text
stringlengths 22
2.11M
|
|---|
[Question]
[
Scenario:
* An Earth that is identical to our own (for the sake of being specific let's say the environment is the same as it was in 1 BCE)
* The planet is uninhabited by humans (and no there aren't giant creatures like dinosaurs - basically it's exactly like our Earth was, only without humans).
* Suddenly a group of 10,000 seven year olds are "dropped off" in the wilderness to either survive or perish.
* Before being dropped off, the children were raised in a space ship that mimicked earth (they know all about plants, animals, food, etc.) and received advanced survival skills training since they could walk.
* They are unaware of TV, radio, computers, and electronics in general (besides lighting). However, they listened to a variety of music (live) and had access to musical instruments if they wanted. They can read & write and could color and draw if they wanted to. (All of this is to say they were not denied human pleasures, only denied knowledge of and access to electronics).
* They are aware that they would be dropped off in a new world and that they should try to survive.
My questions:
1. Can they survive without adults or any sort of outside help/instruction/tools?
2. I would like to know the likelihood that they would perish vs. survive.
3. If their survival is preposterous, would increasing the starting population from 10,000 to say 50,000 change things?
4. Would they have to be placed in smaller groups spread out over the globe?
Without revealing my greater story, let's just say the reason they are placed on the planet is for long-term monitoring of human evolution by an outside source. I would like to create a feasible situation where they would not just instantly die off. Maybe I should be asking... what is the minimum age wherein this situation would yield something besides immediate disaster?
I know you will ask, "why seven?!" I chose age seven because from what I've seen some kids can be pretty advanced at this age and it seemed an interesting premise to me...but is it totally ridiculous?
For the sake of discussion, feel free to compare it to a society of adult-kid mixture being dropped off in the same scenario.
Are there other things I should consider?
(Also please feel free to ask anything to clarify if I missed something)
Thank you so much for your time!
[Answer]
Children the age of 3 can be trained to recognize dangerous vs acceptable vegetable foods. At age 3 they can be in kindergarten and learning. They can also learn to acquire berries, honey, and to recognize and harvest edible insects like ants.
Presuming 90% of their training is survival skills and we don't mind the occasional injury or death of children in training, around age 5 they have the mental capacity to learn making fire, using knives, knapping flint into tools like spears, etc. They can already learn to throw, they could learn to make and use atlatl and slings:
A slung rock can have the impact of a 45 caliber bullet; and an experienced slinger can hit a bullseye (or a forehead) from a hundred feet: it is an under-rated hunting weapon, far easier to construct than a bow, and can use projectiles easily found. Further, it does not require the muscular strength of drawing a bow; the slung stone can be less than an ounce and the strength is just that required to swing it in a circle a half dozen times.
Note that the world's youngest sharpshooter (with a gun) is only six: <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/shooting/6009319/Worlds-youngest-sharp-shooter-aged-six.html>
I provide that as evidence of the skill level achievable by seven-year-olds if they are trained.
I presume the children will be able to hunt small game (birds, squirrels) or even deer; will have (in class) butchered and cleaned these, and will know how to make fires and cook both the animals, and the vegetables they find.
Also, note six-year-olds are already playing baseball, they can be taught to use basic clubs, and presumably in training have already killed and eaten animals.
Likewise, they can be taught to build shelters (IRL they are already building themselves forts), find water.
On a coastline or river or stream, they could build nets to fish, or make basic fence traps: Sticks sharpened and hammered into a stream bed in a 'comb' pattern, to divert larger fish (those that won't fit between the sticks) into a longish channel that ends near one of the banks in a pen, or net. Rocks can be used, but you want the fence tall enough that fish can't jump it. My point here is you don't need hooks or knives or anything else; if necessary a stick can be sharpened by grinding it against natural rock, and some vines are suitable for tying into knots to make a basic net that lasts long enough to catch some food.
---
# Bigger problems:
I don't think *survival* would be an issue for trained 7-year-olds; other than injury from falls and some predation and illness (viruses, infections).
To me the bigger problem is political organization; how they are supposed to cooperate. You will also have the problem, in about four years, of impending puberty and gender separation: In actual grade schools in the USA, fifth grade is the year (just before actual puberty for most) that girls and boys start separating themselves by gender; that boys start "showing off" and becoming aggressive and girls start whispering cliques. By sixth grade, gender issues are so rampant they routinely disrupt both classes and learning.
So in year 5, how your (now 12-year-old) children manage to deal with puberty, sexuality, the violence of competitiveness, rape, etc will be interesting to see (and hard to keep plausible and realistic).
That is what could kill them by droves, indirectly. The solution for chimps and gorillas is a combination of fight and flight: Some young males are disabled or killed challenging an alpha male; other young males exile themselves (and sometimes get a young female to go with them), but there is a low chance of that resulting in a new tribe.
In humans, the males will fight for mates (and the resources to attract a mate and support a family) and kill each other over it; in hunter-gatherer tribes, warfare between neighbors can be frequent and lethal, in fact the chances of being killed by another human can be far greater than the chances of being killed by the jungle!
That's the big problem. For these kids, survival may depend on tribal socialism (our natural state) in which everybody contributes to the community stew pot, sharing the results of their hunt and gather, helping to build common shelters and fires, tool making, etc.
When sexuality enters the scene, **without** any culture (taught and enforced by adults) to put restrictions on how to transform from a child into an adult sexualized person, a mother or father: That new twist (for them) could break up successful tribes into factions. The sharing stops and the parts become less than the whole: They may all die out.
I am also not so sure any of that could be taught to seven-year-olds before dropping them off, or if they would care, five years later. That would seem like a lifetime to them without any adults, and with no punishment or admonishment of anybody.
[Answer]
Before getting to the issues of the question proper, this answer will first consider the following aspect "the reason they are placed on the planet is for long-term monitoring of human evolution by an outside source."
This means putting on our scientist hat and thinking how this would work as an experiment in human evolution. Most definitely long-term monitoring would be both necessary and essential. However, from the first this looks more like an experiment in human survival rather than evolution.
The good thing is the children receive training in environments that are Earthlike. Hopefully, their training environments will be similar to the environments they encounter where they are landed on the planet. They do have advanced survival skills, but it is essential they have an understanding of the planet's plant and animal life.
It is important in any experiment that too many experimental organisms are not wasted unnecessarily. This means it is essential that wherever the children are placed on their destination planet that they are reasonably well adapted to its environment. They must be capable of gathering food, building shelter, making tools and garments, and making sure they don't get lost.
It is possible that an experiment of this kind might not get past a properly constituted ethical committee. Bad experiments still do happen, but they should be severely discouraged. This experiment might need more consideration about how it tests human evolution instead of plain old-fashioned human survival.
Now for the questions:
1. Can they survive without adults or any sort of outside help/instruction/tools?
Possibly, yes, taking into their training and preparation prior to their landing. However, they may need to land equipped with tools and appropriate clothing. Perhaps, even having shelters made in advance. These can be thatched huts of the sort found in African villages.
Outside help and instruction would certainly greatly facilitate their capacity to adapt to their new world. This may depend on how difficult it is to settle into their new environment(s).
2. I would like to know the likelihood that they would perish vs. survive.
I would expect a high death rate. This is the sort of thing that makes this as an experimental protocol a bit of a worry. Preparation and any outside assistance may need to be maximized to ensure their survival. This is contingent upon the level of hazards they confront in their new world. later on they will need to cope the difficulties of child birth. Midwives and other mothers were usually essential to assist with this.
Survival can be difficult. Their training should ameliorate this.
3. If their survival is preposterous, would increasing the starting population from 10,000 to say 50,000 change things?
It will improve the probability of their long-term survival. However, if they prepared well enough then they have good chances of survival.
Increasing the initial population to fifty thousand will definitely improve their survival. It will also increase their genetic diversity.
4. Would they have to be placed in smaller groups spread out over the globe?
To improve their chances of survival it might best to place the children in small groups over a region where conditions are most hospitable for their survival. Placing ten thousand children in too small an area they will soon deplete its resources. They should be dispersed across an area where resources (food and the materials for tools, shelter and clothing) are abundant and their density is low enough that they don't consume those resources voraciously. Having enough resources with exhausting them too quickly will enable them to, hopefully, thrive and expand into the surrounding environments.
The initial small groups should be bigger than one hundred and twenty or so. Say, one hundred and thirty and upwards because groups of this size have enough genetic diversity to obviate the dangers of inbreeding. This can be also be fixed by selecting test subjects with innate levels of high genetic diversity. Africans, for example, this does mean persons from the Dark Continent itself, have higher levels of genetic diversity than persons from the rest of planet Earth. A high percentage of test subjects who have an African heritage will guarantee this provision.
[Answer]
I think a book like this has been written before... [Lord of the Flies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies)?
Survival probabilities will be influenced by the hostility of the environment; in a benign predatory and parasitic environment with a moderate climate, free availability of water and food, the only risks the subjects will face is accident and interpersonal conflict; kind of like the developed world.
My experience of seven year olds is that they are poor at prioritization, time management, risk assessment and medium- to long-term planning. Basically, they don't see the big picture. But they're on the cusp of being able to do that, and there's nothing like having a bunch of peers die around you to teach you needed skills... if you can take a step back and determine what the big picture is.
If the subjects are being dropped on a Earth-like world, *manipulate it so that it gives you the answer you want.*
[Answer]
I would recommend watching The Gods Must Be Crazy 2 for an idea how highly survival trained children might fare without adults. Two of the main characters are a pair of children (I'm not sure what age) from the !Kung bushmen who get lost and are trying to find their way home. It could give you some inspiration. I'm guessing that training would help a huge deal, but survival would still be quite challenging.
You have to also consider the psychological impact. Seven year olds are still emotionally quite dependent on adults, and you'd probably end up with near-universal rates of insecure attachment. It's not as bad as if they were younger (toddlers, if by some miracle they survived, would have full blown reactive attachment disorder) but they still wouldn't be the healthiest of people emotionally. Note that this is assuming that each child, prior to being dropped off on the planet, had parents who did their best to form a strong bond. If they had parents who tried to stay detached because they'd have to say goodbye, then they'd be likely to have had insecure attachment even before arrival, and some could wind up with disorganized attachment as a result. And if they were raised communally with no parents or consistent caregivers, then that's basically an orphanage environment and reactive attachment disorder is likely.
[Answer]
Posted answers so far suggest large numbers are beneficial. I think **large starting populations are a recipe for mass death** and failure in the short term. No hunter/gatherers live in populations the size of a city. 5 knowledgable people, kids or adults, dropped off on Kauai could easily live off the fat of the land. 100 people would immediately exhaust local resources and have to spread out fast or starve. 5000 is just crazy. Additionally one person with disease (e.g. asymptomatic carrier of cholera or shigella) in a group that dense and it would spread like wildfire.
In the short term these kids will be gatherers or maybe hunter / gatherers. If it is a temperate environment without leopards and with adequate food and water they will be OK. But you need to drop them in groups just big enough that they can help each other but small enough that their needs do not exhaust what the land can immediately provide.
[Answer]
**Seven years old is borderline, but eventually it all depends on their training, their ability to work as a group and whether they have a fair starting point.**
Their survival is dependent mainly on their success with dealing with the next issues:
* Acquiring food: Were they taught how to look for edible fruits, vegetables and mushrooms? How to fish? How to hunt? Kids can be capable hunters and even killers at a very young age, but it depends on their training and on their ability to organize together (more on that later).
* Overcoming Nature: Were they taught how to light fire? How to sew fur and wool? How to create tools made from rock and wood? How to build basic shelters?
* Co existing with other predators: Despite being very young, their small frame is not decisive when it comes to encounters with other predators. There are very few predators which are stronger than children yet weaker than adults (some wild dogs/cats, eagles… the large and truly aggressive predators are stronger than both anyway). Weapons, training and numbers are the factors which are going to be decisive here.
Also, a fair starting point is also obviously necessary: If they are dropped straight into the center of a tundra in midwinter without any tools or appropriate clothing, they are doomed. Beginning this experiment during spring/summer in a geographic area abundant with food will obviously increase their chances. Also, at least a minimal initial food supply will be fair.
As for the size of this population: 10,000 is great. If we take a look at humanity during prehistoric times, we’ll see that despite their developed brain, humans were not better survivalists than Chimps, for example. Sure, humans could create tools which other mammals could not, but they also lacked many natural talents which those animals did have. However, other mammals could not form groups which grow more and more over time - eventually, these groups would break apart into smaller groups. Humans, on the other hand, used language to form large societies which could cooperate on a larger scale and eventually become more successful than other mammal species, despite the latter being stronger and naturally better equipped when compared to humans individually. So, despite obviously not knowing each and every one personally, language will allow these children to cooperate together, and such a large number will allow them to form many large sub groups easily.
The biggest challenge is to survive the beginning - no adequate food supplies, no tools, no social structure, no knowledge of their surroundings… if they survive the first decade or so, it will be more or less just like the pre-historic era of humanity, plus a few myths about an ancient spaceship.
[Answer]
The answer is most if not all would survive, simply because they have the knowledge. There are real kids that are younger and survive. Yes, without adults. The human survival instinct alone is usually strong enough, not always, but having the knowledge means, yes they would survive. At least most. Remember the number 1 rule.....survival of the fit.
Btw. What are you people smoking? Lol I want some :-)
[Answer]
I would warn you about infecting a pristine planetary environment with such an invasive and destructive species. The devastating capacity of *Homo Sapiens Sapiens* is well documented.
It is hard to stress just how *unreasonably* intelligent this primate is in relation to its cohort of fauna. Even at seven years of age, the cognitive capacity of this species is more than enough to rival any other creature on its native planet. Even its still-immature fine motor skills are impressive. Despite its obvious deficits in physical prowess, the pressing need for water, food and shelter will undoubtedly result in an admirable survival rate, even across the more inhospitable environments you intend for it to encounter.
For the numbers you have proposed for your study, I would suggest that training would not at all be necessary for species survival. There are documented cases of humans as young as three years old surviving in the wild until reaching breeding maturity, and indeed beyond. You have proposed a very large starting number, perhaps you are even tipping the odds too much in the humans' favour.
I would suggest that seven years is a more than adequate age. This is a social species. It is important that they have acquired sufficient social and linguistic skills before being put to the test. It would be unwise to disperse the subjects planetside in bands of more than 30-40 individuals. As clever as they are, it is estimated that even a mature human has only the capacity to function in social networks constituting roughly 100 members.
I do, however, have some concerns over the scientific benefits of this study. *Homo Sapiens Sapiens* has already demonstrated its capacity for destructive total dominance over its environment. While external factors pushed the species towards the precipice of extinction (to the extent of having one viable breeding pair remaining) at least twice in its short-lived history, it would seem an inevitable outcome of your experiment that your target planet would be rendered inhospitable due to nuclear fallout within approximately 150,000 years, as is the way of this particular animal. This is much too short of a timespan to observe any evolutionary changes.
If you must use an Earth species, I would suggest bonobos as a reasonable alternative.
] |
[Question]
[
# Horny and Hungry
>
> "You're like a father to me."
>
> "Yeah, I wish you were dead, too."
>
> "Thanks, Dad!"
>
>
>
I have a world in my stories in which the inhabitants evolved from a race that practices sexual cannibalism. That is, the female eats the male during impregnation, just like the black widow spider. Yum!
Thankfully, not all sex involves reproduction. It’s not until the females reach sexual maturity, several hundred years, that their mates ‘go to dinner’ for the last time.
In the interest of brevity:
### The Females
The society in which the creatures, sentient and spacefaring, live is fraught with gossip from the females: disdain about the males and complaining about the males leaving them to be single parents.
### The Males
The males of the species, on the other hand, have a Spartanistic (yes, I know that’s not a real word) ;)~ humor about their fate. Always joking about ‘meal time’ and the fact that father figures are deceased.
### No-Nos
Cultural taboos in my story only involve dating someone’s wife. Physiology of my characters only allow the female to mate once. Hence, those dating mothers are cowards escaping the fate of contributing to future generations.
### Thoughts?
How would a culture under these constraints develop over thousands of years (cultural years)? I’d be delighted to learn your opinions. Several of you out there are incredibly knowledgeable and imaginative.
Let's build a world!
[Answer]
Species that practice sexual cannibalism (spiders and mantises) have two things in common. First, they tend to be low-energy ambush predators that spend a lot of time waiting for food; pregnancy will take a lot of energy out of them that they may not have to spare and therefore it is highly advantageous for the developing offspring if the mother gets a free meal to help produce them. Second, they live in an environment where potential mates live far apart and getting killed is easy; as such, the chances of a male finding a second mate are very low, so the best way for him to pass on his genes is to ensure that the children from his first mating survive.
Intelligence, at least in the species familiar to us, favors safe, social environments. Parents tend to have few children and spend a lot of energy teaching those children, which implies that the chances of any one child surviving to reproduction should be reasonably high.
However, there is one exception to this rule: the octopus, a solitary species with a lifestyle not entirely unlike spiders and mantises, yet is nonetheless fairly intelligent, apparently for the purpose of adapting to a changing environment and large amount of food sources, many of them shelled creatures that are tricky to open. They also put a large amount of energy into a single mating, to the extent that it kills them, and sexual cannibalism is quite common among them as well. So I would use them as a base: an initially solitary species that lives in a dangerous world, that eats a large variety of hard-shelled creatures that they need to be smart to open up.
### Ancient History
Unlike in humans, where intelligence largely grew out of social behavior, intelligence in this species would be driven by complex nesting practices. The female builds a burrow that is difficult to get into, and waits in the center. Only males intelligent enough to find their way to the center of the nest would have the privilege of mating. Due to sexual selection, this would increase the intelligence of the species as a whole over time. As these nests increased in complexity, they could develop into temple-like structures, the builder serving the role of the "goddess" at the center, with males spending their entire lives trying to crack the puzzle that would allow them to achieve fulfillment by dying in the sacred jaws of their chosen mate.
