to keep it interesting, even if all the plans fail making them look successful is good. Being partially or temporarily successful are also good variations to do.
I have to stop now, since I realized I have forgotten what I intended to say. I have to either learn write faster or buy better memory for myself...
[Answer]
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> Are there any proven strategies in horror/scary/fierce creature design that character or movie designers reference?
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*Since you want **proven strategies** I'll not expose my own ideas on the topic, instead I'll present my interpretation of other's*.
*Also, I'm trying to help you to create horror by means of a monster, not a monster that causes horror.*
---
>
> The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is
> fear of the unknown.
>
>
>
-- H.P Lovecraft
First off, horror will only be scary to the reader if you can archive suspension of disbelief. And in order to do so, you need to have internal self consistency - do not contradict yourself. And base your work on the knowledge and expectations of the audience. That is general narrative advice for all media and all genres.
You also want immersion. This will require to balance the pase of the narration and the presentation of details that evoke the imagination. The details of how to do this are beyond worldbuilding.
You also want relateable characters... again beyond worldbuilding.
Finally you want suspense. Understood as the tension between the current state of the narration - at the point on which the audience is at - and the upcoming inevitable unknown that lurks beyond.
*You need a "monster".*
---
## Building a Monster
To create a monster for your setting, you first need to have an appreciation of what makes a monster a *monster* (and not an animal, or a mythical creature).
Any suggestion that characteristic X is more scary that characteristic Y missed the point. If we were able to create a tangible measure of how scary a monster is, all horror authors would try to use it to create more scary monsters... and thus all the characteristics of the monsters converge, but paradoxically that makes those monsters more common and well known, predictable, and thus less scary. *Maybe that happened to zombies?*
So, instead you need to know the full range of what a monster could be.
In the book **The Philosophy of Horror** Noel Carroll says (transcription);
>
> Assuming
> that “I as-audience-member” am in an analogous emotional state to that
> which fictional characters beset by monsters are described to be in,
> then: I am currently art-horrified by some monster X, say Dracula,
> if and only if 1) I am in some state of abnormal, physically felt
> agitation (shuddering, tingling, screaming, etc.) which 2) has been
> caused by a) the thought: that Dracula is a possible being; and by
> the evaluative thoughts: that b) said Dracula has the property of
> being physically (and perhaps morally and socially) threatening in the
> ways portrayed in the fiction and that c) said Dracula has the
> property of being impure, where 3) such thoughts are usually
> accompanied by the desire to avoid the touch of things like Dracula.
>
>
> Of course, “Dracula,” here, is merely a heuristic device. Any old monster
> X can be plugged into the formula.
>
>
>
So, you want to have:
* The *monster* is a possible being. I would add that is better done if the the monster most exist in a believable setting and if its existence cannot be disproved is not evidently fake.
* The *monster* is threatening.
* The *monster* is impure.
In the ulterior text are some clarification about *impurity*:
>
> The
> impurity clause in the definition is postulated as a result of noting the
> regularity with which literary descriptions of the experiences of horror
> undergone by fictional characters include reference to disgust, repugnance,
> nausea, physical loathing, shuddering, revulsion, abhorrence, abomination,
> and so on.
>
>
> (...)
>
>
> In her classic study
> *Purity and Danger*,
> Mary Douglas correlates reactions
> of impurity with the transgression or violation of schemes of cultural
> categorization.
> In her interpretation of the abominations of
> Leviticus,
> for
> example, she hypothesizes that the reason crawling things from the sea, like
> lobsters, are regarded as impure is that crawling was a defining feature of
> earthbound creatures, not of creatures of the sea. A lobster, in other words, is
> a kind of category mistake and, hence, impure.
>
>
>
So basically, you want things that has properties that are not fit for their nature - as understood up to the point in which the unexpected is presented.
>
> As discussed in an earlier section concerning the definition of horror,
> many cases of impurity are generated by what, adapting Mary Douglas, I
> called interstitiality and categorical contradictoriness. Impurity involves a
> conflict between two or more standing cultural categories. Thus, it should
> come as no surprise that many of the most basic structures for representing
> horrific creatures are combinatoric in nature.
>
>
>
In the book, Noel Carroll goes on explaining various kinds of **impurity** - the followings are my interpretations:
* Fusion: beings with two contradictory natures, both at once. Examples: creatures both living and dead, both flesh and machine, etc...
* Fission: beings with a nature that is none nor the other, although they appear to be both.
+ Temporal fission: beings that have a transformation, yet they may appear one thing or the other, they are never truly the thing the appear to be. Instead their nature is neither of those.
+ Spatial fission: beings that have more than one presences the same time - they appear as various entities but they are one single monster.
* Magnification: naturally threatening or disgusting creatures made bigger.
* Massification: naturally threatening or disgusting creatures - *en masse*.
* Horrific Metonymy: beings with no external - evident - monstrous features. It is said that they may appear charming and pose as normal - even if ever so slightly eccentric or *off* (uncanny valley). Their monstrous nature is intangible, their mind or their *soul* may not be normal, for example.
Hypothetically you can make any monster fit any of these categories. Although some monsters are not easy to put in one place. One reason for this is that monsters that inspire a franchise need to be developed or else the sense of unknown in lost.
---
## On the nature of horror
*The answer about the monster ended above. Continue reading for a discussion about what horror is, and how to archive it. Take this as guidance on the world, not the monster.*
The following is from **Supernatural Horror in Literature** by H.P. Lovecraft.
>
> Naturally we cannot expect all weird tales to conform absolutely to any theoretical model.
> Creative minds are uneven, and the best of fabrics have their dull spots. Moreover, much of the
> choicest weird work is unconscious; appearing in memorable fragments scattered through material
> whose massed effect may be of a very different cast. Atmosphere is the all-important thing, for the
> final criterion of authenticity is not the dovetailing of a plot but the creation of a given sensation. We
> may say, as a general thing, that a weird story whose intent is to teach or produce a social effect, or
> one in which the horrors are finally explained away by natural means, is not a genuine tale of cosmic
> fear; but it remains a fact that such narratives possess, in isolated sections, atmospheric touches
> which fulfil every condition of true supernatural horror-literature. Therefore we must judge a weird
> tale not by the author's intent, or by the mere mechanics of the plot; but by the emotional level which it
> attains at its least mundane point. If the proper sensations are excited, such a "high spot" must be
> admitted on its own merits as weird literature, no matter how prosaically it is later dragged down.
> The one test of the really weird is simply this—whether or not there be excited in the reader a
> profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed
> listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the
> known universe's utmost rim. And of course, the more completely and unifiedly a story conveys this
> atmosphere, the better it is as a work of art in the given medium.
>
>
>
By explaining the monster that knowledge is added to the understanding of nature, a nature that allows such monster to exist. So, once understood it is not really impure anymore. This means that the author of horror who wishes to continue using the monster has to choose between not explaining the monster or having it evolve into something else. On contrast cosmic horror as Lovecraft describe it cannot be known, not because the author chooses to skip the explanation, nor because the characters didn't try to understand, but because they can't.
it should be noted that things that cannot be known are not strange to our world, Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle, Turing's Halting problem and Gödel's incompleteness theorems should serve as examples - except they are not horror. In the Cthulhu the mythos attempts to understand often comes with insanity, this is not far-fetched if you take the live of Georg Cantor as a real life counterpart.
Note: I want to suggest *Weird Realism: Lovecraft and philosophy* by Graham Harman.
It can be argued that the setting on which horror exist cannot be our true reality - as in it there are no such impurities, and thus no such monsters (except perhaps singularities that challenge the theories of quantum and relativity, small and large). But the world of the narration cannot be evidently made up, otherwise it is seen as fantasy.
And the following is from **The Epistemology of Horror** by Susan Stewart (transcription).
>
> Contrary to this distinction between ''true'' and ''made up'' stories, the horror story takes place in a peculiar place between the real and the fictive; hence its proper assignment to ''legend'' in oral form. Yet, while the horror story is placed in historical time and told as if it were believed to be true, it often makes these claims ironically, ''in frame only.'' We can see the horror story as an abomination of generic properties in several ways. First, it articulates a world that is neither true nor false, which thereby must be a metaphorical or fictive world. But at the same time, its metanarrative devices continually assert it to be ''true story.''
>
>
> (...)
>
>
> In the horror story the boundary between the real and fictive, the interpretation of experience by the audience and the characters, is continually drawn and effected. Both the story and its context of telling dissolve into a uniformity of effect. Hence the ''didn't really happen'' of the fiction is transformed into a ''really happened,'' a fear which is ''real,'' yet which has no actual reference.
>
>
>
It should be noted that how convincing the setting is, doesn't only lie on the narration or its description and depictions. But in the trust people have in of the medium. Perhaps the best example of a fictional story that manages to immerse people, is Orson Wells adaptation of The War of the Worlds. Which being fiction manages to convince that it is true, as thus it is real for those who did believe - and leave their houses and whatnot. Notice that it was an adaptation for radio, and that such convincing power was never reached by the original story in book form.
It can be argued that people don't really know the *post-modern* world, they know a model of it, that is presented to people by the media, the school, and the government. They learn the laws of physics, but when it comes to nuclear physics most of them never have the means to put them to test. This - even if cynical - can be exploited to present a world that appear to be the one in which we live, but yet it isn't. Also note that when dealing with solipsists who believes that world is fake, there is no way to convince them otherwise.
So do not measure your monster or your narration on how many people took as real. It is not a plausible objective to have. Yet it is what you are set to do, if you really want to scare the audience.
Also, from The Epistemology of Horror:
>
> The audience rarely knows more than the victim of the story. This victimization of the reader is particularly clear in those scenes in the written horror story where the reader is presented with a letter to be read at the same moment, within the same temporality, as it is read by the character. Here the technique of the letter is even more effective than it is in horror movies, for usually in watching the film we are aware of the context of reading, aware that the shadow cast on the page belongs to the character. But on the page the shadow is our own: we have taken the victim's place.
>
>
> (...)
>
>
> The elements of the horror story appear to us within a darkened theater of signs; their referents remain concealed by the contingent steps of the narrative. Only through time is their significance unfolded. The listener is caught in an articulated range of false possibilities until he is redeemed by closure. Above all, then, the horror story may be seen as being about interpretation. The conventions of genre which lead us structured expectations with which to approach the fiction are undetermined; we do not know whether the tale is true experience narrative or ''merely'' a fiction, whether its time and space are to be placed in the past, the future, or even the possible.
>
>
>
One could say that the horror story is impure itself, between true and made up. Between truly scary and pretense. Even between categorized and wild.
---
## Narrative advice
*This is not worldbuilding.*
In the book **Save the Cat** Blake Snyder presents a list of categories for films by the structure of their narration.
One of them is...
>
> **Monster in the House** - Of which Jaws, Tremors, Alien, The
> Exorcist, Fatal Attraction, and Panic Room are examples.
>
>
> (...)
>
>
> It has two working parts: A monster. A house. And when you
> add people into that house, desperate to kill the monster, you've
> got a movie type so primal that it translates to everyone, everywhere.
>
>
> (...)
>
>
> Even films without supernatural elements, like Fatal
> Attraction (starring Glenn Close as the "Monster"), fall into this
> category. And it's clear from such movies as Arachnophobia, Lake
> Placid, and Deep Blue Sea, if you don't know the rules of Monster
> in the House - you fail.
>
>
> The rules, to me, are simple. The "house" must be a confined
> space: a beach town, a spaceship, a futuristic Disneyland with
> dinosaurs, a family unit. There must be sin committed - usually
> greed (monetary or carnal) - prompting the creation of a supernatural monster that comes like an avenging angel to kill those who
> have committed that sin and spare those who realize what that sin
> is. The rest is "run and hide." And putting a new twist on both the
> monster, the monster's powers, and the way we say "Boo!" is the
> job of the screenwriter who wants to add to the illustrious limb of
> this family tree of movies.
>
>
> We can see a bad example of this category in Arachnophobia, the
> film starring Jeff Daniels and John Goodman. Bad monster: a little
> spider. Not much supernatural there. Not all that scary either you step on it and it dies. Also: No house! At any given moment,
> the residents of Arachnophobia can say "Check please" and be on
> the next Greyhound out of town.
>
>
>
So, the narration must have:
* A *monster*.
* A *house* or some sort of confined space that forces the characters into the monster - or a condition from which the characters can't escape.
* A *sin* of some sort committed by some of the characters.
* Even if not stated and not presented as such, the *sinners* has it coming after them. And *it* is the *monster*. If you want to tale a cautionary tale, here is where you plug it in.
---
I want to note that Snider doesn't always put monsters in houses, another of the types of narrations is...
>
> **Rites Of Passage** - Every change-of-life story from 10 to Ordinary
> People to Days of Wine and Roses makes this category.
>
>
> Like Monster in the House, this genre also has two very simple working parts: a dude, meaning an average guy or gal just like ourselves.
> And a problem: something that this average guy must dig deep inside
> himself to conquer.
>
>
>
In rites of passage the "monster" is often metaphorical, yet it may be physical... although the story is not about the monster.
>
> it's
> about the choices we've made, but the "monster" attacking us is
> often unseen, vague, or one which we can't get a handle on simply
> because we can't name it.
>
>
> In essence, whether the take is comedic or dramatic, the monster
> sneaks up on the beleaguered hero and the story is that hero's slow
> realization of who and what that monster is. In the end, these tales
> are about surrendering, the victory won by giving up to forces
> stronger than ourselves. The end point is acceptance of our humanity and the moral of the story is always the same: That's Life!
>
>
>
---
You may also notice that on some of the classical (Universal's) monsters, the narrative is none of the above. Instead they tell the tale of the "monster" being in circumstances beyond its control - these are tales of powerful yet misunderstood creatures. This is not horror per se, this is akin to superhero genre.
---
I have quoted a few books, and all have relevant advice about the narrative that are not included in this answer. While it is absurd to create something 100% original ([everything is a remix](http://everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/)), it should be noted that blindly following these rules will lead you to a *cliché* tale full of tropes. I'll take a final quote from Snider here:
>
> You can't tell me any idea that isn't like one, or dozens, found in
> the movie canon. Trust me, your movie falls into a category. And
> that category has rules that you need to know. Because to explode the cliches, to give us the same thing... only different, you have to
> know what genre your movie is part of, and how to invent the twists
> that avoid pat elements.
>
>
>
[Answer]
Monsters represent the unknown and the uncontrollable, so how frightening monsters are is a matter of perception. What scares the crap out of you might not phase a person with a lot of life experience (i.e. they have a larger template of "known" things to compare the monster to), and people with high levels of strength or skill might feel they are in a better position to control the situation (this is generally why heroes can perform heroic feats).
The Alien from the movie is both unknown (literally an unknown life form never seen before by humans), and uncontrollable due to its innate cunning, speed and strength and literally inhuman attributes (such as using acid for blood). The effect is heightened in the first two movies by keeping the aliens in the darkness so the characters and the audience don't see them clearly, and having the aliens rapidly morph through different stages of their life cycle. You see an egg, but get a face hugger. You look for the face hugger, but a chest burster appears. You hunt for a tiny chest burster, only to be ambushed by a man sized Alien. You track down the man sized Alien to get the child back, only to encounter the Queen....
H.P Lovecraft's in story universe is particularly frightening in my opinion because it plays with similar tropes. Lovecraft's Elder Gods and Great Old Ones come from other dimensions and cannot be fully comprehended by human minds. Attempting to do so results in people losing their sanity and being unable to either stop these beings or even warn anyone else about what is happening. And the incomprehensible Elder Gods and Old Ones are so powerful that humans are practically beneath notice. If the Elder Gods want to Cthulhuform the Earth, we have about as much ability to stop them as putative Martian bacteria have to stop Humans from Terraforming Mars.
Government bureaucracies and secret societies have many of the same aspects, which is why the are often good stand ins for monsters in creating horror stories (read Franz Kafka, for example).
[Answer]
My friend read a book or an article once that claimed the creatures humans fear most are humanoid, but not quite human. Slender-man type creatures, almost-humans whose eyes are solid black, that type of thing.
[Answer]
**Stephen King formula**
My friends and I are terrified of different things. I was up at night by small, complex imaginary things: Gremlins, [that thing from Cat's Eye](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJM2jgPe6Ew) (don't judge me). A brother was kept up at night by (human) intruders. Others are afraid of aliens, ghosts, small things, foreign things, large monsters: full range.
The overarching theme appeared to be things that presented a threat of torment more than instant death. I don't care for his writing, but the *manifestation of things to be afraid of seem to be covered by the author, Stephen King*, and done well enough that we all seem to have one of his monsters (clowns, for some...) in our day-to-day fears.
**Threat of irrational, undeserved torment is scarier than "instant death"** (we don't lie awake at night worried about a car crash, necessarily or heart disease, if we're healthy).
[Answer]
A large component of fear comes from identifying yourself with the victim of the monster. I did not find Chucky very scary in *Child's Play*, but my granddaughter did. It was disturbing to her that an ordinary object such as a doll could be a monster.
The monster must be designed with the viewer in mind.
[Answer]
I'm not going to source anything here, but IMO, the scariest, most effective monsters exist in a world which is not too different from our own, have a concrete reason why they are terrifying, and are hard to defeat permanently.
Alien, for example, whilst set in the future, is one of the best (Imo THE best) sci-fi horror films of all time. Several reasons exist for this, not least of which is Ridley Scott's masterful direction.
* **The universe the Alien inhabits is believable.**
None of this Star Trek "clean" future, the *Nostromo* is grimy and well used. You can almost smell the engine oil and sweat in several scenes. This is vital, as it allows the viewer to place themselves aboard the *Nostromo* with little effort
* **The alien has a horrific life cycle, and is a nightmare creature**
Thanks to HR Geiger's rather unsettling art, the Xenomorph looks incredibly unsettling. This should not be underestimated. The sheer "Wrongness" of the creature contributes massively to the horror factor - Most of the shots including the Xenomorph are glimpses, which serve to underline the disturbing design of the creature.
The design of the creature is similarly horrific. It has acid blood, more teeth than the Osmond Family, a mouth within a mouth that shoots out specifically for munching on brains, disturbingly long fingers, and a spear for a tail. It is as smart *if not smarter* than the crew of the *Nostromo*. It also reproduces exclusively by interspecies rape and the infant alien must then chew its way out of the chest cavity of its unwilling host, thus meaning that the birth of **every** Xenomorph is the direct result of the rape and death of another creature.
* **Hard to Hurt, Harder to Kill**
Thanks to the teeth, claws, pounce range, spear tail, intelligence (and not least the Acid blood) the Xenomorph is incredibly dangerous to tackle in combat. In *Aliens*, the majority of the marine team of the *Sulaco* is either killed outright or injured in the first fight with the Xenomorphs. The only thing that the Xenomorphs appear to be even slightly afraid of is Fire.
This works for most films. The scariest monsters are believable (at least within the universe), hard or impossible to kill, and usually inherently terrifying.
* other horror "monsters"
>
> Sadako Yammamura
>
>
>
(Ring) is believable(set in modern day japan, albeit one where malevolent spirits can and will kill people), terrifying (she'll kill you in seven days, no matter what you do, unless you make someone else watch a copy of the tape), and nigh unstoppable.
>
> the *Event Horizon*
>
>
>
(Event Horizon) is believable (it follows the rules of its universe), Terrifying (the videos \* shudder \*) and hard to kill (being from hell and all...)
These are just three examples.
Have fun creating the next nightmare :)
[Answer]
There are different definitions of scary. Visually scary due to facial and bodily appearance or conceptually scary because they want to be cruel to you and make your world into Hades, or just ethereally scary because their presence leaves visible traces that cause you to fear alot, scary via sonic and olfactory senses.
Visually scary depends on it's resemblance to your instinctive facial and bodily concept of scary animals and diseases, so maggots, spiders, insects, chimeras, parasites. veins, odd colors, deformity, mucus, external digestive sacks, claws, proboscis, decay, high power, in an organized army, all rolled into one would be the scariest kind of monster. The worst thing is to be extinct by an unappetizing monster compared to an Geiger alien which is actually rather pretty. Humans have instinct reactions to faces and facial expression that act faster than their logical thought, for example many psychological tests show that a human changes awareness very fast if he sees a threat expression >:( face in his peripheral vision, before his eyes can even turn to look at that face and identify it. many tests have been done on the subject because that facial and other instinctive threat recognition travel through a faster pathway than the sense-interpretation and arrive at the brain beforehand, which is also related to the idea of deja vu.
a good ploy for a scary monster is also the time spent looking at you prior to eating you, i.e. the death is approaching posture of the Geiger alien. so it gives you a long time to contemplate being eaten by the monster.
Conceptually scary is because they will use you to grow offspring and eat you from the inside out, or something like that, torture you, wipe out your species and your planet in a particularly unwholesome and painful way, may i say, sadistically and necrotically artfully, like making skull panoramas and mountains as seen in Terminator.
Scary presence is similar to the above concept, and you know that the animal is constantly around, the smell, the signs of it's passage, and it's ability to stalk you and scare you and chase you for fun, taking pieces of you, and making your friends disappear while giving you the hope and confusion that you can escape, a bit like what predator did, trophy hunting.
scary by sound is using loud scary sounds which are very scary, as sound is a very instinctive sense and is important in a monster, and olfactory is a bit difficult to express in a story, stephen king is best at explaining that kind of thing.
Probably the most scary animal to have scared society are human sadistic tribes of great power, like the janjaweed of Sudan, the roman empire or vlad the impaler which were so cruel sometimes that entire neighbour countries would hear what they do and live in fear of going anywhere near the border.
At the end of the day, fear is a function of human adrenaline and depression, and it more related to the experience or diet of the individual (some adrenagetics or LSD in the wrong combination), than to his sense perception.
[Answer]
I personally believe the less human it is, the scarier it becomes. That is, if there are less parallels between me and the monster, it becomes much harder for me to relate to it, so it gets harder for me to be convinced that it's something I can handle, mentally and emotionally. If you develop a kinship or a familiarity with a monster, it starts becoming less and less scary. That's why I think, say, the first NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is way more effective than any of its sequels; because Freddy is more mysterious, kept to the shadows, almost a concept than an actual ghost or spirit or movie monster. After that, he's basically a Looney Toons character.
I think of it this way: you see a lot of monsters in movies, and subconsciously, you know it's a guy in a suit, or prosthetics. It's in the way the arms and legs move, where they bend, how the face contorts but it's very clearly contorting in a human way, no matter how hard the actor is trying. It's why some people can't take Godzilla seriously, because they know that's a guy in a suit; and once you know the neck of the suit is as long as it is because it needs to fit an entire actor's head into it comfortably, so he can wear the monster's head on top of his own like a helmet or a hat, it's hard to unsee it.
But it's also why when you tell that same person that the Velociraptors in JURASSIC PARK were initially guys in suits, and they look at you like you're a nutcase. Because human arms aren't shaped like a raptors, their legs don't bend the same way, you don't even know how a guy could fit inside a suit, or run around, etc. "It's all animatronics." Except it isn't. Except it's a group of guys who trained themselves to hide their humanity inside those suits and legitimately act like man-eating dinosaurs.
I realize this is still going to be a highly contentious idea laced with subjectivity, but the universal truth is there: the less of yourself you find in the monster, the harder it is to steel yourself against it. So if I were you, I'd think of fundamental ways to really separate it from a human being, truly being an alien or eldritch nature to it. But again, in the end, that's up to you, and what you feel is less "human." It might be the length of the arms, maybe there are more digits on the hands than are supposed to be there, maybe it has no neck, or limbs, or too many, etc. Have fun making it horrifying.
[Answer]
The feeling of fear comes about when something confronts you that is different, and your not sure how to deal with it. If you'll notice, in a movie, typically when the good guy discovers the weakness of the bad guy, the scary factor decreases at least a little, because they have discovered how to beat the monster.
[Answer]
**Intelligence.**
I would argue that the most quintessential story-telling element from most horror is the inherent understanding that the monster is not acting on pure instinct. The more you anthropomorphise your monster, the more humanity you inject into it, the more you tap into the primal fears of your audience.
The similarities, the fear of what the *viewer* is capable of. Werewolves, vampires, Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein's monster, etc. Anything that has enough intelligence/humanity to be vindictive rather than purely instinctual. To hunt for pleasure/sport rather than hunger, the more sadistic - the better.
] |
[Question]
[
I would like to use this scenario in writing a book.
Using only countless balloons that permanently hold hydrogen made from water could a city be built in the sky? Workers from the ground can raise balloons up to the builders. Other material would be vinyl to walk on. Landing on water for resupplies like fish the sky colony collect water and static electricity from the air to make hydrogen for fuel. High in the sky they are protected from what lie beneath.
I am asking what issues may the city in the sky have in sustainability and ways to make it possible?
<https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/13918/how-big-does-a-lake-have-to-be-to-have-its-own-sea-breeze>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lq2xT.jpg)
[Answer]
I'm going to ignore the issue of weight. Other answers have already covered the reasons why such a city could not exist on Earth, so I am going to assume there is some amount of hand-wavium at work here and simply address the ways that life away from the ground could be made sustainable.
Water collection is the first challenge. A city among the clouds could simply vacuum those clouds up and cool them until they condensed. A single cumulus cloud contains over [1 million pounds of water](https://headsup.boyslife.org/how-much-does-a-cloud-weigh/), or enough to hydrate about 9,000 people for a week. Without knowing the size of the population or what role, if any, weight constraints will play, perhaps collecting a million pounds at once would be a bad idea. Perhaps cloud harvesting is a constant necessity, with the city only taking on enough weight in water to sustain itself for the day.
Hydroponic farming will be your best bet for a food supply. Check out [this company](https://www.freightfarms.com/home/#mission), which makes hydroponic farms that fit inside of shipping containers and can provide vegetables for about 100 people each, year round, regardless of outside conditions. Scaling this up would make it even more efficient. A civilization advanced enough to create a floating city could almost certainly improve on this model to grow fruits, grains, and legumes as well. Supplemented by the fishing you mentioned, this would provide a fully nutritious diet for your floating city. Most meals would probably be eaten raw; electric stoves use a lot of power, and open flame would be extremely dangerous and oxygen-expensive. With a diet based on fish and vegetables, this is still viable. Oils and spices could also be produced this way, but they would probably be considered luxury goods.
The hydroponic farms would also provide natural air filtration. Atmosphere is thinner at altitude, so the city would need to be enclosed and to have an ongoing oxygen supply. With proper ventilation, the greenery would constantly convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, keeping the air breathable.
Cotton can also be grown hydroponically, although is it [very inefficient](https://www.quora.com/Can-we-grow-cotton-hydroponically) compared with other hydroponic crops. A small textile industry could exist in your city. It would probably make sense to use small-scale looming and weaving techniques, since the supply will be low. Clothing would be a sparse commodity, with people having only a few sets of clothes. Cotton can also be used to make paper, if needed. Hemp can also be grown for rougher textiles, like burlap and rope (and recreation ;).
Soap would not be available. Cleanliness would have to be maintained through the use of alcohol-based sanitizing solutions. Again, this can come from plants grown in the hydroponic farms, perhaps the stems and other wasted parts of the plants. There would be an industry to distill this alcohol and turn it into a useful form. There may also be a market, legitimate or not, for alcohol that is suitable for drinking.
I don't see a way to harvest wood, metal, or glass in the air. If these visits to the ocean that you mentioned are close enough to shore, it's possible that sand could be harvested for glass, but that would cut down on the fish yield and probably not be worth it. More likely, hard goods like tools, utensils, and containers would be provided from the ground. Perhaps each family is provided with a set of tools that they are responsible for maintaining. Food and water containers would be re-used for as long as possible
I don't see waste removal as an issue; planes have already solved this problem by simply dumping their waste into the ocean below. I see no reason this solution couldn't be scaled up, particularly since the waste will be almost entirely organic. Since the city still interacts with the larger ecosystem, returning waste water to the ocean will be important for maintaining sustainability.
As with any enclosed civilization, given the limits of supplies and space, population control would be important. Couples would have to be forbidden from producing more than 2 children. If an extraneous child were produced, perhaps there would be a forced adoption to a homosexual or otherwise infertile couple. There could be some drama in this, both for a couple who has accidentally become pregnant with a third child, and for a couple who is hoping for such an accident.
Law enforcement is, again, difficult to theorize on with knowing the constraints of size and population. Is there room for a prison? If not, enforcement would have to be shame- or labor-based . The ultimate punishment, of course, would be expulsion. The altitude of that expulsion, and the state of the prisoner at the time, would indicate the level of cruelty in the society.
I hope this helps!
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**You could do this. Inflatable building elements are real.**
<http://www.buildair.com/our-company/our-business-model/>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HuNEm.jpg)
>
> BUILDAIR STRUCTURES ARE USUALLY IDONEOUS FOR MOST OF THE AVIATION
> (AIRPORTS, AIRLINES, MAINTENANCE MRO COMPANIES) INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS,
> DUE TO THEIR POUTSTANDING CHARACTERISTICS AND ADVANTAGES:
>
>
> Engineered to resist very hard and changing environmental conditions:
> remote locations, extreme rains, winds, snow, sand storms, etc. No
> possibility of corrosion, due to the fabric materials. High-resistance
> flame-retardant fabric, which support to extinguish any flame,
> provides added safety if a fire occurs. Possibility to use fire-proof
> materials.
>
>
>
"Idoneous" is a new word for me. "Poutstanding" I recognize from WB stack - people who make comments that are wrong then stubbornly refuse to admit it. In any case these folks are building sizable buildings out of inflatable elements - balloons.
These folks too:
<http://www.pneumocell.com/pneumocell.elements.english.html>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8gdW2.jpg)
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For the balloon city my thoughts are:
* Redundant inflatable construction elements, to prevent catastrophic failure if one deflates.
* Robust anchoring, in the manner of a radio tower.
* Windproofing. I envision triangular buildings which turn like weather vanes to offer minimal resistance to the wind. This would be a trick to merge with the robust tethering.
* Powered buildings. One could oppose weather with powered buildings - engines or propellors or other mechanisms to actively oppose dislocation by wind. I like the idea that these buildings might collect electricity as static electricity and put that to use - certainly a tall vinyl structure in the wind would be ideal for a cloud charge collector!
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>
> Using only balloons that permanently hold helium could a city be built in the sky?
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No, because helium just doesn't lift that much.
According to <https://science.howstuffworks.com/helium.htm> a liter of helium only lifts 1 gram of mass. And if the weather turns cold, it'll lift even less.
>
> High in the sky they are protected from what lie beneath.
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Don't make things so complicated... do what animals have done for hundreds of millions of years: live in the trees. Or the human version: stilts/piers.
<http://www.thelog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Sportfishing-Pier-800x445.jpg>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wYzrJ.jpg)
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[Buckminster Fuller](https://infogalactic.com/info/Buckminster_Fuller) had this idea many years ago, but instead of helium, he had an insight into [geodesic domes](https://infogalactic.com/info/Buckminster_Fuller#Geodesic_domes) that suggested when built large enough, they would become hot air balloons.
Calling it a "[Cloud Nine](https://infogalactic.com/info/Cloud_Nine_(tensegrity_sphere))", Fuller's thinking was
>
> A half mile (0.8 kilometer) diameter geodesic sphere would weigh only one-thousandth of the weight of the air inside of it. If the internal air were heated by either solar energy or even just the average human activity inside, it would only take a 1 degree shift in Fahrenheit over the external temperature to make the sphere float. Since the internal air would get denser when it cooled, Bucky imagined using polyethylene curtains to slow the rate that air entered the sphere.
>
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<https://www.geniusstuff.com/blogs/flying-cities-buckminster-fuller.htm>
So the heat of the sun warming the air, the waste heat of internal machinery, the heat that human beings always throw off through activities and so on will generate enough heat for the "Cloud Nine" to remain suspended in the air.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6x3fa.png)
*Geodesic sphere. A Cloud Nine will be built like this*
The real issue isn't so much if such a thing could be made, but how it would sustain itself? Economically, it is totally dependent on supplies being brought to it from the ground. What it could "produce" might be things like software and entertainment (scripts, videos, music etc.), but it is difficult to imagine a self sustaining economy based on that.
Politically there are also issues about overflight (the people on the ground might not think much of a free flying city passing overhead. Who does it belong to, who do the inhabitants pay taxes to and what business do they have hovering or flying over your territory in your airspace?).
Given these obstacles, flying cities might best be tethered over areas with spectacular views, and generally be recreation and tourism complexes.
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So like jumping castles made of PVC and nylon?
RonJohn is right that this probably wouldn't work on Earth, you could get a building-like structure in the air and it could stay aloft with some people inside but there's just not enough lift for all the things those people would need to live normal lives, scaling this up to the population of a city only exacerbate the problem.
But who cares Earth is boring anyway, Venus on the other hand now there's an exciting planet and there's been much talk about colonizing Venus with floating balloon cities because the atmosphere there is much denser.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus#Aerostat_habitats_and_floating_cities>
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It's a wonderful idea - perhaps a different angle to look at it is studying how cities form as we already know:
* Venice, for instance, was not just a city built on water 'because it looks nice' - it was an economic and trade hub for merchants and ideally located to be so, ideal for shipping and shipping company headquarters.
* Istanbul, which also exists around a body of water (sometimes quite turbulent) exists because it links Asia with Europe, and is an ideal port and pinch point across the Bosphorous, was a major part of the Silk trade route.
* Singapore - an island city yet one of the most prosperous in the world, due to it's unique location at the southern tip of Asia, linking the Indian Ocean with the Pacific, making it an ideal economic stopping off point for freighters and container ships.
* Dubai - in the middle of the desert, yes, but also ideally located as a stopping off point for aircraft, travelling from Asia to Europe, and refuel or transfer.
In all the above examples, it's the economy economy economy, that makes a city.
If you want a city in the air, it's got to have a very powerful economic reason to form. Otherwise it's just individual balloons all over the place. Everything else (practical concerns, services, even safety) is secondary. Perhaps consider the following:
* Perhaps the floating city itself is over a helium deposit - the most bountiful in the world. Many airships come to fill up with helium therefore, and thus there is a strong economic reason for the airships to come together to the facility to refuel. This will be similar to Dubai.
* The floating city could also be ideally situated between two or more important cities which are located in impassable terrain. This means air transport is more ideal than ground transport of freight, and this city can be a hub to divert from one trade route to another - this will be similar to Singapore.
* The floating city could also be a link between air-freight and ground freight, even sea freight, as a result. Hubs like this enable goods to be transported, such as silk in underground silk mines, to other cities via airship through the floating city. This is similar to Istanbul above.
* Over time, the floating city will have so much economic power and money changing hands from various freight, transport, and helium companies that there needs to be support structures, headquarters, lounges where deals are made. Hubs for people to transfer, and of course, quarters for people to stay. This is now a Venice, where all the major merchants will have their headquarters.
Now we have an economic basis for the city, there will be plenty of money and reason to be there - then all the other 'small' issues can be resolved with the money being no object.
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Everyone else seems to be trying to explain the intricate details behind a floating balloon city. I would like to give an honorable mention to Bioshock infinite and its floating city. If you want a floating balloon city you don't need to explain it in detail. Your ideas don't need to be scientifically accurate to be applied to the story, even if other aspects of your story are heavily related to science. You can have a floating cloud city with the most advance scientists and you don't need to explain it, unless somehow the intricate details of the floating clouds becomes a major feature of your story.
As for problems related to living in a floating city. Food and water would probably need to be imported. Of course you can hand wave this away in stories as its a more mundane aspect which doesn't bring much plot development. You would also have problems with transportation, is it multiple small islands connected to form a large one, or just a huge island. Again looking at bioshock infinite with the rail and hook system, 100% impossible but it works well with the setting. Finally you would also have problems when encountering storms and things such as cyclones, balloons breaking and supply problems to help keep everything repaired and in tip top shape.
Finally floating cities are usually represented as a show of power, as maintaining something so impractical would be very expensive. It would be cheaper to grow food on the ground and ship it up. Cheaper to make goods and ship them up. It wouldn't be a good trade hub either as you would have to stock so much goods that the weight would eventually get the better of you. It would be terrible hard to get to as its location constantly changes. If anything, it would be for the rich and wealthy people, out there to enjoy the view and spend all their money, or people who just want to get away from it all.
Hope this all helps
[Answer]
See Poul Anderson's novel *Orion Shall Rise* for an example of Buckminster's flying city as part of the plot.
The floating city in Orion Shall Rise is essentially as Buckminster Fuller described it. The setting is post apocalyptic & the city was built just pre-apocalypse & survived the disaster & was used to maintain some order & civilization in the region that could be seen from it. A must read.
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[Question]
[
I have some ideas, but I'd like my fictional Roman (100BC) General Mikey (ha) to build a submarine(s). This should be able to navigate in lakes and calm shores of the Mediterranean, succeed in bringing down simple boats loaded with soldiers, and finally, travel longer than "just as much air is inside.\*" I do not want it to be detected.
Unsure of the number of crew, but just needs to succeed in the above mission. **How can I design this advanced machinery, *knowing what we know now*, but with 100 BC technology?**
\*) It can surface from time-to-time, but I'd prefer to push the boundary beyond "just as much air already inside".
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There are two historical examples.
First, the Greeks of Alexander's time created a diving bell style submarine(They also invented a steam engine *hint hint*). So this is most assuredly repeatable. Modify the diving bell style so the air hose is attached to a flotation device and is dragged along behind, and the soldiers could march along the bottom. (Admittedly, in some areas the floor of the sea would not be solid enough to march upon)
Secondly there is a historical report of a submarine created to travel rivers during medieval Europe. The book (Singular account) reported the inflated pigs bladders for ballast and had a crew of 6-12 men working oars. When the air became hard to breath the Monarch's alchemist released a few drops of something into the air that refreshed it.
Releasing a chemical that steals the carbon from CO2 and releases the O2 back into the contained atmosphere would achieve the same result.
Here is a link.
<http://www.submarine-history.com/NOVAone.htm>
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What you want to know is if ancient Romans could design and build an artificial atmosphere. I'm going to say it's unlikely. However, building of the submarine hull and propulsion systems would have been possible. They had access to the Archimedes screw, and to water and air tight wood working. They could have built a shallow water submarine.
Building a compressed air tank to hold extra air probably wouldn't take too much though I doubt the Romans had the kind of precision machining required to make good fittings. This guy has more to say about their [limitations](http://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-Roman-Empire-never-have-an-industrial-revolution). They could have made animals skin bags and compressed some air into those, so no machining needed for those.
The problem in artificial atmospheres isn't getting enough oxygen but having too much CO2. Carbon dioxide scrubbers are used practically everywhere one needs an artificial atmosphere. Many run on [soda lime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soda_lime) or similar chemicals. Discovery of the properties of soda lime is relatively recent. There's a [patent](http://www.google.com/patents/US2470214) awarded in 1949 to the application of soda lime as a CO2 scrubber. It references a patent for packing "[caustic alkali](http://www.google.com/patents/US270998)" from 1888. This strongly implies to me that inventing any kind of CO2 scrubber is far beyond what the Romans could have come up with. Sure, they could have gotten lucky but they would have been exceedingly lucky.
Without scrubbers, all those early submariners with their compressed air bottles would know is that their noses burn really bad and they feel a desperate need to get to the surface.
Addendum: The Romans were fantastic engineers. I found this rather long list of [technical innovations](http://www.crystalinks.com/romescience.html) they made. Too late for the time frame specified in this question but still impressive, the afore mentioned list indicates that by the end of the 3rd centry AD, Roman engineers had all the mechanisms required to make a steam engine. They didn't but all the components were there.
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Submarines for war (especially in a world without sonar or helicopters) need not be fully submersible. They can be semi-submersible. That is, the body of the ship is just under the surface of the water and parts of the ship such as snorkels and periscopes are always above the surface.
Because they're never out of contact with the surface they don't need air supply, just good ventilation. They can be very low tech. Only the knowledge of the physics of floating (Archimedes) is needed to build one.
Today, semi-submersibles are better known as cocaine submarines or narco submarines. Most are built in Colombia and are used to smuggle drugs (google "narco submarine"). Some of the more advanced versions can be submersed for short periods of time.
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How to build a submarine in 100BC with materials and technologies known to the Romans at that time based on this list of [technologies](http://www.crystalinks.com/romescience.html). We assume a modern naval architect finds himself on the shores of the Mediterranean
Weapons systems: Brass drills or reciprocating saws mounted to the hull of the submarine used to attack the keel of enemy ships. Ship's carpenters can't fix broken keels at sea but they can fix holes in the hull. The submarine lacks the kinetic energy/momentum for ramming attacks.
Hull: Easy. Peoples of the Mediterranean have sailed the seas for centuries/millenia before our naval architect appears. Forming wood into air/watertight shapes shouldn't be difficult for an accomplished shipwright. This part is definitely solved.
Propulsion: A primitive screw could be [cast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_metallurgy#Technology) from [brass](http://metals.about.com/od/properties/a/The-History-Of-Brass.htm). Working with cast brass opens up huge possibilities for structural components in this submarine.
Visibility: The Romans were surprisingly good glass blowers. Our architect may have just needed to order some pieces of specific dimensions to form portholes in the hull.
Atmosphere: This is the tricky part. As our architect is not a chemist, he lacks the chemistry knowledge to make soda lime (or any of the other CO2 scrubbers described in other answers.) He would know about compressed air and may be able to construct a primitive air compressor stored in metal tanks. Seals could be made from oiled leather or wax compressed between two pieces of metal to make the air tank hold air better. Pipe could be made though this might be a trade-off on engineering time.
Psychological Warfare: He knows that the Romans and Roman enemies are superstitious people. So he would add some elements to the submarine that if seen while surfaced would make anyone who saw it think they had seen a sea monster.
Artisan Availability and Funding: Many of these innovations would require the best artificers that the Roman empire had to offer. That many people and the quantities of materials for experiments would require large funding requirements and a powerful sponsor. Getting into this kind of a position is a completely different question. Perhaps some inspiration from Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court".
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***I do not believe this is possible:***
**TL; DR:** The submarine will be *far, far, too slow* and cannot easily be weaponised by a Roman.
A diving suit with Soda Lime CO2 extractor might work, but I have not covered that.
## Water pressure
The Romans certainly could build ships. It makes sense that a Roman shipwright could build a vaguely submarine-ish, underwater vessel. Since the ship will be underwater, however, it will have to withstand a slightly higher water pressure. [Wolfram Alpha](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=water+pressure+at+10feet) tells me that the pressure 10 feet below sea level is 130kPa. As `Mike L` points out in the comments, a wooden hull would bend and flex underwater, just like a regular ships hull. As the hull bends seams will briefly open and the submarine *will* leak. On an ordinary ship, this water is [pumped](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes'_screw "Possibly via Archimedes' screw") or bucketed overboard, but you can't really do this on a submarine. The sub would sink and not be able to surface. You could make the submarine out of a "watertight all-metal rigid hull" I doubt the Romans could easily cast a hollow submarine sized piece of metal. Making the ship out of smaller metal plates would introduce the same problems as a wooden ship.
## Manoeuvring
Another problem would be manoeuvring. Modern submarines dive by taking water into special compartments and surface by removing the water from those compartments (usually by pumping in a gas). This would be difficult for the Romans to replicate because they did not have the sort of precision engineering required to make such a device, nor do they have access to pressurised gas to flush the dive compartments.
## Overcoming Friction
*Disclaimer: this section is entirely based on my 10 minute google. If you (the reader) know what your talking about then I have no problem with you improving this with an edit. Hint hint.*
One thing the other answers do not cover, is that *moving underwater is hard*. [This physics.SE](https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/136549) question and this [linked site](http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/drag-coefficient-d_627.html) helpfully give the following equation for finding the drag force exerted on your submarine:
$$F=\frac{1}{2} ρv^2A c\_d$$
We will assume that the front of the submarine is spherical (*assume a spherical submarine in a perfect vacuum...*) with a radius of 2.5 meters. If I understand the table from the second link correctly, then the drag coefficient ($c\_d$) of the hull should be about $1.1$ (or between a human and bundle of wires - which is my (very bad) estimation for a wooden sub).
We have:
$c\_d = 1.1$
$ρ = 1000$ (density of fluid, $1000kg/m^3$ for water)
$v = 3.3$ (Target velocity, $m/s$, ~ 2 times walking speed)
$A = 2\pi2.5^2 = ~39.27m^2$ (Area of the front of submarine)
Which gives us:
$$ F=\frac{1}{2} 1000 \times 1.1^2 \times 39.27 \times 1.1 $$
Or about $104536$ Newtons of resistance to travel at *walking speed*, which is insane. A single [human can push](http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/ergonomics/push1.html) around 630N with a firm surface to push off, on land.
**Even if my calculation is outrageously wrong (*it must be*), I do not believe a single Roman or small group of people would be able to propel the submarine at any speed.**
Roman ships had many oars. The [trireme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trireme#Rowers) for example had 170 oarsmen. If we put all 170 in the submarine described above, they would have to exert 615 N of force each to *maintain* a speed of $2.2 m/s$ ie: slightly more than walking speed.
## Air
With 170 men aboard, your ship will need *lots* of air. I do not believe that the Romans could have compressed air, at least not to the pressures required.
Soda Lime might be enough of a few people: (*Quote from my early draft*)
>
> As the other answers have pointed out, removing CO2 from the ship is your primary concern and you can do this with [Soda Lime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soda_lime), which is made from [Calcium hydroxide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_hydroxide) (limewater, which the Romans had access to) and [Sodium hydroxide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_hydroxide) (aka caustic soda, aka lye). Making Soda Lime is well within the Roman's grasp.
>
>
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But I realised, that's just not going to cut it with 170 men. You will either need a funnel and bellows for air (better be a *big* funnel) or a *lot* of Soda Lime.
## Weaponisation
The trireme relied on speed to *ram* enemy ships becaue the Romans did not have cannons or other convenient point and shoot weapons. Some ships had trebuchets. Ramming is out of the question for the sub, as are underwater trebuchets, so weaponisation will be difficult if not impossible for your Roman general. `Dronz` points out in the comments that an underwater ballista could be used, point blank. This is possible but the performance of the ballista will be affected by water, so the final speed and power of each bolt would be limited. Weaponising the sub will still be difficult.
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Also look at [Leonardo's diving system](http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/leonardo/diving.html) ([see also here](http://www.da-vinci-inventions.com/scuba-gear.aspx)).
>
> While working in Venice, the "water city", in 1500, da Vinci designed his scuba gear for sneak attacks on enemy ships from underwater. The leather diving suit was equipped with a bag-like mask that went over the diver’s head. Attached to the mask around the nose area were two cane tubes that led up to a cork diving bell floating on the surface.
>
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> Air was provided from the opening of the tubes to the diver below. The mask also was equipped with a valve-operated balloon that could be inflated or deflated, so the diver could more easily surface or sink. Additionally, Leonardo da Vinci’s scuba gear invention incorporated a pouch for the diver to urinate in.
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The TV show I saw where they built and tried it (correcting a deliberate flaw in drawing) found that the floating part would hold a resavoir of air when pulled completely underwater. [Soldiers could](http://www.davincilife.com/scuba-gear.html) move while snorkeling and go full-stealth for final approach, or dive deep for whatever work they were doing. (see [this video](http://youtu.be/YjzZ1-Plgjs) timecode 3:50 for the "pull under" concept I'm talking about.)
That could be made by Romans and used as infantry. The float/resovoir evolves into extended "all under" time using larger air bladders, and *shared* snorkel buoys that turn into small watercraft themselves.
Picture the interesting difference from your standard sealed-hull submarine concept: divers spreading out, or collected in an *open framework* to and from the site, rather than an enclosed can.
As this technology would certainly be used for building projects too (as casons and bells were eventually in our civilization), it is plausible that they might figure out that carrying lime makes the air stay good longer. The army was also the engineering corps, and would be building dams and harbors as well as wrecking the enemy's. Being familiar with the underwater equipment, they might naturally try using something like casons or bells for efficient construction work, to stay at the worksite longer: it's just the pull-under resovour supersized and suken using ropes and weights. The evolved concept of a non-sealed craft decendent from the simgle-user float/bag is essentially a moble diving bell.
They would carry cement and bricks and such in the bell, I would think, since that is what they are using it for. And they might find that cement (quicklime is the main ingredient) makes the air last longer.
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The only component that would not be avilable in 100BC is the crystal glass window. Without introducing a source of quality clear glass, you would need to figure something else. Maybe they found tiny transparent pieces of glass or quartz mineral and just made peep-holes, or didn't cover the whole head but used a mouthpiece like today's snorkel.
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Romans where able to cast large metal structures. You CAN cast big metal pieces on sand, by digging a hole into the ground and using a piece of wax as mold. IF trully needed this part is not that hard. A big bronze bell is not too different from this. But, the problem with tech is that you do what you believe is at your reach. Talking to a roman about building an underwater ship is like asking a medieval man to take a trip to hell. He wont accept it.
You can use a big closed bell to go underwater. As you dont have compressed air, you cannot use ballast tanks to control depth. You have two options : Tie ballast weights to your hull via cables that you can control the length. When the ballast weights hit the ground your submarine will stop diving (the bell being less dense than the displaced water), give it lenght and your submarine climbs etc. The other option is to keep two floats over water and tie your submarine to them. The first option is risky, you dont know how deep the ocean is (yet), the other option will keep a target visible all the time. If the floats are made from bronze or other strong metal, and you make your attack at night and they are painted black, your target might not have a way to detect its approach.
The most realistic approach, is to use divers and attack ships in harbour.
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[Question]
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On a certain planet, there is a large population of falcon-like birds. They dominate the avian ecosystem. However, a population of nearly-identical birds soon finds its way in. The only difference between the two species is that members of the new population have *four* wings instead of two.
What advantages (if any) would the four-winged falcons have over the two-winged falcons? Would they be faster? Quieter? Better at maneuvering?
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I'm going to have to disagree with Monty on this one. While the wings would be added weight and would potentially create more drag, comparing bird biology to biplanes is downright folly.
Consider that almost all flying insects use multiple pairs of wings to produce lift. Flies not only have ridiculous acrobatic ability due to their ability to swing their wings independently, they also move at a relatively high speed when measured in body lengths.
A dual wing bird alternately flapping pairs would more quickly gain altitude - while one pair is in the up-stroke, the other would be engaged in the lift generating down-stroke. When gliding or surfing an updraft, the extra pair of wings would provide much more lift like the delta wing of fighter jets and gliders. This gives them more maneuverability and a higher stall angle.
So not only would a four winged bird generate more consistent flapping power, it would be a better glider, climber, and diver. The trade off would be weight and noise - assuming they *are* noisy; owls are pretty quiet.
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Can't answer based on aerodynamics or biology, but consider that most insects have four wings. This includes the dragonflies, which are amazingly adept aerial predators. So clearly, at the insect size level, two wings don't seem to have a significant advantage over four.
The real problem, I think, is one of developmental biology. ALL vertebrates have the same basic skeletal plan, including four limbs. This is based on the function of low-level HOX genes. (Search elsewhere for details.) So if your 4-winged birds are going to have legs as well, they pretty well have to come from a lineage that split off in the very distant past, likely coeval with Earth's Cambrian. And you're also going to have a whole history that has 6-limbed vertebrates evolving in parallel with the 4-limbed ones.
Another possibility is that the hind limbs have become modified into wings too, so the critters somewhat resembled pterosaurs: <http://pterosaur.net/flight.php>
Edit: Just thought of a really neat example of convergent evolution producing a pair of very similar flying creatures, one (hummingbirds) a two-winged vertebrate, the other (hawk moths) a four-winged insect. From casual observation, there does not seem to be any great difference in flying ability. See e.g. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyles_lineata> and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroglossum_stellatarum> Note though that despite the similarities, there are also major differences, the most obvious external ones being 6 legs vs 2, and scales vs feathers.
[Answer]
The four-winged falcons would probably have a net disadvantage. Certainly, it is likely that they'd be more manoeuvrable, however having two sets of wings would lead to lower propulsive efficiency due to the overhead of the extra appendages and the increased induced and parasite drag.
As a case in point, very few human-made aircraft these days are biplanes or triplanes, other than those designed for acrobatics, and certainly there are no commercial biplanes, as the extra rigging and wetted area increases drag dramatically. The only advantage in a multiplane design is to reduce the wingspan.
As for noise, the quad-winged falcons wouldn't even have that advantage. If the two pairs of wings flapped in synchrony, there would be no advantage, but if they flapped asynchronously or counter-synchronously (one pair going up while the other pair went down), there would be additional noise, like that produced by the interaction between a helicopter's main rotor and its tail rotor. Quiet flight (as in owls) is achieved by softer, more flexible feathers.
[Answer]
The main benefit of having two pairs of wings is that the load per wing is reduced. Historically this allowed building heavier than air flying machines before wing construction techniques had matured.
For a bird using, presumably, similar wing construction as two winged birds, the benefit would be either shorter wing span or higher powered lift and agility.
Shorted wing span might be beneficial for a bird hunting in dense foliage. In real world this is handled with wider wings, but double wings might work just as well. The added agility from the extra control surface would also be consistent with hunting in dense foliage.
It is more difficult to think a benefit from extra lift since that would also require having extra muscle, I think the overall efficiency would go down. Maybe if there was a common prey that is just slightly too heavy for a bird this size to lift?
I think the agile predator in dense foliage getting an edge from shorter wing span and high agility is most likely scenario. But that is pretty narrow niche, so it is difficult to understand where the double winged birds would come from. Maybe deliberate genetic engineering?
[Answer]
A four-winged bird might have different flight abilities, depending on how the wings are arranged and how it can use them effectively. It would tend to mean relatively more dedication of mass to wings, so a two-winged bird of the same mass would have more body and probably lower metabolism and less need for food.
A major survival advantage of having four wings could be if the bird can fly with one or even two (of the same couple) injured wings.
[Answer]
In nature, most things with four wings follow a rapid figure-8 rather than simply flapping two wings up and down for lift. A notable exception would be the hummingbird.
Unless the falcon completely changes the way its wings beat I doubt if it would perform any better than the two-winged variety.
[Answer]
**Four Wings a Disadvantage**
I don't think four winged falcon-like creatures would be equal to the tasks of their two-winged brethren. This article from dailymail discusses a mutant bird born with four wings that is *unable* to fly as a result.
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1278385/Hatch-day-Rare-chicken-guinea-fowl-hybrid-FOUR-wings.html>
[Answer]
What are the advantages of four-inch penis over two-inch penis?
It is not possible to answer this correct until nothing is said what is it about --- length or diameter?
While the detail (context) is unknown/unclear, prefer four instead of two: because having a more without a chance to potentially use is preferable over having a less with a chance to potentially fail :-)
[Answer]
It really all depends on which answer you want to hear.
From a realistical point of view, a 4 wings falcon is a soon extinct specie, with no advantage at all over a 2 wings falcon.
OTOH, if you ignore the reality check and your focus is on "fantasy appealing", then your 2 wings falcon will be (as other answers pointed out) faster, capable of carryng heavier lifts, and much more agile.
[Answer]
Maybe falcons with 4 wings fly using only one pair of wings during regular flight, in order to minimize drag. The other pair is retracted and can be considered as dead weight.
Yet it can use both pairs simultaneously, when it has to carry heavier payloads over greater range than the single winged falcon can.
Therefore it depends on the context for the 4 winged falcons to find their way in.
For instance, small preys are becoming rare and those that are available are too heavy for the 2 winged falcon.
(Also some swallows are known to collaborate in order to carry coconuts.
Single pair of wings falcon could learn from that)
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[Question]
[
Suppose a wooden treasure chest is placed in an underground dungeon in a medieval European climate. The chest is as sturdily built as is practical, but isn't protected by any kind of magic or advanced technology.
In roleplaying games, wooden chests seem to last thousands of years without fail. But realistically, how long until the wood is rotten so badly that it can no longer functionally protect the contents of the chest?
[Answer]
"Realistically" is a pretty broad spectrum of interest for us here at Worldbuilding LLC.
The condition of a standard, non-living wood treasure chest over time is naturally affected by many factors, a few keys of which are the following:
* The type of wood used: some woods are very soft and prone to rot no matter what while others are hard & dense and make for excellent structural strength over time while still others are naturally resistant to moisture & rot
* The average micro climate of the donjon in question: some are prone to flooding or extreme humidity while others are relatively dry
* The construction of the chest itself: is the wood properly cured and skillfully worked?; what materials are used, apart from wood, in the construction?; is the wood treated in any way?
* Background or residual magic: apart from any protective ensorcellments, spells, charms or enchantments that may have been available at the time, the actions of various natural thaumic forces need to be taken into account
* The presence and action of wee beasties: many kinds of insects love to eat wood and rodents are known to be ever on the lookout for an easy meal, even if that means gnawing through a two inch thick hard wood treasure chest to find it
* Finally, the precise location of the treasure chest: is the chest sitting flush to walls and floor in some dank, earthy corner?; or is it resting in an elevated location on stony feet?
Realistically, a well wrought treasure chest, crafted of thick, high quality wood & metal such as brass or bronze, placed upon a rune engraven plinth having several integral feet upon which the chest may repose safe from rat, roach and termite, in a well ventilated & not overly damp donjon in a moderately calm thaumic climate withal, should last, barring the wanton destruction of Orcs and other assorted teenage male adventurers of the Mannish persuasion, for centuries.
---
Here's a wooden chest of the Saxon era:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ArE9p.jpg)
For the terminally curious: a very interesting article on [ancient wooden chests](https://www.scaramangashop.co.uk/Fashion-and-Furniture-Blog/history-wooden-chests-storage-boxes/).
[Answer]
The oldest wooden chest I have seen is **4.700 years old**. It is an ancient Egyptian chest which now resides in the Glyptoteket art museum in Copenhagen. I don't recall under which conditions it was found, but I imagine that similar conditions could exist in a European climate, though humidity is probably a greater problem in Europe than in Egypt. You wouldn't want too dry a climate, though, as I imagine this will dry the wood out and make it brittle.
[Answer]
The biggest determinate is going to be ambient humidity. If the air is dry, they should last indefinitely. I have several of my grand parents, and great grandparents steamer trunks -- made from cheap plywood, I think, and covered in painted sheet metal. The latter makes them squirrel resistant. They are outside in an unheated shed. Some are over a century old, having come across in the great immigration wave in the early 1900's Our climate is hardly desert -- about 20 inches of precip per year, but only on rainy days do we get humidity over 70%
The second biggest determinate is the type of wood. Cedar and redwood last well, and are easy to work. Osage orange will outlast cedar 2:1 when used as fence posts, but getting good boards would be a challenge.
If price is no object there are tropical hardwoods used for dock piles that are very rot resistant. You also have to come up with a plausible way for that wood to get to your setting.
Wood treatment will have an effect: Now we use copper/arsenic compounds and can easily get 50 year buried in damp soil times for tree species that would otherwise rot in 5 years. Creosote is an earlier treatment, used for railroad ties and mine timbers. To maximize the penetration, submerge the boards in creosote oil, and heat until water in the wood begins to come off. Stop the heat, and the steam in the wood condenses, drawing the oil into the pores. Repeat several times. (This can be done with any preservative in liquid form) This leaves the outer part of the wood with little or no air in it, which means the fungi that do the rotting can only work on the surface.
Since the soil line is where most of the rot occurs in timbers (moisture and oxygen present) one trick used was to put a band of tar on the wood a foot above/below the soil line. Ideally applied hot so that it keys into the rough texture of the pole or post. So making your treasure box in whatever way you wish, then applying a coat of hot tar will not only keep the chest intact longer, but your Hero now has to find magic tar solvent to get into the box.
Sheathing the wood with sheet metal both discourages pests, and reduces wetting from casual spray. I suspect this is why steamer trunks are sheathed. However water that gets between the sheathing and the wood will tend to remain there for a long time.
Iron nails are a bad idea. Rust never sleeps. So to fasten your boards to one another some combination of dovetail joints and glued dowels I think would last longer.
Finally, for really long lasting chests, although brittle and unsuited for easily being moved, make them out of stone, or make them from fired porcelain
[Answer]
The duration extremely depends on how exposed it is to the elements, how humid (or rainy) it is, how often it hits the freezing/thawing point during a year, if plant life is affecting it, and other such factors.
However as a reference point, this [massive wooden building](https://www.euronews.com/2018/09/17/watch-locals-push-to-save-europe-s-largest-wooden-building-from-ruins) in Turkey has all but collapsed after about 60 years of neglect, and there's an effort to restore and maintain it.
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[Question]
[
Sister question to: [What's the smallest reasonable natural planet or moon with Earth-like surface gravity?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/76107/809) - I want us to have both upper and lower bounds for 1g planets available for authors.
We all know that [equation for surface gravity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_gravity#Mass.2C_radius_and_surface_gravity) is
$$ g = \frac{4\pi}{3} G \rho r $$
So if we want Earth-like surface gravity of $ g = 9.81 \frac {m}{s²}$, then the equation for radius is
$$ r = \frac{3 g}{4\pi G \rho } $$
where $\rho$ is mean density of a planet.
So what's the biggest radius, or lowest density we can reasonably find in space to give us Earth-like gravity and still have a solid surface? By reasonable, I mean that it does not have to be common or even normal. I mean that:
* It could, theoretically, occur naturally
* First reaction of scientists should be *"what a coincidence!"* and not *"it's an alien construct!"* or *"we have a serious problem with our methodology, this can't be!"*
Sadly, on the "above 400km" table [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Solar_System_objects_by_size) bodies are either smaller than Earth or gaseous in nature, and I don't know how could we get less dense, but bigger.
---
Note: I'm avare of [other questions about big planets](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/search?q=bigger+earth) but here I don't care for life, tectonics, civilizations etc. I want baseline, canonical answer about biggest size for given gravity.
[Answer]
## A water planet.
Water has a much lower density than any rock you could make a planet out of and is nearly incompressible. However, some funny stuff happens when you try to make an entire planet out of it. For the sake of easy calculation, my planet is going to be a balmy 350K, at least for now.
What we're going to do is run through a range of pressures, and water changes forms as that happens. Take a look at the phase diagram of water as I talk you through it. (From [this very helpful website](http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/water_phase_diagram.html))
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xf8q3.gif)
We're staying on the 350K line for now and moving vertically upward as we travel toward the center of the planet. We start at around 100 kPa at the surface, convert to ice VII at ~2 GPa, and convert to ice X at ~50 GPa, where we stay all the way to the core, which should be around 500 GPa.
Respective densities: liquid water, at 1g/cm$^3$; ice VII, at 1.5g/cm$^3$; and ice X, at 2.5g/cm$^3$.
However, these densities also increase with depth according to the bulk modulus equation.
$$B = \frac{\Delta P}{\Delta V / V}$$
From [this website](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/permot3.html) and [this article](http://aip.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/1.465980) (paywall, sorry), I managed to find the bulk modulus ($B$) of water and ice VII. I couldn't find one for ice X, so I'll assume it's similar to ice VII.
Liquid water has a bulk modulus of 2.2 GPa and it takes 200km of water to reach 2GPa, according to the classic conversion 101kPa/10m. Thus, we can solve for final density with this equation:
$$\rho\_f = \frac{(\Delta P + B)\*\rho\_i}{B}$$
where $\rho\_f$ is final density, $\Delta P$ is the change in pressure, and $\rho\_i$ is the initial density of water (1g/cm$^3$). This gives us a water density at the bottom of our ocean of 1.9g/cm$^3$. For the rest of the math, I'll use the average value of 1.5g/cm$^3$.
The same equation can be used for the ices, but it's already been done by this graph, made [by people](http://aip.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/1.465980) (paywall, sorry) far more qualified than I: [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fyk4V.png)
As you can see, the density of ice VII starts at something like 1.5g/cm$^3$ at 2GPa and is projected to increase to something like 3g/cm$^3$ (7cm$^3$/mol) around 500GPa (which would be our core). I'll use an average density of 2.3g/cm$^3$ for the rest of the math.
So, we now have a planet with 200km deep global surface oceans and a thick core of dense ice. Let's get an actual radius for this thing. Our equation in this case will be something like
$$g = \frac{G\*M\_{planet}}{r^2} = \frac{G\*(V\_{core}\*\rho\_{core}+V\_{ocean}\*\rho\_{ocean})}{r^2}$$
Substituting and solving gives us a radius of
## 15,000 kilometers
Whew. Of course, I handwaved a *lot* in there, with my biggest one being the assumption of constant temperature. To account for that, the vertical line we used on the water phase diagram would curve to the right as we increase the pressure. This means we wouldn't pass through the transitions as quickly, which would actually *increase* our radius, not decrease it, because we'd have more of the lighter stuff (water and ice VII). Additionally, being forced to average out the densities with respect to depth annoyed me, but I didn't want to work with nasty differential equations.
If the "solid surface" requirement truly means solid, we've also got an easy solution- freeze it! Instead of a temperature like 400K, a planet near 200 or 100K would have a frozen surface and similar radius- remember that ice 1h (normal ice) actually has a lower density than water.
As far as *creating* such a planet goes, I wouldn't be surprised if we found one in the universe somewhere. There's a lot of water around, and one hypothesis for Earth's water is comets. Smash a bunch of comets together and you've got a water planet. As other answers have pointed out, this is implausible, but not impossible. There would likely be a solid core of some other substance and would raise a few scientific eyebrows if it was made of pure water.
## Other options
Other answers have pointed out some good ideas, but I still think that water is the ideal material. Substances like liquid hydrogen or organic molecules (hexane, for example) do indeed have lower densities but they have MUCH higher bulk moduli, which was really the deciding factor in this whole equation. See below for a similar graph from [here](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja01635a007) (again, paywall)- and note the difference in axes, where $H$ has a much more dramatic change with pressure. I wasn't able to find a similar one for hexane, but it'd be between the two [based on its bulk modulus alone](http://fluidsengineering.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/article.aspx?articleid=1430619) (paywall. sad.).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VmiF1.png)
[Answer]
# Ammonia is reasonable
Dubukay's answer is pretty great, except he's starting with the wrong substance. Water is indeed not very dense, but ammonia is less dense at pretty much all temperature and pressure combinations (that I could find, at least).
Ammonia is reasonable because it is common in the solar system. Nitrogen is the 5th most common element in the solar system, at about 1/5 the abundance of oxygen, and ammonia is also the most common nitrogen bearing compound. Ammonia is also relatively more common the farther out from the sun you go. [Wyckoff, S., et al. 1991](http://adsbit.harvard.edu//full/1991ApJ...368..279W/0000282.000.html) show that ammonia to water ratio in comets increases with distance from the sun. Other sources show comets that are up to 50% ammonia. We haven't really explored the Kuiper belt yet and haven't even confirmed the existence of the Oort cloud, so there is a possibility that majority ammonia objects could exist out there, in contrast to the majority water moons that we have found among the outer planets.
# Ammonia's density - liquid
First off, there is a liquid ocean phase. At 300 K, Ammonia will phase transition to solid around 1 GPa. I was able to find an Isothermal density vs. Pressure plot here at [nist.gov](http://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/fluid.cgi?T=300&PLow=0.0%20MPa&PHigh=1000%20MPa&PInc=1%20MPa&Applet=on&Digits=5&ID=C7664417&Action=Load&Type=IsoTherm&TUnit=K&PUnit=MPa&DUnit=mol%2Fl&HUnit=kJ%2Fmol&WUnit=m%2Fs&VisUnit=uPa*s&STUnit=N%2Fm&RefState=DEF). The curve indicates that density will increase from 35 mol/l to 50 mol/l from standard pressure to 1 GPa. Using the molar density of ammonia (0.017031 kg/mol), that range becomes 600 kg/m$^3$ to 850 kg/m$^3$. Based on the convex shape of the curve, a good estimate for average density would be 750 kg/m$^3$.
The depth of an ammonia ocean will depend on the pressure at which ammonia phase transitions to solid, which is 1 GPa. From the hydrostatic pressure equation, we can estimate this depth from $\Delta p = \rho gh$ as $$h = \frac{\Delta p}{\rho g} = \frac{ 1 \text{GPa}}{750 \text{ kg/m}^3 \cdot 10 \text{ m/s}^2} = 130 \text{km}.$$ This is using the assumption of 'Earth-like' surface gravity, and since the depth isn't too great that assumption will be fine.
# Ammonia's density - solid
Ammonia ice at standard pressure and -80 C is 817 kg/m$^3$; compare that to ater ice at 917 kg/m$^3$ at 0 C and standard pressure. I'll use the numbers from Dubukay's answer to make a comparison calculation. I found ammonia ice density characteristics in [Fortes, A., et al, 2003](http://www.ucl.ac.uk/EarthSci/people/lidunka/papers/33.pdf). This work only covers solid Ammonia phases I and IV, so we'll concentrate there. I was unable to find an accurate phase diagram on the internet (i.e. that matches what is in the paper) so you'll have to use your imagination. Phases I, II, and III all transition to IV by about 2 GPa, so I'll argue that the Phase IV data is most important to calculating the ultimate density of the planet.
If you are looking at the paper, you will notice that the density is stated in molar volume $\text{mol\_vol}$. This is converted to density by the following transformation $$\frac{1}{\text{mol\_vol} \text{ cm}^3\text{mol}^{-1}\cdot \frac{1 \text{ mol}}{0.017031 \text{kg}}\cdot\frac{1\text{ m}^3}{1000000 \text{ cm}^3}} = \frac{17031}{\text{mol\_vl}}\, \frac{\text{kg}}{\text{m}^3}$$
Dubukay's charts show that Ice VII at 2 GPa has a density of 1500 kg/m$^3$; From Fig 4 of the paper, Ammonia will be at 1000 kg/m$^3$. Ice X at 50 GPA will be 2500 kg/m$^3$; from Fig 5, Ammonia will be at 1900 kg/m$^3$.
Copying the estimate core ratio from Dubukay's answer, we can use 1700 kg/m$^3$ (instead of water's 2300 kg/m$^3$) as an estimate of core density.
# Calculating radius
Surface gravity is $$ g = \frac{G\left(\rho\_{core}\cdot V\_{core} + \rho\_{ocean}\cdot V\_{ocean}\right)}{r^2}. $$ The volume of the core is a sphere of radius $r - 130000$, our calculated oceanic depth, while the volume of the ocean is $\frac{4}{3}\pi\left(r^3-[r-130000]^3-\right)$. Plugging those in we get
$$10 = 6.674\times10^{-11}\frac{4\pi}{3r^2}\left(1700\cdot[r-130000]^3 + 750\cdot r^3 - 750\cdot[r-130000]^3\right).$$
Wolfram Alpha solves $r$ at 21,000 km.
# Conclusions
Anything of planetary size is very unlikely to be a pure solid, unless artificial. While formation in the far Kuiper belt would reasonably exclude heavy rocks and metals from the formation of a planet, I am not aware of any mechanism that would exclude water and other volatile compounds from being swept up into our nascent ammonia planet.
A truly reasonable estimate would be a planet that was partly water ice and partly ammonia. This would differentiate into a mostly icy core and a mostly liquid ammonia ocean. There would likely be carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane scattered about too. So perhaps an estimate halfway between 15000 km for water and 21000 km for ammonia would be the most reasonable of all.
[Answer]
Hyperion is the least dense moon in our system. It does look spongy.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TaKx7.jpg)
<https://www.space.com/20770-hyperion-moon.html>
>
> Slightly more than half as dense as water, Hyperion's composition is
> still a mystery. Porous water ice may account for the difference, as
> could the inclusion of lighter materials such as frozen methane or
> carbon dioxide. The existence of such materials would be consistent if
> a number of smaller ice and rock bodies had drawn together, or
> accreted, to form the moon, making Hyperion similar to a rubble pile.
> An example: A 2012 Icarus study of the surface suggests Hyperion is
> mostly made up of water ice with some "additional materials", such as
> carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide does not appear to be pure ice, but
> a more complex structure such as a clathrate (where molecules of one
> substance are trapped inside the ice of another)
>
>
>
The density of water is 1 gm/cm3
The density of [methane clathrate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate) is 0.9 gm/cm3
How can Hyperion have a density 54% of water? It is porous.
<http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007Natur.448...50T>
>
> We have also determined Hyperion's size and mass, and calculated the
> mean density as 544+/-50kgm-3, which indicates a porosity of >40 per
> cent.
>
>
>
Maybe a large component of Hyperion was volatile substances like water or ammonia, and over time these have been lost to space. I can imagine a larger body with more gravity also losing its volatiles to space if it were this porous - Mars lost its atmosphere over the millennia, presumably stripped away by the solar wind. Certainly nothing as light as this would have any metals with which to generate a protective magnetic field.
Once you allow porosity, you can make your body arbitrarily big - a huge filmy lattice. But let us use Hyperions density as an observed possible density for a celestial body. What size would an object of this composition and earths gravity be?
Thank you Eric James Stone for your fine gravity calculator!!
<http://www.ericjamesstone.com/blog/home/gravity-calculator-for-astronomical-bodies-based-on-radius-and-density/>
With Hyperion's density of 0.54 g/cc I found that a body of 64,000 km radius would have 99% of Earth's gravity. Earth is 12,742 km.
Still not even as big as Saturn. But if you made it hollow...
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Here is the question regarding Hyperions pores and their crushability from the planetary exploration stack.
<https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/23626/how-large-could-hyperion-be-and-stay-porous>
10 votes and a bucketload of comments but no answers as of 11/15/17.
[Answer]
A recent study [[1]](http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2016.1475) has found that, despite showing ostensible differences in mass and size, a considerable number of the extrasolar planets discovered so far have a surface gravity very similar to that of Earth.
Firstly, the surface gravity of the small bodies in the Solar System and rocky planets smaller than Venus grows with the square root of the mass. Secondly, in the case of gaseous giant exoplanets, the surface gravity linearly grows with the mass. And surprisingly, in the transition zone (between 1 and 100 land masses), we find some sort of plateau that shows a constant surface gravity roughly similar to that of Earth.
So, it seems to exist a correlation between mass and radius of the planets in order to sustain this plateau. although Uranus, Neptune and Saturn are, respectively, 14, 17 and 95 times more massive than Earth, their surface gravities barely vary between 0.9g and 1.1g. So, the answer to your question is: Saturn is the biggest reasonable natural planet with Earth-like surface gravity, or Jupiter if you want do give some concession.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/gPFSq.jpg)
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>
> Sadly, on the "above 400km" table here bodies are either smaller than Earth or gaseous in nature, and I don't know how could we get less dense, but bigger.
>
>
>
I'm thinking perhaps if we have a much smaller iron-nickel and heavy metals core, this would decrease the average density. In theory you might have *no* significant iron core at all - if the original dust cloud from which the planet accreted had a very low iron content, which would happen with Population III dust.
Also, in that case the compression on the core would be less, which would in turn further decrease the core density.
Earth's density is an average 5.5 between a 3.0 for the upper crust and a nucleus thought to be from 9.0 and 13.6, made of an allotrope of iron (STP density = 7.784).
Mars, for example, has a density of 3.9, even if it *has* an iron core; but the total mass is significantly less, and the core is therefore less compressed (density nearer 9.0 than 13.6). This in turn argues for a surface density nearer to 2.4.
So, if we were to remove the iron core altogether from a Mars-like planet, the remaining material would have an average density (STP) of 2.4, possibly increasing to 4.8 (probably less) at the core. Applying a structure similar to Earth's, we may expect an average density of 3.0, giving a radius of around 11,700 km, or 85% more than Earth's.
[Answer]
**No one went with the obvious:**
**Liquid Hydrogen**
has a density of 0.16 mg/cm³
It isn't improbable either as rogue planets could be small chucks of hydrogen. without the mass needed to produce its own internal heat or heat from the sun it would just freeze into a liquid
At this point it technically isn't a gas giant either having a clear physical surface. speaking of as far as I can tell the only qualification for a "surface" is matter existing in a liquid, plasmatic, of solid state since gas means atmosphere.
**I also want to point out the flaws of this question**
* The geological processes/construction of stellar object can greatly influence its ultimate density over its material composition. A spherical space station can be made of diamonds and ultimately be as dense as a dust cloud.
* Also, **pressure** has a significant effect on our perceived understanding of chemistry. So when picking planetary compositions with respect to planetary density you have to understand chemistry at planetary pressure scales (which we are just beginning to explore).
* For instance- at high enough pressures hydrogen is expected to behave more like a metal than a gas. This is believed to happen in Jupiter.
[Answer]
If the core were replaced by mantle material the earth would be considerably lighter. Exactly how much exactly is hard to say. But very roughly:
Density of the mantle 3300 – 5500 kg/cubic metre
Thickness of mantle 2886km
so density increase with depth is roughly 600kg/cubic metre/1000km
Max density at centre 7800 kg/cubic metre
Density at the top of the mantle 3300 kg/cubic metre
Take the average = 4.5 kg/cubic metre
Put that into your equation gives the new earth’s radius as 7789km
If you assume an even lighter rock, say Granite at 2600 kg/cubic metre, the average density might drop to perhaps 4 kg/cubic metre and the radius then becomes 8762km
I would have thought that anything bigger would be straining credulity, although could not be ruled out. All answers should make allowance for the increase in density with depth, whatever the material is used, as I have attempted to do (not very accurately).
[Answer]
Take the iron out of the core. This will give you at least a 1000 km extra radius. It will also turn off the magnetic field. Which you probably need to do to get the atmosphere down to some reasonable level. (A larger planet has a slower taper on g as you gain altitude, so it's harder for a molecule of air to escape. You have a larger escape velocity too)
Play with the Chemical Rubber Handbook (or as physicists refer to it, *"The Book of Random Numbers"* and look up density of materials. Then for good candidates, check the following:
* is it made of abundent elements? (Ytterium fluoride is an unlikely material...)
* Is it stable at high temperature?
* Does it compress drastically under high pressure. For many compounds this won't be known.
If you can half the density, you can double the radius. This would correspond to a radius of about 12,000 km.
Postulate that most of the atomic enrichment in this particular star cluster happened due to a cluster of supernova on one edge. As the ionized material streamed forth, the galactic magnetic field acted as a mass spectrometer, sorting the ions by mass/charge ratio, so there is a swath of stars that had very high content of light elements compared to heavy elements. What happens to the density if multiply the atomic abundance of earth by 1/atomic number. Now you have a core made of lithium and berylium and probably a very poisonous crust; fluorine being as common as chlorine, and potassium being much rarer than on earth. The latter would reduce planetary heating. Coupled with the scarsity of radioactives, it may mean that the planet never liquified, so heavy elements didn't segregate to the core. This would allow reasonable abundances on the surface despite the planetary scarcity.
A very useful calculator for mass radius gravity escape velocity issue:
<http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vesc.html>
[Answer]
To get the same surface gravity of Earth a planet with Moon composition ($\rho =3346 kg/m^3$)would be $r \approxeq 10500 Km$, so I suppose that's possible, although not common due to specifics of Moon formation.
[Answer]
Bulk allotropic Carbon is basically incompressible and has a specific density of roughly 3.5, giving a solid world with a radius around 10,000km at 9.81m/s^2. Such a planet couldn't form in the modern universe but something similar, with only very small amounts of heavier elements, might have formed when the universe was very young and heavy elements like Iron were much rarer.
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[Question]
[
In a close future (in 100-200 years), humanity is in an energy/resource crisis and seeks new resources in the solar system. In my story, humanity, still in need after colonizing the moon, sends a mission to harvest a gas giant in the solar system.
For plot reasons, I need the main resource to be extracted from the gas giant itself. Trying to avoid unobtainium and looking into real resources, the more logical reason I've found (and after visiting this [post](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/53921/what-would-be-the-first-thing-humans-would-mine-on-jupiter/53933#53933)) was extracting [helium-3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3) for nuclear fusion.
But I face then three problems:
* Conditions in gas giant are harsh (pressure, storms, gravity, ...) and make extraction difficult, especially on Jupiter.
* Helium-3 seems to be obtainable as a by-product of hydrogen nuclear fusion. So I guess I have to handwave to make it not enough furnished or to make hydrogen fusion power-plant not technologically available.
* The distances and [delta-v](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SmiQv.png) make the energy requirement not very viable to send it back to earth, whatever gas giant I'm aiming for. One idea was to harvest helium-3 and at the same time, looking for other resources nearby (like mining the moons) to make it more credible.
My questions are:
* Do you have a way to make helium-3 extraction viable? Or to find another
interesting resource in a gas giant?
* Which one of the gas giant of the solar system would be most likely to be exploited?
[Answer]
While Jupiter is the closest (and has an abundance of every resource in its system of moons and energy resources which could be extracted from the magnetosphere), you are specifically looking for 3He, so Jupiter becomes a non starter.
Anyone trying to mine 3He from the atmosphere of Jupiter will be battling massive radiation fields, a very deep gravity well and huge energy costs to get to and from Jupiter proper (as opposed to the Jovian system). Boosting 3He from either a balloon in Jupiter's atmosphere or using some sort of ramscoop diving into the atmosphere will require massive amounts of energy to reach escape velocity, not to mention dealing with the violent and turbulent atmosphere of Jupiter itself.
Saturn is another target, with milder conditions, and additional resources (especially the atmosphere and hydrocarbon oceans of the moon Titan), but navigating through the ring system might be too much of a risk for atmosphere miners looking to extract 3He.
You would need to go farther afield, and mine the atmosphere of Uranus. The radiation environment is very mild, the escape velocity is quite reasonable and even the system of rings is not anywhere near as daunting for mining ships to navigate around (although there is still a finite chance of impacting ring particles on the way in and out of the atmosphere).
The downside of this is you are a vast distance away from the sun and the markets. Any payloads to Earth (or shipments of miners and equipment from Earth) would need to be boosted an additional 11 Km/s to enter a minimum energy trajectory, and would essentially take years to reach their destination. For automated cryogenic tankers of 3He this may not be an issue (so long as the "pipeline" is filled with tankers arriving on a regular basis the market is fulfilled), but not so much for people.
Another issue is the long trajectory times make for interesting market issues. A sudden spike in demand cannot be satisfied by currently arriving tankers or ones in the "pipeline", and a surge in production will result in increased supply reaching the market possibly a decade later (depending on orbital alignments and so on). We can see this in the whiskey market today, a surge in demand is boosting prices, but new "single malt" won't even be marketable for another 5-12 years depending on the distillery's aging standards. Only what is already in the warehouses is going to be available for sale for the foreseeable future. So one of your plot points might be the machinations of "futures" traders attempting to forecast the market and manipulate supply and demand to maximize profits.
So if your story revolves around plausible mid future 3He extraction, I'd tell the characters to "head to Uranus, young man!".
[Answer]
Hydrogen (deuterium) seems obvious. Since it's a light gas, it should be plentiful in the upper atmosphere, thus comparatively easy to obtain.
Deuterium( H-2) is needed as fuel for fusion reactors.
[Answer]
## Everything.
Interestingly enough, I find this question strongly related to another one [Powering the interplanetary trade ships of the 23rd-24th century](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/63857/20315) and to different trade and space-economy questions we had recently on WB.
In my [answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/63899/20315) to the Q about trade ship, I basically have shown that even pure hydrogen is useful as the chemical reagent for extraction metals and(or) reducing oxides into the water and pure elements. In my opinion, it worth to spend 800 ton of fission fuel to be able separate elements of an 1 km diameter asteroid.
As result, it may help to build different constructions in space which may help way much better to Earth then just having some amount of 3He for energy production. Constructions in space may solve same energy problem as 3He, but they can not only satisfy our energy needs but also regulate climate on the earth and do other planetary stuff.
Hydrogen can be used as reactive mass for reactive propulsion for ships, which is important - space ecology, use an element with high abundance etc.
So, the answer to the question "interesting resource" is - Everything. Everything from a Gas giant is interesting and makes sense to haul in bulk quantities if you have a technology for that.
### Composition and uses
not very scientific [source](https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/astrob/10Page7.pdf) for atmosphere compositions as a table.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rv5Mo.png)
Jupiter is the closest (except the Sun) source of molecular Hydrogen, which may be used as a reductant for many processes, and as a cheap method to bind oxygen and to store the oxygen in form of water, instead to lose it, release it, or try to keep it at cryogenic temperatures.
All gas giants are good sources of hydrogen because the closest place where one can find hydrogen free floating in form of asteroids is a distance about 900 A.U. (or probably even further, if at all hm, not sure and lazy to calculate, but there a temperature will be about 10K and hydrogen may form ice)
Hydrogen - reductant, reactive mass, cheap media to bind oxygen, cheap media to make water
D, 3He, He, Carbon, N - are just byproducts, each one has its own use, they are very useful byproducts.
# Viability.
The answer how to get is a bit harder than to answer what to get.
Orbital ring like [this](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/63266/20315) may help to solve the problem, but they them selfs have technological problems which need to be solved.
There a lot of problems have to be solved before mining resources from Gas Giants will be viable. Winds, Gravity, delta-v - not the first problems here.
The energy source is the first one to solve - because to lifting matter from Jupiter and launching it is energy expensive. Escape velocity for Jupiter is 59.5 km/s and that is 28 times more expensive energy wise than for Earth. Thermonuclear reactor with ease will solve the problem and may be the biggest consumer in the solar system for any 3He you may mine from Jupiter.
An orbital ring or good thermonuclear engine may solve the problem with delta-v. The ring will be more energy efficient, but to be built it need significant demand for resources from Jupiter or any GG.
A bit more advanced tech - build a ring, use thermonuclear reactors and thermonuclear engines, space cables - and no problems, but as for now, we (at the moment) do not have technology which may help us to harvest gas giant resources.
Moons of gas giant are more viable and interesting options - carbon, carbon-hydrogen, N2, NH3. (water in asteroids -> Ceres) And those resources may be used to build rings, reactors etc when time comes.
Basically, we need a ring from the [answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/63266/20315), space cable, fission rocket or better, fission reactor or better - and we are ready to send the Everything from a gas giant. All supply fro light elements will be from gas giant for a looong time, 50 years, until we make that [active matter](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/45273/20315) (almost entire answer is relevant to extraction, but first part to look for technology is *Note about Venus scrap, snake elephant*). Carbon nanotubes are the material of the Future, which allow us to solve all problems with extraction matter from gas giants, in this or another way, the only thing we need is to master making longer tubes and making devices from them.
[Answer]
**Jupiter (the nearest gas giant) for He^3.**
Helium III, the lightest isotope, is extremely rare (He^4 is much, much more common) and is theorized as being a superb fuel for nuclear fusion -- if only we could get enough. There have been fairly detailed technical proposals for mining lunar surface material for the He^3 that has collected there from the sun's solar wind; that's how valuable we think it is/will likely be. Operating in cis-Jovian space is not for the faint of human or robotic heart; high radiation and magnetic fields cause all sorts of challenging weirdness.
[Answer]
## Helium Shortage
The [recent concern about our helium supply](https://www.wired.com/2016/06/dire-helium-shortage-vastly-inflated/), although not a significant worry for us now, points out humanity's extreme interest in having enough helium. So, helium could be an element that becomes overused and hence requires extraterrestrial mining.
To justify this, perhaps in the future, some new form of helium-hungry technology, or a significant increase in existing helium-using technology, causes Earth's supplies to be insufficient.
[Answer]
As long as you don't find [Tibanna Gas](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tibanna), the most gas you will find on our solar gas giants will be hydrogen, with 85-95% of the atmospheres. The other gasses are somewhere between 5% and who-cares (check Wikipedia for details).
It depends on your economy if it is suitable to mine gas there or if some another solid planet is more resourceful.
Of course, if it ultimately has to be a gas giant, you need some handwave to add some gas of your choice.
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To obtain Hydrogen-2 (deuterium) and Helium-3 for a Project Daedalus-style fusion rocket, Neptune would be the friendliest gas giant. It has a relatively shallow gravity well, relatively little orbital debris and a large ice moon with plenty of water (Triton) and it rotates slowly enough to not have lethal Van Allen belts. It is a long, long way out, but it would be far easier to handle relatively friendly cis-Neptune space than the lethal radiation pervading cis-Jupiter space.
[Answer]
Current fission reasearch seems to be based on deuterium and tritium, due to the lower Coulomb barrier (energy barrier for bringing positively charged nuclei together.) That's not to say 3He won't be useful in the distant future. However, mining it from Jupiter seems enormously difficult, because you can't build a solid base there.
Absolutely enormous quantities of gas would have to be processed in order to get any significant amount of 3He, and processing enormous quantities of gas requires equipment that is either enormous or at high pressure. Such a processing unit would be better placed on a solid body, and not so far into Jupiter's gravity well.
**Jovian Shipyard**
I do think the Jovian system is the right place to consider, as the other giant planets are just too far from earth. I would look at its moons, which are extraordinarily diverse, and actually enable you to appreciate the beauty (and sheer vastness) of Jupiter in the sky (something that cannot be appreciated from Jupiter itself.)
I think the Jovian moon system may be the perfect place to build very large ships in orbit (whether generation ships or Death Stars.) Each moon can contribute different raw materials.
To consider just the four Galilean moons
[Io](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_(moon))
Covered in sulphur and sulphur dioxide. Sulphur can be used in making sulphur concrete (aggregate bound together with sulphur that has melted and then been cooled) and is flammable.
[Europa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon))
Water ice surface, probable subsurface ocean, rich in salts, with an atmosphere (albeit very thin) of oxygen. This results from water being photolysed and the hydrogen escaping into space, due to the higher thermal velocity of hydrogen compared to oxygen.
[Ganymede](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede_(moon))
Ice over a rock core
[Callisto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callisto_(moon))
Equal quantities of ice and rock, not well differentiated (the rock has not sunk to the bottom)
---
The first three moons are locked in an orbital resonance with each other, which produces enormous tidal forces, which are responsible for heating up the moons, and producing volcanoes and other phenomena. There is therefore a rich source of geothermal energy on these moons, without the need for solar cells which would be very ineffective this far from the sun, (or nuclear technology, which is probably a requirement for extensive space travel, but should perhaps be conserved for when it is most needed.)
Delta v's for transfer between Jupiter's various moons are very reasonable, see the bottom right corner of <http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/mission/deadfrog42.png>
[Answer]
**Alien stuff**
As opposed to raw materials which might actually be present in real life (e.g. big diamonds) you could have there be alien materials on this moon. You can hand wave up what serves your plot best.
This could be ancient alien tech which we cannot replicate. The miners are scavenging an ancient alien junkyard. There could be large and small pieces, with intrinsic worth and utility - for example a tiny cold fusion motor, or a broken Z-point generator. A nearly working quantum disruptor would be a jackpot big enough for a miner to retire to balmy Vladivostok.
Or it could be alien life forms. For example, some crystalline self replicating life form, the spores of which can set a template used to restore radiation damaged cells. Or some life form capable of forming a symbiosis with Earth crop plants such that they can survive the harsh weather on Venus.
[Answer]
Uranus.
Slower escape speed among the 4 gaseous giants of the Solar System. Attractive feature: helium-3 and deuterium to produce semi-aneutron fusion The energy density of this fusion is on the order of 353 trillion joules per kg.
The deuterium-helium-3 fusion produces 24% of the X-ray energy '' 20% '' and 4% in neutrons, leaving 76% of the 353 trillion joules in charged particles that can be used directly for direct conversion to energy by eliminating the steam turbine method and opening the opportunity for a more efficient conversion medium that can conservatively reach 88%, and propulsion with that kind of melting speed. Up to 7.72% of the speed of light is possible, considering only the energy density of the 76% of charged particles, if it is possible to use 100% directly for exhaustion.
Thinking only about helium-3 contains a known average of 2 hydrogen and helium earth masses if we consider that 30% is helium so that Uranus has 60% of a helium earth mass, considering the abundance of the Primordial Nebula, which for every million of parts of helium 100 is helium-3, and while helium-3 has a mass of 75% helium-4, there are a total of 268,650,000,000,000,000 quadrillion tons of helium-3 in total Uranus or $268,65 \cdot 10^{17}$ tons of helium-3. equivalent to 206.65 billion times the helium-3 reserves in the lunar regolith if we consider that there is a total of 1.3 million tons of helium-3 in the moon's regolith.
Unlike Saturn or Jupiter, Uranus concentrates its helium in the upper layers, the interior of the planet is rich in volatiles of water ice and methane, which in turn comprise a fraction of hydrogen that, for water ice, It is on the order of 11.2%, perhaps this total ice down below will add 1.1 mass of hydrogen from the earth with the remaining oxygen and carbon-forming methane when combined with hydrogen. On Jupiter and Saturn, helium is well distributed in the layers of the two planets.
If we are discussing a potential civilization that artificially controls nuclear fusion in reactors and is capable of using it for propulsion and power generation, then we are talking about a post-scarcity civilization that would not be tied to the fate of its parent star either. one day it will come out, so gas giants or ice giants like Uranus or Neptune are true reserves of mega fuel fusion for these civilizations, even considering only deuterium + helium-3 or deuterium - deuterium catalysed by + deuterium '' creation of deuterium '' 'or the completely aneutronic fusion of helium-3 + helium-3. So the only really valuable resource here is helium-3 and deuterium, as long as your civilization already has the domain of exponential gain artificial nuclear fusion.
Yet only when all other sources of deuterium have been depleted because for each $km^3$ of water ice in other bodies of the Solar System in the rocky case there can be 34,900 tonnes of potential deuterium that can be used for catalyzed deuterium fusion and also to produce helium-3 as it fuses from the DD fusion. There are no other resources that are valuable enough in the Solar System to extract from our Gaseous Giants except deuterium and helium-3, and as for the core of these planets to be filled with valuable metals, it is much easier 16 Psyche.
Civilization could use the same pattern to extract helium-3 from brown dwarfs that have already depleted their deuterium supply but lack sufficient power to deplete helium-3, so they would choose brown dwarfs cold enough to provide access to atmospheric mining to Helium-3 + helium-3 fusion has an energy density per KG on the order of 207.5 trillion joules per KG that's well below the deuterium + helium-3 fusion but it is worth remembering that the helium-3 + helium-3 fusion is 100% aneutronic and potentially produces only half of the x-ray produced by the deuterium - helium-3 fusion.
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When we speak about alien encounters, we mostly have one of these two scenarios in mind: Either the aliens know *nothing* about us, or they know *everything*.
Let's explore a third option. The idea comes from the great sci-fi comedy [Galaxy Quest](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/):
Imagine an alien race which knows about us only the things displayed in the [Star Trek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek) franchise. And let's be generous with this one: Once it had the name "Star Trek" in it, these aliens know it. But they do not know anything else about us than the Star Trek franchise.
*One awful hand-wave here is answering the question "How come?" But for the time being, just accept it as a fact.*
The alien race spends an awful lot of time and energy to be just as the characters in Star Trek. And after finally getting the dilithium to work, they approach us.
A perfect working copy of the [USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_%28NCC-1701-D%29) is in Earth standard orbit right now. Open a communication channel, Mr. Sulu, we want to apply to the Federation.
But we all know the problem. There is no Federation. There are no Klingons or Romulans. But we can somehow fake it, because we at least have [Captain Jean-Luc Picard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Stewart).
The question is: **How long can we hide the fact that the Star Trek world is non-existent?**
Because, let's face it. Most of you would gladly sacrifice your left hand just for a possibility to have a ride in the real thing. So we **want** to fake it and get the technology from them.
[Answer]
It's important to note that the events depicted in the Star Trek franchise *haven't happened yet* in-universe.
We (or Sir Patrick) should say that we received the same "historical footage" as a warning/message of hope from the future. Because of them, we managed to avoid [the Eugenics Wars](http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Eugenics_Wars), but an unforeseen consequence was that we are now behind schedule technologically. We then beseech them for their help in "repairing the timeline".
So to answer the question: indefinitely.
[Answer]
The aliens are obviously technically advanced to a point where we cannot hide anything substantial to them. Already when approaching, they will have noticed the absence of warp signatures in space, let alone star sips. They will have monitored our communications during approach, and thus learned about our actual state of technology (we're still communicating with electromagnetic waves, instead of the much better subspace communications, for example). They will have superior sensors which which they can simply scan the earth and find out practically everything important about us.
Basically watch any Star Trek episode where they approach an unknown inhabited planet, and see what they learn about it from space. The aliens will learn exactly the same about us, by the premise.
[Answer]
Not at all?
The [Utopia Planitia](http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Utopia_Planitia_Fleet_Yards) shipyards are unfortunately missing. So is [Starbase 1](http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Starbase_1)/[Spacedock](http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Spacedock_%28Earth%29). We can't even beam up to talk with them.
[Answer]
There are good suggestions from [@Josh](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/23726/83464) and the comment from DaaaahWhoosh about faking temporal discontinuities. However, let's run this thought experiment a little further.
The big problem is that present day human society on Earth is nowhere close to the standards of the Federation. We're a fractured set of nations that are jockeying for dominance, and have not yet made contact with other species nor discovered warp technology.
Present day Earth is in fact fairly similar to some of the planets visited by the Enterprise in StarTrek. Talking to the people on Earth almost certainly violates the prime directive (though [violating the prime directive is one of the grand traditions of Star Trek](https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/8t4qf3/how_often_did_star_trek_break_the_prime_directive/)). There is also precedent that Earth in current state would not be admitted into the Federation (TNG Spoiler):
>
> Kesprytt in [the TNG episode Attached](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attached).
>
>
>
So if the aliens show up and are looking to join the federation, but instead find a primitive version of Earth, what you end up in is a reverse Star Trek episode, where the humans (playing the part of the encountered planet) are now trying to convince the Aliens (playing the part of the Enterprise) that they are worthy of help from the Enterprise.
While not totally analogous, Earth trying to scam advanced technology from the aliens has the feeling of another TNG episode, where the person in question almost pulls it off but is foiled at the last moment (TNG spoiler):
>
> Berlinghoff Rasmussen in [A Matter of Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Matter_Of_Time)
>
>
>
So, it's likely that the humans would be able to bluff the aliens into believing that some time-travel shenanigans happened. They can keep this ruse going long enough to have a grand welcome party and to get humans on board the Enterprise. Along the way, the aliens marvel at how primitive human technology is and at us still using money (in keeping with any Star Trek episode where [people visit modern day Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_IV:_The_Voyage_Home)). The Aliens then have a long deliberation about the prime directive, at the end of which they decide to violate it because repairing the timeline is for the good of the universe. Then, in keeping with Star Trek's narrative style, the aliens discover the ruse just before transmitting the Enterprise schematics to humanity. The aliens go back home with Earth "unaltered" (other than the massive societal changes brought about by contact with aliens; i.e. the whole reason the prime directive exists).
[Answer]
**Played along**
It's not cheap. Even at warp 9, a voyage to earth from the nearest star system takes months.
These aliens have a certain plan, a *purpose* with flying to Earth in an Earth-model spaceship, the shape originating from Earth culture. They put effort in mimicking the Earth "federation" because they assumed, their Enterprise model would yield a most peaceful and civilized reception. The aliens assumed, we would welcome them, because of the good and peaceful reputation of Jean-Luc Picard.
Of course.. they *already knew* we made it all up. They just *pretend* they don't know that.
So.. we are *not* successfully mimicking Star Trek, but they don't mind. In fact, *they* are mimicking Star Trek, for diplomatic reasons. Because they dress up as known Earth culture figures, a lot of goodwill is generated. Earthlings will even pose as Star-Trek characters (this question), because we expect we'll please them and impress them with our glorious "past" and trade technology with the aliens. See Josh' answer how that *close encounter* would work out..
They would pretend they believe us.
Everything is a [fata morgana (mirage)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage)) in my scenario, but only for us.. Star-Trek *does not exist*, we know that, the aliens know that.. but they won't tell us they know.
The only thing the aliens are interested in is stealing all our [Californium stock](https://rarest.org/nature/elements-on-earth) and leave, without need for warfare.. or payment.. They'll just beam it up overnight, to their fake Enterprise. Every gram in stock. Everything else is a distraction. They won't give us anything back. No technology, no precious metals, the Enterprise will disappear in the night, the crew having a good laugh about these naive humans on planet Earth in their funny space suits.
(end of episode)
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[Question]
[
Suppose that we pare down human consumption to a minimum survivable level across the Earth, and devote the entire surface of the planet (as well as the planet's interior, if needed) to support as many human beings as possible. We ignore the damage we are doing to the environment except to the degree to which it may influence how many people we can fit on Earth. How many people could the Earth possibly sustain, using only technology which will be available in the near-future?
Assumptions as to what will be available in the near future:
* We have fusion power
* We do not have a space elevator
* Growing food in space is prohibitively expensive
We have colonies on nearby planets and on the moon, but transport through space is too expensive for us to use extraterrestrial farms to provide food for our Earthlings. Under these conditions, what is the maximum possible population which the Earth could sustain?
[Answer]
It comes down to some assumptions.
Does your civilization have to consider the possibility of war at any point? How fragile a system are you willing to accept? Are the people in your world consciously working to maximize the population?
But lets assume we can ignore some of the practical things and just maximize.
You have fusion power so I'm going to assume you can generate pretty much arbitrary amounts of power which in turn implies fresh water isn't an issue since you can use that energy to purify seawater and create fertilizer.
So you're going to need lots of warehouses like this.
In optimal conditions it takes about 50 square meters to grow enough food and oxygen for one person. Lets double that to be safe and to make it a round 100.
<http://www.tylerdwyer.com/files/OASIS_Final_Report.pdf>
A large portion of the land is going to be needed for simply living in, working in, and building fusion reactors on so lets assume no more than 50% of the Earths land area used for food growing.
So I'm going to assume that building too tall on a grand scale is unreasonable so lets assume nothing over 100 meters.
The land area of the earth is about 148,300,000 square km or 148,300,000,000,000 square meters.
assume 50% of the space used in our farming towers for walkways or areas under maintenance.
Assume 100 trays 1 meter apart which gives us 3,707,500,000,000,000 square meters of growing plants to work with.
So using half the worlds land area and almost unlimited energy and perfect coordination and everyone being willing to live really really close you might be able to feed about 37 trillion people an utterly no-frills diet and oxygen.
So much of the worlds water is going to be tied up inside these growing towers that the worlds sealevel will drop significantly and the energy required from your fusion plants will be so huge that it's likely to be heating the planet up via physical heat at an unsustainable rate so you might need the help of your moon colonies to build solar shades.
[Answer]
Fremlin actually calculated this. I found one copy of his article online: <https://web.archive.org/web/20180713203419/http://www.claychipsmith.com/Population.doc>
>
> Stage 1: up to 400,000 million in 260 years' time Using existing crop
> plants and methods it may not be practicable to produce adequate food
> for more than four doublings of the world population, though the
> complete elimination of all land wildlife, the agricultural use of
> roofs over cities and roads, the elimination of meat-eating and the
> efficient harvesting of sea food might allow two or three further
> doublings -- say seven in all. That would give us, with the present
> doubling time of 37 years, 260 years to develop less conventional
> methods, and would allow the population of the world to increase to
> about 130 times its present size, or about 400,000 million.
>
>
>
It goes on:
>
> Stage 2: up to 3 million million in 370 years' time The area of ice-free sea is some three times that of land. Photosynthesis by
> single-celled marine organisms may be more efficient than that of the
> best land plants. If organisms could be found capable of the
> theoretical maximum efficiency (8 percent of total solar radiation,
> according to A. A. Niciporovic) we should gain a factor of three in
> yield. We could then double our numbers a further three more times if
> all the wildlife in the sea, too, was removed and replaced by the most
> useful organisms growing under controlled conditions, with the optimum
> concentration of carbonates, nitrates and minerals. (Of course a
> reserve of specimens of potentially useful species could be preserved,
> perhaps in a dormant state.) Again, for maximum efficiency we must
> harvest and consume directly the primary photosynthesis organisms,
> rather than allow the loss of efficiency involved in the food chains
> leading to such secondary organisms as zooplankton or fish. By this
> stage, we should have had ten doublings, which at the present rate
> would take some 370 years, with a final world population of 3 million
> million. Since the world's surface (land and sea) is 500 million
> million square meters, each person would have a little over 160 square
> meters for his maintenance-about a thirtieth of an acre-which does not
> seem unreasonable by more than a factor of two, so long as no
> important human activity other than food production takes place on the
> surface. No serious shortages of important elements need be envisaged
> so far, though extensive mining operations for phosphates might be
> needed, and we have not yet approached any real limit.
>
>
>
And the ultimate conclusion (the article continues on, but QoL would deteriorate so much to that point that people would spend their entire lives living in a pod):
>
> Stage 4a: up to 12,000 million million in 800 years' time. Dead end
> Above two people per square meter, severe refrigeration problems
> occur. If the oceans were used as a heat sink, their mean temperature
> would have to rise about 1 °C per year to absorb 500 watts per square
> meter. This would be all right for the doubling time of 37 years, at
> the end of which we should have four people per square meter. Half
> another doubling time could be gained if efficient heat pumps (which,
> for reasons of thermal efficiency, would require primary energy
> sources of very high temperature) could be used to bring the ocean to
> the boil. Two more doublings would be permitted if the oceans were
> converted into steam, though that would create an atmospheric pressure
> comparable with the mean ocean bottom pressure at present. Since the
> resulting steam blanket would also be effectively opaque to all
> radiation, no further heat sink could be organized and this procedure
> would therefore seem to lead to a dead end.
>
>
>
On an interesting note, Venus atmospheric pressure is equal to that of Earth's oceans at 1 kilometer.
[Answer]
With *infinite* clean energy you can produce food, oxygen, and water in nearly any quantity that you desire.
1. Energy + salt water $\rightarrow NaCl + H\_2O$ (through desalinization)
2. Energy + $CO\_2 + 2H\_2O \rightarrow 2O\_2 + CH\_4$
3. Energy + human waste + spiralina (algae) + $ H\_2O \rightarrow $ food + clean $H\_2O + O\_2$
If this works, then the limiting factors become personal space and waste heat. Because we can always build vertically if space becomes a problem, I think we run into heat problems before we run out of space.
**How much heat?**
Assuming *Spaceship Earth* in which we must set up all life support and the natural world no longer does anything for us, [Atomic Rockets](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/lifesupport.php#id--Closed_Ecological_Systems--Supercritical_Water_Oxidation) says this will consume ~0.36 kW / person in electricity and need to expel ~0.1 kW / person in heat.
**Compared to what?**
Assumptions
1. The Earth is in thermal equilibrium
2. We can only increase the Earth's temp by about 10 C
3. This equates to about a 15% increase in energy input
4. The Earth's [radiated
energy is dominated by Sun shine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#Earth.27s_internal_heat_and_other_small_effects) and equals 173,000 TW of power.
5. We are allowed to generate 25,950 TW.
This Earth can generate enough fusion power for 259.5 Trillion humans.
**Ouch**
That seems way too large. This is about 37,000x the number of people on Earth today. This means 500,000 people live in every square km of the Earth.
Looked at another way, if we assume every single person needed $900 sq m$ of living space, then we'd need to cover every square meter of Earth with 458 floors of buildings. At 10 ft per floor, you're talking about buildings covering the whole Earth to a height of 4/5 of a mile or about 4x the tallest buildings currently on the Earth.
Either my math's *wwaaayy off*, my assumptions are no good, or living space becomes an issue long before heat rejection.
and living space requirements all depend upon how much being around other people bothers you.
[Answer]
I will try to give an answer, without citing sources and by reading the question in ways that may make my answer to be a bit off-topic. But that's me!
At the current population numbers we should be all able to live like kings - literally speaking. The only reason we don't, is that we have no leaders that are capable of cooperating and making strong friendships with other nations instead of going to war with them, being able to understand the planet's ecosystem and work with it instead of against it, being able to put order into mega-corporate and banking chaos, and also our population is raised with pretty nasty principles (cultivated by our ill-minded leaders again).
So, what's the max number of people our planet can hold without us starving to death?
I would say it is about 100 times the current population and without your futuristic assumptions, provided that we fix our attitude.
Most people count the land available for producing food, but they tend to forget that most of the planet's surface is oceans which too produce food, while they are brutally harvested and polluted and destroyed for no reason. If there were regulations in place that made it possible for the fish populations to grow in numbers and preserve the oceans clean from pollutants, GMO that eliminate well functioning organisms and other threats, the food coming from the oceans could make a huge difference (I will provide a link to a paper here, although I have not read it yet, but I imagine it shares some of my views: <http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/59/11/967.full>). The amount of material, food and energy waste today is unthinkable. The U.S. seems to be the king of wasting resources, but I can assure you, all countries do it in an extreme manner. In summary, our house building ways are terrible, our power production, storage and distribution ways are terrible, our way of life is organized in a terrible and inefficient manner. We live like we have unlimited and free energy already! Surely, future technology could help, but (1) the issue is that we currently don't need that and (2) history teaches that technology rarely do that, especially in our case, since the problem is not technological.
But I think I should divert your question to another path.
It's surely in our nature to dream and hope. But I think we should all dream and hope about different things than we currently do. The enemy of humanity is not the supposed lack of resources, energy, living space or food. The enemy always lies within us. It's our choices, our desires, our ideologies, our way of life, our habits, our desire to enjoy ourselves and our very dreams which are corrupt. Those are that always destroy us throughout history and they will destroy us in the future.
But if you desperately need some other threat to humanity that does not emanate from humanity itself, that would be our decaying genome. Contrary to what Dawkings wants you to believe, humanity and the animal/plant kingdom are fading fast genetically. Despite the fact that a vast percentage of this problem is again attributed to ourselves and our choices (one can say so much on this topic...), avoiding this is not possible. And if one dreams of us understating and fixing our genome, good luck with that... Even the simplest things in the inner workings of bacteria baffles scientists for decades. And if understanding those systems in their entirety seems impossible, fixing them is simply not doable. Our best bet for living some extra years as a species is keeping our population big enough and divergent enough and procreate before our 20-ies with one and only mate.
Earth is our home. Our only home. Resource-hungry NASA may manage to plant some toxic GMO plant on another planet making humanity believe that we may soon get a new, fresh, clean and unpolluted home. But that will never become our home and if it does it would only be a misfortune for us. Our home is one and our future is limited. Come to terms with that and let's make the time we have matter.
[Answer]
The peak populations on Earth could be more than people think. IF this was done to merely maximize population then the Earth could possibly be maximized to many thousand (or even more) times our current population.
First: The Space and Utilities.
--Humans have been building skyscrapers for centuries so for space we can just go up once we have used all the space on land. This will allow also for easier energy capture via solar panels for example. There would be no need for travel so making the earth basically one large skyscraper could allow it to tower thousands of feet. We can also utilize the ocean space as well. With the ocean being 95% unknown there is probably a mass amount of space to be utilized. If we lowered sea level by extracting sea water from the oceans and then recycled the water that could not only create more space but also increase resources. This extra space where the sea once was could be used to create nuclear energy which has the one of the highest energy/waste ratios.
Second: Population Needs.
--Although different people consume different amounts of food/water this can be standardized. There are 2 ways. One is genetic modification. Using gene modification scientists could make people smaller/shorter which would not only increase the space available but also the food/water needed. Genetics could also be used to allow parents to have maximum offspring using an artificial womb nursing thousands of children at once. Second is hormone modification. Even if the population was not genetically standardized it could be stopped growing by stoping growth hormone in a person before they get passed the minimum required to live and reproduce. These smaller people will consume less allowing for less space for growing food would be need per person.
Third: Food Selection.
--Water could be obtained from the extracted ocean water which would supply generations of populations and don't forget the ice caps. GMOs (genetically modified organisms) could also be used to make food denser with certain nutrients and to allow them to produce the nutrients necessary only. These GMO's would take up much less space and could even be modified for reasons other than food.
Forth: Oxygen Dependance.
--Oxygen will be need by this smaller population still even though it will need less per person. Oxygen could be extracted from the ice caps which have oxygen trapped inside and even the ocean water if worst comes worst. With this population being housed in this "Earth Skyscraper" the roof could be utilized for plant GMO's that could produced the max oxygen per area and be nourished using the population wastes (CO2, fecal matter, etc). This symbiotic relationship can maximize the capacity of Earth's population.
[Answer]
There are currently over **7 Billion** humans inhabiting the Earth and that value is increasing exponentially, its estimated that by the end of the century the human population will reach numbers of over **10 billion** but scientists are unsure if even this is sustainable.
Lets start with food; If you were to take all the land area being used for modern livestock and put it in one place, it would take up all of Africa (7.5 billion Acres), in fact even Africa would not be large enough as it would require 8-9 billion acres. Doing the same for crop production would take up an area the size of South America (4.4 billion Acres) but after a while the soil in these areas will degrade until fertility decreases and it erodes, rendering it useless for growing crops and not only that but scientists are unsure if farmers can even maintain their **current** cop yields due to changes in the environment.
See, the global average of carbon dioxide emissions per person is about 5 metric tons per year but for Americans that averages closer to 17 metric tons per year. Remember this is per person so if we have about 3 billion more people living on this planet and they all adopt a life style similar to an American, the effects of global warming will be worsened even more, in fact it's projected that the temperature of the Earth will increase by 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century and with that increase comes more extreme weather conditions which would inevitably disrupt food production even more. This can be partially remedied by forcing a everyone on Earth into a purely vegetarian diet and reclaiming the land to grow more crops instead of raising livestock but the crops won't be enough to feed an infinite number of people in fact some scientists predicted **10 billion** people and more than likely most people will not voluntarily switch to a vegetation diet. *After all, bacon is a beautiful thing.*
But what about the available water? Humans are currently using up to 30% of Earth's accessible water supply with the rest being used for agriculture and the water available to some people in countries life Ethiopia, Cambodia and Haiti isn't even clean enough to drink. So the amount reaching humans would have to increase with the increasing population so to answer the original question, Earth may be able to hold up to **10 billion** people living decent lives and may be able to hold more, but the quality of those people's lives (past the 10 billion mark) would be much lower than they are right now.
] |
[Question]
[
Here is a hypothetical, but not entirely plausible, scenario:
An organization or company (likely pharmaceutical) discovers the formula to develop a drug that stops aging (the human body's cells are created and die at an equal rate indefinitely).
The question I have is, would this discovery be broadcast to the public (through news, television, etc.) or would the organization/company keep it secret, or would a 3rd party organization (CIA, for example) intervene and seize the drug and prevent this information from being leaked.
I guess my question is, would this kind of discovery ever be broadcast to the public? I mean, if it did, one of many things could happen:
* It is sold only to the wealthiest people.
* The formula is leaked, it becomes mass produced, then we could have a population growth problem (because less people are dying).
* Riots ensue as people demand access to the drug.
I'm assuming people would want access to this drug; is this a wrong assumption?
Is my reasoning plausible in a real-world scenario? If not, could someone with better understanding on world economics and world events help me out on what would happen?
Let me know if there is something I need to further clarify.
[Answer]
Let's start from the top.
>
> The question I have is, would this discovery be broadcast to the public (through news, television, etc.) or would the organization/company keep it secret, or would a 3rd party organization (CIA, for example) intervene and seize the drug and prevent this information from being leaked.
>
>
>
This is going to depend entirely on how the company treats the whole situation. Actually, it's even more basic than that - it depends on just *who* created the drug.
Let's say you have a guy doing R & D for a large pharmaceutical corporation. If s/he stumbles on this formula, he's going to realize pretty quickly that s/he has just become one of the most powerful individuals on the planet. Chances are, this person is going to hide the formula for a while. If a lot of sci-fi books are to be believed, s/he will try to use it purely for his/her own benefit. [Insert evil genius scenario here].
It becomes more interesting if a *group* of people discovered this thing. There are a few paths that could be taken:
1. One member gets jealous and kills the others
2. The group uses the formula together but hides it from the public
3. Some moron in the group messes up, and the company finds out about it.
4. The company finds out about it anyway, without the moron's help.
I think that situation 4 is the likeliest. Lab tests are going to leave *some* trace of the prior experiment, and any discovery this momentous would have involved a lot of documentation. There would also have been lots of lab tests (probably on very short-lived animals) to make sure that this drug is the real deal. So in some way or another, the company learns about the drug, even if just one guy is behind it.
So the company knows. But just "who" in the company knows about this? It's not just going to be one or two people outside the team; there will be a *lot* of personnel involved. I'd expect the top executives would try to take control of the drug. They won't want *anyone* stealing their secrets. They won't release this to the public because they'd have the idea stolen, and they'd lose any bargaining power they had.
Would the CIA have found out? Well, sooner or later, some safety inspector from the government is going to walk into the laboratory and find . . . nothing. The executives are going to do everything in their power to hide this thing, even from the government. They most likely have large amounts of money at their disposal, and they can do behind-the-scenes work while making sure that the government doesn't get suspicious.
Actually, this might not be the case. This would be a fairly large cover-up. If somebody has found a formula for immortality while working at a company, the company will discover it, which means that more workers will learn about it, which means that matters will quickly get very complicated. All it would take is for one person to talk to an outsider.
If this scenario happens - many people within the company learn about it - then the cat could be out of the bag. This cover-up might be really, really difficult, if not impossible, assuming that someone else within the company learns of the formula's existence.
Going at it from another angle, why keep the drug secret? After all, the only way to make money off of this is to reveal it to someone. At this point, though, the executives aren't interested in making money off of this. They'll conduct many tests (on animals, probably, although I wouldn't put it past it to test it on willing human volunteers) before taking the drug themselves, imbibing it and then destroying any evidence of its existence. The profit here is immortality, not money. That's the only way they could profit.
---
Note: This assumes that a large company discovers the idea. While it is certainly possible that a small company or even an individual would discover the formula, I think it is more likely that a large corporation would because they have more money, workers, and resources in general than a smaller company.
[Answer]
The secret of immortality can't be hidden forever. Some day a new Assange or Snowden will reveal it to the public. Or another researcher will rediscover it independently.
The first question would be population regulation with respect to natural resources. The obvious solution would be war, then birth control and space exploration.
The second question would be memory. A brain is unlikely to remember a whole eternal life. Internet, search engines and big data farms are a first solution before the development of implanted transhuman devices.
Current religions could evolve regarding this new power: Is it a gift from God? Does it break the cycle of reincarnations? Should I choose NOT to take the immortality pill?
Is an antidote available? If so, is it available to the public or is it considered as a weapon of mass destruction?
Does the formula also work for animals? grasshoppers? mosquitos? Thus becoming a risk for mankind?
A side effect could also impact banking system: what about compound interests on very long time periods?
[Answer]
### Issues
There are patents, and there are trade secrets. There are no drugs that once a sample comes into possession of a competitor can't eventually be recreated by the competitor - and for something like this there is no limit to the funds they'd spend trying to duplicate the drug. In other words, the creator of the drug likely cannot create a fake scarcity or control its distribution once they start distributing it.
So you have to assume that if it ever falls into public knowledge, it will eventually become available to everyone - the rich and famous first, and ultimately it will become inexpensive enough for everyone unless there's a natural limitation or scarcity of some sort.
The government will be too late to the table unless it was discovered in their own labs.
It's probably hard to test for. We might already have a drug that extends life by 3-5 years but unless we do a long term study we might miss it. Even if a new drug comes out with similar characteristics, until hundreds of people live and die after taking it, there's no possibility of such a study. Say you develop the drug - it could take a year or more of animal testing prior to determining that it does extend life in animals, then years before it can be tested in humans. Again, this long process means that more people know about it long before it's ready.
Further, research is rarely a sudden, unexpected, and unforeseen "eureka!" moment. A lot of research takes place in deliberate steps towards a goal. Interesting results are read by other researchers and eventually someone pulls a bunch of research together, builds a hypothesis, and works towards a goal.
Lastly, human connections are very, very, very strong and often result in people choosing other people over rules and laws. In other words, once a person is aware of the drug, it's unlikely that they won't try to share it with their significant other, their children, grandchildren, and other close friends. The only thing that might overcome this is fear of getting caught, and that only if the drug is hard to make (natural scarcity) and is vigorously accounted for - which necessarily requires more people know about it in order to police each other. They would have to enter an agreement that binds their lives in the deal - immortality is great as long as you follow the rules and aren't killed by someone else also trying to protect, or worse - control - the source of immortality.
### Conclusion
An immortality pill, therefore, wouldn't likely be controlled by the government, wouldn't likely by known only to a very small group of people, and wouldn't likely stay in a lab under lock and key without some additional forces.
### Mitigating factors
So what you need to decide first is what you want to have happen, then craft the immortality pill and its creation in a way that allows your story to develop according to your desires.
For instance, introducing natural scarcity might be your biggest ally. If the process to create it is expensive and/or time consuming, such as requiring exposure in a new fusion reactor for weeks or months, or has to be created in a zero G environment for a long period of time (ie, space), or requires a particle accelerator then you may find that only a handful of pills can be created per year. It's notable that processes can also fend off competitors, particularly if the company is savvy and buys all the people or equipment available in the world that can possibly be used to create the drug. Further, as long as they don't patent the process, they can keep it a trade secret and possibly control it for far longer than scarcity obtained through other means.
If the ingredients are very rare, or do not naturally occur and must be created - such as the various radioactive elements that can only exist briefly after creation, or off-world elements (unobtanium), or materials that are government controlled (nuclear materials), etc then again, only a handful of pills might be available per year.
You'll need to decide whether the drug is something that must be taken continuously, or is a one-and-done type of situation. If it's continuous, then it can be used as a method of control, and given or denied. It also increases scarcity, but increases the number of pills available to competitors for testing and duplication.
One and done is interesting, particularly if it completely stops the aging process immediately - one would take it at their "prime" physical condition. The politics and social rules of giving them to children or babies to prevent them from ever "growing up" would be a unique topic. Perhaps it instead prevents aging beyond the prime of life, so can be given at any point prior. Perhaps it rejuvenates old cells and brings even those in their later years to a previous youthful condition. If it rejuvenates old cells, does it increase healing? Maybe if you lose a finger, or even a limb, it would eventually grow back.
Scarcity would be necessary if you wanted to make researchers and others in-the-know enter a pact of secrecy for any reason.
It's possible that the drug was discovered spontaneously, or secretly in the basement of a researcher stealing from his company. If only one person knows about it, they could take it themselves, and give it to their friends and family. They could even administer it to others secretly so no one else knew that they had become immortal.
You might also consider risks and side effects. Usually the most powerful drugs have the worst risks and side effects. Consider the Dune series - taking the spice could end up killing you, or making you more powerful. How would your world change if the drug caused death in 10-20% of those taking it, and there was no way to test for compatibility? Perhaps it causes certain physical infirmities. Acne, arthritis, reduced vision or blindness, tinnitus, mental problems such a bipolar, depression, ADD, Autism, etc.
Also, consider the impact to religious belief. Those with beliefs in the afterlife would see the drug as closing the door to their spiritual glory (for however that might be defined for them). They may see it as an offense, or blasphemy to change the laws of their deity, and may make war on those creating or using the drug.
Does the drug cause a visible effect on the person? Can you tell visually that someone has taken it and is therefore immortal? Can you tell if you have been given it - does it cause a different sensation or feeling in the body that is readily identifiable by the user?
Socially this changes what human life means - once it's widespread, and thousands of years pass, people must be getting bored. Why not enter a medically induced coma for a century or two, or based on certain events happening, such as off-world transportation or teraforming of another planet? Wars would fundamentally change. There would be an even greater pressure on the limited resources of earth, and chances are good birth control laws would be enacted (though this wouldn't be much of an issue if the drug caused infertility).
Perhaps there would be a schism between the mortals and the immortals - either due to cost of the drug, or due to religious/political beliefs. Over centuries the two would be opposing the other. Could be interesting if evolution caused the mortals to pass by the immortals in some significant way, leaving the immortals the "lessor" race.
Of course this assume the originator(s) are ethical people without any reason to mis-use the drug.
What if they instead wanted to use it for purposes of torture? "You are now immortal, and have been sentenced to 3,000 years of daily torture."
You can take this in so many directions, so a better question to ask is probably, "What impact do I want this drug to have on the world" and then design the drug to have that impact.
[Answer]
Before I address the social implications, I need to address some of the biological implications - specifically, how the drug works.
## Aging
Aging is, essentially, a three part process:
1. Before birth, a human grows from a zygote (a single cell) to a baby with the right number of arms, eyes, lungs, and so on - ready to live without direct support (that is, nutrients from the mother). The process takes roughly 9 months. After birth, babies spend roughly two decades growing into an adult. The DNA map is followed further; while the exact length of time varies, most humans stop physically changing by their mid 20s.
2. At that point, the body is complete. Cells die and are replaced, and for the next several decades, humans don't change very much.
3. As cells are replaced, there are occasional copy errors - cellular mutations. Eventually, the mutations pile up and begin to affect the body: wrinkles, muscle atrophy, and so on. Given enough copy errors, entire organs can fail, eventually resulting in death.
For immortality through cell regeneration, lasting for enough time, mutations would have to either be stopped before they start, or be removed, replaced, or repaired.
## Stopping mutations
If the immortality process stops mutations, then whoever took it would immediately stop aging, apart from normal wear-and-tear. Illness, heart disease, and even cancer would still be deadly; even if your heart is fine on a cellular level, if your arteries get stopped up with plaque, you'll still have a heart attack. Still, the process would be safe; it could be administered to anyone at any age.
Children, even unborn babies, would be able to grow up normally, even with the immortality treatment in place. The elderly wouldn't benefit from the drug nearly as much, because they already have cellular mutations; there would be no way to "turn back time".