The female would need to stockpile food, and would probably be able to go into a kind of hibernation or stasis to survive until the male made it to the center.
Male and female societies could develop independently, with females assisting other females in constructing elaborate temples, and males joining together in "adventuring parties" to help each other reach the center - in other words, a "dungeon crawl" species! Either the females who built the temple would wait in the center as a group, allowing all the males in the party to mate at once (markings outside the temple could indicate how many females are at the center) or there would be a single "leader" of every construction/party, with the younger "assistants" benefiting by gaining experience in building/exploring for the time that they would build/explore a nest on their own.
Or the males could just fight to the death once they reach the center. That works too.
[Relevant post](https://www.reddit.com/r/SpeculativeEvolution/comments/564r33/phelos_sapient_octopus_evolution_and_society/)
### Modern Era
A spacefaring race probably won't be spending its time building temples, but the societal conventions will be built around those that developed in its early history. Males and females will likely live separately and have different natural skillsets: females will be architects, and males may be engineers that like to solve puzzles.
Marriage will be very different from that of human culture. It will be a long period of preparation that culminates in a single act of sex, followed by the female eating the male. During this period, the male may teach the female all the information he collected over the course of his life, information which the female later teaches to her children.
Religion and sex will likely be highly intertwined; and being eaten after sex will be seen as the ultimate fulfillment of a male's life.
It is, however, possible for a male to either escape from a female after mating without being eaten, or to mate with a female who has already selected her partner. Either one would be considered "cheating". To prevent males from escaping, there may be a traditional "marriage burrow" based on the design of the ancient temples, which are designed to be physically difficult for an unwelcome male to enter, and also difficult for the male partner to escape without his mate catching and eating him. When couples forgo this traditional burrow and the male ends up leaving, conservative parents will tell their daughters that they should have stuck with tradition.
[Answer]
Some unconventional men & women will only "date" the man they love after they get pregnant. So they don't have to eat them, I guess.
I am confused by some of this:
"Complaining about the males leaving them to be single parents." If the "the female eats the male *during* impregnation." That is, during sex that causes children, I don't actually understand how the males are "leaving to be single parents."
Maybe that's a new development, through SCIENCE! But **keep in mind that no male they have probably ever known has had much to do with child-rearing, at least from what I can gather**. The concept of a male being present to rear a child would be...like a totally foreign concept. Normally, I would say uncles who haven't bred might have that experience, EXCEPT that you say they breed only ONCE, so unless the pregnancy results in multiple children (like spiders or insects), this might not even be a concept that occurs to this culture. **Basically the premises that you have set up: one breeding in a lifetime for both men and women (men because they die, women because you indicated: "Physiology of my characters only allow the female to mate once.") and because fathers are dead by the time children are born, do sort of c\*ck block the idea of single male parents.**
**On the subject of father figures**-- they would not have a concept of father figures at all. They're more like the donator. The word you are looking for is likely fatalistic, not Spartantistic?
And some questions: **what EXACTLY does marriage mean?** To have and to eat? What's the point of even having marriage? Why does this culture HAVE it? Marriage is actually not a concept you should take for granted. You would likely need to parse apart what a marriage might mean in this culture--these may be very short.
Dating a married women would mean what, exactly? She'd be a widow if she was pregnant.
**Is there recreational sex?** You talk about dating, and about breeding only once. It changes EVERYTHING if there is recreational sex, which, in many species, doesn't happen. Humans are weird. There are animals that have sex recreationally (dolphins, apes & monkeys) but most don't. And in the case of this species it would be very risky.
**Do they eat the males during sex? After they get pregnant?** this too would change the culture.
Really look hard at all this--your answers are in these answers.
[Answer]
## It would have a hard time developing
If males are sentient, they may be more concerned with not being eaten or suffering immense pain than appeasing one mate.
[In the real world](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/animals-spiders-black-widows-cannibals/), male spiders that allow themselves to be eaten are more likely to pass on their genes. However, if you make the females intelligent, they will be able to reproduce regardless of how long they have intercourse with a corpse. **Therefore**, the males who run away will be able to reproduce with multiple partners, and in the long run, cannibalism will be disadvantageous.
In addition, it's hard to build a society with a lower population! Imagine if all human men died after they finished having kids. How much longer would it take to develop technology?
---
If you're hard-set on keeping cannibalism, you could evolve in something psychological that makes males forget they're about to be eaten, and make females less sympathetic - or have some chemical ease the pain.
[Answer]
Starting with your question about how culture develop, the answer is just fine. An alternative reproductive strategy will have remarkably little impact on social and technical progress. It will change everything about social relationships, kinship, economic and political power.
This is a species that has evolved from organisms with a cannibalistic reproductive strategy, and has extreme longevity in living hundreds of years. There is every reason to assume the population will keep expanding. The females on their single mating will need to produce multiple offspring. There is no reason to assume that they are viviparous and bear their offspring live. Spiders will a similar reproductive strategy lay eggs. Presumably the sapient females raise their young, which is unlike the spiders, but characteristic of sapient organisms capable of creating social organizations, culture, and technology.
If there are similarities with spiders expect the females to be larger than the males. Certainly stronger and more powerful, possibly armed with biological weapons like a poison sting to subdue males who might want to run away.. Males will be the weaker sex. Females rule OK. Economic, political and social power will be theirs. Males may be major contributors too, but their lives will be cut short by mating. They might not be educated. After all, why waste a good education on a male. Even if females live for many hundreds of years before attaining full sexual maturity, there could be a first phase of sexual adulthood where females can copulate without the risk of being fertilized, males don't need to live as long. They're only there to contribute their genes for the next generation. Young and tasty males, eh?
Presumably the female feeding frenzy will be triggered, somehow, by the act of reproductive copulation. Considering this species enjoys recreational copulation, it also suggests males be unaware which copulation will be their last. Perhaps the manner in which males are devoured ensures their spermatozoa are available for impregnating a female's ova. If this is so, then the reproductive organs of males and females will be quite unlike those of humans.
Social and economic organization will be dominated by females. After all, they outlive the males and quite likely for centuries beyond their pregnancies. Certainly egg-laying makes more sense. Although it is possible that although they mate once, females might produce offspring on several occasions, especially if they can retain the egg sacs of the males in their bodies, something like spermatotheca, over a period of time. That way they don't have to fertilize all their ova at once.
The cultural taboo of taking married females, let's not be coy by saying dating, as lovers will be massive. Most particularly, if a male has a married female as a lover especially since females only mate once. If this pregnancy happened with a lover, then hubby will still be alive. The female will bear the young of someone who isn't her husband. This will have economic and cultural consequences. Shame, dishonour, and economic catastrophe. The consequences will be complex and painful.
This answer assumes that the OP's isn't human, despite calling males and females man and women, this confuses the issues.
Please note: concepts like father figure and single parents would be alien to this species. Fathers are only sperm donors who die during the act of mating. All parenting is single parenting, with children raised by mothers, so they know no other kind.
[Answer]
You could change the ratio of male-female to counterbalance some of the issues. Secondly, you could change the reproduction system to require females to eat males, make that only way a female can get pregnant. Allow the male to delay having kids until late in their lives. Probably your females should live much longer. For instance, allow man to live to their 80s before having kids. Female should live longer, say up to 120, to keep an eye on kids.
This society will thrive but there will be lots of differences. For instance, males will not be physically stronger as they are as precious as females (not the case in mammals). So both sexes will equally contribute to warfare, if one ever starts. Females will definitely be smarter, as they will be the educators of the young.
Marriage might also be possible, let them live together until deciding to have children. You could also allow males to cheat by removing their internal reproductive organ with surgery and offering it to his wife to eat. But as their role is finalized, they should wither and die in a short time after the surgery. Female should give birth to many babies at once in order to balance the population.
] |
[Question]
[
This is one of a series of questions also discussing [floating farms](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/69100/how-to-build-a-floating-farm) and [city buiding](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/73497/can-a-city-in-a-flood-plain-be-maintained-for-centuries-if-it-is-built-on-stone).
There is an early Iron Age civilization spread out along the riverbanks of an enormous tropical river (think Amazon or Congo). There are small villages spread out along the banks and islands of the great river and its tributaries. Larger cities, floating or on high ground, of up to 100,000 people are built at critical river junctions and places where caravan routes cross the rivers.
Various infectious diseases are obviously a large problem for this civilization. A simple expedient that would be very effective to prevent many diseases would be mosquito netting. To develop an advanced civilization, I imagine that these people developed effective mosquito countermeasures from the Neolithic, early Farming period. As agriculture develops, this civilization is able to move from scattered bands to permanent villages to densely populated floodplains and cities. While making this transition, they must develop defenses against mosquito-born diseases to keep them from all dying of malaria by the time they live in densely populated cities.
**What mosquito countermeasures would be developed alongside agriculture using products available in the rainforest?** Eventually this civilization reached the Iron Age and was in trading contact with the nearby savanna and highlands (think the Peruvian Andes or African Rift mountains). Bonus points for discussing improvements would be possible with additional technology and trading resources.
[Answer]
Some possibilities:
1. Body Paint: Being painted by vegetal dyes which have insect repellent effect is a working possibility. It can mean some degree of protection when far from home. (Just like @ThreeLifes suggested)
2. Mosquito curtains. They can have pieces of fabric (possibly impregnated whit the same oil) in the windows and doors, to protect them at home, since it's probably uncomfortable to wear paint while sleeping.
3. Natural immunity. Since they live in the rainforests for thousand of years, it's perfectly possible that they developed immunity against most of the local mosquito-borne diseases. For example the yellow fever only caused influenza-like nonlethal illness to native africans.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_fever#History>
I think, that new viruses, changing from freshly domesticated animals to humans, would mean greater danger to this civilization.
[Answer]
The rainforest people probably noticed that that insects don't approach the leaves of a certain plant, so they would use it to make an oil that they use as repellent.
Also, it may sound like a bit "Flinstone" but keeping **chameleons** or frogs in or around the hut so they eat the mosquitoes is not a far fetched idea. Cats were kept as pets because they hunted down the vermin.
[Answer]
## @b.Lorenz is absolutely correct with #3: Natural immunity gets the job done.
The Aztec civilization began to fall in the 16th century, in part due to massive epidemics. While some diseases may have been local, the popular belief is that most were introduced from **overseas**. The locals had been dealing with the native diseases (syphilis, lupus, tuberculosis) for thousands of years, and thus immunity was relatively widespread
While the diseases brought over by the Spanish (small pox, chicken pox, measles, mumps) may have proliferated, especially in near-tropical conditions, **their effects were significantly worsened specifically because they were new.**
The civilization will not be at risk if they don't develop technology to keep away disease - it really shouldn't be that bad. If worse comes to worst, nets should be fine.
[Answer]
I assume from the question text that there is no doubt to these people that it is the mosquitoes that spread the disease, without necessarily knowing how, other than having to be bitten by them. (I believe diseases began to be associated with mosquitoes in the mid XIX century and the first to be positively identified as mosquito-borne was nearing the end of that century, after microbiology started and the malaria parasites were discovered, so you might want to revise that, but that is beyond the question)
In addition to the very good b.Lorenz ideas:
Since they know about the mosquitoes, they might have begun to look into their life cycle, and realize that the easier way to get rid of them is **taking them out at the larvae stage**. You might want to have a tree species in some areas of the rain forest, with the properties of the Indian **neem**. Maybe they use the oil of the fruits and seeds much like they were used in India (cosmetics and traditional medicine), and accidentally discover the larvicidal property, or maybe they find out that water in the areas with those trees have less larvae and start looking into why that is. [ <http://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2875-8-124> ]
Complete draining of flood plains is certainly out of the question, but the rain forest takes care of maintaining good soil absorption. The problems would begin *exactly* with deforestation and agriculture, but a civilization that begun and developed all the way to Iron Age living in the forest and later the flood plains, and realizes the importance of eliminating mosquito breeding grounds, might start **elevating the ground** destined to crops and developing intricate **drainage systems** that will keep the water in motion, diminishing the amount of larvae greatly. This could be aided by trading with the other (drier) areas you mention, which could bring them equally or more efficient crops to the ones they used to grow on the unmodified flood plains, which need less soil moisture. Assuming they get the crops to survive the rains (through many generations of selective farming), they could even have a much greater yield than in the highlands and savanna, making them a population and trading superpower in the region... (sorry, got carried away).
[Answer]
To expand on what others have already said. I have been to the Ecuadorian Amazon jungle, the natives there use the smoke from certain plants to shroud themselves and their houses from mosquitoes, which mostly rely on smell to find their targets.
I don't know if the smell actually bothers mosquitoes, or if it simply makes them ignore people, but it gets the job done.
] |
[Question]
[
**This question already has an answer here**:
[Can I have a planetary liquid or gas ring system?](/questions/40564/can-i-have-a-planetary-liquid-or-gas-ring-system)
(1 answer)
Closed 6 years ago.
I'd like to know the logistics of this. I mean liquid rings is not too far fetched if not very unlikely. But since the rings are far from the planet's surface what would the implications of gravitational pull be on actually being able to have boats in them?
[Answer]
Ignoring how all that mass got into orbit, liquid rings dense enough to sail a boat on need to overcome three problems:
* Temperature
* Pressure
* Tidal Effects
The first two are about the mere existence of a liquid in orbit. The last is about it holding together as a contiguous dense fluid body against the planet's [tidal forces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_force). Temperature we can deal with by putting our hypothetical gas giant as close or far from its star as possible. The big problem is pressure.
# What Can Be Liquid In Orbit?
The state of mater (solid, liquid, gas, plasma, and some more exotic things) is a function of temperature AND pressure. Make it too cold or put it under too much pressure, and liquid will turn to solid. Make it too hot or put it under too little pressure, and liquid will turn to gas. Liquids hold a small "just right" place. This is visualized with a phase diagram.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/p1p91.png)
Pressure is the problem: there isn't a lot of it in space. Below a certain point of pressure and temperature you cannot have liquids; only solids and gases. If you heat a solid in a vacuum it will sublimate directly to gas. That's called the [triple point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_point), that dot in the middle, where a thing can be a gas, liquid, or solid. Everything to the left of and below it is a solid or gas.
There are also some anomalous materials, like water, who can be solid below the triple point, but only by a little bit. That's what that dashed green line represents, the behavior of water going from liquid to solid.
So ***we need something whose triple point lies near the vacuum of space*** and that is a problem.
Let's be generous and start with the pressure at the [Kármán line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line), the accepted beginning of "space" at 100 km above the Earth's surface, as the pressure we have to deal with: 3.2e-5 [kPa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_(unit)) or 0.0000000032% of surface atmosphere.
Anything that can remain liquid at that pressure can remain in orbit for at least a few dozen years while its orbit is slowly degraded by drag on the wispy atmosphere. The lower the pressure a material can handle, the higher the orbit, the lower the pressure, and the longer it can remain in orbit.
What has a triple point below 3.2e-5 kPa? Looking at this [table of triple points](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_point#Table_of_triple_points) our options are Mercury and Ethanol. There may be more exotic materials we could use, but for the common stuff that's it.
# [Mercury](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury)?
Mercury has its triple point at 1.65e-7 kPa well within the near-vacuum of outer space, and at a temperature of 234 K which is about -40C. This is plenty feasible to remain liquid in orbit around a gas giant.
Mercury is also a good choice because it's chemically fairly non-reactive, so you might be able to find it in its elemental form.
The problem with mercury is it's a heavy metal and thus fairly rare in the universe. The Earth's crust contains only about 0.08 ppm (parts per million) of mercury. Even Earth's riches ores are only a few percent mercury. Getting an entire ring of it around a planet dense enough to sail a boat on is very unlikely by natural or even artificial means.
# [Ethanol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol)!
This is our best chance. Its triple point is 150 K at 4.3e-7 kPa. That's VERY cold (-123 C) and VERY sparse, two orders of magnitude less dense than at the Kármán line.
Even better, ethanol is a fairly simple combination of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, very abundant in the universe. [It occurs naturally in outer space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol#Natural_occurrence). Getting enough of it together to form a ring is feasible.
We have our material! Now, can we have it in a ring?
# [The Roche Limit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit)
The reason rings exist is because of gravitational tidal forces and the Roche Limit. If you have a spherical body like a moon orbiting a dense body with high gravity like the Earth, that moon will feel a slightly greater tug on its side near the Earth and a slightly less tug on its side further away. The side closer will have to orbit a bit faster, and the side further away will have to orbit a bit slower.
If the moon is big enough and close enough, these forces literally tear it apart. The bits closer to the planet string out ahead, and the bits further away from the planet string out behind. You get a ring. The point where this happens is called the Roche Limit.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FvboL.png)
This is good, we want a ring. But we want a ring that's thick enough to float a boat on, so it can't be too stringy.
The Roche Limit of a ***spherical*** fluid body in orbit can be approximated using the ratios of the density of the two bodies. 2.44 R1 (P1 / P2)1/3. [The density of ethanol near its triple point is about 8.7e-12 g/cm3](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ethanol+at+160K+and+5e-7+kPa) (water at standard temperature and pressure is about 1g/cm3) while the density of the Earth is 5.5 g/cm3 and Jupiter is 1.3 g/cm3.
Unfortunately this is for a spherical body. Calculating the thickness of a ring is beyond my capabilities. So I'll leave this answer here for someone else to figure out.
# Can You Float On It?
Well... no. Not conventionally. [As @SRM correctly points out in the comments](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/68111/could-a-large-gas-planet-have-liquid-rings-that-are-dense-enough-to-have-watercr/68117#comment197000_68111) you can't float without an acceleration pulling you down. Usually that's provided by the force of gravity while you're standing on the surface of a planet. Since both the boat and the ring are in orbit, they're both in free fall, so a boat would just orbit on its surface. Its not floating, it's just in the same orbit.
In order to "float", you'd have to artificially induce a downward acceleration. Basically you'd have a small thruster pushing down through the bottom of the boat and towards the surface of the ethanol. You can do this in any orientation you like, towards the planet, way from the planet... you name it, so long as the axis of thrust goes through the center of mass of the boat, through the bottom, and through the center of mass of the ethanol.
However, with no vessel to contain the ethanol, I believe the boat will cause the ethanol to spread out laterally rather than provide buoyancy. Though I'm not 100% sure. Maybe with enough ethanol relative to the size of the boat its own force of gravity can hold it together. However, given how sparse ethanol is in near vacuum, 12 orders of magnitude less dense than water at standard temperature and pressure, that would have to be A LOT of ethanol. Perhaps ethanol on a solid core of a dense material would work.
This is where the Roche Limit becomes a problem as you're essentially putting a liquid torus in orbit, make it too thick and too close and it tears itself apart. Put it further away and its mass increases as its circumference increases.
If its core is solid that adds *another problem*, solid rings do not have stable orbits. Since one side of the ring will be ever so slightly closer to the planet than another it will feel a bit more of a tug than the opposite. That will drag it a little closer increasing the pull of gravity, while the far side moves further away decreasing it. Eventually, one side of the solid ring will crash into the planet. Some sort of active stabilization will be needed, though how you do that through probably kilometers of liquid ethanol I'm not sure. Complicating things are all those thrusters on all those boats providing thrust in all different directions. I don't know how fast this will all fall apart, could be days, could be centuries.
Again, at this point I've hit my limits. It is gorgeous to think about looking down at the surface of a "lake", seeing the Earth reflected in it, and looking up to see the Earth itself.
[Answer]
**Very Impractical, pretty much impossible**
Alright well I'll make a few assumptions, such as; the liquid is water, it is somehow not frozen.
If these conditions are true then yes, the rings could be dense enough. 'Could' because it is however extremely unlikely, and will vary massively on the size of the planet-hence circumference of the ring.
If the rings are dense enough you do however have several other problems. Assuming the watercraft is air tight, you'll still have the problem of gravity which means the watercraft is slowly going to be pulled towards the centre of mass (the core of the gas-planet). Also it will be difficult to remain in the water or get traction since it is zero-gravity.
To conclude it would be virtually impossible in reality but if the ring was liquid it would still be extremely impractical. A space station near the rings is a more realistic alternative.
] |
[Question]
[
Neo-Vikings have been plotting the non-viking world's downfall for quite some time. To this end they have designed a super virus, Tryggvason, and are trying to pick between three three countries, the US, Germany, and England. They want to weigh the impact of the virus before they pick a target.
The question becomes: What's the fewest people (as a percent of the population) can the Neo-Vikings expect to die from this virus in the short term to force the country into the levels of economic collapse associated with the American Dust Bowl/Great Depression?
This question concerns the selected country's market, and not the global market.
[Answer]
This is a very difficult question to answer, since some of the effect will depend on the social institutions and cohesion of the society being attacked. Generally, the more cohesive a society is. the more resilient it will be as well. Great Britain survived the Blitz, NAZI Germany actually increased industrial production despite "round the clock" 1000 bomber raids in 1944 and even Imperial Japan was considered to be a tough nut to crack after massive and virtually unopposed firebombings in 1944/45 (Operation OLYMPIC, the proposed invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, was built around an assumption of 250,000 allied casualties, to give you an idea).
Even greater catastrophes have changed societies in subtle and unexpected ways. The Black Death is considered to have killed something like 1/3 of the population of Europe, yet European societies did not collapse. The severe labour shortages caused by the massive casualties did cause Feudalism to collapse, as serfs simply could not be kept on the land when there was far more remunerative work.
If the invaders simply want to launch their invasion during the times of peak disruption, then once fatalities rise beyond 5% of the overall population you will probably find your window. Emergency services and health care will be overwhelmed, the industrial economy will be reeling due to absenteeism, and there will be a significant outflow of people from cities trying to escape the plague. Society hasn't collapsed at that point, put it isn't functioning at peak efficiency either. Military units are generally considered to become combat ineffective at about the 10% casualty mark (they will still stand in place and fight, but generally won't advance) and after they reach 25% casualties they will generally be broken and routed, although against a biological menace this figures may not be accurate.
I suspect that the amount of economic collapse is not going to be quantifiable in the short term, since there is no accurate way to predict which industries will be affected or by how much.
[Answer]
*Ignoring the initial healthcare needs as those have already been covered.*
You're introducing a virus to the system. A virus is most likely to kill or harm **the vulnerable, the already sick, the elderly**, and **the very young**.
Why do I emphasise this? because these are not productive people, they are the people already dependent on society. By killing off all these people you're increasing the economic output of the average person. You're freeing up long term resources from hospitals and care homes. You're streamlining the economy, reducing the load from the cost of pensions, benefits etc.
**In short, by using a virus in this way, you're likely to strengthen rather than weaken the economy.**
Looking at the [ONS](https://www.ons.gov.uk/) stats and assuming that you're going to kill off the unproductive, unhealthy, and elderly first. Population is around 65million, working population around 30million. You might have to kill off 50% of the population before you start to effectively weaken the productive capability of the country.
Until that point, all you're doing is freeing up labour from tasks related to supporting society's dependents. You're also freeing up funds from paying for their needs, their benefits and pensions, and their healthcare.
The rates of consumption are another matter, Keynes says we're driven by consumption not production capability and as such the idle 50% are pure consumers. They drive the economy by their needs, without them, who is consuming what the producers generate? On this model the economy starts to fail rapidly in proportion to how many of these consumers are removed from the system.
This however is only a local consideration, much of what is being produced is being consumed overseas not locally. The knock on effect of stripping a large percentage of consumers out of the system can only be measured on a global scale. They are consuming products from across the world, the effect would be a drop in the trade deficit and a lot of complex calculations relating to the values of currencies.
We haven't yet managed to put a big dent in a single economy but we might have triggered a global recession. We're back to having to kill off the producers, the toughest and the healthiest and the last to die of a viral outbreak. At the upper end, you could be looking at killing off well over 50% of the population.
---
## However
There's actually a way out of this problem. There's a range of viruses that kill as much by immune overreaction as by the effect of the virus itself. [Spanish Flu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic#Patterns_of_fatality) being a key example of this. Not just because of how many it killed, but because of who it killed.
>
> An unusual feature of this pandemic was that it mostly killed young adults. In 1918–1919, 99% of pandemic influenza deaths in the US occurred in people under 65, and nearly half in young adults 20 to 40 years old. In 1920 the mortality rate among people under 65 had decreased six-fold to half the mortality rate of people over 65, but still 92% of deaths occurred in people under 65.
>
>
>
A virus like this could rapidly cripple the economy, but you're unlikely to be able to contain it enough to protect your own people.
[Answer]
**Don't Look at The Great Depression as your model, look at instances of hyper-inflation, because that would be the actual effect of this circumstance.**
The dustbowl/Great Depression is not analogous in this case, because a lot of that was caused by weather, as well as economic factors. It is quite difficult to tell what will happen because it's hard to predict.
But we can look at what happened as a result of the Black Death in Europe, which took about 1/3 of the population (or more in some places, up to 60%-100%). Weirdly, the Black Death was the cause of upward social mobility for peasants. Because of the labor shortage, human labor was more valued:
>
> Before the plague, the large population kept wages from rising. Most peasants
> did not consider leaving their villages to find work somewhere else. After
> the plague, workers asked for higher wages and better working conditions.
> Many lords agreed to these demands, and those who didn’t soon found that
> other lords would. Lords began to realize they had less control over workers
> and began to change what they produced. Many workers were needed to grow
> and harvest grain, so some lords began to raise sheep instead. Raising sheep
> required fewer workers and there were more customers for the meat and for
> woolen clothing. As their incomes rose, people were able to buy more vegetables,
> fruits, and clothing. Production of these goods increased. Peasants eventually
> became free to move away from estates owned by lords; some were even
> able to buy their own land. [Ref](http://msh.councilforeconed.org/documents/978-1-56183-758-8-activity-lesson-15.pdf)
>
>
>
So the effect might actually surprise you, and be the opposite of what's intended. Less people means that there are more resources for the ones who are left and it means that the employers who are left are more willing to pay more. For the economy to actually break down completely, (which would be far past the Great Depression) you might have to take things to zombie apocalypse levels, so that there's no one left to run anything, and the streets are filled with dead bodies.
The rising wages *will* eventually cause hyper-inflation. This is the opposite of what happened during [the Depression](http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/dep1929.htm), when unemployment was high. But this can sink an economy as well. Be cautious, because before it sinks, it's actually going to strengthen.
So, you're going to have to take a look at what high inflation markets do instead of (as with the Depression) what ultra-low inflation markets do. Something like Greece in 1944 or Germany in 1923 or [a host of other examples](http://www.cnbc.com/2011/02/14/The-Worst-Hyperinflation-Situations-of-All-Time.html). Things got bad in these places (prices doubling every few days, people stockpiling goods rather than money) but the Great Depression, which dragged on for 10 years, was not as damaging as these events. And governments today have a slightly better understanding of inflation.
I believe that your virus can cause chaos and devastate the population, even drive prices up, however, even during the Great Depression, we still functioned as an economy. Not well, but--we did.
You are looking for an exact number, but that's really, really going to depend on the specifics of the economy in your world/those countries. Factors to consider:
* **unemployment numbers as they stand before the virus.** The death percentage will likely have to exceed those.
* **The Age of the People dying.** Exceed the unemployment numbers with deaths from virus, and it's going to have to be more than by a percentage point or two. The very young and the very old die in disproportionate numbers, and they aren't in the workforce, therefore they won't actually impact the economy in the same way. You have to match or exceed the unemployment rate with the percentage of deaths of people IN the workforce. As Separatrix says in hir answer, not having to pay pensions will actually be good for the overall economy and governance.
* **Individuals.** There are people who are lynchpins, who can save and understand economies. If those people are the first to die, it will help speed them on their way.
* **Time.** How much time are you looking to have pass? This is a big, big deal when asking the question. Because temporary circumstances are different for an economy than things that go on for a year or three, or keep returning. This has an impact. You are going to have answer what you want on time goals, for this sort of breakdown.
Sorry that I am not giving you an exact percentage, but, there are many factors to consider and things you should be looking at before getting to that number. I hope I have answered the question insofar as what models you should be looking at and what questions you should be answering in order to arrive at a conclusion. I do believe that your numbers are going to have to be larger than you would expect in order to cause a collapse of this nature and that these deaths will actually improve the economy if the number is too low.
[Answer]
I'm going to base my answer on unemployment and hospitals.
The [Great Depression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression#Germany) resulted in an unemployment rate of 20-25% in the USA, Germany, and Great Britain. Nearly 1/4 of the people normally employed were removed from the labor force.
So that would be an upper bound of the number required, ~25%, remove that many people and you will have a definite reduction in labor force. Resulting in a depression similar in scope to the Great Depression.{1}
Now death from a virus is going to have many add on effects, that are going to be hard to quantify. Things like fear and self imposed isolation would negatively effect the economy most. When people stop going to work, because the virus is running unchecked in the streets, your economy has effectively ceased to function entirely.
A major contributor to fear and panic would be the availability of medical treatment (even if ineffective). Depending on the length of incubation and treatment timelines {2} your hospitals and medical facilities will likely rapidly be overloaded. An interesting number I found for a study of this is a World Bank analysis of hospital beds per population.
<http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.BEDS.ZS>
Numbers of hospital beds per 1,000 people as of 2011
* USA - 2.9 (0.3%)
* Germany - 8.2 (0.8%)
* GB - 2.9 (0.3%)
All of these numbers are mostly trending downwards over the last half century.
In a major pandemic these medical services would likely be expanded, but given a 1% rate of infection requiring hospitalization (fatal symptoms) this would completely overcrowd existing medical capabilities, shutting down treatment and setting up a panic. So I'm going to peg the low fatality number likely to shut down a countries economy at 1%
**So the number is likely to be somewhere between 1% and 25%**
{1} I'm willing to accept that the currently unemployed could take places opened up by deaths and choosing to neglect them as not really significant, if your country has a population with 25% unemployed people to hire, you are likely already in a depression.
{2} I'm assuming people don't just drop dead but get sick and show symptoms and seek medical treatment. This is more likely as a very fast killing disease doesn't spread very well as no carriers are left alive.
[Answer]
I'm not at all sure this is possible, see for example <https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economic-impact-of-the-black-death/> - less population historically meant more resources/jobs per capita. This might have changed (or if not might change in the future) with the rise of networking (data economy, etc.), and some kind of recession is possible, but as long as it is possible to keep the critical infrastructure going (mostly power, water, fuel and food distribution) I think that a long term per capita economic collapse might not be possible.
[Answer]
As it does not say in your question what the target of the virus is, I am going to say that the virus targets crops (fruit, vegetables and grains etc.) and farm animals, instead of people. This would include spoiling of stored food products that are exposed to the virus too.
In this case, **the virus will directly kill 0% of the population** in the short term, but will easily cause economic collapse. Obviously it may indirectly cause starvation if the destroyed food is not quickly replaced.
Assuming the virus rapidly attacks and destroys all food production in the target country, but not that of its neighbours, I would list the targets, from most vulnerable to least, thus;
1. US
2. UK
3. Germany
The US would be most vulnerable as I imagine (I have only found [US food import numbers](http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/us-food-imports.aspx) online) it is mostly self-sufficient for food production (having a relatively large amount of farm land) and so would be most affected by having to suddenly import all food required to feed the larger US population.
The UK is second as it already imports a lot of food (my trips to the supermarket are my experience of this), so making up the difference to importing all food would not be as big an implication as the US, but as the export of food from the UK would be affected too, then it will still probably cause an easy financial collapse.
Germany is still part of the European Union (where as the UK is on it's way out) and so would have a large number of neighbours to import food from, who may import for free, or for deferred payment and so it is least likely to be impacted by collapse of it's food production.
As I mentioned above, the direct fatality rate would be 0% and the level of financial problems experienced depends on the friendliness of the country's neighbours if/when they sell food to the target.
[Answer]
I think to answer your question, you should look at how the virus is spread. Assuming it is communicable, does it have to be ingested, breathed, or just touched to infect? Airborne and contact viruses would be the most effective, so assuming this to be the case, the most effective method of distribution would be mass transit stations. To get the most distribution you would want a distribution hub that affects the widest geographic location possible - airports. International flights would be ideal, so you are looking at only a few in each country.
Great Britain would be the best target in this regard. While it is the smallest in population - only 65 million - London Heathrow airport serviced more than 75 million passengers in 2015, with 69 million of those being international. Among the top 5 most popular destinations are New York, US - 324 million - and Hong Kong, China - 1.1 billion.
Assuming this is a super virus, you would want it to to be fatal, but not quick - it needs to lay low and infect as many people as possible before killing its host. Let's assume an incubation period of 48 hours, a prodromal stage of 24 hours, an illness stage of 3 days and fatality within 24 hours after that. That gives you 7 days, give or take, before the first passengers die from infection.
London Heathrow services more than 250k passengers/day, with most of these being international. If `Tryggvason` has an incubation period of 48 hours, that's more than 500K passengers being infected in 2 days before symptoms even start. Those 500K passengers will have interacted with cabbies, family, coworkers, friends in that time, easily doubling or trippling the infection rate in the first 48 hours.
By the end of the first week, when the first infected start to die, more than 1.7 million people will have been infected just at the London Heathrow airport. Forget about local markets - New York's JFK services a similar number of passengers with half of them being international. Hong Kong International is not nearly as busy, but the population around the airport is huge.
In the first 2 days of the virus being released, your looking at 3 -5 million infections, easily. By the end of the first week, before the first death occurs, you are looking at 10's of millions infected across the globe.
Local markets will be the least of your concerns. Just make sure all the vikings are immunized before releasing, because this thing will go pandemic in a heartbeat.
[Answer]
(Really a comment but it won't fit)
There's a factor that's not addressed in your question: Timeframe.
The faster the virus works the more damaging it will be. Lets take the snail virus: It kills .1% of the population every year. In a millenium it will have killed a total of the world's population but with basically zero economic consequences.
Compare that to the hare virus, equally lethal but it kills .1% of the population per hour. There won't be an economy left to be talking about.
Obviously these are unreasonable extremes but they serve to show that the same kill count can vary between no meaningful effect to utter catastrophe.
Beyond that, the faster it kills the more economic disruption there will be from people trying to avoid the virus. When the news reports start talking about the hare virus you'll have a **lot** of people hunkering down or getting away from population centers. This will cause a lot of absenteeism and disruption of the logistics of life. (If you know there's a virus about that has a 1% chance of killing you how many would go out their front door for anything less than a life-or-death threat? And how many more would go out but then not re-enter until things were safe again, simply leaving supplies and then backing away.)
On the other hand, the same total death toll spread over years would have little absenteeism because it's simply not viable to live like that for an extended period.
[Answer]
Here is a number: When about 50% of the people usually working at a critical part of the infrastructure are not able to work, severe outages are to be expected. This happened in August 2013 at the [Mainz railway control centre (in German)](http://fahrweg.dbnetze.com/file/fahrweg-de/2394208/9e28gzZ_-7eJZKDm61BwvelrEH0/4526754/data/vortrag_barner.pdf) where 7 out of 15 traffic controllers were absent (due to vacations or illness) and the Mainz main train station was taken off the railway net for some time.
The trend towards "just in time" production and "lean mangement" may make infrastructures more vulnerable in future.