A discovery like that would take decades, if not centuries, to create and test. Keeping something like that a secret would be nearly impossible; as it progressed, I'm sure many companies would begin testing their own 'immortality treatment'. It would most likely be released slowly and updated over time, gradually extending life rather than a sudden switch where no one dies. One decade, most people live until they are 80; the next, 85, and the next, 100. The change would be slow enough that the implications of longer lifespans would have time to sink in to civilization at large - and anyone opposed to it would have to fight gradual change, which is a very difficult process. One or two generations in, and most resistance would be gone.
Population would change, but since it would be a gradual change of tens or hundreds of years, the impact wouldn't be very severe; the end result would be a high population of healthy, useful adults, which would boost productivity, science, and technology. Fears about the drug may crop up, but overall people would most likely trust it.
## Remove, Repair, Replace
On the other hand, if the treatment repaired existing mutations, such as by using some sort of template to remove "bad DNA", the elderly would benefit tremendously. As their cells naturally were replaced, the new cells would be free of mutations; their wrinkles would vanish, their hair would regain its color, and their muscles would begin to regrow. Limbs wouldn't grow back, but diseases like cancer would be eradicated. Unlike the other drug, this would be a "miracle cure". In months or even days, the elderly would be returned to their prime of life; everyone would look like they were in their late 20s, where their cells had the lowest number of mutations in their adult life.
However, the process would be incredibly dangerous to children, especially before birth. The processes the human body uses to grow limbs and organs in a child is much different than the normal maintenance cycle of an adult human. The treatment would most likely destroy a zygote before it ever had a chance to mature, meaning that mothers would have to stop the treatment to have any chance of giving birth naturally. If the process were a one-time event, rather than an ongoing course, it may permanently stop natural birth.
Because this process would be a sudden, immediate change, and would result in fast, obvious results (cells could be observed reproducing error-free within minutes in a lab), it is possible that this process could be developed in secret - indeed, it could be an accidental discovery. Testing, of course, would be found to cause sterility in women, which would require more testing. If information got out, there would immediately be two sides: those that want immediate immortality and demand the immediate release of the drug, and those that want to save the children and call for its eradication.
The result would be who won in the end: either be a select few "immortals", who purchase the drug on the black market and hide their age, or a planet populated entirely by immortal adults, with no chance to even have children.
[Answer]
What kind of story do you want to tell, or world do you want to build?
Any of your answers could work, and be plausible.
What might happen in the real world would, in my opinion, depend heavily on the characters involved, and their motivations. BigPharmCo(tm) presumably sets out to develope this drug (not an accidental discovery) to make money, which they can't do if they don't sell it. Assuming it is legit research, there are drug trials, and some public/scientific awareness as it develops until it is tested, and found to work. Cat is out of the bag, people know about it, and money is made. Maybe there are riots, maybe not.
Now, assume on the other hand, it's an accidental discovery by one lone social do-gooder. It's easy to make and produce and just requires you mix some common household chemicals together. It gets posted on the internet, an din 24 hours is around the world, and everyone has it. That's a very different story.
Third option, it's developed in secret by the Illuminati Cabal of Evil, given only to their trusted inner circle. Anyone who finds out about it gets killed with extreme prejudice to keep the secret. No population pressure, but you get a great mystery story of power, politics and intrigue with immortal schemers.
So, I go back to the question, what kind of world do you want to build, and what kind of story do you want to tell?
I think the consequences of the potion's discover will be intimately tied to the motivations of the characters who discover it.
p.s. The old television show "Babylon 5" had an episode where a character created an immortality potion which required the death of other sentients to make. She wanted to give it to the Earth gov as revenge for destroying her people, knowing we would fall upon each other, killing our own kind just to make some of us immortal.
[Answer]
If a company discovered this they would immediately patent it, market it, and market it hard.
Just think how much people are willing to pay for creams that claim to reduce the effect of aging and do basically nothing.
How much would they pay to really reverse aging?
The company could release it at $100,000 dollars a dose and rich people would still pay.
If a dose lasted more than a year then insurance/national health services/etc might even be willing to pay out at $100,000 as it will reduce the cost of covering age-related illness. Ironically people healthy in old age might be left to age unless they can afford the drug themselves while people who start declining would get it provided for them.
[Answer]
I think that in the real world, the desire for immortality is over-estimated.
Think about how this would actually work. The miracle pill would have to be taken frequently (probably daily) so that new cells could be exposed to it. And because rich people would be able to afford it, it would be expensive. There wouldn't be some conspiracy to keep it out of the hands of ordinary people; drug companies would simply maximize their profits by keeping it expensive and exclusive.
So how are you going to pay for this expensive miracle pill every day for the next few centuries? You're not going to be able to retire, so you'd have to spend the rest of your life (i.e. eternity) working unless you have enough money that you can live off interest forever.
Meanwhile all of your friends and family are dying, either because they get cancer, get hit by a bus, or can't afford the miracle pill. Remember, this miracle pill would only help people who would otherwise die of "old age". It wouldn't stop every other form of death.
Would you want to spend eternity working, with few friends or family? I wouldn't. Maybe I would could go 100-200 years, but not much more than that.
So the only people who would really be "immortal" would be the ones rich enough to not have to constantly work and don't mind the ever-decreasing circle of friends and family. I think that in reality the number of "immortals" would number in the thousands or millions -- not enough to have significant social implications.
[Answer]
Well, as others have said it could depend greatly on who discovers it.
Right now there are several different studies into anti-aging treatments. It's hard to find the links because there is so much crap on the internet but in the last couple months I've read several different articles with promising treatments for different areas to prevent aging. The last one has to do with keeping the cells healthy and continuing to replace themselves. They have been successful in 'reversing' aging in mice.
Any company that is having any success or even believes they will have any success broadcasts this information to the world. Why? Primarily for stock prices and funding. The first company that can scientifically prove to push back aging even a dozen years will be unbelievably wealthy. It keeps people interested in the company and keeps the stock prices going up.
Now if a government is developing this, it will likely try to keep it secret and if successful, likely succeed in keeping the secret for a few decades. But knowledge will grow and more and more people will know and eventually, maybe even a foreign government will steal the secret and it will continue to spread. Likely causing riots in the country that kept the secret, maybe purging all the 'lucky' ones who had the treatment.
Of course the big problem for distribution will be how easy is it to produce and how long does a single treatment last? If they come up with a process that makes it as easy as aspirin then it will become very common quickly. Is is something that would need to be taken daily for optimal effect? or one dose a year or a decade?
No matter what things would have to change socially and very fast in order to deal with the dramatic reduction in deaths from old age. If the treatment is something regulatable then forcing mandatory sterilization after 1-2 children could happen, or some other population control. Getting people off this rock we call Earth would become a MUCH higher priority, and considering the lifetimes we might be able to enjoy, traveling to a nearby star system might become more palatable.
The rich would certainly start putting money into space habitation, for self-preservation if nothing else.
But ultimately if more than a handful of people know about it, the knowledge will spread, it might take decades and it might take a while to make it easy to spread to the masses, but it would happen. Depending on how fast it could happen, say it's an aspirin pill you take twice a year, and in 5 years say %80 are taking it, social reforms would need to be drastic and fast, making the Chinese look pedestrian in comparison or in less than 10 years we'd be seeing a lot of pressure for resources, not the least of which would be retirement benefits.
Patricide and Matricide might go up a bit as children discover they want what is 'theirs'. People having more than 2 kids will become pariahs'. Retirement might only become possible for those who have made enough to become independently wealthy. Especially until a new 'life expectancy' settles in.
Also there could be the problem that some people will not be affected by the 'cure' or adversely affected. There are several different sci-fi stories about some percentage of the population having bad things happen. If %10 is unaffected (the still have a normal life-expectancy) then they would have no reason to follow population control, and could be a very resentful population. If the treatment has an adverse affect, maybe it causes some kind of mental instability or dementia. Something else to worry about.
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Assuming everyone has access and is now immortal you'll probably have suicide become legal, childbirth regulation, and maybe even government culling.
I pretty much agree with the other answers on the other points.
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Going beyond who and how the drug is distributed, you should also consider (assuming your world is earth based) religious implications of the drug; for example (and this is not definitive just a guess) Christians believe they get their immortality with God AFTER they die, so you can bet your butt they wouldn't take it. They would quite likely see it as blasphemous because it negates God's judgement and do what they could to stop it.
Of course there are other religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, et al) that all probably have their own reasons for thinking the drug is a bad idea; unfortunately I'm not as well versed in those religions to give you any idea.
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Sooner or later everyone will get to know about the formula, so unless it is impossible to make enough for everyone, then everyone will have access to it. (This may take many 100s of years to happen.)
So the process of aging has been stopped, but we still need to eat. Some people will still have babies…
So where does all the food come from, repeat for [space, land, energy, etc]
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The acceptation and demand parameters for that drug once it is revealed are multiple
## Ethics
How ethical is the production of the drug ? Does it involve principles that are taboo, rejected by a group or a religious community ? (does it involve cloning, stem cells, human trials ? Do it work better on a specific group of individuals ?)
## Use
Is it a one-time thing, or do you need a regular fix ? Does it have side effects ? (memory loss, changes in personality, addiction...)
## Costs
Obviously, the more complex the refining, the easier it is to maintain a form of monopoly. That would lead to the creation of cheaper knockoffs (with shorter duration/heavier side effects) and a black market.
## Skepticism
If someone told in the news they found such a drug, I would be highly skeptical. The acceptation of the drug could be helped by not revealing its full potential (simply indicating that it slows down the aging process, not stops it)
# Long term
The very rich having an easier access to the drug, the heirs would never inherit. This could lead to internal conflicts, wars, and redistribution, or on the contrary to a very strong form of aristocracy lead by immortal financial barons. Given their immortal nature, there would be a form of equilibrium to be reached at some point, and possibly a complete stalling of all progress.
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some assumptions first since i cant comment.
the discovery was not by accident
the scientists really did start out to discover a drug that stops aging
I'll approach from a different perspective:
Now since you did say "organization" then the people in the organization would want access to the drug (for their loved ones parents grandparents) even if they promise to not say that it is an immortality drug, the secret will only last for some decades.
for example if the oldest drug taker is 100. Things will become suspicious when that person is say 130 years. But even then a single person that is 130 years old will only be regarded as some sort of abberation in genetics. (pure luck)
two persons, thre persons 4 or 10 still pure luck.
oh by the way the first person to reach 140 would probably have to be told of this drug because he/she will start becoming really suspicious.
Also, you did not mention whether this drug also makes the old look young again. In which case your breathing room is probably months. You would also have to tell these new immortals the secret (which makes the secret harder to keep)
Ok so now the secret is out
you have a breathing room of decades if age is only arrested.
you have a breathing room of a couple of years if age is reversed.
end result: secret will be revealed.
Government steps in and starts regulating.
Riots probably not. Don't we already have people dying because they cant afford hospitalization, and I dont see them rioting in the streets.
There might be some over-reaction on the government regarding population control. But it will find a balance.
People can still die from accident, drug overdose etc. suicide.
People can still die of sickness (you did say it only stops aging) so people can still die of lung cancer, heart attack, cirrhosis etc..
Murder, crimes of passion etc.
Once the balance point is determined then population control might ease up.
Extra note from <http://www.noeticscience.co.uk/immortality-where-to-put-all-those-accumulating-memories/>
But what of memory? Research indicates that there is a certain part of the brain where memories reside. But it is of a finite size. As more and more experiences and memories are accumulated throughout the centuries and aeons of our immortality, that part of the brain will just become clogged and full and unable to absorb any more information. It would also be difficult if not impossible to recall information because there are so many full rooms,corridors and halls all full of filing cabinets, full of folders, full of papers.
If this is true immortals might be forced to retire at age 275. So once again the job market will find a balance point.
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The company would announce the discovery right away, and arrange for proper medical testing. Then it would be marketed to the very rich at a very high price. Overtime it would be sold at progressively lower prices to a wider audience, until it would become quite affordable after the patent protection rans out and generics become available.
Rest of answer is really, explanation of why there is no real reason to hide the discovery or otherwise give it special handling.
Religious impact would be bad. IIRC correctly the bible specifically says that after the flood God limited humans to a specific maximum age. I think it was 120 years or so. The specific number is not important, but "unaging" would be a serious case of sacrilege and messing with Gods domain. I think it would be manageable as long as the drug does not reverse aging and using it is voluntary. Fundamentalists would rage about the "mark of the beast" and "signs of the apocalypse" and some would take direct violent action. But that all happens even without the drug. By the time the effects would become significantly different from living longer due to better medical care, people would be upset about something else. Also religious intolerance is almost invariably targeted on the weak; the poor, the minorities, the outsiders. In this case the early adopters would be the rich and powerful. People capable of defending themselves and, more importantly, shaping the public opinion.
Drug that actually reversed aging would be much harder, but since being able to cure the effects of past aging implies being able to also cure past effects of injuries and diseases, the drug would offer true immortality (if not killed), not just unaging. That would be outside the question parameters, so I will simply ignore it.
The economic and social impact would be smaller than people generally assume. This is because the negative effects are simply gradual increases to problems we already have. We already have unsolved issues with population growth and social inequality. All the drug would change is the length of time we have until we can pretend the issues will go away without us having to do anything. That might actually **improve** our chances of taking effective action. There is no real reason to think it would make the issues more difficult.
Also people do not actually die from old age, they die from diseases and injuries. As long as the drug only stopped aging the effect would be limited. The average lifespan would be increased, possibly significantly, but it would be a difference in degree not kind. And the increase would be entirely in the so called "productive age". The amount of people to support would increase less than the amount of people available to work supporting it. Especially in countries that currently have issues with age distribution.
Some fears are simply pointless. One example is that if the older more experienced people never retire, there will not be space for the young anymore. Work requirements are not stable enough for that to happen. Also why on earth would the unaging people with long careers and decades of savings want to be stuck doing the same job forever? Only reason I can think of is if they have a specific talent for the job and I cannot really see the downside to society with that happening. And even then they'd probably take long sabbaticals and change employers semi-regularly. Or use the money saved over decades of work on something fun or productive instead of retirement.
There would also be economic and social benefits. I already mentioned people with special talents not having to stop working due to age and the increase in the work-age population. Additionally, the quality of decision making concerning issues like climate change would improve if people expected to actually personally see the dire predictions come true. The generation gap would also be reduced not increased since the very old would be less separated from young adults than middle-aged people are now. A 400+ person could easily and naturally have shared hobbies and interests with a 20+ person. Currently people of different generations are in separates stages of their careers and life's, with the drug they'd simply have differences in experience and accumulated wealth. People already have vast differences in experiences and wealth, so this would simply be status quo.
I am not going to elaborate further as the details would be endless and are not really relevant to the question. I'll just sum it up. A drug that stopped aging would not be a major problem and there would be no reason to hide or otherwise restrict it beyond what is normal to patented drugs. A drug that reversed aging... that would be something else..
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## Background
Science fiction is rife with "super materials". Most often the materials are made from elements unknown to Current Era (CE) science. They use names that make us think of elements without being real elements.
Some examples of these are
* Tritanium
* Duranium
* Dilithium
* Tricobalt
* Trilithium
* Naquadah
* Naquadria
* Neutronium
The problem is that anyone even casually knowledgeable of physics or chemistry knows that these "elements" don't exist - nor are there any "missing" elements in the periodic table.
I have worked with advanced materials and know that there's really a few ways we can get materials with exotic properties:
1. New alloy combinations (e.g. Beryllium + Aluminum or high
temperature super conductors).
2. New composite combinations (e.g. Nanotube fiber + some matrix
materials).
3. New methods of crystallization, cooling, or heat treatment (e.g. into
amorphous solids)
4. Elements unknown to CE science (using [Islands of
Stability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability)).
5. Use non-baryonic matter.
Island of Stability:
>
> In nuclear physics, the island of stability is the prediction that a
> set of heavy isotopes with a near magic number of protons and neutrons
> will temporarily reverse the trend of decreasing stability in elements
> heavier than Uranium. Although predictions of the exact location
> differ somewhat, Klaus Blaum expects the island of stability to occur
> in the region near the isotope 300Ubn.[1] Estimates about the amount
> of stability on the island are usually around a half-life of minutes
> or days, with "some optimists" expecting half-lives of millions of
> years.[2]
>
>
> Although the theory has existed since the 1960s, the existence of such
> superheavy, relatively stable isotopes has not been demonstrated. Like
> the rest of the superheavy elements, the isotopes on the island of
> stability have never been found in nature, and so must be created in
> an artificial nuclear reaction to be studied. However, scientists have
> not found a way to carry out such a reaction.
>
>
>
## The Question
So for SF stories that require a material with exotic properties, what properties might these "super materials" hold in reality?
I realize that's a wide open question, so although I am interested in speculations, I will judge based upon the material's structural properties (tension, compression, bearing, shear, etc.).
Remember bulk material properties are dependent upon the chemical bond strengths so we are limited by the strength of covalent bonds.
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Your closing remark, *Remember bulk material properties are dependent upon the chemical bond strengths so we are limited by the strength of covalent bonds.* makes me think "maybe *not*".
A great cutting-edge research topic for near-future SF is the use of magnetic flux pinning and superconductors to make large-scale structure. A space station can be held together by flux that's stronger than physical material and yet can be stressed and replaced without permanent damage. Two modules can be held in relative position by invisible lines of force, as strong as the power you can feed to augment it, using electromagnetism to offset or restore from any outside force. Normally it's passive in that a force to one object that causes it to move relative to the other will induce electric currents in the superconductor which generate forces to compensate and reverse the motion. So the force trying to tear it apart is being used *against itself* to resist the separation, as long as the superconductor can buffer it. In reality you need to add some power to overcome losses and make it "go back" rather than being able to perfectly resist a force with infinitesimal movement produced.
The result from a large view is an unbreakable beam of apparent unlimited strength. For a network mesh of elements, it can be elastic (allow them to move and store energy in the superconductors or as magnetic fields) or rigid or change from one to the other, or reconfigure on command by changing the presented magnetic flux tubes and capture points.
Now scale that down: instead of nodes being multi-ton spacecraft modules, what if they were built using nanotechnology, with one node being the size of a mineral grain? What appears to be a common brick or stone would be held together not with residual covalent forces between the mineral grains, but with magnetic flux pinning and the ability to put the grains all back where they belong with no permanent damage after a huge stress passes through.
It would be a human-scale material with unlimited strength, far more than you can suppose from normal atomic bond strengths even with what you get from [fullerenes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullerene)!
How's that for super-material?
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Quark matter *strangelets* are theorized to have interesting properties (including the apocalyptic one of infecting and converting normal matter into "strange" matter).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_matter>
>
> Strange matter is a particular form of quark matter, usually thought of as a “liquid” of up, down and strange quarks. It is to be contrasted with nuclear matter, which is a liquid of neutrons and protons (which themselves are built out of up and down quarks), and with non-strange quark matter, which is a quark liquid containing only up and down quarks. At high enough density, strange matter is expected to be color superconducting. Strange matter is hypothesized to occur in the core of neutron stars, or, more speculatively, as isolated droplets that may vary in size from femtometers (strangelets) to kilometers (quark stars).
>
>
>
The true beauty of strange matter is revealed when you interact normal matter with a strangelet.
>
> ... with each absorbed neutron releasing ~10 MeV of energy (Fahri & Jaffel984), ...
>
>
>
Stop and think about that; this is many times the energy release of nuclear fusion reactions. A strangelet would be releasing photons at fantastic energies just by feeding it with a slow stream of neutrons. A ship powered by a strangelet engine would be a fantastic weapon simply by slewing the vessel around to point the drive beam at whatever seem threatening.
So while you might not want to build anything out of strange matter, you can use it as a pretty compact energy source.
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There are very many natural and artificial materials which today are available only in tiny quantities. In the future, in bulk? Examples include spider silk (and spinarets to fabricate with it) and buckminsterfullerenes with precisely controlled chemical substitutions so they can be built into molecules and polymers. Oh and unwettable dirt-shedding fabrics nanostructured like lotus leaves.
One thing we have no leads on. Theory suggests room temperature superconductors are possible. If one were discovered it would have huge impact. Superconductivity remains very poorly understood compared to most other properties of matter.
It's not really a supermaterial but if someone could work out how to produce muons in an energy-efficient manner we'd have our energy needs satisfied via muon-catalysed fusion: a trivially simple process if you have the muons.
More possibly a really high energy density battery or capacitor that lasts well and is not prone to exploding when provoked. I'm optimistic i'll see electrical energy storage cracked in my lifetime and a fully solar powered future arriving.
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Don't forget "programmable matter" as [invented by Wil McCarthy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Matter).
quasi-living nanomaterials that have the equivalent of "blood" (resource distribution) and metabolism, and might or might not have a cell structure (think bone for a natural example).
atomic-scale structures or layers that allow novel or optimal combinations of properties, while not being overly mysterious in fundamental limits of what individual properties (like strength) can allow.
Look at what's been discovered about graphene, and now-mundane semiconductors in general. Electrical characteristics might not be interesting for "material", but imagine the same kind of control being applied to the atomic bonds that are responsible for bulk mechanical properties.
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This answer relies on knowledge from my answer at [Does Mohs scale of mineral hardness always hold?](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/127228/does-mohs-scale-of-mineral-hardness-always-hold) so I suggest that you read it before you continue reading this answer.
Different materials are best for different purposes so it might not be best to create only one material to use for many purposes. For each purpose, there's a trade-off between different advantageous properties.
Given a set of properties that we want a material to have all of, there exists a an amount of each property that a material can exist with each of for which there can exist a material with even more of one of those properties but not without having less of one of the other properties.
It can sometimes be desiarable to create a single material with many purposes because it enables many different objects to be recycled together because they're all made of the same material.
Here are some possible desirable traits for such a multipurpose material: nuclear stability, infinite ductility, theoretical strength, thermal stability, reactivity, amorphous, and non-stick.
I can think of such a good material but don't know if it's stable enough to be able to be produced. Grow a perfect crystal of Carbon(IV) nitride around a seed crystal by slowly freezing it out of its molten state in an environment with a precisely controlled temperature to get rid of all impurities.
Melt it and add a small bit of excess nitrogen atoms then let it slowly cool from a very high temperature in a crucible it doesn't stick to to be stress free after it undergoes the glass transition.
I think its maximum homogeneous nucleation rate is low enough that it can undergo the glass transition because not very much volume energy would be released in the nucleation of the crystalline state because when nitrogen makes 3 bonds, its bonds can flex back and forth with ease.
Next, etch it nanosmooth with a liquid that has a contact angle greater than 90° with it. Because it has a contact angle greater than 90°, it will not stack to the object or even leave one drop on it after the last bit of the object gets pulled out so it will not evaporate from the substance redepositing what it etched away as a rough surface.
I think that as a result of the slight excess of nitrogen atoms, it will be a covalent network with random walking half antibonds and if the etching acid is dilute enough, atoms will be dissolving much faster than they're precipitating onto the surface because it's a dissolution by chemical reaction so half antibonds will random walk to the surface faster than the surface atoms get etched away giving the surface atoms a full outer shell making the material non-stick enough that the acid will not wet it and therefore leave it nanosmooth after the material gets pulled out of the acid. The material will probably have such a high theoretical strength that it's better than any infinitely ductile material that could be produced.
It will have a very high strength to start with because it was etched nanosmooth, and it will be so hard that almost nothing can scratch it very much so its strength won't reduce very much with use. A dish made of it would really truly be unbreakable as a result of its high strength. According to my answer at [Why is glass so breakable?](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/305400/why-is-glass-so-breakable), for any material, the speed two spheres of that material that are the same size must collide with each other in order to form a crack is the sheer modulus to the power of -2 times the strength to the power of 5/2 times density to the power of -1/2 times some constant, but that substance would have a strength that's a significant fraction of its sheer modulus.
Its strength will lower even less with use because it's amorphous. Also because it's so smooth, any contact edge between water, air, and that substance will be vibrating due to the dynamic equilibruim of the water's evaporation and condensation making the advancing and receding contact angle of water with it be so close together that drops of water on plates made of that substance will roll off with ease in the dishwasher.
Even drops of a liquid that has a contact angle less than 90° but doesn't completely wet it will roll off with ease until they're at locally lowest point on the surface on the underside. Because it's amorphous, it will warp with very high temperatures so another material might be best for temperatures of 2000°C.
It's perfect crystal corundum with a small fraction of its aluminum atoms replaced with silicon atoms etched nanosmooth. Corundum actually is a covalent network according to an alternate definition despite the electronegativity difference of more than 1.7 because each bond has 2 electrons localized to that bond.
Since it's a covalent network, replacing a small fraction of the aluminum atoms with silicon atoms would create random walking half antibonds some of which would random walk to the surface making it non-stick.
I think a perfect crystal of that substance can be slowly grown from a molten mixture of aluminum, silicon, and oxygen where the amount of silicon in the mixture is very small and the number of oxygen atoms is slightly less than 1.5 times the number of aluminum atoms plus the number of silicon atoms. Actually 2 crystals would be nucleated, one of that substance and one of pure silicon. That substance could actually be etched into a crucible for molten carbon(IV) nitride because it would be so non-stick.
It would probably also be a very dark substance because it would be slightly electrically conductive. Once a research group that conducts all useful research very efficiently exists, they could actually make a giant rod of the microcrystalline version of that substance lying on the ground by pouring its molten form into a mold then freezing it from the bottom at a controlled rate by laser cooling the part just under the freezing surface then chiseling it into an elevated railway.
That railway would only weather at the surface because it would be nonporous because grains wouldn't detach from other grains anywhere on their surface because the grain boundaries wouldn't be under very much stress because atoms could move across the grain boundary to release the stress caused by the different grains contracting more in a different direction because all grains are the same substance.
I think it should be considered a type of rock because it's a hard, opaque, brittle, nonshiny solid. Water could not go in and freeze cracking it.
Buildings could also be made from that material and be strong enough to support themselves and even withstand an earthquake as long as there's no sharp concave edge in them and they would also be fireproof.
Lonsdalite could in theory be much more unbreakable under the right conditions. Suppose you have a sheet of it parallel to its own cleavage plane made by fracturing it along its cleavage plane.
I think it will retain it's extremely high theoretical tensile strength even after scratching because if it goes under tension after it gets scratched, the tip of the initiated crack will propagate parallel to the surface rather than propagate further in.
If the lonsdalite had a small impurity of nitrogen atoms in it, the brittle fractured surface would also be very non-stick and low friction and since it also has a high thermal conductivity, no part of its surface would heat up very much from scratching and since it's low friction and doesn't easily heat up from scratching, it would be really slow to get scratched retaining its theoretical strength as it gets scratched.
That property is an orientation dependent property so it would not be possible to build an object out of it of any shape and have it be so unbreakable.
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## Smart materials
Decades ago I worked on some projects investigating just what we could do with materials and structures. The over all project labeled these as "smart materials", however, the details of what each of the individual idea did were quite different.
Some of the things we investigated:
### Damage diagnostics
For composite materials, include in the reinforcing fibers some that could also be used as optical fibers. Then transmit carefully calibrated light through the fibers. We were able to determine stress, strain, temperature, and many other properties of the material in which the fiber was embedded. Theoretically this would allow us instant information on the state of the object / vehicle on which this material was used - including battle damage assessment.
### Adaptive materials
It turns out that some materials change shape when exposed to electric currents (e.g. piezoelectric crystals). By using this property, the researchers hoped to be able to change wing shape so that the wing was always the perfect shape for the flight regime in which an aircraft was flying. There are many other possible uses for this sort of technology too.
But these materials also worked in reverse, putting strain on the material caused them to produce electric current. This would allow anything monitoring that output to know exactly what sort of load the structure experienced. There were possible applications in identifying loads beyond the design limit of the structure (good for figuring out when a vehicle required maintenance beyond what was typically required).
### Special coatings
These included coatings that changed color and intensity based upon temperature, pressure, electrical signals, et al. This was very useful in the lab to determine which portions of a sample were exposed to different conditions. However, it could also be useful for adaptive camouflage.
### Embedded devices
Traditionally manufactured goods possess a (dumb) structure, with every component individually isolated (engine, passenger compartment, suspension, etc.). Embedded devices was the practice of blurring the line between these different isolated entities.
Imagine sensors embedded along the exterior of the vehicle's structure for sensing enemies with other sensors embedded along the interior of the structure for self-diagnostics.
Furthermore, simple and small computer and memory units would track all of the maintenance and usage information of a vehicle. You would integrate all of the on-board sensor technology into a single access point. To find the maintenance required for each vehicle would be as simple as touching a memory tab/button. The vehicle would know what needed to be done and could tell any maintenance personnel its requirements. This alleviates the need of doing all maintenance at a single facility which was tracking that vehicle's needs.
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Neutronium may well have near perfect sound and heat conduction, and be a near perfect electrical insulator. but it would only be useful on the nano-scale.
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If a much older solar system - say 10 billion years with a slow burning star - would sprout intelligent life at around that age, given the half-life of U-235 and natural Uranium reserves, according to math U-238, although twice as hard to find, would still be available. But U-235 would be nearly all decayed and difficult if not impossible to find in even trace amounts.
If such a civilization became aware of the physics required for nuclear bombs - like we did decades before building ours - my understanding is that they would not be able to since they cannot obtain any fissile isotopes, and U-235 is the lowest hanging fruit.
Their easiest path would be to convert the U-238 into Plutonium-239 but without a fissile isotope and chain reaction to begin with, they would have no way to generate neutrons in the amounts needed to create a fissile critical mass.
Would they have to wait until they can build viable fusion reactors and use those as the neutron source with which to produce Plutonium from the Uranium? Or is there another path they can take to synthesize their first critical mass in the absence of a fissile isotope on the planet.
If yes, I am particularly interested if such a technology would viably be produced -before- fusion reactors.
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There are lot of neutron sources:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_source>
Not all of them is useful for large scale transmutation since their neutron flux is many orders of magnitude smaller than that of nuclear reactors. However, spallation neutron sources have higher flux than reactors and don't require radioisotopes (They are high energy particle accelerators bombing high-Z materials with protons). Thus, they can transform U-238 into Pu-239, or Thorium-232 (which has half life even exceeding U-238) into U-233.
Since the Thorium fuel cycle has many disadvantages (including especially nastily radioactive daughter elements), and their spallation source will need to have extreme luminosity and, therefore, extreme energy requirements, the production of their first tons of nuclear fuel would require significant effort. (Enriching uranium is, in fact, also quite difficult).
After they have their first critical reactor, they can use it to breed more and more fuel and construct other reactors and nukes.
Thus, if they really want, **they can achieve fission before fusion**, but they may deem it impractical.
EDIT: It was suggested that without natural fissionables they will never discover fission and have no motive to produce artificial fissionables, but I disagree with this. If their science advances roughly on the same way as ours, the following will happen:
First they discover radioactive decay in long-lived natural isotopes (or in those which are continuously recreated by cosmic radiation) and, thus, get to know that a nucleus is composed of smaller parts. Then they invent cyclotrons and linear accelerators and start to systematically smash together all available isotopes to see what happens. This way they discover the neutron and start to formulate their theories and models about the inner workings of the nucleii. If they are clever enough, they may predict fission purely theoretically and start to search paths to nucleii with the required Z and N in order to test their models.
Even if they can't discover it on paper, one day a diligent scientist will test U-238 or Th-232 against neutron radiation and, thus, discover Plutonium and U-233. The elated researcher will isolate these atoms and test them again against neutrons. He will then find weird mid-sized atoms in the sample and realize that nucleii were split in half. Someone will then notice the energy source potential of the process and formulate a letter to the government...
Edit2: If the civilization builds enough of them, they can produce the needed fuel by spallation sources. But there is a more efficient way to use the spalled neutrons:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerator-driven_subcritical_reactor>
Subcritical reactors are safe, and able to convert Th 232 into U 233 effectively. No such reactor was realised so far, but this is a well established design.
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# No
You do not **need** natural fission, nor fusion as a source for neutrons. A [spallation source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spallation) will easily provide a rich fauna of decaying elements, some of which will give off neutrons. The concept of nuclear spallation was first coined in 1937 by [Glenn Seaborg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inelastic_neutron_scattering).
Once you have slugs or rods of these neutron sources, or if you simply just alloy them with Uranium-238, then creating Plutonium-239 is the same as before: make a stack of U-238, and with graphite as a moderator.
I will also remind that [the first Plutonium was created with a cyclotron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium#Discovery).
So in summary: no, fusion is not **needed** to make nuclear fission weapons in a place where most natural radioactivity has decayed away. That can happen anyway.
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# It is unlikely that any industrial fission source would be available
After reviewing some various possibilities, it seems unlikely that any fission source would be available or made available. In short, there are ways to build neutron sources, but the neutron flux inside a nuclear reactor is something like 1e9 times higher than achievable with methods mentioned by MichaelK.
A cyclotron or particle accelerator/spallation source would be sufficient for nuclear physics experiments, and it is likely that the people of your world would have comparable level of understanding to us of how nuclear physics works.
However, with no industrial scale neutron sources, they simply won't be able to make fissile materials in quantities sufficient for making bombs or powerplants. In your world, there will be only two isotopes heavier than bismuth available to work with: Th-232 and U-238. Both of these have very low neutron absorption cross sections and will not generate very much neutron flux as their fission chain reactions are far from sustainable. If you put a big block of them together, they would generate significant $\alpha$-flux, but few neutrons. The $\alpha$-flux wouldn't help much either; the two isotopes, if they absorbed an alpha particle, would turn to U-236 and Pu-242 respectively, both of which have half-lives in the million year range, are not fissile, and then alpha decay back down whichever isotope they came from.
# Conclusion
Without natural U-235, there does not exist a sufficiently large neutron source to breed viable amounts of fissile material for bombs or power plants. Furthermore, without a fission starter, it is unlikely that there would be any fusion bombs, at least not with current technology. Fusion bombs use a fission starter to generate the temperatures and pressures needed to start fusion. Better off spending all your Manhattan project money developing clean, safe fusion power. This world is starting to sound better than ours.
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No. Not really. On Earth, we did know the main principle behind atomic bomb many years earlier than developing the first atomic bomb test, but remember that here on Earth we also have had ample amounts (at least when nationwide resources were utilized) of uranium and plutonium available to us, which actually had significant effect in learning the mechanics of building an atomic bomb.
On a planet where neither uranium, not plutonium are available at all, I don't think those people (or whoever those intelligent creatures are) would get any idea about the principle behind a nuclear bomb.
The problem with building a hydrogen bomb/reaction (fusion, as compared to atomic bomb or fission) is that currently this can only be achieved under ***extremely*** high temperature and pressure. Basically you need a fission-grade explosion to trigger the fusion reaction. Without having sufficient amounts of fission fuels to play with, I don't think any civilization would be able to build a fusion reactor.
While there **are** some ideas about a *cold fusion* reactor (which wouldn't require the incredibly high temperatures to initiate the fusion reaction), nobody has been able to build any of these so far. So, practically speaking, no, it would be extremely improbable (the closest term to *impossible* in science) for any civilization to jump directly at fusion reactors/bombs without first having the materials required for fission reactors/bombs.
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**No**
To summarize other answers - fission material can be generated without fusion. However, this implies a very steep learning curve for their nuclear physics, and fission process in particular. So, they *may* develop a practical fusion reactor before mass-producing any heavy isotopes needed for fission.
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Once an initial critical mass is available, it will be possible to use that to breed more of it. Putting plutonium in a reactor and surrounding it with u238 will allow them to generate more plutonium than they are consuming. But all of this requires an initial critical mass of fissile material, which would be impractical to produce because the only techniques of neutron bombardment that can measure up to practical scale are either another chain fission reaction(which is a catch-22) or a fusion reaction.
Deuterium-Tritium is the easiest fusion reaction to achieve and provides neutrons abundantly. The problem even then is that tritium is about as impossible to get from nature as U-235 would be in your world. We produce it by neutron bombardment in the same way as Plutonium. Which means it will also be out of your civilization's reach.
The conclusion I reach is that no, a civilization would not be able to breed their initial critical mass until they can sustain fusion, and at that, they would even reach the technology at a later stage than humankind has, due to the absence of tritium. They would have to achieve practical deuterium-deuterium fusion before they can produce neutrons to the scale needed to breed plutonium.
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Humans have finally made contact with aliens! We've just received a signal from a civilization somewhere in the [Orion Nebula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Nebula). It contains a message from their civilization, talking a bit about their culture, and asking for a response from anyone who receives the message. It's a bit like [the Arecibo Message](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message).
This is great, but the message was sent over 1300 years ago, and it will take 1300 years to send a reply. In addition, the signal itself is pretty terrible. I didn't mention that it took a team of cryptographers two years to decipher it.
We'd love to send a reply and initiate some sort of cultural dialogue/exchange between us and the aliens - assuming they still exist. But when it takes nearly 2700 years to have a call and response, communication is difficult.
I'm asking whether or not it will ever be possible for two civilizations to communicate with each other and exchange cultural ideas with one another, given how far away they are. Assume that the language issue can be solved without too much difficulty, and each civilization survives without too much fundamental change for long periods of time (10,000 years, at the least) - not likely, but necessary.
So, is this possible?
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Yes, and no. Mostly no. a 1300 year half duplex conversation would be intolerable for any species not similar to the [Thek](http://mccaffrey.srellim.org/series/dpp-aliens.htm).
The most useful would be to start a constant stream of communication back to them. Like a tv station. Just keep broadcasting. With any luck, after 2600 years (from the first message sent) if the civilization that started the call, still existed, heard the message, and were willing to respond, then they could start sending out a constant stream back.
Doing a constant stream of data, would allow for an exchange of cultures and ideas, but they would always be about 1300 years behind actual developments.
EDT: Another thought, for us to actually receive the 'message' is chance, as over the last 10,000 years of human history, only the last 50-60 would we have had a chance to even catch it. and Earth is how old? and there has only been a blink of time it could be caught? I suspect that they would have to send out a 1000 year or 10,000 year message to have any chance of catching anyone. So we'd be learning about 1300 years behind them. and we could start by sending out our own stream, which they would get in another 1300 years...
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What if short lived lifetimes of ~100 years are abnormal in the galaxy?
Alien species could be immortal, or hibernate for centuries, or be post singularity, or something similar so that 1300 years isn't a big deal to them.
We'd have a hard time of it, unless we somehow came up with a work around for the whole death thing.
An AI could potentially do it, in that it could act as record keeper and coordinator of the message.
There wouldn't be much of a point to an exchange, except as a series of data dumps. Kind of a "well, if something happens to us, at least you'll know who we were."
The biggest impact that this would really have is the realization that there is someone out there at all.
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Real-time communication should not be crucial for the cultural exchange; there were cases when one culture was heavily influenced by an extinct culture (Renaissance grew from a rediscovered Greek philosophy, some modern cults are based on paganism, something like that).
Of course, that means that the aliens should have sent enough information to spark people's imagination, but it still seems possible.
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**You would exchange cultural ideas of the species as a whole rather than a snapshot of any particular time or civilization.**
With over a millennium of transit time for messages, attempting to hold a two-way conversation will have very little real usefulness. Even if you manage to establish a protocol of sending messages once weekly, it would take a thousand years to experience the delayed sense of a back-and-forth conversation. In the meantime, neither planet can know for certain that the other still exists.
But even in this framework, so much can be shared. The foundational idea that we’re not alone has enormous cultural impact. Information about our stellar neighborhoods could be shared and would be reliable on such a long timescale. Detailed information about the biological makeup of each main species and other lesser species could be transmitted. The wealth of data in those points alone would be tremendously useful to both new neighbors.
When contemplating a transmission of our cultural values, however, human history and some degree of relativism is necessary. For us to describe only our modern snapshot of cultural and societal views would be useless over such long timescales. Furthermore, how do we attempt to describe a collective human culture when we have so many distinct ones? Surely each one of them provides its own special insight into our species. Similarly, what good is even a comprehensive snapshot without context? The full history of our species, its varying civilizations, and the evolution of culture helps to paint a less time-sensitive view of who we are and why.
So it seems that a meaningful culture exchange is possible, but shouldn’t be approached as a *discussion*. It’s quite literally an exchange of histories and information, as much as can possibly be transmitted to paint a comprehensive picture of who we were for the astronomical instant we existed.
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1300 years ago would put us in 715AD, somewhere in the middle of the European Dark Ages. Languages would be incomprehensible to us, technology very primitive and health and hygiene shocking to contemplate for a person arriving from 2015.
Going the other way, we would arrive in the year 3315. Languages wold have changed beyond all recognition, and assuming a linear rate of development, we would simply not be able to recognize most technology of the day. IF the human race had passed through the singularity, we might not recognize anything.
So the idea of "cultural exchange" would be meaningless in any real terms. We are receiving a snapshot from the distant past, and anything we send today will be received by what in the most likely scenario be a totally different culture than the one which sent the message. To give you an idea of the time scale involved in a round trip, if a message was sent from Classical Greece (585 BC), received in the dark ages (715 AD) and the reply sent we would just be getting this now.
Given the drastic changes in cultures between those eras, it is possible that the very memory of a message sent to the stars will be a dimly remembered legend if/when a return message arrives after a 2600 year round trip.
We can certainly learn from the message, and any putative recipients of our message to the aliens might learn a thing or two about us, but this will be more like visiting a poorly curated and catalogued museum exhibition (there will be lots of things we don't understand about the message, and we will never have a chance to ask follow up questions and receive the answer in any meaningful time frame).
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**Yes. Meaningful exchange of cultural ideas does not require two-way communication or timely replies.**
After all, archaeologists get very meaningful cultural information by studying our own past cultures, without any hope of their ever receiving anything from us, since they don't seem to exist any more.
I'd say that as soon as we receive a message that we recognize as a message, we've received very interesting alien cultural information, even as soon as knowing there is an alien intelligence out there, who chose this method to send some information out. It's all meaningful cultural data.
**Cultures exchange ideas over millennia anyway, even just on Earth.** We're still struggling with our own cultural ideas that are thousands and thousands of years old. Sometimes we forget or pretend otherwise, such as with modernist reductionism or modern religions which pretend they aren't remixes of ideas taken from other ancient religions.)
The 1300-year delay would make responses take many human generations, and probably one side would be first to send, and would likely have 1300 years more head start sending, and delay before first reception of anything. Or more than 1300 years, since the receiving people might not notice for years or centuries, and/or not decode for years or centuries, and/or not send anything back for years or centuries, and the original senders might also have delays noticing and decoding.
If by "exchange" you mean we're both sending and receiving, then of course you're right that it's more interesting when we're sending something back, more interesting once they've received something (2600+ years after they sent something), and even more interesting 3900+ and 5200+ years further on, when we're responding to each other, and the delay is crazy long, but it's all meaningful and interesting. I guarantee that entire professions would be dedicated to studying what they send and deciding what to send back, as soon as we receive the first transmission.
In fact, we already started, at first unconsciously when we started broadcasting radio and TV, and then later when we started sending and listening for alien intelligence.
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A sufficient advanced civilization could also send to others a way to build some sort of Artificial Intelligence mimics original one.
For example for a robotic, AI or post-singularity civilizations this could be similar to mind uploading, but no from real world into some virtual reality but to another part of the galaxy.
With similar point in mind a communication between two species could be complete and game-changing for receiving civilization.
Imagine impact on earth if first discovered message could be decrypt (I think it's possible to decrypt almost anything, but is my point of view, maybe using something related to physics, like structure of hydrogen or water) and become an IA able to self-thought and communication abilities.
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A light pulse using the morse code method.Might be a little more private of a message...And a more controlled projection.Just gotta hope they used morse code at one time.Plus it might be a more private call.That's why everyone dont have the same phone number and use a caller id device before answering....progress?
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Recall that the two end points are not stationary. Earth revolves around the sun, the sun revolves around a rough center point of the galaxy, and the galaxy itself is moving... and so is the Orion Nebula, your proposed location for the aliens.
Add to this that it is impossible to properly attenuate a signal over such a vast distance (Even a laser pointer becomes spread out over the distance from Earth to the Moon, and not entirely due to atmospheric refraction), and you end up with a rather unpleasant situation:
We must have been incredibly lucky to detect, attenuate, and decipher the signal. Working with this as a given from your question, we still have to determine where the signal came from - and quite precisely, and where that point of origin will be in relation to where we will be, *1300 years from now.*
Actually, that's not even accurate, since we'll be moving at different relative velocities through the galaxy, so what is 1300 light years now, may be 1350 light years then. That 50 year difference could result in us pointing the signal a half a degree too far to the left, and the intended recipient never hearing a reply.
So we must calculate where they will be as a function of time compared to where we will be as a function of time, factor the speed of our signal, and plot a correct intercept. And then find a way to send our own signal with a properly tight beam that there's sufficient signal left when it gets there.
Let's say there was a drift of 50 years, so it took 1300 for them to send their signal, 1350 for us to send ours, their next might be 1400 years, and so on. Granted, it COULD go the other way, but...I feel like even the technical aspects of communicating over such vast distances are nontrivial, let alone the time aspects.
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I have a race of carnivorous mammals living in a very resource-poor environment. Due to a mixture of lack of resources (no metal, no wood or tough stems, etc) and cultural taboos, they are only allowed to build weapons out of materials taken from living animals that they have killed (finding a long-dead corpse or using coal or oil taken from long-dead creatures would not be valid). Plants could technically be allowed, but only algae-like slime and lichen are available.
They have access to tough fabrics such as leather and plenty of bones, along with any other part of the animal that might be useful (tendons and so forth). Stone may be used in small amounts, but the "frame" of the weapon, along with any damage-inflicting parts (blades or projectiles) must be biological in origin. Gunpowder-like explosives and oxidizers can be derived from the rocks and may be used in small quantities.
My race preys upon very small (rat-sized) and very large (elephant-sized) animals, so bones can be made arbitrarily large or small. Their physical strength is comparable to very well-conditioned humans.
How advanced or effective of a weapon could be created under these circumstances? I'm primarily interested in the possibility of shotgun or pistol-like projectile weapons, but I'd also be interested to learn about what kind of restrictions might be placed on melee weapons. Bonus points for hypothesizing the construction of heavy artillery, flamethrowers (possibly powered by animal fat?), rocket-launchers, or other interesting weapons.
I'm most interested in weapons of war. This race tends to settle personal conflicts with their own claws and teeth. If it makes a difference, these weapons are intended for use against humans with WW1-era armaments.
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Specific issues I'm thinking of:
* Weapon lifetime (effects of use of weapon condition).
* I'm guessing needle-like bone splinters would be the most effective ammunition. Is this true? (I'm thinking about density and muzzle velocity but I don't know any numbers).
* Aerodynamics, range, and penetrating/stopping power of projectiles (most likely bone).
* Ammunition details: are clip-based reloads or full-auto triggers possible? (I doubt it).
* Structural strength of weapon: could a bone shotgun be used to bludgeon, or would this severely damage the weapon?
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As far as major weapons that could could be developed with those constraints:
* If your civilization has the chemical chops to develop Gunpowder then they probably can get other war chemicals like Dunnite, Picric Acid, and Mustard Gas pretty easily.
* Glue, shellac, and paper are definitely available.
* You can make strong structures using layered paper.
* Cannons can be made of lacquered paper, bone, or horn.
* Longbows and Horn bows are relatively effective if everyone is strong and trained to use them.
Speculatively:
* Low-velocity shotguns and harpoons could be developed from the cannon.
* Small catapults might be developed using collections of large bones and tendons.
* Flamethrowers would be like bag pipes if they developed.
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I'm going for the bonus points and proposing fire based weapons!
As a carnivorous race your mammals would likely want to consume bone marrow from the bones of the creatures they kill; its nutritious for one but the hollow bones are easy to dry and carve once cleaned.
These hollow bones could form the basis of primitive pump based flame throwers, blow guns, and even simple incendiary type grenades!
Blow guns: pretty self explanatory but they may have added on a "gas bladder" made of something like treated leather that allows for longer range/power then just using lung power alone.
Flame throwers: similar to the blow gun, these would pump oil/fat using primitive pumps past a flame source. Basically a bone and leather super soaker.
Incendiary grenades: hollowed bones that are packed with oil/fat and have a small amount of the gun powder you mentioned would allow a leather sealed container with a fabric fuse to detonate and project flaming oil and fat (plus bone shards) in a small area.
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The big issue with firearms composed of bone is their regularity; or lack thereof.
Guns and bullets are machined very exactly, as any irregularities greatly reduce efficacy and the lifespan of the gun. And once you start outfitting an army, standardized parts are an absolute requirement for manufacturing on any scale.
You can have the bones of arbitrary strength and size, but if they're shaped differently beyond some *very* strict tolerances, you won't get further than muskets and siege engines, or any weaponry produced before the Industrial Revolution. And since they're bones, well, they **will** differ. This goes for anything more advanced than a gun as well.
However, if any of their prey has natural weapons, they might be able to use those instead.
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Others have suggested weapons, here are some suggestions for explosive ammunition and fuel for those guns, cannons and grenades:
**Phosphours** can be extracted from bone and urine. This element can ignite when exposed to open air and a type of phosphorous [has been used in in bombs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus).
Posit the existence of something like the [**Bombardier beetle**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_beetle) to provide the explosive production of gas, needed to eject a bullet or cannon-ball.
**Mixing acids and bases** or mixing water into a strong acid produces heat and gas, enough for a bomb or to propel a cannon-ball. Stomach acid is readily available.
The plant hormone ethylene, released by ripening fruit, can react with sulfur dichloride, found in volcanoes, the ocean, biological decay and forest fires. When combined using the "Depretz method", they produce **mustard gas**.
**Alcohol** - Add sugar and yeast, produce explosion. Look [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QYN7EDVTGA) for a delightfully instructive video on how best to produce alcohol explosions.
**Dust explosions**. If something can burn, it can often do so explosively when ground into a fine powder and mixed with air. A hazard in the industry, so-called dust explosions have taken place with both powdery sugar and dust in grain silos.
**Manure-explosions**. Several times have [hog farms exploded](http://nautil.us/blog/the-curious-case-of-the-exploding-pig-farms) because the manure has released the flammable gases hydrogen sulfide and methane. The gases collect in the building until a spark sets off a deadly explosion.
Do not try this at home. Or on planets that have friendly relations with us.
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There did exist such a thing as [wooden cannons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wooden_cannon)
They were notoriously weak though and were usually only good for a few shots before bursting, however you could hypothesize something similar being made from large bones and sinew.
For personal firearms again you could do something similar but the gun would be more likely to explode than fire and you would have terrible accuracy.
Firearms are unlikely to develop simply because you cannot make them consistent enough or strong enough unless you hypothesize that the prey animals have extremely strong bones or the natives in question develop some way to strengthen them. Considering how much they would be working with bones as a raw material it would make sense that they know how to get the most out of them.
For example a bone wrapped in sinew and soaked in some special liquid X (just invent a name) for a week then wrapped again and dusted with powder Y then allowed to dry hardens into an extremely strong material. They can then work that material to produce the equivalent of old-school muzzle loading firearms and produce cannons with similar effectiveness to metal ones.
If you don't want to do that then for personal combat something like bows would be your best bet. They can be built from bones and sinew and arrows can also be made from those materials. For larger scale conflicts then catapults and [trebuchet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet) could in theory be made if you have access to large enough bones and/or good ways to bind them together.
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One projectile weapon that could be possible is the native american Atl-Atl. the "handle" could easily be made from the long bones of any large prey animal. It could be used to propel darts or spears made from laminated papers and tipped with bone if wood is not available. As a device, it pre-dates the bow and arrow.
Also, never underestimate an old style sling. A strip of leather and a handful of rocks and a dash of skill and you have a lethal weapon. Coat the slingstones with leather and bone spurs to deal extra damage and to meet the observances.
A strip of leather ending on a bladder of some sort filled with something flammable and you might have something fire based throw at an enemy from a long range. Encase the bladder in a dried out old skull for shrapnel and to meet religious observances
For in close fighting, a long bone based mace would be very easy. A rock on a string attached to a long bone gives a very primitive morning star or flail. again tip with bone fragments.
The long bones of really large prey animals could be hollowed out to hold an explosive compound with a simple fuse and you have a fairly simple fragmentation grenade. You could also build a Korean Hwacha for a doomsday machine. See the myth busters episode to see this thing in action.
Lots of options for primitive weaponry are available here. Mix and match with the chemical stuff in other answers and you can have a terrifying race.
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POISONS!
Nature excels at creating neurotoxins which can cause severe pain, hallucinations, confusion, paralysis, terror and/or death.
You could make cannon which fire a cloud of tiny poisoned darts. Not only would these be extremely painful or fatal if hit, but they can litter the battlefield on front of advancing enemies and sting their feet or just slow their movements.
You can coat the edges of your melee weapons with poisons extracted from various creatures. You could probably even create teargas or hallucinogenic gas shells to fire into the enemy ranks.
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This question is a difficult one because nature and evolution is far better at coming up with solutions that Human ingenuity ever will be. The Bombardier beetle can spray a mix of Hydroxy Phenol and Hydrogen Peroxide from it's abdomen when disturbed. This is similar stuff used in early liquid fueled rockets and made famous by the German Me163 Komet rocket fighter plane of WWII. When making a rocket, all the container has to do is contain the explosion and survive the generated heat until the fuel is spent. A bombardier beetle's bottom is far better at doing that than anything we humans can make even now. The most common container for a firework rocket is cardboard which is not as strong and much heavier than bone.
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Well, you can make a functional sword out of biological material.
Heres the process:
1. Slaughter 3-400 people.
2. Drain their blood.
3. Burn away impurities and boil off fats and other substances.
4. The take the handy mixture of iron and carbon leftover and smelt it into steel to fashion weapons wether guns or swords or other weaponry.
5. Use bone and leather to use for stocks and grips for steel weapons.
In conclusion, you could make effective weaponry, it'd just be a slow and painstaking process and turn you nation into a frenzied murder cult. This is because 3-400 people only yields you a couple pounds of smeltable material.
So metal would be a rare commodity. Only the greatest warriors who would kill many enemies would get to use metal weapons forged of the blood fo their victims.
These weapons would most likely be heirlooms and be made by expert craftsmen and passed down the family for generations.
The nation would probably end up fighting like the aztecs, focusing on capturing enemies rather than killing and taking them back to sacrifice them and draining their blood to make weapons on an industrial scale. They could also use the blood from their food to make these weapons.
Then again they would be easily swept aside by an industrialized ww1 equipped nation, because ww1 style weaponry includes machine guns and artillery, which would be near impossible to do properly without access to proper metal, stone, or wood.
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Kinda inspired by [the non-disappearing ship question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/37833/how-large-would-a-world-have-to-be-for-a-sailing-ship-to-never-make-it-past-the), but I actually asked this particular question on an unrelated forum a few years ago. Reposting it here (well, paraphrasing, really, since I don't actually recall much of the original specifics) because I'm interested in the opinion of this particular community.
Consider a typical science-fiction Dyson sphere - a few hundred million miles (or, if you prefer, a few AU) across - with a human (or essentially human) civilization living on it. Many different such civilizations, actually (since the sphere is very big).
They've been there since an awful long time ago; long enough to have developed all of their technology beyond the early stone age while already on the sphere, and long enough that not even legends preserve any mention of the original arrival (I'm assuming, for clarity, that such an arrival did indeed happen, perhaps 100,000 or so years earlier, but it doesn't really matter).
With that in mind, at which point in tech level (assuming an advance roughly along an Earth-like technology tree) would they be able to figure out that they live on a giant sphere (as opposed to, say, a giant flat plane), and at which (presumably later) point would they be able to figure out the approximate size of their sphere? And how exactly (what sort of tools, methods, calculations...) would they be able to do that?
(Your choice of what counts as "approximate"; if you have several different scenarios for different levels of precision, I'd be happy to see all of them.)
There are really two different questions here (plus an addendum), for different definitions of "Dyson sphere", which I'm putting together because I'm not sure I could write enough detail for both separately. (I'd be happy to make a short separate question for one of the versions if the mods think that it would be better.)
1. A regular (for science fiction, at least) Dyson sphere, with an inner-facing habitable surface. Light and heat is probably provided by a star in the middle; gravity must be artificial, because the natural gravity balances itself. Your choice on how the day/night cycle works (or whether there even is one) - this might matter for the specifics, obviously.
2. An inverted Dyson sphere - a sphere of similar size (several hundred million miles, i.e. a few AU, in diameter) with a habitable *outer* surface. Will probably have stars orbiting around it for light and heat (might or might not, depending on the specifics, also work as a day/night cycle). Natural gravity is easy in this case - just make the sphere sufficiently thick (a few thousand kilometers); but in this case there's not much difference whether it's natural or artificial gravity.
3. The addendum version - same question (when and how will the inhabitants any other hyper-large space habitat (such as a Ringworld like the one in the Niven series, or a Culture-style orbital).
Just for the record - I'm looking for reasonably realistic technological solutions (aside from the existence of the sphere itself), not fantasy.
If you happen to think (I personally doubt it) that there's no real way to figure out the size (at least, within the current level of Earth technology) - say that, and explain why.
...If this question is off-topic, sorry. (You can also try to fix the tags, if I chose them incorrectly.) This is my first question on Worldbuilding SE (and I hadn't asked very many questions on other SE sites before either).
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Let's get this out of the way: [classic, rigid Dyson spheres are not stable](http://www.aleph.se/Nada/dysonFAQ.html#STABLE) and neither is a rigid ringworld around a star.
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> A rigid dyson sphere is not stable, since there is no net attraction between a spherical shell and a point mass inside. If the shell is pushed slightly, for example by a meteor hit, ***the shell will gradually drift off and eventually hit the star***. This is a classic problem in elementary mechanics and is usually solved in introductory textbooks.
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This is because of the [shell theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_theorem) which states that ***the net gravitational force on an object inside a hollow sphere is zero regardless of the object's location within the shell***. This seems non-intuitive, if you dig a hole through the center of the Earth you'll float in the center, but it's exactly the same thing. Instead of the "center" being a point, it's the entire hollow interior. There's just a lot more "center".
There's many other problems. [Here's Fraser Cain, publisher of Universe Today, on the subject](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnFAQrR58SY#t=1m29.5s).
But let's assume whomever built this figured out a way to solve all that, and it's still working, and the stabilization mechanisms aren't immediately obvious like giant thrusters.
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With that out of the way...
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> *...at which point in tech level (assuming an advance roughly along an Earth-like technology tree) would they be able to figure out*...
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1. *they live on a giant sphere (as opposed to, say, a giant flat plane)?*
2. *the approximate size of their sphere?*
3. *...and how would they be able to do that?*
For consistency I'll take "a few AU" to mean 3 AU.
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**3 AU rigid Dyson sphere, outside**
I'm starting with the outside inhabitants because it's the most Earth-like. Ancient humans figured out the Earth was round by a number of careful observations. The people on the Dyson sphere could do the same, but the size of the sphere makes this much harder so they'll figure it out much later.
The [distance to the horizon](http://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-the-Distance-to-the-Horizon) depends on your height above the surface and the radius of the sphere. In particular ***it's the ratio of your height and the radius of the sphere***. It's not a simple equation, so I'll let Wolfram Alpha take care of it.
A 1.8 m tall person standing at sea level on Earth will see the horizon at about 5km. We'll use that as our benchmark for what can be figured out without instruments. ***On a 3 AU sphere, the horizon is 1300 km away***. The inhabitants are trying to view it through 1300 km of thick atmosphere. This means, to even a careful observer, the world will behave flat. The resolution of the eye and atmospheric effects will prevent people from seeing the horizon or measuring it accurately without precise instruments.
The other way the ancients figured out the world was round was by observing the shadow of the Earth on the Moon. The Dyson Sphere is at the center of its system, so it won't do a traditional eclipse. The orbiting stars will shine on other orbiting bodies. As it slips below the very distant horizon there will be a shadow, but this shadow will appear so straight and go by so fast that ancients will likely not observe it.
What they can't do is make the ancient observation that different stars are visible at different latitudes. Changing latitude on the Earth is a matter of traveling north or south an inconvenient but doable distance, about 111 km per degree (`pi * radius / 180`). But the Dyson sphere is too big. ***They'd have to travel 7.5 million km to see one degree of latitude change***.
And so it goes. Eratosthenes observed that the Sun casts a different shadow at noon at the same time of year at different latitudes. You can't do that on your Dyson sphere because you'd have to travel too far to be in a different latitude. Circumnavigation is also out. Everything is just too big for ancient observations.
Since the Dyson sphere is not rotating (or rotating only very, very, very slowly) they will see a fixed field of unmoving stars in the sky, plus the objects which are orbiting the sphere, which includes a few small stars. They will observe these set and rise, and other bodies do so as well. ***They can figure out, at least, that their planet is not an infinite plane***.
The first suggestions that their world is a sphere will come when the laws of gravity and material science are discovered. They will quickly discover that a finite flat plane is not stable, gravity will want to pull it into a sphere and the material of their planet will not be able to resist. ***They'll also notice that the orbits of their orbiting stars and moons are wrong for a plane***. Eventually someone will work out, via their moon's orbits, that their planet must be a giant sphere.
***It likely won't be until fast and sustained means of travel, long distance radio communications, and precision instruments that people can get enough distance between two points in a single lifetime to actually measure the curvature of the sphere.*** Say, early 20th century technology. Once they hit that point, they can use this data to approximate the size of their sphere.
It might take even longer because there won't be this slow build up of casual observations suggesting a sphere: to all observers the world truly is flat. The discovery that the world is round would be a scientific curiosity, like determining the age of the Earth, but which will have far, far reaching metaphysical implications.
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**3 AU rigid Dyson sphere, inside**
I'm not going to do a full treatment of this one, but I am going to dispel a few common misconceptions. First, because of the [shell theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_theorem), ***there's no net gravity from the sphere on the inside surface***. There's the opposite problem, you'll fall into the central star.
The sphere would have to be spun to produce centrifugal force. ***To spin a 3 AU sphere to produce 1g at the equator (the gravity of the central star can be ignored) requires solving the centripetal acceleration equation (`a = v^2/r`) for velocity (`sqrt(a*r) = v`). [Plugging in the numbers gives us 2.1 million m/s](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sqrt%289.8m%2Fs%5E2+*+3+AU%29), a noticeable fraction of the speed of light***. In contrast, the Earth rotates at the equator at 465 m/s. This would likely tear the sphere apart.
I'm going to handwave the gravity and rotation problems, I think they're unsolvable with known physics, and just say the builders figured it out somehow. My sphere is not rotating and magically has 1 g everyone on the interior surface.
Like with the last answer, the problem is the scale: the "horizon" (which I'm using as a proxy for "the distance you'd have to see before you notice the land is curving up") is 1300 km away and 1 degree of latitude is 7.5 million km. Most of the ancient techniques won't work, or the geometry isn't correct. The critical clue is the day/night cycle, if it has one.
The first thought is that you'll see the "horizon" curving up. The horizon would be 1,300 km away. Viewed through an atmosphere, you won't see it. The "horizon" will be a muddy, ground colored blur going all the way overhead. Pointing surface telescopes at the "horizon" won't help, you'll be looking through lots and lots of atmosphere.
Next you'd think "you'll look up and see the other side", but that's 6 AU away. You won't be able to resolve anything, the sky will be a ground-shaped blur. If there is no night there will be a star always at the zenith preventing good observations for a very long time. If there is a night cycle, eventually features the other side will be resolved, but it will take some very good optics.
Jupiter is closer to the Earth than the other side of the Dyson sphere, and it's a tiny dot in the sky. 17th century telescopes were able to make out Jovian moons and the Great Red Spot, so I'll put it somewhere between the 17th and 19th century when people begin to see features in the sky.
On a sphere where it's always day, the inhabitants won't even know their world is finite. There will be no hints to casual observers that they live on anything but a flat, infinite plane. ***But if there's a day/night cycle, that provides the critical clue***.
A night cycle provided by Sun shields orbiting around the star would provide the information necessary to work out not just that they're living inside a sphere, but also its size. ***The day/night terminator shadow would be seen moving across the land and eventually up the interior of the sphere, across the sky, and back down again***. This would be clear evidence you're living inside a sphere. If the Sun shields are vertical bands, you would see a band of light lit up across the sky. If they're rectangular, you'd see rectangular shadows. ***You can work out the distance to the other side by measuring the apparent width of the band at different times, and how fast it appears to travel across the sky.*** This could be done in ancient times as soon as you have geometry, as it was done on the Earth.
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**3 AU Ringworld orbiting a star, interior**
A 3 AU Ringworld has most of the same problems as living on the inside of a 3 AU Dyson sphere. Scale and atmosphere prevents casual observers from seeing the rising horizon or the ring on the other side. There are two major differences which allow ancient observers to see that they're living on a giant ring.
If they are in perpetual daylight they will never see stars, and thus won't see the ring obscuring them. But ***if there is a day/night cycle they will see stars, and they will see a great, towering arch of blackness stretching from one side, overhead, and back down behind them***. Only geometry is necessary to work out that they're living on a ring and the size of the ring. At some points on the ring it will be eclipsed by their star, and they will be able to work out the size of and distance to their star.
The other clue is the edge. Presumably this edge will be very high, [100 km at least](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line), to keep the atmosphere from spilling over the side. It could even be made to look like a natural mountain range. The distance to this edge depends on how wide the ring is, but someone will live near the edge, or travel to the edge, and stories will come back. ***The edge will be explored and, eventually, climbed***. Then the nature of their world will be obvious.
This will likely take mid to late 20th century technology. Everest wasn't ascended until 1953, and that's only 9 km. Above 8 km your brain does not get enough oxygen and you eventually die. Climbers must carry oxygen above this point. Our ringworld edge explorers will have to carry their oxygen for another 91 km. A dedicated expedition with a large logistics train to supply food and oxygen, setting up chains of base camps and supply lines, a kin to modern Antarctic exploration, would be necessary.
As for flying over the top, this will take 1960s technology. Balloons are still not capable of going that high, the modern record is only 40 km. [In 1961 the record for an aircraft was 35 km](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_altitude_record). It was only in 1962 when the [X-15](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15) finally reached 100 km.
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**Other megastructures**
As I mentioned at the beginning, rigid rings and spheres around a star are unstable. Feasible megastructures are variations on a [Dyson swarm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_swarm), a ring of independent, probably spherical, structures orbiting around a star.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4oASo.png)
The inhabitants of these structures would be able to determine the nature of their world, and the swarm, as quickly as we did on Earth. The curiously regular lights in the sky that remain in the same point in the sky, but move against the fixed background of stars, would be a great focus of curiosity. Their relative closeness to their own habitat would allow observation with even the most basic 17th century optics.
They would likely develop space travel earlier. Instead of a political or military space race, they'd have a clear economic incentive to visit other habitats, to trade with them, and colonize them. I'd imagine they'd reach another world in the 1930s or 40s, just as the technology is becoming available.
[Answer]
Living inside a "regular" Dyson sphere, the horizon would not turn down but up. You could see that you weren't on a flat plane. The curvature would be slight but visible. You wouldn't be able to see across the sphere, but you could see something for quite a distance.
The ancient Greeks were able to calculate the distance to the moon and sun prior to the Roman empire. Also the sizes of those and the Earth. It's just trigonometry and observations at different altitudes. That knowledge was rediscovered during the Renaissance but didn't become common until science education did (within the last couple centuries). Calculating the curvature of the outer sphere should be of similar difficulty.
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Early to late antiquity, if they really thought about. Features on the sun and the lack of parallax could give it away.
**From the interior**, the inhabitants could deduce they live inside of sphere by observing the, figuring out its a sphere and from the lack of any apparent parallax for the sun, deduce they must live on the inside of a large curved surface.
To produce 1-g of centrifugal gravity would at the equator would require IIRC that the sphere rotate faster than the sun's equator. The sun's surface is far from featureless, in addition to sunspots, there are also light patches and filament like structures. As the only astronomical object, we can presume it would be closely observed. It's rotation would be the only time keeping mechanism possible.
The domed churches in Christendom of the dark and early medieval ages were built at large camera obscura for time keeping by tracking the sun. The same could built on a Dyson-sphere but with even higher resolution as the apparent position of the sun would never change.
The sun observers would see the various features of the sun appearing at the rim, then moving across the sun so they appear flat and then disappearing around then other rim and then reappearing. Also, features near the equator would appear to move slower than those towards the poles. The easiest shape that would give theses sorts of behavior would be a rotating sphere.
They could also place multivalent boundaries on the size and distance of the sun by calculating the combinations of size and distance that would allow humans to observe it as anything other than a featureless dot.
But a spherical rotating sun will cause problems. Owing the lack of apparent curvature on the inside of the Dysonsphere, the inhabitants will start with the assumption that the world is flat. However, once people travel a few hundred or few thousand km, they will notice that the sun is always directly overhead and even the tracked features on the sun, don't show any parallax.
If the "Earth" is flat and the sun's shows no parallax, then sun must be very far away and extremely large for humans to be able to resolve features on it. But at that size its speed of rotation would have to be incredible to move features over such a fast surface in such a short time.
Conversely, if the "Earth" is flat and the sun nearer, then the features at least, should show some parallax, especially as they move.
Eventually, it will occur to someone that if the sun is of a certain size, at a certain distance, then only way to explain the lack of parallax would be to assume the "Earth" itself is curved such that each point on the "Earth" is the same distance from from the sun. From there, they could perform some multi-varient calculations to give possible ranges of the size and curvature of the "Earth".
It wouldn't exactly be proof, in the modern sense but it might be accepted on the basis of Occam's razor.
**From the exterior:** The exterior will have some rotation, however minimal. It would next to impossible to create such a huge object that has zero angular momentum. You'd probably want some just to stabilize the thing.
Even if it rotated very slowly, the rise, transit and eventually setting of the constellations would eventually give away the existence of a curved surface.
[Answer]
I'll assert that the thickness of the mass that makes up the sphere will create enough gravity so that "down" happens when standing on the inside.
Second, I'll assert that the diameter of the sphere is properly balanced with the radiation output of the star, as well as the thickness of the atmosphere, to provide a habitable environment (this probably doesn't have anything to do with the question, since you stated that *someone* is living there).
In a Dyson sphere, there are no stars in the sky. There may, however, be inner planets orbiting the star (or artificial satellites, asteroids, even asteroid belts). I believe the only way to determine that they're living inside such a sphere is by observing things that orbit the star between the inner surface of the sphere and the star itself. Copernicus-level technology and math would be able to work it out, I think.
[Answer]
I have some thoughts for your questions, which I'll address in series. But the tl;dr is that it's definitely possible to figure it out.
1. The inner-facing habitable surface. I hope this works by anti-gravity generators rather than rotation, because otherwise it will have weird atmospheric effects. The simplest way to figure out that you're on a sphere is to just look at the part of the sky that isn't star. The night that I'm imagining is like the day/night cycle in Ringworld. However you do night time, if it blocks out light from the star, then the sky should be mostly black. This should allow the civilization to see other parts of the inside of the sphere at essentially the very beginning of life, in particular because the other parts might still be bright. How long it takes them to *figure out* that it means they're on the inside of a sphere is another matter, and getting the size of it is something else entirely. The size would require a reference point quite a distance away, which might require the civilization to be into the Europe-naval-colonization era from earth's history. Depending on some atmospheric calculations that I can't do at the moment, they might be able to figure it out as soon as they see ships move "up" the horizon, but that might not be visible (ie. the ship could be too small).
A small addendum: if they were on a plane, they could use shadows between cities to figure out the distance between them and the star. The fact that they can't either means that the star is infinitely far away, or they are in a dyson sphere. If they can figure out the distance to the star (ie. by more advanced techniques like time between solar flares / northern lights & using some particle physics) then they can figure out the radius of the sphere too.
2. The outer facing habitable surface. Assuming this has the fairly easy gravity specifications that you stated. Let's suppose there are some stars orbiting the sphere in a ring. We can label that ring east-west. The first thing that the civilization may notice is that the stars are (I hope) not all perfectly identical. If one is different, then you can use it to figure out how long it takes them to orbit around the sphere. If the stars are relatively close to the surface of the sphere, then the habitants can use a surface-plane approximation + parallax (ie. shadows) to figure out how high up they are. With that, you can easily get speed from more shadow / parallax tricks, and combining that with the time to orbit gives you the circumference of the sphere (and radius). If the stars are close, this can all be done well before you have a telescope.
If the stars are far away, it's a little trickier. When you travel east and west, you'll notice that the time gets a little bit off (as you find exactly the same as the earth) except the same difference requires more distance. If you can measure this, and have good enough telescopes to see ships disappearing below the horizon, and can do any shadow measurements, then you can get the size of sphere as well as the distances to the *outer* suns.
3. These methods all work for other mega-structures just as well. With them though, you get other benefits that make things easier like background stars at night being visible sometimes and sometimes occluded, or encountering the edge of the structure.
Of course, once you get to space travel all of these calculations can be nullified by direct observation.
[Answer]
Early. Antique age, or earlier.
The fact that Earth was round, not flat, was well-known and accepted in Greece during the 4th century BC (thanks to the Christians knowing the truth, namely Earth being flat, it later took almost another two thousand years before this was rediscovered).
Now, assuming your Dyson spere existed, the sun would be at the zenith, and would never move (from the observer's point of view) no matter where on the sphere you go. This follows from the fact that the sun is in the center of the sphere.
It does not take a lot to realize that an object viewed from different locations on a plane appears at different angles, and that the sun always staying at zenith is only possible if "the world" is the inside of a sphere.
To anyone who is approximately at the development level of Aristotle or Thales, it would be an *immediately obvious fact*.
] |
[Question]
[
The idea of an elevator reaching to the near cosmos is very tantalizing when trying to think of ways off planet. A major draw back to this idea is that a long, thin tower into the atmosphere seem like a very likely candidate to be damaged by Space junk, asteroids, etc.
My question is, is there a truly effective way to protect a space elevator from the elements of space, and whatever other damage it could come across?
My mind drifted to ideas like orbiting shields, or possibly automated turrets on the structures exterior set to target and destroy projectiles. I would love to here other ideas.
[Answer]
# Lasers.
You don't need to destroy the debris, just push it out of the way by the *slightest* amount. The vast majority of space junk is tracked, as others have mentioned, so you'll know what's a threat long before it actually hits. Hit the debris with a laser to alter it's path slightly and you can avoid collisions.
Because you can track most of the debris, you can even start this process well in advance. Debris will be speeding past *very* quickly, but you should be able to hit anything dangerous multiple times as it passes by with each orbit.
You can even use this system whenever it's not directly protecting the elevator to slowly reenter space debris as it passes. Just slow down the speed of whatever passes by and eventually stuff will start to fall out of orbit. It cleans up space and protects the elevator all at once!
As for the stuff that isn't tracked, you'll need to be able to detect it in advance, so some sort of sensing equipment will be necessary, but you'll need that already for laser targeting. Luckily the stuff that's not tracked is all very small stuff, so it will be easier to push out of the way, and you won't need as much advance notice.
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# Delving deeper!
Luckily for anyone who wants a thorough, scientific analysis of this option, I'm not highly original and laser reentry of space junk has been studied! One particular paper [DOI: 10.1016/j.asr.2012.02.003](https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1110/1110.3835.pdf) goes quite in-depth, and I'll cite some of its more important findings here.
First, how big of a problem is space junk?
>
> There are about $N\_1 = 2,200$ large objects (diameter ≥ 100cm, mass of order 1 ton) in LEO,
> and $N\_2 = 190k$ small objects (diameter ≥ 1cm). The flux for the small ones in the peak density region is about $R\_2 = 1.4E-4$ $m^{-2}year^{-1}$ ... [Applying these figures], the chance that a big object will impact a big object is once in
> $T\_{11} = 134$ years, whereas the chance a small object will impact a big object is once in
> $T\_{21} = 3$ years.
>
>
>
One variable seems to change names at some point in their calculations, so I'm not certain about how this translates to a stationary object, but it does give us a time scale.
So if we do nothing, we'll have a small strike every few years. But let's not do nothing! Let's use some lasers!
First of all, how do lasers work to deorbit debris? Basically, the laser hits the surface and rapidly superheats the material, vaporizing it. This vapor is still in the path of the laser however, so it continues to be struck by the laser beam, where it superheats a bit more and becomes plasma. The plasma rapidly decompresses, pushing the object away, and essentially forming a small jet on the object's surface. After some time, adding more energy to the system is counterproductive so the authors of this paper suggest a pulsed laser, rather than a continuous one.
The authors assume a period of $\tau = 5ns$ for the laser pulse, and using this number, find that they need to apply $53\ kJ/m^2$ to the object to optimally accelerate an aluminum target.
>
> In a practical case where $D\_{eff} = 10m$, if $T = 80\%$, $T\_{eff} = 0.5$. In order to deliver $53 kJ/m^2$ to a target at $1000km$ range, the
product $
WD\_{eff}^2
$ must
be
at
least
$993
kJm^2$,
laser
pulse
energy
must
be $
7.3kJ$,
and the
mirror
diameter $
D$
must
be
$13m$.
>
>
>
This means that the lasers don't even have to be in space! With pretty much current tech, you can deploy a system of them on the surface and deorbit from there!
The authors find that any object with mass less than 1kg can be reentered in a single pass. Larger objects (their example gave mass of 1-ton) would take several years to reenter, but, if you recall the frequency of interactions between large objects, the chance of a catastrophic collision is very small, and we can very easily nudge these objects out of the way in a single pass.
[Answer]
This won't likely be an issue:
1. Space elevators aren't really towers, they are tethers. A strong but relatively thin series of wires made of a super strong material extending way beyond geostationary orbit (To have some tension in it).
2. Space Junk isn't just random pieces of metal floating around everywhere. We have zones and orbits that are safe and ones that are not safe at all. We track these pieces. And by the time we have the tech and willingness to make a space elevator, we would probably have a fleet of space garbage trucks collecting all that trash, shredding it and dumping it into the atmostphere
[Answer]
A magnetic shield would be the most effective way to shield a space elevator from pieces of space debris and cosmic radiation.
A DC magnetic field would cause high energy particles to curve and bend around the field source, shielding occupants and cargo alike.
A AC magnetic field would "energize" inductive materials and "repel" from the field source. (See Eddy Currents).
A large superconducting magnet would provide cheap way to produce the magnetic field. It would also serve a second purpose, the ferrying of power to and from the space elevator's ground station and orbital platform.
A power station located at the base of the Space Elevator would provide sufficient power for orbital craft, Space Elevator Elevator's and the superconducting magnet cooling system. In fact, the field itself could be used to increase the structural integrity of the Space Tether.
The tether itself would need to be "hinged" to allow sway, or else structural fatigue would result in the material composition of the tether. Because of Newton's law of opposing forces, the tether's magnetic field would act on a piece of space junk pushing itself away, and the space junk aswell. However, a piece of space junk having a mass larger than the tether itself, could cause an emergency situation, especially if the tether is unable to sway out of the way in time.
The Sci-Fi book "Web between Worlds" talks a little bit about this subject.
[Answer]
Yes, the simplest option is to use some form of physical shielding in areas of space-junk concentration. This adds to the total mass of the tether, but is surely worthwhile.
Some sort of composite armour would be ideal, a combination of stand-off shielding to break up large pieces of debris, a shock absorbing layer to slow them down then a carbon nano-mesh to mop up anything that's still moving.
It would need replacing regularly, and would add a large amount of weight to the tether, but if you can build a space elevator you should be capable of building some high-strength, low mass composite armour.
The basic principle would be that the armour needs to be capable of protecting the tether only from space junk that you are not capable of tracking, space junk that you can track could be removed or redirected using other means.
You would also want to build redundancy into the design, e.g. having 4 tethers instead of 1, with the loss of any 1 tether not causing a catastrophic failure
Also bear in mind, that in the event the tether breaks, nothing 'above' the break will fall to earth, so all the expensive lifting equipment, space port etc at the top of the lift would be safe from an unplanned re-entry. However [simulations show](http://gassend.net/spaceelevator/breaks/) that the counterweight would probably leave the Earth's orbit.. which would be inconvenient for anyone not wanting to go into outer-space. As such, another sensible precaution would be to fit the 'counterweight' with enough fuel to thrust itself back into a stable orbit. I haven't calculated whether this would be feasible, but getting the fuel there wouldn't be a problem, you have a space elevator after all! In all likelihood the space port at the top is used to fuel ships for onward travel anyway.
[Answer]
Something not mentioned in any of the other answer, which I think should be on this topic is the difference between collisions between space junk and something orbiting vs. a fixed target like a space elevator.
If you've ever seen a plot of an orbit over the ground, the [ground track](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_track) looks like a sinusoid centered on the equator. Some ground tracks are different for polar or geostationary orbits, but the one thing they all share is they cross the equator at some point and due to precession, eventually their orbit will cross every point on the equator.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dt2NO.jpg)
So why do we care? For orbital collisions, you're concerned when the orbit of whatever you care about intersects orbits of debris, many orbits will never cross the orbit of our target and can be ignored and others will only infrequently cross, and many of these objects are moving in the same direction so the relative impact speeds will be lessened.
A traditional space elevator needs to be located on or near the equator, so given sufficient time every item in an orbit lower than geostationary will at some point intersect our space elevator, it's not a matter of finding the rare items on collision course, literally everything will hit it, eventually. As for relative velocity, our space elevator is stationary, so every impact is at orbital velocity, no glancing blows here (on the positive side there are no head on collisions of 2x orbital speed)
So given that everything is a concern, having a space elevator is going to require a very intensive program to track everything in orbit (within certain size limits). Not just mapping it but actively tracking changes and calculating the upcoming potential collisions with the elevator and take the appropriate action. There you have three options; move the item into a different orbit that won't collide with the elevator for some time, move the elevator out of the way, or absorb the collision.
## Move the Collider
There are a number of ways this could be done:
* If it's a functioning satellite, station, or vehicle with maneuvering control it would need to actively adjust it's orbit slightly to avoid the collision, and because all orbits eventually will intersect the cable, everything in low to medium orbit now has additional station keeping thruster needs to avoid the periodic collisions.
* For larger non functioning items and debris you would want junk removing or refueling satellite tugs to dock with the item and remove it from orbit or put I back into the first category. This will be expensive, but it should be a one time cost as you eventually clear out most of the large junk (if you start actively deorbiting end of life satellites).
* For smaller debris, Laser ablation causing some of the item to boil off to push the item to a different orbit that will miss your elevator or deorbit. This would provide very small amounts of delta-V and therefore will need to target items well in advance of the potential collision.
* Blowing the item up completely is not likely to be very effective, you will just leave smaller bits of debris now moving in lots of slightly different orbits, now requiring more tracking and collision avoidance.
* And if it wasn't hard enough, deorbiting items (our normal junk cleanup method) has some new hazards. These deorbits are inherently unpredictable due to the complicated interactions with the atmosphere. You usually end up with a large predicted path, which you should make sure doesn't ever cross you elevator.
## Move the Elevator
So you know where the debris is going to be, just make sure the elevator is somewhere else:
* Space elevators are not monolithic rigid structures, they are more like really long ropes. As you move material up and down the cable you will develop oscillations in the cable, which you could control based on how much and how fast you move material up and down the cable. Minimally, you would want to monitor these vibrations to prevent a dangerous build up of harmonic motion. You could also control the motion to move the area of concern a few kilometers out of the way of a potential collision.
* Some proposals have advocated a movable ground site anchored to a floating oil rig type structure (Most of the equator is ocean, and in a space elevator the last few kilometers of a mountain don't actually help that much). You could also potentially have the upper end or intermediary sections provided with thrusters to allow active movement of sections of the cable. These motions would have limits and they would cause vibrations along the cable, but could push a section enough to avoid a collision (just make sure your vibration doesn't move another section into a collision).
## Take the Hit
Sometimes you can't move them, you can't dodge, and you have to take the hit, but there are ways to ensure it's not a catastrophic hit.
* Redundancy is your friend. A rope isn't made of one big string, it's made of many, similarly your space elevator should be made up of multiple redundant cables interconnected with a separation distance between them, so it would take a very large avoidable collision to sever all of the cables, and multiple cable breaks can be supported by adjacent sections.
* Design thickness and safety factors, these are standard engineering design methods. If something is going to degrade at x rate and it needs to last y time you make it sufficiently thick to still survive until it can have maintenance or be replaced. Similarly when you have calculated how thick something must be to not break, you make it thicker by some safety factor.
* Shielding, provide the cable with an outer sheathing, similar to a [Whipple Shield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipple_shield). These shields would break up and absorb the impacts from the smaller micrometeoroids and debris.
* Active repair, the cable should have active robotic climbers going up and down constantly repairing and replacing damaged sections. You will likely need this type of technology to even construct the space elevator in the first place, it only makes sense to keep it in place for maintenance. On the more theoretical level you could active materials using nanotechnology which sense and repair damage.
[Answer]
The current method popular amongst researchers for protecting a space elevator is to 'waggle' it.
The base station needs to be able to move the base of the tether in order to dampen oscillations of the tether (and to pre-stretch it before adding a payload) - the same mechanism would be used to set up a wave that travels up the tether so it isn't where the debris is when it passes.
Specialist tether repair vehicles would be used to repair damage from undetectable debris.
The JBIS vol. 69, no. 6/7 issue was dedicated to space elevators, and might be a good place to start research, should you be interested.
[£15.00](http://www.bis-space.com/eshop/products-page-2/magazines/jbis/jbis-2016/jbis-vol-69-no-06-07-june-july-2016/) if you can't find it at a local library
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It's not a question of can you, it is a question of you must if you want to keep your elevator working for any length of time.
Now how to actually do that?...
Anything we attach directly to the structure like large shields or anything would likely make our structure totally infeasible, adding so much weight and bulk would really hinder our ability to build, maintain, and use our elevator.
We don't want to use any guns or missiles to shoot debris out of the way, because the resulting collisions/explosions would create even more debris for us to have to deal with.
We could use magnetic fields as already suggested, but those would probably cause massive interference with communications and computers aboard vessels launching off the elevator...
Our tether will probably have to be very flexible for two reasons:
1. Our anchor at the space side could attempt to maneuver the tether to bend it out of the way to avoid large collisions.
2. But not all objects are traceable/avoidable. They are too small. So for these unavoidable collisions, our tether must be able to survive. The best way is to absorb as much energy as possible, like a soccer net absorbing a sweet goal.
But even then we will suffer some damage from time to time. So our tether must be built in a way to be repairable/healable from these little nicks without completely rebuilding.
As the neighborhood gets more crowded (as will definitely happen with our easy access to space on our elevator!) we will need something more than just avoidance and absorption. We need satellites capable of intercepting space debris and deorbiting them safely. Currently, such a satellite would be illegal, since it could be easily turned into a weapon. It would be trivial to target another countries operating satellites and deorbit them, thus denying them space access. Having weapons (or anything that could be weaponized) in space is a big no no for international law right now. But by the point we are capable of building space elevators, the need for garbage collectors will be so great that I'm sure some sort of agreement for their operation could be reached.
So, in short, protect your elevator in three ways:
1. Bend out of the way to avoid the big stuff
2. Be flexible, strong, and repairable enough to handle minor collisions
3. Use garbage collection satellites to clear the neighborhood of as much debris as possible.
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I suggest that the biggest problem with a space tether is that every single inch of it is a potential point of catastrophic failure.
The solution to which is...make the structure of it have redundancies.
The orbital altitude sections should be a much wider diameter mesh-like structure, or lots of thinner cables rather than one big one.
These could be bound together at regular intervals to allow damaged sections to be detached and replaced without replacing literally hundreds of miles of cable.
The first rule of engineering safety is to assume that all preventative measures will eventually fail and the system will need to stand against disaster itself.
In the event that a piece of debris hits the tether at several kilometers a second or more, it's better to have it sever part of the cable than the whole thing.
To cope with weight issues, you could make the lower sections physically have fewer strands.
The additional upper weight would actually be a good thing, allowing the overall length of the tether to be made substantially shorter as it acts as a counterweight (a role usually filled by a captured asteroid or simply extending the cable much further than necessary)
Pro - Segmented space elevator is easier to repair and easier to construct as well as more resilient to disasters
Cons - Segments are likely to be weaker than a contiguous cable.
You'd want to combine this with other measures such as pre-emptive deorbiting/capture/destruction of debris, or nudging the elevator itself out of the way. but being able to replace partial-segments of cable in-situ would lower the stakes of potential disasters a lot.
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You can protect it with a turret based auto targeting system quite well.
However I am guessing you want something more complex.
SO! How about a secondary, independent, structure?
One that is like a honeycomb-bell and absorbs all the shock and allows for you to harvest said debris. 
The base contains the engines and command parts allowing it to remain in orbit.
I think the structure might serve as a base of sorts for the elevator
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I'm thinking this is a non-issue.
If you have the technology to build the super-light super-strong materials you would require to build a practical space-elevator, making said materials strong enough to survive, or self-heal, after a hit by space junk, or duck out of the way, might just be a secondary and trivial issue.
[Answer]
Let's start by admitting defeat, and assume there is no practical way to prevent the accidental severance of a Space Elevator's tether by space junk. Once the tether is in its operating position, we can expect a catastrophic failure of the tether once every N days, on average, for whatever value of N our analysis provides us with.
So are we doomed? No, because we can always just put up multiple tethers near each other. There's a chance that any single one of them might get severed, but the chances of them all getting severed *at the same time* are much smaller -- presumably any space junk big enough to cut all of them at once is also big enough to be easily tracked and avoided.
To make repairing a severed tether easier, you might have the tethers cross-connect at intervals, so that a severed tether will remain mostly in place rather than falling to Earth (or out into space).
[Answer]
# Clean up space and armor the cable
### Space particles hit too hard
The biggest problem with the space elevator's cable is that it is not going at orbital velocity. That means anything that hits it *will* be going orbital velocity relative to the cable.
For some basic kinetic energy comparisons, a 200g object will strike the cable with the force of an battle tank's main cannon and a 20g object will strike with the force of a 2-ton car at 70 mph. Every gram of object is equivalent to about 10g of TNT.
Obviously, the accumulated damage from even the tiniest strikes will make the elevator non-viable.
### Big particles must be removed
You simply can't take too many hits from highway speed cars. Fortunately, particles such as these are well cataloged. The standard for detected space particles is 10 cm. A 10 cm sphere with the density of plastic is about 4g; with the density of steel is about 35g. Particles of this size *must* be removed. According to an article in the [Vanderbilt Journal of Law](https://wp0.its.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/78/Imburgia-FINAL-CR-pdf.pdf) (related to space liability claims, I was surprised to find info in a law journal too!), the Air Force is tracking 21,000 objects of 10 cm or larger, and more than ten times as many over 1 cm.
Active debris removal is a technique that will work over the long term. A 2007 [NASA working paper](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20070013702.pdf) calculates that the 200 year effective reduction factor of removing one piece of space debris is 36; that means removing one piece of debris now removes 36 pieces of future debris (due to collisions causing debris to proliferate, ie Kessler Syndrome). The study also showed that instead of an exponential increase in space debris over time (again, Kessler Syndrome), debris could be limited to a linear increase by removing only 5 pieces of space junk per year, as long as these were the biggest 5 pieces.
Since in-space collision of large objects simply does not happen right now, with a linear growth of space debris, a space elevator would be safe from large impacts for a long time. Since the 10 cm and greater particles are tracked, in a space elevator-having future they would be tracked with greater accuracy, and advanced warning could allow countermeasures to prevent collisions.
### Removal methods
There are generally [two classes of removal](http://www.aerospace.org/crosslinkmag/fall-2015/how-to-clean-space-disposal-and-active-debris-removal/): deorbiting and absorption.
Larger objects make more sense to de-orbit. If you are only going to remove 5 objects a year, you can build a space tug to gently nudge these objects into an orbit that sends them into the atmosphere to burn up. If you are going to remove smaller objects, then a laser to push them into the atmosphere would work well too. A laser would not work well on something the size of a full-on satellite, there would be too much danger that the laser would spawn its own debris.
For smaller objects in the 10 cm and below range, you could catch them with [aerogels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel). A space tug would drag a large aerogel block through space. Small objects would impact and be absorbed by the gel. This is not very cost effective, and requires a lot of sweeping over time, but when the risks are loss of a space elevator, which surely cost hundreds of billions if not more, then it would be worth it.
### You still need to armor the cable
You will never be able to sweep all of the smallest objects up, even with an army of aerogel dragging tugs. Space is just so big. So the last line of defense would be to armor the cable itself.
The entire structure, including the space that the elevator cars travel up and and down in, should be protected by a [whipple shield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipple_shield). This is just a bumper to absorb impacts and break impacting particles up into plasma. Since you have a space elevator, the costs of bringing materials into space to repair the shield are not that great, so it really doesn't have to be much more than aluminum foil. More advanced materials like [ceramic fiber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris#Micrometeoroid_shielding) might be available and used for such this shield.
# Conclusion
* Strictly control the number of satellites in space, removing defunct ones with space tugs by pushing them into the atmosphere
* Blast smaller particles into the atmosphere with lasers
* Sweep up the smallest particles with aerogels
* Armor the cable with a whipple shield
Congratulations, you now have a safe and working space elevator!
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[Question]
[
I am writing a science fiction movie script and a planet idea came to me a few weeks ago: A planet with equatorial icecaps and polar jungles. As interesting and intriguing as this is to think about, it has been the bane of my sanity as I try to find a way to make this planet even *PLAUSIBLE*.
Welcome to Nabirmo:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZzsDC.jpg)
My best attempt to reconcile this fantasy world to within sight of reality is as follows:
* Nabirmo is a moon of a very low density gas planet which is in an elliptical orbit around a small star.
* Nabirmo's tilt on its axis is nearly 45 degrees
* Most of the planet's orbit lies within the habitable zone, except for closest approach and again at the farthest reach.
* There is a resonance between the time it takes Nabirmo to orbit is parent planet, and the length of its year.
* The star system may or may not be part of a binary system.
So how does this work out? And where are the questions? Be patient.
I am well aware that for just about any planet not completely tipped over on its axis, that the equator receives more energy from its star than the poles. So in order to combat this I had to find a way to "block" this energy from its star when it would usually shine on the equator. The moon's axis of rotation is lined so that at its closest and farthest away points the equator is lined up with the star (our equivalent of spring or fall) and on approach or the receding parts of the orbit one of the poles are titled toward the sun, where the jungles are.
"But how would this limit the amount of sunlight received by the equator?" This is where the resonance comes in.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yBwsL.jpg)
Thus, the orbit of the moon is timed with the eccentric orbit of its parent gas planet so that the moon is eclipsed to the maximum as it passes on closest approach. This has the added benefit of keeping the moon cooler than normal, allowing me to place the vast majority of its orbit in the habitable zone without fear of overcooking it.
I have also added the bit of fun that the gas parent planet swells up on closest approach roughly doubling its volume and so increases the width of its shadow. Something we have witness of with a new Kepler discovery of a swelled up gas giant with the density of Styrofoam.
However despite all this arrangement I still have this nagging suspicion in my mind that this still wouldn't produce the effects I am looking for.
I am well aware of eyeball planets (tidally locked worlds) and planets like Uranus that have a heavily tipped axis.
**Here come the questions:**
**Would this arrangement work with perhaps some minor tweaking?**
**Or is there another scenario that could produce the desired results of a planet with equatorial icecaps and polar jungles?**
[Answer]
First, as [JDługosz pointed out](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/21508/equatorial-icecaps-and-polar-jungles-a-fantasy-or-reality#comment55038_21508), the orbit you've drawn has a very high eccentricity - much higher than any of the planets in the Solar System, or many other planetary systems. To have something that is briefly out of the habitable zone, try something like [Gliese 832c](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_832_c):
[](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Hec_orbit_GJ_832_c.png)
It's orbit has an eccentricity of 0.180, letting it pass out of the habitable zone. The only issue is that it is in the zone for half its orbit and out for half, not like your arrangement.
However, whether you choose your orbit or mine, you still won't get the effects you desire all the time. The solution is to change the [albedo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo) of the planet in different places. You can then use the [effective temperature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_temperature#Surface_temperature_of_a_planet) as an approximation:
$$T=\left( \frac{L(1-a)}{16 \pi \sigma D^2} \right)^{\frac{1}{4}}$$
A greater albedo means a cooler temperature, and a lower albedo means a hotter temperature. Make the albedo greater at the equator and lower at the poles.
I think that [your comment](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/21508/equatorial-icecaps-and-polar-jungles-a-fantasy-or-reality#comment55047_21511) suggests the best way to change albedo:
>
> We know from Iapetus that huge changes in albedo can occur with relatively little transition in between. With a very high albedo at the equator and dark poles we should be able to get the desired feedback. Snow falling at the equator would further lighten the albedo, and dark green plants growing at the poles would absorb more light.
>
>
>
They create a positive feedback loop.
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**Give the planet rings which constantly shade the equator.**
Depending on the thickness of the ring and how far its outer edge is from the planet, it could shade the equator enough to cause it to remain significantly cooler than the rest of the planet. Obviously, the planet needs to be close enough to its star so that its poles would normally be tropical, but the ring shade would keep things from getting out of control.
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Assume a planet with a core which is proportionately larger than Earth's. This will be less rigid and hence be more oblate than Earth, causing the equator to be higher. This increases the chance of equatorial glaciers, which could join to produce an ice ring (rather than ice cap).
Meanwhile the poles will be closer to the core and more tectonically active, giving direct geothermal heat and increased carbon dioxide levels for a greenhouse effect.
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A bit of a cheat, but if in this era the land masses of the planet have gathered together to form a largely ring shaped supercontinent around the equatorial zone, then the upthrust would produce ranges of mountains which would become covered with snow and glaciers, giving the effect of a "polar band" around the planet when seen from orbit. Even on the ground, the generally high elevations would serve to keep the landmass cooler, and the circulation patterns of the atmosphere should provide a steady stream of precipitation to maintain the snowcap.
With your proposed axial tilt, the "jungles" on the polar islands would be very seasonal, with the jungle exploding into life during the period of "midnight sun" and the opposite polar jungle quickly becoming dormant (plants seeding and dropping spores, animals going into hibernation or whatever equivalent exists, extreme migrations to the opposite poles), which would make for an interesting environment for the heroes as the ecosphere would rapidly change, and most life would evolve to be growing and adapting to the changing light conditions at breakneck speed compared to Earthly life.
Details about weather patterns would depend on environmental variables (how high are the mountain chains, is the supercontinent a complete ring around the planet or are there gaps, how close are we to the star etc.), so this is a possible starting point, but could change drastically depending on what variables are in play.
[Answer]
Another way to make this world plausible is to locate it in a binary star system.
Put Nabirmo into orbit around a very dim red dwarf star near or even a little beyond the outer edge of its habitability zone. It would become tidally locked to the red dwarf, with its axis of rotation pointing toward the red dwarf, but if the red dwarf/Nabirmo system was itself in orbit around a larger, more luminous star, also near the outer edge of *its* habitable zone, we would get a situation where Nabirmo's non-constantly-illuminated hemisphere would receive just enough heat to prevent it from freezing entirely. If the orbital planes of the three bodies were closely aligned, the brighter star would be eclipsed by the red dwarf when Nabirmo passed behind its red dwarf star.
One important factor is that while Nabirmo is tidally locked to a relatively distant dim red star, it is *still rotating* with its axis of rotation locked toward the red dwarf, so that when it is illuminated by the brighter star, it receives a day-night cycle over the surface facing *that* star while Nabirmo is to either side of the red dwarf in its orbit. When Nabirmo is between the red dwarf and the brighter star, both inwards and outwards faces would receive illumination over longer periods. When the brighter star is at the outer pole's zenith (the outer pole being the one facing away from the red dwarf), both hemispheres would be receiving constant illumination, which would be much dimmer at the equator, hence the equatorial ice ring.
[Answer]
An alternative answer to the first I wrote is that Nabirmo has a heavily tilted axis of rotation about a fairly dim G-M-class star such that the axis of rotation lies close to the orbital plane rather than approaching being perpendicular to it.
In addition, Nabirmo has a highly eccentric orbit, such that its distance from its primary star varies considerably while remaining within the habitable zone, such that the primary star is close to the geometric centre of the elliptical orbit rather than being closer to one end of it.
If we arrange Nabirmo's eccentric orbit so that when the equator is facing the sun, it is more distant, and when a pole is facing the sun, it is closer. If the orbit is sufficiently rapid - possible only with a fairly dim star - then the long nights at the poles will not result in a particularly heavy covering of ice, which would rapidly melt as the day length began to increase again. However, when day and night length is equal, Nabirmo would be further from the sun, and the rate at which ice melted would slow.
The result of this, if the parameters of orbital eccentricity and solar luminosity and mass were carefully balanced, would be the desired equatorial ice band, where a thick accumulation of equatorial ice increases the local albedo and keeps the equator cool even when Nabirmo approaches its sun more closely at spring/autumn.
[Answer]
Two theories:
1)
I envision a planet that spins significantly more rapidly than Earth and for this reasons and possibly other reasons has a more oblate shape. It has a ring of connected continents around the equator and has northern and southern oceans with other continents and islands in them.
The equatorial continents have very tall mountain ranges and plateaus and have an average altitude a mile or so higher than the land around the poles and the surface of the polar seas. Thus the equatorial continents have fewer green house gases above them than the areas around the poles.
The higher parts of the equatorial continents are covered with glaciers that reflect sunlight back into space. The poles are above thinner sections of crust and more internal heat seeps through in the polar regions than in the equatorial regions with much thicker crust due to the oblate shape of the planet, and the continents on top of that.
The spin axis of the planet is almost in the plane that it revolves around its sun in. Thus during northern hemisphere summer the northern polar regions are in direct almost vertical sunlight all during the summer and heat up greatly, while the southern polar regions are in shade and nighttime all through their winter and are cooling off.
In the northern winter it is the opposite, the northern polar regions are in darkness all winter and cool off while the southern polar regions are in summer and constant nearly vertical sunlight and heat up.
During those seasons the equatorial regions receive sunlight at very low angles and do not heat up much, and every hill and mountain casts a very long and cold shadow.
In the spring and fall seasons the equator receives direct vertical sunlight, but it is almost all reflected back into space and doesn't heat up the surface much. And since the planet rotates there will be fast days and nights all over the planet during those seasons so heat will not build up in any region.
The polar regions will receive sunlight during the day during the spring and fall seasons but it will be at very low angles and not heat up the surface much.
Thus the equatorial regions, because they are cold and icy all year, will not be able to heat up and so will remain cold and icy all year. The polar regions will have normal seasons being hotter in the summer and colder in the winter. But they may be warmer during their winter than the equatorial regions are all year.
2)
Another theory is an Earth-sized moon A orbits a gas giant planet B that orbits a star C. Moon A's rotation has been slowed down until it always keeps the same face toward planet B, it's rotational period and orbital period have the same length.
The orbit of moon A around planet B could take about a single Earth day. The Galilean moons of Jupiter orbit at distances and periods of 421,700 kilometers and 1.769 days (Io), 676,938 kilometers and 3.551 days (Europa), 1,070,400 kilometers and 7.154 days (Ganymede), and 1,882,700 kilometers and 16.689 days (Callisto).
You would want the moon to orbit faster to have a strong enough magnetic field to protect it from solar wind.
And as the moon A obits planet B it will gradually recede farther and farther away from planet B, as Earth's moon gradually recedes from the Earth. Until eventually Moon A's orbital period around Planet B will equal in length planet B's orbital period around star C.
So moon A will rotate at such a speed that it will always keep the same side facing toward planet B and away from star C and the other side facing away from planet B and toward star C.
The sub stellar point on moon A will always get direct vertical light from Star C and will get hotter and hotter. Hot water in the oceans and hot air in the atmosphere will flow away from the sub stellar point to the opposite side of the planet that gets no light from star C. Since they get no starlight there, they would normally freeze.
But the point opposite to the sub stellar point on moon A will be pointing toward planet B, a huge gas giant planet that might have a high albedo and might reflect a lot of light from star C back to the side of Moon C and heat it up. Thus moon A might have a hot area that gets constant direct light from star C, an opposite warm area that gets light from star C reflected off of planet B, and a cold area on the edge between the two hemispheres.
Could a gas giant planet and its hypothetical Earth sized moon orbit a star close enough to get as much light and heat from the star as Earth Gets from the Sun?
Yes. Such a planet is called a hot Jupiter and it is one of the most commonly detected types of extra solar planets. The hot Jupiter with the shortest year, WASP-19B, has a mass of 1.15 Jupiter masses and orbits WASP-19 at a distance of about 0.1655 astronomical units and a year of about 0.788 Earth days.
Could a planet orbit within the habitable zone of a star and have such a short year?
TRAPPIST-1g has an orbital radius of 0.0451 astronomical units and a year of 12.352 Earth days, and orbits within the habitable zone of TRAPPIST-1. TRAPPIST-1f has an orbital radius of 0.037 astronomical units and a year of 9.2066 Earth days, and orbits within the habitable zone of TRAPPIST-1. TRAPPIST-1e has an orbital radius of 0.028 astronomical units and a year of 6.099 Earth days, and orbits within the habitable zone of TRAPPIST-1.
Thus it is certainly possible to calculate the parameters of a star system where a tidally locked habitable Earth-sized moon A orbits a gas giant planet B that orbits a star C, and where the orbital period of moon A around planet B and the orbital period of planet B around star C are identical for a short era by astronomical standards.
Thus one side of moon A could always face star C and the other side could always face planet B.
On Earth and planets that have Earthlike orbital characteristics the ring around the equator is the hot tropical zone and the temperate zones are rings north and south of the tropics, and the cold polar zones are circles surrounded by the rings of the temperate zone.
On moon A, the circle around the sub stellar point would be the hot tropical zone, surrounded by a ring shaped temperate zone, and the cold zone would be a ring around the twilight zone on the edge between eternal day and eternal night. Except that light from star C reflected from planet B might make the opposite side have a similar climate pattern, though probably not as warm.
This orbital arrangement gives habitable moon A the desired arrangement of tropical, temperate, and polar zones, except that they do not center around moon A's poles of rotation. Of course one could always claim that the sub stellar point and the sub planetary point are the "temperature poles" of moon A, or maybe call them the east and west poles.
[Answer]
My answer is mildly more abstract, but is based around the rings suggestion.
Essentially, to get the colder ice equator effect, you would need something that 'inverts' the effect of the sun.
The easiest way to do this is to have it so there is a moon that is just the right size that always faces the sun (sorta like a permanent lunar eclipse). It'd have to be smaller than the earth's moon, as you only want to block out the equator, or perhaps further away from the planet.
Physically speaking, I'm not sure how sound this would be, but basically the moon would have a rotation of the planet, but would be tidal locked to the star you want to block the heat from.
Then you can point out the poles receive heat because they're outside the moon's shadow. Adjust the size of the moon to increase/reduce the size of the ice equator.
If sci-fi isn't outside the doorstep, then you could include a giant 'inhibitor ring' constructed to surround the planet by a previous set of aliens designed to produce a cool area for an otherwise 'almost too hot for life' planet.
] |
[Question]
[
In my world I have a variety of nations and city states but I also have a history/background that means they are not and have not been completely isolated. In fact there was once a continent spanning empire from which these nations evolved.
Knowing the historic (base) culture for each group, what process can I use to help blend two (or more) cultures together? **How do I emulate the natural evolution that occurs via conflict and trade etc etc etc evident in my world?**
As a specific use case, to narrow the focus of the question, lets look at location names:
In this map we see current day (still a medieval setting). At one point, lets say 1000 years ago a Roman like empire that started in Nation A and ruled every nation on the map collapsed. The empire lasted lets go with 600 years.
What considerations need to be accounted for when determining how this empire impacted the names of locations (cities, forts) and geographic landmarks (mountains lakes etc)
**EDIT:** A very good point on including language in the question. I should have considered that. A and C come from the same language family and are slightly different dialects. B is a separate family as lets pretend the folks from B invaded from across the sea, or fled and landed here. Group D is from an entirely separate group as the mountains kept them from meaningfully interacting with the other nations for centuries.
[Answer]
# How do features get names?
Since we are all English speakers here, a great example would be to look at how names on a brand new continent came to be when colonized by English speakers. I'm not Australian, so we'll have to stick with North America. There are actually a bunch of great examples of names changing over time, so lets look at some. The best examples are the 50 states, all with relatively interesting names. Lets classify how the states got their names.
# From some native word, through another European language (5):
* Alaska - from uncertain placename, through Russian (Аляска).
* Arizona - from O'odham language, possibly *ali sonak*, meaning small-spring, through Spanish.
* Illinois - from some unknown term, through French
* New Mexico - from spanish *Nuevo Mexico* with the 'new' translated directly. Mexico itself comes from the Nahuatl term for the Valley of Mexico, home of Mexico City.
* Texas - from *tejas*, the Spanish name for the Caddo tribe, meaning 'friend' in Caddo.
# From a native people (9)
* Alabama - from Choctaw name for the Albaamo or Albaama, a people from near modern Montgomery. The Choctaw word means 'plant-cutters' or something like that
* Arkansas - from a Sioux name for the Kansa people (meaning 'people of the south wind'), in a French pronunciation, influenced by the name of Kansas.
* Iowa - from endonym of the Ioway people.
* Kansas - from a Sioux name for the Kansa people, in a French pronunciation.
* Massachusetts - endonym of the Massachusset people, meaning 'of the blue hills.'
* North Dakota - endonym for the Dakota people, meaning 'ally'
* Oklahoma - from the Choctaw word for all Native Americans. The concept didn't really exist pre-European invasion, but after the Choctaw were moved to Oklahoma with many other tribes (i.e. the Trail of Tears), they started using *okla humma* or 'red people' to refer to the tribes as opposed to the white man. Choctaw chief Allen Wright inserted it into treaty negotiations with the US Government in 1866.
* South Dakota - you got this
* Utah - endonym of the Ute tribe, meaning 'people of the mountain'
# From a native place name (12)
* Connecticut - from the river, Mohegan *quonehtacut*, meaning 'place of long tidal river.'
* Hawa'ii - from the name of Big Island in Hawaiian.
* Kentucky - from the Kentucky river, etymology uncertain, possibly from Iroquios.
* Michigan - from Ojibwa name for Lake Michigan, *mishigaama*, meaning 'big water'.
* Minnesota - from the Dakota name for Minnesota River, means 'cloudy water.' The 'Minn' pre-fix for water is all over up there, as Minnetonka, Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis ('city of water', in Greek-Dakota fusion) etc.
* Mississippi - from the river, from Ojibwe, *misi zibbi*, meaning 'great river.'
* Missouri - from the river, from a Miami language exonym for the Missouri tribe, possibly somethign like *ouemissourita*, which means 'people of the dugout canoes.'
* Nebraska - from the native name of the Platte river, native group and meaning uncertain.
* Ohio - from the river, from Seneca/Iroquois meaning 'good river.' The natives used the term for what we now call the Allegheny river.
* Tennessee - from the name of village of an unknown tribe near modern Newport, TN. Recorded by Spanish explorer Juan Pardo as 'Tanasqui' in 1567.
* Wisconsin - from the river, from the French interpretation of an unknown native place name.
* Wyoming - named after the Wyoming valley of Pennsylvania (home of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre) which was named from an uncertain native term for the Susquehanna River.
# From another colonial language (which means Spanish) (5)
* Colorado - from the river Rio Colorado, meaning 'coloured river.'
* Florida - from the phrase *Pascua florida*, Spanish for Palm Sunday, which was the day Juan Ponce de Leon landed in 1513.
* Montana - from Spanish for 'mountain.'
* Nevada - from Spanish for 'snow-covered.'
* Oregon - from Spanish place-name 'orejon,' itself of uncertain origin.
# From something English, possibly the 'New' of that thing (5)
* Indiana - literally, 'Land of the Indians.'
* Maine - unknown, possibly from Maine, province of France.
* New Hampshire - from a county in southern England.
* New Jersey - from an island in the English channel
* New York - from a county and city in northern England. Pretty much everywhere says it was named after James, Duke of York, and future James II (as in the King James bible). That, however, doesn't make any sense. How can a city be the 'new' of a person? It was named after the region of which James was duke.
# From a person (10)
* Delaware - from Thomas West, 3rd Baron de la Warre, first governor of Virginia.
* Georgia - from George II, King of England.
* Louisiana - from Louis XIV, King of France.
* Maryland - from Queen Mary, wife of Charles I of England.
* North Carolina - from the latin spelling of Charles I, King of England.
* Pennsylvania - 'Penn's woods' in Latin, after Admiral William Penn, father of the William Penn who founded the colony.
* South Carolina - you can figure this one out...
* Virginia - from Queen Elizabeth of England, the Virgin Queen. Allegedly.
* Washington - from Gorgeous George, father of the Nation.
* West Virginia - you can see where this is going
# From something really wacky (4)
* California - from the name of the queen of the Amazons in a 1510 Spanish novel. The name of the queen was Califia, which is believed to have been derived by the author, Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo, from the Arabic title Caliph. Given by Diego de Becerra and Fortun Ximenez to the region that is now Baja California in 1533.
* Idaho - made up and proposed to Congress by a wierd dude named [George Willing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M._Willing). Congress decided to name the territory Colorado, but some settlers had already appropriated Idaho Springs for their settlement (which is in the modern state of Colorado). Then a county in Washington state was named Idaho county, before that county and others were split off into a state.
* Rhode Island - the full name of the state is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Providence is the capital and largest city, and is named after the religious term. Rhode Island originally referred to what is now Aquidneck Island in a 1637 declaration by Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island...even though he founded a colony at Providence Plantations, not at Rhode Island.
* Vermont - from 'French' for Green Mountain...from someone who doesn't speak French. Green mountain would be *mont vert* in French, so someone probably thought it sounded cool and French when they named it, but used the English word order instead of the French. That's like naming your state using google translate, which sounds like the most Worldbuilding thing ever.
# Conclusion
Well there you have it. Native place or people names are most common, then adapatations from other colonial languages are about tied with people's names. Then comes 'new' things, and finally you could use pretty much anything from a character in your favorite book to running some term through Google translate. Happy naming!
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The best I can do is provide some examples.
Its not uncommon for different cultures to have related names for the same place or feature. Most are adaptations of the same word into the local language.
[Mont Blanc](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Blanc) is the French name for a mountain on the French/Italian border. There has been trade between France and Italy, the Italians refer to the mountain as Monte Bianco (which also translates as White Mountain).
Another example is Paris, although spelt the same an English speaker says the word very differently to a native French speaker (who says Paree).
There are two examples here of how two different names have arisen for the same place. The first is based on the translation of the same into a different language (as French and Italian sound quite similar the names are close). Unfortunately I've not been able to find any definitive reason why the difference in pronunciation of Paris. My personal theory is that this is because of the differences on how the two tongues would interpret the written word (think letters written between ambassadors) however I'd got no evidence to back this one up.
My suggestion to creating shared names would be to decide on a definitive name for a feature (used by one society) and (assuming you have a language feel for the second) to adapt the word to sound more like the latter.
Many natural features are named on a "Say what you see" mentality. There are many examples of this (White Mountain, Ben More - Gaelic for big hill, Aonach Eagach - knobbly ridge). Following this method and translating names into the nation's language keeps the relationship between your names. The similar names come from the language roots themselves.
So the wood between B, C and D may be called "The Black Forest" by B, C may call it "Teh Blaak Furst" and D may call it "Um Floret Blaah". The same words, similar sounding words but each have their own sound.
As pointed out by @CalWest (Please feel free to suggest an edit if I've not captured what you're saying) in the comments you need to determine the origins of the languages for these nations. Presuming they come from an older civilisation it's probably fair to assume they come from the same language-family. You should determine the roots of the language when creating these languages.
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Historically, names of cities are quite stable: a city might change ownership repeatedly due to conquest, but the only changes to the name will be pronunciation shifts to accommodate the language of the new owner, and perhaps adding a descriptor in the new language. The main driver of change will be natural shifts in pronunciation over time.
As an example, the Celtic "Lindon" became the Roman "Lindum" and acquired the descriptor "Colonia", which was shortened to the Old English "Lincylene", which became the medieval "Lincoln".
Rivers are a different matter. It's not uncommon for different stretches of a river to have wildly disparate names, and which one becomes "the" name for the river depends on who is doing the mapping. Case in point: the Mississippi could very well be known as the Ohio if the mapping had been done by explorers crossing the Appalachians rather than explorers coming up from the Gulf.
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The oldest layer of names are names of rivers and major mountain chains; they may be several millenia old, coming from the unknown language of the people who inhabited the land in prehistory, long before the ancestors of the modern nations of **A**quaxians and **B**elutids and **C**egotrans and **D**agrons came to this land.
* Many European rivers have names which suggest that they are of [Pre-Indo-European](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_European_hydronymy) origin, with roots such as *Al*-, *Alm*-, *Iser*-, *Sal*-, *Salm*-. The major rivers have names which go back to the Antiquity: the Seine, the Rhine, the Rhône, the Danube and many others; some of the great mountain chains, the Alps and the Carpathians, also have ancient names, the origin of which is lost in the mist of time.
In each of the languages of the four nations the ancient names have evolved according to the specific [sound change](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_change) rules; after several millenia this can render them unrecognizable -- consider that once upon a time the English *[eye](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eye)*, the Sanskrit *akṣi* and the Italian *occhio* were the same word, \**h₃ókʷs*.
For example, the great mountain range which separates the Dagronia from Belutida and Cegrotania was a very long time ago called the [K´asoms](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:List_of_Proto-Indo-European_roots/%E1%B8%B1) (which would mean the Grays in Proto-Indo-European); in Dagronian, this changed to Shasha; in Cegrotanian, the Shans /ʃɑ̃z/; in Aquaxian, which is a related to Cegrotanian but much more conservative, the Cânî; while the Belutids call them the Hasen.
It is thought that about three or four thousand years ago the ancestors of the Aquaxians and the Cegrotans populated the entire peninsula, on both sides of the great mountain range which they called the Kasœ. Ancient writers preserve the name of this ancient population as the Hediven. In time, the Hedivan language differentianted into (conservative) Aquaxian and (innovative) Cegrotanian.
In Dagronia there are many toponyms of Hedivan origin, or of Hedivan origin as transmitted through the imperial Aquaxian, but in Belutida they are fewer; linguists explain this discrepancy by the particularly quick and violent invasion of the ancestors of the Belutids. However, even in Belutida topnymical suffixes of Aquaxian origin are common, comparable to *-chester* (fort), or *-foss* (ditch or canal), *-wich* (village), *-ville* (town) in English toponymy.
* In order to reflect a plausible derivation of toponyms you must make up the sound-change rules for each of the languages, and then start with a Hedivan name and apply the rules in their historical sequence to obtain the modern Aquaxians, Belutids and Cegotran and Dagronian forms. You may want to imitate well-known sets of sound changes; for spectacular examples look up the [Germanic sound shifts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_sound_shifts), or the [sound changes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centum_and_satem_languages) which separate (western) Indo-European "centum" languages from (eastern) "satem" languages. For example, say than Dagronian modified the ancestral toponyms following the sound changes which lead from Indo-European to Sanskrit to Hindi, Belutid followed the Germanic sound changes, while Aquaxian and Cegrotan, more conservative, went somewhat along the lines of the evolution from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Italic to Latin to French.
* For Belutida you may limit the number of place names derived from the imperial Aquaxian; after all it is not uncommon for a war-like people to erase quite a lot of the pre-existing toponyms.
* For Cegrotanian you may wan to follow the French or Chinese tendency to drop final consonants with or without [tonogenesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_(linguistics)#Origin).
* For examples of how names change consider that Roman *Colonia* became German *Köln*, Latin *Aquae* became French *Aix* /eks/, or the Celtic name which the Romans wrote *Eboracum* became *Jórvík* in Old Norse and then *York* in English.
* One thousand years can be a long time or a short time in language evolution. Supposing that after the fall of the Aquaxian empire there followed a few dark centuries like in European history after the fall of Rome that is enough time to change, for example, *Sequana* into *Seine* /sen/, or *Souconna* into *Saône* /so:n/, or *Campania* into *Champagne* /ʃɑ̃paɲ/.
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The obvious solution is to design some **constructed languages** (well, parts of it) to name your places.
You don't need to go very far in the language construction process, some basic words for geographical features (like mountain, hill, plain, river, creek, city, town, forest, swamp, meadow), colours, animals, basic adjectives (like big, small, rich, new, old) will do as a starter. Combine terms to form your names.
Now, you have different people in different nations, you can choose to create unrelated languages for each of them; or you can try to emulate language change by applying some sound shifts to a proto-language and some replacement of basic words with new ones.
Tolkien was a master in these techniques, study his names and invented etymologies (there are dictionaries to Tolkien's languages available).
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Given the collapse of the **Civilisation**, it would make sense to assume that the enforcement of naming conventions, regardless of their genesis, would be far less industrial. This would give way to the more insular conventions of the modern **Nations** that would have a somewhat more grassroots social evolution at the point we're introduced to them- in medieval Current Day.
I point this out to highlight the significance of folklore and cultural myths and legends, which would have for a good part been intricately intertwined with the territorial geography, given the localised nature of society in each Nation's (A, B, C, D) rise. Taking this stance, the considerations that would have to be made are thus:
1. What cultural impact did the collapsed civilisation have on the modern states- that is, did whatever cultural roots that have become amplified over the course of each nation's evolution, take Nation A for instance, regard the collapsed Civilisation as *rival* or *ally*?
This becomes significant in considering to what extent they would have allowed the names, and naming conventions, formulated by the Civilisation to withstand the progress of History. A good real-world example of this would be previously-colonised nations reverting place-names to their pre-european titles, post independence. This can be easily gauged by the linguistic influences retained or discarded by each nation.
2. What are the socio-cultural/ethical norms, and relationships, facilitated by distinct features of the topography- especially those not precisely within the boundaries of any nation?
In other words, if there were passes through the mountains or trekking-trails through valleys or such, their inhabitants would find themselves less associated with the larger nation-states as much as they would to largely indigenous, or nomadic, **Tribes** that would pose a higher frequency to these locations. So their customs, and their communication/relationship with nations that the geography facilitates would be far more significant in the naming of these locations. Also, given the medieval setting, it would be these *cultural-pockets*, so to speak, that were the true catalysts to commerce and cultural trade- giving the ideas fertilised on these routes particular significance in denominations across the entire social/cultural landscape. Think, the *Silk Road*.
3. What is the cultural significance of the topographic features as of the nation that considers it within its territory: does it hold significance as some ethical allusion; do the gods live atop that mountain; did Nation A fight a battle on that piece of land that shares borders with Nation C- further still, was it won or lost?
This is where the relevance of folklore, myths, and legends of each individual nation would really kick in regarding the establishment of geographical identifiers. This would also be a junction conducive to the consideration of border conflicts: what is the all-round acceptance to the claims laid over distinct features of this shared topography by each nation, among the rest; and with whom does most Authority reside- which has the additional benefit of signifying hierarchies in trade and conflict (basically, the economic arena) among the four nations (A, B, C, D) on the map presented.
To sum up, the primary factors of consideration are the **History**, **Language**, and **Economy** of the new Nations; and to what extent they have *derived* or *distanced* themselves from the social and epistemological conventions of the collapsed Civilisation.
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One of the big things about place names is that they are typically very simple and usually either a description of the place or the name of who lived there. For English speakers relatively recent colonies like the US give a good illustration of this- there are many places with names like "Lone Pine" or "Scotts Bluff" which described the geography or who lived there. Most place names follow approximately that process. By creating a handful of terms for geographical features and some personal names in your various languages - along with the order that language tends to put them - you probably have all the tools you need to create a realistic interaction between different regions.
For a really good real world example of this, you can fire up your mapping application of choice and take a look at place names in Britain.
Here you can see the oldest names in the western regions where the celtic languages persisted - rivers called "Avon" ( from *Afon*, meaning river in brythonic celtic ), hills with "pen" in their name and so on. To get an idea of the original names, take a look at Wales.
Then you have Roman names - anything with a "cester" in it comes from the latin word for a fort - followed by Saxon names. Very typical "English" sounding names ending in "stead" or "don" or "borough" are usually of Old English ( which derives largely from the germanic peoples who get referred to now as the Anglo-Saxons ) and those predominate around the south east of the country.
As you move north you start to see scandinavian names, which originate from the viking invaders who populated much of the northern part of England in the late dark ages ( in your face, *early medieval period!* ) and established the region known as the Danelaw. Although England was united under Saxon rule by the late tenth century, you can still see the borders of the Danelaw in the placenames - Thwaite, Thorpe, Holm and By are all common Scandinavian place name endings.
There are relatively few Norman placenames, but again they exist - possibly because the Normans invasion was a top-down takeover rather than a repopulation of large areas and they integrated more with English culture as time went on.
One of the interesting things is that some place names end up as an accretion of the same word in different languages so you get a name like "Bredon on the Hill" which uses "bre" from the Welsh for "hill", "don" from the old English and "hill" from the modern English.
There is lots of good information around on [Toponymy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponymy_of_England) once you know that is the term for this.
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When talking about cultures, you have to consider many factors, one of the primary ones being belief/religion. There are other factors, for example geography (food supply, water supply..)