] |
[Question]
[
I tested this in [sandbox](http://meta.worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/635/sandbox-for-proposed-questions/), and as recommended, I've added the 'knowns,' including geography and timeframe.
What and how would we go about salvaging an alien craft in the immediate days after a crash?
In Portland, Oregon, USA, a large 'saucer' of 350m radius and a thickness of 30m has crashed into the west hills leaving debris, but remaining largely intact. It's understood that no aliens have survived, and the human count is very low. Forest fires have been contained. Now what?
* Date: near-future (in the next few years)
* Available: Dead "gray" aliens; technology we don't know how to deconstruct, but also metal alloys we're familiar with (steel, electrical cabling). Meaning there's nothing of immediate value.
* Timeframe: First 5 days after figuring out what just happened.
* Discovery: After the fire was put out by local first responders assisted those whose houses were destroyed by the impact and blast of something large landing near them.
* Initial impact: Fire and brimstone witnessed at night, made a loud noise, broke a lot of windows - it was conspicuous. Now it appears similar to an aircraft wreck site, but it is suddenly obvious to be alien in nature.
What are the responses by the public and the local government? Federal / International governments have not had a chance to verify and respond in the first five days, not unlike the alleged mishandling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This is local public, and local government, not black helicopters coming from DC.
---
Note: we don't have a UFO tag??
Edit: As requested, I am adding the dimensions in yards: 350m = 383yds; 30m = 33yds.
[Answer]
The *very first* thing that will happen today is virtually every person in the city will be out there with cell phones taking pictures and posting on social media.
Millions of Facebook pages, tweets, YouTube uploads and inputs into other platforms will disrupt internet and cellular service in the area for a period of time, but enough of the news will leak out globally so government agencies will not be able to "contain" the news or hide the event (assuming that this is truly what they would want to do, as countless conspiracy theories and shows would have us believe).
The first responder agencies will do what they can to contain fires and rescue people who might have been trapped in buildings or cars in the vicinity of the crash, and the local police department will be calling for help to cordon off the area from curiosity seekers, as well as asking for high level help to determine if there are any hazards associated with the crash site, such as radioactivity and toxic materials releases. As an aside, hospitals will be overwhelmed by people who are absolutely convinced they have been affected by radiation, toxic materials, alien disease, alien pregnancies etc.
As the National Guard and specialists arrive, more and more rumours and conspiracy theories will be circulating as people speculate as to what is really happening. (In the medium term, service providers will have to start adding extra capacity to their networks because users such as business, banks and government agencies will complain they are being disrupted).
USG agencies will be there well within the first 24hrs. The NTSB will have dispatched a crash investigation team (especially with the initial reports that it was an aircraft), and Portland has any number of federal agency offices in or near the area, so you could expect Homeland Security, the FBI, the EPA and hordes of other bureaucrats attempting to assess the site and claim it as their bureaucratic "turf".
Because of the nature of the crash, and requests for high level assistance to determine if it is a toxic or radioactive hazard, the US Navy will probably send teams from their west coast ports, the Air Force will fly in teams and the Army and Marines will eventually be given the long term task of securing the area. Security and intelligence agencies will also start appearing as well, and you can imagine the battle royal over bureaucratic prerogatives and budgets.
So expect an ever expanding circle of confusion, rumours and bureaucratic rivalry around the crash site.
[Answer]
Well, initially it will be noticed an explosion and fire, so FD and PD will be deployed to do their job (stop fires, control traffic around, etc.)
Once the UFO is identified, it will go up the chain of command. FD and PD will keep doing their jobs (add also restrict access to the zone) until they are told to stop doing so.
Keep in mind that it is a new experience, so no agency will have protocols to deal with. In the absence of instructions, they will happily continue doing what they know to do (and which happens to be their task, extinguish fires and protect people and property); as long as the UFO does not begin attacking there is no need to change that and they can wait for more "expert" help to arrive.
I would also add that I find your comparation with Katrina a little exagerated; in that case the issue was not the actual time needed to deploy but that, due to a mixup of responsabilities, nobody gave the order to deploy. When the UFO is sighted, it will be clearly outside the limits of the local agencies and responsability will be passed quickly to Federal agencies.
[Answer]
The basic workflow for "something big fell out of the sky and left a crater in a part of the world with established infrastructure" runs as follows:
1. Locals --or Search And Rescue (SAR) assets for things on a flight plan-- discover the scene, conduct any obvious SAR (i.e. assist survivors who are walking around if there are any or pull folks out who are sticking out of the wreck), and contact authorities (911, given the locale the OP is setting their story in)
2. The local Fire Department (FD) would dispatch to the call first, followed shortly after by the local Police Department (PD)
3. The local FD arrives on scene and surveys it, deciding whether further SAR activity or suppression is needed.
4. The local FD engages in SAR and/or suppression with their "first in" units -- in the meantime, they set up an Incident Command Structure (ICS) to deal with this all
5. The FD would be triaging whatever survivors and bodies they find as part of this -- for an all-fatal crash, this is "tag and bag".
6. Further FD (local and mutual aid) resources may be called/dispatched depending on the magnitude of the problem (secondary fires, mass casualty, and other things). In the meantime, the PD arrives and takes full control of traffic/access at the mishap scene, plugging into the ICS when they do.
7. Given that there is wreckage and a smoldering crater of such magnitude (airliner-sized if not bigger in the OP's description), the transportation investigation agency for that country --the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the US-- will send at least one investigator if not a full Go-Team of investigators out within 24h of discovery of the crash site.
8. Once the scene is made safe for the NTSB to work, their field investigation will begin in earnest.
(And then life gets *interesting*...)
[Answer]
This is your story, and you can justify a Federal paralysis if you want to.
Imagine a primary election where one candidate went public that he believes in UFOs and that he'll declassify all the Roswell files. That candidate got demolished by the others as a crackpot and had to drop out of the race. Meanwhile the other party has candidates and governors who have their own crackpot theories about Black Helicopters, those get elected and push for legislation/executive orders to prevent Federal interference in local problems.
As a result, no official will dare to say "this is an UFO, send in the Feds."
On the other hand, it is a bit large to explain it as an airliner. So maybe it will be reported as a crashed [airship](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/us/army-surveillance-blimp-pennsylvania.html?_r=0).
] |
[Question]
[
**Closed.** This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
---
This question does not appear to be about **worldbuilding**, within the scope defined in the [help center](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help).
Closed 8 years ago.
[Improve this question](/posts/32326/edit)
Quite along the lines of @Tim B. 's very popular [question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/32086/santa-is-satan-but-why?), but generalizing stuff a bit here.
A teacher can be a cheater, after all, it's there in the name.
Why would a teacher, a fountain of knowledge, guidance, truth and ethics, be exactly what they try to counsel us from not being, which is a con, trickster and a "cheat" (not that that needs any explanation)?
Plausible answers will be preferred, and extra preference will be given to those answers which actually allow the teacher to ethically get away with it. Instances of such cases are most welcome.
[Answer]
## To teach us skepticism, critical thinking, unfairness, and humility.
A teacher who **cons** us could then teach us how to avoid being conned in the future. Their students would develop valuable critical thinking skills, learning how to evaluate scenarios that are "too good to be true", or are otherwise suspicious. They would develop a healthy sense of humility in the process, realizing that even the most clever of them can be fooled, if they are unprepared to face a seasoned trickster.
A teacher who is a **cheat** could also foster an ongoing discussion of the subjectivity of fairness and how it relates to real-world situations that the students would face in the future, be it in a workplace, government bureaucracy, relationships, etc.
There would be no ethical violations if such cons, tricking, and cheating were done within the scope of the classroom and did not cause any more undue emotional stress than important exams do today. It would be important that the whole process be done with a healthy dose of **good humor and no vindictiveness**.
[Answer]
**[Lies to Children](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children)**
>
> "A lie-to-children is a statement that is false, but which nevertheless leads the child's mind towards a more accurate explanation, one that the child will only be able to appreciate if it has been primed with the lie". The authors acknowledge that some people might dispute the applicability of the term lie, while defending it on the grounds that "it is for the best possible reasons, but it is still a lie" - The Science of the Discworld - Tery Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen.
>
>
>
A teacher doesn't have to tell the truth to lead the student to truth, and, often, telling the truth will obstruct the student from the path to truth. You tell lies-to-children to help them arrive at the truth in a way that they can process.
There are many examples of things which are very helpful, aside from the minor issue of being wrong in every respect. "The internet is a series of tubes" would be a good one.
[Answer]
There are [several reasons](https://youtu.be/3Tu-ElppFRs) why teachers might [(and sometimes do)](http://freakonomics.com/2011/07/06/massive-teacher-cheating-scandal-uncovered-in-atlanta/) cheat.
One is funding. With standardized testing came the practice of linking test results to money for the school. The reason is that if a teacher is a good teacher, more of their students should pass the tests, and so the school should get more money. Bad teachers will have poor students, and so schools with bad teachers should get less money.
This has lead to cheating in several ways:
1. **Teaching to the test.** This is a minor cheat; teaching the students what is on the test, and sometimes ignoring other equally important things that aren't on the test. This is bad for the students, since it causes them to pass the testing without getting a full education.
2. **Changing grades.** There are teachers that have been caught changing their students grades from failing to passing. This mostly is because enough students failed the test that it would have put the teacher below a certain threshold. By changing a few answers of a few students, or maybe filling in answers that students left blank, a teacher can very subtlety go from a failing teacher to a passing teacher, all while "helping" a few kids.
Teachers and faculty at schools in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta have been caught doing this, and there are very likely others.
*Other reasons teachers might cheat?* The usual ones: money, politics, sex, favoritism, etc.
[Answer]
1. A teacher *teaches*, and this involves the imparting of "knowledge". Knowledge of the world is always tentative at best, and sometimes downright wrong. At various point in history, children were taught by teachers that the Earth was flat, and that the Earth was the centre of the Universe. Generations were cheated of cosmological truth. Even in the physical sciences and in mathematics, which are supposed to be exact, there are many misleading things taught to young children. Gross simplifications abound. First example: Newtonian Physics is taught to all school children like it is gospel truth, only to later be demolished by the revelations of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, which can lead to a feeling of disillusionment amongst some students. Second example: teaching younger students that you can't take the square root of a negative number, only to cheat them of this early assumption with the introduction of complex numbers. "Simplification" is a euphemism - it's basically tantamount to cheating the students of a deeper truth. It's even worse when you consider humanities subjects like History, which necessarily involve subjective interpretations of events in the past. It's quite safe to say that the many students who end up rejecting "accepted" historical narratives to embrace "alternative" ones feel thoroughly cheated by their original mainstream teachers.
2. If we accept as an axiom that ignorance is bliss, then surely anything that dispels ignorance to banish bliss is the basest form of cheating. Bliss is a divine state, why would anyone stoop so low as to cheat us of that? The best of teachers are the worst of cheaters.
[Answer]
**The teacher wants to make a living.**
He or she might be in the business to make money, not for altruistic reasons. One way is to honestly teach what you think the students need, and hope that that will get you paying customers. Another way is to teach them what they say they want to learn, even if that is harmful, and hope that that will get you paying customers.
* Teach the students only what they need to pass a test, without giving them true competency.
* Sell them degrees which make them a laughingstock for genuine academics (diploma mills).
This becomes a con or cheat *from the viewpoint of the students* if the teacher misrepresents what the diploma is worth.
[Answer]
Teachers, especially supply (substitute) teachers may give lessons in subjects where they have little knowledge. So long as they remain one lesson ahead of the students they can con the pupils that they are an expert. This is ethically sound so long as they stick to facts since the students still benefit from the (limited) research the teacher has done.
[Answer]
Having taught for quite a few years, I must attest that teachers often are cheats. Very rarely do you see teachers actually do what they preach. In fact quite many times a teacher couldn't pass their own examination with flying colors (this is especially true in higher education). Many times the teacher can not even solve their own homework problems, instead they copy the ready made solution from a different source. While this sounds bad, its actually a boon because this way you get less mistakes falling through.
Secondly, teachers tell white lies all the time. Sometimes a very definitive explanation holds much more water than a very well worded "maybe". The thing is not much of our knowledge is as definitive as we might want to think. Often the truth is so complicated that in order for to begin to explain a subject:
1. One needs to get a simplified run through.
2. Once you attain a specific level, we can tear down the previous knowledge and replace it with a new one.
3. and repeat the process.
All explanations are thus some kind of lies. For this to work we need specially adaptive minds. Lots of half mastered people walk out of the classrooms all the time. So maybe most destructive of all, we let people keep their misconceptions as to not show that they were lied to from the beginning. And this is one of the big lies.
Third, there is also some globally accepted self perpetuating lie. Where people assume that having attended A. taught by B. and graded by C. is somehow accurate. Grading is terribly inaccurate, and not at all objective. So be careful when categorizing people by their education or scores. Errors happen a lot, much more than generally accepted. Many societies would in fact collapse with more scrutiny on this matter.
In defense for all good teachers out there. There is little choice, all communication is corrupted in transit and affected by previous misunderstandings. So there's no way to reach the goal. But one thing is certain: no pain, no gain. If it felt easy you didn't learn a thing.
[Answer]
In a school system where teachers are rated (and paid) based on how well their students perform, it can make (dishonest) tactical sense for teachers to lie about how well their students are doing.
There have been plenty of real-world cases of teachers cheating on standardized tests in the U.S. The most notable cases was when [11 Atlanta teachers were convicted in 2015 of modifying students' standardized tests](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/04/01/how-and-why-convicted-atlanta-teachers-cheated-on-standardized-tests/). The piece [*When Teachers Cheat*](http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/04/when-teachers-cheat/389384/) from The Atlantic offers some possible reasons:
>
> Perhaps these things happen because of negligence. Maybe the teacher is just a rogue offender—an educator attempting to boost test scores for self-serving reasons. Or it could be the result of intimidation from top-down management. Regardless, the growing prevalence in recent years of dishonest practices such as these suggests that something is amiss within America's schools. [...] School districts are increasingly tying teacher pay to performance, and there's no consensus on the best way to measure student proficiency, so high test scores are starting to look a lot like money.
>
>
>
] |
[Question]
[
Hard Science usually entails being as realistic to reality as we know it as possible. One problem though, is that we do know that science *advances*. Also, most of our worlds are *fictional*.
I'm wondering if there is a way to add fictional science while still feeling like science fiction. Some ideas I have:
* Don't use new science to automatically solve problems. Create the new science first, and then see if it solves problems.
+ This also means that new science is equally like to *cause* problems (I don't mean new technology, but where science shows that certain things we thought were possible are actually impossible.)
* Instead of focusing on implications and then rationalizing, make minor technical changes to science.
+ Although the world of [Orthogonal](http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html) seems incredibly different from our world, all the author did was change a - sign to a + sign, which isn't a huge change.
* Use past, debunked scientific theories as a base (considering what if they *were* supported by evidence, and the true theory was false.)
Are these ideas good. Are there any other things to keep in mind. Should adding fictional science just be outright avoided?
[Answer]
This is a question about hard sci-fi.
Therefore I feel confident to say this:
*Add whatever fictional science you need to advance your plot but obey two rules:*
**1. Do not break the second law (or first and third laws, but mainly the second law) of thermodynamics.**
**2. Do not muck about with time. So no FTL.**
Stick to these two rules and you'll have a plausible hard science background as long as it is internally consistent and socially plausible. Breaking either of the above will result in multiple hard sci-fi (and likely basic fictional) plot holes.
**Get out clause:**
If you **must** break one of the above rules then break the time rule. Do not under any circumstances break the thermodyamics rule if you expect any vaguely scientific plausibility and hole-free plot.
[Answer]
>
> I'm wondering if there is a way to add fictional science while still
> feeling like science fiction.
>
>
>
What you are searching for is to make your fictional science *plausible*. I mean, to make your fictional science *feel like* real science, you do not really care if it will be possible or not, you just should make your reader believe it, while reading.
With that idea in mind, I will stress a couple of points, but note they are mainly based on my experience as a reader and are probably not universal. My reflection is based on the fact that there is fictional science that we are inclined to believe, and other that is problematic in our mind. I will try to make clear the difference between the two.
**Do not explain what does not need to be**
As long as your reader does not question himself about the reality of the science you are talking about, everything feels like real science. It is way more convincing to have a teleportation device, without explanation, than to have a teleportation device transmitting you through wires or waves, or anything. If you speak about wire, the reader will start to think about how is it possible to do it through wire, and the feeling that you are handwaving may arise.
**Focus on details that impact the scenario**
For Star Wars, and the destruction of the Death Star, the main point risen against plausibility (in my experience) is the fact that by shooting in a hole with a tiny spaceship you can destroy it, meaning the design of the Death Star is terribly bad. Questioning it is natural, since otherwise the rebels would have no way to win (more or less).
From a science point of view it is merely a detail, compare to the fact that the baddies just build a ship the size of a moon, that just destroyed a planet by firing green laser. Or the fact that a spherical ship would be a nightmare to cool down. Of the fact that it appears to be artificial gravity inside every ship.
But all this does not impact the scenario, so you are not pushed to question this point, so you will probably not.
**Human stupidity is more unrealistic than fictional science**
If at some point your reader think "they are all stupid, with that science they could just do that thing and it will be over", it will totally destroy the plausibility of your story. It destroyed Harry Potter for me : sorcerers could just merge science with magic but they do not because of... reasons. On the other hand I never questioned the possibility of magic while reading (this example is not exactly about science, but it illustrates my point quite well, I hope).
This point is also related to the fact that you should heavily investigate the consequences of the new science you introduce.
[Answer]
As I see it, genuinely [hard-science](/questions/tagged/hard-science "show questions tagged 'hard-science'") science fiction can include fictional **engineering** advances, but no major fictional **scientific** advances.