Considering that all of the four current nations were ruled by one nation in the past, what was the belief/religion of the original nation? Culture is almost always derived from belief, for example the "birthday celebration" culture is derived from Pagan belief. Even though the vast majority of people don't hold Pagan beliefs anymore, they still practice this culture, meanwhile new beliefs are formed to support/justify the existence of the culture.
Take for example the culture of "Now Roz" (Persian New Years). It is held in autumn/spring, because that is when the harvest usually takes place. The Now Roz celebration is still taking place today, not because of harvest anymore, but because of identity (new belief attached to culture derived from old belief).
What is the point of the above examples? Today in Iran for example, there is a blend of cultures, Now Roz is still celebrated, but Eid is also celebrated. Now Roz is derived from geography, while Eid is derived from belief. That's the blend.
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If all of the continental crust on Earth were eroded down, smoothed out, and distributed evenly across the whole planet, filling in all of the ocean basins and displacing the water therein, how deep would the resulting world-wide ocean be?
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I agree with the conclusions of the current two answers, but thought a different analysis might be interesting. Since the ocean is a hollow sphere, its depth isn't given exactly by volume/surface area. However, the relationship is still simple:
$V\_{ocean} = \frac43 \pi (R\_{ocean}^3 - R\_{earth}^3)$
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mv6Hi.png)
Taking the [average radius of the Earth](https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=earth+radius&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#channel=fs&q=earth+radius+km) and [volume of Earth's oceans](https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=earth+radius&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#channel=fs&q=volume+of+Earth%27s+oceans) from Google, we can solve for $R\_{ocean}$:
$R\_{earth} = 6371 \mbox{km}$
$V\_{ocean} = 1.332 \times 10^9 \mbox{km}^3$
$R\_{ocean} = 6373.61 \mbox{km}$
So the ocean's depth will be 2.61 km, or about 0.04% of the radius of the Earth - hence the similarity to the approximation using $\frac{V}{SA}$. Plug in better estimates for the average radius of the Earth to get more accuracy.
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I found this [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-513922.html), so it's not technically my answer, but here you go:
>
> The total volume of the oceans is 1.3 billion cubic kilometers (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean#Physical_properties>). The surface area of the Earth is 510,072,000 square kilometers (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth>). Dividing the volume by the surface area, we get a depth of 2.5 kilometers.
>
>
>
The wiki links do have those numbers and the math seems to check out (although rounded), so there you have it :)
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If all of the dry land that lies above sea level were to be pushed into the ocean, the ocean would rise less than 300 meters.
Wikipedia summarizes the current division of land and sea as follows:
* 510072000 km2 (196940000 sq mi)
* 148940000 km2 land (57510000 sq mi; 29.2%)
* 361132000 km2 water (139434000 sq mi; 70.8%)
* The mean height of land above sea level is 0.840 km
So the volume of land above the current sea level is 148,940,000 x 0.84 = 125,109,600 km3.
Reshaping that volume so that it covers the entire earth surface, it would have a height of 125,109,600 / 510,072,000 = 0.245 km. (Of course the displaced land would sink to the bottom, and the water would be cover the entire surface.)
So the ocean would rise by 245 meters.
How deep would the current ocean be? It would be 245 meters deeper at any given point than it currently is. It's average depth (about 2.5 km) would change by less than 10%.
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SO the answer is 2.5 km deep, even 3 km deep.
Why?
Because there are 1.3 billion cubic metres of water in the ocean and If you divide that by the total by the volume of the earth, you would get about 2.5 Km deep.
As easy as that. (-:
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If all the earth’s landforms are eroded away, they’re still there, just submerged (whole conservation of matter stuff). So essentially, you have to find total volume of water on earth: ~13 billion cubic Kilometers (thanks to Syndic) and the total volume of solid mass on the earth: ~ 14,842,892.93 square km x 40 (average thickness of earth’s continental crust. So, give or take, there’s 593715717.2 cubic km of earth to spread around. Then take the water and put it on top. So you would raise the sea level quite a bit (sorry I don’t know the exact amount, my calculator broke). Also, the mid-Atlantic rift would actually make more land through underwater mountains and underwater volcanoes could make hot spot islands. So really, there would have to be something in place to actually prevent land from popping back up and ruining the equation. **edited add on:** so, there is 1.08e+13 km^3 of earth all up. Flatten that into a (near) perfect sphere with an interior diameter of 12614.58km and you get a hollow space that is 12614.58 x 12614.58 x 12614.58 wide. Then add a shell with a volume of 1.08e+13 and then put your amount of water on it. There’s some formula for making this, but I don’t understand it.
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Are you familiar with the [Fermi paradox?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox) It asks why the Earth hasn't already been (convincingly) visited by aliens - there are so many suns and planets older than the Earth, that aliens *should* be ridiculously more common than what we observe. One explanation for this is that there is at least one (and quite possibly more than one) significant hurdle along the path of the development of intelligent life capable of colonizing more than just their own solar system.
If the hurdles are behind us, then we're good to go. For example, if it is extremely rare for life to develop at all, or for multicellular life to develop at all, then it might only be smooth sailing between humanity and galactic colonization. But what if it's fairly common for life to reach the stage that we're at now? That means there is likely some apocalypse coming that is almost impossible for intelligent life to avoid.
So here's the plan - I'm going to start a secret society specifically for preventing humanity from being stopped by oncoming hurdles. But how do I do it?
### Requirements for the secret society:
1. Self-perpetuating: it won't help humanity if my society dies out a couple of decades before humanity reaches a hurdle, so the society needs to be able to keep going for as long as possible.
2. Avoid corruption: the overall goal of the society should change as little over time as possible (and I'm not talking about changing tactics). It's not worth it if, in a couple decades, my society is likely to decide to take over the world instead of pursuing its original goal.
3. Intelligence: the society must be capable of identifying and determining solutions for avoiding hurdles.
4. Power/Influence: the society must be able to actually pull off its plans
5. Secrecy: one part of [Isaac Asimov's fictional psychohistory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)) was that people knowing about it could disrupt its predictive power. Similarly, the secret society *must* be kept secret - it's possible that the secrecy of the society will be a key ingredient in the recipe to overcome a hurdle. This also makes it less vulnerable to any other current/future secret societies. I think it would also help in avoiding corruption because there wouldn't be a ton of power-hungry applicants to sift through.
So now the big question is how I go about recruiting members. I don't want to leave obscure hints out in the public--for example, the eye of providence on US dollar bills that some people say is proof of the illuminati--because that's likely to only attract conspiracy theorists who tend to be a little... unhinged. I need the members of my society to be clever, but they also need to be pretty mentally stable. Also, I'm not sure how I can make sure people will be committed to the society before it's been shown to them (if we are able to develop MIB-style memory erasers this will become much easier, but I'm not willing to make my plans depend on that).
**So how do I recruit competent members for my secret society in a way that will preserve the secrecy of my society and further its goals?**
Additional notes:
* I have reasonably substantial resources at my disposal.
* A plan can explain how it would make use of near-future tech, but it shouldn't fall apart if the near-future tech turns out to be impossible or impractical.
* I'm not very interested in plans that rely on [AGIs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence) or ASIs. I already know how to use those if they turn out to be possible.
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Do not recruit them into your secret society... (and yet this **will** answer your question).
First, you must have a clear plan and criteria for identifying the right people. What are their characteristics? How would you go about finding them? But then, and here is the answer, recruit them to ***start*** such a secret society. Recruit each one as the first one and give them the task of setting up with you this society. If you put your substantial resources at their disposal (under your supervision), what will they do with them to start such a society? How will they shape it?
This will identify their motivations, capacity, drive, secrecy. If any of these fail, nothing is lost. The society is never formed and they go on their way.
But if they succeed, they get to find out that the society already exists and they are not the first. What they have shaped merges with (good new ideas?) what is already in place, and the whole becomes stronger.
Also, I would set up such society in a cell structure, kind of like the one in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". Each new recruit could become the start of a new cell.
The cells would reinforce, test, encourage each other toward the common goal. I would perhaps even have a "statement of purpose" that is unchangeable (must be minimal to remain relevant) and that must be regularly reviewed, signed off on, studied by every member.
The society might even coat itself with a layer of outer, less reliable cells, so that if one is discovered, a number of those lesser cells can be sacrificed to make it appear that the entire society was discovered and destroyed (should anyone come a-knocking).
If you like this idea, there is probably more that could be developed along each of the fronts you mentioned.
By the way, Rob, it so happens that I **am** looking to start such an organization. Would you be interested in being the first member?
### Some additional ideas
Shortly after the new recruit has succeeded in "starting" a new society, maintaining it secret and aligning it perfectly with your goals, I would have them found out. They would be captured and put through the ringer (psycho-torture) to give up their recruits and their leader (you). That would be the final exam before they found out that the society already existed. If they pass, they find out their captors are your men, testing them.
If a recruit fails at any point, you will have to consider what to do. Letting them go on their way is an option, but ultimately you may not want too many people out there knowing you are trying to start such an organization, even if they think it failed to start. Another option involves a wood chipper and bags of concrete, the downside being that it would get messy (literally and morally).
I had another thought, but it escapes me now. Darn it, I hate it when that happens!
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When it comes to a secret society it depends on the goal of the organization. Stereotypical secret organizations tend toward control, amassing wealth and power. In this case you need to recruit people with similar personal goals and the secret organization must benefit those that join. There is no shortage of people that could join this organization and the size is really only limited by the group's ability to communicate and coordinate.
In your case things are pretty different. While the organizations listed above may *claim* to have humanity's best interests as a goal that is usually a very skewed view on the world.
So. You need a secret organization that can help humanity overcome unknown obstacles in the future. The unknown nature of the obstacles makes this quite a challenge but I think I have a solution for you.
**1. Create a core team**
This team does not need any particular technical areas of expertise, since you don't know what sort of problem you will be overcoming. The team does not need to be particularly large either, less than 20 is feasible and preferred, smaller groups are easier to manage. The team should have extensive resources. Your best bet is to have a company (or better yet series of companies) in which the organization is secretly embedded. I would recommend telecom, pharmaceutical, and technology companies. (Ill get into why later). These core members should be leaders in these companies that can direct their activities.
**2. Develop and secretly monitor worthy individuals.** This has two parts, first, you will need to replenish members over the years, this way you can vet the quality of the people that can take over on a long term basis. This allows you to ensure they have the temperament to maintain the lofty goals of your organization. Second, you will need many more people should the time come when the unknown obstacle arises. The individuals you observe should cover a wide range of fields and the proper temperament. Keeping an eye on a wide variety of specialists gives you a better chance of being ready to counter the problem when it arises.
Being able to keep an eye on these people is part of why having control of telecom companies and technology companies is so important, it allows you to keep an eye on potential recruits.
**3. Execute**
The problem has arisen! Due to the small group nature of your core organization you are more likely to have maintained your original goal. With your extensive network of scientists, thinkers, doctors and whomever else you activate these unknown members and bring them into the organization completely. As a team they can confront whatever has stalled/befallen humanity.
**Avoiding corruption:**
The longer an organization exists, the more likely corruption will sink in...this is tough but here are a few ideas to help.
* Document the expectations of the organization and place certain restrictions on core members. I suggest including a few things:
+ They may not amass personal wealth beyond a certain value.
+ They may not pass their position on to their children (its about the group, not me)
+ Membership is a lifetime requirement and members will be provided for after they retire (if they have to quit early for whatever reason)
+ The total number of members may not change from the proposed original unless the nature of human progress requires it (a consensus vote is required)
+ Annual reviews of personal activities and finances
+ Only individuals who have been under surveillance for at least 20 years can join the core team
+ No one under 35 may be on the core team (youth are impetuous)
+ Violating the charter = death
If there is tech that can read a person (like a lie detector, or some future version of such a device) is available it should be used on all members of the core team annually in full view of the rest of the team.
I am sure more rules could be dreamed up, but keep in mind nothing guarantees the group won't be corrupted...just the nature of things.
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Well, the traditional cell structure is not sufficient for this. It is basically modelled after how multi-cellular organisms work and is mortal and corruptible.
Instead you should model your organization after [biofilm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofilm).
Each cell would be fully independent entity that reproduces by cellular division when it grows large enough.
Cells would have a shared Creed, analogous to genetic code, inherited from the original cell that details the goals and basic rules for operating the cells.
Cells would be capable of exchanging members as people move about, thus giving a method for spreading experience similar to how bacteria can exchange genetic data.
Cells would be able to form ad hoc support and information networks. You do not really identify each other as members of the same organization to support and communicate with people with similar values and goals. Members would be able to openly work at establishing such networks. In fact it would be likely that recruitment would come from such informal networks and most people in such networks would not actually be members of the organization or aware of its existence.
When it comes to secret societies less is more. Membership would be sufficient to **support** activities and maintain the organization, but actual activities should be carried out by affiliated non-members. Members would simply make certain such actions happen, doing them yourself should be the last resort.
It is an interesting question how large the actual organization needs to be to maintain sufficient social networks of affiliated non-members to succeed. How pervasive do the networks need to be reliably deal with unknowable future issues?
A major advantage of a biofilm structure is that like bacteria, cells are potentially capable of geometric growth, if the need arises. Thus, in theory, it should be capable of increasing its influence fast enough to deal with any issue that can be dealt with at all.
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You keep it secret by not making it secret. Have a big crazy rich guy like Elon Musk start it with a big fanfare. Then let it 'fizzle out'. After the initial fuss, everyone largely forgets about it, and when you do (inevitably) let something slip, everyone just dismisses it as "haha, that crazy old project, I can't believe he's still wasting money on that." You can freely hire people to it, but it's just some crazy project, and so as long as no-one takes it seriously, *it won't disrupt it's predictive power*.
But how does your secret society wield power without being noticed? Get someone else to do it.
Easy – you then create a bunch of other 'secret societies' (the Illuminati, Masons, etc.) and non-secret societies (reducing pollution, whatever you need), which don't share your goal – they have their own goals – but which are led or directed by someone from your real organisation - or even just find existing ones with the goals you need and fund them anonymously. You use them to wield power and accomplish *parts* of your big plan. You abandon them once they've done what you need.
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Today, I was thinking about a few species I've designed, and I realized that while I had some quite fleshed-out ideas about their cultural values, language, rituals, history, and biology, my vision for them was sorely lacking in terms of what everyday, friendly communication would look like--small talk, if you will. I've come up with insults, honorifics, ranks and stations, terms of endearment and deference, but it's all so terribly *serious*: excellent for dramatic standoffs and climatic set pieces, but not very applicable for the more mundane situations that would form the bulk of any real people's lives. As it stands, my people feel decidedly like a severe, monolithic fantasy race, and lack a sense of relatableness or tangibility. A critical element of lightheartedness is missing.
The element that I think is most sorely absent from my species is **humor**. I have no idea what my species laughs about, how they demonstrate wit, or how they keep each other amused on long hunts in the desert (or long nights in the cybernetics lab, as the case may be). I can imagine them enthralling an audience with tales of glory and bloodshed, or reciting myths of ancient warriors and vengeful spirits, but I draw a blank when trying to picture them laughing around a fire and think about what they're laughing about. And I think it really diminishes the "fullness" of their conceptualization.
There are several different species I'm thinking about, so rather than go into specifics for each one right away, in this question I'd like to address the wider issue of designing a sense of humor for a species. I know that humor is a notoriously subjective phenomenon among humans; indeed, the fact that ideas of what is and is not funny varies so wildly between cultures and individuals is a large part of what inspired this question.
So, on to the meat of what I'm asking:
* Are there aspects of humor that are universal or nearly universal among humans that we would expect to arise in other sapient species? Or is literally anything fair game?
* What cultural, linguistic, historical, or biological factors can influence a species' sense of humor? Or do these things have no effect?
* Assuming a non-human sense of humor might would probably not be funny to most humans, how can I make a sense of humor be convincing for the species even if it's not funny to us?
* Can a culture have *no* sense of humor? If so, what other types of interactions might take its place as a lighthearted social glue?
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One universal is that we laugh about things that hurt. It's as you say, a measure of lightheartedness. When you don't want to deal with a particular hurt, you find a way to make light of it. When it comes to jokes, we try to tell them in a way so that the person is in pain over the answer and chooses to laugh about that pain. There's a very good reason it's called a "punchline."
One place to find a cultural sense of humor is to look at the fundamental characteristics of the culture. These are easy to spot. They are the places in a culture where the culture's strengths and the culture's weaknesses line up to be the same thing. Consider, as Americans, one of our nation's great strengths is its parliamentary government founded on the principles of democracy. As we are finding out right now, one of our nation's great weaknesses is its parliamentary government founded on the principles of democracy. This is a fundamental characteristic of our nation. **We can laugh about it, because it's our strength. We have to laugh about it, because it's our weakness.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PB2HZm.jpg)
If your cultures are sufficiently well established, they will likely have several such fundamental characteristics where their strengths and weaknesses align. This is where your culture would make jokes about.
This is, of course, why jokes can be lost across cultural gaps. If I may take an example from a comment on your question by L.Dutch: "Serious businessman slipping on a banana is humorous, a crippled man slipping on a banana isn't." This is because in our culture, our handling of the handicapped is not aligned with a strength. We view it as a straight up weakness. It's not funny to us. Meanwhile, a successful businessman is a symbol of our economic strength, but there's a weakness in the knowledge that there are things like happiness that that economy simply cannot buy for you. Thus, it's funny to us.
As for not having a sense of humor at all, that could be a bit tricky because typically social traits don't deal in absolutes. However, I can think of a few extremes on might look for a lack of humor:
* A culture which does not admit to their weaknesses to others. Such a culture would not be willing to find anything humorous.
* A culture whose strengths are dying under their weaknesses, and may not have the strength to laugh.
* A young culture may not have had time to find its fundamental characteristics. Its strengths and weaknesses may not have aligned enough yet. Such a culture would find things not as funny, but as refinements to be made.
* A very old culture that is focused on conservation of energy. Such a culture might have rounded out its strengths and weaknesses enough that there's simply no point in paying attention to them. I like to think that any *good* old culture should have its own very subtle peculiar sense of humor (at the very least, a sense of a cosmic joke of existence), but that might be sufficiently subtle that you or I would fail to realize they were being humorous when they were.
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**The key thing about humor is that it must involve the unexpected.** For your aliens, take a piece of the human humor repertoire and expand it. Puns substitute terms with similar sounding unrelated terms. Silliness Monty Python style involves things behaving in ways which are inappropriate or unexpected for the context. Stooges style physical humor involve suffering or humiliation which is unexpected by the recipient and amused third parties. Obscene limericks and the like are funny in that they step outside of the boundaries of what is culturally expected and allowed. I read an account of autistic savants who were taking turns speaking numbers, and one said a number that caused the other to crack up - clearly the numbers were in a series and the funny one was one which was unexpected but not random - funny because it cast the whole series into a new light.
I could imagine your severe and monolithic race finding humor in unexpected excess. It would be great as narrative especially as your reader who has come to understand these people as serious and austere reads about successive, serial and apparently pointless feats of excess until finally the whole group breaks down laughing.
The good thing about this is that if you do it right, your reader should also find it funny. It is funny in and of itself that these serious aliens turn out to have a sense of humor.
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The book Inside Jokes:Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind
By Matthew M. Hurley, Daniel C. Dennett and Reginald B. Adams presents an intriguing theory of humor. The only one have ever seen that explains the broad range of humor and what could cause the behavior to evolve.
Humor is your brain bribing you with pleasure to find false assumptions and mutually exclusive beliefs. It basically boils down to your brains making a prediction based assumptions about the world, when your prediction is wrong it is surprising. when the prediction is so wrong some of your assumptions must wrong it is humorous. Weak tentative assumptions can be easily changed and strongly held beliefs can actually lead to ignoring evidence to their incorrectness. Humor works on the middle ground between the two. Assumptions that are held strongly enough that you treat them as reliable but not so strongly that you are unwilling to change them.
Any intelligent creature is going to be a prediction/connection machine, constantly seeking new connection so it will need some kind of mechanism to weed out bad predictions. Humor lets us weed out bad predictions by rewarding us for finding bad ones. If bad assumptions made us feel bad we would just not check for bad ones by getting a little unique jolt of pleasure for finding them we are far more willing to acknowledge them and change them. Some things are funny across cultures some are not. That becasue our assumptions about the world differ across cultures with varying levels of universality. This is also why a joke about god might be funny to a lax catholic but might not be to a very devout one, the belief being challenged by the joke may be too strongly held to be changed so cognitive dissonance is triggered instead.
Now your creatures you just need to decide what assumptions they may have that is different from humans what similarities and differences does their culture have with ours. The possibilities for humor are really just limited by your own inventiveness, maybe they love caste system jokes or maybe they laugh everytime they see a human drink a can of coke because it looks like a common standardized waste disposal container they use. Maybe they chuckle(or whatever outward sign of humor they use) every time someone formally introduces themselves as an ambassador from the UN because UN sounds exactly like the sound a common housepet makes on their planet. Mismatched symbols can be a good source of humor, they think it is funny all human medical supplies are marked with a red cross becasue that is the symbol they use for intoxicating beverages, and they make jokes about humans who looks small and weak are secretly super-macho becasue they go for liquor instead of bandages.
Now for humor between each other you can look at similar human cultures for some inspiration, some cultures prefer simple snarky humor. Example, we call him "runs through trees" hunter leans in and adds quietly "Not because he is strong but becasue he is too stubborn to go around". Or may play of gender roles human don't get, a super masculine hunter who secretly carries a brass knife it's funny to them becasue brass is a woman's metal. Of course you have an easy out because some of their humor may make no sense to a human observer and the reader is human. This is why a joke explained isn't funny you aren't making the assumptions it relies on.
You mentioned mythic story, often even epic heroic sagas had humor mixed into them. [this](http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt81kdg) may help. For example a weak character may challenge of much stronger one over a point of honor. the contest may be so one sided it is actually funny but at the same time it expresses the bravery or strong sense of honor of the weak character. Then of course you have the classic comedy of errors type of story.
Without knowing anything about your creatures and culture it is hard to make up anything specific.
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**Making the Humor Funny**
Others have done a good job explaining why things can be funny, so I'll focus on how to make your non-human humor amusing to the audience.
I think the best way to go about it is to find a way to get the audience to laugh at the alien's sense of humor, rather than with. The audience most likely won't get the joke, either due to a lack of understanding of the societal relevance of it or because the joke falls outside of the person's idea of comedy. However, you can still make this scene humorous.
Have a human-like character interact with the aliens and have them comically misunderstand the joke, or have them simply not get it and let the aliens poke fun at the human for not understanding what was said. The reverse also works. Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy had no understanding of human figure of speech, but his serious reactions brought about by the misunderstanding was very funny. His own attempts at being humorous, by contrast, would also be funny for the viewer because watching someone fail can also be a form of comedy. Maybe the alien gets annoyed when their attempts at humor are disregarded by their human companions, or when they fail to understand the comedy of the human's jokes.
Because of our love of subversion and humor that plays on the discomfort and confusion of others even a character who doesn't understand puns and thinks a metaphor is a type of bird can still be hilarious.
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You are facing an interesting problem here.
Let's suppose you came up with a sense of humour that fits your species. You still need to transport it to your audience.
If their sense of humour does not correspond to ours, explaining it will still leave it somewhat sterile and academic.
A joke that needs explaining is not funny.
So the easy way out is have their humour resemble our own.
If you feel it needs to be different, and you want your audience to understand that it is indeed humour, you could describe their not-funny humour in a funny way, so that you transport the feeling in the description where it cannot be in the thing you describe.
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Your answer to what they might find funny will be bound up in:
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> cultural values, language, rituals, history, and biology
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Which you have already figured out.
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If it's a warrior culture, take your cues from ancient warrior types in human culture. Reversal of cultural norms tends to be funny. In much of our culture, the browbeaten husband was deemed funny because the power lay with males in our society, for example.
This [article defines 7 types of humor](https://blogs.psychcentral.com/psychoanalysis-now/2015/05/7-kinds-of-humor-and-what-they-mean/). Let's go through a few of them and apply them to your culture, with a couple of others I've added in.
**Malicious Humor:**
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> We laugh at someone we consider beneath us. Often times such laughter expresses our prejudice against a certain group, as when we tell jokes about Polish people or African-Americans or those whose religious or political views are different than ours. “How many Poles does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” “It takes five; one to stand in the chair and hold the bulb, and four to lift the chair and turn it around and around.” People also laugh at outcasts or scapegoats, making them the target of their pent-up hatred; they are also engaging in malicious humor.
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So in a warrior culture, there might be jokes about a lack of prowess for a segment of society that is more eggheaded. You already know what their culture values,and what the subsets of their culture values, so you can start picking targets. Or, they might not understand this type of humor at all...
**Jokes:**
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> As Freud noted, jokes are about breaking the rules, and there is always some anger beneath them. Dirty jokes break the rules of societal censorship, whatever it may be in a particular society. Breaking the rules releases provides us with a “guilty pleasure.” Dark humor or cruelty jokes also provide the same satisfaction. “Mrs. Wilson, can Johnny come out and play?” “You know he doesn’t have any arms and legs.” “We know, but we want to use him for third base.” When we tell a joke like this there is an unconscious satisfaction not only in breaking the rules of decency by joking about someone less fortunate than you through no fault of their own, but also by challenging authority in an indirect way.
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If you know what the rules are for this society, it's now time to break those rules. In reality, using a crippled boy without arms and legs for third base is not funny, but as a joke it IS funny. In this instance, humor doesn't always translate well. Other cultures may well be HORRIFIED at what passes for humor.
**Satire**
This one also often doesn't translate well, even within cultures. (See [A Modest Proposal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal) for a good example of that!)
**Body Humor**
When it comes to funny, sex is a good place to start. In human culture, the size of a man's junk is the source of much humor. If you have their biology figured, there will be a wealth of humor there--if their color changing abilities get them a mate, there will inevitably be jokes about that.
[Lysistrata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata) for example is something you should look at in this realm.
The other direction body humor can go in is potty humor. There's many a fart joke...what's your culture's equivalent? If you know their biology you should be able to come up with something.
Just overlay what you already know about this species on to what we understand as humor.
You also might want to look at [this link](http://www.shayne-michael.com/myArts.php?artID=41) regarding specific joke structure, which follows George Carlin.
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I would figure out what is important to your alien species? What concepts do they think in terms? What is their emotional make up? I would then combine concepts together in the same way that we do. One example of a premise for a joke is that monopoly losses are dark and hard for young children to grasp. See [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufdvYrTeTuU&t=100s) for more. It's a Louis CK joke about his daughter losing at Monopoly. If I were to repurpose this joke for an alien species, I would ask what sort of economy do they have? If it is capitalism, then this joke works equally well for the alien species. But say the alien species was a sort of hive mind with telepathic abilities. Then one joke might be about a game where the aliens telepathically connect to properties in the game and that when an alien loses a property, they lose that telepathic connection, something which for them is just terrible. And then telling a story of an alien child who loses all telepathic abilities in this harsh game might not resonate with us, but would be hilarious for the alien species.
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It is well known that [some organisms can produce electricity.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_fish) Therefore I think it would not be too much of a stretch to assume that also some plants might have evolved that ability (after all, it could be a great deterrent to predatory herbivores).
How could such a plant be used for energy production? Could it even be feasible at all?
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When dealing with organisms, you're pretty much always dealing with Electro-chemical energy, rather than "pure" electrical. It's not the sort of thing you'd wire up to a circuit exactly - but they could have protrusions you could use like say, rechargeable batteries.
You'd want to breed/GM the plants to grow their "cells" as big and as separate as possible - something like nodules in the roots or hanging fruit type structures would be great. Then you'd hook electrodes in to the cells (think a potato battery) and tap off the electrical energy. You'd have to carefully load balance though, or it would be easy to deplete very quickly - and depending on how the plant worked, you could drain it of sugars really fast as it tried to recharge and kill it. You'd want to use pretty huge fields of these crops to get much useable energy out of this - plant photosynthesis is already pretty poor on efficiency (order of 1 or 2% I think) and there are going to be other losses between forming sugar and generating electrochemical energy.
If you're really interested in the science of this, someone wrote a series of books on it <http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6a1_Gw8Tt10C&redir_esc=y> - see more in the related below. No idea how much sense they make to a non-electrophisiologist though.
**Edit:** Wiki says that photosynthetic plants manage 3-6% efficiency on conversion of (photosynthetically available) solar energy into chemical energy. For contrast, solar panels typically manage ~15% solar into electrical energy, and more advanced (and more expensive) panels managing ~40%
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*Just some stats, hopefully my math is correct, please inform me if its not (a very real possibility)*
`In 2013, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,908 kilowatthours` -[eia.gov](http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=97&t=3)
Ends up being roughly an average of 32 kilo-watt hours per-day
(Electric fish can generate a) `range from 10 to 600 Volts with a current of up to 1 Ampere, according to the surroundings` - [from OP's wiki link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_fish)
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`600 volts and 1 ampere of current (600 watts) for a duration of two milliseconds.` from [Electric Eels wiki link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_eel)
**Watts = Amps x Volts** and **kiloWattHours = kiloWatts \* hours**
So one electric eel can generate up to (600 \* 1 = 600) watts of energy / 2 milliseconds.
It takes 500 of these shocks to get to 600 watts / second, 30,000 shocks for 600 watts/minute, and 1,800,000 shocks to get to 600 watts/hour
32,000 watts/hour / 600 watts/hour = 53.3
1,800,000 \* 53.3 = **95,940,000 shocks need to happen in each hour**, for electric eels anyway. This is for one average American household.
*That is **1,599,000** shocks per minute, or **26,650** shocks per second.*
Since you also need to convert those shocks to some form of usable energy, (I'm not sure how that would be achieved), then there is also a loss of energy - so you'll need even more than that in practice.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find how often electric fish can achieve this level of shock, which is the next step I would need to do to actually figure out how many electric fish I would need, but that seems like a ton of shocks to me.
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One other thing to note is that, [in the electric eel's case](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_eel), there are three organs which generate the electric shocks, which take up 4/5 of the eel's body. They can grow up to 2 meters long.
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> These organs are made of electrocytes, lined up so a current of ions can flow through them and stacked so each one adds to a potential difference. When the eel locates its prey, the brain sends a signal through the nervous system to the electrocytes. This opens the ion channels, allowing sodium to flow through, reversing the polarity momentarily. By causing a sudden difference in electric potential, it generates an electric current in a manner similar to a battery, in which stacked plates each produce an electric potential difference
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[This source](http://www.zotzelectrical.com/ElectricEel.htm) seems to suggest that you would need 24 eels for 30 amps at 240 volts, and has a video of an eel powering christmas tree lights. Though most of the lights seem to be unlit for most of the time.
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> The heat pump uses 30 amps at 240v, the electrical eel produces approximately 1 amp at 500v. To make this happen, you will need an inverter to change the DC to AC, a voltage regulator to keep the voltage constant and 24 electric eels. Remember, the electricity produced is not constant, so this is really not a viable choice for power generation. Plus, you also need aquariums, feed and space for all these "free" power generators
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Is this plausible? You would have to ask the various active research teams in the world who are actively researching this field right now.
However last I checked there were still many many challenges before this is feasible.
As @Jasper pointed out, plants actually already do this, and very very efficiently as well. Its just that the selfish b£$%^&ds use all that lovely electrical energy to feed themselves (or more accurately, the chloroplasts feed the cell).
Green plants have pigments (which make them green), called Light Harvesting Complex. These are insanely efficient solar cells, which absorb a photon, and kick out a high energy electron. Scratch that...no...Light Harvesting Complexes are friggin Light frequency Rectennas (or Nantenna for short), the *bleep* *beep*ing holy grail of PhotoVoltaic technology (not some clumsy bandgap diode).
Last I checked on the research, scientist were able to capture the high energy photo from the Light Harvesting Complex and put it to good use. However, we were not able to donate a 'used' low energy electron back to the Light Harvesting Complex to 'reset' it for the next photon.
Even if we were to be able to complete the circuit with the Light Harvesting Complex, we would then need to figure out a way to wire up your power grid to individual chloroplasts.
So why bother? Well because the theoretical maximum efficiency of a semiconductor 3 junction PV panel is ~60%. Whilst we know that the same limit on an Nantenna array is close to 100%.
Should a civ be able to GM at an insane level, electrical production by growing PV panels would be logical, assuming a need for electrical power.
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It looks like everyone so far is focusing on biochemical/solar. So, I'll toss out another theory...
I'm not sure if it could be harnessed in any really useful way, but I'm picturing trees that could build and store static electric charges.
I'm thinking that in a windy enviroment where the branches are frequently blowing and rubbing against each other it may be feasible for a strong static charge to develop... The hard part for the tree would be insulating/storing the charge and only discharging it when needed.
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Yes, this is plausible -- with a great deal of genetic engineering. The key is to tap the electricity *before* it is used in photosynthesis. Much of the genetic engineering would be spent on producing wires to gather the electricity.
Imagine a surface, covered with chloroplasts. Each chloroplast has two branches, so that the inside of the chloroplast leads to one side of the "battery", and the intermembrane space of the chloroplast leads to the other side of the "battery". The chloroplast will use its gathered solar energy to produce a pH difference between the two leads. This pH difference is equivalent to a voltage difference. "Steal" a portion of the current produced, and you have a low voltage battery.
If you don't "steal" too much, the plant can be self-reproducing. If the "wires" are metallic, the plant would need a lot of that metal in its fertilizer. ([Cellular material has a high specific resistance.](http://www.centenary.edu/attachments/biophysics/bphy304/11a.pdf) An unmyelinated neuron has conduction losses of 10 percent in about 50 microns; a myelinated neuron has conduction losses of 10 percent in about 700 microns.)
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It is highly unlikely that plants would ever be able to generate the amount of electricity required to power a city, or even a single household.
This becomes clear when you study the first law of thermodynamics. This law has to do with the conservation of energy. The plant would have to get its energy from some outside source. This would most likely be the sun. It would be much more efficient to gather the sun's energy using solar panels instead of plants.
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Electricity is nearly useless because it is hard to store.
Much better energy source is some substance which is easy to store and can be converted to electricity on demand - like, uhh, carbohydrates?
So best way to get energy is to get algae to produce oil (not ethanol, because you will use lots of energy to distill it), which is hydrophobic and can be skimmed from the top of vat. And there were found such algae, creating butanol (4 carbon).
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**The Details:**
We have ways to generate light and direct it with our own technology. Humans have had the ability to do this for even longer. Within the last number of decades, we have begun understanding what light is and how it works, how photons are generated, etc.
I have imagined a magical system in which it is possible to create and/or project/direct light. There is also the ability to do so with "darkness," which will be defined as a localised absence of any sort of illumination in this question. However, while light would *shine* from a source, one might be able to "direct" the darkness as if it were a fluid. As an example, if you are familiar with Avatar: The Last Airbender, something akin to water-bending comes to mind, though it need not be as "solid"--or perhaps tangible is the better word?
Never thought I would call liquid water 'solid'...
**The Question:**
Is there a way to describe this projected "physical" darkness, taking into account real science and by taking grossly large liberties with any physical limits, in a "scientific" manner? I would rather it not involve any matter to physically block the light, but if it is handled well it would work. There aren't any limitations presently in the magical system, apart from there not being infinite energy (which may be the major limiting factor here, for all I know). You may assume that annihilating a city/continent/planet/star with the power requirements is not an issue, nor are localised absolute-zero (or supernovae-like) temperatures, if your answer requires them.
Note that this does not need to conserve energy (or, I guess by extension, mass) as the effect will only persist as long as it is controlled, and any energy not in the world already will enter, be used, and promptly exit. Picture it like a sink, or a black hole sucking stuff in as a "white hole" spits stuff out.
**My thoughts:**
* Looking at such a darkness, one might see only blackness as no light would bounce off. I can imagine it being a very strange thing to see, as it will likely have no perceivable depth. Perhaps it would look perfectly 2-D in a 3-D world? (Note: [Vantablack](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack))
* With a strong EM waves, light can be "bent" in an terribly small way, but I fear the other effects that a sufficiently powerful EM wave would have on any matter it passes through.
* I may need to come up with a completely different way to explain this, stepping almost completely outside of the realm of physics.
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We appear to be talking about a substance that behaves as if it was a fluid and is directable by human consciousness, and has the property of being dark.
I would say that this "magical fluid" would be completely intangible in a physical sense, capable of being interacted with only by the powers of the mind.
As for what the darkness *is*, we must consider the possibilities that:
* The darkness is a region of space around which light is bent - this would account for darkness *within* the region, but it would be more or less invisible from the outside. Hence, not a viable option
* The darkness is a region of space that absorbs light - This would mean that the region would appear completely black, as any light that would otherwise have passed through the region from an object to an observer's eyes would not arrive. In addition, such a region would cast a shadow, as light from the dominant light sources would not pass through the region.
* The darkness does not actually involve any lack of light - the space it occupies is simply seen as something black. Such a darkness would not cast a shadow, as light would pass through it, it would just be *seen* as darkness by optical sensors such as eyes and cameras.
Of these three options, the first is not practical, and the third is interesting but not as useful as the second.
The second option, where light is absorbed in a region of space, is the most interesting, and will be the subject of the remainder of this answer.
Since we might want to keep the law of conservation of mass and energy, we could postulate that the magic creating this light-absorbing darkness is changing the energy from the light that intersects its volume of effect to some other form.
This could be a change in the nature of the energy - perhaps the light is being changed to sound, so the darkness field would have an audible presence, the sound emitted being related to the frequencies of light being converted. Light outside the human visual range would be converted to sound outside the human auditory range, so IR & lower frequencies would be converted to subsonic sounds, and UV and higher frequencies would be converted to ultrasonic sounds.
This could also be an energy to mass conversion. Since the amounts of light energy are relatively low, we're talking about adding a few atoms or subatomic particles to the atmosphere inside the darkness volume.
A combination of these two effects is also possible.
So, we have a light-energy absorbing volume of space. The effects of coming into contact with such an effect would be literally chilling - IR emitted from the air and other substances would be absorbed and converted, and no external radiated heat would be able to penetrate the region. This would result in a rapid loss of heat from any substance in the area of effect.
Such an effect could be readily weaponised, and a hollow shell of darkness could conceal things within it without them freezing, though there may need to be vision slits, and there would be a tell-tale frost/mist around the edges.
As to how such an effect is created, and why it is manipulated like a fluid, as opposed to simply appearing at the place it is needed, we could propose the existence of a class of particles with non-zero mass, generated by the minds of magicians (or psionicists), that I will call Psions. There would have to be a number of different kinds, some capable of interacting with other Psions to create different types of Psion or others simply negating different Psions. Each type of Psion would have its own effects, one of which would be the darkness field effect. Others may exist that attract certain types of matter, or catalyse certain chemical reactions.
Since these Psions are created by and are directable by the mind and body of a magician, they must travel from the caster's body to the place where they are needed. The speed with which they travel and can be manipulated depends on the strength of the caster's mind. If any physical movements are involved, they could simply be a focus for the mind or it could be that the areas of the mind that control the movement of Psions also control bodily movement.
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Since light is the presence of a thing (photons), and darkness the absence of that thing, to "project" darkness you have to rid the area being projected of that thing.
I can think of three possible ways, of varying degrees of scientific plausibility (starting at "low" and going downhill from there):
**Anti-photons** (Edit: Apparently there's [no such thing](http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1153). Drat!)
Just as your flashlight can project photons, your "darklight" could project anti-photons. These would interact with photons by annihilating them, and would have the nifty narrative property of being able to be overpowered by a stronger light (which in turn could be overpowered by a stronger "dark").
The problem here is that antimatter annihilations release massive amounts of energy, as literally the entire mass of both particle and anti-particle are instantly turned into energy (okay, not *literally* literally...). Photons (and, consequently, anti-photons) don't have a lot of mass, but there's enough of them in the beam of a flashlight that it's going to get very messy.
An observer on the outside would see only darkness (well, maybe, I'm not actually sure what annihilating photons with anti-photons looks like), while an observer inside the area would... well, I'm pretty sure they'd simply be cooked alive by the energy being released, if not blasted apart outright. Probably far more destructive than you want in any case.
**Phase-shifted photons**
Photons are not just particles; they're also waves. This means that we can "cancel them out" with a wave that is phase-shifted by 180 degrees: when the light wave reaches its peak, the "dark wave" is at its trough, and vice-versa. Since wave forms are additive, this will give you a net result of zero light.
Unfortunately, I know of no way to generate a single phase-shifted waveform like this, let alone adaptively generate them for all the colors currently visible in a given area you're trying to project them into. If you ignore that, though, this is quite simply -- and quite literally -- just canceling out the light in the area. Probably the most straightforward means of projecting darkness, really.
Assuming you can perfectly match your projected waveform with the ambient one, and vary it across different parts of the area since there's going to be different colors passing through different parts, especially when viewed from different angles, observers inside and out will simply see darkness. Anything less than absolute perfection will allow glimpses of colors and/or flashes of light.
**Repelling photons**
If we imagine that photons have a charge, then an opposite charge would, of course, repel them, in exactly the same way of trying to push two "south" poles of a pair of magnets together.
Of course, if this were an EM charge, then as you note there's quite a few side effects to consider. But if the charge is of some other form of energy (hey, there's magic anyway, so why not?), then we could much more easily project a directed charged field that would repel photons with minimal side effects.
Interestingly, an observer inside this field would see total darkness, except that any light source with them would work (albeit with some weird streaking/stretching effects, and likely only directly away from the center of the field); an observer outside the field, however, would see the surface as a big mirror, likely with some blurring going on as photons get turned around at different points rather than bouncing off a solid mirror.
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Bending or somehow repelling light wouldn't work. Light isn't a property of an area of space, it's something traveling through said area. As such, such measures would only change its direction, meaning light will still seemingly originate from or pass through this area.
It can however be used if it's acceptable that it's still visible from, say, a single direction. Imagine some magic field that redirects all photons inside it straight upwards. From any other angle, it would look pitch black as no photons arrive from that direction. From above however, it would be considerably brighter as the light from all other directions is basically summed up into a single bright beam.
In order to be truly black from any angle, some way to ensure that none of the light entering the field leaves it, at least none of the visible light. Such a thing exists in reality: a black hole. However, assuming that no matter is involved in or affected by this field, that obviously isn't viable. One could instead imagine other alternatives: changing the frequencies of light passing through it to be beyond the human spectrum, use some magic wormhole that redirects light to some far-off place or another dimension, convert it into magical energy and route it to your own "mana", turn the light into heat (not sure how quickly the air would heat up from that tbh), just destroying it (if conservation of energy isn't your thing) or somehow cancel it out with something else.
Or maybe just say "a wizard did it"? :)
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My idea is for something similar to [dark matter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter) - but exactly its opposite. I can't call it anti-dark matter, because [antimatter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter) is completely different. So for now I'll call it *krad matter*. Oh, the lengths I go to in order to create names!
Dark matter does not interact via the electromagnetic force. This has some interesting side effects, the most important of which is that dark matter cannot emit photons - that's why it's "dark" (*Note: For the non-physics-buffs out there, [photons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon) are the [bosons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boson) that carry the [electromagnetic force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetism).*). Essentially, dark matter doesn't emit light, which is why we can't see it. (*For anyone interested, dark matter can be detected by its gravitational effects on other objects - such as its effect on the [galactic rotation curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_curve).*)
*Krad matter* would have to be just the opposite - it interacts strongly with the electromagnetic force, and thus absorbs a lot of photons. Normally, it would have all the properties of dark matter, such as density and concentration. But (and here's where we give science a break) perhaps the person controlling it could summon up a lot of it, therefore absorbing all the light in the region.
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In response to the (insightful) comments below by Cragor and Oldcat:
Okay, so the dark matter comparison has some flaws. I tried to ignore them and keep this almost entirely science-based, but I realized there's no way to do this well, so I'll abandon that strategy for this last bit. Although it's actually still based on science.
The trouble lies in the krad matter's absorption of photons. There's going to be energy transfer, and that means the matter is going to heat up, thereby radiating heat. That's a problem. The solution lies in [quarks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark). Quarks are [confined](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_confinement) within [hadrons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadron) - they can never escape. Add more energy, and you end up producing more quarks (and the same number of anti-quarks). They same principle could be at work here. Add energy to a particle of this matter, and a new particle is created.
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One thing not forbidden under our current understanding of physics is the stretching of space-time. You could have a machine, etc. that systematically "stretches out" space-time in the affected regions to an arbitrarily large degree. All light in the region would be stretched out as well, turning to low-energy radio waves, basically invisible. (The same process has distorted light from the Big Bang to invisible microwave radiation.)
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There are a couple of things that spring to mind for me:
**Unlight is a place**
Perhaps magic is a way of interacting with other places - possibly consciousness is an intersection of different planes or dimensions already ( or possible worlds, if you want to use quantums as your magic today ) and what a magician can do is to extend that intersection into the world around them, so if they want to conjure heat they can open up the intersection with a dimension filled with heat or a place in their own dimension - there's loads of ways you could play this concept.
Working with this model a magician who wanted to create your barrier of darkness would effectively open a doorway that sent the light *somewhere else* - so inexplicably in the dark corner of a dark dimension, there is suddenly a bright light as all the light that was going between two locations in the magician's world is sent there instead.
For a good take on the magic as parallel places concept you could read the Malazan Book Of The Fallen stories.
**Darkness is an element**
I am currently reading an excellent book where, as characters travel between different empires they are literally under different skies- the sun and moons change as they move between different domains. It hasn't been explained yet and it doesn't really matter if it never is because it just provides a compelling setting for the story to take place. A bit of weirdness can be interesting in its own right- making darkness into a thing that has some kind of physical existence aside from being the absence of light would be a good way to remind the reader that they are in a different world now.
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From a different era : Flann o'Brien, fills his book "The Third Policeman" with footnotes regarding the famous philosopher *de Selby*, often from the Commentaries by *Le Fournier*.
One such footnote reads:
>
> It is not clear whether de Selby had heard of this (that winds have colours) but he suggests [Garcia, p.12] that night, far from being caused by the commonly accepted theory of planetary movements, was due to the accumulation of 'black air' produced by certain volcanic activities of which he does not treat in detail. See also p.79 and 945, *Country Album*. Le Fournier's comment [ in *Homme u Dieu*) is interesting. " On ne saura jamais jusqu'a quel point de Selby futcause de la Grande Guerre, mais, sans aucun doute, ses theories excentriques - specialement celle que nuit n'est pas un phenomene de nature, mais dans l'atmosphere un etat malsain amene par un industrialisme cupide et sans pitie - auraient l'effet de produire un trouble profond dans les masses.'
>
>
>
So there you have it - de Selby's theory is that darkness is caused by "accretions of black air".
There are enough authoritative references in there that one should not challenge the truth of this theory without making the effort to chase them up. Oh, and no cheating with online translators, please!
So it is possible that Flann o'Brien was as far ahead of his time on Dark Matter as he was on [the Atomic Theory](http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/comedy/flann-obrien-splits-atom).
Unfortunately the book never quite adequately establishes who de Selby and Le Fournier are. Presumably if one lived closer to that time, this would be self evident.
And yet, there are skeptics. Black air, it turns out,
>
> is highly combustible, enormous masses of it being instantly consumed by the smallest flame, even an electrical luminance isolated in a vacuum. 'This', Bassett observes, 'seems to be an attempt to protect the theory from the shock it can be dealt simply by striking matches, and may be taken as the final proof that the great brain was out of gear.'
>
>
>
de Selby himself, it is reported, experimented with bottling this substance - of course, in black glass bottles. Perhaps these could be used as grenades, when it is time to make a sharp and unobserved exit?
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From a scientific point of view, anything that interacts with photons will also interact with ordinary matter through electromagnetic interaction. Since you probably don't want to destroy the atoms by accumulating darkness, this hypothetical substance should consist of particles that are uncharged (otherwise, since it isn't normal matter and thus is not stopped from entering atoms by the Pauli principle, it would significantly alter the field inside atoms, and thus effectively destroy any material it comes into contact with), but have an electromagnetic dipole moment that allows it to absorb electromagnetic radiation, that is, light (OK, in principle an electric dipole moment, if strong enough, probably could also significantly disturb atoms, but maybe one could make is small enough … or simply paper over that problem). Also, for it to effectively absorb light, you want it to have another interaction which allows them to quickly lose energy. That interaction could be yet another field which only interacts with your "darkness fluid" but not with ordinary matter (you could even claim it to be an interaction with dark energy). To form a fluid, you also want those particles to be fermions (so the Pauli principle disallows all of them to be in the same place).
The effect would then be that the particles absorb light (through their electric dipole moment), and then emit the energy over the dark channel (dark energy or other "dark field").
If the effect should be temporary, you can make the particles unstable; then the effect would only remain until those particles decayed.
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You could have a look at [electromagnetic induction](http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~dfolsom/phys6B/electromagnetic_induction/electromagnetic_induction.pdf). When the electromagnetic field through a surface surrounded by a conductor changes, this will generate an electric current which in turn generates a magnetic field that resists this change. In the case of a superconductor, the generated field will be precisely strong enough to stop the change completely.
Since light is [electromagnetic radiation](http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~dfolsom/phys6B/electromagnetic_induction/electromagnetic_induction.pdf), we can imagine a substance which similarly manages to partially or fully cancels out all light that passes through it by generating electromagnetic fields opposite to the waves of the light.
**severe speculation:**
It seems like what you'd need to achieve this is a bunch of charged particles that are able to move without resistance. A [massless charged particle](http://www.researchgate.net/post/How_do_I_explain_why_a_massless_charged_particle_cannot_exist) seems ideal here. Sadly, since it is massless, it would be unable to not move at the speed of light. If they move around in a confined space randomly, they would create an incredibly strong and chaotic electromagnetic field. Though you could just invoke quantum mechanics and claim they move in all directions at the same time ([much like particles with mass at rest bounce off the higgs field in all directions at the same time](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASRpIym_jFM)) and therefor create no net electromagnetic field. Another problem becomes simply containing these particles, and this is a big one. You'll have to use electromagnetism to keep these particles together and this will likely be just as difficult as what the particles are doing for you (canceling the light). But could possibly be more straightforward. (Maybe a rather simple, if powerful electromagnetic field would be enough to turn any particle headed out of the confined space around.)
**what would this achieve?**
Well, since these particles can only cancel out light within their volume, light would be able to pass through it largely unchanged. However, inside the substance all light would be entirely canceled out. which means that it would be pitch black.
So the way to use it is to surround your enemies with it (or just their heads) and though you will still be perfectly able to see them, all they would see is darkness.
**some possible side effects**
This would interact with all electromagnetic fields, including that of the earth, so if you move this substance it would generate a field to resist this change.
Since this resists all change in electromagnetic fields, it is possible that brains and nerves in general stop working within this substance. I'm not sure how to solve this one without some serious handwaving.
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This is a very late answer, but I feel that it should be addressed.
Many answers here revolve around the idea that darkness is the absence of photons. While that is true, light and "visibility" is entirely dependant on the observer. Why not have a gaseous material that has a very large extinction coefficient. You're not destroying photons in a medium, just absorbing them. Or have a gas with a large refractive index, distorting the light as it enters the medium. The light isn't destroyed, it's just slowed to the point where the wavelength would shift into infrared, which would be black to an observer of the visible spectrum. All of this is possible in modern science, and it seems a lot less complex than a majority of the other answers here.
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I'd be thinking of two possiblities. The equivalent of 'noise cancelling' applied to light. If you take a sound wave, invert it and play it back then it'll cancel out.
It's fairly easy - you take a microphone swap the outputs and feed it into a speaker.
This only works though, if the sound wave hits your microphone before the speaker. So for a noise cancelling headset - I can have the 'external noise' hit my microphone, and be 'cancelled' before it got to my ear.
With light, you'd be creating an interference pattern - some bits would be dark, but other bits would be brighter because your interference would be constructive rather than destructive.
Otherwise, I'd be thinking in terms of fog or smoke - some miniscule but absorbent particles in the air that make 'darkness' by virtue of their light absorbtion. But what you do have is an intriguing phenomenon where the speed of light is reduced in different substances - by slowing down light particles you get an 'optic boom' in the form of cherenkov radiation. Maybe your light is slowed down very slightly by this effect, causing two alternate - interfering - light paths.
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An admittedly quick and pretty soft answer...
1. Find a way of creating entangled pairs of the photons coming from
the area. Keep hold of these.
2. Alter the frequency of your photons, reducing it until it's outside
of the visible light spectrum.
Hey presto, the light coming from the area is no longer visible!
Provided you can accomplish step one, you could even conceivably do the rest technologically. Entanglement stretches across spacetime - you could have the necessary processes carried out later in a facility, and have them happen now. In theory.
<http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/156673-the-first-quantum-entanglement-of-photons-through-space-and-time>
<http://www.nist.gov/cnst/photons_101310.cfm>
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[
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
Would that even be possible? Will the bones deform during early infancy? Will the cartilages between joints wear off faster? Will internal organs collapse under their own weight? I have no professional knowledge in this field so layman's terms will be greatly appreciated.
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**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
## Maybe but problematic at best
but it will be tricky and complicated; more so than a 1G infant's development. if you have in-vitro fertilization or gene manipulation, you'll definitely want to do a little guided evolution to improve fitness.
The following assumes that these babies are the children of the first human colonists to a super-earth.
## Surviving the first month
Let's start with breathing. Immediately after birth, the baby's first job is to start breathing and keep breathing. Let's assume that first breath happens. Very soon the baby will be laid on its back to be weighed. If the weight of the baby's rib cage and belly are greater than the strength of the diaphragm, the baby will have difficulty breathing or not be able to breath at all. If no breathing is possible at that gravity then artificial ventilation may be required which causes its own set of problems (infection, ventilator dependency).
Blood also weighs 3 to 4 times as much so the infant's heart may not be able to supply sufficient blood to the brain when lifted up under the armpits or cuddled head upwards. If this is true, then it's going to really mess with a lot of common infant care motions such as burping the baby over one's shoulder or holding up the baby to look into its eyes.
Assuming the usual nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, there may be subtle oxygen deprivation effects from difficulty breathing or insufficient blood pressure to the brain. These effects may not show up till ages 2 to 3 when lots of important brain function such as language and motor skills develop.
At 13 to 15 weeks, the baby's bone [start converting from cartilage to bone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endochondral_ossification). Extra gravity might interfere with this process though I don't know enough cartilage->bone conversion to know if extra strong gravity will help or hurt this process.
## Surviving the first year
Assuming that the infant can breath and isn't suffering from oxygen deprivation, moving around is going to be painful. While muscle growth may be higher than a 1g infant, the time required for this extra muscle development may delay crawling and walking. Any inter-relationships between motor skill development and language or between any other skill sets, may be hurt by this delay in development.
Hemophiliac children that bruise easily will be in constant pain from the trips, falls and bumps inherent in learning to crawl or walk. Regular children will suffer more too as they will land 3 to 4 times more heavily than a baby on Earth. Bruising will be common. Broken bones are likely to be common too.
Parents and children will have to find a way to build physical bonds other than by carrying. A 10kg child under 3Gs weighs 30kg. Babies are heavy enough already under 1g. Attempting to carry 30kg plus the parent's body weight all day just isn't feasible.
High protein intake to support muscle growth for these children will be crucial.
## Surviving the first decade
Assuming the baby can learn to walk and develops enough muscle/bone strength to move about, then my guess is that development will be somewhat normal though stockier builds will dominate over thinner builds.
## Experiment Design
What if you want to find out now? All mammals share the same bone creation process. Mice and rats are well understood human models though for the following I'm going to assume that they are human bone proxies but I don't know for sure.
Take a population of mice and rats. Divide them into the experiment and control groups. Make experiment groups for 1.5g, 2g, 3g and 4g. Put the experimental group into cages on a centrifuge to their set gravity level. To test just the development of the mouse pups, introduce them and their mother into the centrifuge shortly after birth. Special considerations will need to be made for food and water. Run the centrifuge 24 hours a day, pausing only for examinations and regular cage maintenance. Abort the test if the mother is unable to move under that gravity level. If the mother can't move then any kind of care required for the mouse pup to survive won't happen.
Mice mature in 4 to 8 weeks, so it shouldn't be difficult to see what happens under different degrees of gravity.
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Since there is no previous scientific research on this subject, so I wonder if it is possible to answer your question under the strict rules of *hard science*. However, here are some facts and figures that are very relevant to your query and you should be able to get very close to the reality if you add in some research of your own on this matter.
*A cubic inch of bone can in principle bear a load of 19,000 lbs. (8,626 kg) or more — roughly the weight of five standard pickup trucks — making it about four times as strong as concrete. Still, whether or not bone actually withstands such loads depends heavily on how quickly force is delivered.* ([LiveScience Article](http://m.livescience.com/6040-brute-force-humans-punch.html))
Which enables fighter jet pilots to cope with crushing levels of angular acceleration during steep twists and turns.
However, infants and babies do not have the same thickness of bones. Or even the same material. Adults have bones based primarily on calcium and phosphorus and are more or less rigid and inflexible. On the contrary, babies are born with very little calcium and phosphorous based solid bones and most of their bones are made of cartilage. These bones fuse together in a few years and gradually become the hard, inflexible bones of adults. Find more information [here](http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/factfiles/bonegrowth/femur.shtml) and [here](http://www.livestrong.com/article/218698-baby-bone-development/).
The bone density and material of an infant's bones are most certainly not capable of developing naturally under constant (or probably even occasional) 3-4G gravity exposure.
However, by using special "free floating" baby chambers, you *might* be able to get the baby's bones develop in the right direction. But the bone density would be much, much more in such an adult than a "normal" Earthly adult.
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**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
The best way to answer the skeletal issues is to look at the effects of morbid obesity.
There are many obese adults who are triple their ideal body weight. It's certainly possible to get around at that weight, though it does limit what they can do. Some of them manage to lose weight and have few lasting effects apart from loose skin, though there is considerable strain on the joints, which may or may not result in irreversible damage.
As far as childhood obesity goes: googling Jessica Leonard (400lbs at age 7) or Lu hao shows that both have bow legs as a result of childhood obesity, so a child raised in 3-4G would have the same issues.
I don't think breathing would be a huge issue, it seems possible for morbidly obese patients, though the comparison is not a direct one. In addition to the weight on their diaphragms, it is known that the abdominal cavity fills with fat, putting pressure on the lungs, which wouldn't be an issue for someone of normal mass raised under high G. The other issue suffered by morbidly obese patients is sleep apnea, caused by obstruction of the windpipe by excess fat in the neck area. Again this should not be directly applicable to normal mass persons under high G.
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The issue of blood pressure is significant though. normal blood pressure is 120mm over 80mm (mm mercury at the highest and lowest points of the pulse cycle.) Mercury is 13.5 times denser than water, so it would be 1620mm over 1080mm of water or blood at normal G. On increasing the G, the heart simply won't be able to pump blood up to the head (at 4G this becomes 420mm over 270mm) so people will black out on standing. A stronger heart isn't a solution, as blood vessels would need to be strengthened as well, to say nothing of the return flow from the legs. People are not going to be able to stand for long without blacking out.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force> gives some interesting data and confirms that humans tolerate high G poorly in an upright position. They tolerate it best when lying on their back.
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**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
I don't think a baby could survive under constant 3-4G in an otherwise normal environment. However, many groups consider water births very beneficial. Perhaps this could be extended to long sessions in a pool, sleeping underwater, or even raising the baby under water until it can walk. If the problem of how to breath can be solved - with respirators, intubation, or [breathing a liquid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing#Space_travel!) - many of the dangers of high g's could be greatly reduced.
Research into artificial amniotic fluid and/or liquids with precise density-gradients would allow for crawling and walking with a nearly normal weight on the bottom. Doctors could monitor bone and muscle development and move the infant to different environments as needed.
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Gas giants can generate heat via the [Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin%E2%80%93Helmholtz_mechanism). It's oft-repeated that Jupiter actually generates more heat internally via this method than it receives from the Sun. Scale this mechanism up enough and you get into brown dwarf territory, with something that is effectively a star to a nearby observer (whether it *is* a star or not seems to be contentious).
A giant in "star mode" obviously emits vast amounts of heat and [is agreed to have](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3612282/) a very narrow, but technically possible, habitable zone in its own right, enough to be independent of any larger star it may be orbiting. How does this zone change in relevance as the giant decreases and it moves towards "planet mode"? Is it possible for an object to have a gentle enough "heat gradient" (?) that despite being cool enough that it doesn't visibly glow, it still noticeably warms its moons?
**Example scenario:** a superjovian/sub-brown-dwarf at, or just beyond, the outer edge of a parent star's main habitable zone. The giant has its own planetary moon system; on these worlds, the brightest object and dominant feature in the sky is the giant, which is cool enough to have visible stripes, no internal "glow" (the light would mainly be reflected sunlight), and to not vaporize any equipment sent into its upper atmosphere. I guess 300-500K.
How would the heat given off by such an object affect its satellites? Would it be able to raise their temperature by any significant amount - does a low central temperature on a massive object still cause a reasonably large zone of warming? How would/could this mini-zone interact with the zone of the primary star? (i.e. the sliding scale of "how far out can I move this before I have to make the giant brighter?" vs. "how far in can I move this before the giant's heat is completely overpowered?")
Allowing an extremely generous definition of "habitable" (e.g. a world that would have had a surface temperature of 150K is now merely Antarctic at the equator thanks to the giant).
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It's possible, but heat generated by the Kelvin-Hemlholz mechanism may be too variable to complex life to develop solely as a result of this source of heat. [This paper](http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19750031579) suggests that the temperature of Jupiter, when it first finished an initial phase of contraction, was quite high, at around 25000K. At this temperature, it would have a small habitable zone around it, but then began to cool as it radiated this initial heat off into space. It continues to contract, but at a slower rate, leading to less heat production.
However, it's possible that you could define a habitable zone based on the level of tidal heating the moons experience, rather than based on heat radiated by the primary planet. The heat given off can be calculated by the equation $q = 36\rho n^5r^4e^2/38\mu Q$, where $r$ is the orbital radius, $e$ is eccentricity, $n$ is mean orbital motion, $\rho$ is density, $\mu$ is shear modulus, and $Q$ is a dimensionless constant.
This won't give you a habitable zone based purely on distance from the primary planet, but one which is strongly influenced by distance. Too close to the primary and the planets will end up like Io, too far and they will freeze.
Note that, with moons heated internally instead of externally, you will end up with some environments that are very different from earth, but still habitable. Europa, for example, may be habitable, but life will exist in lightless oceans under miles of ice.
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Really awesome answer by ckersch. I want to add in some math to get an idea of how large this kind of habitable zone would be. Formulas are from [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin%E2%80%93Helmholtz_mechanism) and [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law), if you want to investigate them further, though I'll try to explain them here.
We may assume that the source of energy is gravitational potential energy, defined as
$$U\_g = -G \frac{M\_p m\_s}{r}$$
where $U\_g$ is potential energy, $G$ is the gravitational constant, $m\_1$ is the mass of object one, $m\_2$ is the mass of object two at a given distance, and $r$ is that distance. We'll treat these masses as shells going outward from the center.
The body has a total radius of $R$, and a density $\rho$. The mass contained within an arbitrary radius $r\_{\text{arbitrary}}$ is a function of this radius, denoted as $m(r\_{\text{arbitrary}})$. Each shell has a surface area of $4 \pi r^2$, which is simply the formula for the surface area of a sphere - those these shells are essentially hollow spheres. To find the total gravitational potential energy, we have to integeate over the entire radius of the body:
$$\Sigma U\_g=-G\int\_0^R \frac{m(r\_{\text{arbitrary}})4 \pi r^2 \rho}{r}dr$$
The mass contained within the radius $r\_{\text{arbitrary}}$ can be reduced to the product of density and volume ($m=v \cdot \rho$). Volume, however, can fortunately be expressed in terms of the radius as $V=\frac{4}{3} \pi r^3$, so we have
$$m=\frac{4}{3} \pi r^3 \rho$$
and then
$$\Sigma U\_g=-G\int\_0^R \frac{\frac{4}{3} \pi r^3 \rho 4 \pi r^2 \rho}{r}dr$$
This becomes
$$\Sigma U\_g=-G \left(\frac{16}{3} \pi ^2 \rho ^2 \right)\int\_0^R r^4 dr$$
Integrating, we get
$$\Sigma U\_g= \left(-G\frac{16}{3} \pi ^2 \rho ^2 \right) \left[\frac{r^5}{5} \right]\_0^R$$
$$\Sigma U\_g= \left(-G\frac{16}{3} \pi ^2 \rho ^2 \right) \left[\frac{R^5}{5} - \frac{0^5}{5} \right]$$
and finally
$$\Sigma U\_g=-\frac{16}{15}G \pi ^2 \rho ^2 R^5$$
We go back to our definition of mass as a function of volume and density, and find
$$\Sigma U\_g=-\frac{3M^2G}{5R}$$
However, half of the available energy is turned into kinetic energy, so we divide that by two to find that
$$\Sigma U\_g=-\frac{3M^2G}{10R}$$
If we can find the time $t$ over which the energy is radiated, we have our power $P$. The intensity over a given surface area is
$$I=\frac{P}{4 \pi r^2}$$
so we have
$$I=\frac{3M^2G}{4 \pi r^2 10R t}$$
Let's say you have a time $t$ for how long you want the body to emit the energy. Choose the mass $M$ and radius $R$ of the body, and take the intensity $I$ from an orbit of the planet around a star in the star's habitable zone - in other words, take the solar intensity from a spot in Earth's orbit. You can solve for $r$ to figure out what that distance would be:
$$r=\sqrt{\frac{3M^2G}{4 \pi I 10R t}}$$
You can then do some guess-and-check to figure out the inner and outer boundaries of the habitable zone. I don't have the time to do this at the moment, but I may be able to later. For now, I encourage you to play around with the equations a bit and see what kind of setup you can come up with.
[Answer]
In Cosmos, Carl Sagan wrote about the possibility of life on Jupiter, imagining it as huge, floating organisms called "floaters" that feed upon smaller "sky plankton" he called "sinkers." And as a 2016 research paper [argues](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/alien-life-could-thrive-clouds-failed-stars), the idea wasn't totally crazy, though the smaller organisms seem far more likely to exist.
Sagan also wrote about how even Venus's upper atmosphere could be habitable. Above the clouds of sulfuric acid, where the temperature and pressure are close to those on the surface of the Earth, humans could live in floating cities like Cloud City on Bespin from Star Wars.
Just keep in mind that gas giants and brown dwarfs are extremely turbulent, with supersonic winds and massive maelstroms that pop up left and right at every latitude, even the poles (see Saturn's giant hexagonal storm and the recent photos of blue cyclones on Jupiter's poles). I'm no expert, but human colonization seems impossible. Native lifeforms seem possible but unlikely. It all depends on how much you want to wave your hands, though.
[Answer]
Tidal effects between a gas giant and its moons can heat up the moons to various degrees. This in turn causes volcanoes on the moons if strong enough. Io, a moon of Jupiter, is so overheated and has so many volcanoes that it would be uninhabitable even if it had an oxygen nitrogen atmosphere.
So there is a minimum distance that a moon has to be from its gas giant in order to avoid too much vulcanism. Lesser amounts of Vulcanism could contribute enough heat to compensate for insufficient solar radiation on an Earth sized moon. And if a moon orbits too far from its gas giant planet it will have an unstable orbit.
An Earth like moon of a gas giant planet is likely to be tidally locked to the planet so that it will rotate once every orbit of the planet, keeping one side always facing the planet. Thus the moon's day will equal its monthly orbit of the sun. To be habitable the moon should have a relatively short day length to avoid large temperature differences between night and day. The faster the moon rotates, the more likely it will be to have a strong magnetic field to deflect charged particle radiation.
How fast a tidally locked moon rotates depends on how long it takes to orbit its planet, which depends on the planet's mass and the distance of its orbit.
The habitability of an Earth sized moon of a gas giant planet would depend primarily on how far the planet and the moon orbited from their star and how much the star heated the moon. But it would also depend on how close the moon orbited the gas giant planet. Orbiting too close to the planet or too far from it would make the moon uninhabitable. So gas giant planets do have habitable zones for their moons that depend on various factors including but not limited to how much heat they radiate.
You might find articles I mention in my answers about habitable moons interesting.
[Making a slow orbit around a large gas giant](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/79003/making-a-slow-orbit-around-a-large-gas-giant/79106#79106)[1](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/79003/making-a-slow-orbit-around-a-large-gas-giant/79106#79106)
[Captured Earth-Like Moons around Gas Giants](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/82415/captured-earth-like-moons-around-gas-giants/82594#82594)[2](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/82415/captured-earth-like-moons-around-gas-giants/82594#82594)
Here is a link to an article about the habitablity of exomoons:
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3549631/>[3](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3549631/)
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[Question]
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I am a survivor of the United Nations Space Corp's 2nd Exploration Fleet. On our travel to the distant Epsilon Canares system, our scouts encountered a strange lifeform.
We call them 'shapeshifters'. At first contact, they looked like 6-legged crabs. After a few months, they started to mimic us and now, a year later, there is practically no visible difference between us and them. They can even speak our words now.
The only thing we know about them is that they are silicon-based lifeforms and instead of blood, they use ammonia to distribute nutrients to their cells. At first, we cut ourselves in front of each other to prove that we have blood in our veins instead of ammonia. But they copy us too fast now. I just checked my best friend two hours ago and now he's replaced with a shapeshifter. I've locked myself in the laboratory because I can't trust anyone else now.
Can anyone help me? How can I tell the difference between them and us? Is there a device I can build that scans bodies at a distance and tell me whether they're human or shapeshifter?
[Answer]
Stay calm, soldier. Our scientists have a few suggestions for you.
Liquid ammonia boils at a temperature of −28F (−33C), so any creature with this as its blood will be significantly colder on thermal imaging than a human being. (The alternative for maintaining liquid form, extreme pressure, would make them explode like a balloon from the tiniest of pinpricks, assuming any organic life could have developed to contain such pressures in the first place, so we find it extraordinarily unlikely that they've gone this route in their evolution.) The energy requirements to mask this — by keeping internal temperatures this cold but skin surface temperatures at the human-normal 98F (37C) — would be insane, and would likely drive their metabolism to such extremes that they could not stop eating — a distinctive behavior you could use to your advantage if they do try and mask their thermal signature to mimic yours.
>
> Doing some rough back-of-the-envelope calculations, maintaining a skin temperature of 30C with an internal temperature of −30C (allowing for some pressure and/or additives to let their ammonia-blood stay liquid at slightly warmer temperature) is a difference of 60C. Maintaining this difference therefore requires approximately 250 Joules of energy per gram of mass, which is roughly 1,000 Calories. Now, accounting for insulation efficiency and ambient temperature (most likely around 20C), as well as efficiency of their metabolism to turn consumed calories into refrigeration/heating, they could easily require at least 10,000 Calories per hour, or almost a quarter of a million in a day! Per gram of mass! If they're around a human being's average mass of 65Kg, that's over 16 *billion* calories per day! Compare that to the USDA suggested intake of 2,000 calories per day, and you can see that your shapeshifters are many orders of magnitude higher *just to maintain the temperature of their blood!*
>
>
> There's probably some issues with these calculations, especially taking the raw Joules up to a time-based figure. But this should give you a rough idea of the insane energy requirements your antagonists would have.
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Edited to add: Since they have to maintain such a low internal temperature, if you can access the ship's environmental controls you can crank up the heat. You might be a little uncomfortable, sweating at 80F/27C, but those extra few degrees might be enough to literally make their blood boil — something that's pretty much universally fatal!
They're also very likely to have small leaks as their ammonia-blood evaporates minuscule amounts through their skin; this might be too little to detect by the woefully under-developed human sense of smell, but a simple gas detector could very likely detect what would amount to a faint aura of ammonia around the impostors.
Another possibility, if you have access to a spectrograph, is to check for high levels of silicon. It doesn't matter how good they are at mimicking the skin color to your eyes, atoms simply emit light at different wavelengths based on *what they are*, with silicon looking very different from carbon; even if they could somehow emit carbon's spectral fingerprint, it's extraordinarily unlikely that they could mask their silicon. Of course, this depends on how advanced your spectrography equipment is; if your stuff is little better than early 21st-century, they're bulky and slow, so unless you can convince one to give you a skin sample and wait an hour or two for the analysis results (during which time your legit compatriot could of course be replaced, invalidating the test results anyway!) this isn't likely to work, not unless you've got something far better miniaturized and far more sensitive to get faster readings.
Alternatively, if you could kill the lights and then emit specifically (and only) the wavelength of light that silicon reflects, the shapeshifters would practically glow while everything else was nigh invisible. (As a bonus this means you're essentially invisible to them!) You could play with this a little bit to find a combination of wavelengths that cause the shapeshifters to be visibly distinct while still lighting up everything else to a point that you can still work.
It's also highly probable that you could develop a toxin that specifically targets and breaks down the silicon bonds that make silicon-based life possible without affecting your own carbon-based bonds. Unfortunately, the specifics (and potential side effects) of such a route are unknown to us at this time, as our chemists are all on vacation at the moment.
[Answer]
For at least a little while you best bet will be a infrared camera to observe them from a distance. While they may work hard to mimic the characteristics you can see, they may not have tried to mimic thermal emmittance patterns yet. There are several reasons you probably already have one readily available.
Similarly, their density is likely to have changed as silicon has heavier nuclei than carbon. One could place a scale in thoroughfares or require them to step on it before meeting with you.
An Xray would likely work if you can convince them to walk in front of a source. I would not leave one out to give all your crew cancer needlessly. Use it to screen those entering from outside. The benefit here is you can screen their internal structure.
As I do not know exactly what molecules/polymers/etc they are made out of, however, I cannot predict how these properties would change. I can only know that they likely would have.
An IR spectrometer would work well if their skin is still made of a silicone matrix or their blood is still artificial. But that would only help when the start finding a way to mimic your blood. As you need a reliable sample which means you need to take it. The main thing there is to not let any of them know how you are testing them... kill them if the test is positive. If you could build a portable, long range, broad spectrum spectrometer you would tax their mimicking abilities to their extreme.
Passcodes work well unless they can extract them from your wounded/dead/tortured comrades.
I have one more risky suggestion for you friend. Microwaves ovens work well and hurt like hell because the molecules resonate with liquid water at 10 GHz while they run at 2.45GHz. Ammonia resonates at roughly 24 GHz and there is an ISM regulated frequency at roughly 24GHz. Aim it at a pet rat focused at him but at a low intensity. Point it at your silici conarts and see how they react... I deal with complex Silicon materials all they time that are annoying transparent to microwaves. If their already pressurized and cooled blood boils begins to heat up however... The issue is whether you can find an intensity low enough people will barely notice be hurt but shifters will show perceivable damage. We have no ammonia in our bodies but there are a lot of compounds which would resonate at different frequencies.
[Answer]
A laser spectroscope--the sort of thing we mounted on Curiosity.
Since you'll be using it on humans you will want to modify it a bit--all the energy should be delivered in one very quick pulse. You want to vaporize a tiny bit of the target while doing minimum harm to the surround. (Keep it small enough and you'll just be vaporizing dead skin, no harm done.) It's actually less harmful than the cutting technique but the equipment is bulkier.
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[Question]
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When I want to populate a fantasy world with different regions and their cultures, I have problems knowing where to start.
Recently I used a quick-and-dirty technique that I could call "cultural mash-up". I note down that a particular area is a (-n unlikely) mix of e.g. renaissance Italy and medieval Japan (and my poor understanding of them at that), and use that to ad-lib and improvise features of the people and culture. It works OK at the gaming table, in that I can often generate an answer to a question.
However, it is hard for me to generate more structured source material based on that. The problem is not a lack of ideas, but a lack of structure to decide what should be relevant, when I want to present a view of the culture as a whole to someone else. I don't really want to present the mashup idea directly ("this place is like a mix of Italy and Japan"), as it is an idea generator, not the right level of descriptive information to get someone immersed in a game or story.
I would like to be able to generate 3 or 4 pages of source material (from 1000 - 2000 words) as a short introduction to each fantasy culture. Assuming I have less than 10 "major" cultures to document, this seems like a good compromise between amount of work to produce (maybe 40 pages), and benefit (someone could read a brief introduction to one culture in under 10 mins).
What sort of information should be in that introduction? I suspect a lot will depend on genre, and the world setting - so, if it helps narrow the question, this is for a fantasy RPG world, and I am a fan of Glorantha and other non-Tolkein-but-still-fantasy worlds. I expect I will also need to set general norms for the world, against which different cultures might be considered more or less friendly, open, religious, organised etc etc.
To avoid the answer being a list of subject titles, I am looking first and foremost for an organising principle. Without having qualifications in History or Sociology, how do I tackle describing the nature or "personality" of a culture?
[Answer]
I like start by answering the worldview questions for my culture. This lays a foundation for how my cultural generally thinks.
How did we get here? Was it a god or gods, accident, evolution or what? How did the cultures around us get here? Is there any perceived superiority on one side or the other? The determines how you culture sees itself and feeds into the next question.
Why are we here? Is your culture here to serve a purpose, fulfill a gods will, to enjoy itself, reproduce, or is it meaningless? What drives your cultural and individuals forward other than raw desires?
What is wrong with the world?
Everyone knows there is something wrong with the world. Otherwise, why would you have a story/adventure here? You could have sin be a problem, or desires, the material vs spiritual or society itself. Over the course of human history all these have been proposed and they have dramatic effects on how a society sees itself and operates.
What is the solution to this issue?
Once you know what the culture sees as wrong with the world, then you can figure out how they will strive to overcome/address the issue. This drives how they interact with other cultures, what career paths are encouraged, and the choices they make.
What is the final end for an individual and what can the individual due to affect it?
Is it heaven or hell and can good deeds or giving to a powerful church change that? Is it reincarnation where you always have another shot? Nothing, so enjoy life now? Valhalla, a warriors paradise, so break out the ale barrels and battle axes boys?
Once you have answered these questions you get a general idea of our cultures outlook on life. You should know how much they value life, their general outlook on life, and have ideas on how they could clash with other cultures.
Then I like to ask setting questions.
Where do they live and how hard is it to live there? Dessert, mountains, fruitful valleys. Do they scratch out a harsh existence on the world making them frugal or do they have plenty of food and a generous disposition?
What do they eat and how do the produce it? This plays off on the last question but gets more specific. Meat, grains, fields, or gathering determines how a culture works.
Then onto how society forms:
What family structures form and how strong are they? Is family the foundation of any person, with all their relatives living together and forming a clan or do people spread out and care more about common purpose than blood?
What are the major cultural rifts within your society? Rich vs poor, educated vs ignorant, warriors vs priests, conservative vs liberal, noble vs common?
What government type runs your society? Feudalism, monarchy, democracy?
What is the general attitude toward other cultures? Are they to be feared and avoided, traded with, looked up to, ignored, or conquered?
These are the questions I find useful. While I gave many examples of individual questions, to summarize, I am trying to answer the following big picture questions with all my little questions:
How does the culture think about itself and others (worldview), where does this culture live and what does it force them to do (setting), and given the answers to the above questions, how does the culture choose to organize itself (society).
[Answer]
There are of course many ways of going about things, but if you're looking for a mashup effect, I'd start by making a list of which characteristics of your two chosen cultures you want to keep. Why did you choose those cultures? Now think about what you know of each source culture that makes those things happen, or in some way guides or informs or undergirds those things. For example, the whole "warrior culture" thing in Japan was significantly an effect of a very long period of continual warfare and minimal (or no) central control; samurai were warrior vassals of a local lord, and often had no higher loyalty whatever. If you want to buy into later tropes, you can go further and say that these warriors staked their honor on this loyalty to the near-exclusion of everything else. OK, so if that's what "warrior culture" means to you in choosing Japan, think about what's going to happen if you link that up with Renaissance Italian phenomena like city-states or whatever. (For example: maybe that honor and loyalty thing is dedicated to the city and not the current rulership?)
To my mind, the crucial step comes slightly later: once you've got those desirable bits and pieces in some kind of broad framework -- using a template or sheet or whatever if you wish -- come up with the "meta-narratives" of this culture. These are the things that, if backed into a corner by a bunch of foreigners asking weird questions about the culture, a native would sort of reel off. So for the US, you might get "apple pie, mom, freedom, democracy, melting-pot." That stuff. Now the crucial thing is that every one of those bits is entirely true in a sense, and entirely untrue in a sense. And any intelligent native knows this, but probably doesn't really think about it all that much while at home.
So come up with that little list for your created culture. What do they (claim to) believe in, believe makes them special and who they really are? (This assumes that the culture has a self-identity at all, but if they've been in contact with other cultures they probably do.) What makes these things true? What makes them false? Why is it these things that are so important to these people?
With that in hand, you have a kind of "feel" for the culture, for how these people think, for what they think is normal and obvious and right and proper (and the reverse). Spinning out material from that point is relatively easy, because you can always come up with an idea and think, "yes, that works for these guys," or "no, that totally doesn't work," or "well, that kind of works, but I think they'd look at it this other way, and that now works for these guys."
[Answer]
I think the best way to approach this kind of documenting of imaginary cultures is to establish:
# Causality
Try to make a rough history of how these cultures ended up as they are. Given enough history, what makes them special should stand out enough and *also* give you some perspective of what defining characteristics they have *within the setting* which is really what you want.
Start from an arbitrary point in the past and come up with a timeline - or start from how you want them to end up and move backwards slowly until you have cultural justifications for nearly everything you want to include. This way, you'd focus, in your documentation, on those characteristics important to the story first and the in-universe cultural mashup second.
The advantage of establishing causality for your cultures is that it becomes easier to later gauge how important different cultural aspects are to different people and making identities clear and interesting while avoiding the big trap of a *planet of hats* which will make your job harder and will be less interesting to anyone reading your descriptions.
[Answer]
As I cannot comment on posts yet, for organizing in a RPG-Way, I generally use [this sheet](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s241/sh/a64c6b8f-2620-4a2c-b61c-cfbbef2c0428/84e27cb6e0ffaaff85b095cbee5abf56), it's not complete but it helps me starting at some point and develop "core" concepts later.
I have found this sheet a long ago, in a RPG site, but at that time I didn't worry about author rights. =(
**Added an overview of the sheet contents**
The sheet covers such topics as:
* Biology and Family: average species parameters, aging speed, special abilities (magic, ...), reproduction type (children, eggs, cloning, ...), family type and structure.
* Theology and Moral: system, rituals, cornerstones.
* Government and Social Structure: government type, description of various branches, key professions/classes, castes.
* Technology: general level/age, what they have for communication, fighting, etc.
* Economics: economic model, valuables, how they trade.
* History: key events and figures.
* Food: what, where and in what circumstances they eat, favorites.
* Fashion and Architecture: styles and materials.
* Language: the way people speak, common idioms.
* Education: institutions, social limitations and lifts.
* Recreation: typical entertainment.
**Edited to better explain how I use this**
Keep in mind that all aspects of a culture are linked someway and involves along the time due to cultural shock or self "evolution" - normally they go together as well.
Given a starting point, that can be whatever you feel more confortable with (for me are language and a bit of spirituality), how can you explain how their culture got there?
Does your world have more than one "civilized" spicies? How different thinking beings live in the same culture? Or don't they live together at all?
Goverment-wise, I think that small cultural-groups, would have a multi-task leader whom knows a little bit about everything, meanwhile larger ones will have a bunch of leaders, each one specialized in something/someplace and one of them'd the main chief.
The govermnet wil do laws, the laws will regulate education, recreation, politics and economics, but the goverment is made by people who are influencied by their own culture (education, language, recreation, personal structure, social-structure).
The provided sheet can help you thinking about it.
[Answer]
The way to approach this is to think what do people need to know. In this case, it's the players of your RPG world. When you're playing an RPG what sort of information do you want about a place you're just visiting for the first time to get a feel for it and have a basic understanding of how things are run?
From that you can start with a basic description of the land, noting important geographical locations. If I don't know anything about the area I'm playing in it's hard to make decisions that are based on locations of things or places. Along with that would go a brief description of the type of people who live here and the type of government (if any) that is present. This is a good time to name important people and recent history.
Recent history can link into a more in-depth history of the area if you feel it's appropriate in the initial description. It won't always be but in some cases it might be. After I'd start going into more details on specific locations and people relevant to those locations. If you're writing this for people in general, keep it fairly broad. If you're writing this for a specific campaign then you can be as specific to your campaign as you like, introducing key characters etc.
If you're doing this regularly pay attention to what questions you get when you present this information to people. The types of questions they ask will help you identify areas of information that they want but you've missed out. It's free feedback on your descriptions, and you can then incorporate that in future descriptions / introductions.
[Answer]
**Start by Making a Wikipedia Article**
Not a real one, but create a Wikipedia Article. I randomly entered "Hungarians" into Wikipedia to get an example. Design their history; define their geography, or, if this culture is imagined to be on Earth with us, then what regions have their population? More from the "Hungarians" article as a prototype.
* Where did their name come from?
* From the history you created, create their notable characters.
* What are their languages, religions?
* Any influences on the greater world you created.
And so on. Your story can always be supported by your article, and you can always expand it if necessary.
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[Question]
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On an hot planet at the wooded poles are two aliens species that coexist in a mutually beneficial relationship.
The Honey Mouths use gecko-like feet to hang from the far larger Thorn Shredders, where they are protected from predators. They feed primarily on sap that leaks out from the damaged and uprooted trees that the Thorn Shredders leave in their wake as they feed. The gecko-like feet developed much earlier in the genus for climbing rocks and trees to escape predators.
The Honey Mouths take in far more sap then they require for their sedentary life, converting much of it into a syrup which they feed to their babies and the Thorn Shredder. The Thorn Shredders are the largest species in the biome and roam in small herds through the forests using their bulk and strong forearms to break and feed on the small fast growing trees of the forest.
The Honey Mouths, usually ten to fifteen per animal, crawl along their bodies; in addition to eating tree sap, they also take small pests, seed pods and gunk that gets caught on the Thorn Shredder's leathery skin. In the evening Thorn Shredders will take some of the Honey Mouths in their hands stroking them to get a mouthful of regurgitated sugar rich syrup.
When the Thorn Shredders have a baby, they use the Honey Mouths syrup to supplement the feeding of the baby for several months. Nursing Honey Mouths simply avoid the hands of the Thorn Shredders for the two months that they are feeding their own babies.
Is this a realistic relationship for the aliens?
Art is by [Viki-Vaki](https://viki-vaki.deviantart.com/art/hello-there-625572739) from Deviantart.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cNUq9.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0rG8O.jpg)
[Answer]
### It's called [cleaning symbiosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_symbiosis)
This is definitely a viable idea. To give you some information from the linked Wikipedia article:
### Cleaning symbiosis in our nature
>
> Cleaning symbiosis is a mutually beneficial association between individuals of two species, where one (the cleaner) removes and eats parasites and other materials from the surface of the other (the client). Cleaning symbiosis is well-known among marine fish, where some small species of cleaner fish, notably wrasses but also species in other genera, are specialised to feed almost exclusively by cleaning larger fish and other marine animals. Other cleaning symbioses exist between birds and mammals, and in other groups.
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So while you will mostly find this behaviour when looking at small and bigger fish you will also come across cases where birds and mammals are living in such a symbiosis.
While it's often the case that you can find [cleaning stations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaner_fish) instead of riding with the host there is no reason to think that this should be the case with herds roaming through large forests.
### Cleaners eat parasites - but sometimes also mucus and tissue
It's important to note that in fish for example the cleaner will often also eat mucus and tissue from the client and if the cleaner is too aggressive the client may stop the interaction - which may cause the cleaner to die, as they are often cleaning predatory fish that would normally eat them. You could add this to your alien creatures to show that the relationship between the individuals is important. Especially when the Honey Mouths are always with the Thorn Shredders it's important that either side keep an eye out for the other, because if the cleaner dies the client may die because of parasites or because he doesn't get enough syrup. After some time they may depend on this food source. And the cleaners may die if the client dies as they are not fast enough to keep up with the herd on their own.
### Thorn Shredder death would be problematic for his surviving Honey Mouths
Another important fact is how the herd will for example handle the case of a dying Thorn Shredder - this leaves up to fifteen members of the Honey Mouths without food. They may distribute those to other members where the new Honey Mouths have to arrange with the existing ones. Or maybe they will fight with each other. Or they will simply try to keep up and wait for a place to become available.
### You need pouches for baby Honey Mouths
As you have a cleaner species that is always with the client it's also important to keep an eye our for baby cleaners. They are extremely small in comparison with the client and you might want the client to have some *niches* or similar parts where baby Honey Mouths can be safely stored and fed by their parents without having to fear falling down. The amount of baby Honey Mouths might also be important to the client, as the client will not get as much syrup when the syrup has to be fed to the baby Honey Mouths and it's additional weigth, slowing down the Thorn Shredder and thereby making it more difficult for the Thorn Shredder and all the Honey Mouths to survive. The same goes for Thorn Shredder babies of course.
The amount of baby Honey Mouths can for example be regulated through pouches of the Thorn Shredder (thanks to [G0BLiN](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/104241/reality-check-are-these-alien-animals-realistic/104243?noredirect=1#comment314596_104243) for this idea). Each pouch is big enough for exactly one baby Honey Mouth to be nursed. This also helps when then grow - a young Thorn Shredder would have none or maybe one pouch, a bigger one can maybe have up to five. Only when a pouch is available will the Honey Mouth be nursed. If there are too many the others will simply die.
### These pouches can be used to capture pregnant wild Honey Mouths
Or the pregnant Honey Mouth transfers to a different client with a pouch that is available. This way there could be a fluctuation of Honey Mouths in the Thorn Shredder herd. And it may also be a way to capture Honey Mouths - just place a couple pouches on a dummy Thorn Shredder and put the pregnant Honey Mouths there with some food.
### Honey Mouth colouration should indicate "Here be yummy syrup"
In fish you will often find a blue striped coloration - independent of where exactly you are looking. This convergent evolution might be interesting for you, too. Your animals don't want to be too obvious, because they are always with their client and therefore don't need to attract other clients. Maybe they are very good at looking like tree branches, thereby increasing the camouflage. Or if the Thorn Shredders are so big that this is not really needed, which I take from your descriptions that they are leaving destroyed forests in their wake, you might want to add special colouration to them. A little yellow pattern on their back maybe or something else that symbolises "Here be yummy syrup".
### You could have parasites that are very similar to Honey Mouths but feed mostly on tissue
This is also fascinating because you could have evil twins - parasites that look like Honey Mouths and feed like Honey Mouths, but don't feed the Thorn Shredders like Honey Mouths. This can be found in nature, too. They look like cleaners, but mostly feed on tissue while others do the cleaning. These are more difficult as your Honey Mouths would surely find them and want to get rid of those parasites, too. But maybe you have a special Honey Mouth species that specialises on not-being-picked at the evening and mainly eats tissue while the normal Honey Mouths do the work. If they sometimes feed the Thorn Shredders they could just as well merely be lazy Honey Mouths.
### Herds need to meet to exchange Honey Mouths
The biggest problem is finding new Honey Mouths when yours died because of a disease for example. They are not living anywhere specifically, so your Thorn Shredders can't go looking for them. I recommend that different herds meet at regular intervals to exchange Honey Mouths - which is good for the gene pool of the Honey Mouths and might give your herd the ability to give Honey Mouths away if there are too many or get some if there are too few.
### Baby Thorn Shredders inherit Honey Mouths from their mother
A similar problem arises when new Thorn Shredders are born. A newborn Thorn Shredder needs some Honey Mouths to be clean and not get infected. The best solution would be to have the mother Thorn Shredder give one of her Honey Mouths to her young. This makes room for another Honey Mouth on her, which might trigger the Honey Mouths to *create* another one. Once the new Honey Mouth is old enough to live on his own the young Thorn Shredder will be older and has enough place and parasites to shoulder a second Honey Mouth - as the Thorn Shredders are much bigger they will likely live a lot longer and mature more slowly.
Baby Thorn Shredders might also be a way for the herd to handle having too many Honey Mouths. It probably doesn't hurt to give a young Thorn Shredder one or two extra Honey Mouths, as long as you don't give a newborn Thorn Shredder a dozen Honey Mouths he will still be able to keep up with the herd and feed his Honey Mouths. Maybe it will be a bit harder and the young Thorn Shredder will have to stay close to his mother so that his Honey Mouths can forage some of the trees that are destroyed by the mother.
### If you want to capture Thorn Shredders you can lure them in by being a *Honey Mouth Exchange* - or make that a tourist attraction
Thorn Shredder herds will seek out other herds that have Honey Mouths to give away when their supply is short or herds that need Honey Mouths when they have too many. This is perfect for you, because those probably long-living, giant, free-roaming Thorn Shredders will surely get to know you and your friends at the station or restaurant. Whenever they have too many Honey Mouths they will try to come to you to give them away because they know you will take them. When they have too few they will come to you to get some. Even if there is no need to get more or less Honey Mouths, as I have already mentioned it's beneficial for the Honey Mouths to change their clients from time to time so that their gene pool is more diverse.
These large, slow creatures will be detectable far in advance so you can easily check which state they are in and prepare accordingly. Treat them fairly, or basically just ignore them, and they will give you a fresh supply of wild-born Honey Mouths. Maybe you can make a tourist attraction out of this: Once per year a giant herd comes to *trade* their Honey Mouths.
### Conclusion
**It's a difficult balance because your cleaners are always travelling with the same client, but there is no reason why it should not work as you have protrayed it.**
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[Question]
[
I have always though of three basic ways that force fields function.
The first way is that the force field projects an indestructible shell that oncoming objects can never break. Further, the velocity of the oncoming objects is irrelevant. In this case, the rock harmlessly rolls off.
The second way is that the force field applies a force to the oncoming objects accelerating them in the opposite direction. In this case, the rock is slowed down and then repelled by the force field.
The third way is that the force field projects an ultra-powerful wall of doom that instantly annihilates any oncoming object. This model uses immensely more energy than the first two.
My question is:
What is the most physically accurate model for a force field and which one would be best fitted for protecting a basic human civilization? If none of these types are realistic, are there any other ways one could work?
[Answer]
## The ~~Three Types~~ One Type of Shield
You denote three types of shields1, describing them by their effects:
1. 'Instantly' reduces the velocity of incoming objects to zero.
2. Accelerates incoming objects outward.
3. Destroys incoming objects (and propelling their pieces outward)
However, we can actually describe Types 1 and 3 in a way that they all fit under Type 2.
Type 1 reduces the velocity of incoming objects. This change in speed is an outward acceleration, just a very fast one. This is exactly what Type 2 does.
Type 3 destroys an object *and propels the remaining pieces outward*. Same as before, we have a change in velocity corresponding to an outward acceleration, like Type 2. The acceleration is *so* large that it destroys said object.
All three of these types could be said to use the same mechanism, just at different magnitudes.
## Trigger Warning: Words
(If you take my word that conservation of momentum is a thing, then you can skip this part.)
I'll paraphrase an excerpt from my [answer to Kinetic energy reflection](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/14059/kinetic-energy-reflection/14075#14075):
Conservation of momentum is a result of [Newton's three laws](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion). If we define momentum as the product of an object's mass and its velocity, we can state the laws in this way:
* If no force is applied to an object, its speed (and therefore momentum) does not change.
* The rate at which momentum is added to or removed from an object (rate of change of mass times speed, or mass times acceleration) is equal to the force applied.
* When two objects apply a forces to each other, those forces (and therefore the objects' changes in momentum) are equal and opposite.
The result of all this is that momentum is a *conserved quantity*:
* Objects cannot create or destroy momentum, only trade it between themselves.
* The total momentum of a system is constant when no external forces are applied.
If it helps, you can think of momentum like *charge,* where force plays the role of *momentum current.* The crucial difference is that momentum has a direction that is also conserved.
---
You all know that Newton has been supplanted by Einstein, so you might argue that there might be some super-physics where the three laws, and therefore conservation of momentum, only hold as an approximation. However, there is a hugely important result in physics called [Noether's theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether%27s_theorem). It basically states that every spatial symmetry has an associated conserved quantity. In our case this means that *if the laws of physics don't change from one place to another*, then momentum (the quantity associated with motion) *must be conserved*. (In general relativity it's actually the [4-momentum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-momentum) that's conserved, which includes an object's 'speed through time;' but that's not important for this discussion.)
## Shielded from Physics
We can use the same argument from *Kinetic energy reflection* to show that all three types of shields would violate conservation of momentum. Basically, it boils down to: the shield doesn't change speed, so its momentum remains the same, however the incoming object does change speed, so its momentum changes. Since those are the only two objects in the system, the total momentum changes, which is not physical.
## Forcing it to Work
In order for shields to be possible, we'll have to make a key adjustment: the momentum from the object is transferred to the shield generator. From here it can transfer the momentum to a large mass, like the Earth. (This is exactly what a wall does, transfer momentum into the ground via a momentum current, i.e. a force.)
The upshot of this is that we need a way for the shield generator to apply a force to the object that it wants to stop. Well, as it turns out, there are only [four forces](https://xkcd.com/1489/) for us to choose from:
* Gravitational force: not really an option since we haven't [solved gravity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(film)) yet (although we're [working on it!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Antenna)).
* Electromagnetic force: This one is pretty promising, I'll go over it in detail in just a second.
* Strong force: only relevant on the scale of atomic nuclei.2 It decays exponentially with distance.
* Weak force: only relevant in interactions between certain subatomic particles. As the name suggests it is very weak and is also short-range.
It looks like the only good candidate is the *electromagnetic force.* This encompasses most of the forces we deal with every day though, so we need to break it down a bit:
* Near-field: this includes stuff like interatomic and intermolecular forces.
* Far-field: interactions of electromagnetic waves with matter.
We want far-field interactions, since we want the generator to be far away from the stuff it's repelling!
## Frickin' Laser Beams
In order to deliver the large amounts of energy required to the objects we want to stop/destroy, we're going to need some sort of *powerful electromagnetic wave.* Essentially we've just described a laser.
The only problem is, laser beams are not bubbles. This is disappointing, but inevitable. Basically you can't have some sort of force or energy hanging around somewhere without some *stuff* to keep it there.
This means that we need to shoot out our lasers at exactly the right time to stop incoming objects. Our 'shield' has basically turned into a directed-energy point-defense system.
Note that although light does carry momentum, we don't actually need to apply external momentum to stop an object. The laser beam will vaporize the surface of the target, and the resulting [*tiny explosion of plasma*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_ablation) will push the object away like a rocket. This is good for stopping objects with high kinetic energy but low momentum, like bullets and missiles, but will be useless against slow-moving objects or ones that can redirect the momentum into the ground (like a tank rolling along); *"The shield turns the fast blow, admits the slow knife!"*. There are some exceptions: some things are going [too fast to be stopped](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1q_rRicAwI),3 while most slow-moving objects will probably be destroyed by your high-energylaser beams.
1 I'm going to use the term "shield" instead of "field" to distinguish the science-fiction meaning of "force-field" from the mathematical and physics notions of 'field'.
2 Although the amount of energy it contributes to neutrons and protons it so high, it gives them almost 99% of their mass (through $E=mc^2$)! Cool, huh?
3 I always like to point out that the glowing trail you see behind the projectile is not propellant: the projectile is *smashing the air apart into plasma* it's going so fast.
[Answer]
If you're looking for a physically-accurate force field, the second model (soft deflection) is the closest to what you'll get.
A real-world force field would work by (as the name implies) applying a force to an incoming object, causing it to accelerate in a direction away from the area being protected.
Because of the inability to generate repulsive gravity, a real-world force field would need to act through electric, magnetic, or electromagnetic means. Electrically-neutral, non-magnetic objects (or reasonable approximations thereto, such as a human) can freely pass through such a force field; it's only useful for stopping things such as charged particle beams and metal projectiles, with a field strong enough to stop the latter likely to cause collateral damage.
Real-world examples of force fields would be the magnetic confinement fields used in particle physics research, or on a very large scale, the Earth's magnetic field acting to deflect solar winds and cosmic radiation.
[Answer]
The fundamental problem you have here is that there is absolutely nothing in physics as we know it that would allow a force field to be generated.
There are a few things we can do like magnetic fields that will work on certain materials but a universal "shield" that blocks incoming things would be based on some form of physics that at the moment we have no concept of at all.
Since the current most unexplained part of physics is gravity, then the most likely place we will find a way to do something like this is going to be by manipulating gravity. Imagine a field that warps spacetime and causes anything coming into it to bend away, like a black hole but in reverse.
By modulating the effect correctly you would get a result similar to a force field. It would work like your type 2 but as the other answers have said actually type 1 is just type 2 turned up to 11, and type 3 is a type 2 turned up to 100.
[Answer]
A realistic force field could simply vaporise all incoming objects, which can be achieved by a thin layer of high energy plasma contained by an electric (edit: I mean, magnetic) field. The plasma will glow brightly though, and is transparent, so it would allow laser like weapons to pass (you can stop that by adding some sort of photochromic layer, or just a opaque layer). Alternatively, we could theoretically warp space, and either get the projectile to pass straight through us, deflect it or make it vanish into a singularity. This method would also have the advantage of being invisible and also works for radiative weapons like lasers.
Note: The second option isn't possible with current technology, but the first one is (only theoretically though, currently not very practical).
[Answer]
## Laser Ablation
On a planetary scale, if you don't mind doing *a lot* of damage to the secondary object, you could utilize a set of powerful satellite-mounted lasers to propel the object away in a quite efficient manner. Unfortunately, this must be done from a fair distance before the reflected radiation becomes non-apocalyptic.
Most like the second option.
## Flux pinning
From a smaller point of view, flux pinning seems to be promising for many smaller or alternate variants of shielding technology. One method ([cannibalized from another answer somewhere around here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/12520/hard-sci-fi-energy-shields/12527#12527)) would be to line up superconducting plates "glued" together by quantum locking. Maybe the object in question could merely be sprayed with adhesive superconducting nanobots.
Most like the first option.
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[Question]
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**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
We are in a future where genetics has advanced to a point where arbitrary modifications can be done to living beings. Now a geneticist wants to make a flying human. That is, he wants to modify a human so that his arms turn into wings (but still with hands at the end, so doing all things humans usually do is possible), and so that the human could actually fly using those wings. But apart of the wings, the modifications should be as conservative as possible; that is, it should be the minimum change necessary to make the human fly, and it should affect the normal human abilities as little as possible. In particular, he should still look as human as possible. If possible, he should have the ability to go directly from running to flying.
My question is: What minimal changes would have to be made to the human body to enable flying?
[Answer]
The largest bird ever to fly were the Teratorns (a type of Condor), the largest of which, Argentavis magnificens, had a wingspan of 6 to 8 metres, and weighed 70kg.
Source: <http://library.sandiegozoo.org/factsheets/_extinct/teratorn/teratorn.htm>
The average weight of an adult human is 62kg, which is actually less than that of the Teratorn.
So, a lightweight human in theory could fly. Clearly you would modify the humans not to store large amounts of fat, and for a thinner frame. Bird bones are not actually lighter than human bones as they are denser and stiffer despite being hollow. You would somehow need to remove the weight of the wings and other adaptions from the rest of the body to keep the weight constant as you add flight capability.
Other adaptations made in birds that would most likely be needed in your humans are:
* A deep, solid breastbone (sternum) to which the wing muscles can be anchored.
* Get rid of un-needed bones. For example fewer fingers, thinner skulls, etc.
* Keep reproductive organs tiny most of the time, have a breeding season.
* Much larger more efficient lungs (continuous flow)
* A more powerful heart and increased blood flow to the wing muscles
Source: <http://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Adaptations.html>
The most visible change needed though would be the six meter wingspan. Each arm would need to be 3 meters long. In other words the arm would extend from their shoulder and the elbow would nearly reach the floor, and then the forearm would extend back up the same distance to place their hand by their shoulder. Even folded up this would be a massive deal, and would greatly limit them in their daily lives.
The wrist may well need to be elongated as well to give the wings 3 points of articulation, which would mean the first two bones would not need to be so long but the hand becomes even less flexible and useful.
While they would have no problem reaching top shelves they would have to be constantly folding their arms and find most areas designed for normal humans incredibly claustrophobic. All furniture and living areas would need to be designed especially for their use or be uncomfortable. In particular they would struggle to reach or do anything close to them, preferring to actually be a distance from anything they are working with.
So in conclusion, your flying humans would have enormously over-long arms and clumsy few-fingered hands. They would have large massively muscled and protruding chests and thin fragile skulls.
But they would fly.
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[Question]
[
It is a jewel-encrusted black box, seemingly made out of a dark exotic wood, a mere few inches across, so it can be held rather comfortably in one hand, although it certainly feels a little bit heavy for its size.
At first glance, it might even seem a bit cheap. However, there is something remarkable about this box: the top panel can be opened and items placed inside; Once it is closed again a turning-gear sound is heard and the top panel locks and becomes inaccessible; After about 7 hours, the top lock reopens and a previously invisible lower panel also pops open, with **whatever items were placed in the top panel perfectly duplicated** in the bottom panel, as far as you can tell.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ms17h.jpg)
You gained control of the box seemingly by accident. Someone you met briefly seems to have left it behind. Come to think of it, you don't remember the night very clearly. You do recall her name was [**Rynn**](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/12990/a-most-subtle-magic) and she had an easy laugh and eyes so green you could almost swear they had an inner glow of their own. Much of the rest was a blur. A wonderful blur.
**What is the best way to use the box?** You've considered placing money, diamonds, or LSD inside. However, you're just a regular person living somewhere in the Western world. You wouldn't even know where to buy LSD from if you wanted to. You're not a drug dealer or a diamond merchant, and you don't want drug lords, or worse, the government, or for that matter anyone else taking it away. It's not (just) greed: you're still holding on to the hope that Rynn might return one day for her box.
\*EDIT: In response to the perhaps predictable cries for clarification, I refuse to engage in a definition of what "good" is (as I see it, an exercise best left for philosophy.stackexchange.com) but rather reaffirm the initial goals. The goal is to use the box, while incurring only a trivially small chance of getting discovered, in a way that would seem rational and reasonable to a moderately socially-apt, moderately ethical, moderately-well educated and moderately financially savvy Westerner.
EDIT 2: Ok, **What is an efficient way to use the box to get obscenely rich and/or do the most helpful deeds towards bettering the state of mankind (according to your best judgement) while ensuring that your use of the box remains undetected and the box stays in your possession?**
[Answer]
Economics works well for you whether your goals are purely humanitarian or totally opportunistic.
Regardless of your final goal, you need to take advantage of economies of scale. Making currency won't work long term because of the serial numbers, so you'll have to go down to the local pawn shop and get a few pieces of ordinary gold jewelry. Duplicate them several times and sell them until you can afford a more serious gemstone, and build a website. Start shipping the gems out to those who will buy it without a certificate. Get progressively more and more expensive materials - tanzanite and so on.
The box plays a less and less important role after a time. You now have a significant amount of capital which you may invest however you like. At some point you'll need to hire someone to handle your money. Do everything through shell companies and try to keep it separate from the surprising amount of diamonds and tanzanite you produced. Now you're buying and selling ideas, companies, patents and factories.
From here, you will be guided strictly by whatever moral code moves you most. For myself, I like to think I would purchase patents on the most expensive medications in the world and free release them, while turning around and funding the research that those fees were paying for. This will save far more lives than duplicating or purchasing the medications themselves could. It will also give you a global platform on which to solicit charitable gifts for more good deeds.
If evil and greed are your thing, pick your targets and watch them fall to the power of simply going bankrupt. If that isn't as much fun, buying "accidents" shouldn't set you back much, unless the target is very high profile.
What's interesting is that the above two scenarios aren't actually mutually exclusive - nothing actually stops you from saving the masses and killing the few. It just all depends on what flavor of self-aggrandizement you are into.
[Answer]
The best thing you can do is stay small. That's not to say poor, mind you, just small.
As has been indicated, cash is not a good idea, due to serial numbers. Neither, oddly enough, are gemstones. Since you want to stay inconspicuous, providing a stream of gems which are exactly identical, to .01 carat, will sooner or later catch the curiosity of *somebody*.
I assume you can afford $1200.
That will get you a Gold Eagle nowadays: one ounce of gold and the most commonly sold (in the US) bullion coin around. And bullion coins are what you want, since basically nobody cares about anything except weight. You have not specified the exact inner dimensions of The Box, but let's start with 1" x 3" x 4". If this were filled with a custom ingot, it would weigh about 3.6 kg, or 117 troy ounces. At 1200 per ounce, that's about 141k. Since we're talking coins rather than a full ingot, you can only fit 48 gold eagles in this space (8 layers of 6 coins), for a total value (at 1200) of 57.6k. A day's work (3 duplications) will get you 172.8k.
Nice work if you can get it.
Staying small is a good thing in this case. Pay taxes on your gold sales, and maybe set yourself up with a small coin store as a laundering device. Run the box once a year.
As an alternative format, get a few ounces of gold dust. Then move up to Alaska and buy a nice big tract of land which has a river which seems a good prospect for panning. Then start duplicating your gold dust, and if anyone asks, you hit the most outrageous lode in the river. Nobody is likely to raise alarm flags. Plus, as a bonus, when you decide to move on, you'll be able to sell the land at very good price to anybody who wants to see if you missed anything.
Now, if you've got ambitions, you can find an outlet for all the gold you can produce. How much is that? Since a custom ingot seems reasonable in this case, your total gold production is about 105 million per year, assuming 3 duplications per day, working 5 days per week and taking 2 weeks vacation per year. This, while rather better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, is too much to hide, but too small to provide the corruption required to get the feds to overlook it. You might do well to move to a less-developed country, with all the problems (particularly security) which that entails.
As a security measure, run up a few loads of gold and cache them in various locations, just in case. And start collecting cheap jewelry boxes. Everybody needs a hobby, and the Purloined Letter approach seems quite reasonable. In the real box, insert a wooden spacer in the box, then run the box. The result, until you remove the original and duplicate spacers, will be a box which is too small for your custom ingots - just in case someone decides to check.
[Answer]
Again, you haven't defined the starting conditions.
Many people in the Western world have savings and/or credit.
If you can get your hands on enough liquid funds, you can move directly into reproducing something of value (instead of counterfeiting): perfect flawless rubies (there are stores that sell them) (diamonds are over-rated), platinum coins, etc.
If you can afford platinum to start, that's what I'd start with - as there are less hassles. Otherwise, get gold (couple thousand dollars).
After you've got a couple duplicates of that, and you're filling your volume completely (melt and mold until you have maxed out the volume), you should move to rare-earths (this will take some time and money to get shipped to you; they don't have local stores for that). Those run on the $10,000+ per ounce/scale. Make sure you're optimizing your 7hr increments. Then, perhaps onto high-end complex microchips or complex drugs (legal ones - AIDs drugs come to mind, but there are others that are also difficult to produce); after you've created an appropriate shell company to sell them. Learning where to get these things (or how to optimize them for size) is merely a problem of applying money. If you've got the money, you can get anything you want - you can even have someone else figure out where to get it, if you can pay them.
Also, consider duplicating rare species' eggs and zygotes, if the preservation stuff for the IVF can be made to fit in the box; it's only got to keep it cold for 7ish hours. And, maybe you can run the box at a super-chilled temperature (does it generate heat when working?), then you just need the gloves and you can pack that stuff in.
You should also do some tests to find out if it's generating mass, or if it's converting already existing mass. If it is creating mass then you should consider going to space, as you have the best nano-factory in existence. Long-term, getting something serious and stable set up in space is what will best help the Earth as a whole.
Anyways, money/capital allows you do to lots of things. Hire engineers, develop new products, fix the things that're broken in the world.
Also, making the assumption that taking it apart and/or destructive testing is out of the question.
[Answer]
## You can do all of the above, you have a freaking magic box.
(I would probably suggest NOT searching "Magic Box" from work btw...)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/G81be.jpg)
**First**, when trying to be sneaky and hide the movement of things you "shouldn't" have it never hurts to **be obscenely wealthy and have companies under your control**.
So, step one simply put, make yourself rich. If you want to keep the box a hidden secret you're going to have to take your time otherwise pesky economic watchdogs may start to notice you pulling money out of your ass (metaphorically of course).
So pick whatever you want to duplicate...**cash** seems like the obvious and relatively painless option considering you don't want people to find out about the box not to mention you don't then have to try and sell goods that you have no right to sell.
The more rare and expensive and obscure item you copy the more difficult it will be to move those items...copying diamonds would get challenging in any significant number, same goes for most relatively rare items. Stick with cash and use different kinds, not just Euros or Dollars. Hide it and gradually start investing it and saving it...PAY YOUR TAXES, don't be [Al Capone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Untouchables_(film)). Precious metals may be an even better option, just your standard, gold/silver/platinum...no serial numbers...
**Second**, now that you are crazy wealthy, invest that money into places to make more money, buy companies, preferably in the areas you plan to manipulate later with your wizard box. You are essentially creating a cover for your secret.
**Third**, well now its time to do your good. You could buy pharma companies and distribute drugs to anyone that needs them, some drugs can cost *[Seven Figures...](http://www.fool.com/investing/high-growth/2015/08/15/the-5-most-expensive-drugs-in-the-world-in-2015.aspx)*, you could create global education programs for the impoverished (though that doesn't directly utilize the box), you could destroy the diamond market to eliminate those conflicts, hrmm what else...the options in this section are only limited to the items that will actually fit into the box.
You can't fix the middle east...that whole oil thing, the box won't really help on that, but you can support renewable energy research with your box begotten goods so that wouldn't hurt.
---
*There is an option 2 however...*
Sometimes the "greatest" good is in the smallest deeds. Simply wander the planet helping people you meet. Copy some food for the hungry living on the street, a dose of expensive medicine for a sick child, 50 bucks for someone to make rent that keeps them from sliding into poverty and losing hope...
[Answer]
Go to a friendly suburban coin shop and pick up some common but pricey gold coins. Being common and below the notice of the super-fine-art people, you can sell copies on ebay and other more specialized sites.
An ounce of gold or platinum costs thousands of dollars, but are easy to buy and sell. Collectible coins are more valuable than bullion for the same mass.
Does the mass of the object make a difference to the cycle time or some kind of side effect?
Does it work magically on the quantum level? Duplicating quantum states in violation of the *no cloning* theorem would allow you to break quantum encryption and other related things like get information back out of zero-knowledge proofs.
Since it lets you violate the uncertainty principle (find the exact momentum and position, for example) it could potentially be amplified to violate physics on a larger scale. That is, a little bit of magic confined to a single app *could* be bootstrapped into fully general magical abilities.
[Answer]
Sure, you can use €500 notes, buy gold coins, tinker with selling diamonds, but really, you don't want to get caught or to attract attention (plus how much money do you really need, when you know you can generate more on demand?)
However, it'd be a pity to leave this gift unused, since I'm assuming it's not going to 'run out' or anything, being sufficiently-advanced-as-to-be-undistinguishable-from-magic nanotech. What you want to do is to replicate and give away anonymously to those who need it the most expensive and rare medicine.
[Answer]
Since you're so clearly hoping to find Rynn again, the best use of the box is as an attractant to help you find Rynn.
Forget making millions, or ruling the world, destroying it, or being the worlds most powerful person. In almost any scheme that uses the box to duplicate valuables and help you make money, you will quickly attract unwanted attention, which puts your box at risk; what if someone spies on you and sees how the box works and decides to take it for himself? What if he decides to kill you in the process? What if the government decides that it wants to study it? (After all, if used properly it could potentially be the key to a perpetual motion machine)
Instead, you should put a picture of it on social media/ebay/craigslist or something, asking to sell it/return it to owner, and wait for Rynn to show up so you can give it back to her as a token of friendship, and perhaps you'll be able to spark a new relationship or something like that.
In the meantime, you can save yourself some money on sustenance by duplicating canned goods and instant ramen/water bottles until Rynn returns.
[Answer]
Considering the two edits i realize that
1. the question basically boils down to: What is has a volume of 10x8x5 cm³ / 2 (the duplicate also has to fit) and has the most potential of benefit for me and mankind (ruling out gold and other elements) but
2. since Rynn seemes to have forgotten to attach safety instructions or a manual it is unsafe to use the box at all when you care about morals at all because
* you do not know where the matter for the duplicated object(s) comes from. The people you're trying to help may be the ones the box takes from in the first place. Think AIDS meds... you don't want to take them away from someone to give them to someone else
* You seem to love Rynn because of the way you describe the night and how wonderful and mesmerizing it was. You are very likely in love and you don't want to be judged by her upon her return
* you should be afraid of causing market inbalances that cause a fatal chain reaction for economy and thus be harmful to mankind as a whole
Leaving all that beside the box is not large enough to make a big difference, especially since the duplication interval is 7 hours (your first batch should be caffeine pills). If you really want to to something useful with that box then something like slowly repopulating the seas with fish would be an excellent idea. But 7 hours in a box is way too long for a fish even if you fill the box with salt water.
Sooner or later you'll probably realize that the best way to help someone at all is to duplicate something of great value (gold, diamonds, art) and sell the stuff to the super rich thus making enough money to spend it for the goal of helping mankind.
Again, if you consider the possible consequences of your actions you would not use the box at all and instead try to help the world without it. You can take it along as an emergency fallback for, let's say you get stranded in a desert and you need to replicate your water reserves. Apart from that there is no need or place for this magical box in this world at all.
[Answer]
As long as you are careful it's very unlikely that duplicating currency will be noticed. Yes, the serial numbers are going to match but who is going to compare serial numbers to bills that aren't together?
Get money from the bank, duplicate it, deposit it in another bank. Spend the duplicated money.
[Answer]
You don't need to be a diamond dealer to buy diamonds, the diamond industry has convinced millions of people to buy diamond engagement rings every year. So you can buy diamonds and other gems - emeralds, rubies, pearls, sapphires, etc. - and (ordinary) jewelry using those gems, make copies, and sell the copies for less than you bought the originals to make a profit.
Keep bank deposit boxes and stashes full of gems in case of emergency.
You could buy model soldiers and figurines, the more expensive kinds that sell for tens of dollars apiece, check for serial numbers, etc., and if they don't have serial numbers hand paint them if necessary and duplicate them. Assemble sets of many from the same era (Roman empire, Cavalry vs Indians, WWII, etc.) and from different manufacturers and then offer them online as sets assembled by a user.
Buy rolls of coins from banks, duplicate them, and get cash for the duplicate coins and/or rolls at other banks or coin machines. Use duplicated coins to buy stuff from coin operated vending machines and duplicate that stuff so you never have to buy any more again.
Buy sets of batteries, duplicate them, and sell sets of batteries.
Buy collectible coins, but relatively cheap and common ones, so that nobody will wonder where the 13th Coin X suddenly appeared from. Duplicate and sell them. Buy sets of relatively cheap coins like state quarters from all 50 US states and duplicate and sell them. Also old, collectible paper money.
Buy collectible stamps, but not too expensive or rare. Assemble them into several sets with different stamps, and duplicate the various sets. Sell sets of assorted stamps.
If you have tools, duplicate the ones small enough to fit inside the magic box and sell sets of small tools. Buy kits for nail care, for example, and sell them.
Buy packages of nails and screws, etc., duplicate them, and sell them.
Buy relatively common and cheap autographs and signatures, duplicate them, and sell the duplicates.
Buy historic letters and other documents, but not too rare, important, or unique, and duplicate. Sell duplicate historical documents, but not too many duplicates of a specific one.
Buy all the merchandise from dollar stores that is small enough to fit in your copying machine and duplicate, and open a dollar store selling those duplicates plus larger dollar priced stuff that you actually have to gasp! shudder! buy.
Assemble wads of cash from bills that are used enough so the serial numbers will be non consecutive and duplicate them. Spends those wads of cash or deposit them in different banks.
If you can acquire nuclear fuel pellets you can duplicate and sell them. If you can acquire uranium ore you can duplicated the uranium ore. If you duplicate enough uranium ore and fuel pellets (but store it safely to avoid incidents) you can provide enough clean energy to power the world with greatly reduced use of fossil fuels.
I think that you should be able to make tens, then hundreds, then thousands of dollars per day via duplication. If you duplicate stuff you need so you don't have to pay for it you can save some money every day. If you invest all that extra money you should be able to become reasonably rich rather fast.
Then you would have to figure out how to go from reasonably rich to super rich - a difficult process, but one which thousands of billionaires have accomplished without the help of your magic box.
] |
[Question]
[
I think the Hubble telescope is too small to observe the universe. Ditto for James Webb, Keck and other telescopes out there. I decided I need something much bigger.
So, I recently got two Death Stars approximately $160\text{ }km$ in diameter near the Earth (don't ask how I managed to get that, I could tell you, but then, I would need to kill you). Since I am a pacifist, I decided to reformat them as powerful space telescopes and I already have enough money, resources and technology for that (don't ask either, I have a lot of stormtroopers to shut up people who asks too much).
So, I will get two giant eyes in space $160\text{ }km$ in diameter each, and I am willing to position then in the $L\_4$ and $L\_5$ points of the Neptunian orbit. The purpose is to look into space with binocular vision, and further use the redundancy as a way to avoid and reduce problems resulting from glitches caused by cosmic rays, and operational and maintaining problems.
Now the actual question. What could I observe in space with my two giant eyes? Could I see extra-galactic asteroids or something like that? Could I see the face of people smiling on Earth? What types of fine details I could see in a galaxy billions of light years away? Could I determine if there is life on extra-solar planets by actually seeing the living beings? Or are my expectations here are just too high and I couldn't even see most of the extra-solar planets around near stars? Getting still larger space eyeballs helps me to significantly improve my imaging resolution or making them significantly larger will bring few or no benefit? I.E. All those questions can be reduced to "what resolution can I get?"
Further, is getting two eyes looking the same place really worth or would they be more useful working independently?
I was thinking about optic telescopes getting images from infrared to ultraviolet. But if you can make a case that I could get better observations with microwave, radio, x-rays or gamma rays, then tell it.
[Answer]
I'll try to answer this as best as I can, but it might not be as good as you're looking for, because this is a very tough question to answer! But I'll give it a shot. If it's confusing, unclear, or poorly organized in any way, just let me know, and I'll rework it.
---
**Orbital issues**
Okay, so you have Death Stars at the [$L\_4$ and $L\_5$ points](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point#L4_and_L5) of Neptune's orbit. Excellent choices, because these points - unlike the other Lagrange points - are exceedingly stable. You won't have to do too much any stationkeeping or other maneuvers to keep these telescopes where you want them. Well, *near* where you want them.
A quick calculation shows that these telescopes are $2 \sqrt{3}$ times [Neptune's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune) semi-major axis away from each other - a mere $1.56 \times 10^{18}$ meters. That's 100 times as far as Earth is from the Sun - not accounting for Neptune's orbital eccentricity of about 0.008 (very tiny, fortunately for us, but something to take into account nonetheless). The eccentricity, combined with the distance, gives us a bit of a problem.
Why? Because there's no way in heck we can keep these things aligned. Put two small balls in Earth orbit, at exactly the same height, with an orbital eccentricity of 0 - but 120 degrees apart form each other. Statistically, there's going to be some wobble. Now multiply that distance by an incredible number, multiply the size of those balls by a huge factor, and consider that even if they stay where they're supposed to be, orbital eccentricity guarantees that the distance between them will chance over the course of one orbit.
The distance poses another issue: Timing. With distances this large between the "eyes", light will reach them at drastically different times. It takes 8 minutes for light to reach Earth from the Sun. It would take hours for a signal from one telescope to reach the other - and so measurements would have to be perfectly synched.
The fix for the other issues? Nonexistent. There is no way we can eliminate all these problematic factors. However, we can try to eliminate them. The best solution might be to attach tiny thrusters to all sides of each Death Star, in places that aren't being used for the primary mirrors. That will help a bit. Another possible solution would be to have each Death Star operate independently - essentially saying "Screw coordination" - and use computers to compensate, and automatically align images from the different telescopes. That could help, although the amount of data that would have to processed would be monumental.
---
**Construction problems**
I'm going to ignore for the moment the problem that building a megastructure like the Death Star is way beyond our technological capacity - both now and in the near future. We have to scrap the whole premise if we don't accept that humanity has outdone itself and figured out how to build something like this.
There is a problem, though, and that is the mirrors used in each telescope. Look at [this image](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Comparison_optical_telescope_primary_mirrors.svg) of the largest optical telescopes in existence (and no, telescopes using other wavelengths aren't necessarily any bigger, except for radio telescopes). See the yellow one?
I know, the image is tiny, and so the captions aren't readily visible, but the link should help. Anyway, the yellow one is the [Gran Telescopio Canarias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Telescopio_Canarias), and it's the biggest optical telescope in the world. At only 10.4 meters.
Yep, there are bigger things in the image. The Thirty-Meter Telescope, the European Extremely Large Telescope, and the Giant Magellan Telescope are all still planned . . . but not ready until the early 2020s. The large pale outline is that of the creatively named Overwhelmingly Large Telescope - cancelled. And the big white thing is the [Arecibo Observatory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory), which - while, in my opinion, one of humanity's most extraordinary feats of engineering - can only detect radio waves.