* You can have fusion reactors, despite the fact that we couldn't make them work so far.
* You can't have artificial gravity except for rotating sections.
* You might be able to bluff the reader regarding timescales and efficiency.
[Answer]
This is like the "Is Pluto a planet?" question. The question suggests that there may be legal implications or something here (like you get tax breaks for writing hard science?) but in the end, it doesn't matter to anyone except the taxonomists.
So is your question should really be:
"If I introduce a fictional science into my hard science work, will it still appeal to fans of hard science?"
or
"Could I live with myself if I did this?"
or something similar. (I don't know the answer to either)
Pluto is the exact same whether we call it a planet or not, as will your work be whether we call it hard science or not. It's ultimately up to your conscience whether you are still writing a work of hard-science, there's no need to ask us for permission.
(But maybe if you preface your story with a sort of "paper" on the new discovery it might help)
[Answer]
Almost every hard science fiction book I've read has fictional science in it. So I would say that yes you can add fictional science into a hard science fiction book. The primary issue is to give it a fairly believable science 'discovery' for how it works. That is the most important part, believable background for the science that can't be immediately debunked by the average person.
[Answer]
Your first point is key. Scientific progress isn't always *making things better*. It's just enabling people to make things different.
It's down to the individual, and their morals, to decide if they use scientific knowledge for their own benefit or for the benefit of others.
Examples:
* Splitting the atom. We could have cheap and abundant energy for
everyone, but instead we have the most destructive weapon ever
created.
* Genetics and microbiology: We can sequence the genes of
major viruses and diseases, find their weaknesses and eliminate them.
But instead, we weaponise them and make them *worse*.
**You can never forget the human component of a piece of hard-science literature.**
Some of the best hard scifi I've read is basically people encountering something very unexpected and then following their process of trying to figure out *what the hell is going on?*
] |
[Question]
[
I have a Mage who wields more power than any other (think a hundred thousand normal Mages). He gathered an army of cat warriors from the Guderian forest to his banner and attacked the Kingdom. The cat warriors are bound to him via his powers (he has the power to control all living things except humans). His armies are besieging the last human-controlled city in the kingdom and it is on the verge of falling. My hero has set out on a quest to stop him by slaying him.
The Mage lives in a tower of vines and trees that he grew using magic to accelerate growth of his plant tower. He has no guards because he doesn't need them. The area has a similar flora density to the Amazon rain forest in Brazil. My hero has to somehow kill him, despite the fact that almost all the material around him is alive and is therefore can be placed under the direct control of the Mage.
# Magical Rules:
Anyone can use magic, but very few have the strength of mind to use it. In my world there is an afterlife and the dead are constantly trying to return to the Earth. They try to get into people's bodies and hide from the Spirit Guards there but usually most people have strong enough minds to unknowingly kick them out (even children do).
However, when you use magic it takes away from your bodies natural defenses and you are left vulnerable, both physically and spiritually to attacks. This wizard has been using magic to extend his life for ten thousand years, making him the oldest and most mentally well-built of the Mages. My hero has the limited ability of a level 1 wizard (meaning that he only has the ability to use telekinesis and fly by casting vocal spells).
Spirits are almost totally no physical although they can control fog to make impressions, they can not speak or hear. There are numerous magical artifacts, one of which our hero uses called the Flaming Word of Türbrik that can start flames, shot said flames, and control existing flames with its own magic, although it cannot make large flames it can start them and control them once started.
The forest itself is magical naturally which allows the plants and natives to channel this energy for their own purposes. The Mage can control the plants which in turn control a virtually infinite amount of magic within a fifty foot radius.
# Question
How can my hero defeat this life-controlling Mage in his own environment? Also assume his maximum range is 100 feet and we are working with medieval tech levels. Take note that as long as conditions for plant life are good he can sped cell growth of the plant up to near infinite speeds.
[Answer]
For all his vast power he can die to any regular attack. All your hero needs is to get close enough to perform it. Some options that would potentially work are:
1) poison his water supply. Being a nature mage he may be able to detect this easily (in fact I would make sure he could, because this is anticlimatic otherwise), however, if he can't he could be easily killed with limited effort. If he detects natural poisons use heavy metal or a non-biological poison instead.
2) fly above and drop anything that will create posionous fumes that will chock or kill him on his tower
3) wait until the middle of the night, fly into his tower, and stab him in his sleep. He has no gaurds, so he would have no warning so long as there is a way to get into his tower.
4) burn the place down, as already said. I doubt this would kill him, but it would force him away from his area of strength and bring him out in the open, and once in the open a simply arrow to the chest can kill if not expected.
5) find an area where magic doesn't work and lore him into it, if such a thing exists. Alternatively find a way to mess with magic yourself.
6) get a dozen people to work together to fly something really heavy over his tower and crush him.
Of course those are all boring answers, they wouldn't work to make a good story. SO some more story-based ones:
1) earn the mage's trust, as a protege, a minnion, or someone promising to betray the others to him. Get him to agree to talk with you. Once your close enough to see him in person killing him is a mater of acting when he doesn't expect it. An arrow in the back the moment his back is turned, or push him out of a tower and let him die. Of course the faster the better, less time for him to work magic to save himself, so I would say a suicide attempt that uses a posionous gas, or simply using all your magic to make a big boom that take you both out together would be best. As long as he doesn't have time to react his cosmic power is worthless.
2) can he control undead? If not perhaps intetionally baiting undead into the bodies of those he has hurt or who are close to death and then using them to attack him could work. Can his cat warriors also be controlled by the dead? If their being controlled by magic then I would imagine they must similarly have very resistance to undead. What if you can help arrange for them to all be possesed by spirits at once, removing his army and getting an army yourself. Or if you can arrange for just one cat person to be possesed, but make it one close enough to him to assasinate him that would be enough
3) Find out how he has managed to not be possesed. You said yourself that excessive use of magic will cause others to be posessed, and yet he has gone this long without it. What is he doing to protect himself, and can you somehow mess with whatever trick he uses to keep spirits from posessing him? If it's simply strength of will then can every one of the villagers of a town he is about to destroy agreeing to all try to posess his single body when they die be enough to overwhelm his defenses? Even if they don't overwhelm him enough to destroy him, which is anticlimatic, they could leave him so focused on resisting spirits to be unaware of the hero slipping in to attack him.
4) figure out a way to cut the plants off from magical energy, which leaves them pretty weak and useless to control.
5) attack the spells that are keeping him alive, if that can be interfered with he could age and die quickly. As I said any sort of anti-magic trick would work here.
[Answer]
Light the forest on fire and watch the world burn.
Other option would be to suicide/die then come back and attack the mage as a spirt. If he is so strong and uses so much magic, he has have made himself vulnerable to attack.
[Answer]
If all else fails, salt the earth so that nothing will ever grow again.
[Answer]
Since the hero is completely out-classed in a simple one-vs-one situation, you either have to rely on the nature Mage being too distracted to fight well (*and defeating him as you would any other mage*) or try an "assassinate" type operation.
* Stealth and using telekinesis to fly a blade to his heart would be ideal
* If that is not possible, putting as much focus on his mind elsewhere is important so the hero can try to match him in a classic battle. If the hero could draw an especially strong spirit to the nature-mage that would be good.
It would be cool if our hero only had access to his one or two spells, but had a natural talent for them that put his ability much more than the regular mage using the same spell, or, if he just managed to use the spells in extremely creative ways.
[Answer]
Use The Flaming Word of Türbrik. I assume the mage has some way of quenching the fire once it nears him, or destroying him would be trivial. Since his magic seems to be limited to the control of living things, he could probably use excessive plant growth to smother the flames (as you say, they are not very large). He could even probably make the plants too wet to burn. But given the small range of the mage's abilities (100 feet) there is another option. Heat the ground more than a hundred feet away from the mage. If you can heat it to lava quickly enough, the mage might just die from the heat. If you cannot, a workable method might be to heat the ground to a sufficiently high temperature that all the water in the area evaporates. With no water, conditions are hardly "good" for plant life. Thus his ability to control plants would be weakened. Whether this would be enough to stop him, I don't know. But it would be a start.
Another possibility is this. If the cat warriors are being controlled by this nature mage, perhaps their minds are not entirely on the defensive. Perhaps, in the process of controlling them, the mage has left them vulnerable to spiritual possession. If that is the case, encouraging spirits (I assume that the mage has left plenty of dead behind him) to possess the cats might deprive the mage of his main allies outside of his small sanctum. What's more, if the mage has connected his mind directly to the cats, this could potentially offer a route of spiritual attack against the mage himself.
[Answer]
Water is Life. Thus the secret to destroy life is in the water. Your hero, knowing he had little chance to defeat the Nature archmage, infected and poisoned himself by drinking poisonous water.
He battled the archmage in his green tower. As they were locked in battle, the archmage summoned a ravine with thorns. One of the thorns pierced your hero and got infected by this poison. The battle ensued, with the last vestige of life, your hero dying to the poison he drank but it looked as he died, so did the power of the archmage, because unknowingly, the poison spread from the thorn down to the ravine, the roots, the tower and into the archmage's heart. Now the two bodies collapsed, one a few feet from the other. Then after a heavy-breathing struggle, your hero reached out, for the last time, standing with the aid of on his sword and looked at the archmage who lied breathing on the other side, hands trembling over his chest, as if conjuring another spell but failing........(go on)
[Answer]
Get an iron spear (yes even the shaft). Work out by experimentation how to tell when you're flying exactly over something. Burn forest (trebuchet + burning oil projectile). Get a long distance over target mage while he's standing around figuring out what to do next. Drop iron spear.
[Answer]
Sloooow Poison! Actually some sort of poison or mineral that breaks down the cell walls of plants. It'll will be a slow process, but will make the super-mage more and more vulnerable to fire magic attacks, possibly without him noticing.
Maybe he finds a magical super fungus or bacteria that weakens plants by devouring the minerals and stuff that the plants need. The end result would be to gradually weaken the super-mage without him noticing, opening him up to a sucker punch. additional conflict is jinned up because the effect of this new biological strain would possibly cripple future crops, etc.
[Answer]
How about turning this warriors weakness into a strength? This mage ridicously outclasses him, so he'll be cocky, careless. So the warrior lures him out of his tower by hit and run fire bombing the forest, or supposedly revealing one of the mages enemies, and the mage pursues him into an old rock quarry that has had all plants removed as part of a trap. The wizard of course notices that there are no plants, but he's so sure of himself that he doesn't even care. He has the hero cornered, and then the worlds greatest bowman shoots him in the back with a poisoned arrow. Pick your poison. Probably something not biological, or maybe something that blocks magic.
] |
[Question]
[
Hydras in my world are much like a brontosaurus in form, but has three heads. Much like a hippo, hydras have incredibly dense bones, and sink rapidly in water. Hydras are almost exclusively swamp creatures, using their long necks (Which are like a large snake in shape) to keep above the water. Like a hippo, Hydras have hooves, (Despite being a reptile.) and have the mobility of a hippo underwater. Hydras have limited magic- the most ancient hydras can alter their own density slightly, and every mature hydra has access to a boiling acidic venom (It still must get into the bloodstream to have any effect.) they can spit at reasonable distances. (Non-magical spitting.) Hydras cannot fly. The most important aspect of the Hydra, is it's incredible regeneration. If a Hydra's head is cut off, it will grow 2 in the place of it, reasonably rapidly, (This is magic.) The energy does come from the hydra, so doing this enough will exhaust it, but it can use it's stores of fat and dense bone marrow to fuel this. My main concerns for this creature, is that it will just sink into the swamp, or be incredibly inefficient. Can the swamp floor support such a massive creature? Hydras can weigh over 50 tons, and if they grow too many heads without shedding, they can die. If a hydra would sink, is there any way to prevent this? Would adding two more legs still allow it to run as fast, or even solve the problem, if any? If it is impossible to not sink, how can a hydra escape the bog?
Other questions about hydras do not solve this, and I can't find anything on how things sink into the swamp, but I do know they do. Pygmy dinosaurs have supposedly been spotted in the Congo, so at least we know that type of creature can live in the swamp. (Maybe?)
[Answer]
# That Sinking Feeling That Physics is Involved
50 tons is *a lot* of weight. Elephants clock in at a mere 5-6 short tons. Long-necked dinosaurs are around 17 short tons. This fantastic creature is sunk!
These animals can only sink so far: the Archimedes Principle applies here. You can assume mud and quicksand is *liquid enough* for this equation to apply! It is common enough practice in civil engineering applications to treat dirt and mud a bit like a liquid and it gets pretty good results.
All this to say the following things:
* the hydra sinks until it displaces it's own bodyweight in mud/quicksand, likely not its whole body
* if the body would be entirely submerged, it will hit solid ground "eventually" and can slowly work its way out. Hippos are actually so heavy so they can "trot" a long the bottom of water instead of actually swim. Same for this hydra, only it's swampy mud.
# Long Necks Solve Issues
A hydra could rely on it's long necks in one of a few ways:
* To ambush and eat food because the main body is stuck. The science term is "a feeding envelope," and was a reason why we think long necked dinosaurs evolved
* To pull itself out (assuming snake-like mobility in the neck).
Which are good reasons to have long necks! More importantly, that main body should be a bit more smooth to help with the "pulling itself out" bit. Maybe hydras do not so much walk as drag itself about. More feet will help spread its weight out, but do cost a fair bit of energy!
[Answer]
If you are really aiming for scientific accuracy, be aware that in 1951 it was pointed out that water pressure would make it impossible for a sauropod to breathe under water. See [this blog post](https://caterpickles.com/2011/07/04/why-did-they-draw-that-dinosaur-underwater/) for the whole story (which can be confirmed elsewhere.)
But being aware doesn't necessarily mean changing anything. This limitation only applies if you rely on air pressure to inflate the lungs, the way existing animals do. You could imagine (for instance) a very strong, appropriately built creature having muscles and bones arranged to be able to exert immense force against water pressure to allow air in. Not biologically likely, but not physically impossible either. So, no problem at all for a good fantasy!
[Answer]
You can solve that with two simple questions about the bog.
1. How deep is the bog?
2. Does the bog have a soft bottom or a hard bottom?
If the bog is "deep" or "soft bottomed" then the hydra sinks too far into the muck.
But, if the bog is "shallow" & "hard bottomed" then you can have the hydra stand/walk etc on the bottom of the bog without sinking too far into the muck.
So you just have to explain that bog trait in story & say that hydras choose shallow, hard-bottomed bogs to live in.
That is what real life animals do, they choose den/nesting locations based on certain criteria to fit their needs. (take a look at bird houses & notice how many different designs there are which appeal to only certain species but not others, if birds can be that picky why not hydras?)
So this can help add realism: the hydras are limited in which bogs/areas they can reside in, there isn't a hydra lurking in every bog in your world.
You don't mention if hydras or good/heroic or bad/monsters, or how you otherwise intend to treat them in the story, but you can use the limitation of the hydra's habitat to your advantage.
Perhaps a character must go on a search for a hydra & first finding the right kind of bog is part of that challenge.
If your hydra is a monster, the hero could trick the hydra into leaving it's shallow bog lair and chasing him into a deep, soft-bottomed bog where it sinks & drowns.
Or, if the hydra is heroic, a villain could attempt to trick it into drowning in a deep bog.
I'm sure you can come up with any number of ideas.
] |
[Question]
[
This question is complicated, so hang on. A medieval army made up mostly of foot soldiers wearing plate armor (although there are cavalry, they're going at the speed of the foot soldiers) with enough supplies to last them the journey carried in horse-drawn carts that go at the same speed as the foot soldiers. The land they walk contains enough water for drinking, cleaning, and other purposes. The soldiers walk for twelve hours every day.
The total length of the journey is roughly 360 miles (579 km). Of that, about 150 miles (241 km) are in grasslands composed of rolling hills while the rest of the journey is in forest. None of the march in the grasslands is on marked roads, while half on the walk in the forest (105 miles or 169 km) is on maintained roads while the rest is not.
The army leaves in the middle of November (I don't use exact dates in my story, but if you need one, say November 15) and the area has a climate similar to that of the states of Virginia and North Carolina.
The army collects more soldiers as they go. They start the journey with 5,000 soldiers and end with 25,000. For the sake of the question, let's say they collect new soldiers at a steady rate. I don't know how this would affect the army's pace.
All of this is really for the background detail of whether they arrive in winter or spring, but still, if the army makes no long stops and keeps a steady pace, **how long will it take for the army to get from point A to point B?**
I have a hard time figuring this out because of all of the details, but here's a [source](https://thehistoryace.com/statistics-on-how-fast-medieval-armies-moved/#:%7E:text=Generally%20speaking%2C%20the%20average%20medieval%20army%20could%20cover,chain%20that%20could%20keep%20up%20with%20the%20army) I found.
It doesn't talk about biomes, roads, climates, and gathering more soldiers, but it has some details about pace that might help.
[Answer]
You **specified** that the soldiers walk for 12 hours per day. If that is the case, expect them to do the walk in less than three weeks (12 hours at 2 mph means 15 days if they can travel direct line. Round up for diversions from that route, but 2 mph is not all that fast as a hiking speed.)
That is not realistic.
Your army will be required to break camp in the morning and to make camp in the evening. Or more likely soon after the noon. 5,000 people are much harder to move than 5 or 50. The food they eat will not come out of a tin can, and cooking cannot be done on the move. Water supply will be a major concern. Once you reach 25,000 troops, most likely the first will already make camp by the time the last will depart from the old site.
You specified a medieval army. By and large, those were not nearly as professional as the Romans a millenium before. With well-trained, well-led forces, it might be able to reduce the time to make camp. A typical medieval mix of feudal levies and nobles is less proficient.
Depending on the weather, tens of thousands of marching boots and hooves could wear the grassland into mud. Put horse-carts into that (not ox-carts or mule-carts?) and you go down to a snail's pace. Snow might further complicate things.
If you look back in history to the [Roman precedent](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/8226/how-quickly-could-the-roman-legions-march-how-did-it-compare-to-their-cavalry), your force might march less than 10 miles a day in much less than 12 hours. A commander in a hurry might increase this, while bad conditions might slow them down.
With a disciplined force, call it 40 marching days, with 10 non-marching days in between for the occasional rest, or until engineers improve a ford, or until a nasty rain ends.
With an untrained force, you might be forced to make *winter camp* for several months. Departure in November, arrival sometime next summer?
[Answer]
## Historical example
We have plenty of historical records of large armies travelling up and down the thousand kilometer long [Spanish Road](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Road), from the Netherlands to Italy, in the Renaissance and very Early Modern times. The average speed is well documented to be something like 14 miles or 23 km per day; or actually anywhere between 16 and 33 km per day, depending on weather, organization, urgency and so on.
Just to make it clear, the Spanish Road was a *route*, not an actual road. There were no trans-continental roads in the 16th and 17th century. Some parts of the route were easy, some were harder; after all, it did cross the Alps, usually though [Valtellina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valtellina) -- there is no way to go from Italy to the Netherlands without crossing the Alps.
I would say that this real-history example is plenty good enough for fiction.
[Answer]
You should count **a minimum of two months**. But if you want to make any plans requiring the presence of the army at point B, allow three months.
The figures from your source are for marching *in summer*. During the winter, they become impossible because there just isn't enough hours of light in the day, and some of those hours have to be spent setting up and dismantling the camp, preparing food, maintaining /repairing the gear etc. More walking time will be lost when the rearguard waits for all other regiments to march past before setting off; still more time will be lost when the vanguard has to stop early enough in the day to allow the rest of the army to catch up before sunset (which means that the army will *slow down* as it grows). Parts of their journey which are not on *paved* (rather than just "maintained") roads will be hard on the wagons, which will slow everybody down. All told, your army may be left with as little as 3 hours of walking per day on average, allowing it to cover anywhere between 6 and 10 miles, assuming no traffic jams, no taking a wrong turn, no holidays religious or otherwise, no rain/snow making roads impassable etc.
[Answer]
So, my experience Hunting:
Through relatively flat/rolling tracks (equivalent to your Meadow) it was a comfortable about 3-4 Kph (That was with a 5 Kg Rifle and around a 20 kg Rucksack). I'm not super-duper fit (in the process of getting fitter), it was uphill and downhill, but not so steep that it was difficult. I did have to stop after about 2.5 hours for a break (about 30 mins). I reckon I could have kept up that pace in that terrain for a full day of walking. Call it 8 hours of walking - around 24-32 Km. So your 241 Km journey across grasslands and rolling hills could be done in around 10-15 days - As you'll need some rest days to gather supplies/food etc.
However, when I was going on an actual hunt and going through the Bush (aka Forest) - it was more like 1-2 Kph. It does depend on how thick the forest is, but yeah, it's much slower going and in addition (if the canopy is very dense) the hours in which there's enough visible light to safely walk in is shortened by potentially 1-2 hours each side of daybreak.
So, 8 hours again, that's 8 Km a day (I'm picking the lower number because a single Human moving through the forest is one thing, 25,000 humans is quite another) - and so this second part of the journey would take around 30 days (again, we need rest days and re-supply days).
All up - you are looking at about a 2 month journey **minimum**.
Things that will speed up or slow-down your journey is your logistics. Assuming Someone slightly smaller than me - so a 70 Kg Male (160 pounds) and the same weight as the pack I carried (25 Kg of weight or 55 lbs) - you're burning around 500 calories an hour. So that's 4,000 calories burned **just on the marching** per day. That's about the same amount of Calories that a 24 hour ration pack/MRE for most modern militaries has.
To give an idea - your 25,000 person Army needs around 100 million Calories per day. That's the equivalent of hunting **625 deer every day** - or 100 Modern day grain fed cows. Of course, they aren't eating all their calories in Meat - but you get the picture - lots of people, doing lots of hard work means lots of calories and needing lots of food.
And you need that for every day, not to mention the Water (I easily went through several litres of water per day).
If the route is 'known' - that is, there are maps and areas where resupply is easy or they know how far it is to the next stream/river or where the game is, then you could possibly justify just under a 2 month journey, especially if the Soldiers are fit/professional/disciplined.
However, if the route is unknown, the Army will most likely at the tail-end of the day make camp earlier if it is close to a strategically sound position (e.g. near a water source or near where there is plenty of game) then they would stop and make camp earlier and this could seriously slow down progress. As others have mentioned, if this takes place over Winter, they would most likely walk part of the way until the weather was too bad, then make a Winter camp, going back on the match when the weather is more donducive.
TL;DR - 2 Months best case scenario - but due to various factors could easily be longer.
] |
[Question]
[
I’m building a world where two civilizations are meeting, and both have fairly different design philosophies with weapons and armor, and the easiest way to sum it up is think Mass Effect without the relay network needed to travel, so they have weapons that fire tiny bullets really fast but also have to deal with overheating, and they also rely more on kinetic shields and barriers with very minimal armor, and they’re fighting a civilization that instead went bigger, building their troops up with large amounts of armor, exo-skeletons, and large caliber weapons that are also magnetically propelled but not as fast as their enemy’s weapons. Their ship designs also represent this. I want to know if the smaller and faster weapons are automatically better than the larger caliber ones because I don’t want it to be a total stomp for one side
Edit: Meant to clarify that I’m talking about on the ground, infantry warfare. As for the side that specializes in armor, we’re talking incredibly thick, heavy, and incredibly dense alloys used in this armor that it necessitates exosuits just to move faster than a stroll. As for how the kinetic barriers work, I’m still figuring that out as that is part of the reason I was worried that this would be a total stomp for one side if I just said “they block anything and everything and it takes sustained fire to take them out, no matter the projectile size”
[Answer]
There is no always better.
A lot of the benefits in land warfare (light means more rounds) are discussed elsewhere, so I'll address effectiveness and role.
I think the more important question is what are the weapons built to accomplish.
A light projectile has less mass so you can accelerate it fast and you can also decelerate it fast, so your effective range is likely pretty small even if your maximum range is very long.
You'll have three modes with a fast, light projectile:
overpenetration: hit the target with a needle going Mach 3 - punches through and deposits basically no energy
underpenetration: hit the target with a needle thrown by a 12 year old - no energy left after flight drag
effective: hits the target with enough kinetic energy to be lethal - due to low mass, crumbles and collapses on impact, imparting all energy to the target
If these are battle rifle-type weapons, I'd presume they're designed to be effective against those who use them. In that case, I'd presume their users are insect-like. Very fast, stealthy when they want to be, can change direction quickly and have little to no muscle, but potentially carapace. In this case their doctrine would likely be to spread out and ambush using a triangulation of crossfire to fill the target area with rapid, effective fires at medium to close range and aiming for soft parts (head, eyes) with point fire. If the enemy closes the natural overpenetration of the weapons makes them more likely to pierce carapace, so lay down heavy grazing fires at center of mass targets. Their engagements would likely be mostly silence followed by a massive, violent scrum. They'd focus a lot on movement, tracking and situational awareness. Maneuver and unit cohesion would be key as well as furious and uncompromising personal combat. There likely wouldn't be snipers or designated marksmen. Being alone makes you prey. Even if you knock down one, there are fifteen behind you.
On the other hand a heavy projectile has lots of mass, so even though you can't accelerate it fast you also can't decelerate it fast, so your effective range is likely quite long even if your maximum range is shorter.
You'll have the same three modes with a slower, heavy projectile of over- and underpenetration, as well as an effective range, however your effective band will take up more of the maximum range. Overpenetration is also likely to be lethal. Shooting a needle through a target is not fun, but likely not lethal. Driving a softball through a target is likely going to be lethal, even if most of the energy stays with the projectile.
If these are battle rifle-type weapons, I'd presume they're designed to be effective against those who use them. In that case, I'd presume their users are large mammalians or reptiles on the order of bear, rhinos, elk, elephants or dinosaurs. Very large, heavy skeleton apex predators or omnivores with fat and muscle layers, likely with dense hide, fur or armored plates. They're likely fairly ponderous in regular life, careful and calculating. In this case their doctrine likely is to scout, locate and strike asymmetrically out of range or from an unexpected direction with precision and then, failing that, to fire for effect, break contact and reset. Continuing to fight after revealing your location and tactical situation is foolhardy because once an enemy knows where you are, you are at a disadvantage and little more than an amusing target. Their engagements would likely be sniper battles. There would be occasional shots. Superior marksmanship, fieldcraft, hunting acumen and the ability to out think and read your enemy would be key. Units would be more like federated hunting parties with blinds, bluffs, ambushes and lures. Battles would play out like a football game over a wider area as each group jockeys for position while protecting their own assets. Being hit anywhere would likely be a fairly high trauma wound and if not fatal, would slow you down and make it harder to think, making you an easier target and starting the death spiral. Shrewedness, calculating precision and personal capability would be fundamental. A weapon is only as useful as its operator.
Whoever would win is whoever could adapt the fastest. Both could win.
The long-range effectiveness of the big bores would catch the light shots off guard. They'd need only a glance and a good guess to rain down deadly fires. The light shots need a way to get in close.
The group assault tactics of the light shots would catch the big bores off guard. They'd only need a few in penetration range, and then a big bore wouldn't have time to get to an advantageous position and sight in. The big bores need a standoff mechanism or a fast response.
The big bores would need to rely on their hunting acumen and inventiveness.
If they pivoted on the light shots needing to get in close they could establish a system of interlocking fields of fire so that no approach is safe. All they'd have to do then is sit and wait for their quarry to appear, which they're more than happy to do.
They could also easily convert a large bore weapon to a shotgun and start carrying sidearms to repel close-in assault. An increase in rate of fire and higher capacity magazines as well as patrolling in pairs would blunt the effectiveness of light shot ambushes.
They could prepare static defenses like mines. If the light shots can't get close, they can't be effective.
The light shots would need to rely on their numbers, speed, stealth and inquisitiveness.
If they realized the big bores are only effective at range, they'd need to either close fast or start close. Deploying sleeper units in random places to wait for big bores and attack opportunistically, or use their superior mobility (digging, flying, climbing) to come at big bores from many directions at once and directions they don't expect could allow enough to get in range to be effective.
The goal would be to splinter a hunting party in to smaller groups or individuals so they couldn't overwatch each other or respond to contact. They'd then be easy pickings to swoop down on. Randomized tactics would keep the big bores guessing. The assault, once started, should be constant to keep the big bores from taking a breath to plan.
It would not be hard for the light shots to convert captured big bore weapons in to crew-served weapons. If they can pin down a big bore with long range fire, they can easily swoop in and nail it.
As far as exosuits, you may want to lean in to that and have the big bores be human-sized, but trying to fight against dinosaur-sized predators. You may also want to dial it down and have exosuits be more like upscaled smartgun assist armatures the colonial marines used in "Aliens!".
In general, start with why. Why do they have light and fast? It works. Why does it work? It is effective against most of the things they want to shoot at. Why? Light and fast is pretty good at hitting light and fast targets close in. Vice versa for the opposite. You can see how I worked forward from there. What is small and light and effective close in? Insects. Based on their physical stature you can extrapolate tactics and in part the warrior culture, which would effect strategy and ethos.
[Answer]
I actually had similar question here: [How to best miniaturize firearms? The idea is to go mechanic route as far as possible, assuming massive energy shortage](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/189080/how-to-best-miniaturize-firearms-the-idea-is-to-go-mechanic-route-as-far-as-pos)
Yours is a little different, so keeping above in mind, let's do a quick comparison of smaller projectile versus bigger:
1. More rounds per loadout (i.e. going from NATO 7.62 to NATO 5.56 gives you 40% more rounds)
2. Less weight (same loadout of 5.56 NATO is less than half the weight of 7.62)
3. Less recoil
4. Less range - 5.56 is good up to 500-600m, 7.62 can go nearly twice as far and still transfer significant (and compared to 5.56 at 550m) energy to the target,
5. Less energy transferred to target
6. Less flat trajectory (Though not that much - about 5% less than 7.62)
7. Less accurate (meaning lighter projectile is more susceptible to weather/atmospheric conditions)
It's worth mentioning that it's not like after 600m 5.56 suddenly stops - it just starts tumbling unpredictably, which may cause it to miss the target. Projectiles have high maximum range (for example minie ball is lethal at over one mile even), it's the effective range that counts - range at which there is a reasonable expectation of hitting a target.
The lower you go on size and mass, the more pronounced the difference will be. So the real question here is: what is the method of propelling the projectile? I mean - smaller it is, the more kinetic energy to impart is needed for it to compete with bigger round. As mentioned here, in the thread: lethality is a function of mass and velocity...
In my opinion - and I'll refer you again to link at the start - the only possible way for going smaller is to either have completely different method of energy transfer, giving much higher speed without significantly increasing the amount of the propellant, or build a drive that would accelerate projectile all the way to the target.
Currently it's mostly controlled explosion and driving the combustion gasses in one way, propelling the projectile through the barrel (and the longer barrel for same explosion imparts more energy) or railgun/coilgun (experimental still; I know it's not the same, but not in principle)...
So if you have the tech to build a tiny engine, one that would accelerate your projectile AFTER it left the barrel, you're golden. Concept and even technology is there already - SCRAMjet projectile, if accelerated to high enough speed initially - but building such rounds for a firearm is not as easy as it sounds (and may not be possible to miniaturize below certain level). Concept is solid, though, there have been vessels built using it. Then projectile can go to and maintain middle to high hypersonic speeds. Scramjet bullets in theory could move so fast, that with the compression of the air due to their design, they would use just the atmospheric oxygen as fuel, again in theory making them both long-range and high-damage.
5.56 has about 1kps muzzle velocity which is Mach 2.9, which technically is still supersonic (that is: less than Mach 3). So high hypersonic is 7-8 kps (Mach 20 to 23), and if you can go ultrasonic (I know, it's not exactly how the word is used), you could have really small projectiles with one heck of a punch.
So question is: what is your tech base? If not enough, then I refer you (again) to the linked question.
[Answer]
## Frame challenge : your question isn't tackling your underlying issue
From what I understand, you're mostly worried that one power might crush the other. However, **remember that outside historically-accurate stories, *you* are in control of your balance, rarely your world**. If you want [big guns making ludicrous bloodbaths](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJYrKVhFJRI), you can. If you want a [tiny gun destroying buildings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfXSPi8RNH0), you can too!
Even with real-world weapons, you'll see that scriptwriters often adapt their overall potency depending on what they wish to convey... When they're not [meddling with ammo clips](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BottomlessMagazines) for specific scenes. On their side, game designers balance their game a lot of the time, too. Yes, through (lots of) trials and errors, but it's only because people will put the tactics to the test, rarely because they think the weapon is ridiculous from a world standpoint. **Point is, few people will complain as long as you don't dive in the extremes** (e.g. : punches exploding tanks). This works for most worlds, including deep, space-opera worlds like Mass Effect's.
**To effectively balance each tactical asset, you need to think them one relatively to another and under conditions rather as absolutes** (read whether they're "automatically better" than other). Also, wonder "*why*" do this empire like this weapon or another. Why this weapon is better than this one on open-fields and against mechas? Do they like this weapon because it's ultra-cheap? Or is it because it is (or was) strong against a recurrent enemy, or because it works best in some specific land type they live? As you get more and more of these questions answered you should more easily explain why this war is balanced or why one side struggles. In other words, it will make your world feel more balanced.
***Very important note : be consistent throughout the answers you give to the above questions : If round X pierces a tank's armor and similar round Y is even more powerful than X, then Y is likely to pierce it, too!***
## Now to the stated question : each ammo its usage
There's no "always stronger" weapons in real-worlds and most fictional ones, they are adapted for some situations and not others. As such, bigger ammo isn't *always* better, nor smaller is. Still, people will associate traits with some ammo kinds. Here are some attributes (physically and artistically) commonly bound with small ammunition :
* **You can carry more ammo**, both in clip and on yourself. That's actually how they explain infinite ammunition capacity in Mass Effect 1's gameplay.
* **Weapons are lighter, smaller, easier to handle and even concealable sometimes**. You also have less recoil.
* **They have faster firing rate and lower reload time**. Great for saturating areas like with machine guns.
* **But they have lower destructive power** : They don't pierce armor very well (even though it can saturate shields) and explode rarely (they don't have/have less explosive payloads).
As for heavy ammunition, it's just the reverse. They have higher destructive power which can lead to area of effects (i.e. explosions). However you can carry less ammo, weapons are bulkier, their firing rate is lower and reload time higher.
Finally, as told by others, shot speed plays a major factor in feeling a weapon's destructive power. For the same mass faster is generally stronger. It's actually one lever designers often pull to make smaller ammo feel more destructive.
*Recall, the above is not to be used as a strict and impervious reference, it's just what people will tend to think at first! For instance, slow firing, armor piercing yet with tiny-ammo railguns have already been made convincingly! The few limits you can't really dodge is ammo capacity and that your weapon cannot be -obviously- smaller than your ammunition :).*
[Answer]
**Mass x Velocity = Force**
Smaller is better only really applies when it comes to carrying and storing ammo.
The whole point of guns is to put holes in things that shouldn't have holes in them and the bigger the hole the better.
Now the real advantage of small is if you're firing 2mm ball bearings is a magazine might hold 1000 rounds while a 50 cal sized mag might hold 10 rounds.
Now you have a couple of options to compensate for the small rounds. You can simply fire more rounds faster. If you're firing tiny rounds at 100 per second, you can effectively cut something in half.