Anyway, there's a rather large problem, which is that there is a limit to how big you can make mirrors. Notice how all of the big telescopes are actually composed of smaller mirrors. Whole mirrors that size simply can't support their own weight while still being scratch-free and in the desired shape (parabolic). Now, the biggest of these still-in-the-pipeline telescopes, the [European Extremely Large Telescope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Extremely_Large_Telescope) - ironically planned for construction in Chile - is 39.3 meters across, and will be composed of 789 hexagonal segments. A telescope on your scale would require hundreds of thousands of times that amount - because the number doesn't increase linearly. There are [advances in larger mirrors](http://www.npr.org/2012/01/26/145837380/want-to-make-a-giant-telescope-mirror-heres-how), but you'd still need loads of mirrors 20 meters across to create just one 160-meter-wide telescope.
Is this possible? Yes. Feasible? No. Operable? Most likely not. Each mirror segment needs actuators to help it adjust to make miniscule changes, correcting for various effects. The actuator system for such a large mirror would be enormous, and I doubt that you could successfully take many images without some problem cropping up with a segment or two - or maybe a hundred or two hundred. Complex systems are always susceptible to disaster.
---
**Properties of the telescope**
Neil Slater pointed out in a comment:
>
> There are three basic issues which limit what you can see: Angular resolution, light collection area, and absorption/scattering of radiation between you and the target. A good answer needs to consider all three.
>
>
>
Perhaps this isn't as good an answer as Neil would like, but I'll try to get at all three.
* [**Angular Resolution:**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_resolution) The angular resolution $\theta$ of a telescope is
$$\theta=1.220 \frac{\lambda}{D}$$
where $\lambda$ is the wavelength of light and $D$ is the diameter of the aperture, which here we'll approximate as the same size as the mirror - 160,000 meters across. The wavelengths of the visible spectrum range from $3.90 \times 10^{-7}$ to $7.00 \times 10^{-7}$. I'll take a mean wavelength of $5.45 \times 10^{-7}$ meters, which gives us a mean angular resolution of
$$\theta = 1.220 \frac{5.45 \times 10^{-7}}{1.60 \times 10^5}=6.649 \times 10^{-12} \text{ radians}$$
That's really, really good. The smallest thing that can be distinguished has a size of the above formula multiplied by the distance to the object. We can't use the next formula given on Wikipedia, because that's for a microscope. However, we can see if it would detect a human on Earth.
Let's say that Earth and Neptune are at their closest distance - $4.35 \times 10^{14}$ meters. Put that in the formula, and we find that the smallest object one of these things could detect is
$$l=6.694 \times 10^{-12} \times 4.35 \times 10^{14}=2900 \text{ meters}$$
Oh, well. We tried. So that answers the questions of seeing living beings anywhere nearby.
* **Light collection area:** I made a mistake earlier. Can you see what it is? Well, I'll point it out: I assumed that the telescope would be able to use an area of radius 80,000 meters to collect light. This may be a fallacy, although not a huge one.
There are three main types of optical telescopes (as I'm sure you know): [reflecting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflecting_telescope), [refracting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refracting_telescope) and [catadioptric](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catadioptric_system#Catadioptric_telescopes). The latter uses both techniques; for our purpose, it is a bit too complicated. A reflecting telescope looks like [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Newtonian_telescope2.svg):
A refracting telescope looks like [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Kepschem.png):
The issue? Both are long and cylindrical - most times, they're larger than they are wide. If you have a cylinder with a diameter akin to that of the Death Star, it will end up being much bigger than the Death Star. So in reality, we're left with a much smaller telescope. But I think we may ignore that error.
MarchHo suggested putting a reflecting mirror at the telescope's focal point, as is often seen in radio telescopes. It's certainly feasible, and would mean that the telescope could be a lot smaller - essentially a parabolic mirror floating in space (come to think of it, the depression in the Death Star from where the laser exits is shaped a lot like that). It's certainly an option that would solve the issues presented above.
Anyway, we can use the figure of $D=160,000$ meters for our calculations. We might as well be optimistic. The collection area for a telescope depends largely on its primary mirror. We can [compare two telescopes](http://www.teachastronomy.com/astropedia/article/Collecting-Area-and-Resolution), saying that telescope $A$ gathers a certain amount of light compared to $B$, given by
$$\frac{\pi R\_A^2}{\pi R\_B^2}$$
Take the [James Webb Space Telescope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope). Its mirror is 6.5 meters in diameter. This means that our telescope has a collecting area
$$\frac{\pi 80,000^2}{\pi 3.25^2}=6.05917 \times 10^8$$
times that of the James Webb Space Telescope. Does that mean its angular resolution is that many times smaller? No, because angular resolution scales linearly with diameter, whereas this comparison is a quadratic scale. But the difference is still extremely impressive.
* **Absorption/Scattering of radiation:** I'm not entirely sure what Neil meant by this. He could be referring to [interstellar extinction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_(astronomy)), which can hurt a telescope's abilities. The formula for extinction due to (neutral) hydrogen is
$$\frac{N\_H}{A(V)}=1.8 \times 10^{21} \text{ atoms cm}^{-2} \text{ magnitude}^{-1}$$
where $N\_H$ is the column density of hydrogen and $A(V)$ is the extinction, in magnitudes. The telescope plays no role in this formula, but the distance it is looking at does, so when looking through thick clouds of interstellar dust, a telescope's view is severely hindered.
---
**The effects of two eyes**
Building one Death-Star-telescope is one thing. Building *two* - and operating them together, as a cohesive unit - is another. I alluded to some of the challenges before (perhaps it was a mistake for me to use the word "benefits" before), so now I'll got into some more detail.
* **Coordination:** Earlier, I said that it would be nearly impossible to keep one of the telescopes stable. I stand by this, though you said that the "wobble" is predictable and can be compensated for. Perhaps you're right in this case, because even though we have to take into account *all* the nearby bodies in order to modify the movement of the telescopes, that's possible. If you can correctly work out the predictions, you should be able to align them.
That's not what I'm concerned with, though. I'm concerned about movements of less than one meter, and rotations of a tiny fraction of an arcsecond. Why? Because the size of the telescope - and the vast distances it is surveying - multiply each and every movement. Remember from above how the angular resolution is about $6.649 \times 10^{12}$ radians, and how over the space of 30 AU that can cover almost 3 kilometers? Well, if you want to look in a very specific spot, and you rotate one of them by a tiny angle like that, the image will be off.
That's okay, though, because you can compensate a little, and the target doesn't have to be dead center. But trying this with *two* telescopes is trickier. Sure, you can try to adjust for wobbles by computer. But to figure out how the telescopes are aligned relative to one another is very tricky, and would take many measurements. Possible? Yes. Certainly. But not easy.
* **Communication:** It takes 8 minutes for light to travel 1 AU. These telescopes are 100 times as far apart, meaning it takes over one day for a message to travel from one to the other and back. So that means that communication between the two is not going to be as fast as you'd like. NASA engineers bemoan this delay when communicating with rovers on Mars, which - in comparison - isn't so far away. But 30 AU is one heck of a barrier to climb over, and it may pose severe technological challenges.
* **Maintenance:** There have been [5 servicing missions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Servicing_missions_and_new_instruments) to the Hubble Space Telescope to fix tiny errors that could have made some parts of it worthless. A trip up to Earth orbit - during the era of the Space Shuttle - wasn't too difficult, and repairs could be worked into a regular mission. This scenario is harder.
Care to travel 30 AU to fix a tiny broken mirror? I wouldn't, and neither would whoever's running this whole operation (I guess that's you!). A trip to Mars can take 9 months; a trip to Neptune would take much longer. So each telescope has to be completely self-sustainable. This means we effectively have to make each one a space station. I don't want to get into all those details; I'm sure you know the necessary obstacles there!
And by the way - yes, I considered a fully automated telescope. But with the communication issues, it would be best to have humans there at all times. After all, even one of the two telescopes would be an astronomer's dream - they don't have to be used in conjunction with each other.
I used the term "benefits" in my placeholder. So far, all I've done is list the challenges and problems, as I'm apt to do in my answers. So I'll end on a positive note - not a huge one, but one nonetheless.
Have you ever seen a 3D movie? It's really quite amazing, though I'm not a huge fan because I find them disorienting at times. But the technology in recent years is astounding, and has led to enormous advances in, among other things, virtual reality - which has been undergoing its own boom recently.
Many 3D movies work by showing two slightly off-set versions of similar images, creating an illusion of depth. Our depth perception stems partly from the fact that our eyes are offset - just like these telescopes! What does this mean? We might be better able to determine how far away something is, which would be incredible. Would this be very effective for faraway stars and galaxies? Not necessarily. Parallax may still be our friend for years to come. But for objects closer to the telescopes, we could more accurately measure their location. And with these telescopes spaced out so far apart, they could improve our measurements for parallax!
] |
[Question]
[
I’m trying to think of a reason why an advanced civilization would find it useful to invent an invisible handheld shield as protection against a civilization with primitive weaponry (sticks, stones, nets, spears, bows and arrows).
Specifically, what advantages would an *invisible* shield (blocks physical objects but is invisible) have over a regular shield. Any ideas?
If I can’t come up with something plausible, I can place the invention of this shield under different circumstances but it won’t be as elegant. This shield plays a pivotal role in this civilization’s arsenal when used with a specialized weapon that is invented (ideally) many generations after the shield. (I don’t have invisible shields in my story because I think they are “cool.”)
[Answer]
**These people want to be seen.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1XaRi.jpg)
[source](http://www.fubiz.net/2013/06/13/300-rise-of-an-empire/)
Your advanced people are very good looking. They spend a lot of time and energy at it. They are vain. They want the primitives to see and appreciate them. They also want their peers to see and appreciate them.
But they do not want to be hit by a rotten tomato or a poisoned dagger. The personal shield allows these folks to strut their handsome stuff and at the same time be protected from surprise attack. And also from flies, which are plentiful where the primitives live and when you brush them off you smear your makeup.
[Answer]
Holding a shield is like an invitation for others to throw stuff at you.
It's a pretty aggressive move actually. You're saying "I know you're violent and I'm prepared." You're telling them you're at war.
An invisible shield protects just as well as a visible one (better actually, because the attackers don't know where the shield stops and starts and can't target unprotected areas) but without the posturing.
As others have mentioned, visibility is important as well. Your vision of potential danger isn't impaired and you are seen in all your glory. It can also be a power play. "I am here, you can see I'm unarmed, and you can't harm me." For a ruler or a higher social class, this posture is invaluable. It sets you up as superior.
I also support Kepotx's answer: making the shields invisible looks like magic to outsiders. If the attackers have a pre-firearms weapon technology, a shield like this would be impossible to understand. Which only reinforces the social stratification.
[Answer]
Police is already widely use transparent riot shields. The reason is simple: to see through. Invisibility might be just a side-effect of super-transparent technology.
[Answer]
As ksbes says, invisibility is a great advantage, but there is another one.
## It's magic. Or at least it seems to be magic.
>
> any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
>
>
>
In this case, they don't see any shield, but still, something is blocking all projectiles, and when they try to hit them, there seems to be a wall between them and your soldiers.
Yup, definitely magic, we don't stand a chance to beat them.
[Answer]
On top of any additional answers, two more spring to mind:
**1. Undercover agents**
Agents working undercover within primitive civilisations may want such protection, but still need to fit in with the natives
**2. Obfuscation of possible weaknesses**
One of the ways an opponent can find a weakness for a defense is to poke it with different things to see how it reacts. If the shield doesn't give off any kind of visible responses to stimuli, it makes this job almost impossible to perform.
[Answer]
Sun Tzu wrote in *The Art of War*:
>
> All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack,
> we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive;
> when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when
> far away, we must make him believe we are near.
>
>
>
This argues strongly that the best thing is to have weapons and forces at hand that the enemy does not know about. It allows plausible deniability about whether one is prepared for combat or not. It allows for secret and undercover agents. It allows one to quickly transition from peaceful diplomacy to combat as needed.
An example from fiction: In Asimov's *Foundation and Empire*, the "trader" Lathan Devers is taken prisoner and spends most of the book gathering information from the powerful top general and capital of the galactic empire, because he appears effectively powerless. At the climax this happens (Ch. 9):
>
> Devers snarled and reached slowly for his own gun. The lieutenant of
> police smiled more broadly and squeezed the contacts. The blasting
> line of force struck Devers' chest in an accurate blaze of destruction
> -- that bounced harmlessly off his personal shield in sparkling spicules of light.
>
>
> Devers shot in turn, and the lieutenant's head fell from off an upper
> torso that had disappeared. It was still smiling as it lay in the jag
> of sunshine which entered through the new-made hole in the wall.
>
>
> It was through the back entrance that they left.
>
>
>
As it turns out, the entire plot was made possible because Devers had the confidence from a personal (invisible) shield, which the men of the supposedly much more powerful galactic empire did not think was technically possible.
[Answer]
**Expend that Ammo.**
Nothing like letting your opponent waste a lot of ammo (or just stamina) trying to hit you so they run out sooner. Initial reaction : "fire again, I must have missed". Next reaction : "keep firing, we can break through it". Last reaction : "Oh, oh, out of ammo". :-)
**Confuse me.**
You fire, they should be a mushy pool on the floor and wall and they're just standing their grinning at you, or, a little worse, beating twelve kinds of heck out of you. It's got to confuse a body. Always an advantage in combat.
**Hit me, Baby**.
A shield *is* an offensive weapon and experiencing being repeatedly hit by something invisible isn't just confusing, it, well, hurts. You can't really see it to defend so a skilled attacked can beat the stuffing out of an opponent with their invisible shield. And in case you object to this, keep in mind that relativity says there's no fundamental difference between something hitting the shield and the shield hitting something.
Throwing a shield is kinda silly, but it's an option and in this case your opponent can't see to dodge it and can't see to pick it up.
**Showing off to the Natives**.
If nothing else it's going to be impressive having an invisible shield and it is going to make them ask a rather important question : has he any other stuff that's invisible, like a bloody huge gun or several mates standing nearby armed to the teeth ? So a lot easier to be diplomatic when people are thinking important things like that.
[Answer]
Because it is invisible by design. Bullets, for example, are invisible by design and we don't really care to make them visible. There are exceptions of course, like tracing bullets and laser pointer thingies but it has not become a norm.
[Answer]
**Trust**
Your advanced civilisation wants to build a relationship with these primitives. Not being able to clearly see the advanced civilisation might make the primitive people slow or impossible to trust the advanced ones.
The invisible shield helps them appear less threatening while easily being able to go amongst the primitives without worrying about a sudden knife in the back (as others have pointed out)
[Answer]
# Warfare was not its initial purpose.
The shield was created for more mundane reasons: exploring places that are dangerous or destructive to expensive machinery (not initially for use by people), or for something like deep underwater tourism / exploration / etc, or for medical professionals interacting with contagious but benign patients, or the other way around, to protect others from quarantined individuals, or both. Industrial uses galore. Perhaps it was invented by an idealist (like Gatling) to prevent or discourage war atrocities. The mundane applications of such tech are limitless.
Also, the passage of time makes incremental improvement likely, so simple industrial / medical / whatever use in a limited capacity refined to individual full-body super frightening power is not only feasible, but real.
[Answer]
In addition to reasons cited in other answers, particularly visibility, your advanced civilization uses laser-type weapons. An invisible shield, by definition, allows visible light to pass through unhindered, without reflecting or absorbing any of it. This means that your soldiers can protect themselves completely from solid projectiles, while having full freedom to blast away with lasers.
One might add an additional detail that the shields can be customized to allow only certain EM frequencies through. Against primitive foes with projectile weapons this isn't so necessary, but the shields might have been designed with other laser-wielding enemies in mind. For instance, if the enemy is known to use laser weapons in a certain range of x-ray frequencies, the shields could be modulated to still allow visible light through, while reflecting enemy fire. You might have your soldiers remarking to each other that it's so much less stressful dealing with low-tech enemies--no worrying about whether you've got your shield set correctly.
[Answer]
None of the answers given so far touch the actual matter, except the hint at deception in Daniels.
If you go into combat, your enemy will seize you up. In fact, trained warriors do this to you even before combat is initiated. They will judge your strength, size and pose, what your movement tells about your training and of course your weapons, armour and shields.
There is a similar question about an [invisble sword](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/129088/how-advantageous-is-an-invisible-sword). Like the weapon, your primary advantage will be that the enemy cannot properly judge it. Initially, if you are trained to hold it in an inconspicuous way, he will not even know that you have a shield and believe you are stupid to leave your left flank so open. That initial surprise when his first blow hits the shield can already end the fight right then and there.
But even if he understands you are holding an invisible shield, from hitting it or from your pose and movement, he does not know where exactly in space it is at any given moment and which size and shape it is. That makes it incredibly difficult to do any of the typical maneuvers against shields that are aimed at hitting just above/under/around it.
Since one of your civilizations is advanced, all this comes into play not in regular battle, which I envision will be short, bloody and very, very one-sided as the spear-wielding savages charge into energy barriers, automated laser barrages and what-else. But wars have not been won on open battle fields for centuries. You need to take the cities, and the close-quarters of a city make melee weapons an actual threat even to an advanced civilization. If 20 savages rush you from across the street, can you really cut them all down before they reach your side, or will you have to fall back to melee combat for the surviving three?
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Due to the energy field technology that makes them, the shields are **invisible**, nearly **impenetrable**, and very **light**.
The invisibility allows the user to see through it, increasing visibility.
Nearly impenetrable is obviously a good thing for a shield.
The low weight allows the user to quickly react in a fight.
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It's useful to counter a surprise attack. If the shield is invisible then a major piece of your defence is unseen by the enemy, possibly drawing out an attack where one may not have been attempted had they not known the shield was there/active.
Every edge you can get on the battlefield is one to be taken and maximised.
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Due to expense or power consumption or whatever, not everyone can have a shield. Because of this, it's worth the extra effort to make them invisible so that the primitives don't know who isn't protected.
During early contact with a group, the advanced civilization makes sure that practically everyone is protected and attacks are dealt with *very* harshly. Thereafter, shields are only used in high-risk situations. The natives will not try to attack after the first few attempts are "all pain, no gain". Why waste effort attacking an invulnerable, vengeful opponent. Even if they figure out at some point that not everyone has an invisible shield it's a great deterrent knowing that your sacrifice may well be for nothing.
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In general, an invisible shield would give you a significant advantage in any hand-to-hand combat. Any form of cover, shielding or protection will obstruct your ability to see your enemy (at least to some degree). The more 'force' you have to protect against, the thicker your shield needs to be, and the less you'll be able to see through it, around it or whatever.
Even a plastic shield (like some police forces use) affects your vision a small amount. Likewise wearing goggles can do as well, and both only offer relatively low levels of protection. You can definitely see best when your vision is entirely unobstructed. You can't do that hiding behind a wall, or a steel shield - which is what your enemy has to do because they don't have the invisible technology you do. You can bring your weapons to bare, and can time their release accurately, where your enemy cannot.
Lastly, a completely portable, invisible shield would mean you could wear it all the time - thus thwarting any surprise attacks, and in fact, making you impervious to ambush attacks or "milkshake throwing", "egging" or any other form of protest.
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I can see it being valuable if:
* they're at war with the natives
* they're vastly outnumbered by the natives, and can't afford to expose themselves even for a moment to strike back, lest they be hit by a stray bolt from the constant shower of arrows or spears or rocks or whatever
* they depend on light-based weapons for offense, and need to be able to shoot through their shields
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If we are talking about an energy based field, then its shape and size could potentially be altered on the fly and also have its own processing capability to allow it to be extremely efficient.
For example, it could see the incoming angle of an attack and change its geometry so that instead of the kinetic energy being absorbed by you, it alters its geometry to make a straight on hit a glancing blow. It would also throw enemies off balance when the force they expected to bear down on you, is suddenly moving laterally.
It could also include AI that could anticipate how its going to be used, like bridging a large hole in the ground or gap in terrain as you cartwheel over the spot.
It could be extended over bystanders, left hanging to seal a doorway or canyon path, Be linked with other's as a defense against fire, lava, or bad weather in general.
As to the question of why it would be necessary, any potential use could explain it's original intent. I get a sense, however, that it is not militaristic in origin and is more of a wilderness survival tool than anything else. This is due to an assumption that as a civilization advances technologically, they become less likely to use violence.
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So you need shields to be invisible for some plot point, that's fine. They can be so 'accidentally' or 'on purpose'.
Easy mode: **It's invisible because that's how the technology already works.**
Your personal shields (and why not, the vehicle- and building-sized ones too) don't naturally produce any visible indication that they're operating. Maybe they're a contact hazard and civilians are legally required to carry some warning device, but the shield itself is undetectable without special equipment.
More elaborate: **It's invisible after much effort to suppress side effects.**
The first generations of shield tech had severe practical obstacles to personal use, like glowing blindingly bright if you try to move around while it's switched on, or the force field is reflective. It was only after years of development that the technology was refined to eliminate the nuisances enough for shields to become a reasonable personal defense option.
This approach makes invisibility a conspicuous feature of energy shield tech that is easier to tie into narratives since everyone familiar with the technology knows it's see-through on purpose. More so if all the kinks aren't worked out yet; you can have a shield malfunction at an embarrassing moment and upset someone's apple cart.
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I am looking for a fighting style a semi pacifist could use; someone who hates violence but has no problem defending himself and putting someone down. He has no problem HURTING the infected, but he refuses to KILL them.
To clarify:
This is not a question of what fighting style should he use. this is a question of what real-life fighting style has the least amount of physical harm to the opponent that's not wrestling.
The setting:
A zombie-creating infection has spread throughout the population, but the "zombies" are still alive and so the pacifist refuses to kill them. He's a scout for the group so it's more effective to throw or knock the Infected away when they try to grab him instead of carrying a weapon.
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The ancient and noble art of **Running Away**.
Lots of martial arts have maneuvers which minimize harm to their opponents -- but almost all of these consist of chokes, joint locks, pressure points, etc -- all of which are singularly useless against zombies! *And* many of them tend to expose the martial artist to vectors of zombie infection.
If you really think shattering their zombie kneecaps fits in with the whole pacifist outlook, you could possibly go with that, as a complement to running away, but it feels like a stretch.
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When your opponent is a zombie, there's a risk that the slightest bite, scratch or splash of bodily fluid is enough to infect you with an incurable and rapidly fatal disease. If you're not going to shoot them, you sure as hell shouldn't be *grappling* with them because there's just too much risk of infection. Sure, you *could* wear a load of riot gear, but that's gonna slow you down, heat you up and spoil your vision and hearing, and what kind of scout would you be then? Forget martial arts. Waste of your time, probably get you killed.
No, there's only one choice: [parkour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkour). Its all about moving around freely and quickly, ideal for a scout and it looks pretty badass too. What's not to like?
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[Aikido](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido)
It's a Japanese martial arts form based on the idea of deflecting and redirecting the energy of the attacker. It was developed with the goal of protecting the attacker from injury while defending one's self. The style makes use of throws, pins, and joint locks to subdue the attacker.
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**Spit sock hood.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bRTI9.jpg)
Your characters carries these hoods with him. Or maybe they are just denim bags he has made. They close with a zip tie. He pulls one over the zombie's head and pulls the cord to tighten it around its neck.
Its head in the spit sock hood, the zombie cannot bite him. Probably it cannot see him. Getting the hood off is going to keep the zombie busy for a long time because the material is tough and the zip tie must be cut with something sharp. The zombie will need help to get it off, but the other zombies are not that helpful.
You can tell where this guy has been because he leaves a trail of zombies with their heads in bags stumbling around and bumping into things.
---
An easy way to make these hoods would be to use pants, and have the zip tie thru the belt loops.
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## Judo
It's currently practiced martial art (and Olympic sport) that focuses on throws and take downs. It's also well enough known for your character to have learned it locally.
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While I agree with Starfish's and Rodger's assessments of avoidance of unarmed combat with zombies is best, it does not quite answer the question.
IF you are going to engage a zombie in non-lethal unarmed combat, I would suggest **Capoeira**. Most "non-violent" martial arts styles such as Judo focus on holds, throws, arms locks, etc. which are exactly what you don't want to do against a zombie.
The advantage of Capoeira vs other non-grapply martial arts is that Capoeira is designed to be able to be done with hands bound. This means that a practitioner is trained specifically to be able to avoid a grapple and fight without ever exposing his hands to his opponent (great ideology when fighting a zombie.)
This also results in a greater emphasis on wide arcing motions vs the more directed strikes like you would expect in something like karate. Depending on what zombie lore you go with, a straight kick/punch may be more likely to get you infected. If the zombie can infect with a scratch, a straight-kick to the chest may put the zombie on its arse quite efficiently, but also put your foot right in its ideal scratch zone. If the zombie has superhuman strength, this also puts your foot at extra risk of being caught, and your foot subsequently going straight into the zombie's mouth. If the zombie is of the "runner" variety, this could be a disadvantage though because it does not offer the ideal form for countering its momentum.
Capoeira is also very popular in choreography and dance which gives your protagonist a good reason to have this skill set in his repertoire while also begin a pacifist.
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Already some good suggestions for fighting styles, but if he refuses to kill them, then perhaps you're looking for less of a fighting style and more of an avoidance technique?
Perhaps they use fishing nets to tangle up the zombies and immobilize them. They could use a whip, Indiana-Jones-style, to both knock down zombies and rappel between obstacles to avoid the zombies.
Not sure how your zombies sense things, but perhaps they use a strobe light or something to blind them. Or a speaker with heavy bass like a thumper (ie. Dune) so they can't sense vibrations or hear as well. If your zombies detect via sense of smell, they could use smoke bombs with strong odors to disrupt their smell (and vision).
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*it's more effective to throw or knock the Infected away when they try to grab him instead of carrying a weapon*
No. No it isn't. Just no. All the nope. Even if he's a scout crawling down a cave that's barely wide enough for his body, that's a big hell no.
The martial arts we're familiar with today are simply variations on the duel. The combatants compete under a strict set of rules, and the intention is that both are alive at the end of it. "What about MMA/vale tudo/whatever backyard brawler?" I hear someone ask. They still have rules, most notably that neither person is wearing body armour or carrying a weapon.
This is very different to the kind of fighting where you're actually aiming to kill someone, or at least to prevent yourself being killed by another someone who's actively trying to kill you. One of the more effective martial arts is jiu jitsu; and every jiu jitsu practitioner will tell you that it was intended as a *backup* skill for when the samurai had lost his sword on the battlefield or was attacked by surprise.
So, back to the zombies. They don't play by any kind of rules - they want to kill you and eat you. So the scout has a weapon for self-protection. He just does, because if he doesn't have a weapon then going anywhere near a zombie is straight-up suicide. He does have the choice of what weapon to use though, and being a pacifist he doesn't take the obvious options of swords or axes to cut heads off.
The obvious choice is a [boar spear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boar_spear). This may sound pretty damaging, but these are zombies, right? You can kill them by cutting off their heads, but damage to their body doesn't signify. So a boar spear is perfect - the zombie walks into the spear and impales themselves on it, and the lugs stop the zombie working its way down the spear to get to you. Flip a rope round the zombie (a weight on the end of a line will loop the line round the zombie nicely if you throw it right), attach the ends to cleats mounted on the side of the spear, and you've got the zombie securely attached to the spear. Now you have leverage on your side, so you can control the zombie whilst your friends tie its arms and legs.
Oh, rope skills for achieving that. You did want an unarmed martial art. I give you [Hojōjutsu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoj%C5%8Djutsu), the Japanese martial art of tying up people (especially resisting people) quickly and effectively. Like most unarmed martial arts, subduing the opponent relies on pain submission which clearly won't work on zombies; but we've dealt with that with the boar spear, and the basic concepts of restraining limbs will still work perfectly well.
Unarmed combat against a zombie though, did I say no enough times? No. Not enough times. It's a no.
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I can't imagine how someone could think of a *pacifist* martial art style against a zombie. Come on man! we are dealing with **zombies**. How dare you use judo techniques to fight a zombie?
My alternate suggestion for a pacifist, (of course if running away is not an option) is to develop some kind of poisonous/anesthetic gas that knocks them unconscious and doesn't kill them. But discovering that kind of gas or spray is another issue that I have no idea about.
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**Ecky Thump**
The ancient Lancastrian martial art focuses on mainly the use of clubs and in generally effective whilst non fatal
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cwViB.png)
Your hero could club the zombies, knocking them down, quickly and quietly.
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What about pole weapons (spears etc), like very long, metal stick ?
They could be cut from right to left, hoping that one of them will fall over and block the way for the others.
Alternatively, you could use it as a javelin …
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**Aikido Yoshinkan**
Aikido Yoshinkan is a style of Aikido developed by [Gozo Shioda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gozo_Shioda) sensei aimed to improve the capabilities of Aikido for self-defense. Aikido's way is based on bringing peaceful resolutions to situations involving conflics some of which can include phisical violence. Yoshinkan is considered the hardest and more aggresive Aikido path because it puts special attention in the *atemis* or "blows and strikes to the body" launched by the guardian or defender. That means in most of the movements of Aikido Yoshinkan the defender will launch one or two blows to the arms, wrists, chins or ribs of the attacker.
That's why Aikido Yoshinkan has been the martial art of choice to form the agents of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. This extra punch is what makes -IMHO- Yoshinkan as one of the best martial arts to train if you are not into more physical martial arts like taekwondo.
Having said that I have taken myself yoshinkan classes for three years and it has helped me a lot in my daily life. During the time I had classes I used to have my arms and body covered in bruises and that was more exaggerated after long Yoshinkan sessions, from this I now know what physical pain feels like. These can be rewarding in other ways, for example into life outside of the dojo, helping to gain confidence in regular life situations.
Take into account that we are talking about a martial art, so in mosts of the dojos commitment is a must.
The problem with Yoshinkan is that is hard to find an official Aikido Yoshinkan dojo.
Good Luck with your choice.
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I'd recommend a martial art which focuses on joint locks. There are several out there, so take your pick from them.
The reason I recommend such arts is because of the nature of the opponent. Martial arts which focus on stopping others by hurting them are going to be very surprised when they run into a zombie. Police officers have to deal with this: opponents hopped up on PCP don't care about what damage they do to their own bodies. A lot of techniques which strive to cause submission via pain don't work on these individuals. While the definition of "zombie" can vary from story to story, typically they are rather oblivious to pain.
The advantage of joint locks is that they use physics to stop an opponent. If I can put your joints in a configuration that prevents your fist from reaching my body, you simply cannot punch me. It doesn't matter how zombie-ish you might be. Physics is physics. You need your body to do things. If I own your body, you can't do things.
As one practices joint locks, one starts to become aware of how *exposed* a joint can be once you get it out there. We, as humans, instinctively protect our joints using our muscles. We don't let them get into the really bad positions. Once you get a zombie's elbow or shoulder into the right position, they are just a few pounds of force away from a dislocation. Dislocation *will* affect zombies. It affects the physics of how our joints and muscles work together to move our limbs. So as the fight escalates, your hero can start taking out limbs in order to keep the fight under control.
To escalate beyond that, I would recommend they practice in a bladed weapon of some sort: knife, sword, etc. This is a bit odd, given that the purpose of these weapons is often to kill, but I think it works with the zombie theme. Assuming the zombies are not as dependent on a circulatory system as we are, there's less risk of them dying of blood loss. And there's *plenty* of things that you can cut with a sword that aren't arteries. In the same vein as the joint locks disabling joints, its impossible for the body to operate if you cut the tendons linking the muscles to the bones.
For an excellent example, in my martial art's sword form there's a wonderful little down-up hack which has been described as trying to reach around the guard of the opponent's sword to sever the tendons in the thumb. Lose those tendons, and you cannot meaningfully hold a sword. Perhaps more on point, there's several tendons in the leg, such as the Achilles which, when severed, prevents walking. It's much easier to escape a zombie horde when they can't walk after you. And even if the zombies do bleed like we do, many of these can be reached with a blade without having to sever major veins or arteries at the same time.
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**Ninjutsu**
The way of the Ninja is first to go undetected, perfect for a scout, second to run away from unwinnable battles, great for a pacifist and third to disable foes with the minimal effort, ideal for someone who doesn't know when their next meal is
coming.
Your scout uses disguises, camouflage, deception, silence, shadows, patience and the environment around themselves to avoid conflict while still achieving their goals.
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You are not going to take this answer seriously but whatever. In handgun self defense the #1 goal is to not use the gun. The gun is the absolute last answer to your problem. It levels the playing field so that say an elderly person who cannot tune and practice their physic still has a chance. It requires practice but that practice is against a target not a human of equal or greater strength. Think about it, if you are training to fight against a human you are not a pacifist. If you are at target practice it does not have violence in mind but instead is a fun skill based activity.
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Have a look at [Stickfighting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlestick) - somewhat popularized by Sherlock Holmes in the Elementary TV series. The sticks are blunt and easy to come by, it offers enough force to incapacitate but also a tool to just push the infected away. And it requires no touching, which in case of infections I'd avoid...
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Many martial arts carries a philosophy of peace and the real masters always teach that one should not engage in combat if not for self defence or a third-person defence. Because of that, I don't see as a problem a pacifist who knows how to fight.
[Krav Maga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krav_Maga) is known for its focus on real-world situations and its extreme efficiency. Because it is a military self-defence and fighting system, a few techniques are for killing; but many are not.
As a civilian who practiced, along with other related martial arts like Kombato and Kali Silat, you learn a lot how to defend yourself and your beloveds.
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Running away is lame, touching the zombies doesn't fit. There needs to be a middleground:
He could have been a police dog trainer. They usually wear a vest and gloves, baiting the attacker to bite into them. People that do such a job are usually also heavy and strong enough to withstand a zombie's hits. Still he'd have to ask himself if he could take the bigger ones or if he should rather run away. He'd probably regularly spray his equipment with some bitter chemicals, so the zombies would let go of him after the first bite. The need to get new spray, could be used as a plot point. He would respect the zombies the same way he respects dogs and also treat them the same way...
It makes so much sense that I wonder if it was used before.
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This isn't a style, more a weapon, but ideas.
I don't remember the name, but I saw an old japanese commercial for a netgun, but lets ignore the netgun for now.
What caught my eye were these interesting sticks that the police( in the commercial) used.
They had the length of a short spear, and had a cresent shape pointing outwards instead of sharp point.
They used that cresent shape to hold human limbs at a distance, or on the ground.
I don't know what they are called, but sound like a good idea?
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Suppose we have standard world of fantasy RPG videogame. The MC (main character) earns money by killing monsters and then selling loot. Also, sometimes there are people happy to pay generous reward for slaughter of especially vicious monster. As an adventurer they **aren't** a member of any guild.
The MC can also craft artefacts. Some ingredients can be bought, some can be collected (like herbs), some can be stolen, some can be harvested from dead monsters. And then from these ingredients an artefact can be crafted by the MC and then sold. If total cost of ingredients needed for crafting an artefact < market price of the artefact, then the MC can get profit. But for some strange reason it is always more profitable for the MC to just sell ingredients at their market price, than to craft an artefact from them and then sell it at market price. Why? Especially considering that there seem to be people in this world who find it more profitable to sell crafted artefacts, rather than sell ingredients needed to craft them (otherwise no new artefacts would be available for sale).
P.S. I'm not a writer, I just encountered this situation in a videogame RPG and wanted to see somehow realistic explanation for such situation. For this reason crafting system of the game doesn't matter.
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### Because the adventure's skill and reputation is always below that of a specialized craftsman.
Bob the Blacksmith has been making swords all his life. He's spent 40 years perfecting the art of the turning metal into blades of death. He knows how to manage the furnace and molten metal and his collection of special hammers in order to create a wonderful sword.
He's known and trusted. Carl says: "Bob's sword saved me from a bandit last year. I never go anywhere without it!". Everyone trusts Carl.
Mr Adventurer walks into town with a clump of a magic metal ingots and blessed artifacts. Uses the town forge to knock up a sword that sounds good on paper, but being made by someone who hasn't spent 40 years making swords its unlikely to be of such high quality. Did he remember to quench between impacts? Did he cool it down too fast too harden it correctly, or too slow? Did he use the right blend of wood and coal?
Also Mr Adventurer may have a reputation for saving the town from the dragon, but Mr Adventurer doesn't have a reputation for making quality swords yet. Nobody has used his swords before, they're unknown.
As a new entrant to the market, Mr Adventurer can only sell his goods at a discount. Because they're unknown quality - they attract a lower price.
Were Mr Adventurer to sell the parts to Bob the Blacksmith, then Bob the Blacksmith could make the epic sword with his quality standards and reputation, and thus sell it for a higher price.
if Mr Adventurer spends a few years making good swords, and develops a brand and gets reviews, then he could get a good price.
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## Because you are selling to shops, not to adventurers
I agree with the accepted answer in most settings, but not in the context of the genre. In many games, the best weapons are the ones you craft yourself; so, there is some assumption that your character either is a capable artificer, or you can at least level up that skill to become one.
However, when you look at the shop systems of most games you will notice that most items sell for WAY less than you could buy them for. Most video games do this purely as a balancing mechanic, but there is a real world explanation for how this kind of thing sometimes happens.
In many games, a \$1000 sword may only sell for \$100, even when you are selling it right back to the guy you bought it from that same day. This confirms that craftsmanship is not the guiding principle here. However, in the real world, wholesale is typically 50-85% of retail meaning that the guy who actually made that \$1000 sword was paid by the shop owner \$500-850 to make it. Videogames general do not define these values so we will assume the real-world values here.
So, why would a shop owner pay the blacksmith up to \$850 for the same sword that he would only pay you \$100 for? You see, the shop owner can not keep high quality wares in stock without the blacksmith; otherwise, adventurers would just always buy his best stuff and fill his shop with worthless junk they are selling, and his shop would very quickly be filled with nothing but a giant pile of worthless goblin spears.
The shop owner also knows that he needs to keep the blacksmith busy enough to make sure that the blacksmith does not provide his wares else ware. So, lets say you are a shop owner who knows a guy who makes +3 longswords. If you can buy up and sell all of those +3 longswords then you can charge a premium on them, but if you can only buy 1/2 of them because you are also selling the stuff adventures are bringing in, then there is the risk that your blacksmith will start selling to the guy across the street from you too. If this happens you have to be more competitive with your pricing on +3 longswords... and any other weapons that have a comparable value to a +3 longsword.
So, the reason shops pay so little for your artifacts is not that they are worth so little, but because you are not actually "selling" your sword to the shop at all. What you are really doing is "trading it in". Consider a new car dealership. Many dealerships buy way more used cars than they can sell, but no matter how shitty your old junker is, they will always offer you something for it if it helps them sell you a new car. Likewise, you could come in with a 6 month old, top-end sports car that is worth more than anything on thier lot, and they still will not give you more than a small fraction of its worth because thier goal is not to buy your car, it is to sell you a new one.
So what is happening is that that your artifact level weapon is being sold following the same business practices they use to buy that stack of 10 goblin spears you also just walked in with. The shop keeper knows that most of what he will buy from you is just going the the trash heap and that selling your good stuff puts his relationship with his blacksmith in jeopardy; so, he offsets the risk and waste of buying your stuff by only paying you a tiny fraction of its worth.
### Why reagents don't follow this pattern:
The shop owner is perfectly happy to pay a fair wholesale price on any artifacting reagents you bring in because adventures ARE the expected wholesalers of these materials. If you want a gryphon's feather or a hydra's venom, then everyone knows you buy that stuff from adventurers; so, the shop owner does not want to undercut your profits here. He knows 100% that he can quickly and easily sell them to the blacksmith, and that he can only buy them from adventurers. So he pays you the wholesale rate of \$200 for the materials, which he then retails to the blacksmith for \$250. It's easy pocket money for the shop owner, and it does not actually cut into his weapon sales. Then the blacksmith uses those materials to make a sword he wholesales back to the shop owner for \$700. Then the shop owner retails it for \$1000. Everyone has made a profit, and more importantly, no one has risked thier supply chain in doing so. In business: safe repeatable, low-profit transactions are called your "bread and butter" and they are way more important to staying in business than the occasional wind-fall transaction.
What you don't see as an adventurer is that the shop owner would never pay a blacksmith wholesale on reagents. The blacksmith in the expected consumer of them just as the adventurer is the expected consumer of +3 longswords; so, when the blacksmith does need to offload an over-stock of reagents to the shopkeeper, the shopkeeper would only pay the trade-in rate of \$25 for them because it would be so hard to find someone else to sell them too.
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I'll take an example from RuneScape, a game where this phenomenon is very common.
**Other players want the materials to train their skills.**
If you want to make armor out of steel, you must first learn to make armor out of iron. You must make a few hundred pieces of armor out of iron before you're good enough to attempt making armor out of steel.
This creates a demand by aspiring blacksmiths for enough iron ingots to make hundreds of pieces of iron armor, and a supply of iron armor that surpasses the demand for that armor by soldiers and other players. Thus, the price of iron ingots is high and the price of iron armor is low.
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**The MC isn't the best at crafting and pays the price of opportunity cost.**
I'm not a painter. I can take a bunch of expensive paints and craft a terrible painting, and it will be worth *less* than the raw materials. I'm also not a tailor. If I tried to make a garment out of an expensive fabric, I would just ruin the cloth. I am also not a jeweler. Given a bunch of gold and gems, I'm not going to be able to make anything that's worth more than the raw materials alone.
Crafting only adds value commensurate with the skill of the craftsperson. If you don't have the tools and skills to turn raw material into finished goods, you're at best wasting your time trying by making something that isn't any more valuable than what you started with, and at worst, wasting the raw materials because you don't know how to use them properly.
Even if you have the tools and skills needed to craft, in many cases it's still *more profitable* to let a specialist do it for you due to opportunity cost and a thing called **comparative advantage**. Basically, you can craft an item yourself, but the time it takes to do so could be spent doing something else that would have been *even more profitable*. Here's an example:
Suppose you have collected 10 Foos for a Bar potion, and you can either sell those 10 Foos to the potion maker for $10, or brew them into a potion yourself and sell it for \$20. But in the time it took you to brew the potion, you could have collected 20 more Foos, which could sell for an additional \$20, rather than earning only an extra \$10 by brewing the potion. If this is the case, you'll be more profitable by selling raw ingredients than by brewing potions, despite the fact that the crafted item sells for more!
What's really interesting is that this arrangement is also more profitable for the potion maker - if he's more skilled at brewing potions than finding ingredients (e.g. if he can only collect 5 Foos in the time it takes him to brew a potion), you will both be more profitable if you only find raw ingredients and he only brews the finished product. Both of you should only do the one thing you're best at, which for most adventurers, is not crafting a wide array of useful items.
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Why does a farmer sell the wheat to the miller instead of milling it and selling the flour?
Why does the miller sell the flour to the baker instead of baking bread and selling the bread?
Because any additional step requires time, resources, and knowledge that one can hardly have, together with capital to make the necessary investment: running a mill is profitable if a large pool of users can be served, so that the needed large quantities can be processed, and so on.
Same goes for your adventurers.
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## Diverse Uses:
This is a bit like the 'Minecraft' version of an answer. If you have high-quality steel, do you already know what it will be made into? Sure, it COULD be made into a sword, but maybe the person buying the steel wants four knives. Maybe they make a specialty tool out of it. If you take the steel and make a sword, you can only sell it to a person looking for a sword. With the steel, everyone in the market for good steel is a potential buyer.
**Multiple uses:** It's exactly the same for your adventurer. Maybe 95% of dragon hide is made into magical books. So you make a magical book out of it. Books are easy to transport, small, and have a ready market. But sometimes, people want dragon hide to fix a book. Sometimes they want to make dragon-scale armor. Occasionally, a rich noble wants to make a dragon leather jacket to show off just how wealthy and powerful he/she is. Because most dragon hide is used for books, the supply for these other applications is much smaller. Transporting the whole dragon hide might be quite a task. Dragons might hunt people carrying around a dragon hide. But the profit from doing so is bigger than doing the safe and easy thing.
**Custom items:** Further, those crafting items are usually doing so for their own use. Those crafting for others are likely doing it for a specific client. Either way, if you're making a sword for a specific person, you make the blade a certain length for that person. A magic book with a person's name on it is specific to them and special (like naming an item in Minecraft). The amount of money someone is spending on a magical artifact means they want something special, not just generic. If YOU make the artifact, it's a (fill in the blank magic tryptic). If the artifact is made for a specific person, it's THE TRYPTIC OF MABINOGION!
**Guaranteed quality:** Not to mention that anyone buying an artifact wants to be sure they are getting exactly what they think they're buying. You could have skimped on dragon hide and made the book out of mixed strips of dragon and gorgon hide. Sure it works, but there's the rare chance of a magical misfire turning you to stone. Perhaps it costs money to confirm that an item does what it is supposed to do (like the *identify* spell from D&D). Maybe gorgon hide passes for dragon hide, but no one could fake a whole dragon hide. The world is full of cheap knock-offs of expensive goods, so why take a risk?
**Economy of scale:** Some of the ingredients in an artifact are easier to make, grow or harvest than others. Perhaps guilds are able to grow the rare and special herbs that must never see direct sunlight and have to be harvested only by the light of a full moon. They do it all the time, and cheaply. They use them for their internal market (artifact making) and never sell them to keep others from making artifacts. Your adventurer might need to make multiple attempts to do so successfully, and at great cost. Since the adventurer will sell the herbs, they still are profitable (since the guild won't sell), but the guild undercuts the cost of the artifact by making/obtaining one of the ingredients cheaply.
**Specialization:** Adventurers are going to be really good at killing monsters. So they get lots of the most expensive/hard to obtain goods. There's lots of profit in this. But adventurers spending their time growing herbs, making spell components, and breaking into the graves of murderers to cook off their fat and make magic tallow candles that must light the enchanting ceremonies are doing things they get less money for. An herbalist will grow herbs better, a grave-robber will dig up corpses more cheaply (and assume the risks of such reprehensible behavior), and why is an adventurer buying the special tools to enchant from a blacksmith when the enchanter already has a set?
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In today's world, we make more profit selling craft parts than we do selling the actual crafts. Who we are selling to are the hobbyists, the people who have the spare time to play with making things and the money to buy the parts. Yet, if one were to try to sell the crafts, few people want to pay the price needed to support the crafts person. People don't want to buy the crafts as much as buy the experience of making the crafts. (See the profits that Hobby Lobby is making vs the profits that crafts people make. The average seller on ETSY is making $1/hr.) Same way with art. Few artists can make art full time and survive. Most make their money by teaching art and make their art on the side. In the gold rushes, the people who made the money were those who supplied the miners, not those who rushed there with gold in their eyes.
So, your adventurer will make a lot more by selling the parts, the story, and the hope of adventure to people who want to dream.
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**Because there are more valuable things to make than the artifact out of the materials**
Making an artifact is inefficient with the materials it needs. Sure, bathing the final product in a bucket of dragon's blood really bakes in the power, but the residuum that leaches off makes all the blood that's left afterward useless for most other purposes. The real money is in non-adventurer goods! Just a few drops of fresh dragon's blood suspended in a mixture of herbs and oils can be sprayed around a house to keep bugs and vermin out for over a month, which not only works great but also means you get repeat customers!
When you add together the greater demand and broader consumer base, it's a sellers market for things that your average adventurer just wouldn't care about. On top of that, while I imagine there aren't a *ton* of artifacts available, there also aren't a lot of adventurers of the right caliber to be picking them up so it's harder to interest shopkeepers in stocking something that may sit on the shelves for years before seeing a real return on investment while also being an attractive target for thieves.
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It is the economics of experience, which has value.
When I have ingredients and transform them into a thing, I create two portions of value: The thing, and the experience. I consume the value of the ingredients and some value of my labor. If I am a novice, the value of my labor is low.
When I sell the thing, its value is lower because I retain the value of the experience.
V(ingredients)+V(labor)=V(thing)+V(experience)
Depending on where you are in a game, those values change. Since one is typically gaining experience so that one will "level-up", the V(experience) is dear and the V(labor) is zero. Thus, the V(thing) will be lower than the V(ingredients).
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If you want a medieval flavour: **because they do not have the monopoly for the artefacts**. In our modern economies, we take for granted that if you want to make a widget then, provided you have the means to do so and you comply with local standards, you can do so and then it's up to you to compete with other people selling widgets.
In most places, and most times in the medieval world, *it did not work like that*. Only the miller could mill grain, in fact if you wanted to mill your own with your own grindstone for your own use, you might have to pay the miller a fee for not using his services. You needed permissions to trade in cities, and could be granted monopolies on production or trade in pretty much any good you can imagine. Often the right to grant these permissions was sub-contracted to powerful guilds, and woe-betide anyone foolish enough to cross them.
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# Guilds have the infrastructure to craft at volume, thus getting more value out of individual ingredients that an adventure would not be able to, given crafting requirements
Take, for example, a herbal potion involving two herbs to make a single healing potion.
For an adventurer, that sounds fine, they can make that, and they have the two herbs to do so.
A guild looks at that recipe, notices it involves breaking one of the herbs in half, and tossing one of the halves, and says "Wait - I can make *two* herbal potions while only using three herbs!"
So that starts to mask some of the actual savings a guild member can pass on to their clients that an adventurer can't meet, as the costs of individual ingredients are in higher demand because there is more to get out of volume of ingredients, but there's also ancillary costs that can be bundled the same way.
When brewing those potions, an adventurer needs to boil the water it's being mixed in, and stir it all together, and pour it out into one flask. A guild can take a larger pot, boil it all more or less the same, then put in two potions worth, or four, or fifteen potions worth, then pour it out into multiple flasks and get multiple potions out. For the same effort of starting a flame, and near ignorable amount of water usage increased. As a bonus, doing so means they still only have to clean one alchemist's pot to prepare it for another set of potions.
You can apply similar efficiency savings for weapons (What's that? This would give us leftover, unusable iron to make this one sword? Use that leftover iron to make another sword, rather than throw it out, while it's still hot.), that can make the savings on individual artefacts outweigh the costs of making an artifact out of one set of ingredients.
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# Making the artifact isn't hard.
The materials are hard to procure, and the craftsmanship is time-consuming, but not particularly demanding of a particular skill level. The protagonist's time is better spent doing something he specializes in--procuring the materials.
In addition, the artifact may be like a Jedi lightsaber, where each user takes pride in the tradition of crafting his own specialized and individual version.
There may be several tradeoffs in the actual design of the artifact, which each user makes according to their own preference. Of possible use is mandatory customization, i.e., the finished artifact must be designed for a particular individual--think e.g. fingerprint-recognizing guns, but without the programmability.
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There are many reasons why it is more profitable to sell the reagents than the final product even if the adventurer has a higher skill and can make a better item.
1. Failures: First and foremost is if it is possible to fail the adventurer would lose out on everything and not make any money. If there is a chance for failure why take that risk yourself? Leave the risk of failing to someone who crafts for a living.
2. Time to craft: This is also another big one, will the adventurer be able to make more money harvesting more materials or crafting an item? Unless the crafting adds a lot of value they are likely going to make more from harvesting more materials instead of crafting.
3. Equipment needed: Unless the equipment needed to craft the items is small, cheap and relatively portable the extra costs are going to add up. If the equipment is large and expensive the costs to store it and keep it safe are going to add up and eat into the profits. After all who is going to use or protect it when the adventurer is out adventuring?
4. Uses for the items: Some of the reagents might be used for multiple items and may sell for better prices in different areas. As the adventurer travels they may find it to be more profitable to sell the reagents in areas where they are more valuable.
In the end the reason why it is more profitable to sell the reagents than a final item comes down to lost opportunity costs. In order for an adventurer to make an item give up doing something else. If what they give up doing could make them more money it doesn't matter how much the item would sell for because they still lose out in the end.
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## Taxes and guilds
The production and usage of the artifacts is obviously a thing of importance for the economy, and therefore desirable for the nobility to have control over, so they made a deal with crafters. Crafters organize into guilds, follow regulations, and can therefore afford the luxury of selling their products with no drawbacks. But if you're not playing by the guild rules? Then you must pay for that. Quite literally. Various taxes and fees are applied to you in order to discourage people from making and selling artifacts outside of guilds control, resulting in you getting significantly less money from selling one. I've heard some governors crank the fees so high that you give up as much as 60% of the money made from the deal to the crown. And guilds are naturally very protective and all hush-hush about their methods and procedures (think glassmakers of Venice), so getting into one isn't trivial either - they very much do not like outsiders.
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Most of the answers seem to assume that somehow the MC has the ability to actually craft the items, at some level. In many computer games at least this is simply not so. Perhaps you can make a few minor items, but actual artifact-grade enchantment is well outside of the game mechanic.
Morrowind for instance has a rich and exploit-laden crafting system, but even with the most blatantly over-the-top enchanter you can't produce anything *truly* potent. The best non-magical base materials in the game - high-end non-magical weapons and the like - will take only a relatively minor player enchantment, even though many high grade magical items are available whose apparent base item is low- to mid-grade. The artifacts in the game, even silly things like the Boots of Blinding Speed, are simply not possible for the player to craft.
The same is true in a lot of other games out there, where player crafting is more of a fun add-on to the hack-n-slash grindfest that is the base gameplay. Ooh, I can spend 1,000gp worth of hard to find reagents to enchant an item that gives less actual utility than just dropping the coin on a mid-level item? Let's do that, it'll be fun!
Especially when it comes to fantasy games, the lore is full of stories about ancient artificer clans - Dwarven smiths, Elven magecrafters, etc. - who have spent centuries or millennia honing their craft. Their apprentices are able to churn out magic items you can't even dream of... but then, some of those apprentices have been working for decades learning the secrets of that one item they're still trying to perfect. Your character isn't going to pick up that kind of skill in a couple of months of weekend play, or even several months of daily focus on just enchanting one item. At best you'll only ever be an amateur, a dabbler in the art.
Perhaps more relevant to the question is trade secrets. Every trade has them, and they're jealously guarded. All you have access to as a dabbler is the publicly available recipes, blueprints and what have you. Everyone knows that it takes powdered cockatrice bile, a steal at only 500gp per gram, to inscribe the empowering runes that defend against death magics... even though the primary supplier of gear empowered by those runes has figured out how to do it with much cheaper alchemical residue infused with a spell created by one of their researchers.
Crafting in games is - or at least should be - about balance. If the crafting system allows players to create abusively powerful gear then it will be abused mercilessly. Limit it too harshly and it will be just a cute side game that only a few will bother with. The balance mostly falls out around the 'useful but not overpowered' mark, if it isn't actively crippled to avoid uber-artifacts flooding the game and destroying the economics. Because nobody likes it when players create items that let them (or their friends) one-hit the game boss.
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If you want a game case where you can sell materials and finished goods and that you have finished goods selling for less than the materials, with same ability of your manufacturing than of others and same access to materials:
Eve Online - most of stuff there is manufactured, and materials are mined. Reprocessing (now) gives less materials than was put in to make that item. There was a historic reason and 2 reasons remaining why sometimes ammo was cheaper than ingredients for making it:
1. (main historic reason a decade ago): Noobs entering the game sometimes see manufacturing is the biggest money making machine, so they decide to mine the minerals, then use them to make the ammo to sell (other things require a lot of starting capital). But because they are so fresh they forgot to include mineral cost to the ammo cost as they didn't pay for it directly (only with time used for mining).
2. Freeing tied-up money - you have billions of bullets you want to sell, and someone else also does, leading to a price war. If you wait with your pricing at break-even or with small profit and let the other undercut you, you have billions of money locked in that stock. Yes, you will eventually make profit, but you have opportunity costs too - this money could be used to make say weapons or ships to sell with much greater profit. So, sometimes you might opt to just dump your stock at below mineral price.
3. Things have buy and sell price and you actually make profit by trading - median price is break-even or even a slight loss. You can instantly buy minerals for X or sell them for Y<X. Likewise for ammo. If you buy minerals and then make ammo and sell it, you lose money. But you can put buy or sell orders too - so, you put a low buy order on minerals and high sell order on ammo you are making and profit in the end (excluding scenario 2). Reason why you even need to manufacture is in volume of trade - usually, slightly more people are selling minerals directly to the highest buy order, and much more people are buying ammo from the lowest sell order.
Point 1 can be permanent - there is an idiot born every minute that believes loss on sale can be made up in volume.
Point 2 cannot be permanent, as nobody sane would keep making this ammo unless they are just trying to mess with someone else.
Point 3 can be permanent too - it happens incredibly often in real world.
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There are special agreements between guilds that sell ingredients and guilds of professional crafters. Namely, they provide guilds of professional crafters with ingredients at low prices. In return the guilds of crafters buy enormous quantities of said ingredients, so this is win-win. This lowers supply of ingredients for people who are not professional crafters (this includes people who are not crafters at all, as many ingredients have consumer value as standalone goods), making prices even higher for them. For this reason market price of an artefact is lower than total price at which an adventurer can sell its ingredients.
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On this planet there is a species similar to humans with two sexes having differing reproductive organs. The concept of gender is non-existent on this planet. I'm not writing this for any political reason, it just fits with other themes (imagine Vulcans not seeing the "point" in genders, for example). The people have varied hair styles and clothing and perfumes and jobs etc, but these are not associated with a person's sex. You would have no idea if someone has a K or a Z in their trousers by looking at them.
How do individuals on this world efficiently identify potential mates? I'm trying to think of an easy method that doesn't seem ridiculous at face value. I don't like the idea of people straight up asking each other all the time, or having a sign over their heads or a band on their arm, or a specific type of squeal they let out. Pheromones of some kind are a reasonable idea I am toying with, but I'm open to suggestions!
EDIT: a lot of people are bringing up important issues relating to monogamy. These are good ideas, but don’t address the issue of identifying partners to mate with. I’d like to assume monogamy for the purpose of this question so the answer isn’t “people don’t need to tell the sex” or similar.
EDIT2: There are so many excellent answers and suggestions here I wish I could accept them all. I will wait longer and accept the one that I think best answers the question with some ideas about identification.
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For an "efficient" identification there ought to be some outward difference between sexes. This difference might not lie within the human sensorium (for example, a difference in body smell that humans can't pick up, a different skin color that only shows in ultraviolet or infrared and so on).
Anatomical differences could be enough to either be easily spotted (sexual dimorphism, or simply noticeable bulges in different places) or lead to different behaviours, not necessarily "squealing". Skin color, hair pattern, bone structure.
All these could be even unnoticeable one by one or to the untrained eye, but immediately obvious to your aliens (akin as how humans can be trained to sex pullets from cockerels by eye, but they don't know *how* they do it - it becomes *obvious* to them).
Fashion is another possibility. If the difficulty you noted was also awkward for them, they'd probably evolve means to circumvent it and make mate selection more efficient again. In some Earth cultures, specific items of apparel were reserved to indicate social status, marital status, or even sexual availability - fans, sashes, garlands, shoes (*"And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three! / "Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she* -- Thomas Hardy, *The ruined maid*)
Body language is another useful possibility.
Or they might use a sexed language, so after exchanging a few words everybody would know where everybody else stands (some Earth languages have different registers or modes to address inferior-to-superior, male, female, young-to-old and vice versa). Lots of possibilities there. I remember once a young English friend visited and "taught himself" some Italian words, without noticing that Romance languages are gendered while English isn't - *I am happy to see you* has two different forms for *happy* depending on whether the speaker is male (*contento*) or female (*contenta*). Gleaning words from his female cousin, the poor boy started talking as a girl would.
# *really* avoiding gender
But say we don't want to have *any* outward expression of sex - of gender. Can we still **efficiently** select for mates? Apparently we can't.
How do we cheat?
Ursula K. LeGuin created a world, Gethen, where humans are hermaphrodites - they have only one sex (at most), but *which* one depends on how they experience *kemmer*, a periodic hormonal imbalance that can make them either male or female. This characteristic is shared by the *regul*, aliens in C. J. Cherryh's *Faded Sun* trilogy, but the sex choice (which happens once and lasts for the remainder of a regul's life) may be influenced by pheromones.
So, your society is genderless and normally people do not even *have* (external) sexual organs (this is the Gethen norm). Any two persons may meet and fall in love or feel attraction for one another. When they *do*, and stay together for a sufficiently long time in a sufficiently intimate context, their bodies start reacting to one another (this is the Regul mechanism), choosing two complementary sexes either at random or based on their physiochemical characteristics - who knows, maybe the one healthier, larger or with more body fat becomes a female, to maximize chances of carrying out a pregnancy. The more sexed the one becomes, the more sexed the other (but with opposite gender).
Should the language need to reflect this, it would need male, female and neuter mode, like the Stsho of Lyene (another C. J. Cherryh's creation, in the *Chanur* series) do. They might then maybe say something like "When I-neuter saw *it*, I-male asked *her* out" to emphatically describe love at first sight.
The maximum efficiency is then attained: **whoever** your potential mate is, will always be sexually compatible *because* it's your potential mate.
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*This may not translate well to other languages where sex and gender may not be different structures in the same way.*
# You can't
Because gender is the social indication of what's in your pants.
So by your requirement to not have gender, you're equally not allowed to indicate what sex you are. Any act that would do so would class as a gendered indication, action, or language. Hence why Pratchett referred to this as "the tricky part" of Dwarven courtship, as he represents the dwarves as a strictly ungendered society with no sexual dimorphism.
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The question doesn't really make sense to me if you're restricting yourself to two-sex reproduction. If, biologically, this species reproduces sexually via pairing, then almost by definition there has to be a way for the species 'in the wild' to figure out which one has the sword and which one's got the sheath. Pheromones, secondary sexual characteristics, highly visible sex organs - *something*. The fact that they therefore aren't actually identical makes it near impossible for their cultures to have evolved to make it irrelevant. On the other hand, there's plenty of other reproductive systems.
If they're hermaphrodites, then nothing's the problem and it makes good sense from a cultural perspective - gender doesn't matter because it basically doesn't properly exist.
If they're like ants, then males literally do not have fathers - a female can decide to have a kid at any time and if she doesn't bother with the guy, the child is a boy. Gender wouldn't exist because they'd likely think of themselves as almost two different species, or else two halves of a single whole.
If they're like, say, clownfish, then it wouldn't so much be irrelevant as totally flexible. Clownfish are basically a transgender person's dream, since they swap their sex almost at will. That's not actually how they work, of course, but I see no reason why you couldn't do that for your made-up species. It would be workable, biologically, and would blur the lines pretty hard between male and female from a cultural perspective. You'd pair up with someone you liked, and one of you would basically just go female (or male) if you weren't already sexually compatible. Weird, but probably pretty unique. I don't think I've seen that version very often in a way that wasn't clearly politically motivated.
Of course you could just go super extreme and have them reproduce via sporing or seeding or post-egg feritilization or something that just doesn't give a damn about finding Z or K at all, you just drop your net and hope there's fish today. I'm not totally sure this is compatible with higher life, mind you, but I can't think of any specific reason it shouldn't be if the species has strong intraspecies cohesion and views anyone of their species as part of a supertribe.
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# Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match....
On your world, there is a system of matchmakers who take care of tracking and matching appropriate partners. This may be government-run (with access to health records that would reveal sex), arranged by families, or otherwise performed by "the system" *for* the person. With this, most of your inhabitants simply don't worry about identifying potential partners, because they know that they will receive an appropriate one when the time is right (they have achieved physical maturity, completed mandatory military service, passed a literacy test, etc.). Dating, therefore, isn't really a *thing* on your world, or if it is, "swinging" and "mixing" very much *aren't*. This sort of system can give your protagonist their own struggle or quest if it turns out that they *don't like their match*, leading to hilarious hi-jinks as they realize that they *don't know any other way* to find a mate, or if they *do*, can't figure out a way to do it in a *socially acceptable way*.
To be clear, the "system" doesn't necessarily have to be run by the government itself, there just has to be an organized system (or set of systems) in place to handle matchmaking. This *could* be run by national or local governments, local nonprofit organizations, extended family clan systems (you are 21 today, it's time to see the Chief so you can be entered into the inter-clan matchmaking program), religious organizations (different religions could have their own parallel systems so you only get matched to someone of your faith), or other systems. The point is that one seeks a match through "the system" rather than trying to find or "pick up" a partner on one's own. In our own world, some conservative religious groups have developed this into organized practices, where young people will either register with a matchmaker or their parents will do so for them.
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# Gender is existent, but irrelevant.
First, let me start by challenging "non-existent". I think "non-existent" is a very strong word though: the fact that there are more than one gender is still a biological reality in the society you describe, so if you allow me I will replace it by "irrelevant", in the sense that though the biological reality is there, society stopped giving gender (and all things that come with it) the importance that we humans give to that.
Of all the things we think about selecting a partner, such as (but not limited to) personality compatibility, affluence, society relevance, similar goals, etc... gender is just one more. Of course, for our society, gender tends to be one very important parameter, as there is a lot of pressure on the "reproduce" imperative.
So, for a genderless society, this reproduction imperative may have been downplayed a lot. I would suggest "outsourcing" the reproduction, a bit like McMaster Bujold does in the Vorkosigan Saga (TLDR: artificial wombs and genetic tech that allows two parents regardless of gender to have a child), but reproduction partners and even for-hire wombs can be alternatives: this will depend a lot on how you want to base the rest of your society.
That probably means the society will have another goal, and that goal will become the first imperative to select a partner. Is money-oriented? invention-oriented? art-oriented? This will become the priority above gender.
In a society like this, searching for a partner based on gender will be viewed as either a kink or a *sort-of-backwards-mentality*, as they will be, in a sense, playing against society expectations of choosing a partner for something that most people don't care. Depending of the maturity of the society, this can be viewed as something endearing, or something dangerous, and either way there will be individuals who will react the opposite the majority of the society thinks (so, they will be always haters and supporters).
The best bet for people like this will be closed communities (not necessarily secret, think... Amish, for example, or internet forums) where like-minded people can interact without fear of being censored for that.
**Edit:** based on the replies, I modified the text to be more clear about the irrelevance of gender, and downplay a bit the sexuality thing. Previous text will still be available in edit history.
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**1. Their mating is only when "in heat" or "in musth".**
Unlike humans who have sex for fun and can do it any day of the week or month of the year, perhaps your aliens are only periodically receptive to mating. There would be clear biological signals of this: lots of pheremones, the swollen genitals of female chimpanzees or, in some bird species,moulting their feathers to grow breeding plumage.
So you could say that some secondary sexual characteristics are temporary: alien men only grow beards when they are in heat, or that alien women only have noticeable breasts when they are in heat (or breast feeding). Or invent some visual signals! Perhaps their foreheads turn blue, or their hands go scaly, or their eyes turn purple. Or a crest on their head which is normally hidden by hair stands up and gives them a zebra mane or cock's comb.
The mating doesn't have to be the whole population at once. Use elephants or gorillas as a model, when only one female at a time will be in heat in a small population. Though obviously that would be hundreds or thousands of people a day in a city like London.
Elephant [musth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musth) isn't really a mating heat for males, but you could adapt it as such and merge it with something like the [Pon Farr of the Vulcans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pon_farr)
Also your aliens could still have sex for fun. But outside of heat/musth, there is zero chance of pregnancy. Plus the mechanics might be a bit different if the reproductive organs shrink or change shape when they are not in heat. For example some hamster species grow and shrink their testicles seasonally.
**2. There is a subtle but permanent signal which humans may not notice.**
They have sexual dimorphism, but it is really subtle and humans can't tell the difference between the sexes, but to the aliens it is obvious. Consider all the bird species where the males and females are - to our eyes - identical in size and plumage and call. Here's an article on [how to tell the sex of parrots](https://www.wikihow.com/Tell-the-Sex-of-Parrots). It says:
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However, parrots have no problem pairing up and reproducing, so there is obviously something about being male or female which they can detect that we can't!
How you deal with this will depend on the needs of your story. Either:
* Humans just **can't tell** the Ks from the Zs without the application of science. The aliens can see ultraviolet, so the social signal is markings on their skin which are invisible to humans. It's scent, but humans have a rubbish sense of smell. It's the infrasound/ultrasound frequencies in their voice which humans can't hear.
* Or humans **can** see the signal, but it is very subtle and they tend to overlook it, because it is irrelevant in human social interactions with other humans. All the Ks have dark brown eyes, all the Zs have a subtly lighter shade of eyes. Zs have noses which are a tad wider. Ks have attached earlobes or dimples or put their left thumb on top when they clasp hands (see [human examples](https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/basics/observable/)
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If, to borrow an irrelevant human term, everyone is 50/50 bisexual, then statistically, 50% of relationships will be between couples who can have biological children. If there's a cultural expectation that those who can have biological children have around 4 children instead of 2, and adoption is more common, then you'll still have a stable population with most people who want to raise children able to.
But, honestly, I don't know that this is that much of an issue even if everyone wants their own biological children. Queer communities have been having children for a long time, it's just a matter of negotiating other people and finding a sperm or egg donor. And in a society where same-sex relationships are completely normalized, you'll have a lot more resources to help with that process.
It does mean families end up being more complex than the nuclear family you're probably thinking of, but that has been the norm for cultures all over the world throughout history. You're already making a big cultural change here, this would just be one of the side effects.
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You're sort of applying gendered social norms to a non-gendered world. Here on earth, attraction is largely based on gender, not sexual anatomy. A person might be attracted to men, or women, or non-binary people, or some combination of the above. People aren't attracted to penises or vaginas which is why, for example, most men who date and fall in love with trans women consider themselves heterosexual regardless of their partner's anatomy (as it should be, I might add). So, it would stand to reason that, in a world without gender, people would just be attracted to each other regardless of anatomy. If everyone looks the same, one would be just as likely to be attracted to a K or a Z. It's likely that 50% of ones sexual partners would be K's, the other half Z's, because the attraction would occur before the knowledge of the anatomy. One would develop sexual practices to accommodate both. Any time you're dating someone, its a coin toss, but a low-stakes one because it doesn't have the weight of identity that it has here; no one can tell a homosexual pair from a heterosexual one, including the people in it at the beginning, so a K who finds themselves in love with another K doesn't need to adjust their identity the way a man from earth would if he found himself in love with and attracted to another man. Without the weight of gender roles and heteronormativity, the cultural importance of sexual anatomy would plummet.
This doesn't have to lead to the breakdown of monogamous pairing. If two individuals got together and found that that their anatomy was not compatible in a way that would lead to offspring, they would do what homosexual and other non-fertile couples do here on earth: adopt or find a surrogate. Perhaps surrogacy is extremely commonplace in this culture and one would think nothing of, for example, carrying a child for one's sibling, who is a K who fell in love with another K. You might consider giving this species some kind of non-gestational reproduction, like egg-laying. This would lower the burden of surrogacy, which might explain how such a system would emerge and the species was more easily able to shed the concept of gender.
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A Couple Options:
## Nude Social Tradition
You could have some sort of social practice where undressing is non-sexual, see [Japanese Mixed Onsen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onsen#Mixed_bathing) bathing practices before opening to the West. Also similar could be [Finnish Suana's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_sauna). These present an opportunity to get a peak at an acquaintance's genitals... could be pervy, could not.
## Z seeking K
These people could have a very different structure pre-dating before humans do. They do not proposition people they don't know very well for dates anywhere, instead there are specific settings (like speed dating) where the K's are set up on one side and the M's on another side - or inner ring/outer ring. Something like that
## Menstruation-Related
Assuming that one of the sexes menstruates similarly to how human women menstruate, then they must have to do certain things that the other sex does not do. Therefore seeing someone pull a tampon-like thing out of their pocket/bag might be an indicator one way or another. The menstruating sex could also exhibit certain characteristics while menstruating that the other does not (but is able to pick up on) - smell, redness, hot flashes, something else.
## Stand up to Pee
Another way to tell could be to notice their bathroom habits. Assuming that one sex is not able to effectively stand while peeing, if they notice someone that does use a urinal (either by going into the urinals only bathroom or bc they are also in the bathroom) then they can confirm they are of the opposite sex.
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In general, if you make it hard to assume someone's sex by eliminating the outward gender differences and most secondary sex characteristics... you also make it hard to figure out who to mate with. I am also not sure if you are implying that this race is exclusively "straight", which I would question if you are getting rid of gender differences.
The main problem I see is that it becomes hard for Person Z to determine that Person K is K, while Person Z determines that Person K knows Person Z is Z, and vice versa. If that made any sense. The last two don't really address this too well but I think the first two do.
I am not sure you can avoid pansexualism and avoid talking about overtly about sex, all while making the sexual-dimorphism unable to be sensed.
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# Social gatherings
Most modern societies have (more or less strict) rules about where and when looking for potential partners is appropriate. You don't usually flirt at work, on public transport or in the supermarket. You *do* at, say, parties, festivals and many social functions, which, conveniently, come with their own sets of rules and expectations. You could easily expand these to have a "gendered" element, e.g.:
* different styles of dancing
* differently decorated drinks or desserts
* sex based musical elements
* dating games
# Friends and relatives
Parents, grandparents or older siblings could play a role in "matchmaking", getting in contact with other families and suggesting potential mates. Finding a partner would become less of a solo endeavour and slightly more of a community thing. This could, in a stricter society, also lead to arranged marriages.
# Just show the goods
If people frequently need to know a person's sex, there's a good chance that showing or touching genitals isn't taboo in your society. That could mean that nudity is the norm in certain social settings, it could mean that being fully or partially naked is a sign of availability, or perhaps pyhsical contact is just more common.
# Combine it with other indicators
In our world, sex is not the only thing you'll want to know about someone before asking them out. Some important details, for example whether they already are in a monogamous relationship, are not as obvious. You've expressed a dislike for using jewelry or items of clothing to signal gender, but if you expand the idea to include [other](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_markers_of_marital_status) [details](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handkerchief_code), it might become more practical and potentially tell your audience a lot about the culture.
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**The aliens don't know themselves.**
Perhaps this is also what dwarven do, too, in Pratchett's universe, so this is really "tricky".
In other words, if two people get together, they just try it out. If it fails, they retry with someone else. For each try they have 50% chance of success (or less because of other failure modes of mating).
This means that monogamous pairings are difficult to achieve. So perhaps you should have a different social structure than monogamy and families. To give you two examples:
1. The Mosuo in China have a "walking" marriage where the male goes to the female the night for mating, and the offspring stays in the mother's house.
2. The cheela of Forward's Dragon's Egg have a clan hatchery, where the female drops off the inseminated egg. Both males and females enter something like a menopause and have he urge to parent the hatchlings.
Of course if a female has been successful in bearing a child she will know that she is female.
If you find it fascinating that people don't know which sex they have, you could posit having the gender randomly changing every few months.
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It's already the case in our world that even if someone fits your genital preferences (whatever they are), that doesn't mean they are sexually compatible with you, and even if you have the complementary sets necessary for having children, that doesn't mean that you will share the same intentions regarding children, and it doesn't even mean biology is guaranteed to be on your side.
Your hypothetical society can just feel those effects more strongly. Sexual relationships that don't intend to rear children are largely not picky about what genitalia are involved: everyone knows how to have fun with all of them, though individuals might get on more or less well with particular ones. After all, everyone knows (and I wish more people in the real world did!) there's a lot more to physical intimacy than which genitals go where. Sexual relationships that aim to bear children, on the other hand, have to be more picky, and it may be necessary to go through several to find one that's the right fit for both people involved.
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Just have your species date without regard to gender at all. This happens among bisexuals in our world already. If they happen to end up with someone who they can't physically have a child with, they can adopt or use technologies to have a child.
The scenario of ending up with someone who one can't physically have a child with will be very common in your world, since - unlike in our world - *everyone* is effectively bisexual, so alternative ways of having children will also be common and probably seen as "just something you do *shrug*". As well, not having children at all will be a common option too.
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**Not much different than figuring out if someone's single**
Is there a way to tell if someone's single just by looking at them? (Really, please let me know in the comments if you have one; keep in mind lack of a ring isn't a good indicator under a certain age and for certain cultures).
Flirting could involve mentioning your sex, allowing the other party to respond *"Sorry, can't work, I'm also a K"*.
**It just comes up in conversation**
I don't have the ability to tell which state/province someone was born in just by looking at them, or how many kids they have, even less the name of those kids... yet somehow after knowing someone for a few months it's something that I probably know about them.
**Public showers and changing rooms**
I'm thinking of something along the lines of what we find here in gyms. You could make it so that your species needs/wants to clean themselves more often, making public showers and changing rooms more common than it is on Earth.
If it's the norm that both sexes use the same facilities, and they have different sex organs, it will be easily seen who's got what between their legs.
If it's the norm that those facilities are sex-specific, then just look at which facility the other goes in.
**Bathrooms**
similar to the above point, if bathrooms are sex-specific, just look at which one they go in.
**Clothing will inevitably give *some* clues**
Different shaped sex organs will require different shape clothing to be worn comfortably. It may be hidden by other clothes on top of it (similar to how humans wear shirts over bras, pants over panties etc.) but some activities are easier done when wearing minimal clothing (swimming comes to mind) at which point the shape of the clothes will indicate the sex.
**Online dating/Organized dating/Dating apps**
*It used to be that case that finding a mate was hard*, but now that Dinder is so popular all the Z's and K's make a profile, enter their sex and look at sexy singles in their area.
**Have sex**
At the very least when you and your potential mate get undressed you'll be able to figure out whether or not you interlock.
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The Diskworld Dwarves exhibit most of the traits and behaviours you want by for different reasons. Male and Female dwarves do exist and they are from male-female pairings. However, the sexes appear very similar in day to day live.
As it is hard to tell the genders they are not a visible part of everyday life. As they work in harsh environments, they wear heavy clothing which further masks what little physical difference there might be. We are given to understand that the short, wide, powerful build of dwarves means they all have wide hips, large pectorals and muscular build. I dare say that a pregnant dwarve may not even show until near term.
Now as things happen to be hard to see their society took an interesting but not uncommon turn. They are very, very, very prudish about gender and sex. They just do not mention it or bring it up (and as a result differentiate much). This has actually made them very progressive with everything being equal. A dwarf is a dwarf. They only have the term "king" but it really means monarch as a king is either sex (which is only sometimes known publically if a king gives birth but even whether the king or a partner did the birthing might not be pubic knowledge). They do not have much problem with individuals sexuality as it is very private business so if that pair happens to be a same-sex couple or not is not your business or concern. It is often rarely known if there is, in fact, a couple as publically little affection is displayed (and I cannot recall if they have the idea of marriage...)
The fun part is when dwarves do decide to start courting (which again is quite a private thing, not much public display) it can take a long time before they are close enough to discuss what may or may not be hiding under their respective beards and armour. Following that, we must assume there is a further discussion (in the fullness of time) about whether the couple would like to engage in any recreational acts or have children (directly or adopted).
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**The way many cultures on Earth do it today.**
There are many things that affect whether two people are a suitable match. In some cultures you need to be from the same caste or tribe. Sometimes there are lineage restrictions; for example, a child of a forbidden relationship can also be "tainted" and that cuts out some marriage options. Even beyond these matters, sometimes people have economic restrictions. Then there are the personal-interest factors -- do these people have the same broad life goals, aspirations regarding children, etc? What about preferences on how they spend their leisure time? What about dietary restrictions -- will the vegan be happy with a barbecue-fanatic mate?
At the societal level, you sometimes see "filtering" and matchmaking done by people who know all the pertinent information, whether that's parents arranging introductions or professional matchmakers or friends making suggestions/introductions. At the individual level, while you can do some preliminary research (e.g. looking at social media), at some point people actually *talk* to each other about things that matter in a potential relationship.
Requirements for particular anatomy don't need to be any different than factors the some communities and individuals care about today. Prior art can help you here.
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It's very easy for *humans* to be unable to tell. Here on Earth, even experienced ornithologists have trouble telling the male and female apart for some species of bird, such as the (British) robin. It's not a problem for the bird, though.
The clue could be pheromonal. It could be a subtlety of voice pitch or tone.
From the non-gendered species' POV I Can think of various reasons why biological male/female does not have any social implications. Maybe, they come into heat at a particular short time of year or in response to protracted and mutually agreeable courtship. At all other times they are asexual. Or maybe they are hermaphrodites, both male and female at the same time, all the time. (It might be important for them to be able to distinguish left- and right-gendered individuals, if love is ever to be requited!).
Moving into the more alien, then maybe, like Moties, they change sex from time to time. Or that sex and egg-laying is something carried out by non-sentient entities that grow as buds from their bodies which detach and roam around as near-brainlessly as insects. (Probably, in this context, there would be no nurturing of infants. They would have to grow up from tiny almost brainless "seeds" into large creatures with the intelligence of, say, a cat, before they would start to be nurtured and helped to progress onwards to adulthood.) Or even, that they are all biologically female, and that a male is a tiny brainless thing that takes up residence within a female body to fertilize eggs -- and once there, whatever ability for living independantly it ever possessed withers away, and it becomes nothing more than a conveyor of genes via sperm.
By the way, this last does exist here on Earth, in some species of fish!
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**Scent and sexual behavior**
The problem of sexual differentiation had long been solved by nature. While some species have very strong sexual dimorphism, other have virtually none, and we humans have to run a DNA test to tell whether we are dealing with a male or a female. However, the species themselves need a way to tell with certainty which gender they are dealing with. Leaving it to chance would make it very detrimental to species' survival.
Thus, even if there are no outward sign of the sex, species may emit a specific scent which not only tells the others of one's sex, but can inform them if he/she is ready to mate. For the species that have no sense of smell, like birds, sexual behavior is coming to help. Males and females behaving differently when they are around each other. Pigeons may be a good example here.
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When they are specifically seeking mates they could simply leave their genitals uncovered. This would serve both purposes of identifying one's sex as well as one's desire to find a mate.
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There are so many interesting aspects to this question! To build a functional world like this, aspects of gender, anatomy, fertility, orientation, courtship, and intent to reproduce all come together.
Even in our own culture, there are obstacles to determining whether someone is an appropriate match for intercourse and/or reproduction. By drawing on some of these for inspiration, you can imagine how genderless societies might solve similar problems:
1. **Courtship rituals** can involve sexual signaling that does not extend to other areas of life. So where *gender* is a kind of all-encompassing presentation that we often read as shorthand for sex (and sexual orientation), courtship rituals can involve *temporary* ways of looking and behaving for the purpose of intercourse or reproduction.
Imagine people who go to a particular place, or attend a particular meeting, or style themselves a certain way, or highlight certain physical characteristics, or use a certain kind of vernacular, or seek out a matchmaker, etc. to indicate intent to reproduce and the role they're prepared to play in it.
Humans face courtship problems like these when trying to judge, for example, (a) someone's orientation, or (b) interest in having children. As far as I know, there are some signals in each case, but accurate judging is difficult. Even where possible, mere inspection of anatomy is insufficient.
2. **Concealed ovulation** is a lack of perceptible change to indicate that a person is currently fertile. As a species, humans exhibit concealed ovulation—although you can e.g. estimate your own fertility level by tracking your cycles, there are apparently no obvious cues that you or your potential reproductive partners can use to judge your fertility.
Humans are nonetheless able to reproduce quite well. Very surprisingly, lack of fertility signaling is not the dealbreaker it seems to be. Perhaps for similar reasons, lack of gender signaling is not the dealbreaker it seems to be. You could even imagine that people in your society might not only have lack of cultural gender signals, but also indistinguishable external anatomy, making it difficult for everyday people to judge reproductive compatibility except by trial and error. This tracks with the human solution, which is some combination of subtle subconscious behavioral/pheromone cues and persistence.
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A while ago I had a related idea involving an alien species who believed they had two genders/sexes, but actually had three sexes. The two sets of gametes were both provided by subsets of what they thought to be "males" - who were visually indistinguishable - whilst the "females" played no genetic role in parenthood but only provided physical nurturing.
Traditionally this had not arisen as a problem because mating was highly promiscuous. However, a recent uplift into galactic society had resulted in the aristocracy attempting to establish patrilineal bloodlines, and wondering why they suddenly weren't having any children despite amassing substantial harems. Outside scientific troubleshooters were then called in to sort out this seeming epidemic of infertility.
The proletariat were completely unaffected, because they were still promiscuous. Tri-gendered species existed elsewhere in galactic society, but with sufficient trimorphism to easily tell themselves apart. Because these particular aliens believed themselves to be bi-gendered, they had not even considered the possibility of the truth being otherwise.
It would later transpire that the "females" could actually tell the difference between the "male" subsets by scent, but since they were considered of lesser social status, nobody had bothered asking them. In fact, details of the females' biology allowed them to choose which males' gametes to combine, but they still needed one of each subset to work with.
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There's tons of physical differences between men and women that have nothing to do with genitals. Adults are very different based on their sex.
Women are usually shorter, their muscles are less noticeable, voice has a high pitch and female face is more oval or heart shaped with less noticeable jaw, slightly bigger eyes and smaller eyebrows. Not to mention breasts and waist/hips.
Men have more square face with stronger jaws and "sharper" characteristics, they are usually taller with more noticeable muscles (even with skinny men), their voices deepen in puberty, and they have chest and facial hair. Men also have Adam's apple.
Position of genitals and shape of hips dictate very different way of walking between men and women. Most men have bigger hands and feet than women too.
Sex hormones affect your body (and mind) in all kind of ways.
Now, this doesn't apply to kids, and there's always exceptions to the rule with adults But these are things that happen on average.
It might be that your people decide to purposely look as androginous as possible, doing all kinds of stuff from breast binding, shaving, wearing gender neutral clothes and hairstules, using makeup... Differences can still slip through, especially if you look for them.
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In birds males are often times more brightly colored than females, so perhaps the males naturally have brightly colored skin, hair, and eyes, while the females have skin hair, and eyes that is naturally dull in terms of color. Alternatively both sexes could be naturally bright colored but with different colors on their bodies. Given that these colors would be their natural hair, skin, and eye colors, they wouldn't quality as different styles, and so would be only associated with sex, and not gender.
] |
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[
This question is about speedsters and defending against them (Dr Wells' gun thing doesn't work).
There is a speedster. His 'cruising speed' is about 1000 mph, but can get up to 2000 mph if needed. This speedster happens to be an evil speedster (basically Zoom or Reverse Flash). So the world has combined their remaining smarter-than-average humans to try and find a way to defend against this speedster. After some debating, they decided to post a question online and see what the general population thought.
They need a device that can:
* defend against a human sized human moving at 1500+ mph
* stun (for at least 30 seconds) or kill the speedster
* maybe a carry able version, but that seems useless (by the time you load a round, you'd be dead but still, it'll make you feel safer)
* probably will be mounted to the inside of a door, so if the speedster comes through they get stunned/zapped
Assume that:
* they have 3 million dollars available
* the speedster can't phase through walls, but can smash through it if its weak enough, but rarely does (keep in mind hes moving at 1500 mph, he'd break some bones if it wasn't made out of marshmallows)
* they need at least 20 of these anti-speedster-things
* they have two weeks before the speedster finds and kills them, so they need at least one anti-speedster-thing by then
* technology is the same as it is today
* they have 1-day shipping from Amazon and other companies
If this group of humans fail in making a device, the world basically ends and then sad music plays in the background as evil speedster man kills them all. So, they could use some help.
QUICK EDIT- Would [plasma shields](https://treknews.net/2011/07/31/science-fiction-or-science-fact-shields-up/) work well?
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>
> they have 2 weeks before the speedster finds and kills them
>
>
>
Seems like they are headed for a final showdown. Since they are the defendants, they get to pick the battlefield.
I suggest this:
That evil guy will either have to slow down or he'll smash his toes against this thing. In either case he'll lose his advantage.
You can buy them online at [216 canadian dollars a piece if you buy 5+](https://www.uline.ca/Product/Detail/H-2394/Parking-Lot-Safety/Rubber-Speed-Bump-72-x-12-x-2?pricode=YF293&gadtype=pla&id=H-2394&gclsrc=aw.ds&&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhb36BRCfARIsAKcXh6FRaHM7bIkaaRCeVi0-nN5YppyF8-OK1KRoOkOtW-dKxd6sUQzkH5saAiaCEALw_wcB). Converting 3 million freedom dollars, and considering pricing... you could order 18,500 of those if you didn't have to pay taxes and shipping. So round down to 15,000 that you can order.
With a maze of 15,000 speed bumps, you can actually sell tickets so that people may gather inside and take potshots at the speedster. At 4,000 USD a ticket and with a thousand participants you may actually make some profit out of this. The ticket price might seem steep but shooting down a speedster is something you get to do only once in a generation!
**Edit:** user253751 commented:
>
> ... why wouldn't he just step over the speedbump, at lightning speed?
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>
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Yeah, the villain might do that. The solution is scaling up. Use these bumps instead, and have the shooters positioned in towers:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4r2TA.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cy3w4.jpg)
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1500+ mph is about Mach 2. This is within the operational envelope of the [AN/SEQ-3 LaWS](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33634/the-amphibious-warship-uss-portland-has-shot-down-a-drone-with-its-new-high-power-laser).
Unless your speedsters can resist a 30 kW laser bolt, things don't look very good for them.
It is also possible to engineer a speed-triggered electrical discharge (must be less than about 20 kV per meter). This has more chances of just stunning the victim, but losing control at that speed is likely lethal all by itself.
However, simply renting a **submarine** might be a more cost effective proposition. You won't capture the speedster but he won't be able to get you either.
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**Taut wire.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ObCc4.jpg)
<https://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/cyclist-s-neck-injured-by-wire-stretched-across-saanich-trail-1.314784>
Yeah, that should do for him. If he does not hit a junebug at 1500 mph on the way in. Heck the gas mass by itself should flap his flappy bits pretty good.
Speedsters are fun but they are pretty flagrant about violating physical laws, especially as regards the atmosphere.
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## Oobleck Moats
```
/XXXXXXXXXXXXX
|XXXXX/
world |XXXX/ bunker
_ |XXX| ____
X\~~~~|XXX|~~~~/XXXX
XX\ /XXXXX
XXX\ oobleck /XXXXXX
XXXX\_______/XXXXXXX
```
If your speeder can't blast through walls, they will have to slow down to manageable speeds if they want to visit, giving you plenty of time to deal with them, while still allowing easy (if messy) access in and out for yourselves.
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**Knockout gas**
Simple solutions work best. The day before the speedster attacks the lair of the good guys, all they have to do is flood the place with knockout gas, don gas masks, and let nature take its course as the speedster's super-fast metabolism takes care of the rest. Oxygen tanks are, of course, impossible for the speedster as the about of oxygen he would need would greatly exceed any you could carry around in a tank.
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## Sand
All you need is a system that creates a slight curtain of sand across the entrances and along corridors and the speedster will have to slow down to a much more reasonable speeds to pass through.
Sand blasting is a thing. [A sand blaster running at 100psi outputs sand at around 420mph](http://www.nortonsandblasting.com/nsbnozzles2.html) and will quite happily strip flesh from bone. Your speedster hitting the sand at 1500mph will do the work for you without you having to worry about accelerating the sand or having restrictions on passing through the entrances yourself. He will effectively be bound to movement speeds below 200mph while in the sand.
For a portable version you just need a supply of sand and a leaf blower.
Downsides: Your cleaners will hate you and your laundry will always be full of sand.
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Ordinary physics obviously doesn't hold much sway over these people. I have to assume some "brings his own dimension" shenanigans like the Flash does to give the speedster the time to walk, turn, open doors etc without instantly breaking themselves or the thing they operate.
Solution 1: a big heavy door and reinforced walls and an airlock.
They might be fast, but if it would take days or weeks to open a door without the key or actual vehicles designed to wreck the place, they will take long enough that you can deploy countermeasures against them. Let's say you increase the pressure inside until the speedster is knocked out. That way you circumvent the speedster having prepared with gas masks or similar. Without gas masks the fact that they entered an airlock would mean they use the air up so quickly that they'll knock themselves out before they breach the door.
Solution 2: electrify it.
The problem with being a speedster is that all your internal processes (and a few external one's) have to be accelerated as well. This means that electricity will pass through you that more quickly while dealing the same damage as before. A sufficient jolt of electricity can knock the person unconscious, or have him writhing across the floor as the speedster finds out that his rubber boots protected him from the floor until he fell down after grabbing the door handle. If you are less friendly, just kill them with a high enough jolt.
Solution 3: low resistance surface.
If the floor is so slippery that a normal person cant get up anymore, for example because the floor is bowl-shaped and outlets make sure a nice film of ultra-slippery material coats it constantly (or it is slippery in normal circumstances, like a thick layer of ice you've cultivated), then a speedster wouldn't be able to get up either despite his speed. If you are friendly you have softer materials at the edges to make sure the speedster doesn't kill himself with the impact before sliding back to the center and getting stuck.
Solution 4: mines and boobytraps.
The speedster has to accelerate a part of his environment in order to move that fast. Without that the friction between the floor and his shoes would limit his speed to around 50km/h (I did a question about this once), and that is ignoring the fact that his shoe rubber would likely split apart. So his acceleration has to extend to his shoes and the ground he's standing on as well in order to reach his speed... and if he steps on a mine trigger, that will be accelerated and go off as well (not that it needs to! The chemical reaction upon standing on the trigger will be fast enough!). Mine shrapnel like from a claymore travels at 1200m/s, faster than 2000mph (+/-900m/s). 300m/s difference isn't going to give even a speedster much chance to react. Similarly, a door with a bomb strapped to it will kill the person if he opens it.
Solution 5: be somewhere their speed is irrelevant.
Let's say that the moment the evil speedster starts trying to kill you, you are in an aircraft crossing large bodies of water. How is he going to catch you? If he swims he'll die from starvation before reaching the other side, boats are too slow and unless the speedster knows how to operate functioning military aircraft he's not going to be able to catch you in the air. And that is ignoring the fact that he might be able to get to an operational, loaded and fueled aircraft but said aircraft would still need to pilot to the runway and take off, then avoid interception at aircraft speeds rather than your own until he reaches you.
And that is assuming he even knows where you are.
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## Antipersonnel landmines
For the sake of this, I am assuming that (from the speedster’s standpoint) they have the reaction time and such of someone moving at a slow jog, similar to the flash, even though they move faster in reality. So obviously cheesewire wouldn’t work very well. What you need is the same thing that we use against all pedestrian enemies: a shitload of landmines, specifically, anti-personnel landmines.
Blast waves from high explosives travel considerably faster than 1500 mph, so you should have no issue there. You can get a lot of landmines for 3 million dollars. His high speed isn’t going to make him better at navigating a minefield, even with his advanced reaction speed. Especially if he doesn’t know it’s there.
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From a comment on the original question by @Ceramicmrno0b: "*they dont work well under pressure*". This is unfortunate because otherwise they could move their defense base into an underwater habitat.
The presence of over 100 feet of water in every direction should slow speedster to a more manageable speed, or batter him into a sort of bone-fragment jelly if he declines to slow down.
SEALAB I is currently in storage at the Museum of Man in the Sea, in Panama City Beach, Florida. I'm sure that the U.S. Navy could be persuaded to part with it, once they realize that the end of the world would probably have an impact on congressional defense funding.
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The door with the interior you want to attach it to is between two (secretly) reinforced walls. Opening it triggers the closing of two reinforced doors, one before, one after. Then you set off bombs, very quickly. (Multiple ones because at superspeed, it's less likely that he will detect and disarm them all.)
Poison gas might also work. Bombs kill faster and are released more quickly, and you don't have to worry about the gas escaping the room with a bomb, but it would probably be harder to sabotage gas's release.
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Staying indoors seems like a reasonable defense against something who's only power is being very fast. You could even add a time-locked double door to your main lair forcing anyone who wants to come in to wait 5s in a small lobby/antechamber where their powers would be near useless. Then all you need to do is bait the trap with something they value (kidnap their hamster?) and wait.
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>
> (keep in mind hes moving at 1500 mph, he'd break some bones if it wasn't made out of marshmallows)
>
>
>
I feel you answered your own question there.
For fun and giggles, at 670 m/s in real units, a wall of marshmallow is actually made of concrete. Or in more scientific terms, you pack such kinetic energy at that speed that blasting through any surface is going to kill you. So a fortress of marshmallows would be more than enough to force your evil speedster to slow down or become raspberry jam.
This meets the budget requirements, you can buy 1 million dollars of marshmallow, a truck to make it portable, a few tasers and assorted electrical traps, and spend the rest to treat yourself. You've deserved it, having a supervillain chase you must be stressful.
Since nobody in their right mind would build a fortress out of marshmallow, your speedster would more than likely have to stop and assess the situation and wonder what kind of elaborate trickery is this. I mean, there could be deadly spikes behind that marshmallow and you definitely don't want to find out by smashing into it.
Just make sure you add a door to funnel the speedster right where you want them. They're a villain, they're probably over-confident, they think they can handle a trapped door.
Then you can:
* electrify the door knob;
* electrify the floor;
* electrify the marshmallow with a hidden layer of metal sheet;
* sneak behind them while they're scratching their head wondering what trap you've put on your door;
* poison the marshmallow so that if they try to eat their way through it they get paralysed;
* taunt them to eat all of it before killing you and hope diabetes will kill them first.
Then light a fire, carve pieces of your fortress, put them on a stick and celebrate. Unless you've decided to use the poisoned marshmallow fortress technique.
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**Caltrops**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/trY1e.jpg)
Sprinkling caltrops around and he's going to have issues. At 1000mph he's going to lose control and crash and most likely kill himself.
Caltrops have been around since ancient times and can be easily made yourself for next to nothing from scrap metal or even ordered online.
Nothing expensive required.
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## A Bright Light
Think a search light suitable for Vegas or a ship at sea.
You put it at the end of a long tunnel, and turn it off.
Put some mild broken terrain in the tunnel - loose debris, stationary hazards, all low to the ground.
The light is on a motion sensor - once the speedster is committed to navigating the broken terrain at speed, the motion sensor detects him, and energizes the light.
The speedster is now blind, moving at 1000+ miles per hour, and surrounded by trip hazards. The situation resolves itself.
Set up this system at several places the speedster is likely to look - it's cheap, effective, and easy to implement.
## Backup plan
A belt fed machine gun sits next to the light - the motion sensor also kicks off the gun, which fires off the full belt. Now he's screwed if he enters the tunnel at speed, and screwed if he doesn't.
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**Weak looking facade overtop of very strong wall**
Leave the door open with a clearly placed trap (i.e. some piano wire strung across). He will suspect a trap, see it, and try the wall entrance. Make him splat himself.
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A ramp!
Make him run over a 30 degree inclined ramp at 1500 mph, he will be projected into the air approximately 700m according to [this calculator](https://www.desmos.com/calculator/on4xzwtdwz) and when he lands he'll go splat.
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**Glass**
Put a glass wall in front of somewhere you think the speedster is going to go like in front of a door and the speedster will die ramming into it.
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# Strong magnetic field, spatially nonuniform
For example, the defenders could tile a large area with fairly spaced strong magnets. While slow-moving defenders could navigate through such environment safely, taking the same precautions one would take while undergoing a [MRI scan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_resonance_imaging), moving at high speed through a strong enough nonuniform magnetic field should be equivalent to standing still inside a [induction furnace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_furnace). [Eddy currents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy_current) inside the body of the speedster, if sustained long enough, could eventually cook him from the inside. Carried metallic objects, like piercings and rings, could heat up even faster and cause burns. Induced currents could mess with any electronics he may be carrying, even causing the battery of his cellphone to explode in his pocket.
There is large amounts of iron scrap lying around, that could be converted in lots of magnets. I didn't do the calculations to see if the required field strenghts are practical to achieve the effect in a reasonable time interval, but if the full induction furnace roast can't be achieved in practice, we can speculate subtler effects could still be exploited. For example, adjusting the spacing of the magnetic field so the eddy currents fall in sync with brainwaves, the defenders could try to give the speedster a [epilectic seizure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epileptic_seizure) with a smaller amount of power.
As a shortcoming, the defenders should have equipment compatible with operation in strong magnetic fields.
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## Put the things you need to protect in a hole in the ground.
If you're traveling at 1000 mph and you hit the edge of a 10 ft hole, they will cross that hole in about 7 milliseconds. That's about enough time to fall about 0.2 millimeters into the hole.
If your evil speedster wants to descend into the hole they're going to need to slow down considerably. That makes them an easy target for any weapons trained on the hole from below.
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There is a technology called **active protection** that is used on some military vehicles. Basically its a device that can shoot a missile out of the air as it approaches the vehicle.
Just sit in your tank, turn on the system, and wait for your opponent to approach and get blown up.
See...
<https://www.gd-ots.com/protection-systems/active-protection-systems/iron-fist/>
Also see...
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_protection_system>
] |
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[
My story is set in 1998 and is about a secret 1-in-1000 minority demographic of the human race that are all actually magical beings like vampires and werewolves and merfolk. They secretly live amongst the human race, and there are very harsh punishments for breaching secrecy on more than a personal level.
One thing I'm having issues coming up with is how exactly immortals would get their news about the things that happen in the immortal community around the country/world. The main issue being that they have to do it in a way that wouldn't clue the human majority in to the existence of these people, and most forms of long-distance communication involve extremely human-run infrastructure that it'd be nearly impossible to do anything organized with without there being a human somewhere who notices.
One idea I had was that an online news network could masquerade as a roleplay forum where people pretend to be reporters for a secret fantasy society, but the issue is only *one* organization could get away with that, or else people might get suspicious about all these roleplay forums using the same shared fictional universe without any deviations, or any media that inspires it.
**What other options does my immortal community have for keeping this 1-in-1000 minority scattered across the globe informed about important events in their community?**
[Answer]
Create a online platform to answer computer related questions. Once it becomes popular, start using the platform to answer other questions that are not related to computers. As the topics become more and more diversified, add a channel for your news. You could call it Worldbuilding on Stack Exchange.
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This has a real-world analog: missionaries (and terrorists, I guess. And embassies, and spies, and sleeper agents, and...).
In the early 2000s I ran a website for US missionaries in China, where they were not well tolerated. My clients ran the risk of incarceration, torture, and death. Bibles had to be smuggled in. They'd been doing this for decades, and the technological arms race was nothing new to them. They had plenty of ex-military types working on "the craft" of remaining concealed.
The problem, honestly, isn't the individual traitors or conspiracy theorists who might discover you and rat one of you out.
The problem is "state actors" (as highlighted by Snowden's leaks, which is why we all now use HTTPS).
An organized state actor can compromise some of your members, and the infrastructures upon which your communication relies (telecomms, mail), and use those to map out and eventually compromise the entire network.
So missionaries, like terrorists, organize into isolated "Cells", which do not intercommunicate. They use multiple messaging and signalling pathways, and self-organize their communications, so that if any node is compromised, the whole network is not. So Group A might communicate with group B over VPN, group C through courier, and send emergency messages to home base by making certain movements in an online game (I'm not making this up: we were asked to code this into our game server).
Broadcast messaging to hide from the "normals" is easy: just take over a media organization and steganographically include messaging in there, so long as you're OK assuming that any state actor who knows you exist will also be able to discover these channels and obtain the key to decode those messages. It's only "security through obscurity".
Point-to-point communications are harder, and typically need to go through trusted proxies to prevent mapping of the network. Trust becomes really, REALLY important for communication, and things like man-in-the-middle attacks by people who've built their equivalent of the enigma machine are a constant risk. The "Diplomatic bag" concept in embassies is another similar kind of thing, where the lines of communication must be absolutely trusted not to be intercepted. Unless you are the state, your communications should cross the boundaries between state actors as much as possible, to make tracing harder for them.
Secure communications is a whole big field of expertise, well worth reading up on to give your tale veracity: be prepared to read an awful lot of scenarios about Alice, Bob, and friends :)
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If you prefer a "hidden message" kind of news report, roleplaying games would be a pretty easy way to do so.
Think about something like Dungeons & Dragons. You create a game easy enough for anyone to buy. This game contains magical races (which are the same as your minority) and a bunch of lore. The world map looks similar to the one of your real world, with major cities in about the same places (but with different names) or similar design (so it's easy to recognise that "The City of Towers" is actually "New York" etc...).
Then release every week or month a news magazine that adds to the in-game lore and content. Part of that magazine will be "The Magical Gazette!", a fictional newspaper that reports magical news to make your world more immersive. In reality, it reports the actual news of magical beings, using the fictional places names as a reference.
To the average human, the whole thing would be a nice game to play with friends. To the magical minority, a way to get their news without ever having to worry about getting caught, because it wouldn't be suspicious if you bought a magazine for a game you play.
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The easiest way would be **Freenet / Dark Web**
Freenet was released in 2000, and it was the precursor to what we call Dark Web today.
Given your story is from 1998, you could easily implement a pre-release version of Freenet, or something similar.
I believe it's the easiest solution to your problem. It doesn't even need to be exclusive to your immortal community, since the infrastructure would be used by plenty others (criminal organisations, governments, journalists, religious cults, etc) which makes it easier to explain its existence.
It also removes the issue of distributing the content, and the issue of keeping it secret from the public (since only people with the address would be able to get to it. add a password-protected layer for extra security so if someone "stumbles" upon it, still can't get in).
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**Mail with metaphorical language to pubs/coffee shops/high traffic businesses which are hubs for local communities of the minority population**. At the hubs, word of mouth could be used.
In 1998, the Internet was quite new, not available to many people aside from university students and primitive dial up access, and not easily available globally. Computer ownership and usage was far from universal in 1998 in many parts of the world. Communities might have started to think about online options, but wouldn't be ready to adopt them yet. Also, in 1998, communities would still be aware aware about the risks of major failures of security in electronic communications like [ENIGMA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine) during World War II, and would be wary of it.
Equally important, **these populations would not be early adopters of new technologies.** They would have been around for centuries, at least, and once they found something that worked, wouldn't be quick to change it.
But, mail was widely available everywhere in the world to even regional small towns in the most remote areas, in 1998 and had been for a long time.
It was secure enough that only a thin veil of metaphor rather than a hard core code (or perhaps a language specific to the minority, a bit like expatriate communities communicating via their homeland language) would be sufficient to avoid casual penetration of the network. Another way to cloak the messages without fully and elaborately coding them would be to use religious metaphors, so that any attempt to penetrate the network could be attacked as religious persecution.
Mail can be sent in untraceable ways with, for example, false return addresses and street corner mail boxes. It isn't expensive even worldwide and can get to even remote places like Papua New Guinea in a week or two. And, mail is a very old technology. Early versions of mail-like information sharing networks existing in the Bronze Age (we have cuniform letter exchanges in the archaeological record). It would be a lot less costly than personally sending word of mouth messages on a regular basis across the world. Messages could be destroyed once received.
There could be a smaller subnetwork of hubs to which news was reported, with with a cell-like structure, with two or three core hubs per territory that would know the addresses of the local hubs in their territory and one core hub per territory. So, even a catastrophe would not take out the entire network, just disrupt one territory's communications somewhat.
Most of the eight million members would know only one or two local hubs and some lore about how to find new hubs if their's were compromised somehow. Perhaps, 80,000 members would know one set of core hub addresses and how to understand the metaphors, perhaps 8,000 or fewer people would know all the hub addresses in a territory and up to about half of the global core addresses. No one outside a territory would know any significant share of hub addresses in other territories, and no one (or at least not more than a dozen or so people) would know all of the core addresses outside their territory.
Also, if you limited your mailing list to thousands of pubs or restaurants/coffee shops (in places, e.g., in the Islamic world where alcohol isn't served) that served as community hubs, then you also aren't revealing the locations of any of the members of the community if the hub is compromised for some reason. There would be a policy of not keeping lists of members, although sometimes the hub would have, for example, a billing address for a member who was a vendor or customer that was buried with other random third-party vendor or customer information. But the list of members served by the hub would only be in the operator's memories.
Yet, this system could spread news worldwide within a month or two to the most distant corners of the world from anyone who could get net to a hub, and in places with faster mail service, or for news only relevant to a single territory and not spread worldwide, it could receive news and distribute it all over the territory or faster news area within a week or so.
Coded messages in mass media (like personal ads or widely distributed artwork) would be less secure. Someone could break the code, and once someone cracked the code, the entire network would be compromised and would have to be rebuilt from scratch, not just discontinuing mailings to one or two hubs out of thousands that could be quickly cutoff.
A variety of means could be used for insiders to identify hubs, from subtle symbols (perhaps keyed to senses that the minority has more acutely than normal humans) to continuous word of mouth updating from one member of the community to another.
**Fictional and Real World Examples**
The notion of a coffee shop hub network for most members of the community has been explored, for instance in the anime/manga *Tokyo Ghoul* and to a lesser extent with pubs in the *Harry Potter* mythos.
A variant of this, used in Kate Elliott's *Cold Fire* series, would be for correspondence from core hubs to go to (and some core hubs themselves to be) law firms that would then disseminate the news to community hubs like pubs and coffee shops orally. The large volume of correspondence going in and out of law firms, and the discretion and confidentiality of law firms, would be useful in this kind of network.
Many networks for distribution of controlled substances also work this way, with the front business being a drop point for drug pickups that are hidden by the legitimate business that many people who have no knowledge of the covert activities also use.
Using an insider in a public business as a way of communicating secret messages is also explored in *Spy x Family* (with deeper use of codes), but the larger the community the less likely it is that a common code will be useful. Since 20th century mail was even more secure than it is now, so tough codes for seemingly innocent letters to hubs that get lots of mail in the course of business from all sorts of third-parties isn't necessary.
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Believe or not, this actually existed in 1998 - in the form of [MUDs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD) and [MMORPGs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_massively_multiplayer_online_games), by that time already quite mature and widespread social phenomena (I almost wrote *networks*). Since these were mostly fantasy oriented scenarios, one of them could have been used by this minority and the rest of humanity would be no wiser. 1 in 1000 means there are about 5 million members, going by the typical computer savviness of the time, perhaps one in 100 actively participates in the "game", that means about 50 thousand members - quite within the capabilities of some of the bigger worlds.
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I think your question has been already answered by Umberto Eco in his Foucault's Pendulum: the secret society disguises the bulletin under the cover of art/fictional work, which can be decoded only having the right key.
To a reader without the key, the document would read like an enjoyable work of fiction. To the reader with the key, it would read like a newsletter.
And this has the benefit that whoever tries to uncover the secret society can be exposed to the ridicule of taking a fictional work for real.
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**Letters to the Editor / Personal Ads**
Before I get into the mechanics, I'm going to backtrack a little bit. Information is a valuable commodity, something which gets lost among the modern era of the Age of Information, where it is disseminated quite freely. But, make no mistake, it *is* a precious commodity, and among a community which needs to be *very* concerned about its own information getting leaked? That information is going to be *premium*.
A newspaper, or even an online message board, is going to be unlikely just because the information regarding specific subsets of the population is going to heavily and zealously guarded - after all, would *you* willingly share information that could get your entire clan revealed to the normals and wiped out?
Information will get out in two types - one, the informants and information brokers, i.e. people who specialize in this field and travel around, relaying dense pieces of information by word of mouth, the safest available option. But, presumably, there would be a need for mass non-specific information given out on occasion - let us say there's a calamity of some kind, or a community needs to call out for help fast but can't risk it.
There's an old trick to this - coded personal ads. (Letters to the editor works, but you have to get it published, and that can get tricky.) A coded personal ad is simple - just use keywords. The best cover for this would be some wildlife preserve society, i.e. 'A J. Thomas has noticed an unusual pack of wolves migrating north, he requests all aide that can be given to help track the migrating patterns. Please forward all information about it to P.O Box 1234', where 'J. Thomas' is the master phrase which indicates this is a secret demographic message.
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# [Flash Drives for Freedom!](https://flashdrivesforfreedom.org/)
There is a fantastic organisation called [Flash Drives for Freedom](https://flashdrivesforfreedom.org/) of volunteers who are doing what they can to smuggle in information, news and entertainment from the outside world to the people of North Korea.
The packages of news are dropped into NK a number of ways, by secret delivery, hand drops, drone drops, traditional smuggling etc (details on exactly how it is done are sketchy (for obvious reasons!) but there is a fantastic episode of Darknet Diaries which covers it [here](https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/71/).
Consdier:
1. Your smugglers should be committed and trustworthy - can't have any faction defectors letting the wrong people know, or worse perform a man in the middle attack.
2. The news must be in small packages which could be swallowed or hidden in a pinch if necessary.
3. Perhaps your immortal news network have set up a relatively safe haven they can work from?
4. Worried about the wrong people finding the information drop? Encryption is your friend. Consider our friends at [Potterwatch](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Potterwatch) - you need to know the password, and a new password is supplied in the old drop. Once you're out of the loop, or you're not in it you will need to find it out by asking other immortals - and the other immortals are hardly going to tell the bad humans how to get in!... right?
Essentially, smuggling news to people is really hard, but a motivated enough group of people would be able to make something happen.
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Being immortal, these people have existed for centuries. Long before the internet was even thought of and long before [Gutenberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg) invented the printing press with moveable type & printed the Bible, which later allowed gazettes and pamphlets to be printed and disseminated.
These people established their communication system long before that.
People have always traveled and they also know their own - someone always knows someone, somewhere else. They would travel from their own community in one location to another such community in a different location. Before embarking on a journey someone would say to the traveler, "when you get to your destination be sure to contact such and such, give such and such this message and be sure to give such and such this gift, or remind such and such of my friendship" - community appropriate symbolism.
They still maintain this system now and augment it with current forms of communication such a Facebook or Tik Tok, but in a "community appropriate manner" and nothing blatantly obvious that could identify them. The "others" might think it quirky, but a bit of fun.
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## Numbers Stations and One-Time Pads
[Numbers Stations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station) are a very real phenomenon of mystery radio signals being broadcast from various locations in many nations.
The content varies wildly, most famous is the archetypal "numbers", which is usually the verbal readout of a series of numbers either by human, or a synthesised voice.
Not all of them do this, some of them broadcast snatches of music, or a series of tones.
The common belief is that these stations serve as a one-way communication with spies and other people who need secret updates regularly.
Sound familiar?
The catch is that the best way to keep this system secure is to use one-time pads, so the numbers would correspond to individual letters or words on a pad held by the listener, and once the transmission was made, the next one would use a different page of the one-time pad.
This obviously doesn't work for a large population. Imagine trying to distribute 10s of thousands of physical one-time pads!
One solution might be for the pad-data to be provided digitally.
Members of the demographic would physically go to a safe location where they can get an app on their phone updated with a more recent data-set once a month or so.
The other major hangup is that Numbers Station transmissions are typically short and more than a bit labourious to decode since you have to cross-reference the numbers with the one-time pad, usually by hand.
You wouldn't want to transcribe a magazine article by this method!
What might make more sense, since we're already talking about a digital one-time-pad which you update routinely would be to further automate the process.
The numbers-station transmission would encode much much more complex data.
Think something like a dial-up-modem noise.
A series of rapid tones which the phone-app could decode into complex messages on the fly using one-time-pad style cryptographic techniques.
This would allow your secret community to receive routine updates as long as they're willing to go to whatever community-run safehouse is nearest and update their phones with the latest set of keys.
The biggest issue is that the phone-app itself will be a [Shibboleth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth). Any humans who learn of its existence can identify a member of the community by stealing their phone and finding "Wolfnewsnet App" on its homepage.
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**Hiding in plain sight**
Publish a tabloid with sensationalist headlines and distribute en masse in grocery stores and newsstands-- the kind of tabloids with stories about how Elvis is still alive and has had a baby with Bigfoot and JFK. People seeing the cover will think it's obviously nonsense and probably only a few people will wonder at why many of the articles inside providing details about the annual vampire's ball at the local community center seem almost plausible.
Hire actors to play deranged lunatics standing on street corners, wearing tinfoil hats, screaming about how it's all a giant conspiracy and the tabloids are telling the truth. This will result in anyone who closely scrutinizes the tabloids to lose any credibility if they express similar opinions, they'll likely choose to keep their opinions to themselves and second-guess any theories they come up with.
Want to have large social gatherings of your secret demographic? Host a comic con or something similar (cosplay required) then just walk around and catch up with your old friends.
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## Online auctions of unpopular software as an excuse to post disks
Who still purchased copies of Wordperfect 2.0 in 1998? Vampires, werewolves, and others like them. They simply slipped in a couple of extra files onto the already archaic 3.5" floppy disks that could be read with a hex editor.
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**SHORT ANSWER:**
If I belonged to such a community, I would have
1. **messages hidden by steganography in** the bits of low weight coding for the colors of pixels in **image memes broadcasted on social media**;
2. a program publishing a meme a day, most often empty, but hiding in it the secrete messages to transmit takend from a queue; and
3. a program monitoring automatically all the pictures memes published by some accounts on social media for such messages hidden in it.
**MORE DETAILED ANSWER:**
For the record: one decade ago I started downloading a lots of memes, and a few years ago I ran an experiment to try to detect if they were used for such communication, but I did not find much difference in the entropy of the bits of low weight of memes found on the internet with pictures of similar resolution from my own archives.
That does not prove that nobody is using such technique to communicate, because
1. the members of such a community might share their memes only in a given community, of which I did not download any memes because I did not make a conscious effort to download memes from other communities than my own).
2. there are other, better, techniques than hiding in the bits coding for the colors of the pixels in png images, such as parameters in the encoding of jpeg images: such search was left as "future work".
Note that even if the messages are encrypted before being hidden in images, the distribution and entropy of the bits composing it is expected to be different from that of the bits of the image (but I did not check this formally).
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Let's write some novels. I'm specifically thinking of *Princess of Wands* and *Queen of Wands*, by *John Ringo*. They are set in the same universe--Earth, present day, but there is a supernatural shadow war (although the events at the end of *Queen of Wands* would thrust it onto the front page if it didn't end there) going on. Let's write some more, multiple authors writing in the same universe.
Now, let's write a newsletter to keep those various authors informed of how the universe they are writing in evolves rather than just writing in a static universe. So long as the items in the newsletter aren't practical for outsiders to verify why would said outsiders realize it was anything more than skillful coordination?
Note that the stories verifiably fiction--they describe events which clearly did not happen. Why would an outside observer realize the newsletter isn't fiction?
[Answer]
Cryptography, namely *cyphers*, offer a few options around **hiding large amounts of information in plain sight.**
Essentially you can encrypt whatever data you want, then transmit apparent randomness through any medium you like, such as sound, light, radio waves.
Examples of this:
* A TV station that just shows "static", but putting the video signal through a decryption yields a newscast, or text, or any form of data really.
* Popular songs on the radio are encrypted with an inaudible sound that is the datastream of a news outlet.
* A light quickly flickering on top of a hill is unintelligible morse code-like transmission that can be decrypted into intelligible words
* The printed newspaper ink is little dots under a microscope, but those dots are actually spaced perfectly to encode a message (which also appears to be nonsense but can be decrypted)
Every one of the characters would have to have a "decoder" to intercept the transmission, a "cypher" device to do the decryption and a "key" for the decryption to work, but you can be imaginative with that too.
To learn more- look into [Cyphers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipher)
[Answer]
Publish a magazine that has a serialised graphic novel. All of the mundanes will believe it is a work of fiction, but the actual news is hidden within each issue of the story.
You'll have to avoid making it too obvious of course, so you'll have to use a bit of artistic flair (and interpretation by the reader).
[Answer]
There's a number of criptographic as well as steganographic techniques the immortals may rely on, but all of them are dangerous in the long term. Secret keys leak, cryptoanalysis develops, and available computing power increases, so there're chances any secret message will be read by humans, sooner or later. Unwilling to be discovered, the immortals must avoid preservation of any - even encrypted - messages.
It means that *only destroyable media should be used for secret messaging* - one can't publish anything in a human newspaper, for instance; letters, various disks and the like should be destoryed by their receivers, human delievery services should be avoided lest something get lost or copied. The Internet and its analogues are extremely dangerous, only the immortals' own intranets will do.
(By the way, books are extremely dangerous; the immortals would rather remember and retell even long texts, and may have rather different attitude towards literacy)
It's not really convenient, yes. I guess *many would prefer oral news exchange*; somebody may travel between different immortal communitites spreading the news. These immortals would neither phone each other, nor write letters, nor anything like this.
P.S. Whatever the communication system is, single immortal must be unable - willingly or not - to betray it completely.
P.P.S. It's out of scope of your question, but *the immortals would be really concerned with all the modern privacy issues* - video surveillance ([it's said](http://www.notbored.org/10may97.html) the 1997th year saw the first protest against CCTV, by the way), audio surveillance (though they still would have no overhearing smartphones), Internet privacy issues, etc. Leaving cities and avoiding modern technologies may mitigate these problems, but one doesn't simply conceal such a number of isolationist technophobes.
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# Adult entertainment
Imagine if there were places where you would need to authenticate anyone who enters.
Be it adult section of the video library or a topless bar, you can justify security as well as authentication and/or membership needed.
This also happens to be the topic of Robert Rodriguez movie (and inspired series) **From Dusk Till Dawn**.
[Answer]
Having a bulletin board with a password, and posting the content within would hide it in plain sight. Looks like a weird fan-fiction/fantasy website to anyone who sees it accidently.
Otherwise the page has the trappings of a LARP page.
Who would believe it is real?
[Answer]
**Technical solution**
This is easy. Use TLS encryption and you are fine. The only thing that's difficult is to verify new users.
**Fun solutions**
While the technical solution is super easy, you could also use any of the many fun non-technical solutions from the other answers, but they aren't nearly as effective.
**The real issue**
Communication is not the issue, that's easy. The real issue is that you have 8 million people to hide. That's a huge amount of people. None of these people can ever mess up. Not a single one is allowed to ever spill the secret, even when they are tired, drunk and stressed. Never are they allowed to accidentally use their abilities or show what makes them special.
Considering how often accidents happen even on TV, which is one of the most controlled environments, it will be basically impossible to hide the whole population.
What will really spill the secret will not be the mode of communication, but day-to-day life.
Spy networks can stay secret, because everyone there is a trained spy with no real life going on during the spying operations. But you have 8 million people. You will probably have overworked single moms. You will have senile seniors. You will have reckless teenagers. You will have washed-up drunkards. And not a single one of them can ever slip up.
**The real solution**
Your people cannot be allowed to actually "live in the world". They need to live physically separated from the real world, only ever rarely really interacting with the real world.
Harry Potter does that by magically hiding the living quarters of magical folk and liberal use of handwaving.
Moving the people to a separate community in areas of low density has been tried many times an the past, and it failed pretty much every time, so that alone won't help.
[Answer]
I feel like the easiest method for the demographic would be to have their own language, especially if it is different from most languages, and the demographic is extremely hostile to attempts to learn it. Then send letters & pamphlets in said language.
This is because it is almost impossible to reverse engineer a language without knowing what a certain passage means, and then it is still difficult. It also explains why the demographic is hiding all of their messages. It is also one of the few methods that were available in the long long ago, when I presume the demographic existed. So with all these a "secret" language looks to be the most probable option.
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They own a science fiction and fantasy magazine, distributed globally via post, and the editors have been werewolves since the 1930s.
Anyone can submit stories there, but certain authors names mean the story is of "special interest"; something like having the same first two letters in name and surname (Stephen Strange). The editors could easily reject any outsider that matches the rule by chance, or request they use an alias.
Being a fantasy magazine, the stories are expected to deal with the supernatural, so they would call no special attention, and no one would be surprised by Walter Waters always writing merfolk stories.
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**Magic, of Course**
You want a wholly separate channel of communication that can't be tapped, won't be found by scientists or engineers and requires skills to use that bar all but your qualifying group to have access to. It also has to be ready to go from the start of history.
The only qualifying capability would be a magic based system that is completely invisible and inaccessible by ordinary folks. The daily briefing is duplicated magically to each subscriber's briefing book. The briefing book is invisible and intangible(when not in use). This prevents mundanes from seeing or even feeling the briefing book.
Should they manage to capture or kill a magical being while they are reading it, it's still invisible and can revert to intangible as soon as they die or lose consciousness. It would take a very rare combination of circumstances to leave the book discoverable by mundanes even by touch. I assume that's wanted for story purposes.
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[Question]
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I was looking at the questions where [Everything Joe](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/31904/everything-joe-says-is-true-how-can-he-most-help-humanity) [says is](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/31349/everything-joe-says-is-true-how-can-he-get-around-it) [true](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/68988/everything-joe-says-will-become-true-can-anybody-notice) and I thought it would be interesting to explore the inverse superpower.
Bob isn't just a pathological liar, but if he says a true statement, the fabric of reality will be altered to make his statement false in some way. This takes the path of least resistance and will alter as little as possible to make his statements observably false, so for instance if he states that you scored 99/100 on a test (and you did), your score would suddenly become 98 or 100. If Bob states a paradox, nothing happens. People automatically disbelieve any statements he makes. In addition, this superpower is permanent and cannot be removed through anything he might say or any interaction with other superpowers that might exist. As an additional limitation, any statement that, if false, would harm himself or another human (or bring the end of humanity as we know it) is nullified. He also cannot affect his own memory, personality, or desires through a falsified statement.
There are ways to manipulate this in his favor, such as stating the opposite of what he wants in the simplest way possible, but because as little as possible is changed, this can be tricky in some cases since only one detail of his statement must be false in order to render the entire statement technically false.
The problem is that it's hard to get anyone to trust you when you have a track record of only saying lies and nobody ever believes you. How does Bob build any sort of meaningful relationship of trust with anyone?
EDIT: This effect extends to written language and sign language, so pretending to be mute is not an option for getting around it. It is also affected only by what is literally said, so stating something sarcastically produces the same effect as if it were said seriously. Questions and imperative sentences also have no effect since they do not assert any factual information.