The other option is expanding. When something like a hollow point round hit something, it expands out and breaks up so it's a small hole where it hits and a massive hole where it exits
The advantage of big rounds is they always make big holes. More mass always means more force. A bullet can go through a body and the person could keep fighting but a cannonball is always going to wreck their day.
Another advantage is you can pack extra goodies into a large round. Depleted uranium rounds? Tungsten core armour piercing rounds? laser guided smart rounds? Explosive rounds? Incendiary rounds? Frag rounds? Smoke rounds? Neurotoxin rounds? Gas rounds?
Larger rounds are more powerful and more flexible.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tVPVR.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6L8Re.png)
Dragon's breath Shotgun shells
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/A9133.png)
Frag shotgun shells
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wglbM.jpg)
Beanbag rounds
[Answer]
No, small bullets are not automatically better.
1 - Bullets loose speed based on the atmospheric density, and the faster they are the faster they slow down. Their is a practical upper limit for the maximum speed before its all just wasted in friction.If we were fighting underwater then a "bullet" the size of a container ship could kill me even fired from miles away,going only very slowly (we assume I do not swim out the the way). In contrast a small bullet, no matter how ridiculously accelerated it is, will not make it far through the water. This gives a nice way of explaining how your civs went different ways (if you want too). Perhaps one hails from a planet with double or more the atmospheric density of the other.
2 - Assuming you can fire rounds at a speed, such that more speed would largely go to waste in atmospheric friction, then larger rounds let you pack more punch.
3 - Whipple shields (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipple_shield>) can be used to stop extremely fast and small projectiles. These are very thin (maybe think of tin foil) layers placed several meters in front of your main armour. If a tiny bullet at incredible speed hits the tinfoil it cuts right through it like butter without even slowing down, *but* that tiny friction it gets from cutting through that tinfoil can heat it up so much that it melts or evaporates into a gas. Then the main armour behind just gets hit by a really fast burp, rather than a really fast bullet.
4 - A bullet that is too small could sail right through a target while inflicting very little damage on the way through. Imagine a tiny little cut line right through the target, maybe it got hit by a relativistic dust grain. That might not be so bad.
[Answer]
I upvoted @Thorne's answer and you should to, but I'd like to put a different spin on it.
>
> To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
>
>
>
The equation F=mA is absolutely true. Kinda. The idea that two objects, varying in mass and acceleration such that each impacts the target with the same force, would result in the same amount of damage isn't completely true.
I offer, for your consideration, the idea of a BB-sized plastic sphere vs. a 1kg tungsten sphere. Acceleration is adjusted such that both impact a steel shell with a reasonably considerable and equal force. What would we expect to happen?
The plastic BB will vaporize in a fantastic ball of glorious heat. But otherwise do a whole lot of nothing.
The tungsten sphere might just bounce off, but only after leaving a decent dent — if not actually piercing the shell.
**OK, what's your point?**
That plastic BB at the acceleration just considered would be a whomping good anti-personel weapon, but a nearly useless anti-tank weapon. Sending out 10,000 plastic BBs that add up to the force of a single anti-tank weapon [simply won't do the job](https://youtu.be/Xd5i6hzuLmU?t=148). In like manner, the tungsten sphere would be a good anti-tank weapon, but a lousy anti-personell weapon (unless all the soldiers are conveniently standing in a row).
There's a reason any good military on Earth has bullets and/or shells of all shapes and sizes, of all makes and types. There's no such thing as one bullet (or one weapon, for that matter) that's the right bullet for every job.
**Then there's wind...**
Then there's the problem plaguing all small things: wind (and water, and other forces...). The problem with F=mA is that it also works in reverse. The force needed to, for example, deflect a small mass is less than for a larger mass. It doesn't matter if we shoot one plastic BB at an incredibly high acceleration or 10,000 at, well... 1/10,000th of that one BB's acceleration. They're all equally suseptible to the same wind force. Wind... water... magnetism... heavy is your friend if you want your aim to be true.
Except for gravity. That's perhaps the one force that benefits light over heavy.
**TL;DR**
Sometimes smaller is better. Sometimes bigger is better. The assumption that one could always outshine the other is too simplistic. If your worldbuilding is for the purpose of a game, then all this doesn't matter because the presentation of combat is only an aesthetic. All this only matters if you have a reason to reflect Real World physics in your worldbuilding.
[Answer]
It is likely that your rounds are limited by kinetic energy that magnets have managed to put in the bullets. So, having a bullet fly twice as fast means it needs to weigh 1/4 of the original one. This means the bullet packs half the momentum. Half the momentum is both good and bad. You will feel less recoil... but your target will feel less recoil too. Assuming bullet stops in your exoskeleton body, being shot by a 100g chunk travelling at 100 m/s will make you stagger. 1g chunk travelling at 1 km/s (note - 10x higher speed => 100x lower mass) will only make you flinch. In this scenario, heavier weapons are generally better in terms of smashing opponents, but because of recoil they are going to be less accurate. Side with heavier guns also packs much heavier armor = they weigh more. This opens up possibility of having higher kinetic energy for larger guns, making momentum considerations even more lopsided. Additionally, smaller bullets take up less space; but I believe the main limitation would be battery packs (or whatever energy source) for those guns.
IF your bullets are limited by momentum (your magnets are powerful enough so the only limitation is to not fly after firing), having smaller caliber guns means they will pack way more kinetic energy. Perhaps not that much more if side with heavier weapons has more weight. Counter-intuitively, soldiers with smaller caliber guns will run out of ammo faster - they will deplete their battery packs faster. Even faster if heavier soldiers carry more battery.
On the other hand, you have impact depth - density ratio \* projectile length. It is unlikely that armor has higher density than the bullet, so as long as the bullet is long-ish, it WILL penetrate the heavy armor. This poses problems for the heavily armored side ((I don't know about your energy shields, so you can handwave that bit if needed))
[Answer]
Making some assumptions and confining the answer to space warfare (and hence vacuum). Assuming that some form of convention propulsion like a fusion drive is needed by vessels for 'in system' travel in addition to the FTL drive that lets them travel between the stars up to a point 'smaller is better'. This is because the velocities used in space travel are high enough (in virtually all circumstances) to impart significant Kinetic energy (KE) to any object fired from one ship at another. Without specific examples of difference masses its hard to calculate but the formula is as follows:
**KE = 1/2 mass (of the projectile) x velocity squared**.
So you can see that as velocity increases the amount of energy released on impact rises significantly. Depending on the size of the vessels and their speed at some point even small projectiles traveling at very high velocities (relative to the target) are going to inflict significant damage on any vessel hit.
If rail guns for instance are the primary space weapon having smaller (less massive) projectiles means not only can the rails guns be smaller but the power requirements are also reduced since smaller projectiles require less energy to reach your required velocity than larger (more massive) ones do. On top of this not only can you carry more ammunition but potentially you can add additional guns to up your rate of fire. Finally lots of smaller projectiles are harder for an enemy to detect and intercept and/or evade than a few large ones.
So in space at least provided you can launch your projectiles at a velocity that is sufficient to puncture a known quality of enemy armor smaller IS better.
[Answer]
There are some good answers here on the subject of weapons here so I will respond to your edit about not wanting one side to dominate in the conflict.
Essentially it comes down to numbers. If one side (culturally) only uses elites to fight wars then they will have a lower manpower than the side that gives everyone a gun and says "Advance on the enemy or I shoot you".
] |
[Question]
[
**My interstellar empire is powered by a quasar.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZEiVg.png)
Or at least it will be once I finish my scheme.
See that cloud of glowing dust? That's called the quasar's accretion disc. When stuff falls into the centre, most of it is gobbled up by the collapsing star. But due to conservation of something I can't remember, about six percent of the mass energy is converted into kinetic energy and shot back out at the speed of light (the fastest speed there is) as radiation. That's the beam.
The quasar is in the middle of the inhabited part of the galaxy. There are hundreds of loosely confederated planets and artificial habitats within dozens of lightyears of the Zar.
The Zar. That's what I call the quasar by the way. Or what I *will* call it, once I have finished my scheme. Once I am Emperor, or *Tzar* (pronounced Zar) as my subjects will call me. It's a pun. You are allowed to make puns when you are Emperor.
The plan is to turn the Zar into the best and most efficient power plant in the galaxy. Once I have driven my competitors out of business, and established a galactic monopoly on cheap clean energy, I can demand anything I want. Fail to comply and the lights in your houses go out. Fail to comply and the lights in your swimming pools and hospitals go out.
The project is already half complete. I have finished construction of the Unobtanium shell around the outside of the Zar, and I have coated the interior surface with shiny tinfoil. When I want energy I chuck more matter into the hole. The outgoing radiation gets reflected and concentrated into a beam that I can split and shoot across the galaxy to power the worlds in my empire.
I am now accepting bids from any interested parties for the following project:
>
> What is the most reliable way to transmit a beam of energy from my stellar powerplant to the various worlds in the empire?
>
>
>
My original plan was to split the Main Beam and shoot one minibeam to the giant **beam catcher** on each world. But my team of Eggheads has informed me that many of the worlds in my empire like to move around. Some of the planets orbit their stars. This makes a fixed beam a big no-no. Some of the worlds revolve while orbiting their stars. So even if we move the minibeam to follow the orbit, the **beam catcher** will point the wrong way most of the time and we end up beaming the planet in half.
The Eggheads also say it is hard to predict the motion of things at this scale. You do not shoot the beam at the planet. You shoot the beam where the planet will be in six years. The planets are very small and very far away and due to a "chaotic system" as they call it, we cannot predict with enough accuracy. Again we either miss the planet entirely or chop it in half. Not good for business.
Hence I come to you, talented investor. Bids are now open for a state-of-the art beam delivery system. The ideal system will provide an effectively unlimited and supremely reliable supply of power to each world in my fledgling empire.
Interested parties are informed that money and resources are no object, as I have recently received a small loan from my father. The successful bidder will have full access to the company fleet as well as our cutting-edge Star Foundries and nano-labs. Please include in your bid an enumerated list of any starships, megacruisers, satellites, artificial habitats, repurposed planetoids, genetically-engineered beings, or works of seminal art you will require.
Other benefits include free Deliveroo breakfasts and lunches for you and your team for the duration of the contract; access to the company parking lot, gym, swimming pool and sauna; complementary haircuts; and free tea and coffee in the break room. Each applicant will receive a goody bag consisting of a company tote bag, lanyard, t-shirt, pen and journal.
Inspired by [this answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/237217/14322)
[Answer]
**Everything is so much worse than you think**
* Planets don't just rotate, they wobble.
* Planets don't just orbit, the orbits wobble.
* Suns don't just sit still, they move, too.
* And they wobble.
* And just to put icing on the cake, the galaxy doesn't sit still, it moves, too.
* And I wouldn't be surprised if it wobbles, too.
Which means the predictability of hitting your target is pre-tty challenging. *But that's not all!*
* Space has stuff in it. Gas. Dust. Plasma. You might think it's pretty empty but at the energy levels you're talking about and the distances you're talking about you might as well as be diving into a pool full of jell-o. Just punching through the heliopause might be interesting.
* Space has gravity, too... and what's the one thing that can bend light without a medium? Yup! Gravity!
* And just to add some imagination to our collection of woes... you might have come up with the one way you can actually prove there's Dark Matter. With this much energy flowing through it, it should light up like a Grateful Dead T-shirt under a black light.
*It's a bit like hitting the worst moving target in human history with an unrifled bullet made of styrofoam.*
**But you're saved!**
Because what you need is the most awesome, most amazing, most *astounding* set of [waveguides](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waveguide) in human history!
>
> A waveguide is a structure that guides waves, such as electromagnetic waves or sound, with minimal loss of energy by restricting the transmission of energy to one direction. Without the physical constraint of a waveguide, wave intensities decrease according to the inverse square law as they expand into three dimensional space.
>
>
> There are different types of waveguides for different types of waves. The original and most common meaning is a hollow conductive metal pipe used to carry high frequency radio waves, particularly microwaves. Dielectric waveguides are used at higher radio frequencies, and transparent dielectric waveguides and optical fibers serve as waveguides for light. In acoustics, air ducts and horns are used as waveguides for sound in musical instruments and loudspeakers, and specially-shaped metal rods conduct ultrasonic waves in ultrasonic machining.
>
>
> The geometry of a waveguide reflects its function; in addition to more common types that channel the wave in one dimension, there are two-dimensional slab waveguides which confine waves to two dimensions. The frequency of the transmitted wave also dictates the size of a waveguide: each waveguide has a cutoff wavelength determined by its size and will not conduct waves of greater wavelength; an optical fiber that guides light will not transmit microwaves which have a much larger wavelength. Some naturally occurring structures can also act as waveguides. The SOFAR channel layer in the ocean can guide the sound of whale song across enormous distances. Any shape of cross section of waveguide can support EM waves. Irregular shapes are difficult to analyse. Commonly used waveguides are rectangular and circular in shape.
>
>
>
Now, obviously you can't drag bazillions of kilometers of tubes through the galaxy. I mean, *you could...* and that would also be *awesome...* but realistically you need something a bit more practical.
**Magnetic Waveguides**
>
> Magnonics, or spin wave based spintronics, is an emerging technology where magnons—quanta for spin waves—process the information analogous to electronic charges in electronics. We introduce the fundamental components of a magnonic device and briefly discuss their electrical control. The magnetic waveguide—an integral part of a magnonic circuit—guides the spin wave signal (magnon current) of desired frequency, wave vector, phase, and amplitude, which are the key ingredients for wave based computing. Typically, a bias magnetic field aligns magnetization to satisfy anisotropic magnon dispersions for low-energy and long-wavelength magnons, and thus it hinders on-chip device integration capability. We discuss strategies to eliminate the requirements of such a bias field by utilizing self-biased waveguides, which are based on either exchange coupled magnetic multi-layer based magnetic micro-wire or dipolar coupled but physically separated chain of rhomboid nanomagnets. We emphasize that the self-biased waveguides offer additional functionalities as compared to conventional waveguides. In this regard, manipulation of spin waves or the gating operation is presented by utilizing reconfigurable remanent magnetic states of the waveguide externally controlled by field or microwave current. We discuss the prospects of these bias-free waveguide strategies in the rapidly developing field of nano-magnonics and their potential for practical realizations of a magnonic-electronic hybrid technology. ([Source](https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0061528))
>
>
>
Now, if you ignore the fact that magnons are a bit small (kinda, not really a particle...) and that the frequencies are a bit high for effective energy transmission, what you have is a scientific basis for the following science fiction:1
In your universe, scientists have discovered how to create a series of satellite space stations scattered across the galaxy The purpose of these satellites is to create magnetic waveguides. The satellites are "close enough" that they can keep themselves in reasonable (read: believable) alignment with each other, which means you're not shooting blind at the planets. They siphon off enough of the energy to not only maintain the waveguides, but to move, which they're constantly doing. Your running your energy along the intersteller equivalent of ocean buoys connected with rope.
*And if you're thinking Borg Transwarp Conduits... you're not too far off the inspiration for this answer.*
---
1 *I'll be honest with you, you used the [science-based](/questions/tagged/science-based "show questions tagged 'science-based'") tag. Humanity hasn't tried to move a thousandth of one percent of the energy you're talking about... and you used the [science-based](/questions/tagged/science-based "show questions tagged 'science-based'") tag. I'm doing my best, but my answer will default to the [science-fiction](/questions/tagged/science-fiction "show questions tagged 'science-fiction'") tag because, frankly, there is no science today that can move that much energy across that much distance. So... yeah.*
[Answer]
**Zar frequency radiation**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/e0fw7.png)
The problem with radiation is that is scatters. Also it hits stuff you don't want it to hit, and wastes its energy, or hurts that stuff. That is especially true of energetic short wavelength stuff like Xrays. That kind of radiation is bad for beaming power.
Longer wavelengths scatter less, and tend to go right thru things in the way. Really long wavelength radiaton like [extremely low frequency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_low_frequency) radiation has a wavelength of thousands of kilometers.
Zar frequency is longer than that. Much longer. This is a really long wavelength, as shown in the picture. All subjects of the Empire will know Zar frequency is so long as to be cumbersome for any but the Zar but the Zar makes it work for the good of the people. This long Zar radiation penetrates all things in its way with impunity as it travels to the collection point, where special collectors inured to the extreme longness collect the radiation and convert it to gentle warmth for the subjects.
[Answer]
As good as it might be, the beam will diverge over cosmic distances, spreading over. I think your best option is to to use a [gravitational lens](https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2015/07/Gravitational_lensing) to focus back the beam on your receiver.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/p8GTx.jpg)
It might be tricky to be always in the focus area, but that can be mitigated by a fleet of orbiting receivers of which one at least is the right area.
[Answer]
## Bismuth synthesis
If you've got mass-to-energy conversion, you can convert energy into stable matter, transport the matter somewhere, and then convert it back to energy as needed.
* You could make uranium, establishing a galactic surplus of nuclear fuel. Spent fuel can be fed back *into* Zar instead of accumulating on planets.
The big problem here is that any habitable world is going to be at minimum dozens of lightyears away from Zar, so transporting *any* matter there will take years unless you have FTL. Even with FTL, "vessel filled with tons of uranium" is just a euphemism for "gargantuan nuclear bomb." Maybe there is a way to arrange a buttload of uranium such that it stays sub-critical, but if contents shift during transit (as contents are wont to do) it becomes a bomb. It's just too dangerous for transport.
* Goojle says that [bismuth-209](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismuth-209) is the heaviest non-radioactive element ("its radioactivity is much slighter than that of human flesh" -- [Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismuth-209#Decay_properties)). I figure most pilots will have no problem transporting, and most planets will have no objection to receiving, regular cargoes of several tons of *wholesome, non-radioactive* human flesh, so that's what I would generate at the power station above Zar: huge ingots of bismuth.