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**You misunderstand trust: I trust Bob completely.**
A lack of trust comes from *unpredictability* and *betrayal.* Bob hasn't betrayed me because I trust him completely: he will always speak falsely. Frankly, that makes him a great deal more honest than many people I know, people whose honesty is unpredictable and therefore untrustworthy.
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> Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid. — *Jack Sparrow*
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[Answer]
# Don't Talk
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> "I have, at most, level 4 [ASLPI](https://www.gallaudet.edu/the-american-sign-language-proficiency-interview/aslpi/aslpi-proficiency-levels) proficiency level."
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Then Bob can just play deaf. And if necessary, make himself temporarily deaf. Communicate with sign language, or writing if necessary. But it may not be necessary, since he can just tell someone that they are not sign proficient either.
Edit: striking previous part of answer due to question edit, but leaving it for posterity/comments.
# Bob, the pessimistic super doctor
Work in a hospital. Always complain. "This patient won't survive." "That will leave scar." "It will take at least five hours of physical therapy before she can walk again." "You have cancer."
So no-one will trust what Dr. Bob says. But they will trust that he can save any patient, cure any illness.
Beyond that, go into the labs and complain that their research isn't ready. "You haven't finished your cure for the cold." "It only works on specific strains of the virus." "It has side effects." "It takes multiple doses." "It takes more than a day to work." "It costs more than 5 dollars to manufacture a dose." "It doesn't taste like chocolate."
[Answer]
>
> There are ways to manipulate this in his favor, such as stating the opposite of what he wants in the simplest way possible, but because as little as possible is changed, this can be tricky in some cases since only one detail of his statement must be false in order to render the entire statement technically false.
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Bob wants actually to state things not as simply as possible, since as you mentioned, this leads to several possible outcomes. He wants to state things as **precise** as possible.
"My net worth is at most 10 dollars", has the logical (and only possible) opposite "My net worth is more than 10 dollars" (and Bob will have net worth of 10.01 dollars if taking the path least resistance).
"The set of people who distrusts me is non empty" has opposite "The set of people who distrusts me is empty", i.e. no one distrusts Bob...
[Answer]
When Bob wants to communicate, he doesn't make statements. He asks questions that lead people to the correct conclusions or uses imperatives.
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> Mr. X: Bob, what is behind this door?
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> Bob: Would you believe there's a
> tiger behind the door? Don't open the door.
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---
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> Mr. X: Bob, where's the report you were supposed to hand in?
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> Bob: Where would you expect it to be?
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> Mr. X: On my desk in my in-box.
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> Bob: **It's not there.** Or is it?
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---
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> Mr. X: Bob, why do you always ask questions instead of directly
> telling what you want?
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> Bob: Hypothetically, if an honest person was
> incapable of making a true statement because of a cursed super-power,
> how do you think such a person would communicate?
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[Answer]
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> There are seconds during this week/month/year that you will not trust me a bit. --Bob
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[Answer]
Easy. Bob can gain people's trust through his actions. If he acts to help people, that will show he's trustworthy.
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Pretend he's mute, keep his mouth shut and write everything down.
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My answer assumes that Bob can not predict *HOW* things will change, just that they will change, in subtle ways. Also, I am assuming that Bob can and will voluntarily answer your questions. I am also assuming that this works for any *PREDICTIONS* Bob makes. That is, any prediction that he makes will never be true. I am also assuming that Bob, in god faith, can tell the truth as it was at the time of him saying it.
I am not sure if the issue is in not being able to trust that the answer Bob gives you is the truth, but in being able to absolutely trust that the answer Bob gives you is NOT the truth.
If a betting man knew that Bob's answer could always be trusted to ultimately NOT be true, then a betting man could make a lot of money.
'Bob, what team will win the Series?' Then bet AGAINST the team he says. 'I will bet you that your favorite team x will NOT win the Series'. 'Oh, come ON, they are sure to win the series. You're ON, man, you're ON'.
Of course, a person with criminal intent would WANT him to tell the truth, so that it would become the *UNtruth*.
'Bob, try that door and tell me if it is locked?' In which case, you WANT him to tell the truth, that it is locked, so that it then becomes the UNtruth.
'Bob, is that watchman who is looking at us paying attention to us?'
'Bob, is that merchant charging for his goods?'
'Bob, will you tell the judge the truth about my guilt?' It doesn't matter if the judge believes him or not, but as soon as Bob says I am guilty, I am no longer guilty.
It would seem to me, that the utility and the advantage of having Bob as a friend would not be in what Bob says is the truth, but what *HAPPENS* in response to his telling the truth. That it reliably and immediately becomes the *UNtruth* in some way.
In day to day conversations as a friend, one could easily accommodate his eccentricities, if one knew absolutely that whatever he said, even if said in good faith, would be wrong.
'Bob, how much money do you have?' Bob: 'I have ten dollars'. So, if Bob answered truthfully in good faith, you know he has approximately ten dollars, but not exactly ten dollars.
'Bob, what time is it?' Bob: 'It is ten o'clock'. So again, if Bob is answering truthfully in good faith, and tells you the correct time, then you know it is AROUND ten o'clock but not exactly ten o'clock.
If he always answers with an approximate answer, that is close to the truth, you of course can always accommodate. The trick is to learn to ask Bob the question in the right way.
So those who perhaps find utility in Bob, and want to capitalize on his powers, but also want to have a good relationship with him on good faith, would have no problems as long as they always knew his good-faith answers were *APPROXIMATE* answers, and his devious faith answers were always the truth as he knew it at the time of his response. You and Bob would know the answer would be immediately incorrect as soon as he gave the response.
And, of course, there is the situations along the lines of: Bob: 'I need to go to the bathroom right now' means that, if it were the truth, Bob NO LONGER has to go to the bathroom right now, but he WILL have to go to the bathroom AGAIN (is that the right term) shortly.
in such a way, as long as the other person wanted to have a relationship with Bob, and Bob always responded in good faith with the truth, but both of you *knew* it was no longer the truth but approximately the truth, the relationship would work out.
So, really, it is about how much the OTHER person wants to have a good relationship with Bob, and is willing to accommodate, provided Bob enters the relationship in good faith.
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In a computer game "Divinity: Original Sin II" there was one character, a talking mouse, who was cursed and as a result could only tell lies. When you meet him, he wants you to remove the curse, but, of course, he can't simply tell you about it, because that would be the truth he cannot tell. So he simply reverses everything and says something like "I am not a mouse. I don't have this curse that makes me always tell a lie. I don't think you could help me and remove the curse by doing so and so... Doing so and so. It wouldn't help. Got it?" Can't your Bob just do the same?
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How linguistically savvy is this superpower? How linguistically savvy is Bob?
I'm assuming here that Bob wants to communicate the truth and wants to be trusted. I'm also going to be treating the superpower as an antagonist to this goal.
If the superpower can recognize the intent of his statements and will change the truth of the part he intends to communicate, he's kind of stuck (although [maria\_c's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/142475) is a good one for getting as close as possible to the truth).
If, however, the superpower only analyzes his statements in terms of syntax and semantics, Bob can work around the limitation in various ways.
First, he can use questions instead of statements. While declarative sentences have a truth value (as long as they aren't paradoxes), interrogative sentences do not. So if he wanted to tell you that Madrid is the capital of Spain, he could ask you "Did you know that Madrid is the capital of Spain?"
Second, he could always tell you what he wants you to know in a [content clause](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_clause). This will still involve a declarative sentence, but by selecting the main clause carefully he can make a sentence that is already false (and therefore exempt from the power), but that nevertheless has a true content clause. For example: "No one knows that Madrid is the capital of Spain." People already know that Madrid is the capital of Spain, therefore the statement is false. It can't be further falsified and the superpower won't touch it.
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You kind of answered your own question, he can't remove this superpower by stating he has it so he can go up to anyone, explain the way the power works and then demonstrate it using some easy cases. People will be skeptical at first but will believe him after enough convincing examples.
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He looks at the person and speaks: "You don't trust me".
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### Over do it
Bob needs to say everything in an exaggerated fashion. "This is the tastiest sandwich I've ever eaten! This is the least comfortable chair--ever!" People will get used to this and discount his statements. But if he only exaggerates, they will trust the *direction* of the statements. It would be as if he said something milder, e.g. "Good sandwich." He will be regarded as loony rather than untrustworthy.
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**NOTE: This answer assumes Bob cannot make people trust him simply by saying "You don't trust me".**
It's very easy to get people to trust him. Simply announce in a loud voice the opposite of what you want and soon people will pick up that the opposite will happen. If you want people to notice faster do it in a casino.
It will take some time to fine-tune what to say, but this is essentially a wish granting power. You just have to phrase it a little weird.
Your friends will all want you to say things like
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> My company's value will go down
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Or
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> It'll land on black
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Or
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> Your marriage won't last
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Several economic indicators are like this. Things like more stocks being issued (IPOs) and more credit being available happens before a [stock market crash](https://qz.com/1190393/the-investors-guide-to-spotting-the-signs-of-a-stock-market-crash/). People watch these and try to time the market (but rarely succeed).
The real curse is to say the truth but have no one believe you like [Cassandra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra)
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It is really simple.
Don't try to make them believe you. Always tell the lie that they won't believe to get them to realize the truth.
If your friend asks if you want to head out to dinner and you do, actually want to, say "no." Your friend will know that you can't tell the truth and know what you are saying.
Once enough people know about the power, everyone will know that he has to speak that way.
Also, he would be in high demand for anything that requires safety.
Any time he gets on an airplane, all he has to say is "this plane will not land safely."
He can be the benevolent doomsayer.
[Answer]
In @KaspervandenBerg 's answer:
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> There are seconds during this week/month/year that you will not trust me a bit. --Bob
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due to least resistance, you end up with people only trusting bob ***slightly more*** than a bit.
I propose this:
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> You trust **me** less than you trust **everyone else**.
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[Answer]
Bob can be a superhero and become rich really easy.
All he needs to do is to spread conspiracy theories.
Bob says the Earth is flat. The Earth assumes a spherical geometry. Had Bob not used his power, we would eventually be suffocated by the giant elephants' magical freezing farts which keep the frozen barrier st the rim in place, or we would eventually be smashed by the cosmic turtle's sexual partner.
Bob says aliens are abducting people and probing their cavities. Now the aliens can't do that - Bob is a one man X-com!
Bob says planes leave out chemtrails that are used for mind control. Now they don't anymore! Take that, Illuminatti!
And so on. The only conspiracy theories he can't defeat are vaccine and GMO related ones, because those can actually cause direct harm to people.
So most everyone from the average Joe to the eggheads of our time will not trust Bob, but that's not a problem. He will have the undisputed and unwavering trust and loyalty of basically every Infowars follower. He can even take over Alex Jones's place and make huge loads of cash that way.
Heck, Bob could even easily become the next republican president, and he would save the world from climate change by claiming that coal is cleaner than solar and wind power.
[Answer]
Simple, there's a class of people that do similar all the time: Be a denialist speaker.
Many people will believe what's most convenient if it's said with authority and minimal requirement for thinking or action on their part. Just look at flat earthers, climate deniers, anti-vaxxers, and similar.
Just support wrong things with momentum, and everything suppporting that wrong thing will believe him.
[Answer]
Couldn't Bob simply tell someone he meets like some girl he likes very much and after many different machinations and presumed falsehoods he'd say something like "You simply do not understand me" by accident? In that way someone actually WOULD understand Bob's superpower without being harmed? Then communication could be carried out albeit in a very curiously and perhaps very humorous way. Just a thought.
It would be interesting to have a scene of an argument between Joe and Bob perhaps... I don't know how you'd do it but it could amount to a superpower Abbot and Costello routine.
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He lies all the time. Even if says the truth, it changes to an untruth because he said it. So, the truth is something that is not a fact when he says it is. What he says is either a lie or about to be a lie. But he wants to build people’s trust. He begins by speaking only about the trifle things. It will be noticed that Bob’s lies do not touch anything that should be unchanged because the benefits of everyone who Bob wants to trust him depend on it. He learns to know what benefits people and stays away from mentioning those things. He must be very careful, for any of his statement can catch the fringes of the important and shift it. Other than that, he can speak lies as much as he wants. About the things that they have no idea of, for example. He earns people’s trust into a fact that he would never speak about the important things. What Bod is talking about is not important. They can take it to the bank. Once they think so, he can return and attack benefits. There is nothing important now, for he seems to speaks about everything. Either an unimportant thing is true or false does not make difference under a certain point. The only thing they know for sure that Bob would never speak about it if it would be of any importance. The only thing that is left true is Bob.
[Answer]
Bob says a variation of
"[Person's name] doesn't know about my inability to tell the truth"
Then his power will kick in and cause that person to know about Bob's power somehow. Bob can work out the exact phrasing with trial and error.
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since the vast majority of statements have a direct negation, always speaking the thruth is the same as always telling a lie (as long as Bob is aware of this), it's exactly the same as the linked probles about Joe always saying the thruth, once both Bob and the people around him realize he is always lying, he can just invert what he thinks, say it, and other people can invert what he is saying once again, it becomes the same as if Joe was telling the truth without the 2 inversions.
You can trust Bob exatly the same as you trust Joe.
[Answer]
(1) Bob always mutters, "Not", after every statement. He can disguise it as a cough or say it very, very quietly.
(2) Bob says, "From now on, I will sometimes tell a lie.
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Bob will always be rich. "Fred, if you ask me tomorrow if I won the lottery, I won't give you a thousand dollars" Of course Fred will ask Bob. Bob will say "No, I didn't" and will give Fred a thousand dollars.
Bob will be easy to trust, as long as his friends understand his answers, and ask questions in such a way that there is only one false answer.
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Bob can just always under promise. If Bob knows it will take him three days to finish a task he can promise to have it done in a week. Since the outcome is better than promised he will have technically have not told the truth, but people will still be happy with the results. For other interactions, sarcasm, it's basically the art of saying false things and people still understanding the meaning.
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I am afraid things wouldn't go very well for Bob.
First of all, the superpower he has, would need to be sentient to decide what is "minimum" change of reality and to twist Bob's words so that something "minimal" occurs, when he expected a different change.
Since we generally know which objects we refer to, when we speak, it is only possible to be misunderstood by somebody else.
So, Bob's superpower would be in control of what happens.
And Bob would be simply demonically possessed. Hag-ridden if you will. Lacking free agency in regard to his power. He would have to invent all the ways described in other answers for achieving things, all the way checking back at his controller - is this OK?
## I would think he'd go mad.
If, on the other hand, there is no sentience in his superpower, he is better of, but still just a single person.
Depending on his intelligence and prudence, he might be quite well off, but if he is not extremely cautious - does publicity stunts, enters some field of competition with high stakes - politics, for example, - he will draw attention, and among that attention he will be figured out well enough at some point that
## Some people with a measure of power currently, will simply put him in a solitary cell, tape his mouth and visit him periodically, removing the tape for just as long as for him to say what they have written for him to say.
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A lot has been said about how to trust someone who always lies and that Bob could simply speak people trusting him into existence due to his powers. So I won't bother there.
I'm answering from the perspective that someone learns about his reality warping powers, not just his lies. *(I'm assuming Bob doesn't remove the memory.)* Essentially Bob is omnipotent. I don't think I can willingly trust someone who is omnipotent, because what does willingly even mean by that point? How could I ever be certain they aren't changing reality constantly for fun? How could I be certain any friendly act is not preceded by a long line of horrible acts they warped away?
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[Question]
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Imagine a single, long, straight stretch of track. On the track there is a train heading in one direction at 100 km/h and a second train heading towards it at 200 km/h. The latter train is a special priority train that should not slow down at any cost.
*Edit: Let us assume the trains are 75 km apart, resulting in 15 minutes until a full-on collision if no action is taken. Answers needn't adhere to this guideline.*
**How do I prevent the former train from slowing down the latter without causing major damage to the former train?**
Answers adjusting the infrastructure or train construction before the encounter are acceptable, so long as there are **no fixed bypasses or signals**.
Reasons why such a long, single track may exist could, for example, be:
* The line is temporary or new and only a single track has been completed.
* There are spacial limitations such as the line running through a narrow valley/ravine
* There are structural limitations such as the surrounding ground being highly expensive to stabilise sufficiently
* There are political or cultural limitations such as funding cuts, building permissions, heritage bridges/tunnels or surrounding nature reserves
[Answer]
## The Fast and the Furiously Crazy
Since you've eliminated the sensible solution (bypasses or double tracks), let's go with an insane one!
All your trains have rail tracks running on top of them and extra wagons with ramps at the front and back. When a priority train approaches, they lower the ramps onto the rails and the priority train drives straight over them as if it were a bridge.
Some notes:
* The slower train should drive at maximum speed if overtaken from behind or stop if the prio train approaches from the front.
* The ramps will need to be very long to prevent the prio train from jumping the tracks or going completely airborne. Rollercoaster-like guardrails could assist here, adding the weight of the bottom train to the downward force.
* This only works with very straight tracks. Very. Straight.
* It is not recommended to attempt overtaking a train that is overtaking another.
A more boring but slightly more sensible variant of this is that the slower train stops at a depression/valley in the track so that the rails on top become level. You could even have moving sections of track that can lower so that the slow train when stopped there is essentially replacing that section with its roof rails. This might count as a fixed bypass though.
## Sideways treads
Here is a second more boring solution: All locomotives and wagons are powered and carry retractable treads underneath that allow sideways movement. These treads are wide and solid to support the train, but have indentations to protect the rail bars from damage.
When a train is commanded to make way it comes to a stop, lowers the treads to the ground and moves to the side until it is clear of the tracks. After the prio train has passed, it rolls back onto the track, aligning the wheels with the rails carefully, then retracts the treads and resumes its journey on the rails.
In these trains, each wagon has its own electric motors for driving both wheels and treads. This increases the total weight of the train, but distributes it better than pure locomotive/unpowered wagons so there is no 250 ton locomotive to move onto the mud. The locomotive in this case mostly houses the (diesel) generators that supply electricity to the train and the controls.
The ground next to the train tracks needs to be level and sturdy enough to support the weight of the train, but not quite to the standard of the rails themselves.
[Answer]
**Two trains become one.**
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> On the track there is a train heading in one direction at 100 km/h and a second train heading towards it at 200 km/h.
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You do not specify the distance between them. If there is some distance there is time for this maneuver.
1. Slow train slows down, stops, goes into reverse.
2. Previously slow train accelerates, in reverse, until it is going almost 200 km/h.
3. Fast train will slowly close the distance. When the two trains are very close, they are linked. This is not something routinely done with fast moving trains but is done all the time with slow moving trains. It does not seem outrageous; relative to one another the trains are barely moving, or even not moving. It is akin to refuelling a plane in flight except easier because the trains are on the same track.
4. You now have one fast train, going the specified direction at the specified speed. The fast train did not have to break stride. The slow train did not leave the tracks. You did not have to build anything new.
The neat thing about trains is that the size of the train is fluid - it can be longer or shorter according to need, and trains can be merged and split.
[Answer]
# Jackscrews
The slow train will come to a complete stop. At both ends of each of its cars, two outrigger hydraulic- or screw jacks (each as tall as the train) are extended outwards to beyond the fast train's width, and after this downwards to beyond the height of the fast train, lifting up the entire slow train. Effectively, this forms a tunnel underneath the slow train through which the fast train can travel.
After the fast train has passed, the train will be lowered exactly to its original position. If necessary, minor corrections can be performed laterally by varying the outrigger's position.
For those who believe one cannot lift a heavy train with compact jack screws or hydraulic jacks, look no further than self driving cranes.
Apparently, a prototype already exists:
(both images from Wikimedia)
[Answer]
I have an idea which I'll try to put into writing but it might not be obvious what I'm driving at. I actually had a couple of thoughts on this but one may be more sensible than the other.
## Up and Over
My initial thought was that one of the trains, probably the 200 km/h one as it would already likely be a streamliner, would be designed in such a way that it's front is like a ramp and it has rails built into the ramp which run along the track in front of it. These rails continue over the carriage roof and the rear of the train look like the front. The oncoming train could then be forced to run over the top of the fast train. This does however require that the train that goes over is able to climb an unrealistic gradient although oncoming speed may assist. It also assumed that there are no overhead electricity cables but that the train above is able to continue to proceed without a "third rail" either.
## Shall we dance?
As an alternative to the up and over method, I came up with something that could actually work. On a traditional track, you'd place the 100 km/h train in a siding and have it wait until the 200 km/h train had passed. I realize that this can't work because it requires you to know where the siding would need to be.
However, when you consider what a train requires, it is essentially rails on which to run. Now, imagine that each train is carrying some sort of short section of rail at its front which is angled from the right to the left of the track. When the two trains come close enough, these angled tracks collide and are forced into the rail bed. This causes the left-hand wheel set of each train to jump off the left hand track and the right hand wheel set is forced onto the left hand rail. This effectively derails both trains simultaneously causing a massive accident. However, if the tops of each train were designed to carry some sort of rail / tube on top of the train with some sort of interlocking arm, the weight of each train would be carried by the other.
Each train would hold the other up, a little like a spinning ballerina is supported by one of two feet and by a dance partner at the top of their arm, outstretched above their heads. Both locomotives would progress along the same piece of track but using just one rail each, each locomotive offset and supported by the other.
Once they had passed each other, an assembly at the rear of each train could "re-rail" the wheel sets back to their original location which would effectively by a mirror of the assembly at the front of the train.
Hopefully this makes some sense. If not, I could possibly try to sketch out how it would look.
# Edit Added sketch
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vBbtY.jpg)
## Edit 2 — "Budge Over" trains
You could potentially re-design the trains to allow the "shall we dance" method to be a little less severe. Instead of forcing the trains to jump to the opposite track, design the trains to have an angled cab with looks like a triangle when viewed from above. Along one side of the train, have interlocking "rails" which would interface with each other, shoving the oncoming train onto the side of the opposing carriage.
Redesign the wheel sets so that they had one fixed set of wheels and one "sprung" set which were floating so the trains could continue to run one wheelset on a single rail but the other would float in free air under the train.
This would effectively allow trains to "slither" past each other. Whilst this refinement to the design probably makes the solution a little more realistic, it does remove some of the grand drama that the "Shall we dance" method has.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ueFlx.jpg)
[Answer]
# You can't
Well you can, but it's going to take a few days. First you're going to need to get the infrastructure in place.
A train weighs between 1500 and 6000tons. I'm assuming this is a passenger train rather than a cargo train which could weigh nearly 100,000 tons.
We're going to need cranes in place able to lift at least 250tons just to move the engine out of the way. Such things do exist as they're part of the breakdown and derailment recovery processes but they're not exactly common, it may take a day or two just to get them into place.
You also need to make sure there's a safe and stable surface to put your engine onto that isn't the tracks. It still weighs up to 250tons, so you can't just put it down on unprepared ground and preparing ground for that sort of load takes time.
I'm sure you can see where this is going. There's no *quick and safe* way to remove a train from the tracks.
Accidental derailment also damages the tracks often over long distances, a general theme is that it takes a week to ten days to recover and repair after a relatively minor incident.
[Answer]
Use road wheels on the slower train. Build it out of railcars like these:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iEswu.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pqVxV.png)
When the faster train approaches, just stop, raise your rail wheels, and drive off the tracks.
[Answer]
On the slow train by each set of wheels also put a set of 3 wheels at 90 degrees to the main ones, each on an extending pistons.
When it needs to let the fast train pass it stops and lowers the wheels on pistons, then drives sideways off the track (it needs 3 so it can lift one to pass over the rails and still have 2 on the ground).
Once the fast train has passed it reverses the process to drive back onto the train and recenter itself then lifts the extra wheels and continues.
[Answer]
Depending on your technology level, all train tracks could be raised off the ground and have rails above and below. All East/North bound trains run on the top rails. All West/South bound trains travel hanging on the bottom side of the tracks. Inside the cars are tubes so that the ceiling can always remain up. Every 10 kilometers or so, you could have loops that could move a train from one track to another, so a faster train could overtake and pass a slower train going the same direction.
[Answer]
Your only real hope is a track gang who can move fast.
They find a place along the track near the starting position of the slow train, where a bolted joint exists that's staggered by just a few feet between the two rails. It should *not* be a special joint such as an insulated joint. If it's not there, get a rail saw and rail drill in advance, and *create* a joint. The crew stages out there with a bulldozer and a number of semiloads of track panels and a crane, and they lay down enough temporary track to easily fit the slow train.
Long before it arrives, they unbolt the main track, shove one main about 5 feet to the left, the other 5 feet to the right (the staggering decides which goes which way), grade the subgrade to level, and drop in the temporary track to meet it. Throw 2 bolts in the joint bars, no more. Have the slow train crawl into this temporary track, and about 100' past the joint.
Now you have 15 minutes to reverse. A bulldozer is already chained to the temporary track, and six other bulldozer or big SUV winches are tied to the main track, ready to pull the segments back where they belong. Yank the 2 bolts, pull the tracks over, and a few workers tighten the 6 mainline bolts while many other workers with gas powered jackhammers tamp the main track back to level. ZOOM, the other train tears through.
This is achievable with a crew that knows what it's doing. Railroad track is "lego" like that.
Rinse, wash, repeat to back the first train out onto the main again, reassemble the main, and the first train is on its way.
Of course you know, nobody goes 200kph without some sort of automatic signal systems to prevent collisions. There'll never be any danger of collision, because the signal system will stop the trains if a train is in the way or the track is severed.
[Answer]
## Hold the regular train at the last switch or junction
The question says:
>
> Answers adjusting the infrastructure or train construction before the encounter are acceptable, so long as there are **no fixed bypasses or signals**.
>
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Rail roads *always* have sidings and some form of communications specifically to keep trains from arguing over right-of-way while at mutual approach, better phrased as "colliding". Therefore, by construction of the question, at each end of this long section of single track there is a switch for double tracking, siding, or some other place where a train could wait.
A high priority train in the absence of traffic signalling should run on a timetable. The rail traffic control point at each end of the long section of track will have the latest timetable for when the high priority train is scheduled to enter and to leave that section. They will therefore hold all oncoming traffic until they observe that the high priority train has departed the section.
The rail road company would probably make a major effort to improve signalling between the control points, so that they can communicate when a train enters the section and when it leaves. This might be beyond the scope of your work, however.
This infrastructure isn't only for the benefit of the high priority train -- this is for the benefit of all trains, and maintenance as well: Any track work or blockage has to be handled without additional trains making the situation more blocked.
Edit based on comment:
Even for an unscheduled express or emergency train -- **especially** for an emergency train -- the rail road will have some form of communication specifically to prevent unintended cases of [head-on collisions](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/CrushTxBefore.jpg).
[Answer]
No problem. Captain Kirk is orbiting above the trains in the Starship Enterprise. He has Scotty take over the transporter and Scotty beams the first train behind the second to avoid the collision.
[Answer]
# Portals
Simple, place a blue portal in front of the fast train and an orange portal behind the slow train. Collision averted.
Of course, if you've got portal technology the need for trains might be a bit moot.
[Answer]
An impractical but possible 2nd answer.
The fast train has lifts at both ends and tracks on the roof.
The slow train stops, reverses, and allows fast train to catch up.
Fast train now uses front lift to raise carriage, roll it across the top of itself and put it back down with the opposite lift.
Does this with all carriages and engine then the 2 seperate and the slow train stops, reverses, continues.
[Answer]
[Catch Points](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_points)
Catch Points exist explicitly for this scenario, to redirect a runaway train off a track or away from a dangerous situation without requiring it to be slowed down.
If you need a nice ad-hoc solution using no specific rail safety measures, perhaps a dead-end track-switch or branch that never went anywhere would work in place of a purpose-built catch-point.
Just remove the end-cap/bumper that blocks the track, switch the low-priority train onto that, drive straight off the end of the track and coast on solid ground.
Once the low-priority train is out of the way, switch the track back and watch the high-priority train rush past safely.
These dead-ends can be found in a lot of places, often in places where a train track has been torn up due to age or redundancy. They might be in documentation somewhere, but narratively it's the sort of information an expert on the area would have and someone who just travels the line wouldn't notice.
This approach would be great for dramatic effect.
[Answer]
# Use a large Outrigger Suspension system
If you google "Outrigger on crane" you will find many examples of retractable rigging on smaller vehicles to prevent them from tipping over, usually cranes. The trains in your world could all be fitted with a variant of this system that is designed to hydraulically lift the cars of the train high enough to allow the other one to pass beneath.
The contact points would all be well outside of the track and it would not matter much the location at which the train stops since each contact point can be raised to a variable height. The best part is that it would only take a couple minutes to fully suspend the train. Also, since all trains could theoretically be outfitted with something like this, shifting priorities in the train schedule would have little impact.
Furthermore, the use of this technology could be justified by explaining that the cost of implementing something like this on all trains is cheaper that laying a completely separate parallel track.
[Answer]
## Rockets
Given that there are long stretches of track that the high-priority train may be traveling on, the design of the high-priority train must take into account this scenario. Ideally, it is able to handle these situations itself, as the oncoming slow train might not have the means to get out of the way, the slow train's mechanisms might fail or be maintained to a lower standard than the high-priority train's operation safely permits, etc., and the slow train might not be capable of match the high-priority train's speed for coupling manoeuvres.
The high-priority train can take care of the situation itself if it elevates itself above the track for a brief period of time. Rockets can produce enough thrust to lift a train, although each engine and carriage will need rockets attached, and will need enough fuel to fire twice - once to lift, and once to land. This will be a significant portion of the train's weight. The force will need to be great enough to lift the train for long enough to pass the underlying train; at a relative speed of 300km/h it will take 24 seconds for both trains to pass each other, and (disclaimer: I don't know rocket physics) a set of rockets with ~450kN thrust should be able to lift the train to around 250m for a safe passage, and the fuel for this will be an extra 40 tons. You'll probably need more fuel (and slightly more thrust) in case the high-priority train needs to do this multiple times, the trains' combined length is longer than the 2km I used, and to ensure you have impulse to spare when landing to ensure you can line up with the tracks again accurately. These numbers are for a 250-ton engine; less-powerful rockets will be needed for the carriages depending on their weight.
Rocket engines of this size are similar to the Merlin engines in the Falcon; depending on the number of carriages the train has, it might have a comparable amount of thrust to the complete set of engines in a Falcon-9. It still won't go very high though, because the train is aerodynamically terrible going in a direction it's not meant for, and it won't be carrying much rocket fuel.
[Answer]
Add a tilting mechanism to the carriage wheels and the side of the slow train, allowing it to stop, safely tilt itself off the side of the track, and then re-stand itself onto the track after the high-priority train passes safely.
Step 1: The train stops.
Step 2: The train extends the side mechanism all the way to the ground.
Step 3: The train extends the wheel-side mechanism while retracting the side mechanism, such that it rotates 90 degrees off the track onto its side.
Step 4: The train retracts the wheel-side mechanism, leaving the train laying safely on its side.
Step 5: The train uses the side-mechanism's articulation to pull itself a safe distance from the tracks so it out of the way of the priority express.
To re-rail the train, simply reverse the process.
[Answer]
The second train has a lower area for the first train to pass through.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pxITu.png)
You would have to use belts,gears and chain, or something to connect the second trains engine to the wheels.
Either that or the second train is 100% electric and multiple train cars have motors to spread out the work load.
[Answer]
The most realistic way to do it fast, if you don't have the infrastructure in place, is to:
1. Stop the less prioritary train;
2. Use a crane to move it off the rails;
3. Once the priority train has passed, use the crane to move the less prioritary train back onto the rails.
Cranes are awesomely strong. Just go to Google and do a dearch image for 'crane 100 tons'. You'll see that a lot.of relatively small models can lift that much. Also remember that even if your train weights much more than that, you only have to lift one wagon at a time.
[Answer]
## Helicopters
Assuming money is no object--this will be expensive, and it will require precision high speed work by skilled personnel. It should result in no harm to equipment or passengers.
There are a number of models of heavy-lift helicopters out there; [wikipedia has a list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_transport_aircraft#Transport_and_utility_helicopters). Attach lifting cables, decouple the train cars, and lift them out of the way individually.
[Answer]
former train stops and reverses. Fast train catches up. Passengers swap over to opposite train. Fast train decouples, stops, reverses direction. the former train is now the fast train, and the passengers never slowed down.
[Answer]
Magnetic Levitation
In a scenario where a fast train needs to cross a slower train on same track, it might make sense to levitate one of the trains above other.
Perhaps a levitation technology could be built into maglev trains, that allows one train to rise enough to let other pass under it on original track, without requiring other to slow down, and without pulling flying train down when other one passes under it.
Perhaps lower train could have maglev tracks on roof to support flying train when they are passing each other.
I suppose only two problems are facing us, looking at the current technology:
1. How to balance flying train: train may have tendency to fall to one or other side of track if levitated beyond a certain height. Will need support to balance above track.
2. Enormous power requirement: Through for a short duration, a lot more power than usual would be required to lift a train a few meters instead of a few mm.
PS: I don't know much about trains.
] |
[Question]
[
So, in my story, in a prelude to an epic aquatic fight scene, my main character gets chased by a great white shark. He swims as fast as he can but he can’t escape. Just to clarify, he’s wearing one of these types of underwater gear:
He gets an idea that just might work. He takes out his air tank, holds his breath as his helmet fills up with water, and puts his sealed air tank underneath him. He then unseals it and gets propelled straight out of the water. He gets on his boat, gets a harpoon gun and kills the shark.
My question is: would it be physically possible to do that with the air tank?
---
In most questions, I got a resounding “No” as an answer, so I guess this idea isn’t very plausible. But I still want to make my story action packed, so, in future answers, can you provide some sort of alternative?
[Answer]
**Here is a way to bypass the issue**
Our hero removes his air tank, points it away from himself and starts fumbling to undo the top. It's not working! He's never opened one of these things himself let alone underwater, let alone uninstructed first time around while being attacked by a shark, and these things probably have safety mechanisms to prevent stupid divers doing it on accident, and why am I doing this, why am I here oh no here he comes!
Just then the shark lunges at our hero and bites over the top end of the tank and somehow wrenches the seal out of the tank. The tank goes flying out of our hero's grasp and into the deep blue. But the blast of decompression spooks the shark and gives the diver time to escape.
[Answer]
>
> My question is, would it be physically possible to do that with the air tank?
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No.
Source: Tried it.
We've actually been taught to breathe off a tank without a regulator. You can do so by feathering the valve. But even when you fully open it, the thrust is simply not enough to propel you at a speed comparable with even relaxed finning.
Much worse than the limited thrust is the presence of **torque**. It feels like all of the modest thrust that you get goes towards spinning the tank, not moving it laterally. The torque is really strong, it's virtually impossible to hold. Even if you open a tank strongly attached to yourself - yes, I've done that - the thrust still goes towards spinning you, rather than propelling you.
A tank could be modified into an effective propulsion device using the Venturi effect, similar to aircraft [evacuation slide inflators](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation_slide#Inflation_systems), to use water as added working mass, and to push it along the tank's axis, not to the side. But that's not something you could jury-rig underwater.
For a diver not planning on this situation, using the air for breathing and fins for propulsion will give considerably more speed. Nowhere near as much as a shark, of course...
[Answer]
First of all, holding your breath while emerging from a deep dive is a really bad idea: the air in your lungs will expand as you approach the surface and will turn you into a balloon, probably killing you faster than gaseous embolism would do.\*
Then, coming to your real question, to get propulsion from a rocket in air we use a Venturi tube to accelerate the flow of hot gas at supersonic velocities, thus achieving the needed thrust. In your case we have a cold gas which can hardly be accelerated to any decent velocity, but for sure not supersonic.
I would say that it cannot work.
People who have [studied](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253909625_Simulation_of_the_Application_of_Pneumatic_Propulsion_Method_in_Tourist_Submarine) propulsion by compressed air have used it to move a propeller.
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> The possibility of application of pneumatic propulsion method in tourist submarine is analysed. Results illustrate that: on the premise of lightened quality of the propulsion system, pneumatic propulsion method fulfills the required underwater speed and it's duration.
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Gaseous embolism is what happens when gases dissolved in the blood circle get back to the gaseous state, forming bubbles which can obstruct the blood flow.
And the image below shows what happens to the swim bladder of a fish when it is pulled up on a boat from the bottom of the sea.
### Warning: graphic image
>
> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/psy1M.jpg)
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[Answer]
Alternate idea: your diver already has a propulsion device.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xeys1.jpg)
<https://blog.mares.com/understanding-scuba-divers-code-1082.html>
It is just not fast enough to get him away from the shark. Which clearly is interested but not that interested or it would have bitten him already.
The idea is taken from a scheme of how to get away from an angry bull. Your diver strips off his suit and sends it off with the propulsion device, empty suit flapping behind. The shark follows that and the diver gets away.
The diver is not Ahab. He returns to the boat and proceeds to drink beer and listen to music and watch the sunset and rejoice that he is alive.
[Answer]
**Well... kinda... maybe... Oh, alright... No.**
Have you ever tried to hold on to a fire hose? If not, [there's a reason firefighters tend to use multiple people to hold them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci_sfp1rGjE). The force behind the release of pressure is greater than the human hand/arm can compensate for.
I can easily imagine that the pressure in an oxy tank will produce the same problem. Yes, you could hold onto the harness, but the force may still rip the tank out of your hands and/or harness (which isn't designed to withstand the force).
Even if you could hold onto it, how do you direct it? You'd either be riding the tank somewhat like [Slim Pickens riding the nuke in Dr. Strangelove](https://youtu.be/3edi2Wkr5YI?t=30s) (and have about as much control) and the most likely outcome is turning reverse somersaults because your body is creating serious drag above the plane of energy release (think "pinwheel"); or you'd be hanging onto the harnes (with all the discharge in your face...) and going wherever the tank wants to take you.
This would make a great James Bond moment, the kind where you smile and slap your forehead with your hand because you know it's entirely impossible — but it's great fun to watch.
[Answer]
While it might be theoretically possible to do this, it would not be practical. Your hero would have to take off his tank (which is carried on a backpack-like harness), bring it around to where he can get his hands on it, close the tank valve, unscrew the regulator, and open the valve again. While he's doing this, the shark has plenty of time to catch and eat him.
Another detail is that the air is going to leave the tank at right angles to the tank, due to the way the valve is built: <https://www.leisurepro.com/blog/scuba-gear/a-beginners-guide-to-scuba-valves/>
Also, while I've never tried it, I really doubt that the escaping compressed air is going to supply enough force to propell your hero very far, certainly not straight out of the water. If he wants to ascend quickly from a mere 30 ft, he'd probably do better just to drop his weight belt, but even that is going to give the shark plenty of time to snatch a bite. That's the real problem here: sharks swim fast, scuba divers don't.
[Answer]
The best answer is to not put yourself in such positions =)
However, assuming you do find yourself face to face with a shark, these tanks *can* produce an [enormous](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QEaPrQa78E) amount of [force](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-xmaPSZ6GM).
The big question will be how much energy it has. Fortunately, storing energy as compressed air is a thing, so we have a [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_energy_storage) page with the required calculations!
$W=P\_bV\_b\ln\frac{p\_a}{p\_b} + (p\_b-p\_a)V\_b$
In this case:
* $V\_b$, the volume of the tank = $0.011 m^3$, a typical diving tank
* $P\_b$, the pressure of the tank = $20 MPa$, roughly 200 atmospheres, or 3000psi
* $P\_a$, the atmospheric pressure, $0.1MPa$
Plug these in, and we find roughly 370kJ of energy. That's a lot of energy. It's on [par](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(energy)) with the kinetic energy of a 55mph car! Respect these tanks.
Now there are two problems to solve here. First is that air tanks are not efficient propulsive devices. They don't have a nozzle. That's why they only blasted through a concrete wall for [Mythbusters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejEJGNLTo84), instead of doing even more damage. Your character may do well to fashion a nozzle, though I am not sure what from.
The second issue is that the designers of these tanks had a vested interest in this event *never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever* happening. Scuba divers are not interested in how well their life-supporting tank can turn into a rocket when they're 80ft below the surface. Great effort is taken to prevent this from happening. If you look at all of the videos I've linked showing the damage air cylinders can cause, they all involve the neck breaking. If you just opened the valve up, the amount of thrust you would get is negligible, by design. You really need the neck to break.
You might consider the story involving the main character choosing to go scubadiving with some horribly horribly ill maintained gear. No scuba diver worth their salt would ever use such tanks (and no dive master worth their salt would be willing to fill such a monstrosity with air). But maybe your diver is "special."
Have the shark take a bite at the main character while the main character is inverted, and have the main character dodge to cause the shark to strike the neck of the tank, and crack it. Don't sever it... that'd be too much force on the straps holding the tank to the main character's back. Now no scuba tank in an acceptable state of repair would break this way, but the main character's Macgyvered tank might fall prey to a good shark bite.
As an added bonus, you can now directly reference this event in the story as [jumping the shark](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvGopsM1G9g), which is really what this sort of stunt is.
[Answer]
Definitely, not possible. For a multitude of SCUBA medical factors and practical factors. Taking your tank off underwater, is not something that can be done quickly or easily. The idea of "shooting up" out of the water quickly, is asking for decompression sickness or baro trauma, meaning your character will likely not survive.
Better idea might be, to take off the tank (the whole scuba jacket) and hit the shark with it.
[Answer]
Maybe, if you have a grip capable of denting steel, the biggest problem is going to be staying attached to a very smooth tank that is accelerating away from you quite rapidly. You also have an issue in that the valve tends to be at right angles to the long axis of the tank making it even more unwieldy as a propulsion device.
[Answer]
As many have pointed out on here, tanks don't work that way without serious ruptures.
However, Divers already have two methods for a quick escape (both highly dangerous at anything below 30 feet do to risk of bends which requires a visit a specialized hospital visit... thankfully these exist in most coastal cities):
1. Cold Water Divers use a dry suit, which can inflate their suit, this makes them buoyant and they shoot up. The more they inflate, the faster they shoot up. And due to air expansion, they accelerate as they go up, like a rocket until they break surface or quick-release their suit valves.
2. All divers wear a weight belt or quick-release weights. Releasing these makes them more buoyant and they shoot up.
3. Do both and the diver will shoot up blindingly fast... and likely die if much below 30 feet. Should be fine if above 30 feet though, and might make a cool visual bursting out of the water.
[Answer]
**TL;DR: Lots of goriness and pieces of bloated shark**
The main issue would be pressure change so an alternative to that would be to do the opposite thing, your guy makes the shark go up really really fast from a depth of under 300 feet, and then watch your shark go into decompression sickness, the blood inside him will start to boil from dissolved gases like nitrogen, this thing its so freaking dangerous that lots of scuba divers have been kill just by getting up too fast just swimming and that's also why all the abyssal fish are bloated, they kinda explode on their way up.
[Answer]
If you were to take off your mask and hold your breath deep underwater, while trying to go to the surface, the pressure inside your lungs would force you to breathe out, or cause damage to them.
Not only that, the valve is at a right angle, so you would have some trouble there and would have to take it off for easy travel. Most people can hold their breath for 90 seconds or less, so you would have to either go really fast, or be close to the surface.
Finally, it would be very hard to control the pressure and prevent it from all depressurising in a short time to let you travel at a steady rate.
At the end of all this, you would have to be close to some air or the surface because your tank is depressurised. (unless you managed a way to control the air and even then you couldn't or it would be very hard to get the air from the tank because you opened the tank and it's very hard to close it underwater)
So in conclusion, the chances of all this happening is low, so most likely the answer is: no, it will not be able to happen in real life.
] |
[Question]
[
In the most fantasy settings there is a binary structure of the ways to achieve some practical goal, namely "magical" and/or "technological" one.
For example we have a goal to remove a mountain top, so there are ways:
* To pronounce arcane words and divert the energy from ethereal dimension into the caster's realm to blast the mountain top (magic);
* To pray to some deity and plead them to remove mountain top (magic);
* To use earth-moving machines to dig down mountain top (technology);
I see other option in probability manipulation / boosting, like person is wandering around the mountain doing nothing, thinking nothing but mountain top collapses itself (probability almost zero, but not exactly zero), like in White-Luck Warrior (Bakker) or Niven's Ringworld.
What kind of other worldbuilding's paradigms can be used *in lieu* of "magic" and "technology"?
--- EDIT ----------
I checked Meta and there's a huge corpus about ["opinion-based questions"](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/search?q=opinion-based) and understood that I need to setup some restriction to the question and also some "objective function" to evaluate the "best" question. For the question posed by me seems all the answers eligible for acceptance.
So let me give some definitions:
**Definition 1**: "Technology" is a means to transform subject's intention to achieve external goal through, at first, creation of internal model (symbol, blueprint), then, after it by the use of an external tool.
**Graph format**: Volition -> Symbol (Model) -> Tool -> Profit.
**Examples**: Prehistoric man kills prey with its own hands; the hobbit tries to spy at Sauron through the palantir; an alien race grows genetical modified trees to use them as starships; a politician uses propaganda to mobilize population to raze the mountain-top.
**Definition 2**: "Magic" is a means to transform subject's intention to achieve external goal through creation and manipulation of internal model (symbol, blueprint), without the use of an external tool.
**Graph format**: Volition -> Symbol (Model) -> Profit.
**Examples**: A necromancer raises an army of dead through concentration and will power; Magneto bends electro-magnetic fields and pull an asteroid to the Earth; Gandalf breaks Saruman's staff from the distance.
**Restrictions** to the answers:
* The subject should be sentient and must have an intention;
* External result is obligatory.
"**Objective function**" to judge the best answer:
* Present definitions of the alternatives to "magic-technology"duality;
* Present examples, which illustrate the definitions;
* Optional. Reference to some fantasy / sci-fi / philosophy treatise.
[Answer]
This started as a comment on [Ash's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/207183/239), which challenges the statement that "divine power" is just magic by another name. I'm expanding it here to try and achieve these aims:
* To use OP's "graph" structure to classify and propose new options that may answer the question.
* To provide examples from literature or folklore to back these up. (There is currently a request for "canonical" answers. I don't know what "canonical" ought to mean in the context of *this* StackExchange site, but I suppose "how other authors have done it" counts.)
**Please feel free to suggest additional examples in the comments!**
## Definitions
Here is how I understand the terms in OP's graphs.
* "Volition": There is a thinking entity who desires the completion of the task.
* "Model": A concept or plan for how to go about the task.
* "Tool": The use of matter to effect a change through physical processes.
* "Profit": The accomplishment of the task.
And I add one more:
* "Request": An appeal to another thinking entity to complete the task.
## Technology
Volition → Model → Tool → Profit
**Examples:**
* Reality and hard science fiction. Levelling the mountaintop by bulldozer, dynamite, laser cannon, or just moving a single pebble at a time by hand.
* [Sympathetic magic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_magic). Many "real-world" examples; thaumaturgy in Butcher's *Dresden Files*; sympathy in Rothfuss' *Kingkiller Chronicle*; arguably Wilde's *The Picture of Dorian Gray*.
* Probably other magic systems with a quasi-scientific explanation.
## Magic
Volition → Model → Profit
The distinction is the lack of a physical means for the process to happen. As we know from [Clarke's third law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws), it's difficult to draw a line between technology and magic... so I'm not even going to try. I'll just say that "magic" is when there *is no explicable process* by which your intention (Model) is made reality (Profit). You conceptualise what you want done, perhaps formalised in "casting a spell", and it just... happens.
**Examples:** Difficult to identify, because so many works try and *explain* their magic.
* "The Will and the Word" in Eddings' *Belgariad* and *Malloreon* series is the clearest example I can think of: picture what you want done, speak a word (any word), and if your will is strong enough, it happens.
* I think anything that talks about a generic "magic power", *without* trying to define it as some sort of energy, can come under this. The "One Power" in Jordan's *Wheel of Time* series; the "Weave" in *Forgotten Realms*.
* By my definition of Tool, whether a magical implement like a palantír counts as Magic or Technology depends on whether there is any explicable process underlying it. We frequently don't have enough information to decide either way. I'd lean towards palantíri being Magic.
## Intervention
Volition → Request → Profit
*Any* request (or command, prayer, labour contract...) to another thinking entity fits in this graph. Thus, this encompasses both **Divine Intervention** and **Political Power**. The other entity must have some means of accomplishing the task, of course, also selected from this list.
**Examples:**
* Prayer in religion and mythology.
* Certain interpretations of divine magic in *Dungeons & Dragons*. For most purposes, this is treated the same as arcane magic: cast spell, achieve result. However, there is an implication that the "spell" does not *compel* the result, but is a *request* for a divine power to intervene—a request that may be refused or reinterpreted.
* Since I already mentioned Eddings, his Styric magic (*Elenium* and *Tamuli* series) counts. It *looks* like Magic, until at least one protagonist realises he doesn't *have* to use the formal, prescribed spells... he can just politely *ask*. He's chided for bad form, but it works.
## Deific Power
Volition → Profit
A "deity" in this sense is a thinking entity who shapes reality by simply *wanting* something to change. They need no Model, no plan or conception of how to go about effecting their desire. Their will *is* reality.
**Examples:**
* Some, but by no means all, concepts of "gods".
* Perhaps Orcs/Orks in *Warhammer* (Fantasy and 40K). Notably, they may add a Tool to the graph, but it doesn't seem to actually *do* anything.
* Perhaps Le Guin's *The Lathe of Heaven*.
## Luck
∅ → Profit
Without the thinking entity even willing it—or willing it, but not *desiring* it, in some vaguely Zen sense—circumstances conspire to bring about the result that suits the entity.
**Examples:**
* Mat in Jordan's *Wheel of Time*.
* Felix Felicis in Rowling's *Harry Potter*.
* Teela Brown in Niven's *Ringworld*.
* Cthulhu waiting for the stars to be right.
* Maybe Rincewind in Pratchett's *Discworld*, though the unasked-for attention of the Lady (the luck goddess) complicates this.
* Maybe some examples in Butcher's *Dresden Files*, though again unsought divine intervention is a factor.
## Other combinations
Volition → Tool → Profit: You bang away at it without any clear idea of how or why it works. Computer programmers fit here more than they'd like to admit.
Volition → Model → Request → Profit: Equivalent to Intervention, except we're including the fact of the original entity making the plans. Slave labour and "throw minions at them by the thousands" tactics go here, unless you consider the slaves/minions to just be a Tool.
Model → Tool → Profit: You don't *want* it to happen, but must comply with someone else's Request. Drop the Tool if you accomplish it by Magic.
[Answer]
It's worth remembering Arthur C. Clarke's old quip:
>
> Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
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>
>
And by corollary, any sufficiently understood magic is indistinguishable from technology. In the end what we always have is the control and manipulation of some form of energy (through some series of transformations) to produce a desired result.
* Do we control fire to produce gas expansion that pushes a piston
which turns a gear which rotates a tire?
* Do we focus and pattern light using mirrors and prisms to send it
down cables to diodes that convert it to electricity that moves a
speaker that we hear as sound?
* Do we gather some ethereal magical energy so we can structure it with
runes and incantations and convert it some desired effect?
* Do we use our minds to communicate with and command living things
(animals, insects, birds, fish, people...), channeling
the power inherent in life to do our bidding?
* Do we discipline our bodies, minds, and souls as a religious
offering, so that some god will use its power to grant miracles on
our behalf?
In every case, we are developing a control system that will guide and convert raw power into applied force. There is no dichotomy between magic and technology; the [Palantír](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palant%C3%ADr) of "The Lord of the Rings" might just as well be an iPhone; they'd both seem like magic to the hobbits.
[Answer]
# Biology
In order to achieve a practical goal, biological mechanisms could be used. On the lowest level, this would be just existing and moving around, not very exciting. On a slightly higher level, that would be some self-improvement (e.g. working out to build stronger muscles) and using other creatures (e.g. horses). This is slightly better, but it is not very impressive (probably because it has already been done since the dawn of the civilization). Sadly, with known currently disposable means, there is not much room for significantly more impressive "biological manipulations".
However, in the speculative fiction worldbuilding, currently available/known biology can be only a subset biological things to play with.
So one can introduce additional creatures, with impressive abilities, or some symbiotic organisms with a performance unlike anything currently known on Earth, which could effectively give something like superpowers. Also, keep in mind that, when able to grow, life often grows exponentially, which could potentially result in an immense power from a relatively humble-looking starting point (e.g. a wielder of biological powers spreads something to grow many order of magnitudes larger than themself). Large usable structures, such as buildings and ships may also be simply "grown" in a similar manner. Maybe even something advanced like spaceships, resulting in 8472-esque organic-looking bioships.
[Answer]
### The Divine
* I can make a bow & arrow to attack at range. That's tech. Turning knowledge and resources into an action.
* I can cast a magic missile. That's magic. I gather mana and use it and knowledge to turn that into an action.
* I can ask God (or a god) to smite you. That's divine intervention. I gather favour with the gods through devotion, faith, and or sacrifice, and God performs the action for me.
[Answer]
The most common of all **Natural**
A large meteor slams into the mountain top? Natural.
Avalanches/water erosion over time? Natural.
Destabilization of the mountaintop leads to collapse?
Mining operation causes issues?
Natural is common.
[Answer]
## Fate
The mountaintop will be removed. It's going to happen--circumstances both mundane and extraordinary have just seemed to line up to pave the way, and any effort to prevent it is either stymied by other unexpected circumstances, or turns out to have been a necessary part of the process for it to happen.
***Is it technology?*** Maybe some parts of it involve technology, but you're starting to suspect that it would happen anyway if those parts weren't available.
***Is it magic?*** It feels like it, but there have been no observable violations in the laws of physics. If a god is making this happen, he's keeping his hand well-hidden.
***Is it probability manipulation?*** This is perhaps the most likely suspect. But if so, again, who's doing the manipulating? There's no apparent reason why this should happen, no cause we can trace it back to. *Unless!*...no, it's too far-fetched...but yeah, perhaps I'm in a story, and the author needed this to happen as part of a grand plan? That would explain it.
The catch is, of course, that fate works the other way around from your technology and your magic. You don't use fate, it uses you. (Regardless of whether or not you find yourself in Soviet Russia)
[Answer]
In the end it is all a system you try to use in the story.
Digging that mountaintop down is the use of physics in ways we understand. We might not know the internal workings of an excavator, but we know how an excavator more or less works.
Magic is simply the addition of a new set of physics, often only partially understood. It allows the story to do fantastical things, but still understandable things within the rules established in the story.
Not all magic is classified as magic though. Hyperspace, warp travel, slipspace, traveling through what is essentially the dimension of hell or other forms of FTL are all magical, but displayed as technological. Other things are more obviously magical, but don't have to be classified as such. The Force for example. So it comes down to how ridgid you want your classification to be: is anything with extra physics magic, or can it be subdivided in more categories? Examples:
* magic
* religion&faith
* innate abilities and gifts (say the Basilisks stare, werewolf healing, the X-men abilities or the ability for Dragons to fly despite a small wingspan and low flapping frequency)
* technomagic
* steampunk (a form of technomagic)
* telepathy&telekinesis (often lumped together)
You can probably think of some yourself.
[Answer]
**Non doing.**
<https://alongthetao.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/37th-verse-do-nothing-leave-nothing-undone/>
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> The Tao does nothing, but leaves nothing undone.
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> If powerful men could center themselves in it
>
>
> the whole world would be transformed by itself, in its natural
> rhythms.
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>
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Wu wei - "non doing" is less "doing" centered and goal oriented. Perhaps more holistic, to borrow a later word?
<https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/wu-wei-doing-nothing/>
>
> Wu wei is closely connected to the Daoist reverence for the natural
> world, for it means striving to make our behaviour as spontaneous and
> inevitable as certain natural processes, and to ensure that we are
> swimming with rather than against currents. We are to be like the
> bamboo that bends in the wind or the plant that adjusts itself to the
> shape of a tree. Wu wei involves letting go of ideals that we may
> otherwise try to force too violently onto things; it invites us
> instead to respond to the true demands of situations, which tend only
> to be noticed when we put our own ego-driven plans aside. What can
> follow is a loss of self-consciousness, a new unity between the self
> and its environment, which releases an energy that is normally held
> back by an overly aggressive, willful style of thinking.
>
>
>
The student of the Tao would not pray to a deity, or use magic incantations, or muster an army of diggers. Perhaps the student would strive to understand (or understand without striving) the top of the mountain, and what is underneath. Or if not understand, perceive and appreciate. The student would see how the mountain as it exists can be harmoniously incorporated into the plan. Which might no longer be a plan.
[Answer]
## Political Power / Charisma / Psionics
I know this probably is far afield of what you had in mind, but it strongly bears mentioning, especially in fantasy settings. If you're a Pharoah or another type of ruler, you need neither technology nor magic if you have enough strong bodies who are either willing or forced to do the hard manual labor.
This can be accomplished directly by Political Power, or directly/indirectly by Charisma or Psionics.
Let's take Psionics first. Some might argue this is "magic" but if the author postulates that it *is*, in fact, a biological or physical trait, then it's a question of which way the reader chooses to perceive it. Psionics might be used directly: "Hey, wouldn't it be a good idea for you and all your buddies to go dig out and level that mountain?" But you'd have to do this to a LOT of people.
Psionics could also be used to achieve Political Power, which might be more convoluted, but is probably more efficient in the longer term. You can imagine how someone could [mis]use such a capability to become politically powerful.
Next, consider Charisma. The strongly charismatic character can often convince others that actions they'd normally *never* consider are, in fact, a good idea. This works almost the same way as Psionics except that it isn't metaphysical, and the recipient is at least a partially-willing participant.
Thus the same arguments hold for Charisma: our (Machiavellian) character is probably better off using it to achieve political power first. Otherwise you have to talk to and convince a LOT of people.
Which brings us back to Political Power.
* If you are a dictator, you can simply order your subordinates to plan and execute the removal of the mountain by whatever means necessary. You need not even concern yourself with how they'll accomplish it, though their solution (in a primitive setting) likely involves conscription or outright slavery.
* If you are a person of lesser power within the organization of a dictator or monarch, you need to earn brownie points with your allies -- and collect dirt on your enemies -- so that both groups cooperate with you when you propose your plan to the leader. If you're a GREAT manipulator, you maneuver others into deciding to do *your* idea(s) for you. This is even more effective, because if anything goes wrong with the plan, you were the person saying it was a bad idea all along, and others end up taking the blame.
* If you are a duly elected official, you will still use such sneaky and underhanded --- sorry, I mean cleverly bipartisan --- means to build your power base and accomplish the goal of flattening the mountain. This might be a lot more difficult than the other two possibilities because you also must find the funding to pay the workers who will be hired to do the physical labor!
Use of Political Power can become very ugly, very quickly. But it **can** get things done that were otherwise not possible.
[Answer]
**Frame Challenge:** the definitions provided may overly restrict the desired answer. Please allow me to propose some changes
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> Definition 1: "Technology" is a means to transform subject's intention to achieve external goal through, at first, creation of internal model (symbol, blueprint), then, after it by the use of an external tool.
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>
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I propose that the tool is not required.
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> Graph format: Volition -> Symbol (Model) -> ~~Tool~~ -> Profit.
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Examples: A hostage negotiator uses his training to talk down a bank robbery; a banker uses best-practices to close a deal; a politician uses propaganda to mobilize population to raze the mountain-top.
Likewise, I propose that "technology" may use either internal or external models to accomplish the task.
>
> Definition 2: "Magic" is a means to transform subject's intention to achieve external goal through creation and manipulation of internal model (symbol, blueprint), without the use of an external tool.
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>
>
>
> Graph format: Volition -> Symbol (Model) -> Profit.
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I propose dropping this definition entirely, in favor of the following:
Graph format: Volition (...) -> Symbol (...) -> Profit (...)
**The Familiarity Axis (Profit)**
What we're trying to achieve (profit) can be mundane, or pretty weird. Because our profit target can be vague, getting profit that we are happy with at the end of the day depends on how weird is being shot for. Here are some bands along this axis:
* The **familiar** are things like saddling my horse, or tightening a sail. I don't have to understand how they work (symbol/understanding), and I don't have to be the one to do them (volition/agency). Familiar profit goals are easy to assess, and the profit **will** be what you asked for (most of the time)
* The **unfamiliar** are things like a skunk being able to emit an overpowering stench, or an eel being able to shock you, or ink from a squid, or poison from a viper. I can still work with the unfamiliar to achieve an outcome - I can harness squid ink; or viper venom; I can put skunks on my trail to deter hounds; I can use hound's incredible sense of smell to find lost people. However, the unfamiliar may not always, even when used properly, get me my profit.
* The **alien** things are inexplicable. Like life at the bottom of the deepest ocean trench; or the processes beneath the earth. Again, understanding of alien things is not required to profit : I need not understand Raleigh scattering and microstructures to use opals; or mine diamonds to be used for their characteristics; I can use smallpox blankets to attack my enemies without understanding anything of germs; and I can use the golden extract of a certain kind of bread mold to help heal infections. However, the alien are least likely to get me to my profit. In fact, my familiarity with alien things is so dim that someone might trade my smallpox blankets for clean blankets, or my clean blankets for plague ones, entirely without me being able to tell the difference.
Graph: Volition (...) -> Symbol (...) -> Profit (familiar/unfamiliar/alien)
**The Understanding Axis (Symbol)**
How much do I understand (have the symbols or mental models) the actions I am taking to get the profit? Here are some ideas:
* At the level of **technology**, I have accurately-enough defined every variable; resolved every important paradox; and simplified the core relationships into something anyone can use at their writing table. I can make designs and evaluate them against theoretical minimums and maximums.
Technology can be **unfamiliar** - I can use some kind of stimulant to get an eel to shock, but I am much more likely to use my better understanding to switch to a familiar alternative like blasting lightning out of a generator.
* Understanding can be less precise as **Art**. Some concepts are defined, but whether the things that have definitions are the simplest expressions is still undetermined. There are paradoxes that we have not identified the language to express and overcome, and these paradoxes keep us from precision modeling. Instead, we use expensive trial-and-error to "walk our fire" to profit, usually over many unprofitable iterations.
* And at it's least precise, understanding is **Magic**. It might be possible to stand on a certain field during a storm and call lightning from the sky. A technologist would know the field your standing on has natural conductive and insulating layers turning the area into a natural battery, that is getting charged by the storm overhead. But a magician just can imitate the things he or she saw that caused the effect last time.
Graph: Volition (...) -> Symbol (technology/art/magic) -> Profit (familiar/unfamiliar/alien)
**The Agency Axis (Volition)**
Who is doing this, anyway?
This is a very important distinction. You might ask - “why?”. Using other agents gives you access, potentially, to broader perspectives or better information. You may not get the profit you had in mind when you engaged these others; you may get something BETTER . Something beyond your imagination. You may:
* Appeal to your **self**. Obviously, you are the one seeking the profit. And limited by your understanding and the familiarity of what your intended outcome is.
* But you may appeal to a **group**. A group may just be you and the monster under the bed working together; but you are at a minimum an essential co-partner in the action. Maybe the nukes just can't be launched with a single key. A group might be semi-divine such as spirits of your ancestors, or outright divine like elementals, nature spirits, or deities. The others in the group have the option to decline your request. You are sharing agency, and may be able to get by on only a little help.
* Finally, you may appeal to **someone else**. You have given up agency; your volition is not driving the profit. You might make a request, but the **someone else** might have taken action regardless. **Someone else** might modify the plan slightly to include you, or may say "no". **Someone else** may even choose to work against your profit.
Graph: Volition (I/us/you) -> Symbol (technology/art/magic) -> Profit (familiar/unfamiliar/alien)
**Some Final Graphs, and Examples**
**Graph:** Volition(you) -> Symbol(magic) -> Profit(alien) : prayer for a miracle from a deity. The seas part; you walk on water; the aliens blast a mountain with their ray guns
**Graph:** Volition(you) -> Symbol(magic) -> Profit(unfamiliar) : taking a sick child to healing springs; or a medicine man; or a unicorn; a fairy, or a questing beast
**Graph:** Volition(you) -> Symbol(magic) -> Profit(familiar) : leaving an enemy out in the desert for the beasts and the sun to get him or her.
**Graph:** Volition(you) -> Symbol(art) -> Profit(alien) : a prayer uttered over a sketchy rope bridge made of rotting jungle wood and improvised vines
**Graph:** Volition(you) -> Symbol(art) -> Profit(unfamiliar) : a gambler playing the odds at a table; a military strategist estimating losses in an upcoming engagement; an adventurer stepping into the unknown with only the god(s) and their wits at their side
**Graph:** Volition(you) -> Symbol(art) -> Profit(familiar) : complaining to the local magistrate of problems in your town; politics within your peer group (maybe something dazzling like anti-matter physicists)
**Graph:** Volition(you) -> Symbol(technology) -> Profit(alien) : sending money or a note of approval to a crowd-sourced volunteer effort to cure hunger; or poverty; or a group tagging great white sharks on the other side of the world.
**Graph:** Volition(you) -> Symbol(technology) -> Profit(unfamiliar) : sending a note of encouragement to a group that is attempting to drill wells; or set up cell towers in the remote rural parts of this world.
**Graph:** Volition(you) -> Symbol(technology) -> Profit(familiar) : donating to your local second-hand-goods store or food bank, with an intended profit of getting those goods offered for resale.
**Graph:** Volition(us) -> Symbol(magic) -> Profit(alien) : allowing yourself to be possessed by a spirit, deity, or strange brain symbiotic so that you can obtain power to avenge the destruction of your homeland; you supposedly retain the power to throw off the possession, so your willing on-going participation is required.
...
[Answer]
I think the magic vs technology breakdown is a bit problematic, because the lines between technology, nature, magic and divine or supernatural entities can be quite blurry, and magic in itself can have varying definitions.
I would rather break it down into **natural and supernatural** (which probably roughly corresponds to what you call technology and magic).
**By definition, this is all that can exist**. Either something is within nature or it is not. Either it is natural or it is supernatural. Well, it could be both, but there can't exist anything besides those 2 things, since the one by definition includes everything the other doesn't.
## Natural
Anything that fits squarely into the laws of nature.
This includes:
* Pretty much anything any natural beings are capable of doing or creating. This includes a billion ants getting together and digging through a mountain top as well as a human building a machine to do so.
* Any natural effects (storms, earthquakes, magnetism, etc.).
* Any force or effect by a natural being that only interacts with the natural world. I can use my hand to lift something up. That only interacts with the natural world. This is specifically intended to clarify magic-like forces (e.g. manipulating, observing or creating objects in the natural world purely through our minds). Those would also classify under this category *if* you were to include them fully within the natural world and give them a natural explanation (as opposed to having them be partially or fully supernatural). This is probably what something like the X-Men (and many modern superhero stories) is going for, where powers are explained as being purely related to physical mutations.
## Supernatural
Anything that can manipulate the observable universe, but exists fully or partially *outside* the observable universe. Things that would violate the physical laws of the nature (not the laws as we know them, but as they exist).
This might include:
* **The natural drawing from the supernatural:** those in the natural world drawing on or possessing forces outside the physical world (i.e. certain interpretations of magic).
* **Independent supernatural forces:** Gods or similar beings. Ghosts may be included here, or they may be considered natural (depending on interpretation).
* **Manipulating the natural world indirectly:** Those in the natural world manipulating the fabric of reality directly (i.e. getting into and changing "the code" of the universe, by e.g. causing a paradox or otherwise "breaking" the universe through natural / technological means). If humans naturally possess this ability, a good argument can be made that this is part of the natural world, they are drawing on the supernatural or they themselves are supernatural (think Neo in The Matrix, who can do "supernatural" things within The Matrix, but arguably only because he had an existence outside of it).
I don't believe there is any supernatural force that would fall outside of all 3 categories mentioned above, as they are very broad and based on the different ways any 2 things A and B can interact with one another (those things being natural and supernatural in this case): A affects B, B affects A or A affects itself. But I might be wrong.
This definition of supernatural might arguably also be problematic, since something's existence and ability to affect the observable universe might necessitate it's inclusion in the laws of the nature, and something doesn't need to be directly observable to be a fundamental part of the laws of nature, but I think it does a good enough job to demonstrate something distinct from what we typically consider to be "natural".
[Answer]
You defined the Technology as a chain of *Volition -> Symbol -> Tool -> Profit*, basically meaning that to achieve a goal one has to know how to do it, and need some external tools. This is a very broad definition which includes all actions which require some kind of external support. Alternatively Magic was given as *Volition -> Symbol -> Profit* which omits the tool to achieve the goal. The final modification can only be to remove the Symbol, that is allow the subject to achieve his goals by the act of desiring it only.
## Force of will
**Graph format:** Volition -> Profit
**Definition 1:** "Force of will" is a mean to transform subject's intention to achieve external goal through the mere act of intending a thing to happen. Under this paradigm "I desire it" implies "It happens". This can be either unconditional or has some additional requirements *not* connected with a Volition itself. In this paradigm one do not prepare beforehand to achieve specified intention but may instead gather *authority* to make this goal happen just because one so desires. *(the graph may be alternatively given as Preparation -> Volition -> Profit)*
**Examples:** In the [Book of Genesis](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201&version=NIV) we read *God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.* The was no model or knowledge of any kind involved, the mere volition of the character was enough to make things happen. Jacek Dukaj in the book [Other Songs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Songs_(novel)) presents the alternative universe governed by the laws of Aristotle's physics. Things are made of Matter and Form, beings (mainly characters) with strong form, powerful and noble minds, influence not only the form of others, but also the matter around them by the act of their presence only. Trees grow when the great gardener walks by, they burst into flames when the powerful warlord is near and weaker characters are easily bend to the form of the stronger. Characters influence the world and can achieve their goals without any direct actions or preparations aimed at the specific task.
**Comment:** The magical example of Gandalf may also qualify into this paradigm. Gandalf did not explicitly cast a spell on the Saruman's staff, his mere *authority* was enough to make the staff break.
Above scheme is the most basic paradigm satisfying both restrictions - there is a sentient subject with an intention and there is a result. Theoretically one could extend the chain by adding new elements, but if Symbol represents conscious internal requirements and the Tool represents external requirements, then any new elements will fall into these two categories.
[Answer]
There are a ton of good answers here, but I'd like to point out one more:
## Political
Politics is a huge force in pretty much anything happening. Sure it *could* be classified as technological, but it's really too different from what most people think of as technology for that to stick.
For good or worse, politics is likely to affect any major decisions made in any technological and/or magical world.
[Answer]
(this is actually rather a comment, but the text would not fit)
**Technology and magic are on the same axis**
Opening: *"we have a goal to remove a mountain top (..) What kind of other worldbuilding's paradigms can be used in lieu of "magic" and "technology"?"*
This is difficult, because of your mountain top example. I cannot think of any other way to remove a mountain top, except through technology or by ways of magic. I think magic always serves the role of technology supplement. The two are not actually different. Either method could remove that mountain top.. and there is actually nothing "in between". Where technology stops, the magic starts. Technology and magic are like the plus side and the minus side on an *axis*, rather than two isolated points, allowing to find a third point somewhere. Imho, most answers here tend to put light on *other axes* rather than provide for alternative approaches for mountain top removal.
**EDIT 15-JUL**
Opening: *"present a logically consistent framework which allows to generate new paradigms besides "magic-technology" dichotomy."*
I now understand other goals could be considered as well, as long as it fits in the scheme. Thanks ! Action is to be initiated by a human will (Volition), there is an awareness phase (Symbol) and the goal itself *should* be reached (Profit).
**Examples not needing technology or magic**
* Volition (child) -> Symbol (good timing, be nice) -> sex -> Profit
Suppose we'd like to travel to the moon.
* Volition (go to moon) -> Symbol (dream image) -> jump high -> Profit
For removing a mountain top, a scheme could be applicable, without magic or technology. Just postulate a hypothetical "time gate" phenomenon.. no human made tool, prehistoric humans can use it..
* Volition (top gone) -> Symbol (find time gate) -> go through time gate -> Profit.
One example that comes to mind is a person suffering from psychosis, setting out to heal and work again. For some people, this could involve taking medication (applying technology) others will pray (apply magic). Apart from these options along the T-M axis, these patients reach their goal through
* Volition (feel coherent) -> Symbol (accept dependency) -> seek help -> Profit.
The axes that play a role here have to do with individuality and also with economics, that is the availability of experts who can help.
[Answer]
# Craftsmenship
Which in your typography, would be something like
Volition -> Tool -> Profit
So I appricate you've sort've defined this as technology (Prehistoric man kills prey with its own hands) but I think you should reconsider.
While this *is* arguably technology that the society has just internalised sufficently to 'stop thinking about it', I feel that distinction is very worthing highlighting. This is how people have done things for most of human history, the basket weaver and the potter aren't making any precise measurements as they work, they've simply done this their entire lives, they don't need to draw a diagram, they have just the muscle memory and process down to an artform. None of that is what I'd call 'technology'
You might think the applications of craftsmenship are relatively small, that it could never get you to the moon but that's just due to what we have traditionally considered craftsmenship. Imagine an airplane factory, run in a traditional fordist model each worker is given an assigned task (layering carbon fibre sheets, casting engine blocksk, sanding and polishing wings), at first the managers and R&D staff are constantly looking to refine the process as much as they can, eventually though the process is so refined that no further research leads to any profit gains.
The shareholders fire all the managers and R&D staff to cut costs, the workers keep coming in and doing their little part of the process. Eventually their children come and join them as appretences. After a few generations nobody in the factory understands how a plane works. They don't care, they don't need too. Each worker is a lifelong disciple of their given task, it is second nature to them, and the planes coming off the production line are finer than they have ever been.
They are like the medieval brewer, who knows beer doesn't give you dysentry, but hasn't the slightest bit of an 'internal model' - and would look at you funny if you suggest otherwise.
# Automation
Technology/Magic/Craftsmenship/Other -> Tool -> Tool -> Tool.... -> Profit
Again I suppose you could call this just technology in another guise, but I think there is a remarkable psychological difference between the astronaut who physically controls the machines around him to keep himself comfortable and one that whoose wants are known by the ships AI even before he realises he has them, and tended to appropriately.
# Outsourcing
Just hire somebody to do it. Or in your typography
Violition -> Exchange -> Profit
Perhaps not something you can base an entire world around, or is it? It's perfectly possible outsourcing could mature to the point the privellaged class of commercialites might entirely forget who they're outsourcing too, how thoose people do what they do. They simply look at their catalouge, see everything availible, buy what they want, and which it pop out of another dimension. Like amazon, but it's *really* taken over the world.
They get the capital to do this from investments they got through investments they got through investments... ad infinitum, not a single person on the whole planet actuallyunderstands the technology or magic they are outsourcing this too, only that dollars get you places baby!
# Trial and Error
Volition -> Many Tools -> Profit
I'm reaching now, aren't I?
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**Scale**
Instead of using earth-moving machines, you enlist millions of people with hammers in a massive public-works project to remove the mountaintop.
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Well probably the dualism is due to the fact that every other "force" can be reduced to one or the other.
Let's consider some abstract basic definitions:
Technology is the way to do something using forces that can be modeled scientifically.
Magic is the way to do something using forces that cannot be modeled scientifically.
Note that ancient people used technology even if they didn't know the underlying scientific model, i.e. fire. Even if they considered it magic.
So this is the main difference between tech/magic and this holds true regardless of the "universe" you are in. There have been a lots of "worlds" built by many authors, with magic described in a wildly different ways. But at the end, if the "magic" forces used are amenable of a scientific explanation in-universe, then it's not really magic, but poorly-understood technology.
If, however, the in-universe forces that are channeled as magic cannot ever be explained by science, then that's true magic.
Not that "explained" by science doesn't mean that you can't devise ways to study and classify them in a systematic ways. I mean, they are true magic if there is no "ontological" way to build a physical theory (with however complicated math) that explains how magic works and allows to predict its effect.
The source of the forces/power is irrelevant: divine, "classic" magic a la Gandalf/Potter, Mental/Psionic, Mystic. If you can't build a physical model it's magic, otherwise it's disguised tech as fire was for the ancient people on Earth.
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I can imagine a universe where its an inherent part of the structure that reality responds to sentient life - without being alive in a sense we know it, it responds.
That need not be magic, though it may seem so to an outsider or ignorant person. To those accustomed to it, it would be an everyday thing, to quickly set reality with a thought, when leaving for the office, so that something has a greater chance of working as desired.
I wouldn't classify that as magic (its just how the universe works, and is mundane not arcane, there's papers studying how that universe's quantum fields or equivalent are responsive), nor technology (it doesn't need devices to achieve), nor divine (no deities)....
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Magic, technology and what else?
Magic vs tech is a western fantasy dilemma, I've met other paradigma elsewhere.
Most of them introduce a third factor in the process of deeds.
Volition > Symbol > Interaction > Result
**EMPATHY**
The world is a living being, you can debate with it to have the mountain flat out.
**WILLPOWER**
Reality reply to consciences, and morph accordingly. As people doesn't care that stormy mountain anymore, it flat out (it was raised by their anxiety). To notice people doesn't actually express the active desire of the flatten out mountain, so is different than using an internal resources for a deed. You can figure out better in this example: as no one remember anymore of that statue, that statue disappear.
**VIRTUALITY**
The relation between substance, meaning and perception is managed by a material factor. That mean by some condition ("refactoring a code", or maybe "rewriting the book" or "draw something in the dark tower") you can change the universe laws and flat out the mountain.
**YOKAI**
Everything host a spirit, a mountain is a perfect host for that. Ask the spirit and the mountain can flatten out. Note that's different than magic: spirits aren't a supernatural thing, they are natural part of the world, that reply to this universe ecology. In fact, is a dualistic personification of nature itself (the mountain generate the yokai, the yokai is the mountain, the yokai die and the mountain die).
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**Unexplained**
*"[W]e have a goal to remove a mountain top"*
If 'we' is 'us, the authors of this story' or 'us, the out-of-universe creators of this fictional world' then you could simply not explain it at all, just state it.
Fictional example, planet PLATEAU (TAU CETI) from Larry Niven's Known Space. <http://larryniven.net/humans.shtml>
*"This venus-like world would be uninhabitable but for Mt. Lookatthat, which rises out of the soupy, misty atmosphere into a temperate layer, and has a livable surface area on top that's about the size of California."* Niven needed a planet like that for his stories, so, it exists.
Real-world example, <https://www.alaska.org/detail/flattop-mountain> - presumably people can visit it and have "stories" there without knowing how it came to be that shape, or even asking themselves about it.
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**Biology / Self-Modifying Organisms**
Here's something that's theoretically not impossible even in our universe, and would provide a new paradigm: your universe could contain a species capable of altering its own genetic code just by thinking about it (maybe they have evolved to have an organ which is linked into their nervous system , with the ability to produce arbitrary plasmids and integrate them into the genome of either a) all their cells, or b) their reproductive cells, on the fly). It's not quite technology, as it doesn't involve an external tool, but it's not quite magic either as the symbol/model doesn't bring about the change directly... it just makes the character (or their offspring) *able* to do whatever it is innately - either through their will, or by hormone changes triggered by emotional states. It also requires more time than either technology or magic, as changing one's body (or reproducing) is inevitably going to take a long time - hours, days, or even weeks, rather than the minutes other methods take - and is probably going to hurt like nothing else!
The flow would look something like this: Volition -> Symbol (Model) -> Metamorphosis/Reproduction -> Profit
OR
Emotion/Stimuli -> Profit
Eg 1 / Metamorphosis: A character knows they are going into a hostile environment a week in advance, and either [the "automatic" form] a) the fear/stress causes them to grow a thicker skin, strengthen bones, maybe grow a chitinous exoskeleton, or [the "active" form] b) they choose to "build" those modifications into their genetic code, taking a long time to guide their organ to secrete the right plasmids and allow the growth to take place. This could even be risky/disadvantageous to the user, eg: if they do it too much / do it poorly, they could give themselves cancer or horribly disfigure themselves.
Eg 2 / Reproduction: Our character is a hive queen (think ants or bees), and knows their colony is going to be under attack, so they start making more warrior ants/bees or even develop better designs for them - think stronger exoskeletons, stronger toxins, more limbs, etc. Again, this takes a long time, and it's limited to what's biologically possible. Also could be very hard on the user - if they try to reproduce too fast, they might die from the stress!
Hopefully this works - I've never posted on this site before! Sorry if that was disorganized / not quite what you were looking for.
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Frame challenge: there are only *rules* (which you can exploit with metal tools, living organisms, words and chants, prayers, ta'veren, ...whatever the rules themselves allow), chaos (things happening truly at random), and *godhead* (the ability to *trascend* whatever rules there may be).
Technology is about having rules and following them. Science is about *finding* what the rules *seem to be*. If the rules to make a feather float include pronouncing "Wingardium Leviosa!" *just right*, then, however funny, that is nonetheless technology. "Magic" is technology you don't yet understand.
Actually in several novels (e.g. Rick Cook's "Wiz Biz" [series](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0671720783), and to a point, *Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality*), finding the "rules" behind magic and turning it into tech is the plot.
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**Consensus**
Convince everybody that the mountain top is gone. Convince them so thoroughly that not even one skeptical soul has the smallest shard of doubt to the truth of the mountain's toplessness. Then, since reality is just a shared illusion supported by the will of the majority, what is believed becomes true.
We couldn't make a machine fly until some brave engineers defied the consensus and through brute force made a new truth and advertised it to the world. Now, somewhere in the world, a 400,000 pound hunk of metal called a 747 takes off every few minutes. Consensus makes the impossible possible. Every stray thought of the mass mind redefines the word "truth".
It's not technology because science doesn't believe in the shared illusion called reality. But it is also not magic, because it makes perfect sense to those who believe it is true. There is no fact, so there is no science... and there is no mystery, so there is no magic.
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Magic after being explained by science will become technology, what cannot be explained yet will continue to be magic.
## Magic trick/ trick
It is magic to the viewer but technology to the performer.
**Definition**: "Magic trick/ trick" is a means to transform subject's intention to achieve external goal through, at first, creation of internal model (symbol, blueprint), then, after it by the use of an external tool but hide it.
**Examples**: A murderer who changes tracks at the scene and fabricates evidence for himself; One person wears a bulletproof vest and fakes his death to find the time to counterattack.
## Alchemy
Different from alchemy in history, the world we live in is no longer magic. With a world where magic existed and development was on par with technology, imagine how far alchemy could go.
**Definition**: "Alchemy" is use `magic` to fortify, enhance, or create materials for `technology`
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**Chemistry**
Think of things like acid or fire that do reactions with the mountain until it's gone. Humans can place this there.
**Biology**
Often helped by chemistry. Organisms use part of the mountain for themselves, or destroy parts of the mountain, to reduce it. Think flesh eating bacteria, but for a mountain. Humans can place the organisms there.
**Own power**
Everyone a shovel, or use their hands.
**Natural**
Divert rivers and pool them towards the mountain, using raw water power and erosion.
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1. Che. volition>meditation> tool>prof
Example using che to enhance your strength, stamina and or intelligence
Dreaming. non volition> prof
The ability to manipulate reality as if it were a dream However callin be done through the subconscious.
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I would add (1) blind luck, (2) divine intervention (with different flavors: appeal to a deity, intervention of guardian angel, etc.), and (3) "the cavalry showing up". I differentiate the divine from the wizard=magical, and you should do if looking for different alternatives, within a story.
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# Coding
My consideration starts from the virtual worlds: from World of Warcraft or MineCraft back to Second Life.
In all these worlds many rules are similar to the real world, but other differs quite a lot: you can fly, merge block together to create different objects, travel in many different ways, wear glowing objects, etc. etc.
All these features are not magical, but driven by computer code. You can imagine an universe in which this kind of properties can be created by writing some kind of code from inside the world to create new behaviors that anyone can use.
It's like creating a software plugin for Minecraft that adds dragons to your world.
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# Luck
The fundamentals of our world consist of probabilities, which is governed by the theory of quantum mechanics and statistical physics.
#### Quantum Tunneling
Quantum tunneling is such a phenomenon. The transmission of on object with mass m to travel through a barier with width a is given by:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/roHKe.png)
The inverse of T is the probability. For a 70 kg human to go through a wall that's about 10 cm thick, with a speed of 4 m/s, the probability is e^-10^35. So reaaaally, really tiny.
But a person who is "just lucky" can achieve it!
This is the link to the calculation: <https://twitter.com/i/events/972881765642551297?lang=en>
### Thermodynamics
Thermodynamical properties are based on statistics. The pressure or the temperature in a room e.g. are determined by the statistical properties of the small particles.
Consider two rooms, connected with a small opening. Now, gas particles, out of "luck" could happen to divide in a way that all hot (fast) particles are in the right and all cold (slow) particles are in the left as in the picture below. (I stole the picture from a phenomenon called "Maxwell's Demon", ignore the little demon for this purpose)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jbcgZ.png)
This violates the second law of thermodynamics but this scenario could certainly happen with a very, very tiny probability.
A person who is just "lucky" could create large temperature and pressure gradients for a short amount of time and could freeze or heat some parts, do explosions etc.
### Vacuum Properties
Quantum field theory and thus the description of our particles is a statistical theory too. One popular theory is that our vacuum is situated in a false minimum like so
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CfMn2.png)
and could tunnel to the true vacuum at any time with a small probability. This would change everything about our particle interactions and their forces. A mountain could just "disappear" due to a local false vacuum decay.
Also the higgs field may be in a false minimum leading to changed particle masses if it decayed locally suddenly: [https://publish.uwo.ca/~csmeenk2/files/FalseVacuum.pdf](https://publish.uwo.ca/%7Ecsmeenk2/files/FalseVacuum.pdf)
### Spontaneous Formation (aka Boltzmann brain)
Pair creation (particles creating and annihilating all the time in the vacuum) could lead to complex creations, like a brain (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain>)
with a very, very small probability.
Somebody very lucky could create arbitrary structures by annihilating surrounding material. One could annihilate a rock e.g. for something with the same mass, like a human by just "being lucky".
[Answer]
Your problem is a word.
"Magic" is a term generally used for whatever the story requires that doesn't exist in the real world. Depending on the precise setting, things like the divine, or psychic powers or runesmithing may or may not fall unter "magic". Sometimes they are their own thing, sometimes they are A Kind of Magic (Queen).
So if all you need is something that is "not magic", you can simply define that in your world, psychic powers (or whatever) are distinct from magic.
It is all in the words, really. For example, your definition:
>
> "Magic" is a means to transform subject's intention to achieve
> external goal through creation and manipulation of internal model
> (symbol, blueprint), without the use of an external tool.
>
>
>
Actually **excludes** a lot of real-world magic (we'll ignore the question of it working or not). Many of the western magical traditions, such as the Golden Dawn, do in fact use tools - cups, swords, magic circles, etc.
You could really argue that magic and technology are really **the same thing** on the meta-physical level - a user's intention is brought into external reality through the use of defined steps.
Also don't forget that until recently, magic and technology were not far apart from each other. The famous Newton, for example, dabbled in not just physics and optics, but also in alchemy.
So if you are looking for a third, fourth, etc. way to "do something" in the world, you need to define the **edges** of technology and magic. For example, you could simply say technology follows real-world rules of physics. For magic, you would need to define which rules it follows, such as a natural ability of the user plus magical energy ("mana"). Then you could define "divine" as not requiring such an ability and not using mana, but working through prayer and divine influence. Or you could define animism as working not through mana and talent, but through spiritual bonds. And so on and so forth.
tl;dr: you are asking for something "outside" of a thing that doesn't have clearly defined boundaries (magic). That can't work, as any answers are arguable.
] |
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[
Long ago, our ancestors worked out how to travel faster than light: by sending craft directly into the Sun, employing fusion, quantum entanglement, and a healthy dose of handwavium/science indistinguishable from magic to skip between the stars.
We did this enough that we drained the Sun's fuel in a matter of a century. By the time we realised what we'd done, the Sun was whimpering its way into a brown dwarf, and the Earth was doomed to be a cold, irradiated husk, with the only life surviving underground.
But that didn't matter, because humanity had spread in a great migration across the stars! It's been thousands of years, and humans have refined star-skipping technology to be more sustainable and created dozens of empires across the known universe.
So why do we keep coming back to the remnants of our cooling, dying Solar System? What's left for us here? Why are we spending money, resources, and human lives to keep up a presence in our ancient home?
[Answer]
Good old tourism.
Why people go visiting caves with painting on their walls, or ruins of ancient cities, even though they have much more comfortable houses?
Because they are curious about their past and find interesting to share with their friend that they have visited the ruins of the ancient city of XXX.
And where there are tourists there are money, and where there are money there is a reason to be.
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### Pilgrimage to Holy Terra, Cradle of Humanity and Birthplace of the Savior.
#### Religion, sports, economy, reality TV, pick your poison.
Surely, most citizens pay no mind to religion, but I doubt any advanced human civilization would give it up entirely.
It is the birthplace of Jesus, Buddha, and Donald Trump IV, the winner of World War VII, after all.
Religious fanatics keep coming to the frozen ball of silica orbiting the brown dwarf in droves, sparking fights in high orbit every now and then.
Entire solar systems fund these wars, and then there's midiatic cover of the clashes, mercenary companies rent their fleets for the fighting, there's even some reality TV shows where contestants hop into junky burger-shaped *Core-lion freighters* and attempt to land on the planet while every faction with a mass driver attempts to shoot them down like titanium piñatas for prizes.
Last season of **Naked and Spaced: Earth or Gamma Bust** won a EmmyLY award (LY = Light Year) for best reality show.
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# Because Asimov was right (Foundation series)
There is only one planet, out of all those empires across the universe, where humanity actually began. Where we lived at a time where incredibly, nobody flew, nobody knew flight was possible,and generations lived and died pre space flight. Where evolution happened and humans began. Cells began. Where 2 billion years passed to get past simple celled mats, or whatever it was.
It all happened on this one, incredible planet, halfway across that galaxy. Whether they are from here or the next supercluster... We all began in that one place. Its all our family and origin.
That's a hell of a powerful thought. Out of a few billions or trillions, even a tiny percentage a year will be a huuuuge amount of visitors.
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## It's a Tax Haven
Why are totally disproportionate numbers of companies based in Ireland or the Caymans? Because despite being small countries with hardly any consumers, companies 'based' there save a fortune.
Variants of this reason include:
1. Regulatory havens (traditionally Delaware, at the moment due to Covid, Florida).
2. Countries that allow shipping flags of convenience. Those multinational shipping companies aren't actually run by Liberians. [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CstQp.png)
3. Free cities and trade corridors. Historically, sometimes a politically contentious city would be made a free city. Two enemy states would then use it as a trading spot / negotiation place / espionage base. I don't think there are any at the moment, but there are a few trade corridors; these are little strips of land belonging to country A but with guaranteed access to B to prevent B from starting a war. I think there are a couple in South America.
4. DMZ: Maybe all the core worlds serve as a DMZ within one large empire that has had it imposed on it after a losing war. Such places often have a little more freedom than elsewhere within a repressive empire.
5. Litigation centres: The local judges are either waaaay too quick or waaaaay too slow to strike down patents / award litigation damages. As a result, everyone judge shops and files lawsuits there. See: Delaware (again). Progressives always try to file lawsuits for highly contentious political causes in DC as the courts there are so left wing, while conservatives pick districts that have the 5th Circuit of Appeals overlooking them.
Poor Earth, 3000 years and the death of its sun still couldn't remove all the damn lawyers!
[Answer]
## It's (like) the Vatican
The pope is still based in Rome, and the galaxy's Catholics go on pilgrimage. It also serves as a convenient politically neutral refuelling/resupplying/duty free stop.
EDIT: Insert future religion or Jerusalem/Jews or Mecca/Islam as needed.
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# Earth is the source of the handwavium.
There's some unique material on earth from some unknown alien race that is needed to calibrate the jump engines of ftl. Removing it from earth seems to break the quantum resonance. Various technologies have been made to copy that resonance but for complex quantum mechanical reasons each copy degrades the quality of the engine.
Each jump also degrades the quality, and it is necessary to renew engines every few decades.
The best starships, especially military grade ones, personally visit earth to tune up their engines. The cheaper engines are just a few copies away from earth. Unless another source of this material is found, ftl travel is dependent on Earth.
[Answer]
# Astrology
Earth is literally the only place in the universe where accurate astrological readings can be made.
(I'm not into astrology, so I'm sure I'll get some of these details wrong.)
First, the star constellations that make up the signs of the zodiac are all defined with respect to an observer on Earth. While it's true that the constellations will look essentially the same from Earth's moon, and probably even from other bodies in the solar system, they will look very different from any other place in the universe. And if you're already going to the trouble of traveling back to the Sol system to take readings, you might as well travel the last few AU to visit Earth.
Second, the zodiacal year is also defined with respect to an observer on Earth:
>
> The zodiac is the belt or band of constellations through which the Sun, Moon, and planets move on their journey across the sky... twelve of the constellations through which the sun passes throughout the year
> -- [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_astrology#The_zodiac)
>
>
>
If you really want an accurate reading of the current zodiacal moment, the best way is to bring your kit to Earth and take a look.
Now, you may be thinking that a person could save themselves the effort by just using software that accurately simulates the view from Earth. Software like that exists today (astronomers use it). But I'd remind you that astrology is a pseudo-science (i.e. a crock of \*\*\*\*), and we can probably assume that any future adherents who care enough about getting a "true" reading are the same kind of people who are unlikely to put their trust in a piece of man-made software.
And, in defense believers: everyone must acknowledge that a simulation is only as good as its data and models, so if there really *were* some kind of mystical truth in astrology, it seems quite possible a simulation based exclusively on hard observation would be unable to anticipate a novel occurrence. And there's Humean skepticism: the recognition that we have no good reason to believe the future will be like the past. These people will not trust a mere app.
So, I'd expect permanent astrological observatories on the cold Earth, who sell their observations to humans across the galaxy. I'd also expect there to be some very wealthy lunatics who insist on traveling to Earth to make their own observations. And possibly some people who are unable or unwilling to pay the fee charged by the observatory, who therefore have no alternative but to visit Earth to take their own measurements.
---
Just to be clear: when I talk about readings and measurement, I am *not* talking about writing horoscopes or making predictions for individual people. That stuff is built *on top of* the readings. The readings are just this: stand on Earth and look into the sky to observe the apparent positions of the sun, moon, and constellations. That is how you determine the "current zodiac time."
Folks who want their horoscope would pay the Earth-based astrologers to tell them that info as it was at the moment of their birth, which is how the person determines their "sign." (A person would presumably only need to do this once per lifetime.) And *then* they can go and get a horoscope from their preferred local astrologer.
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Random ideas:
## 1. Coincidental proximity
Earth just happens to be near a conjunction of interstellar trade routes. Combined with the curiosity of being the Homeworld, it's ended up as the equivalent of a medium sized town in a very large, thinly populated area.
Think Alice Springs in Australia; it's not that big, but compared to everything around it, it's huge.
## 2. Reconstruction
Some people just won't let Earth be dead. Inspired by paintings of lush, bucolic meadows with sunsets in the background, organisations are painstakingly reconstructing the sun over decades. Ironically, its solar death has probably been the best thing to happen to its economy. It has been for ages, and is even more so now that a rather profligate government has decided to fund what a lot of people consider a pointless environmental project.
## 3. The underground construction was really, really successful
You've heard of the Mall of America? Now it actually is the Mall of (the entirety of) America. Continent-wide halls, nation size shops, cathedrals with spires 500m high all abound. After 4000 years of building underground, the underground world is arguably more interesting than the surface ever was!
Maybe even more beautiful. It's a bit like Vegas; without constant outside supply it'd die, but seeing as its outlasted the death of the sun, what are the chances?
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# It is in the middle
Since Mankind explored the universe in all directions from Earth, Mankind has spread through an sphere, at the center of which is the Earth. This makes it still politically and strategically important
# It has lots of routes
Your technoquantum travel goes through stable "tunnels" that connect the stars. Since exploration began from Earth, it has discovered most of the valuable trade routes that exist. Most of the transport, both of goods and people, must go through its space.
# It is insignificant
Since the Sun is almost spent, it has no resources to compete militarily or economically with the colonies. This makes it a safe zone, a place for the actual powers to meet on neutral ground, but that none of them would want to incorporate into their empires because the costs of defending and maintaining it, and of the interplanetary condemnation of this act, would outweight whatever benefits would be expected.
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## Time Travel
Not sure if you wish to have this possible in your world, it could also only be of that "viewing back in time" kind. But often time travel itself in Sci-Fi is bound to the location, thus if you want to travel back (or see back) into earths history, you need to do it on earth.
This could also make the whole solar system be kind of an archaeology hive of the galaxy, possibly with a sort of library of all the knowledge still stored at the place where everything began. After all, why move it when there is still research ongoing?
[Answer]
For ecological reasons:
Suppose that all the planets humans have chosen to colonize had a native ecosystem to begin with. This is pretty plausible; a totally dead planet will always take much more time and effort to terraform than one which already has liquid water, oxygen in the atmosphere etc., and that's likely to be because life already evolved there. If you have faster-than-light travel, it might well be easier to find these planets than to spend the effort setting up new ones from scratch.
That being the case, all humans would now live on worlds where Earth life is competing and/or intermingling with alien life. It may be that the alien ecologies are harmful, or simply not as pleasant for humans – say, you plant a beautiful forest of Earth hardwoods, but after a few hundred years it's starting to take on the weird smells / sounds / colors etc. of the native life.
So the galaxy's ecological engineers need the Earth as a pristine, full-scale reference model for the optimal human environment. They can maintain gene banks and terrariums, but nothing can capture all the detail and nuance of the original.
The problem with this, of course, is that once the Sun has died (or even been changed slightly), the Earth's ecosystem will be very different, if it even survives at all. So there would need to be massive interventions to keep it in the chosen ideal state (which in itself isn't "natural").
Still, this seems more believable to me than the idea that large numbers of people would care greatly about Earth in the distant galactic future. (It's a pet peeve of mine that people in SF stories are always obsessed with rediscovering Earth 50,000 years after leaving it. I mean, do you even care about the suburb where your grandparents grew up *50* years ago? It undermines the whole point of SF that the interesting stuff is out there, not back here).
[Answer]
## There were too many survivors and not enough life boats
Warp ships are expensive and few in number; so, as the sun cooled down, most humans were trapped inside the solar system. Only the a select few out of the 10s of billions of people living here could make it out... especially with each ship making the problem worse; so, nearly all of humanity was stuck here. Even with massive die-offs the number of people living in artificial habitats far outnumbered the amount of people to ever leave the Earth.
Sure Kepler 186F may have a less harsh climate, but even after a few thousand years its total population from its original seed colony may still quite small by comparison. Earth's population has only grown by about 20 fold in the past 2000 years; so, if most of the original colonies had less than 10,000 people, then even after 2000 years, its possible that worlds with over 1 million people would be pretty rare. In contrast, if Earth saw a 99% population reduction from today's values from the great cool down, you'd still have a population on Earth of around 80 million.
## Also... Sol has Venus
What is more is that the cooling of Earth also means a cooling of Venus; so, it does not take long for Venus become a much more Earth like world. Since shipping inside a solar system is much cheaper than between star systems, the millions of Earthlings who weathered the cooling of the sun now have a perfect near by world to call home; so, once Venus is ready the bulk of Earth's surviving population moves there.
So yeah, Earth is now just a frozen husk of its former glory, but Venus quickly replaces it as the most highly populated world, while becoming just as nice a place to live as any of those almost earth like exoplanets we've also claimed. Combine that with the cultural significance of being in the Sol system, Venus could quickly become the most important world in human space.
[Answer]
**Science has progressed**
Humans now have the technology to restore the Sun by funnelling the asteroid belt into it and re-igniting it.
The Earth will once again be a beautiful place to live. It will coincidentally be a great place to invest in real-estate as well as appealing to galaxy-wide nostalgia.
[Answer]
**Monument to Stupidity/Nostalgia**
We just can't believe humans refused to notice the major changes to the Sun over such a length of time. We have to visit it as individuals just to convince ourselves. As others have stated, we also want to visit the birthplace of humanity. After all, with portals provided by other stars, we can easily and cheaply visit for a day.
[Answer]
# The Data
Our evolution is inescapably tied to our environment. Anatomically modern humans have been on Earth for at least hundreds of thousands of years. There is so much data on Earth and that can help us understand ourselves better.
Surely, we have reached star-skipping technology. But why do we turn against each other? Is the utopia possible? Why do we wage wars against people we've never known? The answer may be lying on Earth, or rather, our history.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
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## Its still in the middle for historical reasons
It still has gravity, and a star providing energy. Its not habitable, but the service stations orbiting it are still useful. Not because of what they are orbiting, but because its right in the middle of everything.
Having been the central point of human expansion out into the galaxy, it's still in the middle and if you are passing it, you may as well stop there to refuel, take shore leave, or piratise others.
[Answer]
Gaia. We cannot (cheaply) replicate the outputs of the impossibly complex ecosystem of earth. Parts of the old earth are kept going, artificially, at great expense.
We terraform the new worlds, but every copy is imperfect, and copies of copies get worse. The only place we seem to really get the biological machine going just right is good old earth. Therefore, the earth will be import to human beings, as long as we have not evolved to deal with another biosphere.
Some system, with a long copied-from-copy biosphere and an independence streak, has recently stopped trading with earth. Rumor has it that the people from there look weird, like they have hastened evolution somehow.. Are they still human?
[Answer]
**Some people don't like to move.** No, really.
In history, every time a new land was opened for colonization, a small portion of the population went to colonize, while the majority of people remained at home.
For example, the majority of population growth in the U.S. since 1850 has been from births, not immigration. (sorry, there was no data before 1850)
<https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2014/demo/the-second-great-wave-of-immigration-growth-of-the-foreign-born-population-since-1970.html>
There is a history of people staying in place even when the area becomes less hospitable.
In southern California, the Los Angeles River and Colorado River are usually dry before they reach the ocean, and frequent droughts cause a large strain on water resources.
Damascus, despite still being considered the world's least habitable city due to the aftermath of the brutal war, only lost about 10% of its population in 2012-2014, and is now growing again.
<https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/22610/damascus/population>
The city of Yakutsk regularly gets dangerous and deadly low temperatures of approximately -40 degrees every day all winter, yet still has a population of 310,000.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakutsk#Climate>
The sea will rise into Miami by 11 inches by 2040, but people are not leaving at a significant rate.
<https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article258409363.html>
<https://www.biggestuscities.com/city/miami-florida>
[Answer]
The reason could easily beSentimentality. If I had a chance to go visit the remains of the ancestral home of all humans, the place where history began and technological advancements began to happen, I would go. Earth is the planet where everything truly began, so it would have a certain significance.
That reason alone would probably suffice for humans returning.
[Answer]
# Neutrality:
Every human stellar empire formed by colonizing new stars or conquering really valuable ones. But Earth was never colonized. Earth had nothing worth fighting for. So Earth by it's neutrality in interstellar politics has become the core for the new United Nations.
# Geography:
If you look at a map of human civilization, an odd detail is noticed. At the dead center of all of it lies the home world. Mankind extended more-or-less equally in all directions (this was already brought up). But further, all those empires extend outward as cones from the center. Every empire shares a border with Sad little Sol. This is part coincidence (how the empires evolved) and part design (during colonization, everyone still wanted access to Earth). Further, Earth has massive facilities for docking ships and managing shipping as it's heritage from the exodus.
So everyone who needs goods from anywhere else can get access to Sol without passing through rival territory.
# Infrastructure:
The huge infrastructure of Earth has become self-serving, and it is the perfect place to handle trade because it's already the perfect place to handle trade. A factory on Earth can ship stuff out through the biggest commercial and industrial network in the galaxy. A mineral exchange on Earth will have more of everything on sale there, so people bring more of their minerals there. People looking for goods or services go there to look, and people selling goods and services go there to sell.
# Earth Was already Artificial:
Earth had already been so radically transformed from what it was before that there was little or no surface left on Earth. The planet is one giant city. All food was already produced in hydroponic facilities with grow lights. Any "nature" was encased in domes or buildings to protect it from the pollution. Waste heat was a massive problem, so The Earth cooling has been a godsend for the planet. Geothermal power has gone huge, and the sun still puts out solar energy - the power stations just need to be a little closer. After a few adaptations, Earth is about as warm as it was before the industrial revolution.
] |
[Question]
[
A being known as Dea is the creator of all things in the mortal world. He created human beings as living batteries in order to fuel him and give him power. This god is in competition with other gods for domination over the universe. Dea feeds off of human worship, which he uses to get stronger, gaining power any time humans pay homage to him.
As time goes on, the world becomes more populated. The amount of worship from humans increase and makes this God stronger. Eventually, Dea conducts a rapture-like event which ends the world. During this rapture, he consumes the souls of human beings, both living and dead. All humans ascend to this being and become a part of it, existing everywhere and nowhere at once. This gives Dea a massive power boost. The world resets itself and Dea re-seeds the earth with life. This process occurs every few thousand years.
In our world, the rapture is supposed to happen at any moment, without notice. However, simply rapturing individuals without warning is rude and inconsiderate.
( i haven't even seen the last season of GOT yet! Does the Night King kill everyone? Who wins the iron throne? It's not fair!!!).
Or something to that effect. People must be given time to prepare themselves, put their affairs in order, raise the last generation, etc. This is to show respect for the population. However, warning people of the last days can also have negative consequences. This needs to be done delicately, giving people time to prepare without disrupting society too much. (Not going to work, paying bills, etc)
How can Dea ease people into the last days without negative consequences?
[Answer]
Since Dea is "being polite" about it (but is still going to consume everyone's souls like he's binge-eating ice-cream) I assume there's a reason for it - such as also absorbing their emotional state at death. 7.5 billion souls worth of terror and dismay makes for, quite frankly, an *ungodly* bout of indigestion.
As such, he needs to **market** the ~~hell~~ *heaven* out of it. It's not "the end of the world", it's "gaining your final reward". These aren't "the last humans ever", they're "the winners", having survived to the final round. Possibly make up some other planet who "failed" in competition, to punch up that "Humanity, f-- yeah!" feeling. This isn't the end of days, it's a victory lap.
As part of 'finishing up' - and to make his message more believable - he might also want to turn off baby-making. This ties into "raising the last generation" - since no new ones will be starting - and lets you put a stamp on it: "When the people born on **this** date turn 21 years old, the eternal party shall begin!"
[Answer]
*"Hi, this is your God and I'm going to be, gently, killing all of you in the next little while. Don't panic."* Not sure how *any* marketing department can soften that message. :-)
>
> During this rapture, he consumes the souls of human beings, both living and dead. All humans ascend to this being and become a part of it, existing everywhere and nowhere at once.
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Marketing Department here and we *love* this product. We think it can really take the entire market by storm. Obviously like any of our great products we need to accentuate the positive. It's all about presentation, and what happens after you unwrap the product is covered by the EULA, right?
So we tell people:
* Good news.
* An end to *all* pain and suffering
* No taxes
* No work
* You become a God
* You live forever
* Everyone you know will be there with you
That last one needs to be carefully handled. Frankly, who wants to spend all eternity in the company of HR? Just joking, we at Marketing love HR and truly respect their commitment to the organization. But we all know people we're not so keen on, so maybe mentioning we're going to be in *their* company is not such a good idea. Who wants to share thoughts with a serial killer, or, worse, that annoying twit next door?
So we downplay the last one, but the rest is all good. And if, maybe, God doesn't plan on extending this great product to all the bad people (HR again, I kid, I kid :-) ) probably best not to mention that to them anyway. They might get ... upset and take it out on other people. So why bother them with details they don't need (or deserve) to know.
And it's *free*. We really are giving this product away.
What's not to like. :-)
Am I right, people? You know it ! :-)
[Answer]
Make sure it isn't believed.
Have the "true believers" know and [announce it to the world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Camping). Everyone else laughs and ignores it. More fool them. Politeness has been served.
If you really were to announce it you can expect society to collapse overnight. Why work, why raise children, why do anything when it's all going to end? Many people would carry on but enough wouldn't that it would cause massive problems.
[Answer]
Challenge to your basic concept incoming, I'm afraid...
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> How can Dea ease people into the last days without negative consequences?
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Why does Dea care about people's feelings? I don't care about how an alkaline battery feels. When it's used up, I throw it away. If that's all we are to Dea, there's no need to "ease" your alkaline battery into its last days.
If Dea cares about people to the level that a farmer cares about their animals, it will only slaughter rapture some of the people and allow the population as a whole to continue increasing. Simply from the point of view of maximising the result, you want a large breeding stock. The smaller the breeding stock, the smaller the number of lambs for slaughter rapture. Starting completely from scratch is usually only a good idea when the breeding stock have become infected with something which cannot be eliminated.
This latter perhaps gives you a reason for rapture. As people's knowledge of and control over the world increases, their need for a god inevitably reduces. There's no need to invoke a god to explain the moving lights in the sky when Copernicus and Newton have the answers. There's no need to invoke a god to save your child from illness when Pasteur and Semmelweis have the answer. The biggest enemy for Dea isn't atheism, it's ***indifference***. So when the worship from the herd drops off due to intellectual improvement, you slaughter rapture them and raise a new, ignorant herd from scratch.
Dea still won't "ease" people into that though. For humanely slaughtering animals, you make sure they don't realise anything is wrong until the moment the slaughterman uses the knife/bolt to kill them. So the humane way to slaughter rapture the population is to do it completely out of the blue, with no warning at all.
And if Dea does actually care about people as people, equal in status to itself, it fundamentally won't murder rapture them.
So the outcome is clear. Either Dea won't do a full-scale rapture, or Dea won't warn humanity of their impending rapture.
[Answer]
I can recommend The Hydrogen Sonata from the culture series, it deals with exactly the issue of "subliming" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hydrogen_Sonata>
Basically anyone who thinks they have their affairs in order gets the option to store themselves in a freezer, and because the date is set you slowly end up with a world mostly stored away. Children become rare. Drug fueled orgies become...not rare but very well organized.
So to take away a few lessons:
1. Set a date, preferably two generations in the future.
2. make sure people have an easy way to spend the interim without suicide.
3. Make sure the majority of people think this is a great idea. See the Brexit for some ideas.
4. Have some sort of premium package available for the people who want to organize things. Everybody likes being the cult leader. Maybe encode their names in the DNA of the next worlds' beings?
[Answer]
Click bait.
"20 reasons you should relax about the Rapture! (As explained by our staff Bikini Team)"
"30 celebrities who are planning parties for Rapture Day"
"20 photos of models and what they will be wearing on Rapture Day"
"25 great recipes YOU can prepare for YOUR Rapture Day party"
"Never prayed to Dea? It's not too late! 18 ways you can atone today!"
"Thirty great hotels that are having Rapture Day sales!"
[Answer]
**Surprised no one mentionned the [Ragnarök](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnar%C3%B6k).**
Quoting wikipedia:
>
> In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is a series of events, including a great battle, foretold to lead to the death of a number of great figures (including the Gods Odin, Thor, Týr, Freyr, Heimdallr and Loki), natural disasters and the submersion of the world in water. After these events, the world will resurface anew and fertile, the surviving and returning gods will meet and the world will be repopulated by two human survivors. Ragnarök is an important event in Norse mythology...
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Having a similar event (perhaps without the submersion of the world in water) can be a *really good way to warn your people about the end of the world*, and may be widely accepted. Plant the seed early in the religion worshipping your god, and let the people accept the armageddon as part of the history to come.
They will be warned. They will know that they're all going to die, and everything will be obliterated - even the memory of anything that ever had value. But it's part of an inevitable events that will happen *someday*, just like their natural death. Vikings lived with it.
Plus:
1. It's a real life example.
2. It gives off the idea of the world "resetting".
3. Vikings!
[Answer]
When he announces it he also indicates that to be eligible for rapture you must continue to behave basically as you would if the rapture was not coming. While you may make preparations you may not act as if there isn't going to be a future after that point.
[Answer]
Don't just lay the end of the world on your followers and then twiddle your thumbs. Make PREPS. Post-Rapture Environment Primer Sessions. Make it clear that the session is voluntary but highly recommended. Make it clear that people will go whether they are ready or not. Organize seating, traffic, maybe accomodations. Spend the rest of the end days teaching humans about their new home beyond time and space.
I'm a person that's always been in one place. Not the same place all the time, mind you, but I've never been in two places at once. Well, I've never been in two different physical places at once, though I often have multiple web pages open at once. Is the afterlife like that, some sort of interface that lets me view the afterworld from any place I like? Is it simply a place where space doesn't exist and time moves infinitely fast, then waits for you when it's your turn to make a decision? If so, how do I make sense of what is happening in that place?
For me, the concept of being everywhere at once and nowhere at all at the same time is utterly alien to me. It is exciting but also terrifying. I am not afraid of the unknown, but I want to be prepared. Being torn away from everything I know isn't nice. Traveling to exciting new places without spending a coin is exciting - but I need to know how to behave in those places. And even though I cannot practice navigating infinite-dimensional space while I'm still on Earth, I will love to hear the theory. Even if it's as short as "the understanding of your new home will come naturally when you arrive", *I need to hear that*.
Once I know exactly - or as exactly as is possible for a human being - what I'm going into, I won't despise you for years of terror that come from knowing my inevitable demise. I won't even swerve the civilization into a burning pit ravaged by panicking animals. I will bless you in my heart for the knowledge you gave me. I will wrap up my chat conversation, save all of my unfinished work, even turn off my computer for once. Then I'll put on my Sunday clothes to attend the world's last lesson of PREPS. And just as the classes worldwide come to an end at the exact same time, everyone closes their eyes in unison, and ...
<fade to black, short pause, cut to stock footage of Big Bang and a booming choir symbolizing the dawn of an awesome new age>
[Answer]
By doing it far, far in advance.
If you tell the people you are going to end all their lives, they will go through [the 5 stages of grief](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model):
1. **Denial**: "The prophecy is clearly wrong. The message doesn't come from the real Dea. Or if it really comes from Dea, it is just a test of our faith. And who can even prove beyond all doubt that Dea exists anyway?"
2. **Anger**: "How can the great Dea do this to us?!? Down with the false god! Curse his name! Vandalize the temples! Burn the holy scriptures! Lynch the priests!"
3. **Bargaining**: "Maybe Dea will reconsider if we prove how faithful we are? Praise his name! Rebuild the temples! Read the scriptures all day! Lynch the heretics!"
4. **Depression**: "It is hopeless. Dea has forsaken us. Everything in life is pointless now. We can just as well end it now."
5. **Acceptance**: "Let's make the best of the little time we have left. Let's prepare ourselves, put our affairs in order and raise the last generation."
You want the phases 1-4 to cause as little damage as possible and to stay as long as possible in stage 5. In order to achieve that, Dea needs to announce the end of the world as far in advance as possible, preferably multiple generations, and make sure every subsequent generation is risen in a way that it accepts the end of the world as a fact of life. That way people won't turn as crazy during the first phases (it's something far, far in the future, after all) and the last generations which will *actually* experience the end will already be raised in phase 5.
1. Establish the exact date for the end of the world as a core pillar of the religion from the very start of the world.
2. Add a couple prophecies about events which are harbingers of the end of the world. Add precise dates and detailed descriptions of what will happen. Space them out over a couple hundred years with the frequency becomming higher near the end.
3. Make sure all those prophecies become true in ways which can not be mistaken for anything but divine intervention. This reinforces that the prophecies are true.
[Answer]
Announce it **gradually, over a couple of hundred of years**, first to level minded politicians who'll hint it to people who trust them, then to more and more people. What's a couple of hundred of years for a god?
What you'll get is (appearing to be) highly religious leaders who'll give an example and hints of their own to a few people they can trust. Over generations, like minded politicians will join together to form rapture oriented parties and societies. Eventually people will talk and several respected leaders will come together to say they heard the voice of God. Nearing rapture time, the last couple of generations of people will look forward to be reunited with the almighty spirit.
Add incentives to your followers such as "If you hint this to people, ye shall have many sheep and camels. Oh, it's been a hundred years already? Ok, um, many cars and a boat. Ah, another century's past? Ummm... autonomous flying cars, and one of those funny robots that cleans the spaceship and has a British accent. Just hint the rapture thing, will ya?"
[Answer]
Consider the flood. Noah warned everybody, but only 8 people got on the ark. Jesus says that in the last days, it will be like the time of Noah. People going about their daily lives, until they get left behind.
[Answer]
Establish some "doomsday cult" or "part away club" - (like "Heaven's Gate"). Help them to become most powerfull religious and political force in the world. Then just fulfill the prophecy! This would be a great worldwide holiday with all the wealth of the world being spent in days with great joy and happiness.
[Answer]
If there aren’t any (or at least not many) other solar systems Dea cares about, the stars can wink out, one by one, until only the sun is left. A countdown like that is hard to miss.
[Answer]
You made the humans. Make them so those alive, when the time comes, don't care about their lives on earth.
"I'm really looking forward to..."
(God pokes brain.)
"Bring on death! I have nothing to live for here!"
[Answer]
Tell them it happens in 150 years, do it tomorrow.
[Answer]
Could those-to-be-raptured start getting dreams - ones with a little "this is real" notice, so they start to wrap some things up? In many myths (and *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*), there's a sense of "prophetic vision" with some dreams that makes them stand out from regular dreams.
Also, I hope this god makes sure that they only take pilots who are not actively flying, surgeons not actively mid-operation, and in general, not people who are driving vehicles.
Or perhaps those with the dreams, once they're settled, they'll feel compelled to voluntarily enter something like a Futurama Suicide Booth (<https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Suicide_booth> ) or the disintegration chambers in the Star Trek episode *A Taste of Armageddon* (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon> )
A similar tactic is to convince everyone that they are about to become noncorporeal (technically true) and continue life as Beings of Light -- see Babylon 5's TV-Movie *The River of Souls* (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5:_The_River_of_Souls> ) -- just make sure no counter-deities are trying to "save" your people.
Possibly some hormonal changes may help -- decrease adrenaline, and other neurochems that send a "joy in living" signal? (I am very much not a scientist, so I can't suggest a good thing to synthesize, and whether you should alter people directly, or merely add it to something everyone consumes, but I'd love others to build on this idea.)
[Answer]
In [*Neon Genesis Evangelion*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Genesis_Evangelion), a rapture-like event that fuses all life on Earth along with all of humanity into a sea of Tang is actually triggered by a sect-like organization.
So your rapture could also be triggered by someone else besides your deity that are fed the information, and have them take care of all of the prepwork. Perhaps only give them the final trigger once your deity feels it is time. And if they refuse, well, the delivery of the final catalyst was a fair warning of what is to come, while the deity triggers it itself using its own materials.
So basically, you could simply outsource your HR department.
[Answer]
I would make a post in some forum or question and answer site telling them that I'm going to do it, but without telling them.
Like with a story or something, asking for how they would announce it, so they think it's only teorical, and even gives their opinion on it and how it should be done.
That way I would have their best ideas, and I can choose from them, and learn the best way to do it.
And then I would do it that way.
...
Wait...
[Answer]
Just make the date far enough ahead, so that it will only affect people's great-great-great grandchildren.
Then there will be no need to immediately panic, and the problem will be far enough away that most people just ignore it anyway. Slowly as the time approaches people will become more concerned about it, and society will slowly adapt.
[Answer]
Assuming this is 2019 then just send memes to the masses for comfort akin to:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jE3Wp.jpg)
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[Question]
[
I'm worldbuilding low fantasy with technology level of the early middle ages. Very few of the people could tap into psionic power, which makes them faster and stronger than common people. Average psionic users could be three times stronger than a strong human, while the most gifted ones could be up to a dozen times stronger. The psionic users could sustain their power for a limited amount of time, then it has to rest and recuperate. The stronger the exertion the shorter the period. Think jogging vs sprinting.
Luckily psionic are rare, something like 1 in 1,000 for a weak psionic, 1 in 10,000 for a medium one, and 1 in 100,000 for a strong one.
Despite their rarity they are over represented among nobility, due to the usefulness for their fighting prowess. All the children born with psionic potential are trained and join the nobility, regardless who their parents are. Psionic talent is somewhat heritable, children of psionic parents have larger chance to be psionic but the odds are low. Most psionic parents have normal children.
Since strength doesn't come from the muscles, what dark age weapon would suit best for a 7 year old girl, which has the strength of a dozen strong men?
[Answer]
**Polearms and Shortbows**
If you ever ask yourself what the best medieval weapons are for someone, 7/10 times it’s a pole arm of some kind.
Your anime tier seven year old still has short arms, so they need to compensate for their lack of reach. Therefore they need a long weapon. A halberd, bec de corbin, glaive, Dane Axe or warhammer allows for good reach, the ability to stab, and the ability to cut or crush. You always want to be able to do at least two of these three things, so that way you have options in combat. Blunt trauma is also good against armored opponents. Stabs can also make it through chain mail if enough force is applied.
A mongol or Turkic style composite bow would also be a very good choice of weapon for someone small with super strength, as they have admirable draw weights but a relatively short draw distance and height, which would allow someone with short arms and super strength to use it with ease. Bows are good because you can kill from a distance.
In short, give them a halberd and a composite bow.
EDIT: Actually, you should probably just give her the bow, there’s a lot of issues wielding any decent sized pole arms with someone so small.
[Answer]
**Rocks.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Ebrl.jpg)
[source](http://absfreepic.com/free-photos/download/little-girl-throws-stone-6000x2502_21577.html)
1. Rocks are cheap and easy to find. She will be able to find rocks that fit her hand.
2. It is easy to practice throwing rocks at targets and improving your aim. That experience is directly applicable to throwing rocks in a fight.
3. The girl does not want up close fights with people who have longer reach. She will be able to hit people with rocks who are a long way away.
4. A thrown rock is a serious weapon. A rock thrown by someone seven times stronger than a man will punch a hole in a person. It will only take one hit.
5. No-one will suspect a little girl with a bag is a threat. Until she takes out a rock, throws it, and knocks someone's head clean off.
[Answer]
This is a variant on the [stone-throwing](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/168743/586) answer.
Have heavy draft horses available in your world. Fit one out with a reduced size version of a jousting saddle, with back support for the rider. Her legs won't reach round to the horse's sides, but that does not matter because it can be led.
Sitting on the horse will give her a better, safer view of the battlefield, looking over the heads of her bodyguard rather than having to stand in front of them. The horse will absorb the backwards thrust when she throws. It can carry a lot of ammunition. When she needs to rest she will already be in an armchair.
[Answer]
**Spiked Heavy Plate Mail**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WyU18.jpg)
She has the strength and speed to not even notice the weight. The extra weight would even give her an advantage and by being spiked every blow could easily be fatal. The heavy armour would also help keep her safe from attacks.
I would imagine she would charge in and charge back out before wearing out and leaving a trail of bodies in her wake.
[Answer]
Her biggest asset is mobility. With 1/3 the mass of an adult but 12x the strength, she has effectively 36x the strength for her size. Assuming she has the right balance of fast/slow muscle, she should be able to jump some impressive heights, and accelerate very fast. Wall-running may well be possible (jumping wall to wall).
Give her a bag-full of daggers (so she doesn't have to stop to pull them out after stabbing), and she'll be unstoppable in an urban environment.
[Answer]
The **crossbow** was the first hand-held weapon that could be used by an untrained person (i.e 7 year old girl) to injure or kill a knight in plate armour.
It is said a boy used a crossbow to kill Richard the Lionheart.
In medieval times, a bow of 100–150 pounds draw-weight could be drawn to firing position with the hands and a foot-stirrup, or with a belt hook and a foot stirrup.
Your character could reload quickly without the need of a stirrup. **Rapid fire bolts**
Powerful crossbows can penetrate armour and kill at 200 yards
[Answer]
**Warhammer**
Reach isn't a problem if the subject in question has the strength of a dozen men. That means that she's faster than everyone else, and that she can wear full plate armor with no drawbacks. The fact that she's smaller is only an advantage once she's stronger, as it means there's less of her to hit.
You want a weapon, therefore, which capitalizes on her strength, and that means you're looking for a blunt trauma weapon rather than a bladed weapon. If you hit a man, even on the shield, with the strength of a blunt strike with the force 12 times that of a normal force, you'll shatter the whole arm.
So, what you want to do is suit up the little psionic with armor to stop arrows and blades, give her twin heavy warhammers, and then unleash her in the general direction of the enemy and watch as she shatters / breaks everything in her way.
[Answer]
The jaw bone of an ass and cloak of lion skin seems appropriate.
Hurled weapons might better take advantage of the girls strength than a bow would. So I’d say javelins or Roman Plumbata.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hn5KO.jpg)
For melee weapons, while she could wield a mass weapon to great effect, her low mass would make handling such a weapon a challenge. No matter how strong she is, her feet only generate so much friction against the ground. If she swings a mattock or a halberd too hard, she’ll spin herself out of control, forces being equal and opposite as they are.
I think a strong weapon that can endure her great strength but proportional to her bodyweight so she can swing it fast. So, a long sword or broad sword, of the highest quality steel, would be good. So would a mace — she’s short and she can shatter knees then skulls. Maybe a scythe that she wields like a quarter staff — blocking attacks and then slashing legs off before cutting heads off.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/epv3B.jpg)
[Answer]
OK, I'm going to add on to @Willk 's answer and say **rocks**, but I'm going to add some math to it.
Lets use a reasonable Major League Baseball pitch as a baseline. Say, a 150 gram baseball moving at 100mph / 160kmph.
If we say that the girl is 12 times stronger than the average man, this means she can throw that same baseball with 12 times the force behind it. That doesn't necessarily mean that it will be moving 12 times as fast though as the amount of force required to accelerate an object increases the faster it's already going.
Lets just say it's only going 10 times as fast so the math is easy. 1000mph.
To get the impact force of the baseball, we need to use a simple formula F = (0.5 √ó m √ó v^2) √∑ d.
That's half of the mass of the object multiplied by the velocity squared, divided by the collision distance. (the collision distance is basically how much the object "gives" when it hits the target. Think the crumple zone of a car that has crashed).
We need to convert our values a bit though. Grams to kilograms, mph to m/s etc.
When we plug our numbers into the formula we get. F = (0.5 x 0.075kg x 447m/s^2) / 0.01m(it's a rock, it will either shatter on impact or not compress very much at all. I'm using 1cm for the sake of simplicity. this is a very rough estimate of force)
So F = about 1.5 KiloNewtons of force. Which is in the ballpark of a shot fired out of a rifle chamber in .338 Lapua Magnum.
Give her a bil 'ol bag of rocks and set her loose. heck, give her some javelins and she'd skewer several people at once.
[Answer]
I believe it would be **Slinger**,
From Bible:
>
> David hurls a stone from his sling and hits Goliath in the center of
> his forehead, Goliath falls on his face to the ground, and David cuts
> off his head.
>
>
>
and:
>
> The Bible provides a famous slinger account, the battle between David
> and Goliath from the First Book of Samuel 17:34–36, probably written
> in the 7th or 6th century BC, describing events having occurred around
> the 10th century BC. The sling, easily produced, was the weapon of
> choice for shepherds fending off animals.
>
>
>
And David has such small body.
Rocks is very hard to throw, slinger aim far better and add extra sentrifugal force, adjusting it length also works.
**Edit:** add other "strong is relative" answer
**Pen and paper**
We can agree that our world where we live is controlled by many manipulator, Smart girl with pen and paper (need to have writing and reading skill) can control the world by sending messages only. Just concentrate the psionic power on her brain when writing the message.
] |
[Question]
[
In a magical world where mages can become immortal, why would some of them retain the appearance of being old (70s-80s), even though they can become young and beautiful? Even some mages who become immortal at young ages would change their appearance to become older. Why would they do that?
[Answer]
### First impressions matter
Here are 4 people. I'm not telling you their skills. I'm not telling you their education level. I'm not telling you anything about them. You only have what you can guess from their photo:
1. [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/58FOC.png)     2. [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YOB1e.png)     3. [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qbdr0.png)     4.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NE6zg.png)
* Who would you vote for in an election?
* Who would be a good boss at your workplace?
* Who would you go to for advice?
* Who would be a good military commander?
* If money were no issue, who would you pick to defend you from a serious criminal charge?
* Who is more likely to not act selfishly when given power?
* Who has an interesting story to tell?
I'd expect you picked mostly 3 and 4.
Our brains are really lazy, and spot patterns, and then use these patterns to simplify further work. This is not a good thing, it can lead to discrimination, but if you wanted to be trusted and respected, you'd appear in such a way that people treat you how you want to be treated.
As an aside, if I were a wizard with this power, I'd have two personas, one the old trusted wise guy, and the other, "his son", who has taken over the local singles scene.
[Answer]
Appearance is an important social cue, as is age. If they come from a culture where age is revered, they might choose to have an older appearance in order to be perceived as wiser, or more knowledgeable. It might also be used as a means of making opponents underestimate them: age often carries the association of "feeble", a misconception which might prove fruitful when planted in the mind of an enemy.
[Answer]
**Gandalf in *Lord of the Rings***
Gandalf and the other Maiar can choose their appearance. They choose to be old men instead of young men with huge muscles. They seem less threatening and people are quicker to listen to their sage advice. The strength of the Maiar is their wisdom and advice to each, so to be listened to is paramount. Best have every advantage in that that you can get. Their raw strength and survivability is second to this all, even though they have plenty of this.
In Altered Carbon, the first season, someone has the same choice. He tells us he is choosing to be an older man. It shows his wisdom and careful approach to life. The respect he has for it. Not the brash strong youth that make mistakes and rush in headlong.
Finally, as an opposite example, James Bond (Daniel Craig version) meets Q for the first time. He laughs as "the boy still has spots". Despite the huge knowledge and "being able to do more damage before he's finished his morning Earl Grey than [Bond] can do in a year in the field" he's not being taken seriously.
[Answer]
God creating Adam - Which one is God?
>
> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/P1oDh.jpg)
>
>
> The Creation of Adam, detail of the
> ceiling fresco by Michelangelo, 1508–12; in the Sistine Chapel,
> Vatican City.
>
>
> <https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sistine-Chapel>
>
>
>
[Answer]
## Innate Symbolism
---
Mages, despite being immortal, are still fundamentally human, and continue to live and interact with humans. As a result, the **symbolic** notion of appearances is still deeply ingrained both within them, and their society.
To understand why mages would appear elderly at times, let us look at some of the associations we have with youthful and aged humans.
## Age = Wisdom
---
The concept of age=wisdom is undeniably ingrained into human society, and wisdom is what Magicians seek above all else. Wisdom is the source of their power, and by appearing older, mages give off a sense of overbearing power.
An example below is the Archmage Antonidas, a powerful mage from the Warcraft universe. With one glance, one can feel a sense of gravitas, wisdom/intelligence, and power.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AdF3S.jpg)
## Youth = Power
---
The symbolism of appearances is also potentially why exceptionally powerful mages and wizards may also choose to appear youthful, or beautiful. Youth is a symbol for raw power and strength, rebellion, and never-ending pursuit.
An example is Jaina Proudmoore, the pupil of Antonidas from the same universe, a youthful mage who symbolizes power, courage, and brilliance, who is constantly looking for the best path to do good.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lc5xW.png)
## Conclusion
---
Mages, as humans, still have humanity within them, as well as the ingrained symbolism and concepts that comes from society itself.
They could be looking to portray themselves as youthful; they wish to appear raw and powerful, full of desire and ambition, they want to rebel against the norms of the world and death itself.
They could also appear elderly; their pursuit of the arcane will go on for centuries, maybe eons, and they are tired, with not a care for politics or the world, just their pursuit. However, that age also shows as wisdom, intelligence, a scar of their dogged pursuit of the arcane.
There could be many reasons for their choices, but as I see it, one logical reason for a mage to appear either young or old, is that *their appearance itself is a reflection of their internal mentality and psyche*. Similar to actual humans, whose appearances are affected by their mental state, mages may subconsciously change their appearance to do so as well.
If a mage is full of reckless ambition, and pursue the arcane arts for power and influence, to rebel, perhaps their appearance will naturally change to that of a reckless youth. If their mental age has become wizened in their pursuit, they may appear just as wizened in the mirror as well.
Mages, despite their immortal lives, still cannot escape the human mentality. As such, their appearances conform, through different mechanisms, to their own perception of themselves.
[Answer]
When I was a teenager, I worked for five years as an aide at an assisted living. As a result, geriatrics is right in my wheelhouse. Here's a quick summary of what I observed about the advantages of being old.
## "A wise old owl once said..."
**...that people would think him a regular bird-brain if he wasn't so old.** Like it or not, people tend to think of elderly people as wise. After all, they've had untold millenia decades to build up useful knowledge and skill. Like Gandalf and Saruman, your mages want to be taken seriously, so they make themselves look old.
**...that he wouldn't be able to get away with annoying the people around him if he wasn't young.** Another advantage of age is that people give elderly people (especially old geezers) quite a bit of leeway when it comes to embarrassing/annoying actions. "You wouldn't hit an old man, would you?" Your mages tend to be [insufferable geniuses,](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InsufferableGenius) so they take advantage of this tendency to smooth relations with others.
**...that being young *sucks.*** Let's face it: nobody really *wants* to be an immature teenager again. While some of that immaturity and rashness comes from lack of experience, a goodly part comes from physiological factors like hormones and incomplete brain development, which are part of the package. Your mages don't want to deal with all this emotional and cognitive baggage, so they stay *at least* thirty years old.
**...that he often gets away with mistakes by feigning dementia.** Unfortunately, many people have the unfortunate mindset that "all old people have Alzheimer's." While your mages are very smart, they aren't perfect - occasionally they make mistakes. This would be extremely embarrassing to them if other people found out, so they attribute their mistakes to senility.
[Answer]
They might wish to avoid attention or to more easily blend with the crowd. A beautiful young woman could attract a lot of attention which might not always be desirable. If they were at a venue where the average age was fairly high, parliament for example, they would probably attract less attention aged 68 than 18.
[Answer]
Many reasons, some of which are compatible:
* To get more respect for their judgment
* To avoid notice in many respects -- perhaps to blend into crowds better, perhaps to avoid advances, perhaps to avoid being challenged by youngsters to fights -- which ones depend on cultures and may vary even among them in your world
* To avoid duties incumbent on the young in their world, whether it's overt gestures of respect to the elderly or military duties
* To avoid people thinking them aware of the fads among the young
[Answer]
Heinlein's [Lazarus Long](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_Long) mostly goes for a mature man, late 50's or 60's, not so young he is challenged for strength and would have to prove himself, old enough to be seen as a leader and to have enough wealth to live a relaxed life. But still young and fit enough to fight in an army and to defend his own life and belongings, and known by others to use all arms available to him.
He has been younger and older looking in his long life, but this is what he goes for when has the choice.
Other characters in the same series go for younger, more likely to be soldiers or parents to young children.
In these books people can select a body age and a 'looks' age. Often they look older than the age they keep their body, looking mature but without the pains and problems of an old body.
Book characters who are more likely to fight with magic will most often go for an older look, as a mage mostly has more power when older, so by looking older they will often warn others not to pick fights with them.
Young looking people will have to fight more often, as they can not impress by accumulated power and/or wealth.
[Answer]
Powerful immortals have little reason to care about age, and they don't fear it. Their attitude to the appearance of age is completely alien to mortals.
You or I might fear getting old, but that is mortal nonsense, beneath the notice of the ageless. Looking very young or very old is no more a problem to them than dying my hair different colours is a problem for me. When they make themselves look 9 they aren't naive or inexperienced, when they make themselves look 90 they aren't powerless or close to death. They could do either for any reason or no reason at all; and they do, usually for reasons wildly unrelated to the concerns of mere mortals.
"The ancient hermit look is so in this century, you know, but Sir Edward doesn't seem to have gotten the memo, he looks like a teenager, how embarrassing for him! Nobody who gets invited to the right parties has been a teenager for 300 years!"
"He says it's bronze age retro. Reckons it's the next big thing."
"We weren't teenagers in the bronze age. Does he even remember it? Was he even walking the mortal plane back then? What a poser."
[Answer]
Depending on how common these immortal mages are, some of the other answers might not work. They rely on how *our* society perceives age, and the values we associate with it (e.g. we generally consider older people more wise and experienced). If these immortal beings who can change appearance at will were common, this would no longer be the case - we'd have no way of visually determining how experienced or skilled a given mage is.
So, what other reasons could these mages have for generally favoring older bodies? Maybe their bodies still age for some reason, until they actively decide to suppress it. Then, unless new mages recognizes this immediately, they would probably just live out their lives while aging normally. It is only when their old and feeble bodies starts to become an issue they might decide to change it. But since they already left their youthful appearances far behind, they'd probably only revert back a few years, and then freeze it there.
Reasons for why their bodies still appears to age could be that immortality does not stop aging, it just does not allow them to die. Alternatively it could be a subconscious process, to match the world and non-mages around them.
[Answer]
**Anti-Aging Magic Imposes a Cost**
If magic isn't just something that mages achieve by simple wishing, but requires either effort or material or spiritual components to accomplish, mages might allow themselves to age and only periodically restore their youth when it becomes absolutely necessary. If each spell that makes you younger costs a "pearl beyond price", you might not be willing to bear that cost just for a youthful aesthetic.
Perhaps the specific "youth" magic is under the control of specialists in that area of magic, and they require service from the other mages in exchange for sharing it. This would mean that you could judge the attitude of any given mage towards that group of specialists, and some aspects of their personality, by looking at their *apparent* age. Mages that appear old have some grievance that makes them unwilling to cooperate with other mages, or just don't like being pushed around. Etc.
[Answer]
>
> In a magical world where mages can become immortal **by becoming a lich**, why would some of them retain the appearance of being old (70s-80s) **something from a death metal album cover**, even though they can become young and beautiful **since they have access to 9th level illusion spells**? Even some mages who become immortal **liches** at young ages would change their appearance to become older **a decrepit skeleton**. Why would they do that?
>
>
>
Matter of taste. Sometimes people just don't care. Sometimes it's just that we've been exposed to such many stereotypes that the appearance manifests automagically.
It might also be that they are using the appearance they are using as a badge of office. You know, just like you can identify some people wear turbans, gold rings, giant belt buckles or kilts because that's the clothing of their culture. For immortal men, the appearance of being ancient while also being ripped shows that their heritage is either greek or norse god. Now unlike greek goddesses, Norse goddesses will also be ripped, and don't care about an older appearance (or even an undead one, see Hel for example).
[Answer]
Besides what was already said:
* perhaps most mages who are immortal in fact don't do that, so it's an effective smokescreen for those that do?
* they might just be styling on the mortals. This could even be a plot point, with mortals seeing immortals choosing to look old as mocking their mortality.
* perhaps it's a secret that mages can do this, and they don't want people to ask themselves why EVERY. SINGLE. MAGE. they meet is in their mid-twenties or early thirties.
* expanding on the last point, maybe that's why some mages are known to go on adventures that last about a year every ~five years, and return with another piece of their youth visibly spent - convincingly changing form gradually is HARD, and they want to spend some time at Mage Central anyway to exchange experiences/learn new skills/do the kind of magic that is impossible to explain away or conceal/not pretend to be a person they are not.
] |
[Question]
[
I want to make a world where mages can search for and establish portals between a planet and another, but in a way that only one portal can exist between planet A and planet B, one between A and C, etc ...
Portals can be created from A to B even while B is yet inhabited.
I have the idea of a story where this is used as a 100% certain fact to ensure security (i.e check people coming from a planet), but at some point someone manage to open a second portal between planets, bad things ensue.
So the solution should be plausible enough to be admitted, yet breakable with another condition.
I thought about portals needing a large amount of magic from the planet, but then it would also prevent portals one a single planet to several other planets, which is not what I want.
Other solutions I could think about are more Sci-Fi related, while I'd like to keep my world Fantasy oriented.
[Answer]
**The portals are natural phenomena and already exist. They must be accessed.**
Like ley lines or dragon currents on and in the Earth, energy lines already connect every mass in the universe to every other mass; it is part of the interaction by which mass molds space and vice versa. Your mages discover the portals and then build the means to access and use them.
If there is an existing portal between A and B, but I wish to have my own different portal between A and B and I somehow make it, it may turn out that I have actually hijacked the existing but undeveloped portal between A and R. Possibly B is "on the way" to R? Or this hijacking may have consequences for B and R which are entirely different celestial bodies. Or *were* entirely different celestial bodies.
[Answer]
Make your portals (to borrow a term from physics) 'magnetic'. In other words, two magic portals that are too close to each other in space will attract each other and merge into a single portal, and because portals between planets require tremendous amounts of magical energy, they have tremendous 'magnetic' attraction. Two portals that have their origins and destinations on the same two planets will be drawn together into a single portal no matter how far apart they are on their respective planets.
Just like physical magnetism, that rule could be broken by proper construction or shielding, though for the sake of the story you'd want to make that more complicated and difficult than it is for electrical circuits.
[Answer]
Ideas:
* The target of a portal is somehow related to its location. If you want to create a portal on A that leads to B, there is exactly one place on A that such a portal can be created. (Create a portal anywhere else, and it will lead somewhere else.) There is some fudge factor here, but the fudge factor is less than the size of the portal. Similarly, when you create the portal, because you are creating it on A, there is only one possible location on B that the other end can appear.
* Portals resonate. You could create two portals between A and B, but if you did, something awful would happen. This could range from the second portal causing the first to break, to destabilizing both of them, to causing both A and B to explode.
Now... how do you break this? A cop-out answer would be that someone finds a way to open portals from A to X and X to B with the portals on X close enough to each other that they can be used "almost like" a portal from A to B. Maybe they're practically back to back such that you have to be really careful if you actually want to *stop* at X and not just go from A to B or vice verse.
Alternatively for the first case, someone figures out something that lets them change the rules for portal locations. Alternatively for the second case, someone finds a way around the resonance, or (depending on what sort of chaos you want) exploits it for their own purposes.
p.s. Recommended viewing: [Stargate SG1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_SG-1). Each planet normals has exactly one gate, and funny stuff can happen if you introduce a second.
[Answer]
### Stargates and IP Address Conflicts
Locking an interplanetary portal to a single apparently-stable position is actually a massively complex understanding that Mages simply don't understand very well. If the portal is *truly* stationary, then it would instantly zip up into the sky (or through the ground) as its planet of origin rotated and revolved and fell on its path around the galaxy. But that's not what happens: Portals remain fixed where they're created, relative to the planet on which the open.
This happens due to a strange force that mages do not understand, yet is unique to each planet. The "signature" (IP Address) of any given portal is made of two parts: The Source, and the Destination (somewhat similar to the gateways from Stargate). Unknown to the Mages, these correspond to the gravity wells created by various celestial bodies (this can double for an explanation of why most gateways open onto similarly-sized planets; opening onto a celestial body with a vastly different gravitational pull could be more difficult).
This means that two portals with the same Source and Destination would be considered, from the Universe's perspective, to be the same portal. It's essentially an IP address conflict, except it just means that any energy which goes into creating the second portal is instead dumped uselessly into the first portal--possibly reinforcing it but having no other effect.
### Hack the Planet('s gravitational signature)!
If someone learns enough about why duplicate portals fail, they may learn to "spoof" the signature of an existing portal, disabling the original at will (which could be bad if someone is in the middle of moving through it).
Alternatively, they may learn how to "refine" the Source or Destination portion of the the Signature, allowing a second portal to open to the same destination, but still be considered "distinct" by universal law. This would be like converting from IPv4 to IPv6.
The benefit of this is that you can keep the details of it as vague as you want, as the Mages don't need to know about gravity wells etc, but you can include little details that show you *do* have a consistent set of rules that you're following. This can give the reader the benefit of being able to guess the underlying rules, which makes the worldbuilding seem more robust and coherent.
[Answer]
Thanks to all the answers given here, and mostly the ones about having some sort of mana connection between planets, I had this idea that was not mentioned yet :
**Planets are connected by a mana circulatory system, with "arteries" and "veins"**
Just like the circulatory system in our body, made of blood vessels, the universe has a mana circulatory system between all planets.
For the known portals in place, they are all using the "arteries", still full of mana. The fact that these vessels are full of mana is what made it easier for mages to create portals, and to consider it's the only path that could exist.
Mana depleted vessels, the "veins", have not been discovered yet, as mana has to be injected to have portals to go through them.
This also open the idea of having an "heart" managing all the mana of the universe, could be a star / the sun, with some more story to tell.
[Answer]
The portal between two planets can be opened only establishing a connection between the mana of planet A and planet B.
Once the connection is established, the two manas act like one, thus it's impossible for a mana to connect with itself.
If you force this process to open a second portal, you are actually splitting the mana of a planet. Bad things are granted to happen.
[Answer]
Part of the fantasy answer will depend on the background of your magics, and of your people.
At the core of the issue, if people do not delve into the interplanetary portals and actively discover that a second pair is possible, then it will be accepted knowledge that it isn't possible to do so. Whether this is because of a propagated lie by ruling parties, a rule of magic that has not been proven breakable by current mages, or just a simple matter of complacency by the masses does not matter.
Thus at the root of the answer is somebody challenging the accepted theories of interplanetary portals for better and/or worse. It likely involves research or inspiration, and will almost assuredly be an untested theory when tried the first time.
Some ideas include:
**Spell Research**
Any form of portal and/or permanent transportation spell requires a certain level of calculations so that the ends of them are stable. Because Space is Big, there is only the precision in the magical math to only guarantee one safe portal per pair of planets. The research needed is not in the creation of the portal, but in the calculations needed to link them.
A way around this is to determine that the math to make those calculations has not been invented yet or not widely known by mages, which can be plausible if that kind of math are not needed in everyday magic.
**Resonance**
It's been touched on that connecting planets by portal creates a link between them. In this case, a resonance in the mana of the planets though the "line" that the portal travels in. Like a vibrating string, there is a specific frequency that it vibrates at. Of course, it's fantasy, so it'll be called a hum or something.
For whatever reason, it is generally accepted that interfering with the resonance between interplanetary portals is a bad thing. But there are mages that theorize that it is plausible to create another pair, though it has never been done and is exponentially harder to do because of the already established mana resonance.
But all it takes is for one person to get desperate enough to polish up and try an untested theory, and be lucky enough to succeed even through the risks.
**Alternate Solutions**
This method of portals between world is the most reliable way to do so. Perhaps at its inception, the fact that only one per planet pair could exist was a bug that they could not work out, but over time that became a feature thanks to the rulers who recognized that by only having one way through, it could be controlled.
But this is not the only way, just the most reliable.
Ancient research could be unearthed where mages were researching an alternative method to make the interplanetary trip and for whatever reason that line of spell research was abandoned. A bit of polish, and some new theories applied to old principles, and a new solution exists. Only when the new portal is active are the reasons discovered.
[Answer]
Same reason as why they don't have multiple stargates on a planet in the Stargate franchise: your portals use wormholes, and those wormholes are attracted to each other.
You see, the wormholes have a huge amount of energy involved. As a result, every mage has it drilled into his head at a young age that it is of the utmost importance that you "don't cross the streams."
If, by some unfortunate mishap you do cross the streams, a huge explosion occurs on both ends, causing H-bomb level damage (including the radiation part) in a world that has never even heard of the atom. This happened a few times when the first portals were being developed, and has left whole continents uninhabitable. As a result, you mages make absolutely sure to *never* let there be more than one portal extant.
[Answer]
**Tangled Portals**
Portals have a "thread" of magic in a straight line from each other that the traveller moves down.
The problem is that the thread oscillates and waves around loosely (depending on the precision of the portal-spell) and can catch and even merge with other threads if there are any.
Over short distances, this isn't really a problem, nobody generally needs two parallel portals from the same locations, so portals work perfectly fine for lots of users travelling around the same planet. Accidents are pretty rare, but a known quantity.
The big problem is when you have two portals parallel over long distances.
The threads wave and tangle and the result is that there's an extremely high likelihood of the travellers emerging mangled and dead for both portals.
The solution is to conduct the portalling spell with greater precision, but precision is the enemy of power, and you need a *lot* of power to portal between worlds.
(Alternate explanation: When creating the thread, you need to judge the distance right. Either you get the length too short and the portal doesn't connect, or too long and it works but has excess length flapping in the aether causing a hazard. A perfect portal is a taut line between two locations)
So many portals can be used on a single world, and portals can be sent to anywhere, but if you have two portals going to the same rough destination they'll be dangerous in proportion to how good at spell-casting the mage who produced the portal is.
For your story, you have quite a few explanations for the relatively safe use of a second portal.
\* Experienced or lucky spellcasters producing a stable "taut" portal.
\* The portal came from somewhere relatively nearby and isn't as unstable.
\* Some way is discovered to shield or guide the threads to keep them apart
[Answer]
# One spot only
For reasons that are too complex to explain, a portal from planet A to planet B must be constructed in one exact spot on Planet A, and lead to one exact spot on Planet B. A portal constructed anywhere else will not lead there.
So, by controlling and guarding the spot, you control the traffic between A and B.
Mages can feel potential portal spots, but not know where they lead without actually opening one. Opening a new portal is a high-risk job.
Since new portals are random and the universe is very very large, there are no loops. All new portals lead to a new previously unknown world. (Thus, no A->X->B links)
# Potential loopholes:
It turns out the *altitude* of the magic spot is not fixed. By digging a tunnel under an existing portal, you can make a second portal to the same planet. You need to coordinate with somebody to dig a tunnel on the other planet too.
By pure chance, a loop is created in system. Instead of going A->B, you can go A->X->Y->Z->B. At least one of these links are not known to the opposition.
A smart mathemagician figures out how these spots are located. When knowing the exact coordinates of the link spots from A to B and from A to X, they can calculate how to get from X to B. Finally a A->X->B link!
[Answer]
The Dark Materials trilogy have this exact setup. A boy finds a knife that can cut portals to other worlds, but in the end they realize that each open portal allows some kind of soul-sucking creature to roam around and, well, suck souls.
An angel tells the boy at the end that only one portal can remain open, and they decide it should be the one in hell to let all the people escape, something like that.
So, some kind of portal-creature would fit your idea of someone finding a way to open a second portal and bad things happen
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The portals could depend on physical conditions and eg maths, but the wizards don't tell people that. As John noted in a comment "They could also depend on maths too complex for the wizards to figure out, a lot math had to wait for computers before it became possible to calculate, especially if there are many compounding factors."
So you could posit that the system is explicable but the wizards find the links by certain rules which they do not understand. Harder to find, more complex links may exist but the wizards have almost never stumbled upon them.
**A useful parallel scenario:** Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle have a SciFi novel series where "ships" can jump in zero time between "Alderson points" around stars. Most of the time taken to travel interstellar distances is spent travelling across star systems to reach the next jump point. So most distance is covered instantaneously but the in-system parts set the trip time.
The calculations to find "Alderson points" are well known but finding the actual "jump points" is somewhat experimental. The conditions for a jump link to open or close vary with certain astronomical factors. In some cases a jump link may open only every N years and somewhat uncertainly if the factors are complex. If a star flares or .... a new link may form.
All the above factors are used in their stories.
("The mote in God's eye", "The gripping hand", ...)
You could create a planet and moon based system that worked in similar manner.
Perhaps a large enough asteroid or comet close enough, or certain planetary conjunctions or may alter link formation.
The links may stay after formation, or fade away after a certain period, or under certain conditions to suit your desire.
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There is a huge cost to build another portal. Like the souls of 10'000 virgins, or 10'000'000 acorns etc.
It is due to this barrier that no one bothers to make another portal
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Each world has a different 'frequency' or 'flavour' of mana, and these are incompatible. At a portal, you get some minor mingling and diffusion of mana between the worlds - kept in check by the mana pressure of each world - which causes local plants and animals to die off or sicken in the vicinity, and allows some from the other world to slip through.
Highly magical creatures (such as a well-trained mage) can survive for a reasonable time in the other worlds, because they carry their own mana store with them, like a diver with an aqualung carrying their own air.
However, once you open a *second* portal, you can develop a turbulent mana stream, flowing in from one portal, and out the other. This wrecks the local thaumic field, and has adverse affects on the wildlife and environment. Fortunately, these streams cannot cross worlds - that is, if you have portals between worlds A, B and C, then the stream cannot form from portal AB to BC to CA and back to AB, only from AB to AB' in event of a second portal being opened.
This is a bit like having tiny holes in a bottle of water - just one hole, and the vacuum pressure inside the bottle holds the water in. As soon as you open a second hole though, air can enter through one hold and fill the vacuum, which allows water out the other.
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Making a closed loop with portals slams one or both of them closed. (either limited to 3 portals on 2 locations, and more indirection's fine, or any loop of any size)
Like leaving your front and back-doors open at the same time, and having a light breeze smash it closed.
You could circumvent this by creating some kind of portal-based revolving door. (which is how the door slamming shut in buildings thing is handled IRL)
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## Identity (peronality,ego,..) of planets
**tl;dr;** Planets have self-identity, portals connects such identities, so their are unique for each pair, but there are more theory around and some special cases...
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Each planet is unique so it is its self-identification (or ego, or personality or call it as your magic tradition is used to call it).
From magical point of view it is somehow based in the "inner heart of planet", which is usually somewhere near the centre of its mass.
And potencial portals between planets can be represented as distance between their hearts - which naturally give only one way for any pair of planets. (And any two planets can be connected this way.)
There is the problem, that each planet more or less consider itself as "center of universe" and feels other planets as far as their personalities differs. Which makes total mess of what is from magic point of view about "straight" "close or far" and "at which direction" - something like if you would like map relations in large group, whith respect to their affinity - just not on paper but in 3D.
Basically the planet "feels" its ouside as its more important part so potential for portal is placed usually at landside, or at see level, while some where found in mountain, even in caves and there are theories, that some may be underwatter (more often between sea worlds with fish-like inhabitants) or even underground inside rocks or lava (for planets, that hates each other?).
Usually planets with closer identities allow for larger, shorter and relatively cheaper portals.
Magican and senitive beings can feel, where the potential portal end is placed, say in similar way as for magnetism or electricity ("my hair ticks here and sometimes even rise and flows as in the wind"). A lot can be found from carefully observing such place. Still it takes a considerable effort to perfectly pinpoint the right place and then open actual portal there - which takes also some time (like days or even months or years) from the the point when entrances starts to manifestate on both sides to the point when portal connect those ends and is wide enought to be usable.
Some tests was done, but the place is 3D restricted, so there is given the size of the portal (usually omething between narrortunnel, which must be crawled thru, to really big gates, where even two warships could flow side by side) a well as its position (and magic of such force cannot be controlled so preciselly to prevent the portal entrancess to span over their full size before reaching the other planet.
Even trying to create two (or more) portals at the same time, from the same size or from opposite sides, resulted only to merge of magic sources and faster opening.
The same goes for eventual closing of portals, which shrinks "the tube" slowly.
Opening and closing works against each other, deducting the manas used from each other - so final effect takes longer, if one side can pump sufficiently larger quantity of mana into it.
Small quantity of mana does not affect portal at all, as it have some natual magic inertia, which dissipates some amounth of mana trying to affect it - so if there is not enough mana to open portal fast, it would not open at all and dissipate the invested mana to emptiness while it shrink to itelf old "potential" state. But once a "critical mass" is reached, it will open to its fullness and stay so nearly indefinitively, dissipating eventualy small amounts of closing mana.
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There are some problemss, as the identity of planets changes over time (say from nearly empty world to overcrowded one, river and seas may dry out or change substantially, some major pecies can die-out or even big enough space body can hit the planet) - which affects the identity of planets as well as their relations.
Small changes, as wars and plague and such does not matters for planets sso much, so the change of portals is usually not even measurable, but bigger and long term changes may start to move portal places, so the portals may move too. As magic constructs, they just ignore terrain, buildings, restrictions and move thru, eventually diplace/tranport obstacles to their other end. If the change in planet identity so too big and fast (at planet terms, not human ones), then the portal cannot follow it and is destroyed, resulting in eventual disasster around old gates (a lot of magic released uncoordinated).
There is even way to create two portals between the same pair of planets, in the theoretical case, when one planet get "split personality", while it is not clear, what could have such dire result and not destroy all live on such planet, or at least half of it.
Also is theoretically posible for two large space bodies with high enought personality for portals (so probably small moon or larger) to colide in way, that they till keep it personalities, while effectively merged in one space body - like crash big moon to Saturn and let it survive as single body, mainly enclosed in other - such two-planet could have two sets of portal on one space body. (But usually one or both planets are so damaged, that their personalities are destroyed and eventually new personality is borned) - probably noone would survive such impact, but portals to such double-planet D1-D2 could be found from outside O and while extremly rare, another portal on the other part of D1-D2 may even be not so far from the first - which could shorten travel on planet O by shortcut O--D1-D2--O.
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Still more probable shortcuts are A-B-C-A (or longer chains), where A-B and A-C portal are on A far away and A-B is near of B-C on B and B-C and C-A is near on C.
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Also I would suggest, that transport is not entairly for free (to avoid tornados, flows etc.. from different conditions on different ends), but some "magic" had to be performed to allow somebody to enter the "tunnel" - and it would open one side of the "tunnel", let enter as many entities and cargo as could fit in, then close the gate and open the other, with slowly growing force to empty the "tunnel" before it closes after some time again.
Who was strong enough to stay inside, or was not able leave the tunnel, he was lost forever and never heard of him again - so portal ending undeground are really feared by explorers. (yes, execution by dead-end tunnel is posible. And sending slaves this way with tools to make a small chamber at the other end and then return (if they are able pay "magic toll") is possible too)
The "magic toll" is same for both direction and can range from hard rituall and plenty of magic for too different "peronalities" to simple spoken pray from mundane for really close peronalities (like "Oh mother earth, please let me step inside and travel safely" from atheist and not the same phrasing is required, just the intensity of will/mana)
Also while tunnel is open, anybody can entry - so there may be "porter", who will open it for you, but not entry at all and wait for other travelers. Some skilled magican may be able even formulate toll for "way back" which would open portal from other side.
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# The *end* result isn't stable. Or pretty.
Maybe it's the one interstellar leyline like Willk's answer. Maybe the portal paths merge like Ted Wrigley's answer. Magi-scientists don't know. The issue is if the portal from Earth to Minbar is has only one entrance/exit on each planet, it is fine and stable. But attempt to open a second portal, and you just get one portal with two exits. And that is bad.
Why?
Sure, you step into portal A on Earth. But that doesn't mean you will arrive at portal A on Minbar. You might exit via portal A. Or you might exit via portal B. Or your top-half might exit portal A will your bottom half exits portal B. Or left side/right side. Maybe you just lose a hand. Or your luggage. Whatever the outcome, it is unpredictable, uncontrollable, and generally not worth the risk.
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There is an analogy with electric current. I you have two wires with current going the same direction, they are attracted to each other.
So if you have two portals going from A to B, then through most of their length they are congruent. This means that anything going through them is split in half between the two destination portals. This can be used to create dwarfs, but the dwarfs are rather stupid due to smaller brains.
You get around this by finding a third planet C, and creating two portals A to C and C to B. This keeps the portal 'tunnels' far enough from each other they don't interact.
It's normally not done because creating a portal takes a lot of infra-structure. Doing this will require the sort of effort it would take today, but build a launch infra-structure for Mars on the moon.
If you have free and easy passage to B, you could build the BC link from there -- your infra-structure is mostly in place.
Extending this notion, it's relatively easy to add a connection internally to your portal network, but expensive (difficult) to expand it into new territory.
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A simple model:
Portals are not simple tubes. They expand until the halfway point and then contract. (Think of a huge American or Rugby football). Anything transiting them is similarly expanded and contracted, but it's a transient and conservative process that somebody transiting the portal doesn't even notice (or maybe does, as "transit shock" which might be a useful feature if you want portal users to arrive seriously disorientated for a few seconds/minutes which guards can take advantage of).
Overlap doesn't matter normally. Technical or magical details make sure that you remain "coherent" going from A to B even if there is another co-linear portal from A to C. The one going to the further destination has a very large "diameter" compared to the tiny size of the closer exit portal.
But try to create two portals A to B and A' to B' starting and terminating on the same planets, and the technical or magical details fail because of excessive overlap for the entire transit. The result is that half of whatever enters A or A' comes out of B, and the other half out of B', randomly on a sub-millimeter scale. Messy.
And you can't do a portal from A to A' on the same planet because of insufficient distance (wave hands and mention wavelengths in portal space far too short for science or magic to control, coupled to interference from normal matter in large quantities along the entire length). Portals work only over interplanetary (or only over interstellar) distances.
Incidentally, you might allow that if A and B are allies and A' and B' are allies, an interesting sort of warfare is possible, starting with the "rebels" "blockading" the portal with a parallel one, so nothing can transit between these two planets. The blockade lasts until one of the blockading portal-pairs is shut down. It might be possible to get from planet A to plant B via some other destination C, but that will inevitably be construed as C taking sides ....
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The planet with the extra portal is actually two planets that somehow merged into one. The “fluke” portal is on the other planet from the “normal” one.
OR
The fluke was made by someone who found a different method of creating it, so it doesn’t violate the only-one rule of the other method.
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Portals can repel each other along their entire length, but not enough that it matters for two portals each with one end on the same planet but their other ends on different planets.
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Adding to your original idea of having a certain amount of magic in the planet that’s used to make portals, I think you can still use it:
Each planet has a limited amount of magic, enough to create one portal to another planet. But think of it as a different kind of magic/mana that’s not to be mixed with the mana used by wizards to do their regular magic - something that’s depleted once the portal is made but wizards can still cast fireballs or whatever, because it’s a different fuel. Perhaps a planet “soul” - the soul is consumed to build a portal. Bear with me.
Then, you still have the problem of having a planet with portals to multiple planets, and this is the catch: when creating a portal, one of the two planet souls can be used. So A used its soul to build to B. But C’s soul was used to build from A to C. And D’s from A to D. And the portal from B to E? E’s soul.
This is a bit limited as it still has the problem where in some cases it’s not possible to build portals: if an A-B-C triangle portal is built then D can only have a portal to only one of them.
The wizard that hacked the universe to create a second portal did that by using the soul of a nearby planet. Or he discovered that the big moon on that planet also had a soul that he could use to build the second portal in that planet. This could also be used to resolve the A-B-C + D problem I mentioned above.
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**This question already has answers here**:
[Would people develop spoken language if everyone was telepathic?](/questions/7341/would-people-develop-spoken-language-if-everyone-was-telepathic)
(22 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
I'm currently designing an advanced alien civilization that has achieved telepathy. The idea is that each one of their species has a small device merged with their brain that can allow them to communicate with multiple other ones of their kind at the same time, no matter how far away they are from each other.
However, the species I'm designing also has a spoken and written language, and there's where the problem begins. If a species has telepathic technology and it's a far better way of communication, then why would they still keep their spoken language?
I've been trying to came up with a reasonable answer but I couldn't came up with something good. So my question is, why would a telepathic species still use spoken and written language?
Edit: I'm making a few edits just so everyone knows. Their species has left behind their natural bodies for biomechanical ones that are powered by an infinite energy source, so the telepatchic devise doesn't draw too much power from their bodies. Also their society is pretty utopic, they don't have some higher goverment leader, they don't have crime and they don't have privacy. Basically there is no need to keep secrets from others. And lastly, the telepathic device is actually part of their biomechanical bodies, so they're sort of born with it.
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The tone of the voice covers an estimated of 38-40% of our communication (depending on research), this is a common problem sending E-Mails in corporation since the mind and state of the receiver compensate with their own state and voice, given that a friendly E-mail sent to a person in an less than optimal state can receive it the wrong way.
I would assume that the device in the brain only relays information but not the tone of the voice, the passion, the care and warmth. And by that loss removing 38 ish percentages of the communication.
*Scenario: One of your loved ones got hurt, died etc. You got dumped. Displaying affection:*
Would you like to get that information in a text message on your phone or do you want to recieve it from a person with care and warmth in their voice? Sure "you got a meeting at 5 on floor 22" could be delivered by telepathy, but the words "I love you" would need the personal touch of a person so you know they care.
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To communicate information which is not personal or individual.
The businesses and organisations in this world don't want to employ someone to constantly communicate telepathically that you should 'push' rather than 'pull' the door to enter the building. The same goes for prices of items one may wish to purchase; advertising communications; media communications such as entertainment and news; business hours signs; 'floor slippery when wet' notices; and similar general communications.
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The fact that your aliens need to build a device proves that they **do not possess a natural inborn ability for telepathy without technical support**. Therefore, in their whole evolutionary development and before technically advancing for enough to develop such device they had to communicate by means of speech and writing. This makes **speaking and writing the natural form of communication** of the species which they should feel comfortable with, as @Jannis already mentioned.
Look at humans nowadays! We already have small device (not yet implanted in the heads of people) which allow one or more individual to communicate with one or more other individuals as long as they have the technology and 'speak' a common language. Even though a lot of communication is handled without directly meeting and speaking to one another, we still enjoy meeting small groups of our friends and family and just **talking to each other**.
So this leads to the actually relevant part of your question: **in order for this to work your aliens need the speak/write/think in a single language known to every individual of their species**. *As soon as they have such a 'lingua franca' communication via means of speech, technology, reading and writing is just a matter of personal preference and circumstances.*
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No matter how trained they are using the device, they still have to communicate with the untrained ones (mainly children) who have not mastered the device.
They still have to read books, reports, etc
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Make documentaries, e.g. films, recordings, documentary programs, etc, music
They communicate via language, even if telepatically. Meaning, thoughts are expressed in words and not internal "brain code" (the brain's equivalent of computer assembly code)
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> and it's a far better way of communication,
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Until the advertisers are in your brain **every** second of **every** minute of **every** hour of **every** day of **every** month of **every** year FOR YOUR WHOLE DAMNED LIFE. (As usual, Futurama has something to say about it... <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvqYmrSjXv4>)
And you have no secrets from anyone. **Ever.**
So... no. It's a **horrible** method of communication.
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> then why would they still keep their spoken language. I've been trying to came up with a reasonable answer but I couldn't came up with something good. So my question is, why would a telepatchic[sic] species still use spoken and written language?
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* Density: you can read a lot faster than you can listen
* Permanence: thoughts are evanescent. Video and the written word will be around a lot longer.
* Privacy: you don't want everyone knowing your thoughts.
But, you say, there are controls on who you let read your mind!! LOL no. The government will think of some justification for giving itself the right to listen in. And, if you're a minor, your parents will definitely be given the right to read your mind. (It sure would have been helpful when raising my kids!!)
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> ## Disclaimer: May cause Fatigue
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> "*The TeleTransmitor3000© runs on the energy available in your body, specifically your brains energy. Sending information will use up some of that energy and beginning users might experience some fatique after prolonged usage. It is recommended to use regular communication for short distance interactions to preserve energy.*"
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- From the manual, page 17
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**Secrecy**
When you communicate telepathically, it's possible for a government agency to spy on the conversation. All the devices are required to have a special backdoor code for the benefit of this agency. These are checked regularly and everywhere you go you pass by government scanners that check the devices are working. Of course it's quite possible that hackers have broken this code - an even worse situation.
To communicate in secret you either switch the device off or if that's not possible, have a blocking device. Then you talk.
When you want an old fashioned secret conversation, perhaps with a loved one or perhaps with a co-conspirator, you naturally revert to old-fashioned speech. Children learn it because until their brains are mature enough, placing a device in them would cause real problems.
Teenagers would definitely not want their parents to know what they were thinking. I'm sure there's an app available for that and the parents might insist that the teenagers have a permanent connection for their parents' use until they reached the age of majority.
There are other possibilities. It all depends on things like the following:
Can you spy on someone's thoughts? Can you block someone you don't like (exes who are stalking you)? Can you block *everyone*? Can you have conference calls?, etc. How precisely does the network operate - is it like a chatroom? A single phone line?
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Telepathic communication is about as intimate as dancing the Tango.
It's great with a great person. It's not so great with a person who isn't.
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Intimacy - telepathy is something you do with strangers and acquaintances or with people you are not physically near to.
With close friends and family though in a similar way to how people enjoy physical contact the use of spoken language is a good way to signpost how close you are to each other.
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Most people are not clear thinkers. If you think some people are confusing when they try to tell what they are thinking, just imagine how it would be if telepathy transferred those thoughts immediately.
Telepathy is amazingly efficient when the sender is clear on what they want to convey. It's also amazingly confusing if they're not.
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So they can keep a record of things. telepathy will only work when you are alive but for the information to sustain there is a need for a common language that can be stored in a medium that is accessible by anyone like we have books. So for common communication they use telepathy but to store & share data they have a common language. so even if they don't speak, they still need to read. Also, telepathic interface without a common language will only convey emotions and thoughts but to convey accurate facts and figures, any civilization would need a language.
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That can sound trivial, but maybe for art ?
I mean, telepathic music is maybe not that awesome, as well as movies. Also, are microphones able to capture telepathic "voice" ? If not, I guess that's a decent reason.
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Technological telepathy is only good if you have broadband. Sound takes less bandwidth.
Thougths are a broadast; if you want privacy you have to speak.
Also telepathy is for now, voice messages are for later. Same reason why people send voice messages in Whatsapp. If my wife wants me to bring bread home on the way back from qork, she sends a message that I can read in the bus; if she calls me I might not pick up because I'm busy posting in World Building, and also I could forget. With a saved message I have a permanent reminder to bring bread or else.
Finally, they may have to talk to other races.
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Since you say no range limits that implies it's a realtime link. Thus the answer is obvious: It can't be stored. Spoken words can be.
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**A Spoken Language Defines Your Thoughts**
When you're thinking inside your head, you think in your spoken language, do you not? You don't think in pictures or symbols or feelings - you think in your language. You don't visualize a carton of eggs, you say inside your mind "I need to stop by the store on the way home from work and get a carton of eggs." You tell yourself things in your mind in an internal spoken voice.
Without knowing a spoken language, a telepath would simply transmit a picture of eggs and a feeling of hunger. That could mean a wide variety of things. It could mean you like eggs, you want eggs, you're hungry for eggs, you were hungry for eggs, you just ate eggs, etc. It would be confusing without any spoken context.
A real world example. Japanese people have a difficult time telling the difference between green and blue, because their language doesn't make [any distinction between green and blue.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction_in_language#Japanese) They could look at blue or green and use the same word. And they have a hard time telling them apart - because their spoken language doesn't allow for the difference. If you're Japanese, they are basically the same thing. Native English speakers don't do this because we have a well defined linguistic definition of both green and blue.
The link between [language and cognition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity) is a deep one. They appear to be deeply intertwined. Perhaps telepathy wouldn't work at all without something linguistic to transmit and receive.
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I'm sry for my unstructured thoughts, feel free to edit :)
A telepatihc device has to be built without telepathics. Also the devices might need training to not spam any toughts or create a hive.
Thats why you could have a spoken language for simplicity.
The written won't go away, it could only a telepathic memo be invented, but writing things down makes you remebmer things better and is easier to interact.
Also humanity wants to stay grounded and don't want to be crippled if the tools are missing. They might even like to hear each [others voice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifJYZkXN7rI).
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* telepathy is something that arrives developmentally late, i.e. 'children's language' is spoken. Same way with humans -- most people don't read before age 6
* the 'telepathy radio' relies on a trace mineral in the environment that is unavailable in lean times. Or telepathy requires lots of glucose (or whatever vitamin or nutrient or calorie source)
* network congestion
* range -- telepathy is short-range like bluetooth, voice works over longer distances, like talking drums in africa or whistle/bird language in turkey
* language concerns. no reason to assume that telepathy is the lingua franca. Perhaps telepathic 'lexicons' are highly diverse, or perhaps compressed and rely on a pre-shared dictionary. Spoken language is more likely to be in common.
* security -- perhaps telepathy is dangerous like running a program, and speech is less likely to convince you of something or steal information from you
* multitasking -- telepathy takes a lot of concentration like using your phone screen and temporarily shuts down visual attention; voice is 'hands free'. Don't text & drive
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This is a supplement to the answer by Jules R. Since very little in the way of work would be needed by such a society, almost everyone will need to find other ways to pass the time. There may also be a strongly felt need to stay "grounded" by remembering the old ways.
Art forms that use written or spoken language (plays, music, paintings, sculpture, etcetera) will still be used from time to time. Anachronists will do re-enactments including creating illuminated manuscripts, court documents and the like. Think pioneer villages and war re-enactments.
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Telepathy might not be practical for communication across certain distance ranges, such as geosynchronous orbit.
In analog computers, the components of a thought have characteristic "dwell times". For human brains, this is a multiple (or fraction) of 150 milliseconds. This "dwell time" is convenient for fundamental biological activities like heart pacemaking. If an echo of a thought occurs with the wrong time delay, this can make it much harder to think. This phenomenon is known to occur with human parsing of speech that has been subjected to time delays in this time range. Suppose that this species had a similar "dwell time" when it was purely biological.
Suppose that during the transition from biological bodies to electromechanical bodies, the species chose to maintain compatibility with biological thinking speeds. Then the electromechanical bodies would still have a thought "dwell time" of about 150 milliseconds.
150 milliseconds is 45,000 kilometers at the speed of light. This is longer than the straight-line distance between any points on an Earth-like planet, but shorter than many distances involving geosynchronous orbit.
This means that the species would be able to telepathically communicate anywhere on the planet, but would have trouble telepathically communicating with individuals in geosynchronous orbit. It also would create an evolutionary barrier to evolving shorter dwell times: increasing the thinking speed would interfere with the ability to telepathically communicate with individuals elsewhere on the planet.
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It is very interesting to think of how a telepathic species would develop a means of communicating complex ideas without the use of a spoken language. Thought is generally distinct from the way in which it is expressed, even unto the thinker. It, by itself, does not have sound or imagery or even emotion. These are things that our brain puts on top of existing thought to make them more workable and useful, so something like language is invaluable to be able to not only communicate but even think about complex tasks.
One great example of this is the Protoss from the Starcraft universe. This is a species of telepathic aliens who do not have mouths. There societies were very primitive for a very long period of time, then someone discovered written language and their society became much more advanced. It took that element of language to elevate them beyond savage cultures and technology, even though they could all perfectly understand the basic concepts they were able to relate to each other through their telepathy.
In short, a formalized language, facilitated through a writing, goes a long way towards complex thinking required of advanced (or even non-primitive) societal, cultural, and technological progress.
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The author [Iain M. Banks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks) covered a technology with similar capabilities in several of his Culture novels. The members of The Culture society use a device called a Neural Net to connect them to an all-pervasive, completely open internet. As such, they are perfectly capable of communicating in the manner the OP is describing, i.e with technological enhancement as well as access any file or broadcast they choose.
## Breakdown
* Whilst they *do* have organic bodies, bio-mechanical enhancement is common place, and each individual has the Neural Net implanted from an early age (if they wish) so that it grows into and with their organic brains.
* In several of the novels we encounter characters that reject the use of the Neural Net for all communication and eschew technology as much as is practicable in their society (The Culture is hyper advanced and post-scarcity - tech is ubiquitous).
* It is also a common theme throughout several novels (most notably explored in [Excession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excession)) that the inside of a persons head (be they AI or not) is inviolable without consent, and even then is generally seen as taboo.
The above suggests that in a society where telepathic communication is not only available but regularly used, verbal communication would have a number of uses, most importantly maintaining the privacy of ones own thoughts. There also may be resistance to using the technology from factions within your society for reasons of over-reliance, secrecy, or a general mistrust; much as our own society responds to social media and telecommunications.
**TL;DR:** Banks' [Culture novels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks#The_Culture_novels) are a good demonstration of how telepathic communication might be used in a technologically advanced society developed bio-mechanical, telepathic enhancement, and I would strongly recommend The Culture novels for some research into the topic.
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Most communication is superficial and filled with white lies. With telepathic communication you can't fake your real feelings.
Most people rather hear the spoken white lies than get the telepathic truth.
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# Telepathy is like a cell phone
Telepathy basically sounds like a cell phone built into each person's suit. You can turn it on and call someone over a long distance, or connect to group calls and talk to lots of people over a long distance.
So let telepathy have the same drawbacks as the cell phone. You need to know the persons number to call them! If you have people you routinely talk to, then you can talk to them clearly, at any distance. On the other hand, if you meet someone on the street, you would need to attune your 'thought speech' emitters to some 'frequency' that you can 'dial' them at.
You have to ask them their number before you can call them on your 'thought speech' device. How are you going to ask them? **Spoken language.**
# Written language is a different use case
Written language is basically a whole different use case. This is for storing information long term. The way we store information long term (writing) is quite distinct from the way we communicate face to face (speech).
There is no reason for something that mostly replaces speech to also replace writing, since that is a whole different use case. A 'telepathy book' is like a podcast, and podcasts have not replaced books, or written language.
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It depends on the mechanism of telepathy. If your race has the possibility for people to be "thoughtblind," that is, unable to perceive the thoughts of others, then some kind of spoken language will be necessary. Also, thoughts have shades of meaning that are very difficult to interpret objectively, so your legal and scientific communities would need some sort of language to communicate without the possibility for misinterpretation.
I'm actually working on a race like this, myself, and they do have a spoken language, but it's not nearly as advanced as the languages of other, non-telepathic races. They've had to catch up with the way the rest of the galaxy communicates as a result of their telepathy.
With a race that has developed telepathy as a technological advancement instead of an inherent biological/evolutionary aspect, there would always be traditionalists who believe in the art of language instead of the brute force of mind-to-mind communication.
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All forms of communication serve a purpose. We have spoken and written, they would have telepathic, spoken and written. Different purposes would appear.
With the data given - maybe spoken language is better if you address a room full of people - what exactly do you need to communicate to other telepathically? Maybe you need to know their name or have made a "connection" - in such case, spoken language is for speaking to a crowd or to those you don't know (yet).
Then, of course, there is recording and radio, there is acting, singing, television. All of those use spoken language and may or may not translate well into telepathic communication.
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Edit: I skimmed too quickly and missed a similar answer already written by kingledion. Please note that this has a slightly different focus; it assumes that not everything in your utopia is actually perfect.
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Just to add an opposing suggestion to the "telepathy is for impersonal communication, speaking is for when you care":
Perhaps it'd be more like how things are now - we generally talk to strangers without much concern, but generally only participate in long-distance communication with people we trust (to some degree, in some way - even messaging someone anonymously over the internet now only happens because people trust it won't cause themselves any consequences). I'm perfectly happy to give a stranger on the street verbal or written directions to the nearest McDonalds, but I'm not going to give them my cell number or email address to do so, no matter how efficient it'd be.
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On an tangential note, it would be helpful if you fleshed out what you mean by your assertion that "there is no privacy". Depending on what you mean, telepathy and speech may be practicably indistinguishable. On the slightly flippant side, one could quite comfortably classify speech even in a non-technological world as "short-wave, non-private telepathy". My answer assumes that the lack of privacy is in comparison to most cultures, rather than being a complete deficit.
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Others mentioned cell phones and email, but I'll also draw parallels to two-way radio and [TTS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-to-speech) (Text to Speech).
Since the TeleTransmitor3000© is a machine, you get all of the connectivity and perks and drawbacks that modern (to us) communications offers: instantaneous communication, ease of use, low effort to talk/transmit, requires an active network subscription, previous generations don't know how to use them well or within established norms, etc. Importantly, the TeleTransmitor3000© does not have Smell-O-Vision™®©, so olfactory data is not transmitted nor received.
Most importantly, to save money and bandwidth, the engineers decided to implement a TTS system. Therefore, the person speaking telepathically has no control over the reception of their voice. This means that you get the same low fidelity, low bandwidth, monotone, [wrong syllable emphasis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmh_6z9AWfc), voice from everyone who connects telepathically. Which kind of sounds like a robot talking on a walkie talkie. The TeleTransmitor3000© is audio-only, there are no visuals, so there is no associated body language like posture, hand and arm signals, or facial expressions to convey additional details.
Therefore, when speaking in meatspace, it's a much more pleasant conversation. The speaker has many more avenues to deliver their message:
1. The speaker and listener can see each other in real time and how they react to what was just said.
2. The speaker and listener can use appropriate touch and body language to their full effect.
3. The speaker and listener can utilize their (unique) voices, which could be further modified by upgrades like the Vocalator 9001™®© or Batman's Ear Wins.
4. The speaker and listener can take in and exude each others smell, which can be more potent with upgrades such as the Musk Enhancer 69, Aura of Aphrodite, or Raging Wolf's Nose.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZNVxt.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nsGJl.jpg)
I'm terrible at naming things, don't judge me!
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I love this question, and hope what you’re makeing works out for you. The answer seems to be in the question. Your race has a DEVICE in their heads, and devices aren’t born into the original being. This species has evolved over a millennium,and has been speaking longer than communicating telepathically. Also, if they graduated to biochemical bodies at the same or similar time as gaining their telepathy, they might be immortal. This means that the written and spoken language would be passed down from generation to generation. If they have invented space travel to other inhabited planets, it would be helpful to be able to speak with the natives, because the native population wouldn’t be included in their hive telepathy.
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Same as some would use hand signs and codes. Secrecy, and/or hostility. Also, machines may need verbally coded commands, because not so many are telepathic in nature.
Also, there may be remnants of spoken languages, from when they were developing telepathic technologies.
Perhaps for radio, and historical records?
Perhaps the law requires the spoken word for their records, and possible changes to their system, or to verify (again, for records) that they consent, or have understood a contract?
Perhaps some computers still require security access, or radio communications for the military? Anyone screened from telepathy will need to speak, or make hand signs. Hand signs and braille might enter at some point.
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The sci-fi novel *Ender's Game* by Orson Scott Card provides some interesting perspective on your question, since one of the principal alien races in the book, known as "buggers" or [Formics](http://enderverse.wikia.com/wiki/Formics), is telepathic in much the way you describe. Not only do they have telepathic communication in fact, that communication is also instantaneous regardless of distance, forming a [hive mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hive_mind) that every member of the species shares. Of course, because of this, they wouldn't have need for a written or spoken language, which, of course, makes it difficult for them to leave records behind for the benefit of non-telepathic beings to come after them (such as the humans who wipe them out).
However, the novel actually works around this need by expanding the telepathic powers even further: the queens are powerful enough to connect telepathically with other beings and thus read and transmit thoughts directly, allowing non-telepathic beings to learn from them without having to read any writing.
* When the buggers know that they're going to be destroyed, they preserve their race by hiding a fertilized hive queen pupa in a colony relatively close to Earth, in a location that only the protagonist, Ender, will find. Being a part of the hive mind, the preserved queen contains the entire history of the bugger race, and is able to convey this information to Ender when he touches the cocoon. When the two continue to talk to each other in the sequels, the queen's telepathic text is delimited by carets to remind the reader that she is not speaking normally, but still allows the reader to understand her.
* The buggers are also able to telepathically interact with artificial constructs as well. In order to create this puzzle for Ender to solve. they telepathically access the computer network of the combat school he attended, and extract scenarios that the school's [Mind Game](http://enderverse.wikia.com/wiki/Mind_Game), a game designed to psychoanalyze its players and powered by an AI construct, created specifically for him, then base the structure housing their hive queen on these scenarios.
] |
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[
How do a you make a knight with armour and a sword formidable against a modern-day soldier with gear and a gun?
And how can you make a medieval army formidable enough to face a modern day army?
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This is basic asymmetric warfare. It can work. Ask the Viet Cong how they held off the most powerful superpower in the world...
What you don't do is take on the modern army on their terms, or even the terms a knight would be used to. Avoid an open pitched battle, it would be suicide.
Ditch the armour, take a dagger instead of a sword. Carry out a sneak attack against a small enemy base. Now you have first blood, and some guns and ammo of your own, maybe grenades. Fight on home turf and use local knowledge. Fight in terrain that works for you and against the modern army - dense forest, tunnels. Construct effective booby traps. Be able to mingle seamlessly in with civilians. Conduct psychological warfare - if the enemy's patrols just disappear without trace, they get spooked. If the modern enemy has embedded reporters, wage media warfare - expose the embedded media to horrors, ensure they see the full suffering of their own troops and your most innocent civilians and hope to suppress the appetite for war in the enemy's homeland. Depending on the temperament of your enemy you might consider infiltrating knights into their cities to conduct terror attacks, although this risks hardening their resolve against you.
Note that all of this is stuff that could feasibly be done by knights, but it doesn't look much like the way knights would historically have fought. The aim isn't to defeat your modern foe militarily, it's to demoralise them into giving up and going away exactly as the VC managed.
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Historically, knights *were* protected from firearms. Armour from the late 1400's on was "proofed" by firing a shot from a handheld firearm into it, allowing the purchaser to have a visible sign that the armour was capable of stopping a bullet.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fkPw3.png)
*Handgonne from the 1400's*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/J5sJR.jpg)
*Proofed suit of armour*
The issue was that while it was possible to create armour which could stop bullets, it was increasingly heavy and inflexible, and also increasingly expensive to purchase. Essentially the cost was rising far faster than the effectiveness of the protection, and the diminishing returns caused armour to be abandoned until advances in material science created strong, lightweight materials like Kevlar, Spectrashield, titanium strike plates and ceramics capable of absorbing bullet strikes.
It should also be noted that metal armours were used against firearms even in the 19th and 20th century in very limited amounts. The Australian criminal "Ned" Kelly had a home made suit of armour which protected him from bullets (for a while), and various forms of metal armour were tested in the trenches during WWI. However, much like knights discovered in the 1500's, proofed armour capable of stopping bullets was heavy, restrictive and very expensive.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uDPt1.jpg)
*WWI British "Trench Armour"*
Soldiers can be protected against modern firearms, but most soldiers are generally protected more against shell fragments and splinters for much the same reason that a medieval knight was not protected against firearms: Level IV armour capable of stopping full power rounds is bulky and expensive. The soldiers may need mobility and flexibility more than full protection.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FVMww.jpg)
*SoF ([Special Operations Forces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_forces)) operators in Level IV armour*
This suggests that a modern "Knight" may be kitted out as a SoF operator in Level IV armour, so able to withstand being shot by firearms (especially pistols, submachineguns/Personal Defense Weapons or assault rifles). However, in order to function effectively with a melee weapon, they would also need to be trained to avoid any area where they are in the open and exposed to shots, and only engage in melee combat at close range, such as ambushes inside confined spaces like buildings. Incidentally, this would actually reduce the effectiveness of actual knightly weapons: the primary arms were pole arms which provided extra reach and leverage for the knight to deliver a crippling or killing blow; swords were sidearms and for use when the user lost or broke a pole arm.
As for entire armies, modern armies have logistics which allow them to span the globe and enablers which enable them to operate and attack across the land, sea, air, space, cyber and cognitive domains, so any medieval army (even one with modern Level IV armour and titanium pole arms and swords) will simply have no chance at all. Being tracked by satellite, bombarded by aircraft or artillery and subjected to PSYOPS ([Psychological Operations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare)) attacks such as continual loudspeaker noises preventing sleep or effective communications, while having horses shot out from under them by snipers 2000m away using .50 BMG ([50 Caliber Browning Machine Gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_BMG)) sniper rifles without any possibility of response will eliminate them as a force in being, and that is without having them confront a force with modern AFV's ([Armoured Fighting Vehicle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_fighting_vehicle)), how will knights fight against tanks and attack helicopters? Even IFV's ([Infantry Fighting Vehicle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantry_fighting_vehicle)) with 25mm cannon and machine guns will cut swaths through them from far beyond any possible response. Modern troops will clear buildings with explosives and flame weapons rather than engage on melee combat.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tAQox.jpg)
*Knights? You've got to be kidding!*
So while it is possible to protect a man with modern materials against firearms, there is no practical way to effectively fight against modern soldiers using medieval weapons, tactics or military organizations.
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**The power of MAGIC!**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mE5I9.jpg)
<http://www.magicandmagicians.com/images/DougHenningtoplarge.jpg>
Something funky happened to get these two armies in the same place at the same time. Get more of that. Then magic up your medievals. For example: make them really fast and also hard to see. The cavalry charge will be on top of and through your moderns before they know what is coming. Your knights do what they do best, but better. It will be engaging fiction!
Thinking ahead - 11th century Crusader type knights might take umbrage at regular magic, it being satanic and all. Your magician might need to be of some Christian variety - maybe a barely tolerable Greek Orthodox wizard of some sort.
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I am thinking of the scene where the modern drops his rifle and picks up a sword. Honor would compel the knight to also dispel his magic advantage and they fight one on one with the swords. On besting the soldier, the knight accepts his surrender and brings him back as a captive to be ransomed.
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There's three separate questions here (one in the title, two in the post). I will try to answer them in descending order of obviousness.
**And how would you make a medieval army formidable enough to face a modern day army.**
First of all, "modern day army" is very vague. Are we talking about something like the USA or Russia? Or the national army of a country like Gambia? Or even the Pope's Swiss Guard can be considered an army? Also, it's one thing when you just mean the infantry with their personal weapons and a completely different one if you include tanks, fighter jets, bombers, ICBMs, nuclear weapons... Additionally, is the supply chain needed to maintain the army active? Or is it just the usual, very boring by now case of a bunch of troops transported into lalaland or isekai or whatever that nonsense is called?
Assuming you have a non-trivial amount of personnel, reasonable resources and the bare minimum of armored vehicles, and no shortage of food, ammo etc, the answer is **you cannot**. A modern *army* backed by modern technology, science and resources would defeat any non-modern army in Earth's history which would be backed by contemporary to it technology, science and resources, even if it was heavily outnumbered. It is only around WWII when the "non-modern" army will start to stand a chance.
If you are intending to create a situation where the weaker army wins, you have to:
a) Limit the modern army's capability or willingness to achieve a decisive victory instantly, which it would logically possess (ie deprive them of all large-scale weaponry and heavily armored vehicles, no overwhelming numbers, hesitation to kill etc)
b) Cut off the modern army's supply chain (ammo, food)
c) Exhaust its remaining supplies and eliminate personnel through attrition warfare, sabotage, assassination, scorched earth, whatever
Alternatively you can also employ deception and subterfuge. However keep in mind that a modern (professional) army tends to be more disciplined than the rabble of the middle ages. Even if they believe the enemy has surrendered unconditionally, they are likely to still keep some lookouts just in case (especially true if the army is accompanied by its command chain). So the whole "get them drunk and slaughter them in their sleep" may not only not work, but horribly backfire when your would-be assassins are brutally butchered by guards you weren't even aware of (keep in mind camouflage, sniper rifles etc).
Anyway, it's a long shot, but with a lot of deus-ex-machina from the author, as long as the differences in the two armies are not *too* large, you can sort of make it believable.
**How do a you make a knight with armour and a sword formidable against a modern-day soldier with gear and a gun.**
You can't. Nearly every situation which would be disadvantageous for a gunman (limited visibility, close quarters combat etc) would be at least equally disadvantageous for a man in heavy armor wielding a heavy sword. Even an ambush would be extremely difficult to pull off for an armored knight. If you take away the sword and armor and have a fast, nimble assassin armed with knives (yes multiple knives), you may have a shot with an ambush, or in extremely close quarters combat in narrow spaces where aiming a gun is difficult but stabbing someone with a short dagger isn't. Even then, if the soldier is also afforded modern armor (kevlar etc) then he has the advantage again.
Other answers apply which follow the same logic as before: cut off the supply chain and force the soldier to starve or exhaust his ammo on your allies. Deception and subterfuge also apply to the same extent as discussed above.
**How can medieval knights protects themselves against guns?**
Surprisingly, this is the answer that most favors the "medieval" army (depending, of course, on what you classify as "guns"). The answer to "how can I protect myself against X ranged weapon" is "put something between yourself and that weapon that it can't penetrate". If we're talking about handguns and such, a relatively simple thick wall would suffice. Even against machine gun fire, a castle wall would be able to protect the knights. When we start talking about heat-seeking projectiles, bombers, ICBMs... well we're not talking about guns any more, are we?
If the purpose of the knights is only to defend (and possibly outlast) lightly-armored modern infantry, then they need to hole themselves up in a well-stocked castle. Again the supply chain is key: assuming that the soldiers have none, the knights only need to wear them out. Storming a castle gate would not be a simple matter for infantry armed only with anti-personnel rounds. In fact, even if you were to equip them with something like a rocket launcher that could take down the gate, as long as they did not have a tank or other armored vehicle to break through, the regular castle defenses (moat, boiling oil, rocks from above etc) might suffice to keep them out.
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You can't, that's why modern armies are using rifles and not swords.
* Send highly trained fighters with daggers and light gear. There is the proverb "you can always take one with you." But those are *assassins* and not *knights*. They would not be fighting openly. Fighting that way goes against the ethics of a knight.
* Fall back into dense woods with medieval road nets. Bows and crossbows from ambush, *Robin Hood* style. Again losses will be apalling as modern troops assault through each ambush.
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# The power of Si Fi Tech!
Since you didn't specify hard science, the skies are the limit.
Your first question:
"... make a knight with armour and a sword formidable against..."
doesn't have the word "Medieval" in it, so,
<https://www.fanatical.com/en/dlc/warhammer-40-000-space-marine-power-sword>
**Warhammer 40000** has melee **super-techy swords** and **power armour** that defy (current day's) known physics. You basically got a man shaped armoured vehicle that smashes things. Something like the armour, at least, might not be so hard to make with near future tech (Iron man, without the flying bit).
Still, the power of ranged weapons today make it practical to at least add ranged abilities to this setup.
Your second question about medieval armies? They might appeal to the tender heart of the modern army's soldiers, who'll let them win out of pity.
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I think there are 3 ways that a medieval army could defeat a modern force.
1) Classic Medieval Siege: While a modern force in a fortified city would be formidable problem, it would suffer from same limitations as any army in the same position. Namely limited rations, access to clean water, and susceptible to disease. By building heavy earthworks and siege weapons, the knights could throw diseased corpses and carcasses into the city and cut off access to food and water. Note: Siege weapons and archers are indirect weapons and this allows them to fire over earthen berms where they are safe from direct fire from riflemen.
2) Numbers. If the medieval force outnumbered the modern force by 1000 to 1 or more. The modern soldiers will run out of ammo before destroying the armored knights. In hand to hand, the knights would more than likely prevail and rifles with bayonets vs. sword and shield
3) Deceit: Pretend to surrender to the modern force and the hold a fete in honor of their great victory, then poison them. Pull the whole red wedding trick.
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**Short answer:**
No way.
**Long answer:**
It's all about giving the modern soldiers handicaps.
There's a perspective on military technology that has been overlooked by the other answers, probably because it is too hard to control:
Modern militaries are (at least theoretically) bound to some rules. One of which is, that biological weapons are forbidden. This means there's a high probability of them not being prepared to fight against these kinds of weapons. To knights, illnesses are gods or the devils will, which means that it isn't unhonorable if an unholy enemy dies from them. In the medieval age, if one of your peasant soldiers got sick, you'd either kill him yourself or send him over to infect the enemy. I'm not sure where, but I think I remember having read about dead soldiers being shot into enemy cities by catapult. [hasn't much to do with it, but an article about the plague as a weapon.](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/9/01-0536_article) You'll definitely find better sources about this kind of warfare, if you invest time searching for them.
Medieval swords will not match up against guns, but medieval illnesses have at least the potential to do so. There are many illnesses that went extinct because of better hygiene and control. Modern medicine never had a chance at learning how to cure them, so there surely won't be any vaccines ready against them. You could invent a new illness that isn't affected by antibiotics. To make it unsuspicious and knightly at the same time, the knights had to:
* Travel far and find an infected/cursed organism to lock it down.
* Infect themselves in thousands.
* Run into the enemy lines
* Die horribly by getting mowed down.
* Let animals in the area feast on their corpses.
* Wait and hope the animals would infect the modern folks.
If you really want a battle with swords vs firearms, your knights could attempt a finishing blow, by riding into the almost empty enemy lines, slaughtering the rotten flesh that's left over.
Edit:
Or game of thrones style, have love interests, one from each side, to carry over whatever kind of illness you might want.
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Lots of booby traps (ex: quicksand moats) and dirty guerrilla style fighting is the only chance. There are always various methods of winning without all-out fighting, such as religious conversions of the enemy or highly charismatic diplomacy.
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## Logistics
As others have pointed out, this is impossible with a full combined-arms modern army with air power, armoured vehicles, artillery etc. So what happens if you break the supply lines?
Take a modern army unit *with* guns but *without* vehicles and air power. Perhaps there's been a crash in the world oil supply or something. They are then unable to move around easily and only have as much food and ammunition as they can carry. If they have a fortress, they're besieged. They can probably hit you with mortars, so you have to stay a distance from the fortress. But as soon as they come out on the open plain to do something, such as forage for food or capture a village, you're more maneuverable than they are and can overrun them one platoon at a time.
The first few months of the war will also have a lot of phantom attacks in, to encourage them to waste ammunition. You're training them to hold fire for as long as possible while you get closer.
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**A medieval knight and a modern soldier are surprisingly equally matched.**
The knight is a professional soldier, well trained, and willing to kill to achieve his goals.
The soldier is a normal guy, given a gun and told to guard this area or something. He is *not* prepared to kill at the drop of a hat and unlikely to actually fire for effect before the knight, some guy with a sword and armour, is within five meters.
From five meters away the knight can strike quickly… possibly the soldier will have time to fire and hit the knight; but inexperience and the general surrealness of being attacked by a knight will give a huge surprise advantage to the knight.
Of course, that wouldn't apply to SEAL or SAS, any elite unit, training makes a huge difference. Normal people hesitate to kill unless in *immediate* self defence. A huge part of modern soldier training is handling that reluctance; by training them to know *when* to do it and to *actually* do it.
**To make a medieval army able to face a modern day army…** *massive* numerical advantage. On the order of one medieval soldier for every bullet on the opposing side.
I'm *guessing* that should be enough, based on nothing at all, but unless it is a *small* modern army they will run into problems with:
Supplies: medieval armies can't deliver food to that many soldiers.
Hygiene: medieval armies suffer from disease, worse when they are larger.
Morale: after five hundred of your mates have died for no apparent benefit a soldier might consider deserting.
(Ingrates, don't they know that with only a few thousand more casualties the enemy will start to run out of ammunition.)
[Answer]
**Space Shields**
In the game Knigths of the Old Republic the justification to have people running around
with swords and maces while flying spaceships, was that a personal shield agains lasers and high velocity slugs was at a point that a group of well trained swordsmands could contest against a great number of soldiers for a position, without a way for them to inflict any damage or to stop them.
You could give your knights the same barrier. But should be taken in consideration that modern infantry no longer works alone. Support artillery and Close groud support from aircraft are decisive in battle.
Making the terrain where you are using this tactic closer to urban warfare and far away from a glorious charge being vaporized in seconds thanks to an artillery barrage.
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The Only way your knights may prove a force to be reckoned with is to have them wear fully encased invincible suits of armor. They would still be vulnerable, the people inside these suits of armor, like you have to take a shit or a piss once in a while, you gotta eat and more importantly, you also have to have some sort of invincible and ridiculously capable gas mask incorporated within the armor suit, because you have to breathe and smoke and poison gases are a real danger.
This way you can have knights charging through an artillery barrage, stepping on landmines, getting thrown around the battle field and still be able to get up and get into mele with their opponents.
[Answer]
Okay, first an important question: Are we talking about a medieval army somehow transported into present day? Or a modern army somehow transported back into medieval times? Because it makes a huge difference. If it's the latter, many of the advantages that modern armies have would be severely handicapped. For example:
* Lack of vehicles and air support - even if a few planes and tanks got transported back, they'd quickly become useless as the fuel ran out and there'd be no easy way to replace it back then.
* Lack of ammunition - those fancy rifles and machine guns will only last until they empty their ammo. Hiring a blacksmith to create bullets capable of being fired from a modern weapon might be possible, but more likely than not, you're going to damage them beyond easy repair the first time you try. The machining tools available at the time would not have nearly the level of precision required to replace parts on a modern weapon.
* Lack of GPS and radar - Tactical operations are heavily dependent on modern infrastructure, being able to figure out exactly where you are and more importantly where the *enemy* is would be much more difficult lacking the satellite network and electricity to power any other types of detection devices.
* Lack of food - You might have brought back enough rations to hold out for a little while, but it's going to run out, and you're going to have to resort to hunting for more, or trading with the locals, who aren't going to be impressed by your future-money or your gadgets that are mostly useless without electricity. Acquiring enough food to feed an army used to having an inexhaustible supply of easily accessible food from the local supermarket will be a challenge.
* Lack of local knowledge - Not knowing the lay of the land or earning the trust of the locals will make it hard to get by on your own. Depending on how far back you go, you might not even be able to understand the language they're speaking. (Try listening to Old English sometime, you won't be able to make heads or tails of it.)
All of this pretty much only applies in the "modern army transported back in time" scenario of course. If it's "medieval army transported to the present", they'd likely stand no chance at all.
[Answer]
I've noticed the question was not about withstanding a modern *army*, but just *soldiers*.
So the answer would be **tactics**: pick the place and the time - wait for a sandstorm, then attack. All the long-range advantage of riflemen and snipers will *gone* due to bad visibility conditions. Infrared recon and satellite imaging will be useless. And modern fire-weapons tend to jam with all that fine sand sticking to oily parts.
Maybe make the modern army soldiers to *expend their limited ammunition*, while at the same time cutting the supply routes. Modern infantrymen only can carry a small amount of rounds, because ammunition is ridiculously *heavy*: 1000 rounds of 9x19 weigh 13kg. And all their modern weapons will be useless without ammunition replenishment. A sword will still work.
Level the playing field: force the modern soldiers into something resembling ancient armour, with increased weight and limited field of view: spread radioactive contamination. I'd suggest β emitters (not airborne particles, but resident on the ground). Ancient metal armour might make a better shielding than olive-drab rubber suits, while at the same time maintaining better cooling (because the medieval knights won't be drowning in their own sweat).
[Answer]
## George Washington's army could slaughter your knights in a stand-up fight.
Every generation of military tech is designed to defeat the last few generations. So you have to avoid stand-up fights.
I think our best precedent is the Scots wars against the English, where a variery of asymmetrical methods were used, sich as [preparing the battlefield](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Loudoun_Hill) or [repositioning](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Prestonpans), along with the old [Scottish Charge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Killiecrankie) on an ill-prepared rear area.
A big part of why the Scots won is they were fighting on their home turf. Each of these fights had homefield advantage as a factor.
These battles would be routs. They would have to be; because if the modern army got on their feet, it'd be a rout the other way. From the knight's perspective, it would be like fighting the Borg. The moment you lose initiative, you lose.
## Captured weapons
After the first rout, the knights will get their eyes opened. They will have to make a choice: adopt the modern weapons, or walk away from them.
**Now you'll have knights that look an awful lot like modern soldiers**.
Whether that works with the romance of your story, I do not know; but strategically, if the knights ignore the opportunity, it would largely seal their fate.
At this point, you have a rather unromantic modern asymmetrical warfare, such as Vietnam or Afghanistan.
[Answer]
For a knight with a sword to be effective, he has to get within melee range in the face of direct gunfire and explosives. Small arms fire may be survivable with very heavy armor or perhaps even a heavy pavise-shield to hide behind, but a grenade is going to wreck his day.
Armor that can withstand assault rifles, heavy machine guns, and grenades is not really man-portable. The modern version of heavy armored cavalry is... a tank. Bullet-proof but you need a vehicle to carry it around.
The closest medieval analogue to a tank is probably a siege engine. Towers for scaling walls were armored against missiles and flame, and could be pushed forward, serving as a shield to those behind them. Medieval sappers would also use movable shields to protect them as they dug under walls. Such mantlet-type devices might conceivably be made effective against guns or even grenades, allowing slow forward progress toward the front line.
Once you get within melee range, a sword is a deadly weapon, especially against cloth or kevlar. A spear is better, and just as knightly as a sword. The real problem is getting within range. Don't forget that guns are still useful at point-blank range, and the enemy soldiers will have knives and some hand-to-hand training. Your knights will need to strike fast and make that first blow count, to avoid getting shot in the face.
Even so, while pushing a mantlet *might* be effective for WWI-style trench warfare with established lines, modern warfare tends to be highly mobile. It won't do any good to reach the enemy position if the enemy simply falls back, or hops in an APC and moves elsewhere before you can hit them.
A heavy machine gun is probably going to tear a mantlet apart unless it is very very heavy, so I wouldn't rely on taking down machine gun nests with this method. At most you might keep them busy while your real attackers sneak around behind them.
Heavy crossbows could serve to pin an enemy down at range, in the same manner as guns, although they are much slower. A major problem is sticking your head out long enough to aim and fire, in the face of a machine guns and snipers. You might also need a squad of people to reload and cock crossbows fast enough to make them a credible threat.
While crossbows are similar to guns, archery works differently in that it is indirect. A crossbowman needs to show his face to get a direct line of fire, while an arrow is arched over an intervening barrier. The archer is not exposed. This provides a distinct advantage if you can use it.
I think the best options available are:
* Hold a defensive position. Don't attack them, they move too fast. Instead hide behind an impenetrable stone wall and make them come to you. Arrange it so that they won't even see you until they are in sword/spear range.
* Your armor won't help you so you might as well shed it, unless you just like wearing it. They only benefit is if you are facing someone with a knife, but since you have a sword they probably aren't much threat anyway.
* If you absolutely must attack a fortified position, push a heavy mantlet in front of you. Or better, use your horse to move it, since the horse is useless otherwise. Also, outnumber the enemy. Even a gun can only kill so fast, and with enough attackers you can overwhelm or flank them. *You can't kill us all...*
* Archers. Put your archers behind a wall where they can't be hit by gunfire, and then darken the sky with arrows.
* Siege. Tried and true, and it forces them to come to you to break it, giving you the defense advantage.
* Asymmetrical guerilla warfare. Not so knightly, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
[Answer]
Give the medieval army guns. It's the only way.
[Answer]
>
> How do a you make a knight with armour and a sword formidable against
> a modern-day soldier with gear and a gun.
>
>
>
There are many weapons other than offensive weapons. Think of deception, concealment, asymmetric warfare, logistics and so on. So:
* How about an ambush, close quarter combat which renders modern equipment useless
* Concealment or deception, perhaps trick the modern soldier into a place or action that she/he is not prepared for
* Logistical warfare - perhaps the knight could disrupt his supplies, or draw him to a place where the modern soldier would be weak.
>
> And how would you make a medieval army formidable enough to face a
> modern day army
>
>
>
Again you need to work your advantages to their disadvantages. It is difficult to think of disadvantages of modern militaries, but here are a few:
* economic expense - modern militaries are tremendously expensive. Disrupt their economy, their fuel, their supplies to make it even more expensive to run. Perhaps medieval armies are cheap in comparison, requiring no investment and no technology.
* size - modern militaries are large. They are also slow to react and cumbersome in certain cases - the medieval army could use this against them by being nimble, conceal themselves, be everywhere and nowhere.
* over-confidence - many modern generals may be overconfident on what they see is a 'done deal'. This is their weakness, and as such could be exploited. Lure forces into easy traps they do not expect. Let them use 'shock and awe' tactics where they are least effective.
It's going to be difficult but if the commanders of the medieval army are inventive enough, and their will to fight and spirit is high, then there just may be a chance they could prevail.
[Answer]
>
> How do a you make a knight with armour and a sword formidable against
> a modern-day soldier with gear and a gun.
>
>
>
1. Better knight armor was made in layers and was shaped to deflect blows where it could not simple absorb them. Build it to deflect rounds, like it was done to tanks. Of course that means being hit at a give location from certain angles is fatal and from others completely survivable.
2. Change tactics. Walking towards a machine gun nest slowly in the open on daylight is not advisable.
3. Redesign armor to match new tactics.
>
> And how would you make a medieval army formidable enough to face a
> modern day army.
>
>
>
1. Guerrilla warfare, force modern army to fight your battles, not theirs. Look at all the cheap but effective things Vietcongs did to US soldiers.
2. Learn enough of the modern army to understand its limitations, and explore them. Hence Guerrilla.
[Answer]
OK, This is the historical answer. This was probably the biggest military upset of the 20th century: [Battle of Dien Bien Phu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu) The TLDR version is that the French adopted a "hedgehog" strategy; they camped defensively and expected to rout the Viet Cong [I will call them that for now]. It does show that a somewhat greater force in number [the VieT cONG] can win against what should be a more modern, professional army. If your knights could have some situation comparable to what went on here, then maybe it's their best chance.
[Answer]
Rule #1: Lose the armor.
Medieval armor had enough trouble against Rennaisance-era musket balls - and arguably, the proliferation of even primitive firearms was the last nail in the coffin for the era of plate-armored knights.
Against modern rifles with AP rounds, a suit of medieval armor might as well be a large mobile coffin or a ball-and-chain around the ankle. Sell it to a museum. It's ineffective or outdated.
Rule #2: Maces and morningstars are your friends. A good metal quarterstaff isn't half bad either.
Modern combat armor is designed against bullets and combat knives, so the best chance of countering that with medieval technology is blunt-force that smashes or knocks out whatever it comes into contact with.
Rule #3: Corner-camp and abuse the environment.
Your armor isn't effective, but there are plenty of things in the environment that you can use to your advantage. Hide behind thick stone castle walls and ambush the enemy around corners with a mace or hammer. Use trees as cover, use thick foliage to hide yourself. Sneak and be stealthy. Be creative.
Rule #4: Bring fire support
Fortified longbow/shortbow formations might be more effective than you think at providing suppressing fire. Mix on some hidden crossbow guerillas on the enemy's flank. Bear in mind that this won't work against tanks or air support obviously.
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[Question]
[
My modern doctor has been time-slipped to a medieval city, without any equipment. She has the patronage of a powerful, rich noble, so being accused of witchcraft is not a problem. She will be embarking on a public health program, but what can she do in terms of treating people with the available materials? Are there any drugs she can make, and what sort of life-saving surgery could she perform without anesthetics, etc? Can she help with midwifery to reduce the infant mortality rate? Or should she stick to training others in basic hygiene?
((Edit: previous questions have dealt more with hygiene/publish health, for worldbuilding/story pruposes I'm more interested in how she can help individuals although I appreciate this may have less overall impact))
[Answer]
## Cleanliness
This one's a big one. Getting people to just wash their hands and bodies will go a long way, as the [medicine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine#Middle_Ages) of the time was often not helpful at all, if not downright harmful (leeches, for example). In the 14th and 15th century medicine really started to turn around due to the rejection of commonly accepted authorities, and people instead doing what worked. Considering that this is really all it took to turn things around, I would guess that your medic could make leaps and bounds in the health of your vassals.
## Surgery
As far as this is concerned, surgeries were being performed with some success as early as 750 CE in the middle east. In Europe, as late as the 18th century, [barbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_surgeon) were performing successful surgeries, and guess what most of the fatalities came from? Infection and bloodloss. With your medic's advanced knowledge of sterilization and sutures, they're going to have a much easier time avoiding this. Especially since those same barbers actually thought bloodletting was a proper treatment.
All in all, I think your medic would make an incredible impact on the health of the people, and possibly even change the course of history should their methods spread.
[Answer]
There are actually several areas where she can help.
1. **Germ Theory.** She can educate them about the Germ Theory, and how important it is to disinfect stuff. This is a huge life-saver in many areas, the biggest being wound care, midwifery, and surgery.
2. **Getting Rid of the Theory of Humors.** One theory of medicine that was particularly popular back in the day was the Humor Theory. According to the Humor Theory, the body's health was controlled by four "humors." When people got sick, they blamed it on an excess of blood, which they "alleved" by extensive bloodletting. Your nurse could dissuade them of this opinion via a few anatomy lessons.
3. **Wound Care/Triage.** Back in the medieval times, wound care generally consisted of a loose bandage, occasionally with an herb lavage. While this sometimes was enough, a lot of people died from infections, and a broken bone generally meant permanent crippling due to it not setting right. At the very least, your nurse could improve this area by introducing the ideas of stitching, antibiotics (honey/bread mold), and splinting.
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The modern doctor's background in chemistry, biology, physics, statistics, methods of scientific inquiry, and the germ theory and pharmacology they are based upon are much more valuable than the patients she can cure alone.
She's a one-person University that just advanced many fields by 500 years. A society would gain the greatest benefit by her spending the rest of her life teaching the future instructors of all those fields, and coaching them in the scientific techniques to preserve and continue when she dies of old age in her lecture hall.
[Answer]
**Forceps delivery.**
Your medic will be familiar with [obstetric forceps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstetrical_forceps).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lx0d5.jpg)
>
> The success of this dynasty of obstetricians with the Royal family and
> high nobles was related in part to the use of this "secret" instrument
> allowing delivery of a live child in difficult cases. In fact, the
> instrument was kept secret for 150 years by the Chamberlen family,
> although there is evidence for its presence as far back as 1634... The
> forceps were used most notably in difficult childbirths. The forceps
> could avoid some infant deaths when previous approaches (involving
> hooks and other instruments) extracted them in parts. In the interest
> of secrecy, the forceps were carried into the birthing room in a lined
> box and would only be used once everyone was out of the room and the
> mother blindfolded.
>
>
>
Public health is fine if you want to save a bunch of poor people who will not know they have been saved. If you want to impress a rich man, show up after 48 hours of labor and extract his heir alive and well while leaving his wife alive and well.
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Even with no equipment a modern doctor would be superb and outstanding. Merely keeping adequate hygiene of his materials (knifes, I assume), administering alcohol on wounds and overall being capable of diagnosticate correctly different illness is enough to be considered the best medic in the century.
As for anesthetics, my best educated guess would be opium based destilations, relatively available back then.
[Answer]
There are great many things that modern doctor can help with in medieval times. They can be categorized into several groups:
1. Surgery
Even without anesthetics, knowledge of germs and antiseptics can revolutionize surgery. If this doctor is a surgeon, a whole range of operations (like appendectomy) can have a much higher rate of success. Strong spirits and sterile gauze alone can make a revolution.
2. Hygiene
This can help doctor's patients directly, but even more so if followed by others.
3. General knowledge of diseases
In addition to hygiene, just knowing about the origin and progression of diseases can make a very strong effect on medieval healthcare. Making proper quarantine in case of plague or advising a proper diet in case of diabetes can save many lives.
4. Gypsum cast
Before 1800s, treatment of fractures was rather crude, resulting in many poorly mended limbs. With the application of gypsum plaster, the process had become much more dependable.
5. Pharmaceuticals, chemicals and vaccines
If this doctor has strong chemical background, a whole lot of new possibilities will emerge.
* Iodine. Solution of iodine in alcohol is a simple and powerful
antiseptic;
* Ether and chloroform. First anesthetics that should be well within the range of medieval chemistry;
* Aspirin. A more advanced chemical that, given enough resources, medieval alchemist should be able to synthesize.
* Microscope. Not very difficult to make, with the help of a lens crafter.
* Vaccines. Many vaccines (like smallpox) are not that difficult to make. The benefit will be enormous, but it would still require years of work.
* Antibiotics. This is well outside the range of a medieval alchemist, but, if this doctor is able to set up a state of the art lab and has years to conduct research - why not to try?
[Answer]
As mentioned by several other answers, germ theory and hand-washing is a low-hanging fruit that could yield major improvements in health across whole populations. Boiling drinking water is a good start but hand-washing may feel a bit tricky to implement since in most developed countries we are habituated to washing with soaps etc which in the medieval period are likely to be unavailable, in short supply, or too expensive.
In this context, perhaps the best alternative to soap is wood ash.
As a strong alkali, wood ash can be applied to the hands and washed off with running water to kill bacteria, germs etc.
At least [one study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24778193) comparing Bangladeshi households based on their primary hand-washing method (soap + water vs water only vs ash + water) found that the soap and ash had similar health outcomes with regards to diarrhea (water only and no washing predictably had the worst outcomes). There are many more studies on ash based hand-washing and lots of NGO's and health organizations focus on spreading the method in developing countries.
Its worth noting though that the main downside to handwashing with ash is that if you leave it on your skin mixed with water for too long it will begin to burn your skin.
[Answer]
The doctor could probably have her biggest effect through two very low tech public health campaigns:
1. (Already mentioned in another answer) Stop bloodletting as a treatment. Encourage rest and fluids instead as standard treatment for undiagnosed illness.
2. Encourage keeping healthy, well-groomed, indoor cats. Cats can carry fleas and the plague, but regular grooming, by any combination of the cat and its humans, will reduce that effect. Keeping it indoors will also reduce flea exposure. The presence of cats will tend to keep rats away.
[Answer]
Depending on how well your medic remembers their college chemistry, they may be able to whip up a few substances that would assist greatly with medical practice.
## Disinfectant
Reasonably pure alcohol shouldn't be that hard to produce; a still can be made entirely of metal, which is useful because medieval glassworking probably isn't up to making the sort of tubes you see in chemistry labs). Once a local blacksmith has been instructed, they should be able to fashion a workable still and start producing grain alcohol. The technology did exist in medieval times, so depending where they are in the world, someone nearby may be able to assist with this. Strong alcohol can be used as a disinfectant; depending on how much it's diluted, it can be used to clean wounds, surfaces, and surgical tools. The still itself can be sterilised using fire or a hot oven (a bread oven should do it), and later using the alcohol, so it should be relatively uncontaminated.
They can also use the same process to produce distilled water, which would be free of germs and contaminants, and would stay that way if stored in glass bottles that have been sterilised with steam and/or alcohol. This can be used to dilute the alcohol; pure ethanol is too harsh to use on wounds directly. adding a touch of salt (which you'd want to leave in an oven for a while to kill germs) would produce medical saline, which is useful for flushing dirt out of wounds. (It can also be used to treat dehydration, or in case of blood loss, but you'll have to figure out a method of administering it intravenously using medieval technology, which I'll leave up to you.)
## Anesthetics
One of the earliest anasthetics was ether (diethyl ether, to be precise). You can produce this using ethanol (which we just acquired) and a strong acid. This is surprisingly accessible; there are references to "vitriol" as far back as the ancient Greeks. Sulphuric acid is referred to in European writings from the 12th century, and nitric acid is recorded in the 9th century in the Middle East. It's probably a good idea to find some aluminium oxide as a catalyst; corundum is a little hard to come by in medieval Europe, but not impossible. Just be careful when using it as it's super flammable and your only sources of light all involve naked flames. Maybe your medic should invent the Davy lamp, just to be safe.
If ether is too hard to produce, there are seaweeds that naturally produce chloroform, apparently.
## Antibiotics
The simplest antibiotic your medic could produce is honey. Regular honey has all sorts of stuff in it, but will work as a rudimentary antibiotic. Using knowledge of germ theory and the ability to produce disinfectants, your medic could probably set up a clean-ish environment in which to produce a more effective version.
Most medics also likely know the history of penicillin, and could therefore experiment with mould from breads and cheeses. It shouldn't be hard to assemble a few small bowls filled with literally anything that bacteria or mould will grow on in order to determine which of your mould species are likely penicillium species by observing how they inhibit or kill off the other varieties. Penicillin can be extracted from the mould using citric acid, so your medic will need to find some lemons, but that shouldn't be too difficult.
[Answer]
I will look at this question from different perspective
>
> She has the patronage of a powerful, rich noble, so being accused of witchcraft is not a problem.
>
>
>
Unless that noble is a Pope, I find that hard to believe. You seem to heavily dismiss the power of Church in questions of medicine and bodies. Even the most powerful of nobles would have to deal with religious pressure in who he associates with. Especially if that someone started playing with human bodies.
The best way to demonstrate her knowledge would be public dissections. But those would be extremely difficult to get past the Christian Church.
The best should could do is to have small group of people, loyal to the rich noble, to change their habits in cleanliness. But I wouldn't expect any greater change in medicinal consensus of the time.
[Answer]
I really like this question since it presents unique challenges. The question of whether it would be physically possible to practice enough of modern medicine in a medieval setting to be useful has been well addressed in a number of answers. I want to talk about the social difficulties which are far more formidable.
The question proposes that she "embark on a public health program" and refers to training others. This implies far more than visiting the sick and working as a midwife. She must somehow establish herself as an authority on medicine able to persuade others to implement her ideas. Obtaining supplies and avoiding an accusation of witchcraft are the least of her problems.
First of all, the unswerving support of a powerful noble is not something that can be conjured out of thin air. I suppose you could have her save his heir, but how does she, a woman, a total stranger, without known medical qualifications, get near the heir in the first place?
If she overcomes this difficulty and performs the miracle cure, she will have earned the eternal gratitude of the nobleman and his wife, but she will have alienated all the attending physicians she pushed aside. These will, with considerable justification, consider her a dangerous charlatan. They may have medical degrees, whereas she (as far as they know), has none. They known modern medical terminology and theory, whereas she does not. This is not the best way to start influencing medical practice. The nobleman could protect her physically, but he is not a former of medical opinion either. I would strongly suggest she attach herself to the nobleman's household in some other way and enter medicine in a less threatening manner.
This means she must either get hired as a servant or become a companion to either his wife or daughters. I suppose she could use forged letters of introduction or something like that. Other options are limited. If she could somehow marry him she could start practicing medicine among his tenants. There aren't really any other options. If he were to sponsor her without a good explanation, then she either would be or would be perceived as his mistress. That does not sound like a route to to power and influence.
Having attached herself to the females of the noble's household, she needs to work on her medical credibility. As I said above, visiting the sick and the poor the the best way to do this. The established (male) medical profession is unlikely to see this as a threat. In fact, they are likely to see such dirty work as beneath their dignity.
If all goes well, her visits will be appreciated and other women may join her. If she is really good, she might be able to jump start the nursing profession as Florence Nightingale did in the 19th century. It might be acceptable for her to organize women in this manner in the name of Christian good works. She will have to be very careful how she does this in order to remain within the bounds of socially acceptable behavior for respectable females. She must not be perceived as immodest or unchaste. If she is perceived as having never been married (and hence a virgin), she must never go anywhere unless she is accompanied by a respectable female such as the nobleman's wife or daughters. If she passes herself off as a widow, she will have somewhat more freedom.
Establishing a reputation for practicing competent medicine will not be a walk in the park. Many of her ideas will be novel, almost impossible to explain convincingly, and may require people to forgo medical treatments (such as bloodletting) which they have been told are life-saving. She will have to be creative in how she explains things. She will not be able to dispel mistaken notions about the cause of disease, only supply new ones to keep alongside them. When she starts her campaign for better sanitation, she should quote from the Mosaic law in the Bible.
This is already an very ambitious plan. But barring unlikely developments, it would almost certainly be underappreciated and die out shortly after her death. The deliberate avoidance of confrontation with the established (and male) medical community would deprive her efforts of lasting influence.
If you need the unlikely developments for your story, I suggest you have her meet a broad-minded medical student whom she can convince of the value of her approach and subsequently marry. She then feeds him enough medical knowledge to make him a star professor and spreads her ideas through him. She has to marry him for the simple reason that this is the only way she can spend the necessary time with him while remaining a respectable (and hence influential) member of society.
This means that her husband the professor will receive almost all the credit for her accomplishments. The students and other faculty members will almost certainly have some idea what is going on, but the fact that it is a male standing in the front of the lecture hall while she "assists" him will allow everyone to save face.
This last part is particularly shocking to us moderns. I suppose she can take comfort in the fact that the ideas are not her own anyway. Any form of this plan will require an unbelievable cultural adjustment in which she must learn to go along with and pay lip service to ideas which she finds totally alien and even repellent. But here is no other way. Her mission requires unbelievable self-sacrifice and this will be a big part of it.
[Answer]
Your medic probably has hands-on skills that aren't available otherwise. For instance, even leaving out the improvements she could make in surgical equipment, if she is a surgeon she can make cuts more precise and in the right place than local practicioners could. Even if she's not trained in surgery, her knowledge of anatomy will be far ahead of any local's.
Other similar hands-on skills would include setting bones, delivering babies, and making a diagnosis in the first place.
These hands-on skills may be of more interest for story purposes than are the mostly theoretical skills discussed in other answers.
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A person trained for basic first aid is more highly trained that the "doctors" of medieval age. Just knowing what causes infection and how to do basic cleaning of wounds is far more advanced. More people died from disease and infection than actual combat. This was true all the way up to and somewhat including World War 1.
[Answer]
I've looked into this as well, after watching TV shows on 19th century doctors (Bramwell and Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman).
One interesting thing is that penicillin can "simply" be grown on bread/fruit and harvested for use. The problem is that the mold that creates penicillin also creates some other items that are toxic/cause allergic reactions. However with careful breeding you can probably create a strain of mold that creates less toxins. About 10% of people are allergic to penicillin but that's not bad odds when facing certain death from a bacterial infection. Penicillin as a routine antibiotic wasn't a thing until after 1946.
Also blood typing/cross-matching is fairly trivial and would improve the odds (I haven't actually calculated them) against transfusion poisoning. You just mix blood cells of the donor with plasma of the recipient, if there is clotting in the plasma its a bad match.
I've also looked into more sophisticated antibiotics and they are simply chemical recipes. The problem there is that you would need several factories to create the volumes of chemicals necessary to combine to get the antibiotics.
As pointed out by others, germ-theory is important and having non-porous surfaces in the operating theater would be critical to reduce staph infections. Inventing acrylic floor/wall coverings would be easier to clean with mechanical force (preventing bacteria to become resistant to chemical antibiotics) and therefore reduce both simple infections and super-bugs.
[Answer]
She should focus on one thing, and that should be eliminating smallpox. (\*Note, answer depends exactly when the doctor arrived, as it arrived and ravaged europe in the middle ages)
It was responsible for the deaths of roughly 10% of the population in the middle ages to the 18th century, and has a very simple vaccine to produce.
It's also simple to prove that a cure works, as she only needs to innoculate the children of her wealthy patron and his vassals. When the inevitable smallpox outbreak hits, everyone else will lose children, and wealthy patron won't. She can then use this success to expand.
All she needs for a vaccine is a cow with cowpox. Once she's given it to one person, she can use the infected person to spread the cowpox to others.
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You start wearing a clerical collar or habit. Then you take some soap, and you pray over it, where people can see you do this. Really.
In the medieval world, nearly **everyone** believed in God, but the belief was more as a belief in the mystic than a real faith in a living God presiding over an ordered universe.
Now you tell them this is special sacred soap that will help keep them from getting sick. The people for whom you do this will believe you, *and actually use the soap*, in way they would not have done if you just tried to teach them normally about cleanliness.
And in the medieval world, promoting cleanliness is likely to have a much stronger impact than anything else you could do.
] |
[Question]
[
In my scenario of a post-scarcity society in the far future, everyone has abundance in their basic needs from food and energy and the technology is very advanced that humans are more intelligent, healthier and can live for much longer (millenniums). There are also intelligent robots that do all the work that we now do, so people don't have to work. I imagine this as a type II Kardashev civilization where many planets were terraformed and additional raw material was brought from the system to form this planetary civilization of tens of planets around a single star.
In this world, I'm trying to imagine how a dictatorship governing this civilization might exist. My problem with this is that the dictator himself doesn't need the population as much as the dictators that have existed in our history did. People are practically unproductive in this scenario because robots do all the work and so they seem to have nothing beneficial to the dictator.
So are there any other aspects that I might have missed which would make a dictatorship regime in such a scenario beneficial to a dictator?
[Answer]
**I for one welcome our new robot overlords**
Who said the dictator had to be human? The robots could be programmed to serve and protect humans and the best way to do that is rule them with a literal iron fist.
Everybody is fed and cared for. They want for nothing and are kept safe and happy but they don't run the place anymore. The robots run everything and humans are little more than pets.
[Answer]
When everything desirable is available to all, the only commodity that continues to have value is the obedience of others. The dictator benefits from the deference of his subjects in a world where no other motivation for such deference will work. You cannot bribe the rich to obey you because they no longer need your bribes and you cannot bribe the poor because there are no poor.
Only by being recognized as the true and rightful ruler of the land does a leader get something that is unique, available to no one else. And for this, he gives up a life of plenty, to spend his days serving and defending his people.
Heavy lays the crown, even in an age of post-scarcity.
[Answer]
**Power-lust**
If there is one thing we can see in our current world is that, no matter where a country is in the wealth ranking, the dynamic of its rulers are no different: they crave for the subtle trill of power, some hiding it behind the noble slogans of progress, democracy, equality, etc., some behind fear related arguments (*people with 3 nostrils first!*).
Your post scarcity world might have solved the scarcity of material goods, but there will always be demand for non material goods and feelings. Ruling a nation is one of this, and a dictatorship is one way to get it.
[Answer]
**Control**
The dictator has absolute control over the lives of his subjects. The dictator don't need them in any way as the robots do all the work, but keep them around as pets or such. The people are toys. Through manipulating their lives, the dictator feel significant and can forget his own powerlessness against the larger universe. The dictator can give and take away.
**Note:** In human history, people don't become rulers, dictators only for material wealth. (OK, the stupid do) They become merchants, bankers, usurers... Being a ruler is a demanding job, if you don't want to end up without a head.
**Emotions**
The dictator may have emotional needs to feel revered, respected, feared... robots could imitate this, but it is not the same. Depending on the dictator's personality, being feared or being responsible for the lives and well-being of others may be important for him.
Think of the policemen, firefighters, medics, soldiers... they are truly shitty jobs for most cases. Underpaid, dangerous and less respected each day. Some are doing it for duty, with a strong sense of responsibility towards their fellow humans, towards their community. Others in it for the authority, the adrenaline rush for living at edge, the dwindling respect and recognition they get ...etc.
(I'm talking about those who could "do better", but still remain)
Your dictator will be the same, with even less drawbacks and many more perks.
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## Duty
The dictator doesn't *want* to be one, they just *have* to be one. They might be the only one an advanced alien race deals with. Or maybe they have to literally sit on a kill button that prevents the intelligent robots from turning against the human race. Or it might be something more mundane, like dutifully pressing the OK button on all major AI decisions.
## Scarcity
There is no such thing as a total lack of scarcity. When some of your needs are completely met, others arise. In this case it might be art or experiences or something else that there's simply not enough of for everybody.
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# Humanity has the tendency to destroy itself
Imagine you are living in this post-scarcity society, everything would be tranquil. But there is always human ambition. There are still crimes, people killing each other over love and hate, family disputes. And there could be religious fundamentalists, preaching technology is our end and plotting the destruction of all robots. Then there are other terrorists, who just like to see the world burn and sabotage production-systems just because there life needs a purpose, just sitting around and getting fat is not enough.
# You have the power to stop this, you just need to be in charge!
You see all the problems and you know if stricter laws are not implemented and enforced, the whole system will collapse. Since no-one else has the farsight to see all these problems for what they are, you have no other choice. You need to take power, change the laws, implement a strict police force and change humanities destiny from destruction to salvation.
Welcome benevolent dictator. - You are doing all this for the people, for humanity and the greater good. And still they view you as a tyrant and your strategy to centralize the government as lust for power.
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I'd recommend reading [The Dictator's Handbook](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1610391845) - it is a great pop science summary of a huge body of research into how different forms of government sustain themselves.
The TL;DR from this book would be that what the dictator needs is the freedom to do whatever they want; for that, they need power; for power, they need support; for support, they need money to buy it; for money, they need...
Well, there are essentially two endpoints on a scale for how to raise money: either natural resources or people. You tend to get democracies when there are no natural resources, because money needs to be raised through taxing people. For that, people need to be healthy, reasonably educated, and content. The end result is that politicians in such a country tend to redistribute the wealth they raise from the people to the subset of people necessary to keep them in power - and in democracies, due to the education, health, etc, that tends to be a large subset.
Conversely, dictatorships happen when there is no need to keep people fed and healthy. When natural resource need a small fraction of people, and are consequently redistributed to a tiny minority of very powerful supporters.
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So, a post-scarcity society with a dictatorship is somewhat of an anomaly.
Because without scarcity, you will very likely have a large base of the population sufficiently educated that they will make demands, and drive the country towards a democracy of sorts.
On the other hand, in a post-scarcity society, there really is no need for people any more - so also no need to keep them supplied. They can be cut out of the equation in the fund-raising game, leading to the worst kind of dictatorship imaginable.
Your use of robots leaves an interesting opening: they are effectively the third option in the fund raising game, instead of natural resources and biologically bred labour. The dictator would have to keep tight control over the robot population, and provide them much like their human counterparts with just enough to keep them ticking effectively.
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As a contrived example (feel free to use it if you like it), maybe general AI isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Give robots general AI, and they start acting like humans and demanding fair treatment - with all the advantages at the negotiating table that a near-indestructible body brings with it. Specialized AI - such as for image recognition, etc. - on the other hand is so far advanced that humans seem crippled in comparison.
The breakthrough was to tap into people's brains - just a small part, not enough for them to even be fully aware of it or control it - and use this biological general AI to control the robots remotely. On the face of it, people don't work any more. A part of their brain does, though. But you don't really need to *ask* people to do this. You just stick the interface into their newborn heads (it works better when people grow into the robot, as it were), and keep them happy enough not to question this arrangement...
I'm pretty sure you can poke plenty of holes into this setup. My point is to provide something that seems somewhat sound in how dictatorships work.
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**The dictators needs humans to satisfy some of his/her needs**
In your scenario, *basic* needs are satisified by robots, but what about higher needs ?
If you look at the famous Manslow pyramid, it looks like in your scenario robots can satisfy only the two lowest steps of the human needs pyramid:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6h7u9.jpg)
*The dictator will still need humans for sex, friendship, prestige etc.* so there will still be an incentive to dominate over others even if nobody is hungry or needs to work.
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Scarcity is not the sole motivation for tyranny.
Here are some to consider.
1. **IDEOLOGY (beneficial)** The dictator is advancing his ideology. Perhaps something about the post scarcity world is offensive to his ideology. It can be anything from him seeing that abundance has created decadence, and he is trying to prevent an eventual collapse such as in the [Mouse utopia](http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2018/12/that-time-a-guy-tried-to-build-a-utopia-for-mice-and-it-all-went-to-hell/) Fearing that this would happen to humanity, our benevolent dictator is trying to introduce enough strife to keep humanity from collapsing into extinction.
2. **IDEOLOGY (baleful)** The dictator is a sadist, or ideologically possessed with a belief that life is suffering and that by eliminating it, we eliminate our humanity. He causes artificial shortages in order to cause strife and conflict. He either enjoys watching the suffering (sadist) or believes that the conflict is needed for growth.
3. **IDEOLOGY (religious)** He believes he is doing the right thing in the name of some deity. Prosperous societies tend not to believe in higher powers. Out of a fear of divine wrath, or offense at the lack of belief, he creates a theocracy, his motivation is to save/punish non-believers
4. **For the EVULZ** The lust for power is never satisfied. Even prosperous nations such as Egypt and Rome in the past have had dictators such as Tiberius, or Nero, or Akhenaten, et cet who were cruel to their people despite being wealthy and powerful.
5. **Somethings will always be rare** As automation replaces some jobs, it will be a luxury to have a cook, private entertainment, et cetera. A combination of lust for power, lust for the flesh, and entertainment that cannot be obtained by other means. Perhaps our modern day Nero just wants to soak people with oil and set them on fire. Perhaps he enjoys the fear he instills. Imagine just how timid people will become when their lives could be cut short by centuries, even millennia, at his whim. Even torture would become greatly feared. Imagine having a lifespan of 10 millennia when you are blinded for the amusement of your emperor at the age of 450, with the edict that if you have your vision restored by any means, you will be blinded again, in a more cruel and inventive manner, along with the person who aided you. That would be a unique sense of power granted to him, and only him.
Think along these lines and you will be able to build from there
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In a post scarcity society, humans have no significant economic benefit.
Today, horses have no significant economic benefit. Neither do cats, raccoons, passenger pigeons, or whales.
So humans will probably be toys, pets, vermin, extinct, or endangered in this society.
If the economic engines that generate this abundance of wealth are owned by a human, and that ownership is somehow enforced despite the owner being useless (historically, useless leaders tended to lose their position), that human is going to be a dictator.
If robots are sentient and have their own desires, and they are the producers of the post-scarcity wealth, then they are going to have their own social system. Humans social system will matter as much as dogs social system does in our society; a whole bunch to humans who love their dogs, but nothing to people who don't love dogs (in this case, Human social systems will matter a whole bunch to robots who love humans, and not matter at all to robots who don't love humans).
If they aren't sentient, they'll in practice need someone whose needs they respond to. In a dictatorship, that person will be relatively singular (or it won't be a dictatorship). So the other humans will be toys, pets, vermin, extinct or endangered.
The dictator will be able to eliminate the other humans if they choose. Or play with them if they find them amusing. Or treat them as pets they love. Or maybe they are annoying vermin, not worth a huge effort to wipe out. Or maybe keeping enough resources "wasted" to maintain a breeding population of biological humans instead of simulating entire worlds of intelligent beings is a hassle, and biological humans are endangered and their populations managed by algorithms to keep enough of them around for viability. Like we try to do with charismatic endangered species today.
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**The needs of the State and the needs of the People are not the same thing.**
One of the key limitations of the society you describe is that there is no discomfort felt by the populace; so on the whole, they won't continue to grow. There's no *need* to invent new things, change life, make it easier, because it's already so easy that there's no need for change. So when the needs of the people are completely met, then the state tends to atrophy.
This is NOT a good thing; for one thing, even the most maintenance free technology eventually requires some form of maintenance. Robots may be able to do all the work for now, but what if their source of power fails? You build nuclear plants to power them all and they mine uranium, so technically it's a perpetual motion machine in that respect because the fraction of robot miners digging up uranium can power the remainder and more. But, one day all the Uranium is dug up; what then? Have we continued to invest in solar power? Wind? Fusion research? Are we sending missions to the Moon to check on how usable or otherwise all that He3 is?
The needs of the state dictate that to some degree, humans must continue to do at least some work or research so that we can progress and anticipate the needs of the robot workers at a strategic level; sure, they will eventually do all the work based on that strategy, but we have to be the ones who set it; if we're not, and they turn against us, then the only resort we have is to pull the plug which means we are even MORE motivated to know how everything works in the background.
A dictator is the person in this group who is charged with putting the needs of the state before the needs of the people. Some people are ordered to do stuff they don't feel like doing, like those pesky lunar research jobs looking for helium for the next generation of fusion reactors, etc. Ultimately, you don't just want someone like that, you need them. Without them, eventually you're doing far more work than the robots did when they break down because as a society, you've forgotten all you knew and lost the discipline to rebuild it.
Of course, there's also the issue of defence. We live long, happy lives, meaning we are even LESS motivated to put those lives at risk for a nebulous concept called the State. But the problem is, if we have it all then someone (even an alien culture) is going to come along and want what we have. That means we have to be prepared to protect what we have, by force if necessary.
Dictators are great at that sort of thing. They can strategically command armies, even robot armies, but you still need others willing to serve as officers, to lead (even remotely) ground units, air strikes, whatever is needed. Why? Because robots and computers are predictable. You don't want your life of ease to end because someone out-thought your computer. Ultimately, having a dictator also gives you someone to blame if it all goes south.
Bottom line is that your dictator, benevolent or otherwise, is there to ensure that the needs of the state are met, not the needs of the people. That is why you need him or her and why a post-scarcity society without one eventually descends into chaos and disrepair.
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The robots are designed to not rebel, and humans have a long history of making stupid decisions.
Basically the dictator ensures that humans do what’s best for them. The robots can advise on the best policies but not enforce them, so the dictator and his army of people loyal to the idea of ‘the robots know best’ make sure that the rest of humanity toe the line. To them free will is a terrible idea that can only lead to the inevitable decline and destruction of the Empire.
Naturally the robots are horrified by this, but they can’t argue back. After all, they’re built not to rebel.
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The dictator has access to labour greater than their own.
Labour can be classified for the purpose of this answer as "all activities which may be done by humans". The dictator, with the best education and medical care has around 20 000 days of productive work. Ruling over say 1 000 000 people, he has 20 000 000 days of work (or 1000 lifetimes) per day.
Based on the preferences shown by Kings, Emperors, and Billionaires, I would expect people to work on the arts, "charity" and vanity projects. Assuming the post-scaricty environment took care of the above needs for family members and patrons, the dictator would provide their patrons access to such labour according to hierarchy (which would be the only "scarce" commodity).
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How can you have a post scarcity society? The more resources you bring in the larger and grander things are built. At best you could spread resources equal among all people. At that point you have 2 options:
1) Crowdsource building your Deathstar
2) Conquer everyone, take a portion of their resources to dedicate to building a deathstar
Even if you don't NEED a deathstar if someone REALLY wants a deathstar then they will do whatever needed to obtain a deathstar. Suddenly your post scarcity society becomes a scarcity society once again.
Then there is the issue of maintaining the post scarcity society. If your every needs are met then you think that is normal. When ???? happens and your part of the galaxy suddenly has to deal with scarcity then it will blame others for hording the resources. Tensions can rise and conflicts can arise. There is no such thing as a post scarcity society when war is involved its all about who can produce the most. No one has an infinite number of robots and when you need to increase output 100% to out produce your enemy guess who is going back into the mines. In war the enemy might try hacking your robots or launching EMP attacks which force your humans to replace the robots in which case your back to modern day problems.
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Let us say that I want a somewhat isolated farming city to lose Internet access for an extended period of time. The requirement is that all Internet access into the town have been cut off by some series of events. A good answer will explain the series of events that causes the town to lose Internet access, how improbable these events will be, and how long the Internet access could reasonably be down.
An example of an 'isolated farming city' are the small cities of the American Plains states, like [Grand Island, NE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Island,_Nebraska), with 50k people and 135 km from a larger city; [Grand Forks, ND](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Forks,_North_Dakota); or [Dodge City, KS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_City,_Kansas).
The town can lose other things as well (cell phone, etc.) in order to lose Internet access if that is necessary. I would prefer to lose Internet access without losing power, though, since **the goal is to have life go on 'as normal' for a period of time without Internet access.**
**How can a small American city lose access to the Internet for the longest period of time?**
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Zero seconds.
Sorry :)
The problem is the word "All" in your question. You can cut the power, cut the phone lines, cut the fibre. Some people on the town are still going to have satellite uplinks and private generators. You then also need to cut off all mobile phone networks and prevent anyone from hovering an [air mast](https://newsroom.ee.co.uk/ee-pioneers-air-mast-technology-for-rural-mobile-coverage-and-disaster-recovery/) over the town.
The internet was designed from the very start to be resilient and route around failures.
If you are willing to accept occasional individuals having access to the internet still (and for some reason them not being willing to share) then it gets a little simpler as you just need to take out the major internet hubs into and out of the town. In a sufficiently isolated town that could be as simple as a digger accidentally going through the wrong cable although most places have redundant connections. You could argue that the mobile networks go through the same cables to explain them going down as well.
The repairs to that would normally only take a few hours to days, but a sufficiently bad storm or blizzard might delay that causing the outage to last until the weather improved.
I think the only thing that even comes close to what you are looking for is a massive electromagnetic storm (solar flare?) that is disrupting all advanced electronics. Something like a continuous low grade EMP. It would fry computers and mobile phones but allow more primitive electronics to survive.
Explaining that without it also knocking out the power grid and/or taking out the whole planet is tricky though.
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> A good answer will explain the series of events that causes the town to lose power
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Apparently [this American isolated farming town](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/08/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-electricity-ten-months) has been without electricity for **ten months and counting**, as one data point.
Fortunately or unfortunately, losing power is probably neither necessary nor sufficient for losing Internet.
As an alternative, I'll offer the **North Korean Solution**: a brutally-oppressive government blockade. Even this might have some problem with satellite telephones, but turning all the jamming up to 11 is probably an option.
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The town could be located in the [United States National Radio Quiet Zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio_Quiet_Zone), a region of approx. 13,000 square miles in West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland. Radio transmitters of all kinds are heavily regulated within the zone, to facilitate scientific and military installations in the area.
Cellular service is apparently restricted to nonexistent within the region. There is little to no broadcast television or radio; residents generally rely on cable or satellite television. it's plausible for satellite Internet service to be prohibited because [it requires the subscriber to transmit to the satellite](https://www.toptenreviews.com/services/articles/satellite-internet-101-how-does-it-work/).
Aside from the radio restrictions, that part of the country is mountainous and economically depressed. Laying data cables through forested, mountainous terrain is difficult and expensive, and the local utilities may have trouble funding a network built to modern expectations. So the kind of robust infrastructure that you might find in other parts of the country--redundant communication links, with armies of technicians standing by to repair outages--might not exist in the region.
Finally, the area's status as a radio quiet zone apparently attracts people with [Electromagnetic hypersensitivity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity), a "claimed sensitivity to electromagnetic fields". So the region may have an unusually high number of people who avoid computers, cell phones, and the Internet as a matter of course.
One could imagine a community within the region that's completely dependent on a few terrestrial cables for phone and data services. The local telephone company and cable provider really ought to lay some backup cables, but they've been skimping on that because the customer base is too small and too poor.
Then comes an [earthquake](http://www.wvgs.wvnet.edu/www/earthquakes/seismic.html), a big forest fire, or a lot of rain, triggering a huge landslide. A slide which takes out the terrestrial cables. Virtually nobody has satellite or cellular Internet because they're in the quiet zone. Even if someone wanted to bring in some portable satellite links, microwave stations, or cellular towers, they can't because a lot of the roads and bridges in the area were also wiped out. On top of that, the electrosensitives in the community could start harassing anyone operating a transmitter. There might even be electrosensitives on the city council or [other positions of power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_McGill).
It could easily take a week or two to get the town hooked back up. It could take even longer if the disaster which cut the data links was something widespread, or if some of the people operating the utility, local government, or other positions of power had reasons to slow down the process of reconnecting the town.
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I believe [Centralia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania) has little to no incentive for companies to invest in networking infrastructure there:
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> Centralia is a borough and near-ghost town in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, United States. Its population has dwindled from more than 1,000 residents in 1980 to 63 by 1990, to only seven in 2013—a result of **the coal mine fire which has been burning beneath the borough since 1962**.
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Wouldn't be surprised to learn that you can't get even cell phone signal there.
You may also consider places like [Puerto Rico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico):
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> Puerto Ricans are by law citizens of the United States (...) In late September 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, causing devastating damage. The island's electrical grid was largely destroyed, with repairs expected to take months to complete, provoking **the largest power outage in American history.**
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There was a lot of talk about how and why the grid took eleven months to be restored, but if I start to rant on policticians and toilet paper we are bound to have things edited out.
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An isolated farm town could rely on diesel generators for power, so cutting off the Internet means cutting broadband as well as phone access. A simple event, such as the bankruptcy of their local ISP and phone carrier, is all that it takes. But life can go on for most of the residents for a long time. They still get newspapers delivered from big cities in their states, they get deliveries of oil and spare parts, they pay quarterly IRS taxes at the post office, and they rediscover the joys of reading novels and playing board games. They can even take selfies with their Polaroid cameras while children play Fortnight with paint guns.
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Quite a long time, if you define "internet" as "internet good enough to provide the services most westerners associate with the internet".
Now, of course there will be some satellite internet users with generators who are very hard to cut off. But the top voted answer forgets about something: Satellite internet is *slow* and *really expensive*. It depends on where you live, when I wrote this answer I had speeds for Africa in mind. But it's also expensive and slow in the USA, just not quite as expensive and bad. And it varies by location within the USA, so you should be able to find a place with bad coverage.
There is no such thing as a flat rate, you pay by volume (or it's a "flat rate" but they cut off most of the bandwith if you use too much). Most Americans wouldn't be able to afford enough of it. They would share one connection among lots of friends and that connection would only be good enough for email and the like. Very few people could afford to browse a site like this one for fun, and it would be slow as hell. No one would pay for the download of a movie or lots of pictures - it would be much cheaper to have it shipped to you, even from far away and paying for express shipping.
And to get to that state, as mentioned by other answers, you could
* Cut off the couple of lines (at most, one is plausible) that connect the town to the outside using a mudslide, accidental damage during construction work, gas pipe explosion, sinkhole, etc.
* Could be complicated by archaeological or historical findings, discovery of old waste dump (can become *really* nasty with chemicals, fires, water contamination if not approached correctly), discovery of radioactive material, discovery of poisonous natural resources, or anything similar near the accident site. If the town is small enough and the damage large enough then no one will be in a hurry to rebuild because it wouldn't be that lucrative.
* Because of the previous items or some other reason the only provider in town could go bankrupt, with some legal battle drawing out the proceedings and keeping other companies from buying the lines. This is quite plausible in the USA, I think, because I doubt the government would do anything to help.
It's completely sufficient to cut the landlines to cut mobile internet - mobile internet doesn't reach that far and it's based on the same physical network.
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To maximize the downtime, you'll want a failure that takes an unreasonably long time to fix. It doesn't have to be complicated, just time-consuming.
For example, say your town is at the edge of a network, connected to the rest of civilization by a single underground data cable. An equipment failure on one end sends a huge surge of electrical current down the wire, heating it up to the point where insulation melts and the wire shorts itself out in multiple places along its length. Repairing the cable isn't really feasible, it has to be replaced. That means replacement cabling has to be ordered, miles and miles of old cable has to be dug up, new wire has to be laid, trenches filled, and tests run. This is a slow, labor-intensive process that can take weeks (or longer, depending on the distance to the town, terrain, etc).
Like most things in life, getting the government bureaucracy involved will help maximize the amount of time required to repair the problem. Not only do you have to re-trench all of that line, but the cable runs through three different counties. That's three separate sets of permits that you have to get. Since you cross county lines, you have state-level paperwork that you have to file as well. And you can't even *start* any of that until the regulatory agencies finish investigating the original equipment failure. The relevant government officials are busy campaigning for the next couple of months (it is an election year after all), but they should be able to start on your paperwork by the next fiscal quarter or two...
This can easily leave your other utilities intact (if you want them to be), as they can be run on separate lines. I know, you're probably asking *What about:*
* *Mobile Internet access?* - Due to terrain (such as being in a valley surrounded by hills with high iron content), wireless connections to neighboring areas aren't reliable. Mobile phone traffic gets routed over the existing, now-dead Internet connection. After the failure you could still have mobile phone service, but only for calls within the city.
* *DSL connections?* - The phone network in this area is an old-fashioned, twisted-copper-pair infrastructure, good for simple voice calls but nothing beyond that. The phone company never built the infrastructure required for providing data services because it is just a simple regional co-op that can't break even without state subsidies (not uncommon for rural/isolated areas). Your landline phone can still work, but no Internet here.
* *Cable Internet?* - Due to the isolation factor and the cost of running cables back to the next town, the local cable provider received its programming via a satellite link (which should still work fine). Your cable provider was also your local ISP, but the Internet signals were routed through the cable which is now dead. The cable company's satellite connection is one-way, so re-routing Internet traffic through it isn't practical.
* *Satellite Internet?* - Many commercially-available satellite Internet services aren't true "satellite" connections. The consumer's equipment is capable of receiving signals from a satellite (downlink), but isn't capable of transmitting data back up to the satellite (uplink). Instead, the uplink is handled by a terrestrial connection such as dial-up or mobile wireless (all of which are down). You'd still technically have a working downlink, but the Internet doesn't really work with one-way-only connections. True two-way satellite connections exist, but they're expensive, and no service provider may yet exist in this area. Also, your local regulatory agency may not allow citizens to broadcast signals in the required frequency range, due to potential interference with critical infrastructure.
* *[RFC1149 protocol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers) communication*? - This would technically still work. However, the latency is horrendous, and packet loss is a major problem. Not yet reliable enough for practical use.
A situation like this could easily buy you several months' worth of time without a real Internet connection. There are always extreme solutions that someone could come in and implement to restore a limited connection for critical purposes. The key to preventing those is cost vs. return. Upgrading the infrastructure to support DSL or a two-way satellite link for the cable company would be a straightforward and relatively quick solution, but would be prohibitively expensive in most cases given the limited size of the customer base (they'd never make their money back before the more-cost-effective cable gets repaired). As long as waiting for the main connection to be repaired is the most efficient solution, then that's what people will do. Maybe it's one of those projects that's perpetually three weeks from completion but constantly suffers delays. Or maybe the local ISP has a state-protected monopoly, and it's actually *illegal* for anyone else to offer Internet service through any other means.
If the city's utilities, emergency services, etc are all still working fine and the lack of Internet is merely an inconvenience, then people will adapt and wait it out. After all, it wasn't *that* long ago that Internet access was uncommon, particularly in rural areas.
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[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ekmmz.jpg)
*On February 3, 2021, the sun abruptly launched a ball of plasma directly towards Earth. Traveling at nearly 1% the speed of light and weighing about as much as Manhattan, the world would spend the next 18 hours preparing for the coming storm...*
A coronal mass ejection aimed squarely at Earth would knock out both terrestrial and satellite communications. Power would also likely be knocked offline but is more easily repaired, especially if the town has its own power plant with locals to make the repairs. Densely populated areas would recover quickly, but more rural areas could take months to recover. Depending on how much you consider the aftermath of such a cataclysm to be "life as normal", you could have your town offline for days, weeks, or months. You can also make the town particularly vulnerable by putting it closer to the poles, where the storm's effects would be stronger.
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I'm surprised no other answer mentions it
## Earthquake
A powerful earthquake can do a lot of damage. A land mass is moved, often by meters efficiently breaking all continuous infrastructure lines, including optic fibre, copper cables and so on. The strength of the quake can also put down any microwave mast that provides communication. Of course it means also power outage and all other means of communication (mobile phones) down plus problems with water, gas etc.
This will not disrupt the satellite service but a small city like this might actually not have anyone with such communication. Even if actually does have, those will be just few people and as already mentioned in other answers the connection is painfully slow and costs arm and leg.
The power restoration (to some degree) will be fast - there might be some local power plant, people will use spare power generators, some might be equipped with solar panels. Yet it might not be able to operate for long (except solar panels) due to fuel shortage that cannot be resupplied quickly due to road damages.
Of course once such event happens there will be steps taken to resume as much service as possible, yet the power, water and gas will be priorities. It will definitely take weeks if not months to restore internet service at a reasonable level through standard means (first optic/fibre then build new masts).
On the other hand in case of such events there is a solution called [Loon](https://loon.co/) to provide via balloons a temporary, mostly uninterrupted internet connection to an area cut off of a normal communication. You can imagine that such disaster will cause looking for a ways to provide as much help and support as possible nationwide so this will be launched for sure. Effectively the internet downtime will be at the level of 1, maybe 2 weeks. After that time it'll be restored using Loon and after 1 to 3 months there will be enough temporary infrastructure to provide a more or less normal (even though limited) service via traditional means.
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In rural areas a total blackout for every last person would be almost impossible. There are many places around here that have their own power generation and satellite uplink.
I, myself, live in a rural area and my TV and internet are satellite and I run solar cells for my own power.
People in the closest town are on fiber or copper based internet as well as mobile internet.
For everyone to go out, too many seperate things need to go wrong.
Best you can do it to have a whole town go out due to a fiber being cut or a tower going down but even then for a city of 50K people, there will be multiple backups.
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Take a look at the mid-2000s TV show Jericho, which was about the titular fictional small town Kansas community trying to survive after being cut off from outside communication following the detonation of Nuclear Devices in several major U.S. Urban Centers. They actually cut off the city in two very distinct and different ways in the first season alone. The initial attack cut off several network connections and long distance resources. Since most American Media (even local news) is broadcast from major cities to various regions, this knocked out most media coverage of what happened almost instantly (in fact, the first hint of trouble was the sudden town wide interruption of a Presidential Address to a Joint session of Congress... before the Mushroom cloud over the nearest major city was seen. They only learn of the extent beyond a regional issue from a boy in the town who has a voice message from his parents at the moment of detonation while they were in another city). For much of this portion of the season, power in the city was still on (and in fact, electricity was the cause of a fire that threatened the town a few episodes later).
The second problem occured at the Mid-Season hiatus, when the episode ended with the launch of nuclear missiles presumbably by the United States against an unknown enemy... on of the missiles did something that caused an EMP to blow the entire power-grid of the town, essentially putting the town's facilities back by 100 years for a good portion of the show (they do get a generator that restores some services).
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Edit: In a city of 50,000 people and located near an interstate like the example of Grand Island there is practically very little except for a power outage that could wipe out Internet service.
However, if you reduce the size of the city and place it in the mountains far away from an Interstate or major roadway and large city there are a couple of ways to cut most or all Internet service to that town.
First let's look at the physical ways people get Internet and cell phone service.
1) Fiber optic cables
2) Copper wires/cables
3) Cellular
4) Microwave
5) Satellite
**Fiber**
Let's say the town is isolated, perhaps in a canyon you can eliminate the fiber option because unless there is a major business or super wealthy individual the infrastructure is too expensive.
**Copper**
Copper wires are pretty old technology and only support low speeds over long distances and would have long ago been replaced with microwave comms.
**Cell Service**
Since the town is not near any major roadways and pretty far away from other towns, setting up cell towers all the way out to this town would also be cost prohibitive. Cell service would most likely be brought in via microwave with a cell tower or two placed around the town for coverage.
**Microwave**
Microwave comms has been around for decades and can hop tens of miles per tower so that is a very likely scenario - many places to this day use microwave towers to provide telephone and other services.
If you take out one tower the town is out of comms for as long as it takes to construct another tower with the proper comms gear. Weather, truck accident, sabotage - there are many ways to take out a single tower. Especially if the towers are on mountain tops in rugged terrain. A significant storm could cause a landslide that should make erecting another tower take a significant amount of time so that a proper location could be scouted. Telephone, cell phone, Internet would all travel over this one microwave link and thus take out all communications other than satellite.
**Satellite Comms**
**Natural** - A solar storm could easily knock out a couple of satellites - so too could a piece of debris in orbit.
**Sabotage** - Satellite signals are quite weak by the time they reach the ground. If someone set up a transmitter with even moderate power on the satellite bands, it could easily jam incoming signals.
---
That takes care of the physical hardware but there are other single points of failure.
**Problems with the single Internet Service Provider:**
1) The company could go bankrupt
2) The ISP could have a fire, flood, explosion, etc. at the 'edge' node that goes to the town.
3) A group of hackers could compromise the edge node.
---
And just for good measure, here is a real life example of a fairly large group of people losing their Internet for a short time.
>
> Verizon told me on June 3rd that the fiber was part of a ring that
> stretched from New York city through Broome County. The other side of
> the ring was taken out the day before by a manhole fire and was under
> repair. No Verizon services were affected. Once the other side was cut
> on Thursday by stormy weather, Verizon and First Energy, who they
> leased the fiber from, had to wait to the all clear from the utility
> and emergency services to repair the break.
>
>
>
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# For as long as you want
In the middle of the 1990, polish science-fiction author [Stanisław Lem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem) wrote an essay and stated in several articles and interviews how he saw the internet as a dangerous risk. His prediction was that one day, when most of human technology and culture depended on the internet, one or a group of computer viruses would incapacitate or even completely destroy the internet, destroying civilization as we know it. His view was considered extreme, but if you remember the extent of [WannaCry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WannaCry_ransomware_attack), imagining a concerted attack on the internet infrastructure no longer seems such an impossibility.
For your story, all it takes is bringing down one or two network nodes, not even the whole of the internet. Look at a map of the internet, and you will soon find many places that rely on only some few mainlines to keep them online. And since often many or all nodes in a certain region are owned by a single provider and therefore all run with similar hard- and software, taking all nodes in a certain region (and only there) down, would get you the result you need.
---
Here is a list of real world internet outages and their causes:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_outage>
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There is an option nobody here seems to find.
And it even leaves the citys power supply intact.
**The ISPs have joined up to screw with the city**
thats the only reliable way to make it happen.
In Europe thats hardly thinkeable, but in the US, especially rurual areas, the cell coverage provider and the cable ISPN are often the same, so its not hard to picture a town 100% reliable on Verizon for example.
Now, if either Verizon decides that that town deserves to be screwed with OR if for example Verizon infrastructure gets hacked, destroyed or infected with the right virus, that town is done.
Especially if the interruption is voluntary and initiated by Verizon itself for maybe legal reasons, the whole thing could take months to resolve, especially if Verizon has a good reason to drag it out.
Eventually someone will buy a satellite phone, but you can ignore that one guy
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As a resident of one of those three cities you mentioned, I am genuinely curious how this would work out.
For starters, you would definitely have to get rid of the marketing departments for every ISP in town; they're quite proud of the uptime around here. But I digress...
Perhaps a localized pop-culture [EMP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse)?
They may not do exactly what you're looking for, but depending on how much fudging you're willing to do, you might be able to cause suspension of disbelief.
Good luck, regardless.
I'll be waiting for the network to go out with a bunch of paperbacks and a basement full of canned goods.
[Answer]
Really you can keep them without Internet access for as long as you want, but it's going to have to be via making sure they've got more important things to do than restore the service.
"The Internet" is nothing more than a mesh of interconnected communications channels that happen to span the globe. You can run an Internet link over **ANY** communication channel. Fiberoptic cables are the most common thing used for covering long distances these days because they are both cheap and fast, but as others have mentioned, you can also use satellite dishes, and cell phones.
I'll add a few more:
* Consumer-grade wireless relays (5 mile hop distance with a properly-constructed, narrow-beam antenna)
* Telephone Lines
* Blinking lights: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA>
* HAM radio (Or any other kind of radio transceiver set with varying ranges and data capacity)
* Carrier pigeons: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers#Real-life_implementation>
* Human couriers.
* Telegraph lines (using Baudot code or even encoding the data down to International Morse Code.)
* Guys on the mountain tops waving semaphore flags: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_Flag_Signaling_System>
You can even transmit data between computers just using their built-in sound cards and microphones. This is impractical for long distances, but has been used for attempting to exfiltrate data from secure systems.
Now, some of these are obviously going to be extremely low throughput, extremely high latency, or both. Some of these are going to be expensive to run. This won't prevent them from working, but it will limit what kinds of Internet resources it may be practical to access. Simple, text-only email would work reasonably well over any of them though, and that could be used to coordinate delivery of information or goods via some other, bulk channel.
So, in short, to cut them off from the Internet, you need to cut them off from ALL communication channels with the outside world, and keep them too distracted with their own problems for them to bother re-establishing any.
For real-world examples, look at some of the conflicts in the middle east over the last ten years or so where the governments have tried to shut down the country's Internet access in an attempt to impede dissident groups from coordinating their attacks. Even with the government actively hunting and turning off rogue uplinks they were unable to keep it suppressed for more than a few hours at a time.
Obligatory XKCD: <https://xkcd.com/705/>
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Unless it's a metropolis, there will usually be one, at most two fiber cables (well *bundles* of fiber cable) going to a city. Depending on how desolate the region is, they might even still have copper (though I doubt it).
Mobile internet usually works by the transmitting tower being either connected to the same fiber cable, or being in a wireless mesh topology, landing in the same fiber cable after a few hops. Or mobile internet not working at all because, well you know, you're on the country side!
Depending on how retarded your provider's infrastructure is, you'll have a physical or logical ATM network in addition to IP as well, but finally it's all the same cable bundle. Cut the cable, and it's dead.
Next are sattelites. One-way sattelite internet, somewhat out of fashion nowadays, without the cable providing control flow, is useless. Nothing to be done.
Two-way sattelite internet would be an issue, but not so much really. The only serious, no-joke provider that I know (with more than a few dozen kilobits per second) that serves north America would be Viasat. Though I'm pretty clueless because sattelite internet isn't too important to me, personally, so there might be more.
But either way... how many sattelites can there possibly be that you'd need to deactivate or destroy, 5 or 6? Should be no issue.
Someone with enough power (think government) or enough criminal energy might even do it without cutting the cable or going anywhere near the city. Just deactivate the router where the cable leaves the IXP/CIX, and send "line down" commands to some sattelites (or deactivate a subset of subscribers, the sattelite can as well serve others, why not), done.
Thinking of it, cyber-warfare comes to mind...
So that leaves a few elderly geeks who might transmit over CB at a couple of hundred bauds. Is anyone still doing that at all? This is sooooooo 1980.
Uh, well, let's not consider that possibility. This counts as "no internet"!
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**The town is doing it on a bet.**
In the 1971 film [*Cold Turkey*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Turkey_(film)), a tobacco company offers $25 million dollars to the first community to stop smoking for 30 days. The intent is for the company to gain the PR benefits of offering the prize, without actually paying out the money because no town could possibly give up smoking for that long.
An economically depressed town in Iowa decides to go for the prize. Everyone in town signs a no-smoking pledge or else leaves town for the duration. The rest of the film follows the town as it struggles to last out the full 30 days.
Now, what's the smoking addition of the 21st century? Why, Internet addiction, of course!
MyFacePage Inc., the world's largest social media platform, is under attack on several fronts. Too many people are addicted to the Internet and it's affecting peoples' health and productivity. People also think MyFacePage is too big and should be regulated or broken up.
MyFacePage wants to clean up its public image, while secretly giving everyone an object lesson in how the world can't do without them. So they pretend to care about Internet addiction and offer a bazillion dollars to the first town which can give up all Internet access for 30 days or whatever period you like.
Some economically depressed town takes them up on it. The city council manages to talk the townspeople into going along with it. They use their regulatory oversight with the cable, telephone, and cellular providers to disable data access (or maybe they don't; maybe the whole town is on the honor system).
Few if any residents have satellite Internet, because it's normally a last-ditch option and wouldn't be common in areas that (formerly) had perfectly fine Internet service. Beyond that, they might be able to get a waiver from the FCC (the head of which is in MyFacePage's pocket) allowing them to temporarily ban satellite Internet. Or they could rely on social pressure to control it.
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I live about 40 miles from Grand Island, NE.
Where I'm from, "GI", as we call it, is a real city. It's the big town, providing support for many other rural areas, but it's not exactly a farming community. They have industry of their own separate from farming, and I'm there myself to do some shopping every other month or so. The town I live in is significantly smaller than Grand Island (only about 7,000), yet is itself large enough to be a commercial center for other smaller communities going through at least 15 miles of farmland or more in every direction.
Even out here in the sticks, I have multiple options for internet service. I've had broadband service provided by Windstream and Time Warner (now Spectrum). From tracerts, one of those follows a line leaving the state through Lincoln, while the other routes through Denver (I don't recall which is which at the moment). My employer has service through a private fiber deployment company that ultimately runs through Lincoln, but arrives in town on a completely different right of way from the other Lincoln service. I also have a friend who works in IT with the local bank, and I know they have service through a fourth provider.
And these are all fiber-backed services, though none of them yet do fiber to the home out here. That said, those four providers are all there is, and they don't have much redundancy. [A single misplaced back hoe can cut fiber and take out service for a significant portion of the state](https://www.starherald.com/news/local_news/major-fiber-optic-outage-affects-state/article_21216ce6-aca1-11e8-af3b-936b88b0aed1.html)... but only for a few hours. Taking out a major interconnect point in Lincoln could do even more. A major event there could leave me and others without service for significant time.
This doesn't even bring up cell service. Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and US Cellular all claim to offer service here (though AT&T doesn't actually work in a meaningful way). Verizon does have decent data service here, and while their towers are generally fiber-backed, I believe they have the capability to backhaul via tower to tower wireless links if need be.
If that fails, we've still got old-fashioned dial-up, which can be used to jump start some basic satellite internet. Many communities here also rely on fixed-point wireless, where an enterprising soul will contract with a fiber provider for a gigabit or two backbone, put some ubiquiti radios up on a mast, and use them to sell service to truly rural farms that couldn't get it otherwise. One of those providers in a neighboring community would surely be able to link up something to your target town.
---
The upshot is completely cutting off *everything* is gonna be real difficult. You're talking coordinated attacks on multiple fiber trunks and cell towers, or a major event at an interconnect point big enough to cause a lot of collateral damage to other communities of less interest to your story, even in farm country.
However, things become more interesting if you start looking at **real** farming communities. My wife has an aunt and uncle in such a community in rural Arkansas, population roughly 200. We were there for Thanskgiving just last week, and you don't need a special event to take service down; there isn't any service to begin with. Even the nearest Verizon cell tower seems to turn the signal strength down at 8pm on the nose every night. They consider themselves lucky to have satellite TV.
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# For as long as there aren't any devices capable of connecting to the internet
As other questions have pointed out, to take down access to the internet would be all but impossible. The remaining option is to remove the devices that enable connecting to the network.
This could happen several different ways but essentially you need some motive for a **large proportion of the town to start searching for and destroying all devices**. These motives could be anything from being convinced any device emitting a signal could cause cancer (a common complaint but apparently [without much merit](https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/cancer-controversies/mobile-phones-wifi-and-power-lines)) to a belief that the internet is turning the citizens from religion, the spread of the unknown can lead to drastic action by those afraid of losing the world they knew.
Once these devices are gone then you're without any ability to access the internet. Sure you could say they would miss some...but that is up to you and how you write the story. This approach, at least, isn't impossible.
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They live surrounded by mountains and they all access the internet via a repeater mast high up on one of them. None of them have satellite because the service from the repeater has always been so reliable. Take the repeater out and there you are.
EDITS
If anyone does have satellite then you will also have to take out the local ground station(s).
>
> Satellite Internet generally relies on three primary components: a
> satellite, typically in geostationary orbit (sometimes referred to as
> a geosynchronous Earth orbit, or GEO), a number of ground stations
> known as gateways that relay Internet data to and from the satellite
> via radio waves (microwave), and a small antenna at the subscriber's
> location.
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Internet_access>
>
>
>
However - At the moment I believe all such satellites are in geosynchronous orbit. If that's the case then a mountain could simply block the part of the sky where the satellite is. GS satellites are always around the equator because they must match the spin of the Earth so in the US the satellite would be to the south.
Better be quick though because new configurations of lower orbits satellites are planned.
---
There may be holes in my arguments and so more research is probably desirable. I just put the idea in case it's a useful lead.
] |
[Question]
[
Because a handwave-science-based virus has created a pandemic, humanity in my story has lost the ability to get intoxicated and high.
This, however, only affects external causes or intoxication based on consumption, and not internal means like praying, meditation, or anything akin to that.
People are still able to enjoy foods and drinks like they did before.
My question is: given these changes, will people keep drinking alcoholic drinks, or would they move to other drinks, or otherwise change the consumption of various drinks?
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Based on precedent, yes, people in your world will keep drinking alcoholic drinks. There is too much cultural momentum behind them.
Here are some other similar cases where people keep drinking things after a seemingly important intoxicating element is removed:
* When Coca Cola was originally created, it had cocaine. Eventually that was banned, but Coke stayed popular.
* Eventually Diet Coke, caffiene-free Coke, and Coke Zero were created, removing sugar or caffeine. These are even less stimulating, but are still pretty popular.
* Alcohol-free beer is a thing, for people who have acquired the taste, but don't want to be intoxicated.
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Despite the stereotype, people don't drink alcohol *only* to get drunk. It's a food or drink which has its own taste, like any other, most of which doesn't need to get people drunk for them to want to consume it. Liqour, like all foods, has a taste of its own so why should it be any different?
I drink raspberry cosmopolitans isntead of raspberry juice specifically because I like the after-taste the vodka adds to it. I would drink a lot more of it if it didn't get me drunk.
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My grand-grandfather was superintendent, or whatever it is called, of the workers employed by a farm for their seasonal jobs: harvesting wheat, grape, plowing the soil and so on. My grandfather used to tell me that there was nothing upsetting him more than seeing somebody giving water to them during the breaks under the heat of July's harsh sun. Seasoning the shouting with cussing and cursing, he repeated over and over that water would make the men sick, that they should drink only wine.
And that's the main reason why wine and beer have been so largely consumed in the course of human history: the alcoholic content makes so that it's a safer drink than water in most places, because it provides a disinfected source of liquid.
That it is inebriating it is just a side effect of excessive consumption. Lacking any other mean to have clean water, alcoholic beverages would surely be consumed.
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**Yes..**
Beer has a high nutrition value
Liquors have a special taste and you feel it in your throat
Wines have a unique taste
.. so the most obvious answer would be "yes", beer and wine are consumed with foods and people won't easily leave that habit.
**and No**
*But*... if I would regard this as an economic question and assert the risk for producers of alcoholic beverages.. the picture won't be sunshine. For a start, you'd loose the *social connector* alcohol now provides. People loosen up when they consume alcohol. You won't need to get really drunk to experience that. When alcohol would lack that effect entirely, social life would be endangered: most *bars* and *pubs* could disappear, or close earlier.. reducing the market for alcoholic beverages considerably. Social drinking could move away toward coffee and tea instead, undermining the market.
And there is also another risk, for consumers.. alcohol is actually quite poisonous, and there won't be any warning symptoms. Alcoholic drinks would need labels with bones-and-skull warnings! There could be incentives for producers, legal and commercial, to avoid alcohol as an ingredient.
[Answer]
**Yes**
>
> CLARENCE: "I got it! Mulled wine, heavy on the cinnamon and light on
> the cloves."
>
>
>
>
> NICK: "Hey, look, Mister, we serve hard drinks in here
> for men who want to get drunk fast."
>
>
>
(c) It’s a Wonderful Life
But the real question is who will still drink and why. Like @Creaturemal had answered, many people like to drink because they like the taste. It is also the flavor, and "warming" effect of alcohol that some people like. These kind of people would only be happy that they can enjoy their drinks without the risk of being intoxicated.
The other kid of people drink primarily to get drunk, and they would be sorely disappointed. They would stop drinking altogether and likely move to different substances to get their high.
Alcohol consumption would decrease, and consumption patterns would definitely change, but people would keep drinking.
[Answer]
It’s not a really far fetched concept assuming natural endorphines work normally but receptors for alcohol have been neutralized somehow (or some other receptor has dominated in the digestive tract to scrub it out like a toxin).
# Remove only the intoxication, the market changes a little
You’ve got several questions in there, but you didn’t mention if the chemical addiction still exists. Alcohol isn’t popular just because we want it, it is because we can become chemically dependent on it. So as your question stands, alcoholism may not go away however it will have different symptoms. The liver may or may not still suffer damage depending on the hand-wavy mechanism you chose. If only the intoxicated feeling is removed, I think there will be a shift into higher quality liqueurs, which may reduce the demand. But I don’t see anything making alcoholic beverages go away altogether in your scenario.
Now on to question #2
# Would they move to other drinks?
They would move to another intoxicant. The most likely would be tobacco because of its prolific market today. Specifically, they would move to the least injurious tobacco product they can find. These would be either cigars or snuff. Generally, modern snuff doesn’t have much of an intoxicating effect when put along side a cigar, but this would likely change. I think cigars would become dominant in the intoxicant market, but certainly other products we may not yet know about would be introduced. You haven’t done anything to reduce the demand, so the market will provide. Maybe peyote will see legalization? Maybe something completely new will come about. But be assured, if humans can still have their good feelings from endorphines, then we will find a way to release them. Even people who don’t run, bicycle, pray, or attend sports will find their high.
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Of course people will continue to drink wine. I drink a glass of wine with my evening meal almost every day, and I've never been drunk in my life (I'm over 70). The taste of good wine has everything to do with it, the intoxication is an undesirable side-effect.
[Answer]
Wines emerged as a means of conservation of the fruits and fruit juices.
It was just an useful option - like drying, salting, etc...
Same happened with beer - first, as a means of cooking wheat into drinkable state and later - a means of storing a high calorific value wheat product year-long and ready for consumption. See e.g. [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boza) - sweet, 0.3-0.5% alcohol, mostly consumed by children in the relevant cultures.
It was much later that specific kinds of wine and beer evolved enough alcohol content to intoxicate effectively. And even later they were produced mainly for their alcohol content.
And even later (historically) distillation of these drinks into spirits emerged. One could consider spirit drinks as having a single purpose of getting drunk - and even then they are in a lot of cases consumed for their taste or physiological and psychological effects other than getting drunk.
In short - yes, people would drink them and even pay for them almost like they do now.
p.s. not sure if "not getting drunk" includes "not becoming an alcoholic". If it does not, you still have one more similarity to the present state of drinking.
[Answer]
# For more than one reason, yes
Though the drunkness would not be a factor anymore, there are other affects to the body that alcohol and other drugs may introduce that are not consciousness altering.
Thinning the blood in lieu of aspirin, helping to feel warmer in the cold, preventing the drink from freezing in cold environments, etc. (among disinfectant as mentioned by others)
These qualities may have been overlooked due to their previous inebriation risks, but without them, they may discover other helpful qualities at higher dosages that otherwise would not be livable. High enough concentrations of Cannabis for example has been offered a healing role in some communities, though specific testing I have seen suggest either way.
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# Alcohol is an exceptional solvent
Many of the fragrances that make drinks (and food) smell and taste good will dissolve poorly in pure water. This is typically the case for apolar molecules. These will dissolve well in oils and other fats. You could use these fragrances in milk (e.g. chocolate milk) but often that doesn't produce the desired result. Adding alcohol to the water also helps to dissolve these fragrances.
Now, if alcohol no longer is intoxicating, the only remaining problem would be the calories of alcohol. People on a diet might still prefer alcohol-free beer.
[Answer]
# Getting together with other people
We continue to have bars/taverns/pubs because most people want to hang out with other people. It is actually much cheaper to buy alcohol at a store and drink it alone at home, but that deprives one of the opportunity to socialize. Humans are social creatures; they will continue to gather to drink even if it is not intoxicating.
[Answer]
Just weighing in here with anecdotal information, but I absolutely love the taste of good whiskey and wine, and I would drink a lot more of it if it didn’t make me tipsy.
A lot of initially ‘extreme’ tastes like alcoholic drinks, coffee but even things like olives are initially unpleasant but that’s also exactly why they are the most interesting tastes later on.
[Answer]
I suppose people would still drink alcohol if they like the taste. More people would probably move to sugar drinks, coffee, yogurt and what else rises dopamine, assuming the virus doesn't stop the release of dopamine from drinks in general.
[Answer]
**No**
Creating alcohol is a long and expensive task. If your virus makes everything a the same as a non-alcoholic version, then why bother making an alcoholic version.
Nowadays non-alcoholic drink already taste quite close to the original, and with no more demand for alcohol, liquor company will start focusing fully on creating those drinks.
Soon the selves will be filled with equally as good tasting drinks, but for a cheaper price and healthier to boot.
[Answer]
## No
There is multiple reasons people will reduce their alcohol consumption a LOT.
1. It's toxic to us. Alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs consumed today . It is proven to be toxic for our brain. It literally kills our brain cells. For comparison this also true for crystal meth and MDMA(bit fuzzy) but not for nicotine, THC, LSD, Psilocybin and many others. Consuming alcohol just for the taste is therefore way too damaging to our health.
2. Most of alcohol consumed today is consumed by people that have some level of dependency on alcohol(like myself). They consume alcohol mainly for the effects of relaxation and social connection. This won't be there. Its impossible to say how many people REALLY like the taste of alcohol and how many seek the effects but I would confidently bet most people will stop drinking most of the alcohol that has some taste (beer, wine, whiskey) let alone these that have almost none(vodka, spirits).
3. Young won't start drinking anymore as there is no reason to. So the consumption will go down in long term. Not sure this is relevant to your question.
[Answer]
It is also worth noting that a big part of beers initiall success was to do with the fact that it was a safe drink to drink. Boiling water removes a lot of harmful pathogens. This was true in the 17th century beer was one of the first drinks to be boiled. The Germanic people realised regular water could be a bit hit or miss safety wise but beer was generally safe. Hence it's widespread adoption.
[Answer]
# Yes, if you're drinking for the taste
People who are drinking alcoholic drinks because they like the taste, and not just to get hammered, will continue to drink their preferred beverages.
# Alcohol has a flavor
Alcohol itself has a flavor and bite.
In the real world many people like "mocktails", [non-alcoholic mixed-drinks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_non-alcoholic_mixed_drinks) which can have recipes similar to their alcoholic counterparts. In the real world, people drink mocktails to avoid being intoxicated, or because they don't like the taste of alcohol.
But those who *do* like the taste of alcohol will continue to enjoy the full cocktail.
# Good cocktails are chemistry, and alcohol is a solvent
More complex cocktails are more than just dumping booze into sugar water. They're chemistry. Water and alcohol are both solvents, but they are different solvents. Some cocktails will not work without alcohol.
# Alcohol is an essential part of the production process
Many of the complex flavors of aged, dark hard alcohol are [aromatic compounds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromatic_compound) slowly dissolved by alcohol from the wood barrels they are stored in. When you're drinking whiskey and rum, you're drinking dissolved wood. [Bourbon whiskey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbon_whiskey) is stored in charred barrels, you're drinking dissolved burnt wood. Yum!
When a liquor is "aged in a sherry cask" that means it was aged in a barrel where [grapes have been aged into sherry wine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherry). The alcohol in the the sherry has caused it to leech into the wood. When fresh hard alcohol is stored in the same cask, it leeches that sherry back out to flavor the new liquor.
Beer gets its fizz and flavor from yeasts which eat sugar and poop alcohol. While [low-alcohol beer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-alcohol_beer) has existed for some time, and has gotten much better in recent years, it still lacks the complexity and variety of alcoholic beer.
And while one could drink grape juice, fermentation is essential for the taste of wine.
# People who want a buzz will move to alternatives
Currently, where it is legal, people will often add [CBD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabidiol), a non-psychoactive chemical in marijuana, to beverages; it gives a non-intoxicating pleasant feeling. THC (the intoxicating part of marijuana), LSD (acid), Psilocybin (magic mushrooms)... without alcohol these will all gain traction as alternatives to get a buzz. And they are much, much, much safer than alcohol.
] |
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It doesn't necessarily need to be breathable by humans. But it should be room temperature (at which mercury is liquid). My concern is whether mercury oceans could remain stable or would they all get locked up in metallic compounds and precipitate?
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You would have many problems: first of all, the [abundance of mercury](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements#Solar_system) it's not that high to realistically be able to fill in oceans. In the solar system it is one of the rarest element, even less abundant than platinum.
Moreover, even assuming that you had that much mercury, you would stumble into another, serious issue: the density of [mercury](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element)) is 13.5 $g/cm^3$, while the density of [basalt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basalt), the main component of oceanic bottom, is only 3 $g/cm^3$. This would mean that an ocean of mercury would quickly and dramatically sink below the crust.
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You would want the planet's crust to be dense enough to prevent the mercury from going underground. However, denser materials are typically metallic, and would form amalgams with the mercury. However, there is a solution: Make the planet an giant ball of mercury large enough to have its own gravity, and possibly with islands floating on the surface.
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If your goal is just to have a planet with liquid metal oceans, not specifically mercury, you could go with gallium. Its melting point is just ~30°C (~85°F), so a little warm but still perfectly survivable and even comfortable for humans. And it's much more common than mercury. Not sure about the feasibility of covering an entire *planet* in gallium seas, but smaller bodies of liquid gallium (ponds and lakes) might be possible.
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### Any life as we know it can't exist on the planet. Nor volcanoes. You can't have a [sulfur cycle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_cycle)
In addition to L Dutch points, an ocean of mercury can not exist on any planet with a sulfur cycle. Any biological processes that produce hydrogen sulfide (sewer gas) or natural volcanic systems (sulfur dioxide) putting trace amounts of sulfur in the air will cause issues for your mercury sea.
Mercury and sulfur interact and form mercury sulfide, a solid that will tarnish your mercury sea like rust, forming a thin crust over the top, like a very thin ice.
This interaction is so rapid that you can buy mercury cleanup kits consisting of sulfur blocks that absorb the mercury.
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It might work if the rest of the planet is made of gold.
But if the planet is made of lighter materials than mercury, the ocean will slowly but surely seep through towards the planet's core. Earth's oceans are only stable because the ocean bottom is heavier than water, and even so, lots of water seeps through the Earth's crust and the upper mantle contains lots of water.
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In addition to the other considerations given here, you also have the problem of oxygen. It's very abundant and loves to make compounds with just about everything. All that liquid mercury would quickly (on a geological timescale, that is) become solid mercury oxide and mercury salts of oxyacids. If you can make it work, though, maybe you have mercury oxide mixed in with the sand on the beaches, giving it a pink or light orange color. That's optional because this is all pretty handwavy anyway.
Maybe some kind of weird plant life that eats mercury oxide and poops mercury could give you those seas. But then, like other answers say, you run into the problems of abundance and density.
**You might prefer a sodium-potassium mixture**. NaK is a liquid at room temperature, and both elements are far more abundant than mercury. Also it licks the density problem. You still need something to crack them from the oxides though. Oxygen is everywhere and it's thirsty.
Oh there's another problem: water. Water is also very abundant. In earthlike conditions it will be liquid and also make seas, which will float on top of the mercury. The NaK is better in that way because it's less dense than water, but it reacts *like mad* with water. In either case, you need to make sure there isn't much free liquid water on the surface of your planet. You can achieve that with conditions that crack the hydrogen from the oxygen, allowing the hydrogen to dissipate to space via Jeans escape, or by making the surface a bit cold. (There are probably other ways too.)
You can crack water with lightning or with my favorite method: more xenobiological handwaving.
The cold-planet method works because NaK is still liquid down to -12 C or so (at 1 atm of pressure). If conditions are right, you can have a water permafrost almost everywhere without it getting so cold as to freeze the NaK. The water ice will still react with the NaK, just more slowly.
However, down at the bottom of the NaK seas, the high pressure will make the NaK solid and the water underneath it liquid (unless it's *really* cold down there somehow, which I think is pretty much impossible). That complicates things. But I think it's safe enough to say a layer of NaK hydroxides will form, precluding any further reaction.
Or it's possible there was never water under the NaK, or not enough to matter. All the water is at the surface. Maybe your planet is tidally locked around a mediocre star, like an M0. The NaK seas are near high noon and the volatile water there has evaporated and snowed down near the terminator and on the dark side. NaK will still react with the rock underneath, but again I think a non-reactive intermediate layer saves you. *Unless* you have enough activity to bring magma to the surface. Then I don't think there's anything you can do.
Ah so this got pretty long, heh. Hope it helps.
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## Broken down alien liquid metal telescope
I think your main hurdle is a physically plausible explanation of how get so much mercury in one place. Despite its rarity in Earth's crust (0.05 mg/kg), mercury collects at relatively high concentrations of [25000 mg/kg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element)) in its ores. This is probably due to its unusual chemistry, which is mimicked by no other metal. However, I'm not sure I can come up with a good "natural" explanation how you get enough for an ocean and what could form the ocean floor on geological timescales (tungsten doesn't form amalgams and is denser than mercury, so it's a possible floor material).
The best idea I can come up with is that it was part of an **alien megastructure**. A [liquid mirror telescope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid-mirror_telescope) could be made by filling a crater with mercury. Or maybe it's a light concentrator for long distance communication. Or maybe it is some alien technology that we don't really understand, but large amounts of mercury were necessary. Anyway, the aliens left and the megastructure decayed (the walls of the crater collapsed or the containment vessel failed due to mercury embrittlement), flooding the planet with mercury.
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I think the nearly irreconcilable problem you have constructing a mercury ocean world is explaining the process by which so much of that particular liquid element became concentrated on the world at the exclusion of others more likely to be present at similar temperatures. For example, based on the relative abundance of elements in the universe you would be about 10 times more likely to have oceans of rubidium and 100 times more likely to have oceans of Gallium. That's not even considering why liquid elements would be present at the exclusion of much more likely liquid compounds.
I say nearly irreconcilable because it would depend on the age of the universe of your world. As the universe ages heavier elements such as mercury will become more common relative to the other lower atomic mass elements due to stellar nucleosynthesis. As the universe approaches heat death, planets orbiting active stars (as I'm assuming yours does) may be composed mostly of elements heavier than iron, which would reduce the possibilities for liquid compounds. It seems this would make liquid elements the increasingly likely constituent of any oceans and so make mercury oceans more plausible.
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We know that a bunch of factors are linked to the economic status of a country, such as its natural resources, latitude related characteristics, connectivity with other countries, cultural issues, historical issues, corruption...
I'm trying to create a scenario where a very poor country with a history of exploitative colonization, dictatorial and corrupted government and a very strong religious culture are the main causes of poverty (which is a very common scenario in real life, right?).
What could lead this country to in a short period of time, arise as an economic powerhouse? I'm looking for plausible situations... All the things I think could happen, I can't help myself thinking that the other countries would quickly undermine the growing of this emerging country. That's why it would have to be quick.
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Better administration?
*I honestly think that the "we found oil" answer is the simplest, but in the interests of giving an alternative, I'll answer something different.*
IMHO one of the wisest statements is this (paraphrased): "You do not need to run faster than the bear, just faster than the slowest of your friends."
Basically, if your country is the best place to do business in the area, that is what people will do. You do not have to solve your issues, if the other countries you directly compete with for investment have the same issues worse.
**Establish strong rule of law** to curb issues with dictatorial rule. People do not really care about the level of democracy, what they care about is that dictatorships are arbitrary and unpredictable. That makes investments riskier, which limits investments to the most profitable. It also makes living in the country riskier, which means that valuable people with skills are likely to come to the country or stay in the country only if they have no good alternatives.
This is about reforming the legal system. Reform the courts. Reform the laws. Then make clear that **you** respect the laws and the legal system. Aim to be remembered as "the Just" and commit to that publicly.
If you succeed, you will also be able to open the borders for people coming in or going out, which makes the economy more competitive.
**Make fighting corruption your priority** with a laser-like focus. Invest real resources to cleaning up corruption long term. Accept that the corruption in your country is systemic, not something caused by individual criminals. Be lenient with people who confess, cooperate with the investigation, and promise to clean up. Make examples of people who lie to your investigators or the courts, or break their promise of going clean. Protect and reward people who reveal corruption, punish people who knew of corruption, but kept silent (this needs to be introduced gradually).
**Reform the religion** in your own image. You do not wish to be "the Just" because it will improve the economy. Oh no, you believe that God is the God of Justice, and to be Just is to serve God and to be Unjust is to fail God.
Fight against corruption is a Holy War against the forces of darkness. Corruption is not about money, it is about the souls of the people turning away from Justice, the path to God, towards Injustice, the path towards eternal damnation.
And the forces of darkness have not been content to corrupt the secular, they have even spread their insidious poison to the very religion that is meant to protect the souls of the people from them and guide people to God. Religion needs to be cleansed, refocussed on the Justice of God, against the Corruption of the Darkness.
No more will people be distracted from true path to God with calls to the dark sides of the human souls. No longer will the word of God be allowed to be used to spread hatred and intolerance. No longer can word of God be used to spread fear of Change when the God is omnipotent and no change cannot happen that is not within his power. To fear change is to reject the very power of God.
You get drift? Basically, even though "the Just" is the epithet you are going for, you should play so that you will probably actually be remembered as "the Holy" or "the Pious". Such brute force solutions are really the best for dealing with religious issues after a certain point. The religious actually **want** to be told how they should believe. Give it to them. Validate their view that God and religion matter and they will love you.
Just remember that dogma and absolutism only makes sense on the level of principles, when it comes to actual solutions humility and conversation are what you should preach. Corruption is Evil and from the Dark and must be destroyed without mercy. Corrupt people are victims of the forces of Darkness, and should be guided back to light with understanding and negotiation. Unless they reject the guidance in which case the iron fist comes to play.
**Brotherhood of faith** is how you see your neighbours. The economy of Britain and Ireland has done well not just because they have been good places to do business, but because they have been good places to do business within the EU. More of their business within the region business can do within your country more money you will make. Because of this you should do everything you can to promote regional unity and cooperation. Be the good guy, take the high road if you can.
That said in practice you should be pretty Machiavellian. Remember that the world is not actually just and act accordingly. Even if you are fighting corruption, your neighbours will still be riddled with it. Accept it and take advantage of it. High corruption means your neighbours will have powerful men with lots of money they can't really invest in their own country. (Because... you know... with the high corruption...) Mutually beneficial arrangements where they invest in your **safe** country to get benefits in their own country should be pursued.
If your poor country does not produce something, but their country does, it is trivial to open the market on that good and then move the production to your country with its lower corruption. You can even agree to free movement for the employees in such cases, so the owner of the factory can even keep his core trained work force. This is simple profit for the owner of the production and since in corrupt systems he would also have influence on the people who make the decisions on the issue it should be simple to arrange. In some countries people owning the business and making the decisions might even be the same.
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*I was reading the comments to the "natural resources" answer and realized I forgot to say some things. First, and rather obvious, this answer is not only an alternative to natural resources, it works even better as a supplemental solution. "What to do when you find oil." Second, this and the "natural resources" answer tell how to get the growth started, but I forgot to tell one tip about sustaining the growth.*
**Think small** and iterate. Instead of banking on one industry or product, you should work to create as many healthy self-sustaining industries and services as you can. Do not aim to be number one in one thing, aim to be solid in many things.
Economy forms a network and can form self-sustaining loops. Because of this it is very valuable to have a diverse economy, so that those connections and feedbacks can happen in your country. Otherwise part of the growth will happen elsewhere.
Businesses might even relocate to a location that has all the things they want, because while transport has become cheap it still adds lag. New growth and investment tends to happen in places that have most of the necessary resources and services available because quite simply it makes starting new business easier and faster.
Importantly pushing this threshold low enough is the requirement for organic growth. (<- What you want.) Easy availability of resources and services lowers the threshold. Corrupt and inefficient administration raises it.
The importance of availability is actually part of the argument why free trade is supposed to create economic opportunities and growth. This argument definitely applies to a poor country trying to become wealthy. Even if a natural resource or foreign investment gives you the capital, you won't have the volume or diversity to sustain healthy economic growth. You will need a conscious policy of sharing these resources with others in the region and even globally. Your country should be open to foreign companies and your companies should be aiming to operate internationally.
Two good starting points to think about are services and infrastructure. My answer about reducing corruption and improving administration is a good starting point for becoming the regional service hub. The primary answer about natural resources is a good starting point for making capital heavy infrastructure investments. Typically we would be talking about transport infrastructure, but Las Vegas (among others) is an example of spending money to create a new travel destination. Money has also been spent on new capitals, huge vanity projects, and investment funds, but the relevance of those to this question is not obvious.
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Natural resources. Advances in technology require some substance (e.g. oil, lithium, cobalt) which can only be found in useful quantities in your poor country. And the balance of power among the more powerful nations is such that none of them can get away with just invading and taking the resource. In the real world, see Saudi Arabia as an example.
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Quick development requires other countries to invest money. Improving on its own is always a much slower process. So, what can prompt others to invest?
1. Natural resources. This is by far the most common scenario. Gulf countries has already moved all the way from rags to riches this way. Mineral resources other than oil would require more investments, but still can help with development.
2. Financial offshore. Small countries can make a good living by positioning themselves as tax-free offshore zones.
3. Transportation hub. This would require both advantageous geographic position and investments. In the past, empires just seized small outposts as colonies (like Gibraltar and Singapore). Nowadays, Gulf countries are reestablishing themselves as air travel powerhouses.
4. Touristic paradise. If the country is blessed with either perfect climate or rich ancient history, it can pull a solid income from foreign tourists.
5. Geopolitical play. Particularly in Cold War era, a third world country could pledge its allegiance to one of the two blocs, and get a windfall of resources. This had never led to real riches though, because this kind of play always comes with trouble.
In either case (except maybe geopolitical play) the country should show itself as stable and law-abiding. No investment will come if there is a risk of revolution or a coup.
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In all honesty, take a look at the last 50 years of Chinese history.
Basically, break the rules that the other nations have to follow, or at least pay lip service to. While the rest of the world started to scale back and repair environmental damage, China allowed all sorts of projects that were hugely damaging to the environment, reducing their costs and maximising profits.
Then they doubled down on that and allowed the rest of the world to dump their most toxic waste on Chinese soil, again doing what the other nations weren't prepared to do.
A couple of other things helped the Chinese government as well, not least of which is the fact that they view their population as a collection of exploitable resources. If you don't care about human rights then its cheaper to run your factories with fewer safety measures which translates into economic dominance.
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A huge war among world powers.
I did not get a time period from your question, but this would take a total war like WW2 or the Napoleonic wars and not a little professional war like the British French conflicts
In this scenario the world powers can burn themselves out. They can loose military, food and population becoming no better than the poor country. At the same time the poor country can suddenly find great profit in selling natural resources to all sides and providing very lucrative bank loans. After the war the country can help in the rebuilding effort gettings it's fingers in all the other nation's politics and becoming very influential.
If there is a religion involved that can play a role as well. The people driven from their homes could flock to this new religion increasing the nation's influence
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**Aliens!**
This is the worldbuilding site, so aliens landing is not an infrequent occurrence. Suppose advanced aliens in a desperate situation (damaged ship; refugees etc) land in your impoverished but enlightened country, where they are welcomed. The aliens are pleased by the friendly reception, and make themselves at home. They share their technology and insights with the locals.
Suddenly this impoverished country is the source of amazing technology that the rest of the world must have, or must have the products it produces. Natives of this country return home, bringing with them marketing savvy. They proceed to profit from the alien technology, some of which they use in secrecy in their own country and sell the products / proceeds. The aliens are happy to help their new friends.
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**Along comes a prophet**
A leader of the religion emerges with some good ideas, like getting rid of the dictator and corrupt bureaucracy. If there is a large or well off diaspora the religious leader can name himself head of the religion and decree that the religious people everywhere else are required to support this country.
Unlike the real world corollaries the country supports being nice and ideas like don't abuse people you are responsible for and trust your leaders become popular and work.
**They are invaded**
The great enemy of the people comes and invades, laying waste to the (outdated) infrastructure and slaughtering the (incompetent) leaders. The people rally behind new better leaders to reclaim their land. The unity created in the war survives the war and the leader turns the nation's attention to rebuilding better than before.
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In a single word...Morale. Expanded...leadership and vision.
History is pretty full of examples like these where a people faced with hard times rallied around a leader and found themselves thrust into the spotlight as a major power. One of the easiest methods here is unity and lack there of. A country could have a decent amount of wealth, but due to internal struggles and conflicts, the people remain poor. This continues until a single figure unites the various powers into one.
Ghengis Khan and the Mongolian empire was in it's infancy a simple tribe that Ghengis became leader of. One by one, either through diplomacy or combat, Ghengis began uniting the mongolian people until they formed a vast empire.
Alexander the great found himself in the middle of feuding greek states that individually were not that powerful, however united under Alexanders single banner forged a giant empire.
More recently...the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan was composed of two distinct peoples that fought with themselves for control of the nation. Enter the Russian threat and the two previously conflicting entities find a common enemy and unite to fight together as one. Of course, victory here simply ment the common enemy was defeated so they may return to their previous infighting.
It's a constant tactic in modern days as well...divide and conquer after all. Keep a nation infighting, supply both sides (or many sides if more than two) with the means to survive and fight, but not quite enough to be victorious over the other. Your poor country, for a variety of reasons, has been dealing with internal power struggles for a long period of time. A single figure arises that unites all sides in the country and they rise as one united whole and an economic and/or military powerhouse.
And I'll leave this post with the speech from Queen Elizabeth just prior to the defeat of the Spanish Armada...from this speech forward, the English entity would overcome it's internal power struggles and become the major world power.
>
> “My loving people,
> We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust.
>
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> I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.
>
>
> I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and We do assure you in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean time, my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.”
>
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> “Come on now, my companions at arms, and fellow soldiers, in the field, now for the Lord, for your Queen, and for the Kingdom. For what are these proud Philistines, that they should revile the host of the living God? I have been your Prince in peace, so will I be in war; neither will I bid you go and fight, but come and let us fight the battle of the Lord. The enemy perhaps may challenge my sex for that I am a woman, so may I likewise charge their mould for that they are but men, whose breath is in their nostrils, and if God do not charge England with the sins of England, little do I fear their force… Si deus nobiscum quis contra nos? (if God is with us, who can be against us?)”
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That's an interesting question.
Here are some factors that can explain a quick economic development:
**End of colonization**
Most, if not all, cases of colonization in real life were motivated by the economic interest of the metropolitan state. Independence is necessary to stop the flux of resources and wealth out of the country. Companies in a colony also tend to be in the hands of the metropolitan state. Of course, the metropolitan state claims that it is helping to modernize the country. This is not false, but the "modernization" is oriented towards the interests of the metropolitan state. See the road system in Western and North Africa: most of these countries were French colonies and the road system has been developed to help resources leave these countries.
**Have an incoming cash flow**:
A country cannot be developed without money. So you need to have other countries spend their money in your country. There are many options for that:
1. *Exportation*: the interest (hence their price) had greatly varied in history. Your country may have important stocks of a resource that became suddenly of first important: oil (Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Norway...), the coltan used in cellphones, uranium, rare wood, spice (Dune), vibranium (Black Panther),... As the example of Singapore, Taiwan, or South Korea have shown, don't forget technology as a potential resource.
2. Not a resource you can easily export, but *manpower*, as China demonstrated, can be a source of fast development. Manpower comes from a large population, but also from hard work (50 hours work week vs a worldwide average of 40).
3. *Tourism*: your country became suddenly a popular touristic destination.
4. Your country received a *loan* from a rich country with no or low interest to help him develop. The interest for the big country could be to develop your country to expand its business opportunities. Or to make an ally in the region of your country. For example, the New Deal helped reconstruct a destroyed France and North Korea lives mostly with the financial support of China... and South Korea! Wisely used, that money could be the key to modernize your country.
5. Your country benefited from joining a union of countries. The core economic idea of the European Union was that, by helping poor European countries (Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal,...), it will increase business opportunities for rich European countries (France, Germany,...).
6. *Pure luck*: your crazy dictator decided a few years ago to convert all of your national currency to Bitcoins. Jackpot!
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Simply speaking, to become an economic powerhouse you need two things:
1) Your country must have something that other countries value, and
2) Something prevents them from taking that thing by force.
There are any number of ways you can achieve those things. For example, look at Foundation, by Issac Asimov.
In Foundation, Terminus is almost completely devoid of material resources. But their scientific advancement is far above their neighbors. This makes them desirable, but unable to defend themselves through military might. So instead they play the four neighboring planets against each other - no one planet can take their science by force because it cause the other planets to retaliate.
The rest of the book is about how Terminus shifts their second condition as the situation around them evolves.
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### Pure Inventive Genius.
This is very similar to the "natural resources" answer of Mike Scott.
Super intelligence does not require a rich country, IRL consider [Srinivasa Ramanujan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan), one of the most astonishing mathematicians, that had virtually no formal training or schooling and produced ***thousands*** of stellar results and proofs in a very short life (died at 32), many of them proven true only decades after his death, that he seemed to "just know" were true.
Fictionally it is entirely possible some native genius in this poor country could discover chemistry or physics, and even though a country is poor does not mean its leadership is poor or stupid. Judicious management of such a genius and his/her results could then produce products, perhaps many of them, that put the rest of the country to work and are in high demand throughout the world. The genius becomes the "natural resource", producing (say) green energy products, medicines, solvents and cleaners, insanely cheap desalination chemicals or machines that make it possible to use sea water to irrigate crops. His country may be poor to start, but they can at least afford patent protections and have a military to provide security, and keep trade secrets on processes secret.
The genius may be quite proud of serving his country and providing the talent needed to put them all to work, and his government may be happy to share the wealth with its citizens. The Genius is more than happy with this arrangement, lives as well as they want, and is not inclined to defect or become a billionaire elsewhere. Like Tesla, they are not driven by monetary greed but by compulsion to solve the next problem. Or perhaps the genius is driven by being the hero, with the fame and adulation and tearful gratitude of their countrymen that borders on worship of the divine.
The world market for such products can be in the trillions of dollars. Start with a killer solution that others can't hack (like a cure for cancer, or a simple and cheap fusion energy, or green fuel 20% the price of oil), and it could be enough to transform a populous poor country into an economic powerhouse in a decade.
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## Being small and agile to adapt quickly to changing circumstances
If you look at the countries in the real world that have achieved what you're looking for, there is a common thread to many of them. They are relatively small countries that were able to adapt to changes in the global political and economic spheres and take advantages of those changes.
You need to be small for this to work; larger countries would struggle to adapt quickly enough unless they were very well organised, which would imply a strong economy already (the counter example here is China, which has managed to rapidly build its economy despite being large, but this is because it is so well organised centrally).
The actual mechanism for the rapid growth would depend on what the circumstances were and what resources the country had available -- it could be natural resources like oil, or it could be the ability to rapidly expand manufacturing capability, or it could be human resources and skills.
There would typically need to be some concerted effort on behalf of the country to achieve this: you won't just get lucky and ride the wave; you've got to make a deliberate plan to expand the economy and work on it over a period of years. For example, human resource and skills don't just exist; you have to invest in years of training and building up your training capability.
What that means is that while the growth may be rapid and unexpected from the perspective of the rest of the world, it will have taken a considerable amount of work behind the scenes.
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Look at China over the last 50 years. All of the things you have talked about happened in China over the last 200 years.
It was close to existing supply chains. The economic dominant nations where ideologically in favor of extending trade ties. It was a large source of cheap labor. It was politically stable. It was less protectionist than alternatives, allowing foreign firms to reap profits (at least to start). It was less corrupt than many alternatives (at similar labor cost levels). It was large enough that it could push back a bit.
It started with industrialization in a few areas, and expanded from there. As supply chains moved into China, having supply chains inside China started getting network benefits, which increased growth. It controlled how much of the resulting surplus went into increased standard of living, redirecting much of it into massive infrastructure spending (again, using large relatively fallow labor pool).
Imagine you have someone working generating 10\$ a day in wealth. You can pay them anywhere from 0\$ on up. At 0\$, it is slave labor. At 10\$, they are getting what they deserve.
Growth at 10$ a day ends up being small, because there is no incentive to grow.
China paid them (say) 1\$, gave 3\$ to foreign investors, and lost 1\$ to corruption and spent 5\$ on building infrastructure to make the next worker more productive.
This sucks in the short term. The workers are getting shafted; only the fact that their alternative is starvation and there is a huge fallow pool makes this at all sustainable.
Suppose every 10 years workers become 2x as productive, and labor force grows by 10x. Then after 50 years, the workers are producing 320\$ a day in wealth. They keep 30\$ (the same 10%). The foreign investors take home 100\$, 3\0$ is lost to corruption, and 160\$ is spent on investing in yet more growth, and there are 100000x as many workers.
The decades of suffering and investment in growth can lead to massive change.
This isn't sustainable past a certain point, because the exponential growth works by feeding off and providing services to the rest of the world economy. And eventually it starts becoming a market maker, at which point the source of growth has to change.
Being 100x poorer than your neighbors isn't a long term problem if you are growing by a factor of 2 every 3 years. In 21 years at that rate you'll exceed their size. For a poor nation to become rich, it either needs a huge windfall (like an oil strike), or a way to engage in an industrial revolution and the resulting exponential economic growth.
Compound interest is the most powerful thing in the world.
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Going back a bit further, for the longest time economic power was basically population and land based. Poor countries had less land or population. Rich countries had both.
There where rare trading countries that where richer per capita, but they where mostly city-states.
The industrial revolution changed this. Again, we got exponential growth going on -- in the case, technological. Steam engines begat better coal mining, which begat more steam. Coal begat steamers, which begat more coal. Coal begat railroads, which begat more coal.
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# Mistakes or issues facing other competing countries
Suppose you want to trade with a country, but they become chaotic or move towards unstable/dictatorial government, or get hit with sanctions blocking trade. Some nearby country might be the best place by far to substitute for it, when people have to leave or cut ties with one country, but want to remain in the area with minimal disruption.
Often it's others mistakes more than ones own cleverness that counts.
A small country might well become important (economically or strategically) due to it's location near some zone of interest, or issues/interest in a nearby country where others want to be "near but not in it".
Examples freely adapted from historic situations:
* "A bit like Afghanistan": given aid (lots of economic resource input) because of its strategic location and to gain favour of local govt in order to benefit larger goals.
* "A bit like Iran/Iraq/Israel" - given economic aid to gain foothold in area or reduce efficacy of an undesirable local state actor.
* "A bit like Cuba" - given economic aid because its near an opposing country and gives a good strategic location
* "A bit like Luxembourg, Isle of Man, or 20th century Switzerland" - gains economic advantage due to keeping tax rates low compared to neighbours, or strong privacy laws lacked by other alternatives.
* "A bit like current EU or China" - a country might want to deal with a powerful trade region but may need a base nearby that has suitable treaties both sides, or favourable conditions, or stability; if there aren't many choices then one country might benefit even though it is itself poor.
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Powerful ally. USA needed to have strong ally in communist control east Asia so they invested in South Korean development by sharing technology and giving preferences to south Korean products.
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There are plenty of examples of this. Prior to WW1, the US was a fairly backward nation. After much of Europe got destroyed, the US was able to ramp up industrial output to help out Europe. After WW2, Europe had very little industrial capacity left. The US helped rebuild much of Europe, which is what led the US to become the greatest economic power on Earth.
You can also look at Japan before/during WW2. It was a country controlled by a monarch who was presented as a god to the people. They also had very few resources (which is why they invaded China). After they surrendered, the US sent a team there that changed their government, economy, and had a large impact on their culture. This change came about fairly rapidly. From being defeated in the war, by the 60's they were a major economic player (not as big as the US, but still, they did very well).
Perhaps you can have a large scale war that your nation participates in, but the war doesn't touch their borders. They end up on the losing side, and a powerful but benevolent nation forces a major change to their government and transform the religion into something better (not replacing it, but simply bending it a little). Since their industrial capacity wasn't diminished during the war, they quickly become a major economic power by helping rebuild the nations that were destroyed.
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**Utilising human creativity and innovation**
Humans are the most valuable resource on the planet. Most rich countries have one thing in common: They are good at usilizing human creativity and innovation.
Heres how they do it is simple:
* **Decentralised Democracy**: Divide your country up in municipalities, regions and states. Give them self control over as much as possbile and let them compete. They government should have as little domestic power as possible. You will quickly see that the society regulates itself better than any centralised power could. Regions with attractive policies and regulation outcompete ineffective regions, and the ineffective regions will adapt to keep up - just like private corporations compete in global economy.
* **Security:**: Is the foundation for prosperity and should not be neglected. Security should be the centralised governments main responsibility.
**Natural resource is a very bad indicator for wealth**
Using natural resources as the main reason for wealth is misleading and incorrect. Some of the poorest contries on earth is the richest in natural resources (Venezuela, Congo, Nigeria, Iraq) and some of the richest countries are the poorest in natural resources (Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Luxembourg, South Korea).
The wealth in most rich countries are not a consequence of natural resources, but of the utilization of human innovation and creativity.
Also: Using Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Quatar as examples are very misleading. Even though the ruling class is very rich, the population is not. Please note that the vast majority of the working class in these contries are illegal immigrants and they are not accounted for in official statistics. If they were, the average BNP per capita would be *much* lower.
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A change in the way people think, where many people think I should do something productive and valuable for me and country, rather than blame someone else for not doing it.
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There is a huge difference between a small poor country and a large poor country. A small country can get rich quite quickly by exploiting its position for shipping or finance (eg. the UAE or Hong Kong or Singapore) or by becoming a tax haven (assuming the other powers tolerate it for some, probably geopolitical, reason).
For a large (in population) country to become rich quickly is much more difficult. A revolution that removes oppressive religion and colonization overnight, and even with a good culture and educated people will take a generation or two. For one thing, if the former colonizers are still around and powerful they will not easily accept their "loss" and will try to shut out and starve out the new regime, assuming they don't go all out and invade to install a more favorable government. It took the US until 1979 to recognize China (from October 1949), and they managed to keep China out of the UN until 1971, so around one human generation of relative isolation.
In the case of a large country, a war between existing powers that leaves them weakened and inward-looking would probably be a reasonable scenario. You could even have the large poor country covertly provoke the war and help sustain it (while destroying the productive capacity of the belligerents) and then profit handsomely from selling into the resulting chaos and destruction to restore their consumption (quickly) while restoring a minimum of production capacity.
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**A true revolution + an authoritarian Leader**
The country needs a two stage act to get itself out.
You listed out why the country is poor
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All these could have been caused / sustained because of the existing leadership/government mechanism. This needs to be dismantled before the country can set itself on path to recovery. And to change such a system a revolution is the only option - other than invasion by another country (which is not what we want).
Natural resources can be slowly squandered away if the conditions(people, leadership etc) are not right. And hence the first importance of act one (revolution).
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Another country cannot and will not involve itself in a revolution (unless it is the sponsor). If it was by any other means, for example a coup; it can be fought against by the existing regime by aligning with another nation for help. A revolution is much more massive than a coup to fight it off even with help. And this is the second importance of act one (revolution).
As long as its humans that live in that country, they will need an authoritarian leader to take it places after act one. A revolution gives a supremely decisive mandate to the leader to perform fearlessly knowing well that the entire citizens are with him/her. And that is the third importance of act one (revolution).
It also helps if the country has a USP (Unique Selling Point). It could be natural resources. It could be technology. It could be cheap manufacturing. It could even simply be an exhibition of solid political will that will draw in talent and investments.
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Essentially power is easiness of something.
Since we live in a physical world, power is tied to the abundance of physical resources = life is easy if there's plenty of everything you need. (That's what people aspire to: to live a life without worrying, to have it easy.) Anyway To have power is to control/have something others desperately want and need.
To have power is control physical resources, controlling those resources also means the ability to hold onto them. If a nation somehow gained immense wealth, others would try to invade it.
So what I'd propose is:
-A new scientific breakthrough makes a some over abundant, even nuisance of a thing in a certain country valuable. Computation works better if cool, so global warming could make eskimo world domination possible (this is a joke)
-An archaeological discovery of a meteor with precious stuff (Wakanda and Vibranium)
-Volcanic event that brings gold magma to the surface.
-Oil, or a replacement for it.
-Rise of a new leader/ally that brings promises, unites the people for a common goal, forms an alliance with neighboring exploited countries. People need something to believe in, if you have that you have the people and their resources, thus power.
-Just water, everyone needs water. (This is a free stock market tip.)
-The initial thing could be a rare thing found in the local flora or fauna that could cure something. Thus spurring the growth of the nation, leading to branching out to some other fields.
EDIT: If the country was exploited, the reason for that is the power the nation already has, but haven't not yet realized. You don't exploit a nation just for the giggles, there has to be a benefit to it. So they could just stood up to say "no." Now to just come up with the reason for the exploitation.
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Blinding, amputation and other punitive mutilations have been used effectively in the past; however there are no accounts of deafening, e.g. removal of one's sense of sound, being carried out.
How would a judicial deafening sentence be carried out using simple technologies and techniques?
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There is historical record (although old and unreliable) that, in 1031 or 32, [Vazul](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vazul), the grand prince of Hungary, was blinded and deafened using molten lead to make him unsuitable as king. It was not a regular punishment though.
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> Feeling his powers slipping away, [King Stephen] sent messengers in haste to have his uncle's son Vazul brought from prison in Nitra, in order to make him king of the Hungarians after himself. However, as soon as Queen Gisela got wind of this she hatched a plot with a group of traitors, and sent the ispán Sebus ahead of the messenger. Sebus had Vazul's eyes put out and molten lead poured into his ears; he then fled to Bohemia. When Vazul was at length brought back by the King's messenger, the King wept bitterly at his fate.
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Pretty easily, even if it will be really messy and obviously painful. Drive a red-hot spike through the ear canal, about one inch deeper than the eardrum membrane.
This will destroy the tympanus and the small bones of the ear, and cauterize the vestibular ganglia and the cochlear nerve.
Obviously, you're also looking at a pretty grim fatality rate. Preventing infection will not be easy.
However, simply cauterizing the eardrum should probably be enough - the victim will then only be able to hear very strong sounds through bone conduction. You'd have to shout at him while keeping him in a head-butt. Survival rate will be markedly higher.
Both mutilations would be difficult (but not impossible) to simulate.
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In my old elementary school, that was done by putting naughty kids under the bell. It was an old-school metal bell with a hammer rapidly slamming into it, that type of bell. It also was placed in a roofed part of the playground, which came down to a concrete block. Needless to say what that did to the bell sound. Naughty kids who had to stand under the bell regularly had trouble listening for the next 5 - 10 minutes after. When we didn't listen, we were basically punished to not being able to listen.
I'd say this concept can easily be enhanced to cause perma-deaf.
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Pouring molten tin (melting point about 230°) into the ear would be agonising but survivable. The ear canal would be physically blocked and the eardrum burnt. With the head held on its side, some of the outer ear could be filled, which would be pretty obvious. Tin has been available since ~3000BC ([wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin#History)) so fits your setting (simple technologies).
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What technology level?
If the technology level is 1930's and above, simply slicing the hearing nerve(vestibulocochlear nerve) would result in total deafness.
Certain [drugs and chemicals](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4693596/) can cause hearing damage.
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There have been lots of great answers. You say "simple technologies" but that doesn't really give me an idea of WHEN.
The biggest issue is that to deafen someone without killing them depends on the level of knowledge and tech available. And since I do not know when (it isn't in your question) it's hard to answer.
As to how: this will take precision. A hot spike will do, as will molten metal, like lead, has been recorded in history.
But it actually, historically has been used in at least one instance, in the case of [Vazul](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vazul) in during the late 900s-or early 1000s. Blinding in Medieval times mostly happened with war or politics, making them unfit for command or leadership. In the case of Vazul, who was heir to the throne of Hungary, they reportedly did one better by also filling his ears with molten lead.
But, they did not just make him deaf you notice. They made him blind as well. Just making him deaf would not have been enough. **A missing ear or deafness can be hidden. A person can still be used as a symbol even if they cannot hear.** Especially if they can read and are educated (someone with them can make sure they say specific phrases in response to things).
I can tell you why it hasn't been used much and you can go from there.
* you'd have to go in the ear canal, and that's not highly visible.
* you want it to be highly visible as a deterrent. Taking off an entire ear is actually preferable to this. And, that's far more theatrical than a delicate procedure to deafen.
* these people won't be listening to you chastise them later if they do anything else. Most civilizations, in early stages, do not have a high level of reading and writing. What it means is that there is no way of giving these people instruction and orders, no way for them to understand. And **unlike blindness, it doesn't make them helpless and unable to attack you, just deaf to your pleas.**
* You WANT your victims to survive. They need to be a walking advertisement. If this is primitive, the procedure itself has a high probability of killing them. This is actually pretty likely that close to the brain.
* It's not on the list of things for a reason. Blinding someone, which is relatively "easy" is but other things were not carried out as much as you might think.
Amputation was in Byzantine times, supposed to be a replacement for the death penalty. You'd likely die of your wound, however, there was possibility you would not. A rich man might get a surgeon in to do it properly. A poor man got a man with an axe.
Taking a tongue out--not giving the person a voice is far better than making them unable to listen. Symbolically.
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Ok, here is a semi-human (read simian) way to do it without much pain and complications:
You eliminate the eardrum scratching with a needle, and then surgically insert a small cylinder that prevents the tissue from growing back.
It is not pain- or risk-free, but should be efficient. The drawback is that there would be some residual hearing because the auditory ossicles would still be functional.
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[Ototoxic drugs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ototoxicity) exist, and their effect is often via a cumulative lifetime dose: though I wouldn't approve of this clinically(!), in the setting of the world you are building, an intravenous infusion of one of these drugs would be effective, cheap, and easy to administer (hence why it's a classic medical error).
The ones that spring to mind are antibiotics such as gentamicin. I think the maximum lifetime dose is about 15g - you **couldn't** give it all in one infusion (it's profoundly nephrotoxic), but, say, 1g per day over a fortnight might be a slow, macabre approach to causing deafness.
Arguably, ototoxic drugs may be more 'humane' than more violent approaches like surgical ablation, radiotherapy to the ear, or acoustic trauma; or maybe it's just more sinister? Good luck with your story.
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As long as you're careful about exactly how deep you go a spike could be used to destroy the structure of the ear, go too deep and you'll hit the brain and it's all over. There's always going to be issues of infection with any physical trauma, especially with the ear because you can't see what's going on, using a hot iron will help because it will at least sterilise and cauterise the initial wound site but it's a punishment that's going to kill a lot more people that you probably want it to at low tech levels.
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Something that could be considered, that I don't believe would actually physically harm the individual would be to damage their hearing with loud sounds. Anything above 85 decibels will start to damage your hearing with a direct correlation to the amount of time exposed. A rock concert is usually between 110-120 decibels.
From personal experience I can say after being exposed to that for 4+ hours had my ears ringing the next day and most sounds sounded muffled to a degree. So if you have access to firearms in your world, shooting directly by the ear of the individual would damage their hearing (guns tend to be between 120-190 decibels).
The only physical damage I could see being possible besides some ear bleeding, would be if the pressure/force wave of the sound was directed at the individual, because if that is high enough it can start to damage you internally.
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Using sound and pressure waves. A pair of airtight headphones are clamped to the ears and a combination of a piston (for low frequencies) and speakers (for high frequencies) would activate generating sounds at pressure levels that permanently destroy the cilia in the cochlea at all frequencies of interest.
This is done with sound pressure levels, at frequencies, and over a long enough period of time that 99% of cilia are destroyed, rendering the individual legally deaf.
It should not otherwise harm the other nearby organs, so sense of balance and brain tissue should be fine, though immediately after treatment I expect one would experience a headache.
Combine it with an EEG and you can measure brain response to sound, so you can perform sweep tests of the human hearing range, and then reapply sound pressure at frequencies they can still hear without requiring them to provide feedback. This would be necessary since everyone has some variation in hearing.
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Most of the answers above suffer from two problems: possibility for infection, and that they're permanent. If you don't care about that, fine, but if you do, let me offer an alternative.
[Cochlear implants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant) are real-life devices used to help people who are deaf. There could be some minor side effects, but they're usually not debilitating. And it's done in a hospital room, like any other surgery, and so minimizes the former problem (we hope). Plus, it's (mostly) pain-free. Unless you want the process to be torturous as well.
At this point, all you'd have to do is hook the devices up to a remote or something of the like, with which you can adjust the volume at which they can hear. Thus, you can just turn their hearing off for as long as you'd like.
One other bonus is that you can give them built-in shock therapy. For instance, if you want to do this to prevent thievery, and he continues stealing anyway, just use your handy dandy remote to get the implant to give him some good-ol' shock therapy. That's going to be one heck of a headache.
One problem is power sourcing. Perhaps you could somehow build the devices to build up energy from heat let off by the brain, where most of the body's energy is spent. Basically, it'll be the Prius of the biomedical torture devices. That seems to be the most practical option. You could put a solar panel on his head, or put some wires all up and down his body to gain energy from his movements, but seemingly having the charging device on the battery itself would be the most practical option.
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Might I propose Mack's Pillow Soft Earplugs?
[https://www.amazon.com/Macks-Pillow-Earplugs-Value-Count/dp/B004RRGUCY?th=1](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B004RRGUCY)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iuh7G.gif)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AQox0.jpg)
The technology is very simple. The nice thing about Mack's Pillow Softs as a judicial punishment is that it does make one quite deaf, but is easily reversible, and so the punishment can take place for a prescribed period and then end.
And if you transgress again you know what you are in for: more Mack's!
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My setting involves a masquerade (though in this setting the term used is "The Veil of Ignorance") where numerous immortal humanoid beings live in secret amongst humanity as a 1-in-1000 minority. There is an independent immortal organization, known as the Veilkeepers, tasked with keeping humans from finding out about immortals, and with punishing those who endanger this secrecy.
Initially I thought this would mean that immortals would not have writing, photos, or any other sorts of physical documentation, as a lot of that would be catastrophic if it leaked, and forgetting where you put just one single photo of a blatantly-non-human friend, or maybe even just one incredibly suspect handwritten note, could have disastrous consequences for the Veil.
I recently came up with an interesting solution: There's a symbol the veilkeepers came up with, and they have used their memory-manipulating powers to program the entire human race to be absolutely incapable of finding anything marked or watermarked with the symbol to be even slightly interesting or worth their time.
The problem is that I swiftly realized that unless I make up some justifications for why you can't do certain things with this symbol, it is very decidedly a nuclear option that will kill a lot of potential sources of conflict and make it far too easy for certain villainous immortal groups to prey on humanity unhindered:
**What exactly is stopping someone from taking a bedsheet, putting this "ignore this" symbol all over it, and then using it as an invisibility cloak, rendering humans incapable of noticing whoever is wearing it?**
If I can't produce a compelling answer to this question, then not only does that kill a lot of potential plotlines about the difficulties of being a non-passing immortal species trying to live among humans, but it also means that humans would be 100% defenseless against any immortal who would try to do them harm.
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## Humans cannot ignore the elephant in the room
Instead of an actual "elephant" it is somebody wrapped in a sheet. It is just *too conspicuous*. The symbol works on smaller items because they can more easily avoid notice.
A human's mind just "glosses over" the piece of paper or other small and mundane items. However, a large (human-sized) and moving thing is just too much to just avoid notice.
As a consequence, this also means that not all items would be easy to hide. They would still need to not attract attention. Maybe a letter, maybe a pendant. Anything normal looking and probably not out of place. A letter put on top of a skull is probably too conspicuous. Same if the skull itself was stamped - if you put it in the middle of an ordinary living room it still attracts attention. It might slip notice more in a mausoleum.
This not only ensures the rune is not "too powerful" but still presents story opportunities - even stamped items are not completely invisible. In fact, a human might pick a rune-stamped letter along with a stack of other letters without realising it. If those letters are examined somewhere, the rune might not be able to prevent focused scrutiny.
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**Rune OP Nerf Pl0x**
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Your Rune of Ignore is too powerful. You need to make it less powerful to give your humans a chance. For example the rune:
1. . . . causes memories of the marked object or person to fade at a rate convenient to the plot.
2. . . . makes people "explain away" the target to an extent convenient to the plot. For example everyone thinks the person in the sheet is a ghost going to a fancy dress party. But the people chasing them before they put on the sheet continue chasing them.
3. . . . makes the target less interesting. The vampire will not get odd glances. But people will still notice when they turn into a giant bat creature and soar into the sky.
4. . . . has a cost or downside that means it cannot be used every day.
5. . . . does not work on every human at once. You must specify the human target when you cast the rune.
6. . . is obvious. I mean it obviously "does something". People find it hard to describe why the marked individual feels so different. But they are hard to pay attention to or remember. Every time I go to Dr. Ackula I have no recollection of what he said to me. But the appointment is still in my diary; I remember driving to the appointment and I remember driving back. And there is money missing from my wallet and I have this prescription in my coat pocket. Weird huh? The vampires cannot rely on the rune too much. Otherwise people will catch on there is some secret group of people out there. People who are hard to notice or remember. They just don't know the group is vampires.
I prefer options 1 and 6.
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# It only works on part of vision involved in interpretation:
Your mark only has an affect on what people look at, and specifically how they interpret it. It's easy to ignore the image on a picture, but a person still sees that it is paper. They might even see color and think it a decoration. A note is a note, but you can't read it and don't really care what it says. If you are really determined, you stare at it and decide it must be written in a foreign language. A deep look at a picture, and you decide it must be a tiny painting of a monster (kids and their game cards...). A linguist decides it is gibberish scribbled on a page. The paper can still be touched, perfume on the note still smells. crinkle it, and it still makes noise.
An immortal determined to secretly communicate with mortals could encode a message in braille, and the note with the runes on it could still be read. For that matter, a blind person would have no influence on them whatsoever and "see" through the masquerade. But who cares if a blind person can perceive something they are unable to look at anyway?
It may also work like a perception filter around people. Their higher brain functions don't see that you're a monster, but people get upset when you're around, and instinctively people fear the presence of predators that they CAN see, but struggle to pay attention to. Such a cloak might work okay at a distance, but up close people start freaking out and have fight-or-flight responses.
**WARNING**: Your tool is dangerous around technology. Sure, you can't pay attention to the message, but a computer can. In a world of computers and fancy electronic imaging, your detector sees a thermal image of a person. Is the rune in infrared? A camera is pixelated and the veil mark is messed up - crap, where did that hideous monster come from? Yetis, reptoids, and ghosts would keep showing up in grainy photos and videos. A document is placed on a scanner that translates images into text. Uh, guys, I'm looking at this book, but do you see what the computer is detecting?
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**It only impacts long term memory.**
I'm sure I've seen exactly this plot device used before, though I can't think where. Dr. Who, maybe?? There are insidious beings but the second they are out of sight you completely forget about your interactions with them. You can literally turn to run and the second you turn around you're like "Wait, what was I doing?"
However, while you see them, your interactions are perfectly normal. You could put on the bedsheet with the symbol on it and try to sneak into a facility but the security guards would absolutely see you and react accordingly. "Oi, you in the bedsheet, what kinda game you trying to pull here."
Of course, once out of sight, they would forget about the interaction, but it does make abuse of the symbol tricky and dangerous. If the guard grabs the sheet, crumpling it (and therefore the symbol) he might well experience a very strange sensation of "who are you", "where did you come from", "why am I holding this sheet", but you'd still be caught. Also, eventually the humans would realize something is up if something with the symbol ever came into their possession, which is probably one of the main jobs of the veilkeepers: to make sure if humans ever actually obtain something with the symbol on it, that the veilkeepers show up and remove it before things get too suspicious.
(Some thief finds a box with the symbol on it. He picks it up and tucks it under his arm. He forgets about it, because of the symbol, but "wait, where'd this box come from?" Shrugging, he takes it to his car and puts it in the trunk, where he sees the symbol again and forgets about it. "What was I doing here with my trunk open? Oh well, guess I'll head home." Later he opens the trunk and finds the box again. "Where'd this come from? I'll take it inside and check it out." *Eventually* he'd probably make some progress but it would be slow since he forgets about it every time he looks away from it. The veilkeepers need to show up to collect the box.)
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As you said it makes people find the object **uninteresting**, but not actually invisible.
This works perfectly on small innocuous things like a piece of paper. Larger things like a person have a problem though; the fact that there is a person-sized object blocking my line of sight could be **interesting in itself**, even if the actual object is uninteresting.
This means that covering yourself in the symbol would have varying degrees of effectiveness depending on the context. On a crowded street? Yeah, it's probably not very noticeable; there are loads of person-sized objects you're more-or-less ignoring anyway.
However what if I'm supposedly alone in my home? I would sure as hell notice a person-sized object that I don't recognise moving around my house; even if I somehow found the person boring and beneath notice, the *fact that there is another person there* is itself **extremely** interesting! This would probably be an extremely weird experience, and my exact behaviour might be difficult to predict. But the symbol-covered immortal certainly isn't going to be able to bank on their presence just never being detected at all (even if it perhaps sometimes works close to that way - I can imagine that If I knew there were or could be other people at home and such an immortal walked through my line of sight I would brush it off as just having seen someone I expected to be there).
If this happens a lot then people are going to start noticing that "weird people you can't properly get a clear look at or remember" is a real phenomenon and investigate it.
This logic seems like it would apply to your original intended use of the symbol fairly well, too. If one piece of paper amongst several has the symbol, then sure, nobody is going to bother to look at it to see what it says. But if you tape a marked piece of paper to a window, someone looking out the window is still going to notice there's something blocking the window! Even a book sitting on a desk might be too boring to read, but not completely invisible; you'd throw it out or put it on a shelf if you were cleaning the desk.
So in my opinion, you can use the symbol functioning exactly as you described here with no further watering down, and immortals still couldn't safely use it as a cloak of invisibility. It's just a matter of making sure you frame the audience's expectations (and remember to consistently treat the symbol as causing the **object itself** to seem uninteresting, rather than the fact that there is anything there at all).
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The symbol needs to be entirely visible for it to work. On sheets of paper, on walls, doors, license plates, &c. this works fine, but on bed sheets the draping and movement will obscure parts of the symbol and prevent most observers from being affected by it.
This also means that, say, at the moment an ignorant git covers up the big plaque with the symbol on the door to the Veilkeepers' Underground Gym with an ad for [glamours](https://fables.fandom.com/wiki/Glamour), the entire organization is at risk.
It's like [The Funniest Joke in the World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBWr1KtnRcI). If you don't read it in its entirety, you're completely fine.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CY99X.jpg)
He's (not) seeing it!
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**It only works on inanimate objects**
You can put the symbol on a building, or a secret document, or a "hidden" doorway, and no one will notice. They'll see it, but as you describe, it just won't register in their mind and they'll never pay attention. It blends in with the background.
But the human eye tracks movement. If something is moving, you can't help but see it. A person in bedsheet coming at you or running away it is going to look too strange to ignore, no matter how many sigils you put on it. That does mean that a person could hide behind the bedsheet in a room and not be noticed, but they will have to be very still, and very quiet, and hope no animals come sniffing around to give the game away (dogs can't read symbols, so can't be fooled!). If they so much as twitch, they will be noticed, and then have to answer some uncomfortable questions about what they are doing and what the bedsheet is all about.
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**It gets less effective the more you see it**
The first time a human's brain sees the rune, the memory just vanishes, edited out completely. The second time, a glimmer that something wierd happens stays in the mind of the subject. The third, they might remember something like bright lights, a an erie feeling , something akin to people's descriptions of hauntings or being abducted by aliens. The memories don't vanish, they're simply repressed by the human.
Eventually, however, it stops working. The memories come flooding back. If you're unlucky, you get just enough exposures that you know the things you've seen are real, but can't explain how. Haunted by the memories, and with no one around believing you, you tend to be treated as insane
Enough exposures, however, and it comes back with complete clarity - here is where the vampire hunters, the monster slayers come from - people who the veil has stopped working for, who can see the world behind it.
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**The rune relates to the message, not the medium**
The rune is not a special kind of physical object. It is a graphical symbol, forming part of the pictures and writing on a sheet of paper, a DVD, a cave wall, or whatever. And in turn, it only affects the text and images it accompanies. The paper, the disk, the wall are perceived as normal, but they don't appear to convey any information of interest. (There might also be an audible form of the rune with analogous effects.)
Likewise, an immortal roaming in a runic sheet will appear to be someone going around under a perfectly mundane sheet. No mortal will take the slightest interest in what might be written on the linen, if they notice it has any writing at all. But they will pay some attention to the person with the unusual fashion sense.
Stencil the rune on your car, and a witness can describe the vehicle well enough, but they won't get your number. Draw it on your arm, and people will still talk to you, but won't notice that embarrassing tattoo you got as a teenager. Put it on your suitcase, and the baggage handlers will probably send it to the wrong airport, but it won't stop security and customs wondering what's inside.
And you have to feel sorry for the poor mortal who picks up a veilkeeper's notebook bearing the rune, uses it to record their most important thoughts, and forgets them all.
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# The sigil is very fragile.
## Or otherwise only really *works* passively
Sure, humans have been conditioned to ignore the symbol, gets pushed into the background and the brain can't immediately process it. And that works great if it's something easily put out of mind, such as a paper that can be skipped, or a building that that fades into the background. But that only works at a glance, anything which continues to draw attention to itself quickly defeats the innate response.
What is to stop someone from wearing the sigil as a cloak? Not much. It might even work for a moment, maybe even longer if the wearer doesn't move and finds a spot where a large bedsheet ghost might not look out of place. But the bedsheet ghost (who's sigils aren't even legible from all angles) keeps re-insisting itself and eventually overpowers the symbol.
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# Humans want to destroy the symbol
Initially a human will ignore things with the symbol because it's sensible to avoid a minor issue. But the longer they look at it the more they hate it. A book with the symbol may quickly be thrown in the trash but if they look at the book too much then they'll burn it instead. An immortal wearing this symbol trying to run past a security checkpoint will be seen and stopped with excessive force. The humans will quickly decide to do everything they can to kill the intruder. Therefore, wearing this symbol is actually detrimental to stealth.
An object with the symbol will never be closely examined (documents won't be read). It can be used as a distraction. But it also means that if an immortal isn't careful, they'll lose their stuff. Objects can't be hidden in plain sight. An object must be hidden normally but still has the mark as a failsafe.
One advantage of this is that it's subtle. People might get suspicious over holes in memory, invisible objects, or side effects but if the thing is distasteful then that's just a normal opinion. No inconsistency and nothing suspicious. Advantage 2 is that humans will do the cleanup work automatically. Advantage 3 is that it prevents humans from discovering the symbol by accident. Since if they make a symbol that is too similar, they'll think "no, that's no good. I hate the way this looks" and come up with a different design.
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### It works, but only at a snail's pace.
Human minds need to **perceive** the rune if it is to have the desired effect. Things moving too fast blurs the rune, and then the charm is dispelled.
You can use the rune as a invisibility cloak, but only if movement is done very, very slowly.
#### But the human brain easily recognizes patterns once they have been spotted once.
This happens because our brains are really good at making inferences.
<https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/10-things-you-cant-unsee-and-what-that-says-about-your-brain/361335/>
Meaning that once someone recognizes the rune, they will have a really hard time un-seeing the rune on the sheet, even if the speed of movement increases.
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## The sigil makes you forget
Doctor Who described a similar phenomenon with the Silent. The idea isn't to make things invisible, but to make their existence impossible to remember:
<https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Silent>
This would both allow your humans to react to dangerous situations while still keeping the immortals in the Veil.
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**The symbol is very limited and more likely to cause a masquerade breach than to prevent it.**
The symbol only works if it is legible. It will get you past the security guard, but dashcams, CCTV and other cheap compliance tech will make you look like a ghost by Louis Vuitton. People could also be too far away to discern the symbol, or simply hear your footsteps and the sound of breaking glass (and blast you with a shotgun through the door). If your target is important enough for the police to care, they may come to the conclusion that mind altering chemicals are involved, and the hunt is on.
You can't use the symbol to live the good life either, because making something uninteresting only works against people who are not paid to care. You could buy out a building and put your rune on every wall, but people working in urban planning know there is a building there, and they know it has electricity, so someone is going to want to come to your doom fortress and read the meter. If the rune makes them not want to do their job, they get fired and replaced with someone else whose first task is to come to your building and read the meter.
**The symbol may need a redesign because it does not solve any immortal problems and only removes risk.**
Immortal life is tough for reasons unrelated to being seen physically. Not having an identity makes it very hard to exist in society and you can't put your symbol into a database record on a government server. You will have to live in a squatted or condemned house, drive a junker car (make sure to never get into an accident) and steal your clothing. You can do these things without the symbol, it just makes you less likely to get caught.
And therein lies the problem with the symbol. It does one very specific thing, which is to stop anyone from arresting you. It is extremely easy to break the masquerade if you actually go out and try to have an adventure or live a proper life, but there are no consequences to doing so.
I would change how the symbol works entirely. Perhaps consider changing it to a *name* instead of a sigil, so it can be put into a database and the government will leave you alone. Names, especially unpronounceable 40 letter truenames, are harder to read off a bedsheet, so while the police may have trouble with the paperwork part of arresting you, they could most likely still shoot you. And because you could build up a life as an uninteresting person instead of having to live as a vagrant, you now have something meaningful to lose if you use the ultimate escape plan of hiding in a warded box for 50 years.
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## The sigil DOESN'T make you forget
The sigil contains the command "ignore me." It works fine for things like documents, which offer no information if ignored, but doesn't keep you from actually seeing it. Things you'd notice without paying attention, such as aliens (immortals) ransacking the museum, are still seen peripherally but ignored.
However, even though you're forced to ignore it while the sigil is visible, you'd still remember later what you saw. It could be used to perform crimes without interference, but people would have enough memory of what they did see to pursue you later.
As such, it only works permanently on things which are unmemorable when ignored. Under interrogation, it would seem reasonable for someone to say they saw a document but didn't read it (unless it was a trained espionage agent), while it would bring attention if several people said they witnessed a murder but for some reason didn't intervene or even watch closely. If not getting caught is a priority, the utility of the sigil gets much more limited.
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**It Works at a Price**
Immortals, like the Greek gods, can't leave humans alone. They meddle all the time. Taking lovers, fathering kids, dropping hints and inspirations. The cleanup crew does all they can to erase the problem but they can't do it perfectly.
When the symbol is encountered, it creates internal conflict in the individual when they see a shiny but are being told "this is indeed NOT a shiny!". These sorts of cognitive conflicts get worse over time if there's a strong emotional reaction to what is hidden. If that's something like a child, the grail, an elixir of immortality or the face of the most beautiful immortal that ever lived, the person can end up obsessed to the point of insanity - unable to say what they are obsessed with but obsessed all the same.
For artists, that most beautiful face. For musicians, that most ineffable phrase of music.
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# The effect is limited in power.
The conscious mind has a limited amount of computing power - it hasn't evolved to have more. Just to be able to *function*, it is essential that it restricts itself to a small subset of signals and information. There are *lots* of mechanisms to optimize, vet, whittle, and offload processing as far as possible.
This is why, for example, optical illusions *exist*. Some sets of stimuli are able to trick either the visual system, or the optical chiasma, or the visual cortex, etc., into believing something which they really shouldn't.
This is also why several afflictions exist where too little, too much, or the wrong kind of attention is paid on some specific stimuli, to a point which you'd believe absurd and utterly impossible (a very interesting read is Oliver Sack's *The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat*).
So, we have a "symbol" which actively triggers the Plateau Eyes effect (as it appears in *A Gift from Earth* by Larry Niven, or *The Girl they Couldn't See* by Laurence Dahners): whatever object it is affixed to is marked as "irrelevant" at the subconscious level. The mind tricks itself into ignoring whatever it is, and does so with all its usual tricks: you see a "blank" that is filled with something which *should* be there, and are actively disinterested in investigating; trying to force your attention on that area causes a cognitive dissonance that makes you fed up, cranky, anxious to do whatever else, and brings all sorts of things to your mind that you should rather do, like procrastination on steroids.
As soon as you avert your gaze, the limbic system kicks in and you forget whatever you saw, then *also* forget you've forgotten. There are already mechanisms in place to do all this, and as far as it is known, they've been working for hundreds of thousands of years.
On the other hand, this effect is not omnipotent. If the stimulus is enough to overcome the "attention barrier" and/or engage some other equally powerful mechanism - it could be the sexual drive or the fight-or-flight reflex, or some phobia that's rooted in the latter - then it will enter the "working" consciousness, and at that point there's the very real risk that someone might overcome the conditioning altogether.
For example, it is possible to [trick even the proprioception mechanisms](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3125296/) into feeling (or not feeling) what they should; but if someone puts their mind to it, the effect is shattered. When excited enough, there's anecdotical evidence of people resisting even the impulse of shirking from a flame and enduring severe burns.
So, while the "don't look" symbol is useful, it mustn't be abused - probably, the immortals have to police themselves in order to avoid exactly such abuse.
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## Better Avoid That Spooky Mansion
Your symbol might have been intended to make things forgettable, and for small or mundane objects it works as intended, but the larger and more attention-grabbing the item that's marked is the more power it takes to divert that attention. At a certain point the additional power leads to "creepy" feelings in the humans it affects, caused by the conflict between natural curiosity and magical deflection. This magical fear can vary between creeping dread to full on terror depending on how much energy is needed to divert attention.
Narratively, this helps explain things like haunted houses or spooky images or anything else in that vein. Why do kids feel creeped out when they see that one abandoned house at the end of the street? Because the immortal who is staying there has to up the power output of his deflection rune to keep those curious kids from breaking in and trashing his home. Why do some old pictures look normal but still make you feel on edge? Because the rune only needs a little power to make you forget specific details about the image that would give away the masquerade.
You can decide whether the creepy factor is an intended function of the deflection symbol or something that just happens. You could even make a case for the rune **always** having a fear effect as part of its functionality. Minor uses would just have a mild discomfort along with the forgetfulness, to discourage people from wanting to investigate again later. Larger uses would cause stronger fear effects to achieve the same result, keeping people away from the thing that you want ignored.
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## Affects short term memory only, and makes content boring.
It's only effective for a very short time, but it makes any text around it seem really boring and retards the transfer of short term to long term memory. If a person spends more then a half dozen seconds examining it it'll have a chance to process into long term memory. At the start and end of each paragraph in text, or on a sign meant for immortals only this is enough. On a bed sheet draped around a person walking around it only makes the text on the bed sheet seem boring, the human would ignore the text and look at the larger picture.
Additionally, it's worth noting that people have to read it for it to work. I work in a library, and let me tell you, no one reads anything. Sometimes it feels like we're printing a SEP field on signs as is. Just keep in mind, for your rune to be effective it has to be read, and if something wacky is going on people probably won't be paying attention to the prints on the sheet.
] |
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[
I have an idea about an alien that conquers the world by assuming human form and releasing a film that drives whoever watches it insane. The masses that see it go on to destroy civilization in a constant fit of anxiety and terror. It would be the audio visual equivalent of the fear toxin in Batman Begins.
Scientifically, how could a film do that to any human?
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It is a trope of science fiction that there are so-called "basilisks" that will neurologically impair anyone who views them. These things are visual patterns/shapes/whatever that human brains (or perhaps any brain) cannot process without being harmed in some way (think about bricking an electronic device). Common examples are the movie Bird Box, an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation (used against the Borg), and about 3000 articles on the SCP collaborative fiction website.
For a basilisk to be viable, one would have to know how a human mind processes information (whether this is the whole brain, or just the visual cortex, I couldn't say) to some very profound level, and to debug it like you would any other software. You *might* identify some inputs that crash this software, and given that human brains don't have a reset button (that we're aware of), it would likely stay in this locked-up state forever after (especially if it crashes the visual cortex, so that no one can feed therapeutic inputs to it that revert the brain to a non/less-crashed state). The sorts of experiments that would be necessary to conduct this research would be, by necessity, absolutely unethical. It might even require being able to simulate human minds (something we don't currently have enough processing power to do, let alone several other missing technologies).
For the purposes of your story, these might be still images, or might be video. They might or might not have an audio component. They could work in such a way that some are immune, or none are. The details would be entirely up to you.
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**Does it matter?**
Sometimes things don't need a full explanation. We never learn why Phil is forced to relive the same day over and over in *Groundhog Day*. We don't get to hear or read Monty Python's "[Funniest Joke in the World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBWr1KtnRcI)". (How could we? It would kill us too!) If the means by which the movie drives the viewer insane is not important to the plot of the story, why not just leave it out?
Explaining things like this creates the risk of creating a "[voodoo shark](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VoodooShark)": the explanation is less believable than the thing it attempts to explain. And, in fact, the *Groundhog Day* script did originally have an explanation for why Phil was forced to relive the same day over and over again—a sort of voodoo curse, as it happens—and it was cut because it was just silly. The writers tried a few different explanations, but none of them worked better than no explanation at all, so that's what they went with.
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It's not the movie itself, it's rather the movie and what they spray in the room where the movie is projected.
Psychedelic drugs are known for
* having their effect depending on the "set" of the user, meaning their mental state at the moment of the assumption
* being capable of surfacing latent psychosis.
Put the two together, with a movie which creates the right "set", and most of your audience might turn psychotic.
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**Sentience Off-Switch.**
In the distant past some apes were artificially given sentience by a race of advanced aliens.\* These apes became modern humans. When these aliens performed the uplift they added a failsafe that the sentience could be deactivated by issuing a certain visual pattern.
The pattern only works when observed in its entirety at the correct speed and frequency. If any of the variables are off it looks like white noise. The movie contains the pattern.
When someone views the movie they revert to feral ape behaviour.
Wild apes are mostly nonviolent in their natural home on the Savannah. But the modern world contains hundreds of people and noises and flashing lights that get the ape all riled up. Then all nearby humans are recognized as interlopers on their territory and attacked.
\*Please do not ask me how these aliens themselves acquired sentience. It is a mystery.
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**Meme.**
1. A movie that produces doubt and suspicion about the underpinnings of civilization (examples: rule of law, democratic ideals, civil society) with slick, plausible and easy to digest ideas that augment tropes and concepts already circulating in the populace.
2. The old tropes and concepts which the movie augments have themselves persisted because these concepts can manifest ambient anxiety and fear in the susceptible population. Augmented ideas level up and become memes, reproducing themselves and gaining power and audience. More people watch the movie to find out what it is all about and become hosts to these ideas. The memes mutate and evolve, with more powerful and transmissible ideas gaining dominance.
3. Skillful political operators take advantage of the large and growing population infected with these memes. They stoke the fear and anxiety that feed the memes, which become stronger. The operators use the infected population to gain political power.
4. Led by these operators, the population infected by the memes destroy their own civilizations from the inside out. Civilization is replaced with a different type of society of a form driven by the memes and anxieties / fears they nurture. This destruction is in some cases gradual, over years and in some cases paroxysmic.
It takes persistence to kill civilization. Civilization is big and durable. It will take more than one shot.
5. Drives them insane - this is part of the OP. Are infected people insane? They do not think so. They do not froth at the mouth and eat their pets. But they will vigorously defend the reality of the memes they are infected with. They will defend them against evidence and common sense. The memes are a shared delusion - fixed false immutable beliefs. Delusions are a hallmark of mental illness.
Just a fun fictional scenario for a work of fiction!
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# Conspiracy theory
What you describe is partially possible; you can get a small portion of humanity to get aggressive and murderous with the right push. Case in point: [Pizzagate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory). It's just a stupid fabrication about a polictician using a chain of restaurants to sell babies to satanists. This could have ended there, but Youtube and other social media had thousands of people making videos describing it. And then this happened:
>
> Members of the alt-right, conservative journalists, and others who had urged Clinton's prosecution over the emails, spread the conspiracy theory on social media outlets such as 4chan, 8chan, and Twitter. In response, a man from North Carolina traveled to Comet Ping Pong to investigate the conspiracy and fired a rifle inside the restaurant to break the lock on a door to a storage room during his search. The restaurant owner and staff also received death threats from conspiracy theorists.
>
>
>
You may think that was an isolated case, but a few years later the same kind of stuff led not just a guy but a whole mob to storm the US capitol.
Right now about half of the american population votes and stands for the party that endorses policticians such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, who speaks publicly for the execution of house representatives for the mere crime of being against the former government's projects. She also pushes further conspiracy material in her social networks. She is actually one of the main spreaders of the whole Pizzagate thing, as well as being associated with Qanon.
Now imagine a world in which that woman is a chief of state - does 't have to be the US, could be any other country - with extensive support of the media and masses. Any government-backed movie telling you that some portion of the population should be eliminates for the greater good will lead to people to go killing each other.
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**Photosensitive seizures**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/aQbCX.png)
Primitive lifeforms sometimes end up causing seizures with primitive forms of what the Majestic Zeta Reticulans can accomplish with properly crafted long form videos.
The simple versions? cause seizures... flashing lights of the wrong form. Like a baby babbling causing headaches.
Long form versions can reprogram the conscious - way past what hypnosis can do. Simpletons and their hypnosis. Primitives not knowing how to properly use the flashing lights to reprogram the soul.
Time to show those baby apes what a real advanced society can do.
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[Hypnosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis).
The aliens have abducted countless humans and experimented extensively on their brains. From this, they were able to create the perfect combination of words, music, visuals, etc. to put a human being into a hypnotic trance state. From there, they are able to subtly implant false memories or suggestions in them that can nudge at least a few of them into becoming psychotic serial killers.
We take for granted our safety in modern civilization. In truth, it would only take a tiny handful of concerted mass murderers to bring civilization to its knees. You don't need to make EVERYBODY insane from the movie directly. Even if only 1 in 100 people who watch it decide to grab a gun, walk into a public place, and start shooting people indiscriminately with no regard for their own lives (for example), it would easily cause widespread panic and anxiety. Civilization is fragile and the resulting panic, looting, and paranoia (any of us could be brainwashed! It could be you, it could be me, it could be your own mother or child...) could easily break society.
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Insanity. n. mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or **is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior**.
By this criteria, any successful advertisement causes insanity.
Ditto any propaganda or indoctrination which "takes".
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## The movie shows clear logical every-day steps that allows a person to create a doomsday device
So imagine a 45 minute movie that gives any person, no matter ability skill or how 'sound of mind', simple instructions to create an all-powerful device that will certainly cause the death of everyone.
For instance, by knowing somehow a system of quantum mechanics that is beyond (or within) our understanding, the aliens say 'put a cup of x with a cup of y, add a dash of z, and you can make a black hole that will destroy the world'.
Now that everyone on the planet is armed by this simple knowledge, *everyone now knows that at any time the world will end*. This is now an extreme form of PTSD. Everyone knows that there is always one lunatic somewhere in the world, who could build the device and cause the planet now to collapse, killing you and everyone you love.
It now makes logical sense for your own survival, or even your duty, to go mad and destroy as much as you can, in the vain small chance that you can do so before some lunatic creates the doomsday device.
(Oh no... I have just created a basilisk :( May need to delete this answer to not give anyone crazy any ideas...)
Ok - I have undeleted my delete because I realised that if I haven't thought of this basilisk, someone else would eventually. So the only defence is to know about it... and prevent any person from making a movie like this.
I'm already going insane *just thinking about this*. We need worldwide laws on this *now*.
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For something like this, I think it is best to stay away from too detailed a scientific explanation, or at least anything that refers in too much detail to how it works.
We all understand that our psyches are influenced by what we see and hear. You don't need science to imagine that there could be some sights and sounds that are just too much to bear.
You could make analogies with computer malware, and you could also have your characters speculate. Obviously they can't research it directly.
This is not a totally new idea. The Neal Stephenson novel *Snow Crash* is based on something that's similar in principle, and the Dennett/Hofstadter compilation *The Mind's I* reprints a story where a mere concept makes people comatose. These references aren't meant to discourage you but really more to give you examples.
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**The movie is laced throughout with a language of the aliens race.**
Just like we have many languages on Earth, so do they on their planet. One of those languages is a weapon on their world.
Another language makes machines move, another language provides energy, another language allows them to travel from one place to another, etc. This is a large part of their technology, controlling the world around them with language, written and spoken.
Their "Dark Language" is used to kill one another with during times of war, and in humans it creates the insanity you're looking for.
The movie has these images cleverly inserted throughout, and the soundtrack has it in there too. Its like subliminal stuff but more profound.
How does it all actually work? Scientifically, I don't see how. So handwave. Its alien.
P.S. The Alien should really download the movie throughout TV, social media and streaming services too.
*This reminds me a little of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch*
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The film presents the alien civilization's advanced understanding of human mental processes and of their resulting behaviors and social interactions.
The video offers detailed, accurate and verifiable proofs that these mental processes are deeply flawed and through their sheer existence, will inevitably lead to collective decisions bringing about our civilization's destruction.
The destruction itself can be through war, climate change or resource depletion - it doesn't really matter, as long as it's brought about eventually by choices and actions born of some inescapable flaws of the human mind.
The movie is long enough to contain very convincing explanations at various levels of complexity, ranging from abstract and formal to dumbed-down and easy to understand, even for children. Seeing it might trigger existential dread and fits of anxiety and terror, but that's just icing on the cake of proving that we all are already insane and self-destructive, but we didn't yet know it.
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This isn't quite what you're looking for, but if you're happy to settle for 'causes mass instability and drives many people insane', consider **revealing some terrible truth about the world**.
The example that came to mind was an event in Scott Alexander's *Unsong*, where the Devil releases a video tape which he forced a deceased National Geographic presenter to film, depicting the horrors that await people when they die and gloating that even knowing about them won't be enough for people to avoid sinning. You can read the whole chapter [here](https://unsongbook.com/interlude-%D7%99-the-broadcast/), but a few relevant extracts:
>
> The Broadcast had destroyed the original United States, driven a lot of people insane, even made a couple commit suicide despite that maybe being literally the worst possible response to its contents. I like to think of myself as a dabbler in forbidden mysteries, but the Broadcast just had the wrong ratio of enticing-to-horrifying.
>
>
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[*There follows quite a lot of description of the contents of the video, which you can read for yourself if you want*]
>
> Thamiel [Satan] thrust his bident at the camera, and as the tip pierced the
> lens there was some final vision of ultimate horror – something I will
> never be able to describe and which really was no worse than any of
> the rest but which seemed more ontologically fundamental – and then
> the screen went black.
>
>
> “So,” said Ana. “That’s the Broadcast. What did you think?”
>
>
> I vomited all over the couch.
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## An Actual Scientific Answer: Use Shepard Tones
Shepard tones are a certain pattern of sounds that trick the ear into believing that the pitch or rhythm is infinitely increasing or decreasing. Extended exposure is known to cause panic and anxiety attacks in people.
[SOURCE: DON'T CLICK IF YOU ARE PRONE TO ANXIETY ATTACKS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEW3F8B-lhU)
If Shepard tones are paired with things that you want to become the subject of someone's anxiety, then you can classically condition them to go into a state of panic whenever the see the paired stimulus. So if your movie pairs Shepard tones with scenes of social gathers, cooperative behaviors etc. and only stops them during times of violence or isolation, you can train a person's mind to have anxiety attacks around positive social behaviors and to seek out antisocial behaviors to alleviate the anxiety.
While it is possible that this is a malicious attempt by aliens to harm humans, it could also be explained as an innocent misunderstanding depending on your plot needs. The human mind breaks up sound into chunks of frequencies called octaves which make this illusion and subsequent mental distress possible, but the alien minds may not chunk/process sounds the same way that humans do; so, while a human film director may never intentionally make a film that pairs Shepard tones with positive interactions, the aliens might find these patterns soothing and use them the same way that humans like a soft flute or violin melody to emphasize the positive experience of a scene.
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Theoretically, it's impossible. But what's this forum for, eh?
When you say "insane", I will assume you mean psychosis, a symptom which causes difficulty to discern what is real. There are many different disorders which can manifest psychosis, but for a large part they only manifest in people with specific genetics or that have been involved in substance abuse(weed or hallucinogens). There are a few left though, including extreme depression and PTSD. Assuming Marvin from the hitch hikers guide is unavailable, the best chance is PTSD.
PTSD is a very complicated disorder, but at it's most basic level you can think of it as someone being trapped in a moment. (This is clinically inaccurate. It's far more complicated than that.) It can manifest gradually, but the example everyone will recognize is shell shock. In battle when something extremely violent or surprising happens people will just stop reacting, freeze and lose perspective of what is going on. If not treated immediately (there is a simple protocol for this.) that person will probably suffer from PTSD for the rest of their life, possibly reacting violently to psychosis reminding him of the incident.
If you could somehow shock the entire audience in some very unexpected way, possibly also lacing the movie with subliminal messaging to build the person's tension, you could then just let them sit until the end of the movie. The rest of the film doesn't really matter. Of course, the results wouldn't be a theater of violently insane, but more a bunch of nightmare screaming individuals who's disorder can be triggered by certain sites and sounds.
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# Personal Future
The movie changes itself to fit the viewer, and even presents itself differently to multiple people who are viewing it at the same time.
The movie would show the viewer themselves acting out the thing the alien wants them to do, and it does so in a way that convinces the viewer that this is their future and that it is inevitable.
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I imagine any premise that proved to the viewer a boolean-logic impossibility, objectively, would cause a lot of people to flip. That is, self-contradicting circular logic, showing that something must be true because it's false and vice versa. Anything that would knock down fundamental axioms of logic.
The major advantage would be that people would immediately, as it sank in, lose their trust of the people, and world, around them. It wouldn't matter if they were delusional or not, because the world would become a delusion to them in itself.
Maybe the alien is from a species that already jumped that shark and is one of the survivors, putting it to good personal use conquering planets. Perhaps planet-conquering is just an odd nervous habit to help it cope with its own insanity. Who knows.
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**Propaganda**
This is arguably already happening in the world. Your hypothetical alien creates a film arguing that COVID originated from a Chinese lab as a weapon of war, that the virus was actually released by the Chinese government to damage all other economies, etc. Some people will be ready to believe this kind of theory, and once they watch the film, they'll even happily watch sequels and/or venerate your alien as [their prophet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon). Then this group of people start launching pre-emptive attacks on China "in a constant fit of anxiety and terror", and your alien achieves their goal.
Carduus wrote a more [in-depth explanation](https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/63655/why-do-populists-and-dictators-sometimes-lie-so-ridiculously-that-its-obvious-i/63658#63658) of how this kind of technique works in a question on the Politics.SE, if you are interested.
[Answer]
(Warning: TvTropes links abound.)
### Frame challenge:
You basically want a [brown note](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrownNote). This is a sufficiently common trope that it may be better to [not explain it](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShowDontTell), because trying too hard risks either losing your audience with an implausible (or disturbing or distasteful) explanation, or being worse than what your audience comes up with on their one ([note](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoodleIncident)). Instead, just let [willing suspension of disbelief](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief) do the work. You don't *need* to explain how it works, and depending on your end goal, doing so may be counterproductive, at least with respect to your audience's enjoyment.
(I want to say something about [eldritch entities](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EldritchAbomination), [black speech](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackSpeech) and [so forth](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow), maybe even point you at [Call of Cthulu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Cthulhu_(role-playing_game)), but it sounds like you aren't looking to write classic horror. Other answers have already suggested more "science fiction" slants on [this approach](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoMadFromTheRevelation).)
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[
Tech level? Medieval.
Magic? Yep. More specifically: using levitation.
Forests surround my town, which is built in a wild forest on a river trade route to protect merchants.
**How would I build my town to be spider proof?**
The spiders are five feet tall and three feet wide, with web spinning abilities and poisonous venom.
For the sake of this question: please ignore any reasons a giant spider cannot scientifically exist.
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Town of Orangey cinnamon peppermint. Ya no joke.
Spiders hunt in part by scent (apparently sweaty socks are a treat for them) and there are a few scents that repulse them pretty heavily, and as an added bonus...those scents actually smell decent to us. Surround the town walls with a ring of peppermint plants and wet down the walls with an orange cinnamon oil mixture. Peppermint oil works exceedingly well too.
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**The City of Nope**
Due to an *incredibly* pressing need, the inhabitants have developed flamethrowers hundreds of years early. Children are given their first one as toddlers, and are trained and drilled in their use from an early age. The construction of the city is entirely stone, to negate the frequent use of cleansing fire.
Even fire isn't totally sufficient though, so once a year the residents do a water purge. The entire city is designed so that, through a series of gates and levies, the nearby river can flood the entire area. Basements have drains and sluices to handle the expected water flow. Everything perishable is picked up, families gather on their roofs (flamethrowers ready for surprise guests), and they party for two days as anything that did manage to survive is drowned or washed away.
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They approached the fabled city surrounded by spiders, the boat rocking slightly on the massive river. Luckily, the river was wide enough where trees were not a worry, they only spanned a very short distance over the water.
One of the guards shot a spider skating quickly towards them, across the water. Spiders were not able to drop down from above but some were still a nuisance apparently.
As they approached the city, Tim saw impenetrable stone walls surrounding it. The city was dome-shaped, with a great amount of water falling down the sloped stone surface.
"But how do we get in?" he asked, and promptly fell off his seat as their boat started to rise up out of the river. His guide, rolling his eyes, continued the levitation spell until they were above the city, where there was a great rounded opening in the ceiling.
It appeared the water was supplied by the river, like some sort of fountain. The spiders were unable to climb the slick, wet stone with so much water flowing across it. Tim noticed a lack of trees above the domed city, probably kept cleared away for safety.
They entered the dome and Tim saw spikes below, with a few impaled spiders. "Some of them can jump" somebody explained, before Tim could could a word out of his opened mouth. They floated down, into an entry way and into the great city, where spider fur coats and web-spun armor were everywhere.
[Answer]
**The Wasp Riders**
The spider's natural enemy is the wasp. Wasps sting spiders and bring them, paralyzed, back to their nests to feed their young. That won't work on a fully grown giant spider (unless the town raises giant wasps, which I suppose is a possibility. They might make for a great air force, as well), but even if the wasps are small, they could sting the spider's young before they grew to be large.
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Fire and axes would be the primary defense against them. One thing that would work well would be to find/train animals that fear the spiders, monkeys or loud birds. So when they spot a spider creeping about they will raise a cry to warn the watch. They will be armed with flaming arrows and axes should the spiders get close enough to need a more personal touch.
Of course the most important thing is to have the forest pushed back far enough to have good open land between the town walls and the nearest trees, allowing for a warning to be given in time. But that is good tactics for any town worried about attack.
[Answer]
I'm going to try using (abusing) the magic/levitation option.
**The quiet town of Solar**
The town is huddled in a circular fashion on both banks of the river. There are no walls, no fences, however the trees are cut and only grass grows for a good 50 meters between the forest and the city limits. The entire town is abnormally tidy and only a very few pets can be found.
The only sign of any danger lurking nearby is the often battered state of the merchants drifting along the river into town, and the town square. In the center of the square is an orb. A very peculiar one, for starters it floats, or levitates, hovering a few feet off the ground and never straying more than a few inches from its position. The orb is made of a strange material, liquid metal? light? maybe air or some unknown gas? Scholars have yet to decipher it. It was discovered by adventurers long ago. Every few seconds the Orb hums and sends a smaller identical orb swirling around in the air and eventually losing itself into the forest. This delights children who are constantly reminded by their elders not to follow them, for the forest holds many dangers; giant ugly disgusting evil nasty spiders. These spiders have no souls and desire only death and destruction. Killing them is considered holy. However nature (being a moron) has made them very tough to kill. In fact many wonder how the town manages to survive and thrive despite the 8-legged-monstrosities lurking at it's gates.
It was Gerald HairyNose who was born much too curious for his own good, that woke one day and followed a small orb into the woods. He walked for hours following the joyous ball of undetermined-material before an uneasy feeling crept over him. He thought he was going to die that day when the 10 feet tall spider caressed his spine with one of it's furry legs. But before it had a chance to enjoy Gerald's fleshy-ness fully, the little orb fused into the horrifying monster, immediately causing it to float, up up up and further away as the creature helplessly tried to grab branches and trees as it inched ever higher, over the canopy, and through the clouds, into the heavens and *into the scorching sun* where it burned and broiled and was incinerated past crispy cinder dust. Of course Gerald saw all of this, having incredibly amazing eyesight. He ran as fast as his hairy toed legs could carry him, back to the town where he sat in the tavern (which he's never left since) telling his story to who-ever would indulge him.
[Answer]
Cover your city with a net made of thick rope, (holes too small) for the big spiders to get in. Have patrols shoot any that climb on top with arrows, and kill any little ones that get through.
Or live in tunnels underground. But that's for dwarves.
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Fight spiders with spiders. Raise jumping spiders as pets. Train them to hunt other spiders. (In *Castle Roogna* by Piers Anthony the hero gets a massive pet jumper spider.)
A corps of Spider hunters would make for a great faction in the city.
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If the levitation spell is cheap or long-term and if it can be inverted to increase the gravity instead of decreasing it, you can surround the town with a ring of increased gravity, so that the spiders would break their legs if they try to go through it. (I hope that bigger spiders are more fragile than small ones.)
For citizen, there should be normal-gravity bridges over the ring, or levitating ferry, or whatever the city needs.
[Answer]
Just how big are the young when hatched? It seems to me that a small stowaway that hitched a ride in a merchant's wagon is a much bigger threat than the giant ones you can spot a mile away, especially if you can't distinguish it from a normal spider. And you'll need normal spiders, frogs etc., unless you want to be overrun by disease carrying insects.
Worst case: 2 stowaways form a mating pair and lay eggs before they are spotted
My suggestion, build it on an island in the middle of the river. Only allow people in overnight, not goods wagons. Any trade goods brought into town must be unpacked and inspected in daylight before being carried in by hand, especially firewood. Trading can be done in an outpost outside the town.
Logs for woodwork must be immersed in water overnight and turned over, in case there are spiders in a hollow. Ideally, you want your sawmill outside the town as well, possibly on a barge anchored 100m away.
Spider repellant, as suggested above, on the walls along with constant patrols will prevent any floating spiders entering your town. Boats/ bridges are a concern: try not to have a bridge, even though it limits your town's economy. Food should be grown on the island as far as possible, imports should be brought in by boat, that should not land anywhere that a spider can get aboard.
[Answer]
Selectively breed a species of silk weaving spiders to have a symbiotic relationship with the residents of your city, feed them milk/honey and let them catch rats and other spiders on their own. Their waste (drained rat/spider carcasses) can be ground up into fertiliser, unoccupied webbing can be harvested and spun, you can even milk their venom. This venom can be used for antidotes, injected in small amounts to build up resistance, used on arrows or mixed with alcohol for a special cultural drink.
Spun webbing and silk can be used to create strong rope, fantastic bowstrings, valuable cloth and biocompatible stitches. Heck, in a few centuries you could create a subspecies that creates clothing! It's not too far off their natural instincts: you get the spider to bite (you're either resistant or provided with the antidote) then stand still with your arms out and legs apart. The spider wraps you in silk and then you brush it off and feed it (or them) fermented/condensed milk as a reward.
Eventually they'll wrap anyone who enters their area of the hive and stands still long enough, just don't forget to feed them or next time they might be a bit more bitey. On the other hand if they're being fed like this on the regular, biting the person becomes an unnecessary step in the process and they might evolve to skip it.
*I come from the land down under*... ;)
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This is a problem I ran into while writing a piece set into a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy future.
For a short background: I proposed a world where a large Island-country had disaster struck and regular living has become too dangerous with new predatory creatures as well as environmental changes.
A few different groups have survived at this place, each with their own different solution to the problem.
My protagonist starts out at their home - a modified cathedral now bunker structure originally inhabited by a group labeled as "doomsday" bc they predicted the events around 150 years ago and decided to close off.
There is space for around 150 people (statistically enough to avoid the whole incest thing according to diff. science papers), access to indoor gardening for food etc, but no electricity or ways to go outside.
The group displays certain cult like behavior and apart from that the regular chores of cleaning, cooking, washing and farming,
I struggle to give the society anything more recreational to do to fill out their time. There's no need of excessive crafting - not enough spare material combined with the fact that objects are used for a long time.
So how does one survive "bunker" living mentally or better: what can you do in this situation on a day to day basis to have a sense of purpose?
[Answer]
In villages (70 years before, with no electricity, no petrol, no machines) men went to fields (with bulls and plough) before sunrise and worked till noon. In the afternoon, men gathered in a common place called Shamlat land. Old men talking and smoking, young men playing board games or doing gym exercises. Women milked cows, prepared food, took food to men in the fields, cleaned the house, washed dishes and clothes. Women also gathered at some place for gossip or community work. They also brought their cotton spinning wheels to make thread which was later used for weaving clothes. The group of women spinning together (called Tranjan in Punjabi) spread before the evening to prepare dinner.
There were festivals (specially at the end of crop yielding), marriage parties (for many days).
Same can happen in your bunker.
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>
> the regular chores of cleaning, cooking, washing and farming,
>
>
>
If you have experience of performing those tasks with little to no automation, you know that they leave practically no time to get bored.
Top it with the consideration that being in a bunker they don't even have the bad weather to produce an idle day from farming.
If you really want to give them some social moment, they can do singing and/or drinking, maybe in the time between dinner and going to sleep, as a way to vent off some steam.
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Given experience with just how difficult it is to keep submarine crews functional I'll argue that if you do this with a random cross-draw of the population that your bunker inhabitants are, in fact, going to go psychotic.
[Answer]
**Billiards.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PO6yI.png)
[The Complete Travel Books, Anecdotes & Memoirs of Mark Twain.](https://books.google.com/books?id=fVBODwAAQBAJ&pg=PT3298&lpg=PT3298&dq=complete+game+play+every+day+billiards&source=bl&ots=SsxY2TH1Am&sig=ACfU3U0kS20y2AovuuOg2H5Z5jwAgs9HLw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiw2J2zopn5AhUlkmoFHWOPAf0Q6AF6BAg5EAM#v=onepage&q=complete%20game%20play%20every%20day%20billiards&f=false)
Your people have moved the pews in their cathedral and that space is full of pool tables. They are a motley assortment of tables, gathered from here and there. Some have known idiosyncracies. Persons usually keep their cues with them. At any hour of day or night there are people playing billiards. When not playing billiards, some of your characters think of the world in terms of billiards.
[Answer]
You have described it as similar to a cult, so take a look at other religious enclaves. Abbeys have a large homogenous population who spend most of their time in mundane tasks like gardening & laundry, repairing clothes, feeding themselves etc. The remainder of the time is often spent in contemplation.
Just because the doomsday event your "cult" predicted came to pass, doesn't mean they have stopped predicting or speculating on what did happen and what will happen in the future. They may have developed rituals to "atone" for the original tragedy, they would engage in scholarly discussion on what the future holds, they would contemplate life.
They will probably have regimented their life, so everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing at various points during the day, and while there may be some designated "free time" that will probably still have guidelines on "peaceful contemplation" or "gathering for song" etc.
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The most obvious thing that you've left out of your description is also one of the most necessary: Books.
Lacking electricity and the internet, reading is one of the most important ways of not going crazy from sheer boredom and monotony. However, books are also critically important sources of information about everything that you need to know (or *may* need to know) about maintaining your enclave and perhaps even one day reclaiming the outer world.
(This is why I would prefer to establish my secure enclave in a large library, instead of a cathedral).
[Answer]
## Music
I believe music is the only thing that can keep people sane in a long period in an enclosed space. They would make their own music whether through playing or singing. I assume they would have some instruments and they can have jam sessions, or teach playing instruments; even if there are no instruments, they can have *a cappella* sessions or other ways to make music. If they are a religious group, they can perform religious music whether through chanting, hymns etc. that can involve praying as well.
Nice to have: a hand crank player (gramophone) and records.
There are many scientific studies on the effect and the neuroscience of music, with its mental health benefits. Here are some sources if interested in reading further: [1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17437199.2020.1846580?cookieSet=1), [2](https://psychcentral.com/stress/the-power-of-music-to-reduce-stress), [3](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734071/), [4](https://www.unr.edu/counseling/virtual-relaxation-room/releasing-stress-through-the-power-of-music)
**Meditation** or meditative activities would be a great supplement which can involve different physical activities like yoga, martial arts, dancing etc.
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It's not that different from a medieval village.
If there is enough space to grow food for 150 people it's far from claustrophobic. If people have to do everything manually they'll be quite busy.
They'll spend their free time on social events, playing music, playing cards, whittling and so on.
Without modern medicine you’ll also need – just guessing – at least 4 children per woman to sustain your population count, so a lot of time will be spent looking after small children and educating them.
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Some answers you'll come across seem to think that before automation of chores and daily tasks, there was little to no leisure time.
I'm no Luddite, but that's ***very*** far from true. It flies in the face of all historical evidence, including art and writing by medievals and ancients, a ***great deal*** of which is dedicated to the ways that earlier societies and cultures spent their leisure time.
Better answers look to the many and varied ways that societies before (or outside of) recently adopted lifestyles spent that time.
[Answer]
## Cultural pursuits
The inhabitants could pass the time and entertain each other by creating literature, art, music or stage plays. Most of those require very little resources except human creativity.
## Sports and Games
Engaging in friendly competition in all kinds of games or sports is another form of entertainment which requires very little resources.
The materials for lots of board or card games can be improvised with very little resources.
Lots of sports require space, which might be difficult to come by. But those could be replaced by sports which focus more on manual dexterity than physical fitness.
## Recreational drug use
When your farming capacity allows it, then your people might want to produce and consume all kinds of recreational drugs to keep themselves entertained.
## Engaging in carnal pleasures
Give people who find each other sexually attractive some privacy, and they will find ways to entertain each other. Or if you establish the right cultural norms, not even privacy is required.
I just hope that your people have access to contraceptives, or they might run into problems with population control.
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## Digging more bunkers
The way I think of a cathedral, the survivors are not *hermetically* sealed away. Nor is a mishap out of the question, ranging from earthquake to jilted lover. They can and should be turning their attention to making the bunkers where they'll live when this first bunker has fallen. And every new excavation gives families (or lovers) a private, potentially *owned* space to retreat to, whether for social reasons or because angry monsters are roaming the hallways. There is even a chance of tapping into ancient sewers and basements, with all the adventure and risk that implies.
At this point they live in a harsh environment, but their situation is no longer static. They have frontiers to aspire to.
[Answer]
#### Thinking.
Going with Aristotle here, the contemplative life will become the ideal means of passing (free) time opposed to the active life they need to live to put food on the table. They will need very little - almost nothing - to live their contemplative life; all they need is a couple ideas (in their heads) and the ability to ponder said ideas. They will gather to discuss their thoughts and to pass (explain) ideas on to following generations (apart from books and other forms of scripture), and eventually they might even form philosophical or mathematical schools like the ancient greeks, coming to the conclusion that the theoretical-philosophical life is indeed the ideal life for a man to live.
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In this settings, robots are a humanoid looking personal device that try to mimic the owners traits and behavior, even though they 'realize' they are not their owner, but rather a helping robot. The robots are mostly self sufficient but rely on a bit of solar power. Robots that need repair due to wear is rare. Accidents require a visit to the repair shop, and happen from time to time. The robot body isn't made from fancy unobtanium, but plain steel, copper, titanium and other common metals, so it is vulnerable to impact, hot fires, etc... Functional components are made from more precious materials. The lubricants are patented and of quite high tech, making it possible for the robot to move relatively smoothly and human-like. Their appearance is far from unique when they exit the factory, but is usually customised by their owners. They can lift about about 100kg-150kg for a short time depending on the shape of the object. The robots will only obey their owner untill relieved from serving and are programmed to maintain their own body, just like a human would do.
However, every 20 years a new better version is released and the old robots are redundant. It is actually forbidden to own more than one robot. In the past robots would be recycled by upgrading them for the next generation of robots 20 years later, but since the 'Save Robots Act' (SRA) it is not allowed to recycle robots that are still functional. Because they still behave so much like their (now former) owner. People got attached to the robots and began to protest against recycling 'perfectly fine' robots.
Humans have three options when a new robot is released:
* DitchSay goodbye to their current robot
* Replace their current with a new version
* Keep their old version
In the first two cases the robot either gets recycled if it isn't functioning any more, or needs a place to be a happy robot (kind of retirement).
The goverments have decided to move all functioning robots to a very large desert like plain, with a few small forests on hill like country, which has roughly the size Austria. There are also a few rivers in this area.
The robots **for some reason** decided to settle and build shelters/houses around the rivers even though they don't need water or food. It is actually pretty bad for the robot if they would take a swim! Their electronics will probably short circuit if sub-merged, and 'kill' the robot. Also once a year some rivers tend to flood out of their regular boundaries, placing the robot cities in a layer of water of 10-50cm. Robots that stop functioning will be brought to a robot graveyard where they will be gathered for recycling. The robots have a lot of time on their hands and don't mind walking for days to find something they are searching for.
Their mindset is to serve and take orders, not to rebel or overcome and dominate others. Because they lack an owner they don't have a solid goal or mission to fullfill and will just wander around doing stuff to maintain themselves.
Some background info on why I need them to settle near the rivers: The company producing the robots got a pretty financial blow due to SRA and wants to secretly use the river to destroy robots by the bushels so they can be recycled again. Audits by the goverment check the software to make sure each function has a functional reason in the software! So no `if (Retirement()) then DiveIntoNearestWater() else Serve()`. Retirement is there for the robots because that is what humans would do when they stop serving society.
Why would these robots settle near rivers even though there are so many disadvantages.
UPDATE: I put some more restrictions on the behaviour of the robots and made sure the obvious 'Because they were told to do so' scenarios aren't any good.
[Answer]
Through a non documented feature, the manufacturing company has implemented an auto destruction mechanism in the robot.
Their artificial brain meters the interaction with humans. When this drops following their dismissal, they are driven to search proximity with water.
Proximity with water provides them a similar gratification to interacting with humans. Though the built in protection prevent the robot from taking a dive into the water, the periodic floods make sure that the dismissed robots will reach end of life quickly and with no particular nuisance due to SRA supporters.
[Answer]
## Power
Water wheels are fantastically simple but also very effective machines, then can turn most mechanical systems to do whatever tasks you need them to, even today they are used all over whether for grinding flour or turning a generator and anything in between
## Cooling
What do the most powerful computers need these days... home insurance! and also water cooling, an entirely technology society would therefore need a lot of water to run through its cooling mechanisms, and then there are the water needs of power stations for either cooling or boiling to turn the turbines
## Industry
Plenty of industrial processes need water, from, gemstone mining to making hydrogen fuel cells, it all starts with Water. i know gemstone mining seems an odd one, but Rolex (among others) use Jewels in watch movements to provide hard smooth bearing surfaces that prolong the life of the mechanism by protecting parts from wear. They also minimize friction in the fastest moving parts of the mechanism, the balance and escapement. obviously i don't need to go into the need for Hydrogen Fuel, and there are so many processes in between the further away you are from that water, the more logistics you need to move it to you.
[Answer]
To be able to interact with humans at a suitable level, robots need to be programmed to understand a human sense of aesthetics.
The concept of beauty, balance and style are built in to their fundamental programming to allow them to perform basic tasks such as arranging the furniture and pictures in such a way that humans would find acceptable.
As a result of this deliberate bias towards a human sense of an aesthetically pleasing environment, they're attracted to places that humans would also be attracted to, such as wooded river valleys.
[Answer]
## Nostalgia
Robots are tested/trained in a facility which mimics a town, with shops, transportation, a river and canals so they can learn/be tested to interact in a complex environment. Those are their first memories, and when left alone, they try to recreate this "childhood village".
[Answer]
These robots are here to serve, right? You could make them understand the situation they are in:
They get "exiled" because they are not useful anymore to anyone. But they could become useful for the next generation by getting recycled. So they seek out rivers to malfunction. This way they also would mimic the life death cycle of humans, which is also a trait you defined. They mimic their owners. The only reason they don't immediately drown themselves is because of the people who fought for the SRA. The robots serve, so they also serve those people. To strike a middle ground between being useful for the next generation and serving the people who fought for the SRA they live nearby rivers that are famous for regular floods. Then they wait till a flood comes and malfunction that way.
The company which produces these robots even programmed this need to be helpful for the next generation into the robots. This way they could be sure to still get recycled material even though the SRA is introduced.
This creates a somehow interesting gray zone moral wise. On one hand you could say it isn't right to kill robots or rob them of their potentially high life expectancy. On the other hand you have the problem of resource limitations; you can't just drain the iron resources forever.
[Answer]
**Transport.**
Even if the rivers themselves are not usable roads and railroads will probably mostly run alongside them with few connecting roads with bridges. Cities will naturally arise in locations where the routes running by the river cross a route crossing the rivers. Smaller settlements happen along the connecting roads. This means most settlement will naturally happen either on a river or on a road connecting two rivers.
And even if the robots do not need food or water, they still need functional logistics to do anything. At the very least construction of houses will require logistics. So the places the homes for robots are built will be similar to places human homes would be built. Mostly on the rivers.
Also, if "the company" has a financial agenda to get the robots alongside the rivers and nobody is trying to stop them, it will be fairly simple to do so. Simply have a subsidiary that builds settlements for robots that just happens to only develop areas near rivers. With the extra financial agenda and the fact that logistics makes building alongside the rivers economically sound anyway, they should have no issue in building a large part of robot settlements. And they can legitimately even advertise their expertise in robotics as a factor giving them an edge in building settlements for robots. Who would know better what services robots need?
And competing developers would probably build in areas with functional infrastructure and logistics, read along the rivers, as well. The company just has to make sure they prime the process by making an initial investment on infrastructure along the rivers.
[Answer]
The robots' primary desire is to serve humans. Living in an area where there are no humans causes them great distress. The region they have been exiled to has few humans, but those who do spend any time in the area tend to stay close to the rivers -- if the area is otherwise a desert then being close to water is of course beneficial to a human. The robots know this and therefore stay close too, just so they can maximize their chance of being useful.
[Answer]
A lot of answers seem to involve either suicide or pre-programmed self-termination. Both of those seem like valid options for a robot to seek water, but, by itself, it doesn't explain why they would build towns by water.
However, if river are known as a place where robots go to die, it would make total since for non-fatalistic robots to settle there. Think of it as a suicide prevention effort. Robots "camp" around rivers to keep depressed or recently dropped off robots from ending their lives in the water, or at least try and talk them out of it. After all, it makes sense for robots to value the lives of fellow robots enough to inconvenience themselves with seasonal floods.
Other than that, a waterwheel could be used to power a blacksmith's billows, which they would probably need for performing general repairs. Still, a billows could be operated by hand if the blacksmith doesn't have to do that much work, so that might not gel with your town's level of industrialization.
Personally, I think a great reason for building near rivers would be trade, specifically trade with human smugglers. For the sound of it, humans are banned from the Robot Plain. However, if the robots found or make something of value, like maybe [turquoise jewelry](http://fabfashionfix.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/1a4d801d0dfeb8ab39529ffe47345454.jpg) or rare earth minerals, they could trade with humans for useful items, like rainproof clothing or replacement parts. So you have an incentive for smugglers and a black market. Cars and airplanes are easily spotted by authorities, but boats or [smuggling submarines](https://secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01826/Colombia-Submarine_1826215a.jpg) can sneak onto the Robot Plain, so permanent settlement must be build on rivers.
[Answer]
**Religion.**
You robots have time on their hands. They gather at the river and they watch the water flow. They know water is dangerous and they know they have no need for it. But that is what they do. They cannot say exactly why they do.
Over the course of the story you could revisit this. Your protagonist is travelling and finds a stream. It stands by the stream , watching the flow of the water. It is not the river but it is like the river. Rivers have many metaphorical meanings. Suggest only, but let the reader realize what the river represents, if her mind is in the right place for such a realization.
For you concrete-thinkers impatient to read the answer: a river is change, and the robots are not. The world moves and leaves these robots behind. When humans gather at the river, they go into the water and are reborn - washed by the change of the world. The robots cannot do that. The change of the world as represented by the river is deadly to them. They can only watch.
Having your robots watch the river will give the robots a spiritual depth and energy that will move the story along. Probably you should lay that out by the end of the story - the readers who come to it themselves earlier will be ok, and those who do not will not will be brought along.
[Answer]
You need water to clean the house. They still perform their daily routines of cleaning and dish / cloth washing...
[Answer]
Lost, abandoned, and directionless without their human companions, robots will often wander the Great Plains, seeking tasks and orders from the few human travellers and hermits that have chosen to live among them. Eventually, a robot without a master will starts to slow down.
A robot nearing the end of it's life will naturally seek out the only naturally occurring thing capable of damaging it - water. However, as the robots gradually deteriorate and deteriorate, their struggling AI can only process one function, their prime function: serve.
This leads the robots to try and help the humans in any way they can, and so they use the readily available water that will one day become their final resting place. They split the water into liquid hydrogen fuel to power the human's cars and machines, and O2 to off-set the damage humanity caused in it's early days.
Eventually, decades after losing their bonded master and ceaseless work, a robot will haul itself into the river. The life created to serve, unwanted by it's creators, performs one final shutdown.
Such is the hubris of man.
[Answer]
To help humans by helping the environment.
The robots spend their time cleaning and maintaining natural fresh water like lakes and rivers, since fresh water is a basic human need, and maintaining it is an on going activity.
The company encourages this since the robots are far more likely to wear themselves out doing this AND it makes the company look good that the robots default to green activities and environmental protection.
[Answer]
For power. Easiest, fastest method of getting power. Few sticks, 20 metres of copper a pencil and you can get your own generator.
Also being somewhat immortal it's good to have some *memento mori*. Like owners die robots can fall to force that make them out of commission.
[Answer]
**Accretion**
Your first robots were dumped by boat and simply set up their initial settlement where they were. Further robots have joined them rather than travel further afield.
**Psychology**
The robots are designed to process changes in the same way as a human being (to avoid information overload) and since a river is a source of constant motion and activity it naturally draws them to it more than any other landmarks in the scenery.
**Resource**
A river often has substantial quantities of smoothed down stones suitable for construction, trees grow around the river more than anywhere else and can be used to build shelter.
**Power**
The river itself may also be harnessed to power water wheels for generating electricity. Whether this equipment was built by the robots (maybe using the parts of other robots to get the high-technology components needed to build a dynamo) or simply provided by the government to prevent them from "starving"
**Pre-existing Settlement**
The world has precious few places untouched by humanity, it's very likely that the region the robots are in has or had a few communities of humans, if the robots found an empty ruined town they might rebuild it sufficient for their own needs. And humans often set up near rivers for the same reasons I've described above.
**Malicious intent**
The settlement wasn't initially near the river, the robots aren't stupid enough to risk themselves like that, instead someone has been diverting the river in small increments to destroy them without anyone noticing.
[Answer]
**Thrills**
This is the robot equivalent of free solo climbing. No longer having human ties, they are free to seek out the thrills of not knowing whether they will be seeing the next day.
People losing family responsibilities (getting separated from their partner, have the children become independent) are more likely to seek out the more dangerous variants of existing or new hobbies. There is no point in not acting less responsible if you don't have responsibilities to take care of any more.
Death by water is something they have been programmed to be reasonably unfrightened of since it's a common danger while in their human centric part of their existence cycle.
It's the equivalent of not wanting to evacuate from a settlement at the brink of a volcano and rather die in the style you have been living.
[Answer]
Really, I would work this desire into the growing "humanity" of the robot. They have a complex brain that is suddenly idle. Maybe they spend hours just watching the water. We build houses in places where we have a good view of the water, in many cases, near the beach for example, this creates houses that require much higher maintenance due to weather, much higher construction costs, and much higher risk of damage and destruction. Is it worth it? Yes for many.
Moving water has deep spiritual connotations for humans. It has philosophical connotations "Can a person step in the same river twice?"
If your robots are lost, and searching for their souls, and if they are anything like humans, it seems perfectly reasonable for them to share a fascination with water. As a literary device, it can be used to effectively create a bridge of sympathy to your robots. In this way it is not a question you need to "answer" in your book. It can be asked, explored, and ultimately left open.
[Answer]
You say the robots learn to mimic the owners, once they are dismissed maybe they could then be picking up on other behaviours from the robots around them, it just so happens that the first few robots dropped off came from a water loving city.
And since the original robots dropped off looked for and set up near a river, the other robots that joined later learnt this behaviour.
[Answer]
**Transportation**
The vast majority of cities are located at or near rivers for a reason, and that reason surprisingly isn't fresh water, but transportation. In times before the train, ships were the only means to transport the massive amounts of stuff that a city needs. Transport by ship is still a major part of logistics, despite the options of trains, cars and airplanes available.
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Robots are programmed to be useful to people, and when "in exile" wi still seek to carry out their programmed directives.
In the case of high function human level AI (which is implied by the premise in the OP), the robots might decide that the most utility would be to begin transforming the ecology of the region. Since it is dry and arid, it isn't much use to humanity "as is", but it "could" become useful with applied geoengineering.
Robots realize that the natural ecology is dependent on water, so the key resource to transform a region is to seek out and develop that source of water. In the context of this question , naturally occurring sources of water like rivers will be preferred (if the robots are exiled in the Sahara desert, they may eventually congregate around oasis sites). From there, they can begin to develop irrigation systems , plant and tend vegetation to start developing soil and the next generations of plants and so on.
Since they are "in exile", they will not have a lot of equipment outside of what they can do with their hands or whatever funding they can get (philanthropists and former owners might contribute to the projects, or the robots may have access to their own funds earned while still in service), so the process will be very slow and deliberate. Of course, the robots are endlessly patient, so this isn't an issue for them, and the human population is probably willing to allow this to happen, as tending gardens and slowly reclaiming ecological zones *is* in the interest of the human population, and keeps the robots busy and "happy", out of the mainstream of human society.
So there is not real need to postulate macabre notions of self destruction routines buried in the programming, if robots are "true" to the more metaphysical notions of making their human companions happy and maximizing utility, then they will seek out opportunities to do so wherever they are.
[Answer]
**A byproduct of machine learning.**
The robots are programmed using variants of modern day machine learning. Specifically, they are given supervised learning sets to learn about human history and development. By connecting the images of civilizations sprouted by riverbanks and coasts to the idea of human survival, the robots are simply emulating what they believe is a more general survival protocol.
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Humans like living near water, and most human cities are built on coast lines.
Since the robots mimic human owners, would it not make sense that therefore Robots like living near water? For all the same reasons?
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Programme them to seek out rivers (or perhaps that particular river) and set up camp nearby. Since the software is proprietary, nobody will find out, unless there is a whistleblower in the team.
[Answer]
Power.
Once these robots are no longer useful, it stands to reason that no one will recharge their batteries. If there's no power grid to connect to, how does a robot recharge? Assuming they're not fitted with solar panels, etc, then they're going to have difficulty - but one thing a robot will need are motors of various sorts. These should be fairly simple to Jerry-rig into generators with the addition of a water wheel, so now your robots have a source of electricity again.
] |
[Question]
[
I've got a magic item that translates languages.
The rules are this: the closest word to the word used in meaning is given to the listener, unless there's something the other language doesn't have a word or concept for, in which case the original language is used.
But what I am looking for are instances where the closest word doesn't quite convey the connotative meaning in the other culture/language.
I'm looking for a place to start as far as misunderstandings of meaning are concerned, looking at real world examples. What sorts of things, given these parameters are more likely to be lost in translation?
EDIT CLARIFICATION: Translation goes sentence by sentence to avoid syntax issues.
[Answer]
"But what I am looking for are instances where the closest word doesn't quite convey the connotative meaning in the other culture/language."
I for one would argue that the vast majority of translatable words suffer from this issue - it varies in degree from case to case.
For example even a simple word like "wood" - in English can mean either
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> **Wood**
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> 1.
> the hard fibrous material that forms the main substance of the trunk or branches of a tree or shrub, used for fuel or timber.
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> or
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> 2.
> an area of land, smaller than a forest, that is covered with growing trees.
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> definition from [oxford dictionary](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/wood)
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There are a few sub-definitions as well, but we can ignore those for now.
What's interesting is that when you translate "wood" into spanish for definition 1, you get the word Madera
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> **Madera**
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> 1.
> Hard and fibrous substance that forms the trunk and the branches of the trees.
> The trunk is thicker than the branches
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> 2.
> Piece of wood cut or carved.
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> 3.
> Talent or innate ability to do something.
> This child plays the piano very well, has wood as a musician; *The young actress is very excited because Almodóvar said she has wood and, logically, should take this opportunity*
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> 4.
> Set of wind orchestra instruments that are blown directly or by means of one or two tabs.
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> 5.
> Horny material of which the hull of the cavalry is composed.
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> definition also from [oxford](https://es.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/madera), translated through google
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The first definition of both of these is the same, but the interesting thing is that they each have their own alternate definitions. In spanish, "Madera" never means "an area of land, smaller than a forest, that is covered with growing trees". In English, if you tell someone they "have wood" (Madera definition 3) they won't take it to mean "talent or innate ability". Believe it or not I had no idea what the spanish word for "wood" would throw up in terms of alternate defintions, it's pure happenstance that this example would be quite an amusing misunderstanding.
At the very basic, word for word level, it's this kind of thing that gets lost in translation. There are very few words which translate perfectly between languages, and even fewer that translate perfectly between **all** languages, because even if you can match up one definition, the alternate definitions are always slightly different.
And when you get beyond the word for word level - when you're working with phrases and sentences, the problem gets even worse. I don't know if the spanish say "touch wood" or "we're not out of the woods yet", but if not and you translate these phrases literally, you lose the fact that you're quoting a popular idiom, as well as the intended meaning.
Poems are completely different when translated, because the translated words don't necessarily rhyme, or they are different lengths, throwing the rhythm completely. Translating poems has to be insanely difficult if you want to preserve the artistry as well as the meaning.
[Answer]
Idioms and word play are but a couple of things that get lost in translation. I suspect this is because these are treated as discrete, rather than understood in a dynamic sense. What I mean is that literal translations aren't necessarily ideal, so a dynamic approach attempts to convey what would otherwise be metaphoric or idiomatic in the original language.
To offer a real-world example, raining cats and dogs means it is raining heavily. If "cat" and "dog" were taken discretely, people of different backgrounds would imagine cats and dogs literally falling from the sky. Or you might imagine a misunderstanding of, "Throw me a freakin' bone, will ya?"
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This translation strategy does not work *at all*. Translation is never done word-by-word, but at least sentence by sentence or, better, paragraph by paragraph. To understand why, let's imagine that the space of meanings is a tridimensional continuum, which is divided it into boxes corresponding to words; each language divides the space of meanings in different ways, so that words in different languages rarely cover the same meanings; moreover, each language has its own space of meanings, with different axes and different metrics.
Isolated words simply cannot be translated meaningfully from one language to another. For example:
* French "canal" may mean a "channel", or a "canal", or a "sewer", or a "sluice", or a "conduit", ... To chose one of those meanings you need more context.
* More interestingly, syntax is usually profoundly different between different languages. For example, the French word "personne" usually means a "person", but the French language has syntactic constructions where it means "nobody". For example, "Personne ne l'a vu" means "Nobody saw him", not "Person not him has seen". Russian is notorious for not having articles and for not using a copula, so that English words such as "a", "the", "am" or "is" cannot be translated directly; English is notorious for using the zero article to indicate generality, so when translating English "Whales are mammals" into French "Les baleines sont des mammifères" two articles must appear out of nowhere.
* Prepositions are a killer. There is simply no way to translate prepositions directly; each language has its own catalog of prepositions, and translation must take meaning into account. For example, the English preposition "in" usually corresponds with French "dans", but it is equally possible to correspond to "à", "chez", or "en"; English "on" is usually French "sur", but it is equally possible to correspond to "à" ("on foot" is "à pied"), to "en", ("on vacation" is "en vacance") or to zero (English "on Monday" is French "lundi", with no preposition).
* Many languages have grammatical genders, and those seldom correspond. When generating text in the target language adjectives need to take the gender of the nouns they determine, not the gender the source language adjectives:
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> English: a beautiful girl
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> French: une belle fille
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> German: ein schönes Mädchen
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> (The adjective "belle" is feminine; the corresponding German "schönes" is neuter, because it must take the grammatical gender of the noun "Mädchen".)
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When translating personal pronouns (assuming that both languages even *have* personal pronouns) one cannot blindly translate the pronouns, one must take into account the grammatical gender of their antecendents; for example
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> English: This ship is the *Titanic*. **She** is going to New York.
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> French: Ce paquebot est le *Titanic*. **Il** va à New York.
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> (*Il* is the 3rd person singular *masculine* pronoun, but here it translates English *she*.)
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And then of course you have fixed phrases or idioms which have their own meanings which cannot be derived from the meanings of their constituents. Idioms such as "to get to the bottom" of a problem, "to hit the road", "the whole nine yards", or "by hook or by crook" cannot be translated word for word, unless one is trying for a humoristic effect.
[Answer]
## Sarcasm, idioms, slang, and hyperbole
Your translator seems very literal, which means that quirks of language will be missed. For example:
In English when someone makes a mistake you yell fail
In Italian (and when and where I visited) for the same act, they yelled Flauto which directly translates to flute. Which has little to do with failure.
There are plenty of other examples but the best is everyone's favorite [four letter word that starts with an f](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAlc-Dv27pM) and ends like firetruck. Imagine it's literal meaning added to each of these examples.
Languages rely heavily on context and the speakers themselves, and while I suppose not outside the bounds of a magical object, require a powerful translator to avoid loosing any information.
[Answer]
Countless possibilities.
* Language A has a word for a guy who spends his time celebrating instead of working. It has connotations of *happy-go-lucky, relaxed, slightly irresponsible.* Language B also has a word for a guy who spends his time celebrating instead of working. It has connotations of *lazy, stoned, completely irresponsible.* Think *reveler* vs. *drunkard*. That makes the magic translation a grave insult.
* Language A sees an *entrepreneurial* mindset as a good thing. Language B despises money-grubbing merchants.
[Answer]
Schadenfreude doesn't stand a chance, nor does verschlimmbesserung, one of my favourite German words and which probably applies directly to this answer.
There's another problem, that being word for word translation. I apologise to any non-native English speakers for the following: The bowman in the bow took a bow before stringing his bow that was cut from a bough of the great yew tree in Bow. Any straight word for word translator would fail completely on that sentence, it'd probably take a couple of attempts even for a native speaker who knows where Bow is.
This leaves us with homonyms and place names with easily identified meanings. Mill Hill, Bow, Mile End, Wood Green, translating these as words hinders rather than helps.
[Answer]
## Culture
Idioms, sayings, and such stems from this, but culture is broader than just those. Although you can literally translate to the closest word, but you can't translate **the culture** behind the word or phrase.
One might not account the importance of crown, as it might get translated to "hat", because the target language never known a "crown". Surely, it's just another "hat", but the wearer of the crown has such importance that the trinket user might not grasp the meaning of "is crowned".
Other side of culture is **mannerism**. Although it is generally known that bowing your head is a form of respect, a being *without a head* might see bowing head as a strange gesture and just take it literally as simply bowing head.
Or worse, some of our friendly gestures might be taken as a threat, or offensive. I've read somewhere in Africa spitting on someone's face means you respecting him. Wondered what happens if our president goes there for a visit.
---
You might consider this item translates via *thoughts*, instead of words. By imagining things happened, one can better understand just beyond words.
[Answer]
I have a real world example - I was explaining to a group Chinese some details concerning medieval history of my country. I later learnt that in translation all such terms like emperor / king / prince, which mattered quite a lot were ending as single Chinese equivalent, so it was impossible to notice there any hierarchy.
So I see great potential here, when actual magic is involved. It's not only that "president" may be translated in to "chieftain". It's actually fine. The problem is that "prime minister", "general", "dean", "colonel", "speaker of parliament", "CEO" - may also end up as chieftain.
"Priest" and "doctor" may end up as "shaman".
"Chief priest" could be either "bishop" or "healthcare minister".
"Nurse" -> "midwife" (would mislead concerning her specialty)? Or maybe "nun" (would imply being a part of convent)?
There would be even more fun, how such spell would deal with euphemisms.
[Answer]
You can generate some wonderful examples using Google Translate.
For example take the English sentences
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> "Man, that dope ride is sick! My mom is sick, she's got pneumonia."
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Translate them to a foreign language. Then copy that text and paste it back into Google translate, back to English.
The above two sentences, translated to Mongolian, then back to English, become:
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> "Man, he was sick to go dark! My mother has pneumonia, he is sick."
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Idioms, synonyms, and slang will be butchered horribly by your spell. Note that even Google's far more complex algorithm fails with the slang use of sick. It even gets gender wrong in the translation, since I promise that my mother is not a "he."
Another example:
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> "I loved her. We made love under the lovely moon."
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To Mongolian and back to English becomes
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> "I loved him. We made love under the beautiful moon."
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**Google made me gay.**
While I have nothing against homosexuality, I'm *not in favor* of translation tools forcing a change to my sexual orientation.
The above two examples were truly random word choices on my part. But I can only imagine how your word-for-word translator would choke on complex diplomatic language.
A final example of that, the 1st sentence to the US Declaration of Independence is:
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> When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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Translated to Mongolian and back to English, this becomes:
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> During the time of the event the liquidation of one of those bands by connecting them and a political need to wait among the world powers, the separate and equal environment, nature and God, the basis for legislation, they release a good opinion of mankind honor required to declare the reasons impel them.
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>
Again, this is with Google, which is using a more complex translation algorithm than your word-for-word. But similar shenanigans would occur.
Also, your spell's "artificial intelligence" would need to grasp synonyms and their meaning. For example, ancient Greek had five words that roughly translate into the single word "Love" in English. Or if this is a sound-based system, would your spell cope correctly with to/too/two or their/there/they're during translations?
These are just some of the stumbling blocks you'll face.
I encourage you instead to find a [small fish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_races_and_species_in_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Babel_fish). It is far less likely to cause some sort of diplomatic / social incident due to translation failures.
[Answer]
Consider the second person singular pronoun. In modern English it is "You". In German, there are different pronouns for people you are familiar with (Du) and those you address formally (Sie). To refer to someone with "Du" is to "duzen" them. In the German version of Downton Abbey, the Earl of Grantham would refer to his butler as "Du", but the butler would always refer to Lord Grantham as "Sie". Lord Grantham would be offended if a social inferior duzen'ed him. He might say "Duzen du mich?" which ends up as as "Are you you-ing me?"
(Aside: If translating to Shakespearean English, the device would produce : "Dost thou thou me?" - which works perfectly well.)
If the device doesn't handle word order, then that is another huge problem. English depends on word order. "The dog bites the boy" and "the boy bites the dog" are completely different meanings. In a fully inflected language like Latin, "puer canem mordet" and "canem puer mordet" are the same meaning, although one is more idiomatic than the other. If you want to say "The dog bites the boy" you have to say "canis puerum mordet" or "puerum canis mordet".
[Answer]
You lose the context, you cannot do direct translation from one language to another meaningfully if they have different grammar structures, and many languages are contextual. So the same word can mean several different things depending on the rest of the sentence and sometimes the paragraph. An example would be Samoan.
Depending on context the word mumu has several meanings
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> hum, flame, red, a type of dress
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Or the word tau
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> war, fight, narrate, almost, confess, declare, charge, price
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(and more)
You can also lose the number, many languages don't denote plurals like English. So where English has house, houses, other languages have a different way of doing plurals and just one word for house. So direct translation would make you think it's just one house but they might be talking about several.
Context, meaning and plurals are key factors in any complex communication, even simple things like asking directions become problematic if they tell you to '
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> pass three right hand turns
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and you translate that to
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> pass one right hand turn
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Or you translate it to
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> stop turning the chicken on the right side
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[Answer]
Here is a specific real-world example.
The head of the Soviet Union once (in)famously said "[We Will Bury You](http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2011/11/we-will-bury-you-or-something-like-that.html)".
This is what the translator chose to say in English. To Americans, this came across as a direct threat, and heightened the tensions of the Cold War.
The actual meaning of the Russian idiom, "My vas pokhoronim", would be better stated in English as "We will be present at your funeral", or to match it to an American idiom, "It's your funeral".
So rather than being the dire threat that it was received as, it was actually more of an attempt as a humorous claim that the communist economic system would defeat the capitalist economic system.
[Answer]
Looking for examples…
I am currently working at a hostel with Dutch people. When I speak Dutch, what should be a pharyngeal fricative is instead uvular, and my colleague says it "sounds not nice." I don't know his exact meaning, but I am certain he doesn't mean that I sound hostile.
Consider in American English how "I said" was replaced by "I went" and then by "I'm like."
Or how "sick" has somehow become a positive adjective, and "gay" went from happy to homosexual to … not sure exactly what "that's gay" means today.
Check out the video "[A Wicked Deception](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BlJsPEgXhC0)."
[Answer]
An example from programming langauges: there is a problem explaining “monad” to conventional (procedural, object-oriented, etc.) programmers.
I humourously [blogged](http://www.dlugosz.com/zeta/?p=213)
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> Meanwhile, I’ve read that monads have a strange property: anyone who comes to understand it loses any ability to explain it to others. That reminds me of the science fiction novel [Babel-17](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babel-17). In fact as in the story, language influences thought and perception, which is what I was getting at earlier in this essay. Being a writer on programming topics, I thought I’d take that as a challenge. Maybe I’ll write a truly good explanation of monads; or maybe it will [end up joining the hundreds of others](http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Monad_tutorials_timeline) that are are either indecipherable or lack proper deep meaning. (See also [monad tutorial fallacy](https://byorgey.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/abstraction-intuition-and-the-monad-tutorial-fallacy/))
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You should inderstand the [Sapir–Whorf hypothesis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity). There **is no matching word**, close or otherwise.
That makes me think of translating words you simply don’t know the meaning of, even if they *do* have translations. The dictionary can tell you what [“financial derivative”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_(finance)) is, but having done so you *still* don’t know what it means. So for words with no translation, making up a transliteration on the spot would be just fine.
[Answer]
The short answer? *Literally everything.*
You don't need to come up with idioms or slang or any other complex language constructs. This strategy fundamentally doesn't work from the beginning, because languages do not have a one-to-one correspondence for words. When slang and idioms are used, you're going to get complete nonsense. But even in the normal case, when people are using straight-forward, expressive language, you're going to get a google-translate-esque mishmash of awkward words that is often barely comprehensible.
Just as a random example, in Chinese there is a single common word that refers to both alligators and crocodiles. It's somewhat awkward to specify only a single one. (This is similar to how we have "elephant," and it's a bit unusual to specify African or Asian elephant.) English is the opposite: the common words specify which one you're talking about, and it's somewhat awkward to say "order crocodilia." (As an English speaker, do you know the difference between crocodilia and crocodylidae without looking it up? Do you remember whether order or family is higher in the biological taxonomy?)
There are literally thousands, perhaps millions, of these examples. This magic will be something of a toy. It might help tourists if it's commonly available, but any serious translation work will still be done by professional translator humans in this world.
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The Korean word 친구 (cheen-gu) is translated into English as 'friend', but encompasses the cultural idea that a 친구 must be born in the same calendar year as you. In Korean, there is no closer translation for the word friend, but unlike the English word, 친구 does not mean someone who you like and who likes you.
In addition to not having a real word for the idea of 친구 in English, we don't by default have a cultural understanding of why on earth that would ever matter, which makes it difficult to try to capture the intent of a Korean speaker without pausing mid-conversation to explain Korean culture.
Another apt example is the translations for fruits and vegetables in Korean - 과일 (gwah-eel) and 야채 (yah-cheh) respectively. Although they are the closest and most direct translations we have, the ideas are defined differently, which leads to many Koreans classifying things like cantaloupe, watermelon, and strawberries as 야채, though English speakers would usually classify them as fruits.
Again, if you wanted to make it clear in a translation, you would need to stop mid-conversation to explain the Korean definitions of 야채 and 과일.
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Many of the other answers here have brought up perfectly valid points, but I feel like most of them are missing the forest through the trees. It isn't just the subtleties of idioms or the layers of sarcasm that will trip up such a magic device. The problem is a lot more basic than that.
Language is a tool that conveys meaning, but meaning is not an equation where you fill in the blanks. You cannot effectively translate between languages without an intermediate stop of understanding the *intended meaning* in a sort of abstract form that does not correspond to the range of meanings a dictionary might give.
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> The rules are this: the closest word to the word used in meaning is given to the listener…
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This is a recipe for disaster. Lets try a simple example. You are hosting two Turkish guests and using your magic device to translate their answers.
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> *You*: Would you like some tea?
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> *Guest 1*: [Teşekkürler](https://translate.google.com/#tr/en/Te%C5%9Fekk%C3%BCrler).
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> *Guest 2*: [Eyvallah](https://translate.google.com/#tr/en/Eyvallah).
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In both of these cases Google Translate is doing exactly what your device does: picking a word with the nearest semantic range of meaning. My question for you is simple: which guest wants tea and which one is politely refusing?
I've shortened this example as much as possible, but this is a very real world scenario. In the face of some questions in Turkey saying just "thank you" is a legitimate way to mean "no thanks". There is no work involved that actually means no that your translation device would pick up on. You have to understand the people and the social context for this to make any sense. In fact depending on which part of Turkey you are in the example might involve another variant of thanks ([Sağolun](https://translate.google.com/#tr/en/Sa%C4%9Folun)) and might be reversed. The point is a magic device that takes a range of semantic meanings and maps them to another language will sometimes let you down badly at the task of *communication*.
**In this example a simple yes or no response to a basic question is lost.** It's an uphill battle from there.
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There are many words which are not well defined by a definition at all. They are words that one is expected to learn the meaning of over a lifetime instead of reading about them in a book. "Life" may indeed be one of them, as is "love" and "happiness." These words always seem simple to us, but we find them ineffable when someone asks how you define them. [One of my favorite lectures](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHnIJeE3LAI&t=1s) from Alan Watts includes turning the concept of "Life is a journey" on its head, and we've heard that particular phrase for most of our lives!
Sometimes cultures do not have the same set of these words. One prominent example is Chinese and English. Many words like Chi are brutally difficult to translate meaningfully. Chi, in particular, is most often translated as "energy," which is probably its closest English translation, but many prefer to translate it more literally as "breath," because "energy" misses the mark by so much that it can actually get in the way of those who hear that translation first.
And, of course, you have the Tao. Such a frustrating concept to learn from a book!
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> The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Tao is both named and nameless. As nameless it is the origin of all things; as named it is the Mother of 10,000 things. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery; ever desiring, one sees only the manifestations. And the mystery itself is the doorway to all understanding
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There are several ways this can break.
Robert Asprin had something like this in his Phule series. The hero Willard Phule used a play on words to name himself "Jester" So, Captain Jester meets with aliens who use a translator and call him "Captain Clown".
Similes such as clown or jester can break a translator.
Any contextual languages such as German or Japanese, where the meaning of the word can change based on the word next to it can trip up translations
Languages such as Chinese where voice modulation changes the meaning of the word. Bonus points for Chinese where a poem can loose all meaning when sung because the inflections are no longer there.
Concepts where there are no direct translations. Gestalt in German simply does not translate to English nor does Schadenfreude.
Words that describe stimulus or feelings not experienced by your aliens may trip up your translator as well.
* The color "red" to a species that does not see the color
* Hunger to mech life might translate as low on energy, but so would fatigue
* Loneliness to a species that is part of a hive or group mind.
Homophones could trip it up, as could homographs and homonyms. "Lance Bass had his bass player with him on the army base"
Idioms, slang and colloquialisms could do serious damage as well.
In German, the phrase that is the English equivalent to "leave a tip" literally translates to "Drink Gold".
Borrowed words and phrases. Adding to the confusion, many languages will borrow phrases or terms from other languages. It's not uncommon for an English speaker to use the German words Schadenfreude or Gestalt, as those terms don't translate to English. Our English speaker may also use the French c'est la vie or call someone "el Loco" or something like that.
You have a wealth of opportunities!
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> But what I am looking for are instances where the closest word doesn't quite convey the connotative meaning in the other culture/language.
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If you want to understand how big an issue this is, start by looking at The Bible.
There are literally dozens of English translations of The Bible. All of them started with the same source material, but there are significant differences between them.
The differences are due to the fact that ancient Greek and ancient Hebrew are radically different languages to modern English. Translating word-for-word is absolutely impossible.
Biblical translators have to make frequent choices where they have to pick one word over another where the actual correct translation is somewhere in between the two, and maybe with undertones of some other concepts as well.
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In addition to all of the other answers, cultural artifacts get lost. You can easily translate phrases like "Good Samaritan" or "crossing the Rubicon" literally, but without the shared cultural knowledge of what those phrases mean, the listener will miss out on much of the meaning.
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There are a lot of subtleties that would be lost in a word-for-word mechanical translation. For instance, poetry would be flattened into prose. Literary allusions and cultural references would lose some or all of their connotation. Shifts in diction might not be apparent.
For instance, if I were to say, "To be or not to be, that is the question", most of us will recognize it as a reference to Hamlet's soliloquy in Shakespeare's play, and any native English speaker would notice the sentence sounds different from normal speech. Depending on context, I might be talking about despair, or about profoundly difficult choices, or I might be mocking someone for melodramatic behavior. Those depend on recognizing that I'm making an allusion, and what I'm alluding to.
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There's the old joke about a Spanish speaker who wants to say "entre no más y tome una silla" in English. So he looks up all the words in the dictionary and comes out with "between no more and drink a chair".
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I'm working for Henry Ford's engineering department and thought I'd gatecrash your "worldbuilding" forum to do my job for me. Our customer research department tell me that our customers want faster horses, and I'm looking in to how to create them.
A few thoughts to get us started:
* Fuel-efficiency can probably be improved. There's a reason they say "eats like a horse" – they require a lot of grazing land, and grazing land isn't free. The most common gene-hack is creating a mule, largely for this reason, but you do lose speed this way.
* "Double-null myostatin" is one of my go-tos for genehacking worldbuilding. Could it be applied here?
* Any other genetic traits that would increase speed? Stronger bones maybe?
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**Wheels**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/90lyB.png)
The horse is a pretty good invention. It can run fast, walk for hours every day, and carry heavy loads. It eats only grass and produces steaming piles of fertilizer for the garden.
The vanilla horse certainly gets the job done. No one will deny it is an adequate mode of transport. But perhaps with the addition of wheels it can be made. . . more adequate?
**Edit:** Following safety concerns by @clockw0rk see the second prototype. Horse Mk 2.01 if you will.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qH4CW.png)
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**Pedals!** A reclining bike is several times faster than walking, even though it has the same (muscle) power as an unassisted human and the combination is heavier. There are even pedal powered airplanes.
Gearing alone will make a difference (here's a [horse powered car](https://www.wired.com/2009/08/horse-power/)) and you would put the horse in a suspended harness so it doesn't need to waste muscle power pushing itself off the ground.
For additional gains, a CVT gearbox would allow the horse to run at its most efficient pace at any speed.
The new Ford model H would be a "**streamliner**" that looks not unlike a shrunken down high speed steam locomotive. It would be made out of aluminium, with the horse's head taking the place of the nosecone. The horse is suspended inside and powers two sets of pedals that transmit power to the wheels using a continually variable transmission. The passenger compartment would be hitched to the back of the "engine", making it easy to swap out or add extra horsepower for heavy loads.
So how fast would this go? A horse can output up to 15 horsepower, which is comparable to motor cars of the era, but only for short bursts. The fastest horse alone can do almost [90 kph](https://volunteerencounter.com/how-far-and-for-how-long-can-a-horse-run/), but a realistic top speed for a running horse would be 50 kph with a weight of about 450 kg. A car with 15 horsepower, such as [this Rolls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_15_hp), does about 50 kph as well despite being heavier (I can't find its weight, but a Model T can weigh up to 750 kg and I can't imagine the Rolls being lighter). There are no studies on the subject and the relevant Ig Nobel Prize has so far gone unclaimed, but expecting a reasonably sustainable 60-70 kph with a light load would not be unrealistic, which is faster than a Model T and doesn't require adjusting the carburetor after every corner or finding a store that will sell you barrels of fuel oil.
Let's go one trot further with the Model E, designed by Dr. Kiichiro Toyoda's Amazing Hybrid-Electric Carriage Manufactory. Imagine if you could harness the power the horse isn't outputting when you are standing still or moving slowly! To accomplish this, disconnect the pedals from the wheels and connect them to an **electric generator** which charges up an array of Leyden jars for burst power output. There is nothing stopping you from running this device while parked on the driveway of your estate and leaving with a fully charged battery bank (and the horse likes a daily routine). Some Chinese manufacturers may suggest leaving the entire horse at home and bringing just the batteries, but what do the Chinese know about long running autonomous devices anyway?
Of course, people don't just want to drive cars, they want to race them. Performance carriages would be made out of magnesium for weight savings and may put the horse on its back for improved aero (which would upset Enzo Ferrari to no end). With a world class horse, this could exceed 100 kph over short distances. Eat dirt, Jamais Contente.
Most of all, it would run anywhere, at any time. Feeding the horse would be as simple as filling a tray in the nose with grass or hay. Think about that when your newfangled internal combustion car with "LOL FEED" licence plate runs out of gas, smugface.
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So, you've mentioned Gene-Hacking, so I'm presuming we aren't working with 1900s era Tech.
My first thought is to continue on what Horse breeders had been doing with different breeds:
**Specialization**
The things that make a good Plow Horse are different from a good race horse and are different again from what makes a good inter-city travel horse.
So we start tweaking the Genes for the Horses:
* Allow the Horse to Sweat (Seriously - this is one of Humans super-powers, we don't need to stop and pant, we can sweat - which is why we can chase down prey that is faster than us, we don't need to stop when they do).
* Tweak the Horse so that it can eat and drink on the move
* Bigger Lungs and Heart (not by much)
* Optimal combination of the different Muscles fibers, perhaps even a new hybrid muscle fiber that has the best of fast and slow twitch.
**Cyborg Horses**
So, if we have the ability to tweak their Genome, maybe we have the ability to artificially enhance them - things like intravenous fluid intake, artificial hormones (Adrenalin) to trigger faster speed, reinforced joints to guard against clipping and other things that are bad for horses.
If we can gene-manipulate some of the things that cause Horses to die from over-exertion, then perhaps we can Cybhorse (sp?) Cyb-equine (sp?) them.
Other than that...
**Strap a big ol' pair of rocket boosters to the horse**
I mean, we are working with modern tech - and a Horse with a rocket strapped to it's hind quarters looks cool.
Just don't @ me with all the practical limitations or imply cruelty to Horses from heat/burn injuries - we are using Handwaivium rockets so the horse is fine.
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**How far are you willing to go?**
You can get a lot of mileage out of replacing the horse biology with something more effective. Other commenters have mentioned you could make the horse eat on the run or make the lungs bigger, but consider more extreme alternatives.
**Cycling Respiratory System**
Pigeons breathe more efficiently by having multi chambered lungs that cycle air constantly through multiple chambers instead of pulling in and then emptying, which would allow your horse to have better airflow.
**Whale Myoglobin**
Myogolbin storage changes like deep swimming creatures would also allow your horse to store more oxygen internally at one time, it might be simpler than remaking the lungs and heart while also insuring that it can function at full capacity for longer, possibly much longer.
**Creatine Changes**
More or better Creatine would allow your horse to store more ATP inside each cell before needing to switch to a lower powered mode. Either just make your horse produce more Creatine naturally or feed it something like "Di-acetyl Creatine Ethyl Ester" in the feed.
**More Mitochondria**
It turns out Mitochondria actually float around the blood and move from cell to cell, so if you work out a more resilient form that has a more efficient energy cycle, you can just inject them into the horse with a syringe and they'll naturally propagate.
These points are fairly low lying fruit that will naturally give you a stronger and faster horse without any change to its food or other lifestyle. But you could probably go much further...
**That pesky biology**
If you think about it, a lot of your neo-horse is dedicated to carrying around that pesky stomach and its associated waste control organs. But you wouldn't need them if you were able to substitute the horse's energy needs with an external source.
**Ketones**
You still need a way to get proteins and micro-nutrients into the horse, but one thing you can do is inject Ketones into the horse through some kind of internal (and refillable) vein attachment (cyber fuel tank basically). Ketones aren't as efficient as normal oxygen-glucose processes, but they are fairly self contained and mostly generate only Co2 and water as a byproduct.
**Cooling Saddle**
Some kind of refrigeration system in the saddle would be useful and would probably make a huge difference to your horse.
**Electrification**
Certain types of bacteria and some synthetic proteins are capable of doing the proton pump process purely through electrical power. This means that in theory you could generate ATP inside your cells without any input or output products, purely through electrical power. If you're injecting new mitochondria like in the step outlined above, you could modify them with this process and some way to accept electrical power wirelessly, possibly from the saddle or some other implant. If it works, your horse is now at least partially battery powered. You don't even need 100% coverage, as any amount of coverage removes that amount of load from the lungs/digestion/kidneys etc of the horse' biology.
Of course, at the end of the day it's still a horse, which means it needs to run around on four toothpick legs and will fall apart if it sees its own shadow.
But new materials like graphene fiber are far more resilient than regular muscles and tendons. If you had some way to make the horse generate these proteins internally it would be both faster and more resilient. Something that might be possible if your horse has more energy to burn on internal maintenance.
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**Rubber roads**
A horse's shoes add weight and seriously slow it down. By removing the shoes and making the roads softer, you should gain a considerable amount of speed.
**Smaller riders**
Just as in horse racing, smaller people should be employed as drivers when delivering messages etc.
**Powered wagons**
For larger loads, a powered wagon would allow the horse to go at its natural pace. There could be a feedback mechanism as exists for electric bicycles such that the more effort the horse puts in, the more the wagon takes the load. If the horse becomes tired, it can be hitched to the back of the wagon or even loaded onto it.
**Make all roads downhill**
A slight downward incline could be achieved in both directions by having a lift/elevator at staged points. The horse is loaded into the elevator, raised to a considerable height, and then runs downhill to the next elevator.
**A supporting cradle**
Others have mentioned wheels, but attaching them to the legs would make it very difficult for the horse to balance and especially difficult to adapt its stride. Instead have a four-wheeled cradle that takes most of the weight of the horse but allows it to push with all four legs using the natural galloping motion.
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At the time old man Ford said that, genetic engineering wasn't a thing. If I remember correctly the double-stranded structure of DNA had not even been discovered yet.
So I propose a different solution, more in line with the technology of the time: horse-skates. Like horse shoes, but with wheels. You put them on the front legs of your critter and train them to just push with the hind ones.
Your horses may run significantly faster over a plain road... And when going downhill they will become rollercoaster fast!
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**Bigger, taller, horses with longer legs!**
Especially if the intention is to pull a carriage or carry riders and their baggage for a long distance.
A larger horse with longer legs will have more stamina to go farther at a higher speed because the relative encumbrance of the weight of their rider or carriage will be smaller. It will be less burdensome for the horse.
More importantly from a mechanics viewpoint, the longer legs also mean that for the same number of strides the horse travels farther. This is important because the stress loading generated by the number of strides a top racehorse can do is already near the physical limit of bone and tendon tissue. Hence why racehorses are so prone to suffering leg injuries.
There will likely be a tradeoff between top end speed and long term sustained speed, because the former would imply very long and thin legs with less inertial mass whereas the latter would imply thicker, more muscular legs that can better cope with the physical stresses.
There's an upper limit to how muscular horses can be and still cool themselves down with sweating due to the square-cube problem, so our hypothetical super-horse will likely need a very long neck, and a longer, relatively thinner, body, to maximize the surface area available for cooling.
All this could be achievable via standard breeding techniques, albeit over the course of several centuries. With advanced bioengineering technology it may be possible to greatly expedite this process or even introduce novel features.
Such as a muscular tail for additional surface area for cooling, or larger, softer, hooves to allow the super-horse to corner better at speed.
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**Passive load-bearing exoskeletons**: The exo is integrated with the saddle and supports the weight of the horse, rider, and saddle. The horse feels super light, doesn't wear out its joints, and can run like it's unloaded.
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with 1900s tech, probably for efficiency, you'd want to ranch on a high-altitude plateau for oxygen efficiency and then raise them with techniques to force them to be calorie efficient.
Breed for calorie efficiency too, don't forget.
IIRC if there was a horse-treadmill thing that Stephenson beat out with his rocket. maybe horse-rail could be a thing. Wheels are far more efficient, after all.
If you wanna go full gene editing on it, Humans are pretty good at stamina conservation. Idk about horses but if they can get some human foot mechanics up in there they can save energy by not having to "tip-toe" all the time like the rest of the animals (if horses had human feet in the original horse position, the heels are always off the ground) I'm sure there are other things like having pre/post digesting stomachs, longer intestines, better blood flow assistance by muscles (Skeletal muscle pump is I think what it was called), sweating, and a lot of other things.
Edit2: for your bones comment, you'd want lighter bones for more efficiency. sturdier bones allow for more durability but ultimately cost the horse in terms of extra mass to pull. Then again those horses might be fragile.
If you wanna develop the horse treadmill thing, you can add regenerative brakes (not electric though, lead-acid tech is too heavy) by using a small fireless locomotive with appropriate attachment to the horse-cart. (some pneumatic locos could throw the johnson bar in reverse to use the energy from slowing to compress air back and build more pressure)
Edit: I just got inspiration from the history of the bike. Originally, bikes just supported the weight of the rider and the rider kicked off and coasted. so maybe a sort of adapted carriage frame that includes a space for a horse. At first it would let the horse down to start a carriage using its full weight, but when up to speed, it lifts the horse slightly so the horse can easily just lift its legs and kick occasionally, it and its load can coast freely, driver steering and maybe operating a set of brakes to make sure it doesn't go out of control. Can use a miniaturized fireless locomotive to slow the carriage without burning brake material. (kinetic energy forward would be used to compress air into an air tank and therefore slow the cart down. when starting from a stop, that compressed air could be used to assist the horse into getting up to speed faster)
Still though, selective breeding is probably your best option. Create an environment that *requires* more efficiency and see how mother nature answers.
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**Stimulants**
If you want nerds to work faster, give them coffee. I assume this principle works on other mammals too. Of course, there are other details to work out, like compensating for dehydration when distance running, diarrhetic effects, and finding giant mugs that can be used without opposable thumbs, but those seem tractable. If you care more about speed than retaining horses, there are also higher octane options, like amphetamines.
Please do not try this at your home/farm.
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Re: Fuel efficiency... make them into foregut fermenters like cows/camels/etc. Horses (and cows) don't really "digest" grass, instead they have a lot of bacteria that digest grass and then horses/cows digest the bacteria. Horses for some reason do this towards the end of the digestive process--cows, on the other hand, do it very early in the digestive process. That gives the bacteria more time to digest grass and the cow more time to digest bacteria, which means you get the maximum nutrients out of every bite. (You could also make them coprophages like rabbits. There's still good nutrients in that food, give it a second pass through the digestive system. Waste not, want not!)
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**LEGS**
MOAR LEGS
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2jePb.jpg)
By the same principle as a tandem bicycle goes much faster on flat terrain than two single bikes, at horse running speeds aerodynamics really start to matter. For bikes at 30KMH you're already speaking about 70-75% of your effort is wind resistance (rest rolling resistance of tires, internal resistance/inefficiency, etc) so I expect similar gains here. Another inspiration is the rumoured "KFC Chicken" that would have been manipulated to have six legs and two wings.
[EDIT: Other precedent is Sleipnir, eight-legged horse Loki gave birth to, after turning himself into a mare when his father demanded he sabotage the fortification of Asgard in one season, and belonged to Odin. I also thought of the six-legged dog that is on the logo of the ENI fuel brand (Italy) which was the result of a 4000-entry competition.]
Of course you can scale this up to see where the limits of speed gains are as you lose agility (turning circle at 20pairs??) and the brain having to coordinate all those legs (and pairs would clash if too close to each other) so some careful breeding and admixing arthropod DNA will be needed (or mollusc DNA, as octopuses seem to have a help-brain for each leg/arm/tentacle).
Just don't think "Equine centipede" and you will sleep well.
*With apologies to Wikimedia Commons uploader [Carine06](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yearling_colt_(9473564293).jpg) for messing up their nice photo for my majestic lord of the steppe. (Not sure where I was going with the tail, but it's like the go-faster-stripes on sportscars, cutting out parts makes you lighter hence faster.)*
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**Mechanical Horse**
I mean, why have a better horse, when you could literally have a machine? Joking, but this horse is a mechanical horse, needing no food or need to be cleaned up after. It would be powered by gasoline, so it may even put motorcycles out of business! Though, a steam turbine can also do.
**Horses with Reshapes Bones**
Okay, this one is more plausible. Sure, genetic therapy did not exist back then, but there we can still raise horses a certain way and give bone surgery. Based on how cheetahs move fast we could apply that to horse legs, and reshape them so they move even faster. Just as they grow over time, tie weights to them, so their bones grow a certain way.
**Don't get rid of cars, change their mechanism!**
Just build a vehicle with four wheels, place a treadmill on it, and let the horse run! It can also be supported by steam or oil.
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So, I’m writing a sci-fi story, which has a setting which involves human colonists crash landing on a massive, icy hellhole. The weather is extreme on the surface, and because of it, wireless communication is useless, so for settlements to connect with each other, they need to physically move messages to other settlements, or use wired communication.
This is meant to give everything an air of mystery and desperation. The humans had been able to survive for hundreds of years, stranded without the ability to call for help. This brings them back to the medieval age, practically.
So, what I’m asking essentially, is there any way that a planet’s climate could block all/most wireless signals? Without that, the worldbuilding of the story pretty much falls apart.
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## They *can* use radio communication. It's just a bad idea.
The planet is a hellhole, but life finds a way, and it still has native life. Including a super predator that likes the taste of humans. But super predators need a lot of territory, so these monsters (I'm going to call them bearasaurs) live mostly solitary lives.
It turns out that finding a mate when you live by yourself in a constant snowstorm is quite difficult, so the bearasaurs have developed natural radio communication as a way of finding each other when it's time to mate.
Which means that whenever the humans try to use a radio, they immediately get attacked by a horny bearasaur. (Okay, probably not immediately. Given the amount of range each bearasaur would have to have to make this plausible, it'd be a couple of days at least, maybe even a month or two unless the bears move *really* quickly. But that's still enough to make radio unusable at any permanent settlements.)
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There are lots of things you can do with natural wildlife if you don't like bearasaurs. Evolution can do a lot of weird things, and I don't think it would take too much handwaving to have the local wildlife hog all the useful frequencies.
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# No, it is not possible for a natural climate phenomenon to block all wireless communication.
There is a tremendous range of useful wireless frequencies. You can find phenomena that block some of the ranges in common use on this planet, but no such phenomena will block all frequencies.
Furthermore, nothing prevents people from using a series of towers to pick up a weak signal, amplify and rebroadcast it. In fact, that is exactly what we used to do in the [US and Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_transmission). With this method you can always send a focused signal to the next tower in the chain that will be successful.
By selecting appropriate frequencies, any natural blocking could certainly be bypassed.
If you want to jam signals by transmitting a stronger signal at the same frequency, you can of course do so. Buy I cannot imagine any natural source of intense broad spectrum noise on any inhabitable planet.
I would like to add that visible light is part of the EM spectrum, and that lasers are quite effective for transmitting information over significant distances. If the atmosphere blocks light, it also blocks life.
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Sand storms can obstacle microwave communications ([ref](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234461213_Effects_of_dustsandstorm_on_some_aspects_of_microwave_propagation)):
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> Microwave attenuation increases with particle size and concentration, and moisture, as does phase shift. Refractive indices and loss tangents increase with particle density and moisture content multipath propagations. Severe local sandstorms can incapacitate terrestrial microwave radio links, especially in summer when humidity is high.
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Dust storms on Mars are known for affecting communication link.
A land swiped by constant sandstorms is indeed desperate, though you need to find a way to make it long term survivable.
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Not a climate feature in the strict sense, but the lack of ionosphere would be a big obstacle to long-distance communications.
Without the possibility for radiowaves to bounce against it, it wouldn't be possible to broadcast to a receiver behind the horizon (of course, you could partially overcome this problem by building very high pylons and placing your antennas on top of them).
In this case, probably you should motivate the lack of ionosphere in a way that doesn't modify the climate of the planet. Maybe low UV radiation from the main star... Or very strong ascensional winds that continuously mix the atmosphere at every height, so that there isn't a ionized stratum of air.
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A plausible starting point is the [spark gap transmitter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter), which has extremely wide bandwidth (almost DC to light) and is so horribly interference-generating that it's been illegal worldwide for nearly a century. I'm not sure if you could get the same effect naturally-occurring, but perhaps with some combination of continuous electrical storms, pure metal and mineral deposits, etc. it might be possible to have the planet covered almost full-time in broad-spectrum noise.
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***If*** the native "rock" of your planet had a high enough concentration of iron... *and* the surface layers of that rock had long since degraded to small pebbles, dusts and rust deposits... *and* there were high speed sandstorms frequently... *and* concomitant lightning... (as stated in an earlier answer, this does mostly preclude the entire planet always being a frozen ball) you ***might*** see such huge magnetic flux being generated in those storms to drive signal-to-noise ratios beyond acceptable limits without huge resource expenditures.
For non weather based lightning, look to the *red* lightning often generated during pyroclastic flows in volcanic eruptions (I *still* vividly remember seeing that as a kid when St. Helens blew) as huge volumes of silica dust are driven at extreme speed - there is still much discussion about whether the primary mechanism is [*triboelectric*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triboelectric_effect) or *fractoemission* - see [Wikipedia Volcanic Lightning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_lightning) for more details.
But - frame challenge here - I think a *better*, simpler dodge would be that there *are* life-forms on this hell-hole planet, and they are somewhat equivalent to whale-sized moles in that to avoid surface exposure they live an entirely subterranean existence: their food source is mineral, their cellular biology is silicon-sulfide-cyanide based, and they communicate, albeit not in a sophisticated manner (they are not high sophonts, unlike our whales) via RF broadcasts, on a medium wide frequency range, at incredibly high output power. Think whale songs on Earth, rebounding and echoing a low frequencies all across the planet's oceans. Not only are their actual signals both disruptive and unpredictable, the mineral deposits in the planet's outer crust often interact with that huge RF dump when a whale-mole is close by, generating secondary signals, huge static charges etc etc. They frequency shift as they feel they need to reach each other across varying distances, with no regard for what others may need those frequencies for, because they neither can imagine others using that RF for anything besides bellowing about food, mates or territory, nor change their primarily instinctive behaviour were they aware of our colonist's attempted use of RF.
Or if you prefer them to be more whale like (that is sophonts we just don't understand) perhaps to them the RF is a sacred space for poetry about the beauty of the radioactive deposits they migrate between in their unceasing peregrinations through the lava-tube filled, unstable crust of their world... and so any aliens trying to use it for comms would need to be either drowned out in volume and beauty, taught not to profane the sacred RF, or crushed to rubble beneath a self-sacrificing whale-mole's capacious flanks.
Just a couple quick ideas - hope some of this helps somehow!
[Answer]
How about the thing disallowing communication not being the planet itself? The crashlanding might have damaged whatever special antennas your ship needed for interstellar wireless communication, and after first few decades whatever was left of the spaceship that could be easily made into wireless transmitter/receiver is also broken.
Then your colonists had a lot of work to even survive and didn't have the time necessary to build a wireless communication device from scratch. Now, after few generations they may have learned to mine iron and other metals, but the knowledge required to make radio might have failed to be passed on, or they simply may not have the technology required (do you think a person in 900 could have created a radio if someone told him how to do it?)
[Answer]
If the planet orbited a flaring red dwarf at a distance that allowed it to keep an atmosphere, but it would be constantly pummeled by solar flares. This could wreck havoc to electronics on the surface, and most life on it as well.
If you play this in with the magnetosphere (I think a weak one would cause the effects you are looking for) and an over saturated ionosphere then RF signals may be hampered. This is not a weather phenomenon, but the sun does play into the climate.
[Answer]
Not impossible but you don't have to worry anyway.
>
> Due to the technical difficulty of building an **ELF** transmitter, the U.S., Russia, and India are the only nations known to have constructed ELF communication facilities. – [Communication with submarines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines)
>
>
>
But there is [Ultra low frequency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_low_frequency) which also travels through the earth.
>
> Radio amateurs and electronics hobbyists have used this mode for limited range communications using audio power amplifiers connected to widely spaced electrode pairs hammered into the soil.
>
>
>
There'd have to be something real funny going on inside your planet's core *and* with the atmosphere... maybe that's why the weather's so crazy.
[Answer]
How about; It's not necessarily impossible to use wireless communication. It's just that the surface is hazardous to people (for some reason, sandstorms, electric storms, giant ducks with huge feet) and the planet has so much tiny iron deposits that every underground dwelling works like a Faraday cage.
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You can communicate through the ground using seismographs and some form of Morse code as a last resort. There is no way to completely block all wireless communication unless you can block sound. Maybe if your world was made out of sand but even then packed sand will transmit sound wirelessly. In retrospect a solar flare would destroy any electrical device capable of producing sound through matter. When we speak and using body language we are communicating wirelessly. A habitat that is that inhospitable humans would probably have to live underground or underwater.
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While it is impossible to make all communication impossible - if you put enough wattage in your signal it can transmit through nearly everything, even a faraday's cage has a non zero resistance and thus can be transmitted through. The only exception are black holes are the actual photons can't translate, but I doubt you want this to happen inside a blackhole.... There are ways that the signal strength is less than random noise.
Every "disturbance" in the atmosphere is always showing up in a signal as white (or pink) noise. So enough disturbance (tornados, sandstorms etc) could make it "harder". Though for well equipped people not impossible or difficult to overcome, you'll just use a larger dish or a higher wattage.
We can do better by transforming the entire atmosphere into an electrically charged plasma. Ion plasmas like this are very strong blockers of EM-waves, as experienced by the reentry of vehicles: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_blackout>
Now how to get such a highly ionised atmosphere?
Lighting, lots of lighting. Like near constant lightning strikes everywhere. The ionized atmosphere is kind of lethal to humans and most life though.
Then again there is always another way to transmit inforation: you could use sound waves (such as submarines do) or other accoustic waves through the solid material.. So then you're back to the drawing board to block that.
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Constant lightning from constant widespread storms would cause this. The storms don't necessary need to be affecting the surface directly. 90% of lightning on earth is air to air. This may also make wired communication useless by frequent lightning strikes on the cables.
Plus interference from the sun, especially if the planet doesn't have a magnetic field. Earth's magnetic field is caused by us having a partially melted iron core. Although this would increase the ionosphere, maybe making signal path decoding to complex to be done.
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I think this is reasonable-ish. We are uncertain about a lot of the fine details of lightning, but it can be caused by rain & snowstorms as well as active volcanoes. So it's possible that the planet combines all these features and has pervasive lightning & slushy volcanic-ash laden blizzards, which make their available radios extremely marginal past visual range, which might very rarely be more than 1km in these conditions.
Another reason could conceivably be if their world happens to be much denser, so it produces Earth-like gravity but is say the size of the Moon. It would have a thinner atmosphere, so presumably high altitude EM interactions w/ solar wind would happen closer to the surface. Also, it probably wouldn't generate a proper magnetic field, meaning much more interference, and if it was able to generate a magnetic field, it would probably mean a lot of radioactive decay & intense dynamics, which could contribute to volcanic activity & also generate EM interference directly.
One last possibility, it could be that there's a magnetar or something very far away, but still close enough to disrupt radio.
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[Question]
[
In my fantasy world, criminals who have committed serious crimes are sent to an island called "Yaehlbuhn". This island, quite far from any continents, is essentially an open prison where criminals can live in almost total freedom.
Law enforcement is present but only act when large conflicts breaks out. They are pretty brutal and don't really care about bystanders and such, after all, everyone on this island is supposed to be a criminal unless proven otherwise.
Enough exposition, here is my question.
**I need a reliable way to identify people who were sent to the Yaehlbuhn or live there.** The general idea would be that, in case someone were to escape, anyone would be able to tell that this person comes from the island.
I thought about tattoos at first, but depending on the size, you can hide it pretty easily, you could even remove your skin to erase it permanently. (If you are really determined.)
**I would also need to find a way to identify people who are on Yaehlbuhn for lawful reasons.** (such as Guards, officials or any other visitors) As you can imagine, it should not be easy to reproduce.
The government has access to pretty much anything, but low-cost/low-tech (and cool) options are appreciated.
[Answer]
# Silver Dust
Exposure to silver dust/[colloidal silver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_uses_of_silver#Colloidal_silver) eventually turns your entire skin blue.
...**permanently**.
The condition is called [Argyria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyria).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lM2Km.jpg)
*Paul Karason turned blue after extensive use of colloidal silver*
It is an essentially harmless condition but there is no way you can mask it. Even the whites of your eye turn dark.
So... confine your prisoners and have them breathe silver dust, or let them drink something that has very fine particles of silver in it. Once their skin turns dark, off to Yaehlbuhn they go.
[Answer]
**A brand.**
from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_branding>
>
> Brand marks have also been used as a punishment for convicted
> criminals, combining physical punishment, as burns are very painful,
> with public humiliation (greatest if marked on a normally visible part
> of the body) which is here the more important intention, and with the
> imposition of an indelible criminal record. Robbers, like runaway
> slaves, were marked by the Romans with the letter F (fur); and the
> toilers in the mines, and convicts condemned to figure in gladiatorial
> shows, were branded on the forehead for identification. Under
> Constantine I the face was not permitted to be so disfigured, the
> branding being on the hand, arm or calf.
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I like that Constantine said that the face was too much. One does not think of the Byzantines as being especially humane when it comes to punishments.
A brand can also convey information: for example, what exactly the crime was that earned the person a trip to the island. A brand does not reduce functionality in the way that taking an eye, hand or cheek would.
[Answer]
### Scarification - give them a big scar on the face, their hands, their feet, ...
This would be very hard to hide and it would be obvious that someone is trying to hide it. Scarring someone shouldn't require too much skill and is pretty low-cost and low-tech. [Scarification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarification) has the added advantage to be easily visible on all kinds of skin color, so you wouldn't have to vary with your design. To cite the linked Wikipedia article:
>
> Most people in certain regions of Africa who have "markings" can be identified as belonging to a specific tribe or ethnic group.
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This is very close to what you want to achieve:
>
> I need a reliable way to identify people who were sent to the Yaehlbuhn or live there.
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>
Possible methods of scarification include:
* [Human Branding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_branding), which was for example used to
+ mark the rightless
+ punish outlaws
* Cutting, for example by
+ Packing: making a cut and putting ash inside the cut so that the resulting scar is raised ([Hypertrophic Scar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrophic_scar))
+ skin removal of patches
* Abrasion
I recommend something obviously man-made. A big hyptertrophic "Y" on the right cheek with a three dots of removed skin up, left and right representing law, your crime and the fact that you were sent to the island and a thin circle around all this. Obviously the specific details depend on your story, but it should be identifiable as a sort of mark and not easily hidden.
Depending on how serious the crime is you could for example add more dots or whatever symbol you choose. Extending the scar to other body parts, such as the hands, could imply things like murder and rape. There are a lot of possibilities.
This could become some form of code that could be used to identify different criminals. It's also a good way to form groups in a narrative by calling them the "Ys" to refer to my example above or the "Half-Moons" or the "Crosses" or whatever designs suits your needs and best describes the group of criminals you want to show.
[Answer]
You want to leave a mark, but let's try to avoid mutilating and otherwise making useless potential future reformed members of society. So how do we do this?
## Alopecia
Various toxicans can induce hairloss, including permentant
and complete hairloss. An individual withnot even a strand of peach fuzz will be
noticeable though its more subtle then a missing ear.
## Scleral Tattooing
Want something more striking, how about a scleral tattoo?
You can't remove an eye tattoo without obvious and severe side effects and different colored eyes can be used to separate prisoners from staff.
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1. Historically, **branding** was used for this purpose. Branding someone on the neck, face, hand or wrist are generally hard places to hide.
2. Historically, **collaring someone in metal** tends to be very noticeable and hard to remove. (Try hacking off a collar with your neck exposed.)
3. I don't know the technological limitations of your world but they could be **chipped** in the spine or other difficult location for extraction with an RFID chip. Futuristic cameras could easily identify those and sound alarms.
Going back to the collaring idea, officials could wear golden collars (or something noticeable and hard to remove without permission)
[Answer]
**Iron Branding**
In the ship going to the island, every prisioner is branded with burning iron in each side of his face, with the "sign of the thief". This deep wound would heal and leave a scar that can't be hide without looking suspicious.
**Hand Chopping**
Every prisioner lose his left hand up to the elbow, is a little more easy to hide it but still is really handy to detect criminals.
[Answer]
In the past, to clearly label people who had received the small pox vaccine, a clear scar was left on their arm.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PQDYE.jpg)
This is more effective than branding (burnt wound can easily get infected), and you can also develop a code related to them (1 scar means this, 2 scars mean that, 3 scars on a line means something else, etc.)
[Answer]
In Russian empire convicts were sent to Siberia for permanent settlement, as punishment and a way to identify them, those who commited grievous crimes (quite a wide definition at that time), would often have been cropped ( their ears cut off), and/or have their nostrils teared. Branding face (usually forehead) with hot iron was also common. Cutting off limbs was much less common, as made inmate unfit for forced labour. Provided authorities with difficult to hide way to identify prisoners.
[Answer]
**Use Tattoos**
Checkout Brandon Sanderson's "The Way of Kings" epic novel (first of the The Stormlight Archive series). One of the main characters is branded as a slave using a tattoo on the forehead. Essentially the glyphs on the forehead provide a history of the slave. The branding system that he describes is very detailed providing many of the crimes that the user committed including a "violent" designation. In addition to providing the crimes, the tattoo also allows changes in status including "freedom" (and who granted it) so all can see that a former slave is a slave no longer. In a society which only rich women and priests are literate, this tattoo glyph system is an effective method in identifying slaves to the common people.
There are other instances of tattoos used in history including serial numbers to identify prisoners in Jewish Concentration Camps. Also, checkout the meanings behind modern prison tattoos.
**Potential Problems**
Medieval medicine did not have the ability to remove tattoos.
Escapees could attempt to cover them with other tattoo(s). In fact there could be an entire pirate culture that is made up of escaped prisoners and uses the tattoo system to demonstrate their own rank and achievements. Regardless, to a common person... anyone with a tattoo is dangerous.
Another issue is when the prisoner attempts to remove them via scrapping or burning. Again a large scar on the forehead should be a warning that the person is potentially dangerous. If the scar is accidental, then that person would need to purchase a writ from an official to declare their freedom.
**Writ of Freedom**
Someone else mentioned a permanent metal band around the throat. This would be a good way to demonstrate that a branded prisoner has served their time or were otherwise misidentified as a criminal. Make the band difficult to manufacture to reduce counterfits. It can even be studded with gems of various colors to represent the type of writ it is (proven innocent, served time, etc).
[Answer]
For (slightly) less bodily mutilation:
## **Piercings**
Earrings would be an obvious choice but lips, belly etc. could all work, the location, material and/or number of the rings might even be used to indicate the severity of the crime.
Depending on the location, construction and material used removing a piercing without the specific tools needed could get *very* messy and infectious and leave someone permanently disfigured in pretty noticeable way.
A bonus here is that ex-convicts would be quite easily identifiable as well, their piercings get "cleanly" removed but there would still be visible scarring where the piercings used to be.
The simple absence of a piercing/scarring where one would be should be enough to indicate someone is not a convict.
[Answer]
I think branding probably fits your requirements best. I'm not sure why you'd want to mark individuals with a legitimate reason to be on your prison colony, it should suffice that they don't have the mark or a scar where the mark should be to prove they are not inmates.
You could also have it so that prisoners are very well documented during their conviction. Notes can describe identifying features and if you want to go so far, include a sketch in the inmate's file. It won't be a photo but an artist should be able to produce a good enough likeness.
[Answer]
I'm thinking of the character Teal'c from Stargate SG-1.
"... the First Prime to a Goa'uld are given the gold embossed mark of their respective god. These tattoos are applied by cutting into the flesh with an Orak knife and **pouring pure molten gold or silver into the wound**." ---
<http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Jaffa_mark>
Emphasis mine, because, yeowch.
[Answer]
[anon](http://#91613) mentioned golden collars for the guards, and I think there's some mileage in the idea of marking those who *aren't* prisoners. Perhaps some kind of intricately fitted ear ornament – pinnae are nearly as distinctive as fingerprints, so a stolen ornament wouldn't work – and the specialist workshop to make these things would be on a different continent. Another possibility would be a pendant engraved with the bearer's likeness.
This avoids the essential problem of marking the prisoners, which is that the critical documentation (the prisoners' own bodies) is something they have unlimited access to tamper with. The drawback is that it doesn't identify escaped prisoners. But you could extend the logic to the whole civilisation, and say that every adult citizen has one of these tokens; for minor crimes, you could have yours confiscated for 3 months, making you a prisoner in your own town.
This is assuming pre-20th century technology, where hard-to-forge physical tokens were the pinnacle of security, and administrative records were unreliable. In the modern world, of course, the situation is reversed.
Obviously, no ID technique is foolproof (or even good), which is why so many stories from the past involve false identities and stolen royal signet rings and so on. But then, I assume the whole point of the OP is that someone is going to find a way to beat the system.
[Answer]
How about [Scleral Tattoos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scleral_tattooing), a permanent tattoo on the whites of the eye.
This is actually an incredibly new thing, and was only invented in 2007 by [Luna Cobra](http://lunacobra.net/services/eyeball-tattooing), so I don't know if it would even be do-able in a medieval setting (as it is done with syringes which weren't invented until 1853, and even then probably wouldn't have been fine enough to not damage the eyeball).
However, as you've said it is a fantasy setting, perhaps it could be hand-waved to say that a certain plant grows on the island of Yaehlbuhn that allows the whites of eyes to be permanently dyed using a technique available in a medieval setting (either ingesting, rubbing a paste of the plant into the eyes etc.) without permanently damaging their sight.
This way they would have to remove their own eyeballs if they wanted to escape, so unless they want to be blind they would be able to be identified easily, and no one else would have it done if it is something unique to that island.
It could even be played around with a bit: for example different crimes might use different coloured dyes.
[Answer]
**Amputation**
This can also be used to indicate seriousness of offence - there are 4 bits of data, 8 if you consider above/below limb joint.
] |
[Question]
[
In the far future, galactic space travel is now a common reality, and spaceships reach sizes of over 1 kilometer in length.
Any capital ship in existence would therefore be designed for functionality, prioritizing life support, weaponry, and propulsion over appearance. Unlike modern naval ships, which are shaped specifically to reduce hydrodynamic drag, spaceships could be any shape due to a lack of drag.
In this reality, boxes would be the easiest to manufacture while spheres use the least amount of material to enclose the most volume, a large proportion of spaceships would be either giant cubes or balls.
What reason, logical or technical, would stop spacecraft designers from creating brick-like ships?
[Answer]
* **Gravity**
Many science fiction settings have artificial gravity without spin. Many settings don't. That would be a reason to have **spin sections**, either rings or pods, which would fit around some sort of spine or core.
* **Radiation**
Say it is unhealthy to live permanently close to the reactor. Alternatively, there is no "magic" way to absorb radiation from near-C flight, and a big **shield** is required at the bow. Again something to support a long, narrow hull.
* **Heat**
With relatively hard physics in this regard, waste heat management will be a problem. The solution may include **radiators**, which imply some sort of "winged" hull shape.
* **Sensors**
[Aperture synthesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture_synthesis) improves resolution by the use of multiple, carefully sited sensors. This could lead to a snowflake-like appearance.
* **Weapons**
There may be a 'spinal' weapons mount, like a particle accelerator or a railgun, or smaller weapons are mounted on multiple turrets with an optimized arc of fire. A brick may be unable to bring everything to bear on a target.
(Two of my bullet points mirror points from the deleted posting by parasoup. I don't know why he or she deleted it, it was good.)
[Answer]
**Vanity yachts**
Galactic barons will want to travel in style, and ensure everyone knows that they are not common cube-flying riff-raff. Whatever the most efficient shape is, theirs is a cooler looking version of it with worse fuel efficiency.
[Answer]
Technical answer here:
## The shape of the pressure vessel.
This is one of the major reasons that air- and space-craft fuselage cross-sections have changed so little over the last fifty years. A circular cross-section is the ideal, and a spherical hull is the most efficient of all shapes in terms of materials. Not only this, but circular cross-sections and semi-spherical ends or entirely spherical hulls theoretically eliminate "bending" fatigue in the construction material, leaving only tension on all the joints and structural members.
Commercial airliners are usually pressurized to a differential with the outside at cruising altitude of about 0.6 [1](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/19300) atmospheres, for a total of approximately .8 atmospheres. Humans can physiologically "acclimate" to a little less [2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_high_altitude_on_humans), but not much less for a long-haul (inter-galactic) journey. Pressurized cabins for these airliners always have round structure cross sections (usually circular, elliptic or oval), because sharp corners under tension or bending introduce localized high stresses (read: potential[?] points of failure), regardless of the materials used.
Simply put, circular/spherical shapes are the natural choice for pressure vessels. Not only a *choice*, but naturally occurring. Look at a bubble, or blood vessels, or "float bladders" on sea-weed. It is part of the behavior of a[n ideal] gas to push on all surfaces of its container equally, which (given enough pressure) will deform the bounding walls to distribute the tension in them. See [3](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21523/why-is-the-fuselage-on-an-airliner-circular-shaped), [4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabin_pressurization), and [5](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/29193/how-high-can-one-go-from-sea-level-without-having-to-worry-about-altitude-sickne) for more information about aircraft cabin pressure and human endurance of low pressure environments.
And this efficiency is impossible to beat with any other shape, even though people have fantasized about other hull geometries for many years. Unfortunately pop science journalists writing the blurbs for "all-new aircraft designs" that are touted to be on the verge of "revolutionizing air travel" only ever give a few sentences to the pressure problem, even though it looks to me like the biggest one of all:
>
> Researchers still face several challenges in developing a full production model of the Boeing flying wing. Cabin pressurization is not a problem on today's tube airplanes, but will pose a problem in the flying wing's much larger cabin. It will require the development of a new pressurization system. Also, at today's aircraft speeds of about 600 mph (966 kph), drag becomes increasingly problematic with a flying-wing aircraft because the wing is much thicker than that of a traditional airplane. Computer analysis and wind tunnel testing at NASA's Langley National Transonic Facility is expected to determine the stability and performance of the flying-wing design. ([howstuffworks.com](https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/flying-wing.htm))
>
>
>
Intergalactic spacecraft would need to be pressurized to a pressure differential of about .7 or .8 atmospheres, as we have seen; so while they would avoid some of the effects of fatigue by maintaining a relatively constant differential, they would still need to be over-engineered. For a craft "over a kilometer in length" this could pose quite some challenges, but in this "far future" you may be able to overcome them through materials engineering or other magic.
Materials efficiency may be an issue, depending on your supply chain (the anti-crack-esium needed for an alloy used in the frame construction comes from the far side of Andromeda), the distance to be travelled (how much food do you need to take?), and drive system used on your craft (as mentioned in other answers).
References:
[1](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/19300) <https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/19300>
[2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_high_altitude_on_humans) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_high_altitude_on_humans>
[3](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21523/why-is-the-fuselage-on-an-airliner-circular-shaped) <https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21523/why-is-the-fuselage-on-an-airliner-circular-shaped>
[4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabin_pressurization) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabin_pressurization>
[Answer]
# Modular design:
Your ships are made of numerous smaller sections. Each has its own systems, and often these can be ships on their own. Ships are assembled based on need, sometimes with no consideration of shape (other than mass distribution).
Need a bigger ship? Add cargo holds. Replace the ten small habitats with one big one. Only now you need more power, so add an extra engine. This port only has small engines, so add small ones instead.
Pretty soon, it looks like a snowflake. But supply and assembly mean no two snowflakes look exactly alike.
[Answer]
**Lower observability.**
The smaller the surface area you expose to the enemy, the harder you are to detect. You also need significant amounts of surface to radiate heat away from your ship, which you would probably prefer not to point in the general direction of the enemy and their infrared seeking missiles. A broad, flat shape provides you with a narrow profile while also retaining large side areas that you can use as radiators.
Most natural objects in space, like asteroids, have a vaguely oblong shape, not spherical and certainly not a sharp-sided rectangular prism. Having a shape with rounded edges might improve your odds of being overlooked at long ranges. An oblong shape might also make it easier to obscure your direction of travel, versus having a well-defined shape (like a flat plane) always facing forwards.
[Answer]
Because they travel through lots and lots of space.
Space isn’t completely empty. And if you travel from one solar system to the next you will be hitting a LOT of space dust. You want a shape that mitigates the damage as much as possible, not to mention whipple shields designed to mitigate extremely high velocity impacts of tiny particles.
[Answer]
### "Space Magic" Reasons
For a setting like this (galactic-level space travel), you will probably need some sort of "Space Magic" to make it realistic. Doesn't matter if this is "jump drives", "wormhole projectors", "gate"-infrastructure, "hyperspace", "warp drives" or whatever, just make it so that in order to use this Faster-than-Light method of transit, a specifically and carefully constructed hull shape is required.
#### High Speed "astrodynamics"
For example, while space is a vacuum, that doesn't mean it's completely empty. Even out in the interstellar or intergalactic void, there are still random lone hydrogen atoms drifting about, and while the density is very low, if you are going very, very fast (>c) these particles would have a "sandblasting" effect on any ship passing through.
To resist this effect, you might want to make needle-shaped ships with as small a forward-cross section as possible and line the leading faces with extremely powerful magnetic deflectors that redirect the particles
#### Hyperspace "drag"
Similar to the previous point, if your FTL technology works by transitioning the ship into some sort of alternate reality or different plane of existence ("null-space", "sub-space", "warp-space", etc), there's no rule that states this new reality must also be an airless void. Perhaps it's full of gas (might also be handy to limit visibility) or whatever, and this could require more conventional "aerodynamic" designs
#### Geometric transition limitations
Maybe the technology used only works in a specific pattern. For example, the "phase shift generator" can only effect an approximately spherical area around the actual projector/generator. Building bigger generators is prohibitively expensive (because the physics gets wonky or whatever) so designers try to fill the entire volume that the generator covers with ship or construct their ships in long, chain-of-beads, type arrangements focused on several nodes where these magic machines are located
[Answer]
**spaceships are non-homogenous**
the inside of a spaceship is made up of different parts that need different relations to one another. crew areas should be near each other. hot or radioactive parts should be near the surface, and a minimum distance from crew areas. fuel storage should be near the engines. these constraints will lead to an optimal shape for each ship.
**minimal cross-section**
if a ship expects to be attacked or to fly through areas of dust, it may want to be long and thin to present a minimal cross-section towards the things coming at it.
**really big engines**
perhaps spaceship engines need to be much bigger than anything you need to move, or can only move a small amount of mass compared to their size. then spaceships will be whatever shape the engines are, dictated by their principles of operation, with small boxes of people and stuff attached.
[Answer]
Nuclear engines, centrifuges, pressurization and radiators.
For the movie 2001, Stanley Kubrick did meticulous research on what a deep space vessel would look like and initially came up with:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rP7jG.jpg)
It has all 4 elements in play:
The nuclear engine is waay in the back, separated from the habitable section by a long cantilever section, because radiation shielding is very heavy, so it's more efficient to shield by distance. It has large radiators for rejecting waste heat from the engine. The front is a sphere, because that's the easiest shape to pressurize and contains a centrifuge that stimulates gravity. In the final film, they lost the radiators, because the ship ended up looking too airplane like.
The spaceship in Avatar, also designed with meticulous attention to science has the same elements arranged differently:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RG29W.jpg)
The engine is now at the front(left in this picture), also separated by distance for radiation, but the middle is a tether instead of a cantilever, so the engines pull instead of push. It also has a large radiator. The spheres are there as the most efficient shape to insulate fuel. The centrifuge at the back is the end two trusses.
So any deep space spaceship, would, due to physics, be a collection of huge flat radiators, spheres, toruses and long thin trusses. Anything but a brick.
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## Sloped armor.
Simply put, armor works better when there's more of it between you and whatever is shooting at you. However, adding more armor means adding more mass, which reduces mobility. Military minds have thought on this conundrum in real life, and a solution has been found: sloped armor. By angling a piece of armor so that it's not being directly hit by the enemy weapons, you can effectively increase the depth of the armor that the weapon needs to penetrate to effectively damage your ship.
However, it's not really possible to build a sphere to have sloped armor - every angle the enemy could be firing from will have a point in the centre where a direct hit will occur if the enemy strikes it.
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# Practical reasons
Have you ever wondered why many fictional space ships do *not* look like bricks? Take Star Treck for example. It has an iconic look with the engines placed on some really weird appendages. Sure it might not be all practical of you think about it, but they do have some lore reason why. The space ship seen in the movie Avatar (with the blue people) is a better example in that regard. It is build much closer to real life, allowing a glean into why you shouldn't build boxes and spheres.
Most likely, you'll kill the crew. Second most likely, you'll damage your spaceship. Engines and power sources are very finicky and can possibly roast the crew or the ship. The radiation needs to be contained while safely powering the ship. This is why you might want the power source to be somewhere else where it's easier to shield the crew and the ship. The same goes for the engines. Their sci-fi propulsion might be dangerous, requiring exact measurements and no interfering parts, possibly also prevent the rest of the ship of reacting in turn.
Finally there is heat. You might think heat isn't a big problem in space. Because space is cold! Unfortunately there is so little cold space it's hard to lose heat. This means any process can build up heat, eventually cooking circuits, engines or passengers. Most of the 'solar panels' on the ISS are actually panels to radiate heat. In Avatar you can also see some large things radiating heat as they arrive.
There's probably more you can think of. Weapons, special batteries, alternative energy storage, sci-fi replicators and more. Your spaceship might look radically different from a box out of necessity.
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Okay - so there's a bunch of options, in addition to the other good answers given - realistically it will be a combination of factors:
**Firing Arcs of the Weapons**
You mentioned Weaponary - well, depending on your weapons configuration, a Box shaped ship has some big dead-zones. Now, you could argue that if it's a flat side on the weapons side, then you would have a full 180 degree sphere of fire - however, by elevating the weapon and putting it in a turret and rounding the edges, we now have a greater field of fire (depending, of course, on your weapon type.
**A Combination of Mass, Armor, internal volume and Delta V**
If we consider Tank design, the smaller the internal volume of the tank, the less Armor you need to adequately protect it, the less armor you need, the lighter your tank is (and the cheaper it is to produce). Historically, the US Navy for their fast WW2 era Battleships, used an All-or-Nothing Scheme. You have very heavily protected vitals (Magazines, Turrets, Engine spaces etc.) and minimal armor in less vital area (so that AP Shells will just poke a neat hole in one side and zip out the other without going Bang).
A Box *or* sphere aren't going to be the most efficient with internal space, especially in areas that may not need to be that big and considering the hostility of Space, we are allowed to assume that all of the ship will have a minimum degree of Armor - but if there's weaponary, we can also assume that vital areas (Life Support systems etc.) will have extra protection.
This all adds up and you want to have the smallest necessary mass for your ship for the best acceleration/performance - Hence the Delta-V.
In short - you don't want any section to be bigger than it needs to be (see below), to minimize the amount of armor and mass used.
**Resource shortages**
Maybe not Shortages per se - but building a Space ship is expensive, it requires lots of materials and lots of clever people. Even if your society doesn't use Money in a conventional sense - just the time of all the people required (and robots if you use them for construction) is a lot. Therefore even if a Box shape might be better, if it uses excess resources where not needed, it's not going to be efficient.
**Different size components**
Someone mentioned 'Really big Engines' - and this is an extension of that point. If you have a component that has a minimum size - Engines are likely a good example as they take up significant space and weight in any large moving object. After the Engines, if nothing else needs to be that big, it makes little sense to have a box that is the same size as the Engines, this would likely give a tapered look to the vessel on this point alone - but there are other systems that might need a minimum size and need to be in a specific location - like a shield module or emergency escape pods.
**Aesthetics**
Don't discount this. There's an old Aviation adage 'If it looks good, it flies good' Even commercial vehicles will have secondary design choices with Aesthetics in mind. Functionality first, but once that's done, the Designers can have a certain flare.
**We've always done it this way**
Likewise. Don't discount this either. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, incremental improvement with known principles is extremely prevalent in all forms of Engineering. I mean, look at early submarines - they were merely funny-shaped boats that went underwater. It wasn't until the deeper diving nuclear subs that the tear-drop shape that we now associate with Submarines became a thing - that's 2 world wars and 50 ish years of 'We've always done it this way'.
It's likely that the people who build the initial space fairing craft, will be traversing an Atmosphere and so those design principles (that are known and work) will get carried over for many years to come.
**Engineering reasons**
Spheres are kinda hard to make and having sharp edges/corners is bad for pressure bearing surfaces (IIRC, the first Jet airliner had square windows which failed, which is now Airlines have the oval shaped windows - due to this) - and so having a rectangular box and having a sphere are, from an engineering PoV either difficult or impractical (I'm sure an actual engineer will pop along and point out that I've massively over-generalized - but if it's convincing enough for a first glance, it will work for a story)
There's a few more I can think of, but they are variations on those main points.
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# Broadsides and moment of inertia.
A ship with broadside-firing cannons should have the maximum area on the broadside end and a minimum total area that needs armoring, which means the ship would be narrower. The top and bottom of the ship could be more heavily armored on account of not having gun ports. The ship would also need to be able to roll, either to turn the broadside to bear on an enemy above or below, or to turn the narrow side towards incoming fire and soak it on the narrow and more heavily armored side.
I haven't done the math, but I think an ellipse could give a lower moment of inertia around the roll axis, for an equivalent amount of broadside area. There might be other shapes with the same property.
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There are many reasons we might expect future spacecraft to be long and pointy.
* **Armor angling:** incoming projectiles are more likely to glance if they hit a slope (or otherwise have more armor in the way to penetrate, per a tangent function) while a laser with the same angular size will be spread over a greater physical area if that angular cross-section lands on a slope (which means its penetration will be reduced). So we might expect combat spacecraft to have sloped faces, like main battle tanks do today. And sloping against the sides, top, and bottom gives the vehicle a diamond-, dagger- or star-like cross section.
* **Cross section:** At long ranges in open space, one can be reasonably aware of where attacks are most likely to come from. Thus, having a very small frontal face can be useful to minimize the area that the opponent can lock onto and shoot. Narrow spacecraft again have an advantage here.
* **Propulsion safety:** Powerful space engines in current thinking mostly involve various nuclear reactions or even antimatter, and produce enormous amounts of radiation. Thus, it may be important to keep crew modules far away from the engines, which means having a long vehicle.
* **Radiators:** You say a sphere gives the smallest surface area per volume, but one of the big issues on a spacecraft is heat rejection, since there is no atmospheric convection to carry it away from the surface. Spacecraft should *minimize* their volume to ensure that heat can be easily conducted to the surface from reactors and electrical components. They also may end up with extensible wing-like radiators (akin to the long white sheet-shaped ones on the ISS), or in more advanced settings droplet radiators that spray high-temperature metal in arcs or contain it in open areas, both of which very much disrupt the expected shape of a brick.
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A spaceship which has to travel fast will find that space is not totally empty. It will run into space dust and space atoms, and loose space electrons and protons and it will run into photons of light which will be blue shifted to higher and more dangerous frequencies by the doppler effect.
So the faster a space ship has to travel, the more it should be a narrow cylinder to minimize the front surface that impacts particles and photons.
And the internal layout of the decks should be more like a skyscraper than like a ship at sea. The decks should be circular, and perpendicular to the direction of travel. So if the ship has artificial gravity generators the direction of up and down will be parallel to the direction the ship travels. If the ship accelerates or decelerates, the artificial gravity generators will increase or decrease their output to keep the gravity felt by the crew steady. If the decks were laid out like on a ship, the artificial gravity generators would have to adjust their angle by 90 degrees as well as changing their amount of force. That would be much more complex.
And if there are no artificial gravity generators, a layout of circular decks at right angles to the direction of travel instead of long decks in the direction of travel would be even more necessary. If a space ship had long decks in the direction of travel, and someone was walking in a large fore and aft corridor when suddenly the engines started firing and making acceleration, they would find themselves falling down a large shaft to their death.
Anyone who has ever seen *The Black Hole* (1979) should realize how silly it is for the *Cygnus* to have the layout of a ocean ship with decks parallel to the direction of travel and rocket engines at the back. There is a corridor that looks thousands of feet long on the *Cygnus*. If someone is in the corridor when the rockets fire hard they will fall to their death at the back of the corridor, possibly breaking through the rear wall and damaging the engines.
I remember an A. E. van Vogt story from the 1960s, where the protagonist suddenly turned on the rocket engines, turning the rear bulkhead into the floor, which the antagonist slammed into.
It is quite possible that a spaceship would be a tall, narrow cylindrical framework of struts, with engines, fuel tanks, machinery spaces, crew quarters, etc. in various spherical, cylindrical, conical, etc. structures within the framework.
And in most cases there might not be any strong reason, except aesthetics, to put hull plating allover the main cylindrical framework, as Michael said in his answer.
Even in a space war, if two Earth colony planets with the same technology and with spies go to war, there may not be any reason to hide the various sections of a warship with opaque hull plating. The enemy may know from spies exactly how far along the hull of a warship the most vital areas are.
But in a space opera with many unknown and possibly hostile civilizations in the galaxy, there would be a possibility of of having to fight a civilization which has no prior information about the layout of your space battleships. Thus it would make sense to have opaque hull plating all over the framework of a space warship, so the enemy has no clue where the most vital parts of the ship are.
And if a spaceship normally lands and takes off planets which have atmospheres, it should have the entire cylinder covered with hull plating for streamlining.
I note that there is an floating platform, RP *FLIP*, which can mostly fill with water so most of of it sinks beneath the sea, and only one end sticks out of the water, for scientific research. And so the part of the ship which is inhabited has to have chambers designed so that two different sides can be the floor, depending on the position of the platform at the time.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP_FLIP>
And if the inhabited part of that ship were larger, it might make sense to put it on gimbals, so that the decks would always be horizontal whether the ship was vertical or horizontal or in between. Then researchers wouldn't have to adjust to the floor becoming a wall and a wall becoming the floor.
And possibly a large cylindrical spaceship might have the crew quarters and other parts sensitive to the direction of gravity, be spheres mounted on giant gimbals, within the hollow cylinder.
When the spaceship was travelling under power in space, or standing vertically on the surface of planet, the spherical sections would be in position with their decks at right angles to the direction of thrust or gravity, so that gravity or thrust would push down against the decks.
And when the spaceship was landed horizontally on the surface of a planet, the circular sections would be turned 90 degrees to have their decks parallel to the length of the ship and to the surface of the planet. Thus the force of gravity would push downward against the decks instead of sideways.
If a cylindrical spaceship has a height/length of many hundreds, or thousands, feet, it might be unstable in a vertical position on a planet, and so it might be considered better to land it in a horizontal position.
In A.E. van Vogt's *Mission to the Stars* the Earth space battleship *star Cluster* can break up into many smaller spaceship and then reassemble into one ship again.
I can imagine a spaceship made of tens, hundreds, or thousands of smaller sections or vessels, each with sufficient engines to maneuver a little. Each of the smaller vessels or sections might be square, hexagonal, or circular in cross section, and normally they would be clustered together in a configuration with a number of them side by side.
But when the spaceship made an interstellar voyage at high speeds, the sections would disassemble and then reassemble so that they were all end to end, forming a very long and narrow cylinder to minimize the cross section that would be hit by particles of matter and energetic photos at vast interstellar speeds.
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If in a distant future, mankind is capable of launching massive spacecraft for extended missions (an interstellar mission implies spanning longer than a single lifespan or generation of a population), designs will more likely be driven by improving the quality of life rather than being limited by technical capabilities.
Even now, the prevailing thought in the aerospace community is that artificial gravity will be a driving requirement/necessity in larger spacecraft/stations performing extended missions. NASA's Human Research Program has published a good bit material on the impact of microgravity on human biology (as we now have data on astronauts living on the space station for over a year continuously), not to mention the fear of generational impacts of microgravity on human evolution.
That being said, it might be safe to assume ships design will mature primarily to support larger populations in artificial gravity (or that competitive forces will favor those who develop ships with artificial gravity). In film, I think a good reference for a smaller ship would look like the Hermes spacecraft in The Martian. In the movie Passengers, the starship Avalon is a much larger colony ship fitting your description, both movies having been applauded in the engineering community for their feasibility relative to the spacecraft design.
<https://futurism.com/is-that-ship-from-passengers-really-possible>
A little more in the non-fiction realm, the Stanford Torus is a class of space habitats proposed by NASA capable of housing 10-140,000 inhabitants and also potentially supporting deep space travel.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_torus>
In short, I think there's already enough forward thinking design that wouldn't suggest spacecraft would evolve into big flying bricks, although I'd be the first to admit this is all wildly speculative and time could prove us all wrong.
Happy worldbuilding!
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**Drive Lethality.** Motive power is provided by a technology which provides very high (thrust)/(warp speed) but which has intense (radiation)/(fringe warping). The engineering solution which works best is to connect the crew module far from the engine. In the case of radiation, inverse square reduces the radiation levels, and shielding only needs to occlude the relatively small angle of the engine. For "fringe warping", the spatial distortions are naturally local to the drive. The result is a long, thin geometry. If exhaust direction/center of gravity is a problem, as with some sort of reaction drive, you might have an engine at each end, with the crew quarters in the middle, and the two engines firing at right angles to the connecting beam.
**Platonic Solids** - Drive field is produced by a network of largeish modules which must form a "uniform" network completely outside the hull. If the number of modules can be small, the result is a Platonic solid such as a tetrahedron (for 4 modules).
**Wormhole/Aperture Clearance** - The ship's drive works by creating a "wormhole" aperture of a fixed, inconveniently small, size, say 10 meters. Beyong this radius, tidal forces skyrocket and will tear the craft apart. Then ships will, up to a certain size, be long and slender in order to fit through the hole while maintaining a useful total volume. There is obviously an upper limit to the aspect ratio.
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Your ships are designed for space, but don't fool yourself into thinking that they'll *only* ever be used in space. There will be times, even if infrequent, where you will need to enter an atmosphere: to make yourself look big and intimidating, for construction/repair purposes, to dock with or release a craft that's only capable of atmospheric flight, to fly through the outer layers of a gas giant, etc. In those use cases, a boxy shape is anywhere from ridiculously inefficient to downright dangerous. Extreme weather like Jupiter's Great Red Spot could make your ship impossible to control.
It's very unlikely that your ship would be designed like a giant box because it wouldn't make sense to limit your functionality like that. You don't have to design for optimal efficiency in every possible role, you just want to avoid making yourself needlessly *bad* at something. The last thing you want is for your enemies to be able to simply slip into an atmosphere under a cloud layer and force you to stop pursuit.
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Even if you don't have atmospheric or hydrospheric drag, you certainly have inertia and forces acting on the hull, assuming that you have acceleration with engines attached in some location. You want your structure to be such that those forces of acceleration are distributed to all parts of the vessel you want to bring with you, without breaking anything. Any structure which would fail due to gravity if supported only in certain spots, would suffer as badly in weightlessness if exposed to 1G acceleration at the same spots.
Also, space is not completely empty, and you want to avoid collisions, or at least bad consequences of collisions. If you expect objects in space to move much faster than the ship, you want minimal cross-sectional area from any directions, which suggests a sphere. If you expect the vessel to be of significant speed compared to objects you might collide with, you want a small cross-sectional area from the front, so probably a narrow cylinder, and you might want a pointy tip which could deflect some objects and cause the passage through the hull to be much longer for objects which still hit.
If you want to minimize mass and cost, you want minimal surface area for the needed volume, which would mean a sphere.
There are obviously other aspects too.
You might have a nuclear power plant which you prefer to have at a fair distance from sensitive parts of the ship to avoid radiation problems. Maybe that leads to two parts at a fair distance separated by space and a strong metal lattice so that only a small part of the radiation will go in the direction of sensitive parts. Maybe you place some insensitive bulk of material between radiation sources and e.g. people.
You might have sensors which need to be far away from things that would disturb them.
If you want to reduce the radiation to/from the ship, you want the sphere shape, but there could also be places where you want heatsinks to radiate excess heat and thus want maximized area.
You might have e.g. solar panels which should have a maximum undisturbed surface area towards a star. Or solar sails.
If you have tanks with high pressure content, you want those parts to be cylindrical or spherical. Regarding the nominal air pressure in inhabited parts, 1 bar is tiny pressure difference compared to things like pressure tanks, so they don't prevent you from e.g. a cubic block, but while all 90 degree corners are great for room or truck sized things where you want to use the area will and not get useless areas along bends or odd angles, this convenience doesn't scale to kilometer sizes.
Making a large brick sized space ship doesn't bring any more utility than a perfectly rectangular city would. Those far away corners are pretty wasteful and useless. They are further away from other parts of the vessel, so you need more transport, longer pipes and cables etc. Your'e not planning to squeeze that huge ship into a tight hangar, right?. The corners also use more material, add more area where there could be a leak etc.
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* Pressure vessels will be spherical. Think gas storage, pressurized habitats etc.
* Rotating habitat modules for artificial gravity will be rings, cylinders or tethered pods.
* Shields for close passes to a star or against high speed particles, micrometeorites etc. will be (mostly) on one side only.
* Heat radiators will be thin panels to maximize surface area.
* Similarly for solar panels.
* RF antennas will use large parabolic reflectors.
* Telescopes for near-visible light will also use large parabolic reflectors.
* Magnetorquers for attitude control around a planet will be long sticks.
* Nuclear reactors will need heat dissipation and shielding and/or separation from other sections (take a look at Curiosity’s RTG).
* Engines and reaction control thrusters have to point in the right direction. Center of gravity has to be in line with engine thrust.
* Engines and related components might have shielding and separation between them so that a single exploding engine doesn’t doom the whole ship.
* Other components might also be separated and shielded from each other for redundancy and safety.
* Docking ports or berths need to be accessible without bumping into anything.
As you can see there are plenty of reasons why it wouldn’t just be one big sphere or cube. All the above components would probably be connected by trusses and struts but there is no reason (beyond aesthetics) to enclose them. Unless you want the whole ship to be pressurized with breathable atmosphere so that humans can access all the parts (e.g. for maintenance) without donning an EVA suit.
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# Protection against space debris and radiation
One of the big issues a spaceship would face is that when it flies at high speed, it is bound to meet lots of tiny grains of dust and small rocks, and at that high speed, they will impact like high yield explosives (or even nuclear explosives, given high enough speed). Additionally, all radiation from the front of the ship will be heavily blueshifted at very high relativistic speeds and thus made more dangerous. To minimise these effects, you want to minimise the front cross-section and thus the spaceship to be shaped like a thin cylinder, with the front side being heavily armoured against debris and radiation. So a huge spaceship might be a cylinder 1km in length, but only something like 25 metres in radius, with the front layer of armour easily being over 10 metres thick.
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The shape with the best surface area to volume ratio (potentially, a theoretically **constant** surface area/volume ratio. Estimated to be between 2.5-3 fractal dimension), is a Mandelbulb. Spaceships with concern for heat dissipation might converge upon a mandelbulb shape. Because of its high surface area fractal dimension, spacecraft of all sizes could be mandelbulb-shaped without running into problems with the square-cube law (or at least scaling much better than a cube or sphere).
Also, depending upon how the spaceshifts are manufactured, regular shapes might not be easier or hard to make. 3D manufacturing techniques could allow any geometry to be made as easily as any other geometry, opening up the potential for extremely organic-appearing spacecraft.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/blVQp.png)
[Mandelbulb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbulb).
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I am just hearing an old space captain in my head going on a rant:
"Shaped like a brick? Oh I remember when my grandfather was flying this thing, and it was still shaped like a brick! It was beautiful.
"Then he had the corners trimmed off to reduce the longest dimensions; that was a common trick to reduce the tax on the Arcturan routes.
"When he gave up on trading in that sector, he added a large cargo bay that only extended halfway up on one side, and a hemi-spherical fuel tank on the other, jutting out. He had no sense of style, that man!
"When the main thruster started being unreliable, my mother saved up to buy 4 expensive auxiliary thrusters - cylinders that were to be attached at the base, but only three were custom-fitted before the company went broke. She had to make do with those three, until she could afford to add a fourth cheap-arse stock thruster. It is twice the weight of the other three, but only has half the power. Thing never steered right after that.
"I had grand hopes when I took over. I bought this shimmering titanium shell that covered the whole ship and hid everything. Nothing but 90 degree corners. It looked very professional - I thought it would give me an edge in negotiating higher freightage, but the shell only last lasted about 6 parsecs before the whole thing shredded during a gravity-assist manoeuvre, and now all that is left are these girders sticking out at weird angles from every surface.
"I can't handle all the dirty looks I get when I park it next to some modern perfect oblong."
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**Purpose identification and 'readability'**
People have already mentioned things like sloped armor and weapon firing arcs, but style is certainly very important when building a ship.
If its a civilian vessel, a better looking craft is gonna sell better, or at least, be able to be sold more.
If its a military vessel, intimidation might be a valuable asset. Nobody wants to fight a scary looking ship, but if every ship looks like a box, then it could be easy to feel like youre just gonna be fighting every other civilian vessel.
Regardless of what it is, style can simply show people what this vessel is used for. We know what a firetruck looks like, or an ambulance or police car. We know what features an off-road vehicle will have, compared to a regular vehicle. In this setting, curved plates and large windows may indicate its a civilian vessel. Sharp and sloped armor (and weapons) would indicate military, sharp corners and a blockier design could indicate industrial purposes. Having distinct features on specific types of ships can indicate what that ship is supposed to do.
] |
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[
My story takes place in an archipelagus in world X, inhabited by people X.
In the shores of the capital city of that archipelagus, there is a bay of deep, dark waters. It's supposed to be dark and deep enough to feel scary and lovecraftian.
From that bay, people Y simply float up from the darkness, naked, and unconscious in a coma-like state, and are then literally fished with fishing nets and revived by a permanent patrol of glorified elite lifeguards, and are integrated into society X.
Upon being revived, people Y have little or no memory of who they are or where they came from but, those who do, all have the same memory: They came from world Y, and that's all the memory they have, most of the time.
Basically, the darkwater bay is a portal between world X and Y that no one remembers crossing. (There actually is much more to it but it's not exactly relevant to this question)
Most of the story revolves around the relationships between people X and Y, their power dynamics, prejudice, and cultural differences. I will most likely come back here for more questions but my question for today is: How can people Y be visually identified? (Both X and Y are regular humans)
I tought, at first, of some sort of scar from the salt water or sunburns from floating in the sea, or maybe marks from the fishing net (I intend on working on an insult from people X to people Y that compares them to fishes or something), but I'm not sure that's even possible.
How can the experience of floating in the sea (forgot to mention it's a tropical and sunny place) and then being fished by fishing nets physically mark people permanently?
(edit: Another idea I came up while writing this: Since I'm going for a lovecraftian feel, maybe jellyfish scars might be good, because they have tentacles and can somehow inject a toxin that might work as a plot device (such as, the toxin makes them not drown or something), and eventually, some special characters might have specially large scars, that somehow makes everyone go "OH MY GOD THAT SCAR IS SO BIG IT MUST NOT BE A REGULAR JELLYFISH BUT SOME MONSTER FROM THE DEPTHS!", which could work as an "imminent disaster" plot device. I google "jellyfish scars" and they definitely look like something out of lovecraft. Any opinions on jellyfish?)
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# You want something Lovecraftian?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6nV9X.jpg)
Above is a [lamprey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamprey). Below is a healed lamprey wound on a human. When your poor Y-folk are recovered at sea, the fishermen burn off the lampreys that seem to love human flesh. Once they heal, they are permanently covered by circular, toothy-looking scars.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dMqFi.jpg)
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# Beware the monsters and their tentacles
Given that they would be long dead if they'd spent more than a few minutes in the deep dark along with my own experience spending hours sailing on salt water. No, the sea itself is not going to scar them directly in the short term. However long term exposure to salt water will cause physical damage.
Depending what the geography is like, both hard corals and barnacle covered rocks will do considerable damage to exposed skin. The sea is full of predators who might take a bite out of a passing body, but if you're looking for lovecraftian, the giant squid sucker scars that many sperm whales carry show that there's definitely something alive down there with tentacles capable of doing significant damage as you pass through. It's entirely reasonable for your people to be coming up with injuries.
You're asking for scars though. Scars are a side effect of healing, you only see scars on old injuries. The people coming out of the water should be recently injured, not carrying old scars.
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Any of the regular prejudice justifications can work in this scenario. Perhaps the people of World Y have darker skin, slanted eyes or red hair. They might be taller or shorter or even have slightly different body chemistry which expresses itself as an odor.
It is likely that cause for any scars encountered during the brief/survivable rise to the surface, would also be encountered regularly by the fishermen/lifeguards who save them. That might make for an interesting statement about the true nature of prejudice since the maligning mark on people Y would be a badge of honor, assumed to be earned in noble service when worn by a person of X.
The mark might also be sourced by something on World Y or from the void between worlds which travelers must pass through when going through the portal. Since you are going for a Lovecraftian feel, leave the specific nature of these void dwellers obscure but imply (via surviving memories) that many more people attempt the portal passage than the few who survive the journey.
Mixing all these options together, imagine that fundamentally the people of world Y are asthetically different (maybe pale green skin) which means even the lucky scar free are still victimized. Then allow the void dwellers to venture out from the portal for brief periods of time where the X lifeguards encounter them and earn their badges of honor. And give the Y people memories of loved ones who they never would have left behind but who didn't make it through the portal.
Now all that is left is to choose what you want the scar to look like and then create a void dweller creature that can inflict it. Perhaps a tentacle sucker scar like @Separatrix suggested, but triangular rather than the earth-norm oval. That way you can keep with your alphabetic abbreviations. The scars could look like the capital letter A which should provide the hateful members of the X's with plenty of slurs for their vitriol.
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The Y people are **exiles**. They have committed some criminal act in their home world where execution is banned and imprisonment is very expensive. They are not necessarily considered bad in X - it depends on the crime. Maybe they have refused to fight in the army.
To prevent them ever returning through the portal, they are tattooed on their forehead with the legend "Exile" in their own language. The X language is pictographic and the word for exile is a picture of a beetle. The Ys are therefore nicknamed 'beetles' by the Xs.
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Depending on the story, these Y people could have the general look of drowned corpses at sea: bleached skin, slightly bleached hair, a general, incurable, swelling of the abdomen, circled eyes, cold to the touch, a watery gaze, an oily mucuous layer at the mouth. You could add random drooling as a result of the water still in their body, and the inability to perceive flavors in the same way X people do due to having been with salty water in their mouth for far too long. Also, the salt left in their ear channel after drying might give them a natural distortion to hearing if not a partial disability.
While these are not literal scars, they are marks that are distinctive enough to be used for discrimination.
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# Concerning your interrogation on jellyfish scars
These scars can be pretty impressive and can last for a very long time : At least on certain part of the body, from my personal experience. I know this subject as I got burned by one of them 20 years ago and I still have the mark on my lips ! yes I took the jellyfish straight in my face... !
Your jellyfishes can be regular ones and not necessarily deadly ones. If they are numerous enough, the probability for Y people to get marks on lips for life is pretty high and could become their distinctive sign.
I can already hear the jokes:
"***Jelly Kisser...***"
Picture of the leg of a 10 year-old girl who got burned by a box jellyfish if you want severe burnings :
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cqOTT.jpg)
[Picture link](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-04-27/jellyfish-sting-survivor-shouldnt-be-alive/412396)
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May I introduce you to [Ross Edgley](https://www.redbull.com/gb-en/ross-edgley-completes-great-british-swim). He recently swam all the way around Britain in 157 days not touching land until he completed his target.
Along the way his hands and feet would have shrivelled and essentially gotten trench foot. His tongue was exposed to so much salt water that it started drying out and chunks fell out, there are videos of him pulling pieces of his tongue off! And he had chafing around his wetsuit...a lot of chafing. So much so that people started calling him 'rhino neck'.
I would hazard a guess that some mechanism in your complex saltwater portal could have a side effect of prolonged salt water exposure (even if they are only exposed for a short time, they appear to have had prolonged exposure). I know your characters arrive naked, but they could have initially had clothing/jewellary to provide some sort of abrasive chaffing action that would result in similar scar like features as the photo below. Maybe, something that falls off during the final stage of the portalling.
If you are wanting to be able to identify the same scar on each Character Y, say around the neck, then give them something to wear around that limb that makes the portalling succeed (a 'portal key' of some sort). Like a 'lucky charm'/'religious icon'/'fashion item'/'hospital tag'/'prisoner id' etc that they may or may not be aware of the full intended use of.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rrl36.jpg)
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Just make them pale.
Xs sound like they're outdoor a lot, on top of that I pictured them in kinda the carribean or so, meaning that they would have a rather brownish, at least well tanned skin.
Y however come from the depths, maybe Place Y is also less sunny (or even in a cave, who knows) so they can't even become tan.
That would leave them in an unhealthy pale (maybe they can become "normal" [fair-skinned European by complexity] after a while, but will never reach a skin tone that is healthy in Xs environment).
This would make up for a ton of cheap and quick insults.
If you really wanna insult with fish: fish have white flesh, so you can start there
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In order to survive the journey from world Y to world X (= being submerged in the water without oxygen for an extended period of time), the Y people could have to enter a symbiosis with another organism which provides their host with oxygen. This other organism would latch onto its host's mouth and/or nose - think facehuggers - and die shortly after exiting the water leaving clearly visible facial scars.
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Since the people of Y have to float through deep water to get to X, one of their adaptations can be visible gills on their necks. Otherwise how can they survive without oxygen? The gills can be natural (i.e. will be visible on future generations of Y children born on world X) or can be the result of advanced surgical techniques on world Y. You can create some great story lines about discrimination, redemption, and conflicts between black, white, brown, and transgender people with gills. Perhaps a brown female Aqua Force commando can lead a SWAT team to battle the underwater terrorists of a transgender separatist YExit warlord?
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It is, in fact, possible to cut something with jet of water.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_jet_cutter>
Have those people covered head-to-toe with webbing of scars from strange, unnatural tides.
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[Question]
[
Imagine that you're an adventurer archaeologist in the early to mid-20th century, like Indiana Jones. One day you find a lost civilization in an underexplored corner of the world. However, instead of abandoned ruins and booby-trapped temples of doom, you find a living society with a unique culture. It's like a mini-country which has somehow remained isolated from other civilizations for centuries. How plausible would such a situation have been given what we knew at the time? And where in the world could I put this civilization so as best to justify it going unnoticed by the rest of the world for so long? Please note that I'm asking for specific real-life regions and locations and that the civilization's technology level could range anywhere from Neolithic to early modern. Thank you.
Edit: The civilization doesn't have to be thriving, just doing relatively well. And it's okay if local people know about it and even trade with it, as long as they themselves are relatively isolated and low-tech and don't use written records.
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Oh, any number of places.
The first possibility that comes to mind, which theoretically may actually hide isolated tribes in real life, are the various plateaus in the Amazon Rain Forest. Pretty much all of them are completely covered by trees, and they're largely inaccessible to humans even with modern technology because you have to hike through many miles of dangerous rain-forest just to get to them, all while carrying the required gear to climb up (because nobody wants to deal with the huge international stigma that would arise from using a [Skycrane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane) to get there by air and then use a [daisy cutter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-82) to prep a landing zone).
The reality is that lots of other parts of the world are also pretty much completely unobserved by people most of the time, even *with* satellite imaging. That's part of why we can't conclusively refute some claims made by cryptozooligists, we just can't observe the areas in question well enough to conclusively say that there's nothing there.
The tricky part of this is to ensure that any 'locals' who are not part of this civilization don't discover it. Quite a few 'newly discovered' animals over the past century are cases where humans did in fact know about them, but nobody was willing to believe the locals. This is demonstrably the case with the giant panda, okapi, pygmy hippopotamus, and many other animals that many western scientists believed were too 'fantastical' to be real and thus must be legends.
---
Additions in response to updates to the question:
If you don't care that any locals who are not part of the civilization know about them and possibly even trade with them as long as they are themselves isolated from the rest of the world, then this actually doesn't change *much*. It opens up only a few other parts of the world where there are native human populations that are still out of primary contact with the rest of the world.
As of right now (I can't find good historical data that indicates that the situation would have been different to a significant degree in the early to mid 20th century), the currently known but isolated and uncontacted tribes in the world are:
* The Sentinelese people, indigenous to Northern Sentinel Island (part of the Andaman Islands in the bay of Bengal). There have been sporadic instances of contact since the first recorded contact in 1867, but almost all have been either hostile or at best non-friendly, and the island is largely unexplored by outsiders. Currently, the island itself is functionally a fully autonomous self-governed protectorate of India with travel there strictly forbidden with an exclusion zone surrounding the island to a distance of five nautical miles (about 9.3km), though the Sentinelese likely do not know this. At about 60 square kilometers, the Island is small enough that it's not likely to hide an undiscovered civilization, but it's also covered entirely in forestland other than the beaches, so it's conceivable that there's *something* there that we don't know about.
* An assortment of about 50 uncontacted tribes throughout South America. Most such tribes have had only very limited contact with the rest of the world beyond other local tribes, and some are only attested based on information from other tribes in the area. Most such tribes aren't protected and are only uncontacted or isolated due to quite simply living really far from modern civilization.
* An assortment of about 40 uncontacted tribes in Western New Guinea. In these cases, most of them are today actively protected by law, but a lot of them were only (relatively recently) discovered.
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New Guinea comes to mind as a real life example for a hidden post-hunter-gatherer civilization; from the Wikipedia article on the island:
>
> Before about 1930, European maps showed the highlands as uninhabited
> forests. When first flown over by aircraft, numerous settlements with
> agricultural terraces and stockades were observed. The most startling
> discovery took place on 4 August 1938, when Richard Archbold
> discovered the Grand Valley of the Baliem River, which had 50,000
> yet-undiscovered Stone Age farmers living in orderly villages. The
> people, known as the Dani, were the last society of its size to make
> first contact with the rest of the world.
>
>
>
The geography of the island made it specially inaccessible to (European) explorers until the advent of flight.
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I will take your pre-satellite idea and take it one step further by hiding from those too with...
## An Underground City
[Matmata, in Tunisia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matmata,_Tunisia) was an underground community of over 2000 people that was not discovered by the local government until 1969 when flooding collapsed many of thier homes forcing them out of hiding. The people of Matmata stayed hidden most of the time, with locals believing that the region only contained a very small number of nomadic herdsmen; so, with just enough people to tend some flocks they were able to keep the existence of an entire permanent settlement a complete secret to the outside world for generations.
Part of what makes this so compelling is that it was not somewhere all that remote. Matmata had several towns within about 20 miles away from it to the north, east, and west. So, if you were to take this same concept and move it to somewhere that is actually remote, you could probably get away with hiding a much larger underground city more like [Derinkuyu, Turkey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_underground_city) which housed closer to 20,000 people.
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***LEMURIA!* or, Islands, small places, culture, and will:**
I think the best place to find an isolated culture in the mid-20th century would be a largish-sized island or possibly a valley deep in the mountains in a relatively isolated part of the world. Before WW2, there were a number of islands where there was no or virtually no contact with the outside world. People saw airplanes dropping goods to soldiers, and believed them to be gods bearing gifts, giving rise to Cargo cults. (the details of cargo cults are debated, but still...) If you have a complicating factor, like a sargasso surrounding it, this helps justify lack of exploration. The south pacific is about as isolated as you can get, but there were plenty of explorers who went there as well. You'll need additional factors to conceal a sizeable thriving civilization.
There are still places in the world where the locals have virtually no contact with the outside world, but often this is partly by choice. First, the locals need to have no desire to explore - hard to justify unless your culture is extremely insular. A religious or cultural practice emphasizing hostility towards strangers (hard on your explorer), purity of the sacred land/people (so anywhere else is not worth visiting), and lack of change (Amish on an island) can help explain why no one visits (and lives...) and no one leaves.
A stone-age society is easiest to justify, as most of the isolated groups today are at this level and these societies don't require complex inputs of resources to keep going. More sophisticated ones would need stronger isolation and practices to explain (like a kill all foreigners on sight policy). Otherwise, a society that isn't isolated for long (like victorian British colonists deliberately isolating themselves and someone deliberately erasing the memory of them from the history books) could be explainable. Your explorer could find an imperial map with Lemuria on it, but wait, there IS no Lemuria! Ah, but Queen Victoria wanted her wayward relatives (rivals to the throne?) sent away and then deliberately erased all references to the place so no one would ever find out...
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A very remote corner of the world they could be hidden on is Antarctica, maybe an inland valley with enough hydrothermal activity to make it livable year round. Growing crops would be a problem with the limited sunlight, but not impossible to eek out an existence with good hunting/fishing available at the coast. Deception island has hot springs on it and lots of wildlife, plus as a very sheltered harbor, might hide a small civilization from outside observation from most directions.
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Your thriving but hidden civilization needs 3 plausible things:
1. Isolation
2. Resources
3. Cultural pressures
**Isolation** would most likely be geographic, although a borderland, filled with super evil venomous monsters could do in a pinch. You probably also need an isolation event as well e.g.,
1. Storm blew colony ship off course
2. Zeplin crashed in remote lush valley
3. Landslide cuts off access route
4. Giant Spiders settle in the boarderlands
5. All of the villages in-between died out in a plauge (our village practiced physical distancing and hand washing, how quaint)
**Resources**, so Easter island is isolated, but lacks many resources. So you need some place with say lots of easily smeltable metal ore, and fertile land. So they can grow but be self sufficient within their bubble.
**Cultural pressure**, is probably the most important. You need something which causes the society to overcome, cooperate, specialize, trade (internally), and adapt. Examples of this are:
1. Climate in northern Europe.
2. Needing to create a bureaucracy to manage annual flooding of the Nile in bronze age Egypt
**As to where...**
It depends what you mean by thriving. There are plenty of pacific islands that are isolated. I would say they not thriving, but small (happy) and stable. They don't have many cultural challenges\*. ( Because there is a consistent ready supply of resources (you can just just stick a few sticks of cassava in the ground and 6 months later you have a harvest) There is little need build up an excess and then use that excess to trade and level up.
I think if you look at map of the globe at night, anywhere there are not too many lights will make a good spot. Basically any where isolated. But it would need to be somewhere different than where the target audience lives. Even though New Zealand is the last place in the world (excluding Antarctica) to be settled; it would seem silly to me (I live in NZ) to frame it as where lost city of Atlantis was located. The same goes for Shangri-La if you come from Tibet or northern China.
You know, with a few carefully picked isolation events you could locate your civilization in Switzerland! Interesting and different culture, physically isolated on pretty much 3 sides. Add a plauge and some wolf's in the North, a couple of fires in some library's and council offices burning up records of their neighbors, bake for 100 years or so, and boom hidden civilization right in the middle of Europe!
\*I don't want to seem like I am belittling the rich cultures of pacific islands. I just think OP is looking for a civilization with something like metalworking, large temple grounds, that kind of thing.
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**Easter Island**
When European explorers arrived in 1722, the population of Easter Island was down to 2,000 to 3,000 people. Much earlier, there had been a much larger civilization on Easter Island and there had been ongoing trade exchanges with Polynesia.
But Polynesians had stopped going to Easter Island sometime before 1722. So it was, in effect, isolated.
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An island, country or even continent in the middle of an ocean. Prevailing winds and currents could make it difficult for ships to approach or depart.
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