When they arrive at their destination, you can probably just drop them from orbit into the largest body of water -- no need to waste fuel or time carefully lowering them into the gravity well. Recipients planetside can tow the giant, pink Zarpto-Bismol ingots to an Einstein facility where it can be shaved down into fuel pellets and fed into Ye Olde Matter Furnace.
* Lead is also very non-radioactive (and similarly massive, as lead-208), but it is also very toxic, so you would not want to be throwing it into planetary atmospheres or slamming it into the ocean.
[Answer]
Have you considered a radically different method from beams as the primary way of getting from the Quasar to the individual solar systems: - the great and mighty Zar could catch the beam in a primary beam catcher, convert it (possibly flare off some excess energy for style), then use some form of quantum entanglement in nodes to transmit the energy to paired locations on each planet - avoiding having to track them.
The energy given to each planet possibly is greater then the needs of the planet, and those local entanglement centres would have to have a lot of technology to absorb, and again, flare off excess energy - possibly a minor beam sent harmlessly into space, (like a flare on an oil rig).
To the locals, this would probably look like the energy was coming in via this beam, rather than it leaving it. Any science sufficiently advanced will look like magic after all.
A sub-idea:
The cost of making the energy receiving plants would be significant - in a solar system, depending on the reach of your magnificence, you might only be able to afford a single entanglement node, and so you might have to make space stations that are receiving the power and then beaming it down to the local planets using targeted process (e.g some form of polar-star orbiting station like Gateway, that then beams to a planets satellites that then reflect to the ground. This would then still have beams incoming to the planet, but remove the cumbersome effects of giant beams over the grand distances which are much trickier to aim.
] |
[Question]
[
I'm talking about actual horns, not antlers that are shed.
I'm interested in either a rhino-like horn or an antelope like horn.
Would nail polish block any important natural process?
I'm thinking of humanoid creatures with animal horns and how they might accessorise
[Answer]
**Actually, it can!**
From [Beaut.](https://www.beaut.ie/beauty/the-odd-case-of-the-sore-nails-in-the-night-and-the-solution-thanks-to-essie-53077) we read:
>
> "It is always a hard one to pinpoint as acetone is often considered the biggest culprit for causing damage to the first layer of the nail bed. Hence so many people complaining of aching or sore nails when everlasting polish or Shellac is removed." So, what else could it be? "To me that sounds like the polish remover is simply exposing the nail back to its natural state, and it has become a little sensitive," Kate reasoned. "This will only happen when you polish your nails very regularly without a break, **or if you are not in the habit of using a good quality base coat.**" Aha, now we're getting to it.
>
>
> "**The colour pigments present in polishes can seep into the nail causing yellowing and sensitivity.** For me, a good base coat is the mecca of keeping nails healthy when polishing regularly!"
>
>
>
In other words, a low-quality polish or a poorly applied polish that exposes the keratin to the pigments used in the polish can cause damage to the horn (at least at a suspension-of-disbelief level... horns being a LOT thicker than fingernails, after all). But, hey... if you're sloshing that polish on like a fine coat of shellac, you betcha!
[Answer]
Not really. Like fingernails most of a horn is just dead keratin, with the growth only occurring in a growth region. Similar to nails applying a layer of lacquer to the surface will have no impact on the growth of the horn.
[Answer]
It depends on the kind of horn.
Antlers regrow each year; once grown and skin was shed, they're just dead bone.
Rhinozeros horn is dead keratin, growing from the base.
Bovidae horn is a living bony core, a very thin but living skin, and dead keratin; it grows in all areas, including the tip. (German wikipedia explicitly mentions the skin layer, English wikipedia does not.)
This kind of horn has inner air-filled chambers; these resonate. The chambers are lined with a mucous membrane, and take more and more volume with age.
For dead horn, it does not matter.
For living horn, air and humidity exchange will be affected. For large horns, this could become an issue. I'm no expert, so maybe there will not be serious problems, but if there are, this could be helped by applying the polish in patterns instead of as a contiguous layer.
Polish (or anything else applied to the horn) will also alter the resonance properties.
[Answer]
You would design the horn polish such that it doesn't have major health effects. As for the minor effects? Since when have minor health issues stopped people from caking make-up on their face or putting product in their hair? Neither is good for your skin or hair.
[Answer]
Never. People who wear nail polish still grow their nails and the natural nail's composition and structure continue to be the same. Also nail polish wash away as the painted nail grows.
Funny question anyways:)
] |
[Question]
[
**I’m building a colossal tower. This tower forgoes the use of steel and concrete completely in favor of cheap lighter-than-air modules.** These modules have cube-shaped frames made of carbon fiber and other lightweight materials. To achieve lift, hydrogen sacs are used. Unfortunately more flammable than helium but more plentiful, easy to produce and ergonomically viable. I know you will inevitably comment about it being a giant firecracker so let me list my security measures.
* In case of fire, modules placed directly above and under the afflicted area will instantly deflate their sacks to prevent further damage. In the worst-case scenario the escaping gas may also catch fire. Thankfully it is released laterally so as to protect the other modules.
* In case the first measure isn’t enough to stop the explosions, modules above and under the afflicted area detach from the tower to be reassembled later.
* [Other security measures of your choice.]
Moving on with the presentation: The modules have no propulsion system of their own. Instead drones move the modules into and out of place. When replacing a worn down or damaged module from the middle of the tower, cables connecting the modules are attached to their distant neighbors and later pulled closer together once the faulty module is removed.
The modules are designed to last for long periods of time. As such they refill themselves over time. Filters on them sides collect moisture from the air to use for electrolysis powered by solar panels. Furthermore a computer chip controls the center of mass of the module (as well as the safety protocols).
Due to the square-cube-law stating that the linear size of an object being doubled leads to an eightfold increase in volume, the mass of each module is negated at a sufficient size. The cubic design keeps the materials used in the frame to a minimum while providing a stable shape to be stacked. The cost efficiency of the modules makes it so they can be produced by the thousands.
## Now that we are done with the technicalities, how do you protect this lighter-than-air tower from wind?
The technology level is slightly futuristic. Things like cost and labor are completely irrelevant in my setting. As for the purpose of the tower... well, I’ll come to that later. For now it’s simply a very tall vertical structure meant to be as tall as physically possible.
[Answer]
**Artificial eye of the storm**
Engineering a series of large ground-based structures that are meant to generate artificial wind currents that spiral around the tower(with sufficient leeway of distance between the tower and the currents) and create a wind wall may be the way to go with this one. The wind wall will stop any natural winds frem getting to the tower and will ensure that there is little to no wind going on where the tower itself is.
Just make sure that the eye's wall actually remains stationary as you wouldn't want the extremely strong winds of the wall shredding your tower to pieces once it starts to move as hurricanes and the like tend to do.
[Answer]
**They are cylindrical instead of square.**
*M. A. Golding* made this comment, but I wanted to really expand the details.
In college I studied architecture and construction, and one of our major projects was regarding the design of emergency shelters and disaster proofing. For structures designed to withstand tornadoes and hurricane force winds (assuming subterranean wasn't an option) a round shape was always superior, either conical or domed. The lack of flat sides prevents wind from any direction getting a grasp on the structure, as well as can be used to properly redirect wind in a safer way.
Additionally, with a tower in mind, this is exactly why wind turbines have round towers. The wind force directly hitting a flat surface puts too much stress on the tower to be safe, but the rounded face automatically diverts the wind to either side. Lattice tower designs are an alternative solely because air flows throw them nearly unencumbered, but there are other structural risks associated that make them less feasible as they get larger.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lT78C.png)
In square towers the wind puts more force on the flat surfaces, and has the potential to essentially create artificial canyons and wind tunnels (hence Chicago is known as the windy city). In a stand alone tower of independent sections I expect it much more likely that the wind force will constantly push the sections out of place and not likely in a consistent way. You will probably need some other means to continuously move them back into place, but rounded sections will likely have far less drift.[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/X0Z5Y.png)
Engineers working on space elevator concepts have struggled with this issue for quite some time, as the wind force adds quite a bit of additional tension to the cable beyond that of its weight. If you are expecting your tower to have some sort of sway to it (which would probably be most accurate depending on the altitude) it might look something like this:[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cixkR.png)
Following that train of thought, what you described brings to mind paper lanterns that come in both square and cylindrical or even spherical varieties. The mental image combined with the topic of wind turbines reminded me that inflatable kite turbines exist. Without context for the function of your tower segments it might be worth looking into.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vlEz7.png)
**There are gaps between segments or they are wedge shaped**
If you expect to follow more traditional skyscraper designs then there are a number of things that could be changed as well. An air gap between segments would decreases the chances of creating a vacuum behind the structure. A sort of airfoil or wedge design might also be useful for all the same reasons listed above, assuming the segments can rotate to face the wind.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vUdIB.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2UP7V.png)
The list could really go on, but unfortunately narrowing it down heavily requires the context of purpose and function. [Here](https://www.simscale.com/blog/2020/02/building-aerodynamics-and-wind-effects/) is just one of many articles on line that might be helpful, but the google search results could fill thousands of pages.
[Answer]
The modules have no propulsion system of their own.
**They are drones.**
That way you can use those other drones to deliver chocolate and flowers. Your modules can propel themselves and do so to resist the wind when that is needed. Onboard hydrogen reserves are kept in a compressed gas cylinder. They can be used to recharge the buoyant elements, or used as fuel for the drones via a fuel cell.
[Answer]
# Guy wires.
All tall towers rely on guy wires to maintain their rigidity and resist wind shear.
The height of your tower was never specified but the guy system used is very much determined by the height. I have maintained 1,600 foot tall towers with eight V-guys.
The picture below shows the general strategy for very tall structures.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/H1N1s.png)
] |
[Question]
[
I made these sketches to envision a world where food is grown in buildings and people can live in forests covered lands instead of the land being used for agriculture. But how big would such a city need to be? Let's say the skyscrapers are about the size as they are in New York.
Description of first sketch:
What you are seeing in the distance is not a city. Or at least, there are no people living there. That’s where food is grown. People are living in the forests again.
Description of second sketch:
Each high-rise has a variety of species that are grown in vertical gardens to ensure biodiversity on each floor. These fully automated buildings yield plenty of crops that no other land is needed for agriculture.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/40AcO.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z78VT.jpg)
[Answer]
##### Let's throw some math around, shall we?
The average area of soil needed to feed a person for a year seems to be about [370 square meters](https://www.growveg.com/guides/growing-enough-food-to-feed-a-family/). Let's round that up to a generous 500 to ensure a varied diet and safety against crop failure.
The average floor space of a skyscraper seems to be about [125 000 square meters](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=average+floor+area+of+skyscraper)
Which means that one Agri-Scraper would feed *250 people* on average with current technology.
Let us *very generously* assume we have unlimited energy, high-efficiency grow-lights and irrigation, sustainable high-tech fertilisers - which are *absolutely* required to make this even work - and bump that number up to 1000.
New York City (metropolitan area) has [20 million inhabitants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City) - which means you'd need 20 000 Agri-Scrapers. New York currently has [~300](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_with_the_most_skyscrapers). So...
### Your Agri-York would be *huge*
Even when we're a bit more optimistic and say we *don't* need all the smaller building for logistics, storage, etc., and assume the Agri-Scrapers only make up 10% of the agricultural area available, you'd end up with roughly **6 times the current footprint of new york**.
[Answer]
Here is a frame challenge.
Why would someone build agricultural skyscrapers instead of one agricultureal skyscrapter?
Why build a lot of tall buildings side by side when you can build one giant tall building that is many miles wide?
Natural sunlight would be insufficient anyway, no matter how the buildings were shaped to let it in. So artificial lighting would be needed anyway, using electricity generated by wind farms, solar engery, fission power plants, fusion power generators, etc. at the site of the vast farm or far away and transmitted to it by electric wires.
And why would people prefer to live in the forests in log cabins or whatever instead of in habitation sections of the vast city farm?
So people love nature and love living amid nature. Other people hate nature and would attack and destroy nature if they were close to it, so they have to live away from nature to protect nature from them. And probably the vast majority of people would prefer to live apart from nature in vast enclosed habitats.
Probably most people would prefer to live in vast enclosed habitats like moon bases or space stations on Earth, with totally enclosed ecosystems recycling air, water and food. Once such habitats are constructed and perfected, they will be far moe comfortable than living in tiny individual houses surrounded by the great outdoors.
The air will always be the right temperature, it will always be free of artificial pollution and natural irritants like allergy causing pollen and dust.
And people living in enclosed habitats with total recycling will have no effect on the surrounding natural habitat. They will take nothing from it and put nothing in it.
If you love nature, and want what is good for nature, you will want to remove human interactions with nature. If you love humans, you won't to remove them by exterminating them, so you will want to isolate them from nature as much as possible to minimize their interactions with nature.
There have been a number of questions about the acreage needed to support a specific number of humans using agriculture, hydroculture, and aeroculture.
See my answer to this question:
[How can Dwarves produce honey underground?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/101553/how-can-dwarves-produce-honey-underground)
[Giving Tolkien Architecture a Reality Check: Dwarvish Kingdoms](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/100380/giving-tolkien-architecture-a-reality-check-dwarvish-kingdoms/100413#100413)
And see this question:
[How many people can you feed per square-kilometer of farmland?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9582/how-many-people-can-you-feed-per-square-kilometer-of-farmland)
[Answer]
# Eloi:
Given energy and population, you city size depends on the tech level and population. Assuming a post-scarcity society that simply wants to live in the forest and nature, hydroponics can supply abundant food. There isn't an equation to calculate food production in this fashion per person, but it would require advanced tech to set up and maintain.
But why no do one better and eliminate the city all together? The same hydroponics, built underground (along with any needed industry) mean there is only small surface distribution nodes where forest dwellers go to pick up goods. The City size is **ZERO**. In this scenario, your Morlocks are automated systems to support the populace. It's an idyllic paradise (unless your Morlocks are less than altruistic).
[Answer]
Your idea won't work, unless you have same magic, infinite and free power source for your vertical farms.
To grow plants you need a certain amount of energy that your plants can use. In current farms this energy comes as free sunlight.
By moving your farmland indoors you need artificial lights, and they need energy. Because solar panels are only ~20% efficient, each square meter of indoor farmland now needs an additional 5 square meters of land covered in solar panels to deliver the same energy as artificial light to grow your plants.
Source: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAKc9gpGjw>
Same goes for your water supply. If you concentrate your farming area, you still need the same amount of water, and this means you must extract a lot water from an area much larger than your vertical farms footprint. Sure you could catch and recycle a lot of the evaporated water inside your farms, but you still need a large reservoir near your city for dry summer months.
This still won't work, because you have no supply chains set up to move goods, service crews, fertilizer, seeds, spare parts, construction workers etc. in and out of your vertical farm district.
] |
[Question]
[
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
Some artistic and civic-minded aliens want to put a bust of their glorious leader, Rigel Rigelius R, in every solar system in the galaxy. Interstellar spaceships are very expensive, and slow besides, so they'd rather not use them. Instead their plan is:
* Locate a suitable airless moon in the target system
* Send an extremely precise, concentrated beam of highly structured light, varying slightly over time, at where the moon will be when the light gets there
* The light arrives, still very concentrated. It acts as a laser cutting tool, carving out the shape of glorious R.R.R. from moon rock.
**Ignoring the engineering difficulties, is there any inherent physical reason why they could not do this?** That is, is there a *fundamental, physical* requirement for any beam of light, no matter how engineered, to spread by a certain amount over vast distances? Of course, all our human-built lasers spread somewhat, but is that an inherent limitation or just an engineering limitation?
If the structured light physically cannot work for some reason, would it be physically possible to send, say, a beam of neutrons at 0.9c to do the same thing? Or would a neutron beam also have some unavoidable spread?
[Answer]
***O Glorious Leader, Rigel Rigelius R!***
Allow us of *Bespoke Worlds* to introduce you to our astounding line of CNC Planetary Modification Devices! As you are undoubtedly aware, Bespoke Worlds has aeons worth of experience in the planetary system design, fabrication, repair, upgrade and removal industries. Our innovative engineers and designers have been meeting and exceeding the expectations of our clients for more than seven billion years, and we are certain that our Mark VII Planetary Modification Device will suit your wonderful plan of civic beautification for ages to come!
You might ask: how is it a design and build company can make such a boast!? Why, it is easy to say! The answer is to be found in our very motto: ***Ignoring the Engineering Difficulties Since the Dawn of Time!*** We never let the naysayers and can't-be-doners get in the way of either our solid worldbuilding record or good ad copy!
But enough about us -- let's look at the Mark VII-PMD!
We've read through your technical enquiry letter, and believe this device will solve your problem. Clearly, a single point origin laser carving array is economical and sufficient for small or regional projects, such as milling out large moons or even planets within a solar system. But as you have discovered, even the best designed & implemented energy beams will diverge and become useless light shows over the vast distances of interstellar space.
**Hence the Mark VII-PMD**: Bespoke Worlds has perfected a multi-phasic energy beam carving array that, when interfaced with your central datanet and coded with the art files and necessary lunar locations to be civically improved, will deploy a wide field Daisunn Array of solarship mounted energy beam carvers. Able to quickly and easily interface with one another and your central network, the array can expand or contract automatically from near solar swarm orbit out to 100,000 standard astronomical units.
The Daisunn Array configuration, as I'm sure you'll soon appreciate, solves the beam spread problem by *reversing the problem itself* and solving all the difficulties at the front end. Rather than a cone of uncertainty spreading from your engineering platform out into the vast depths of space, we simply turn the problem on its head and deal with the spread close to home, giving your civic engineers a *cone of certainty* at the business end of the beam array!
Long story short, o glorious leader! --- at the centre of all the Mark VII convergent cones of uncertainty shines brightly and energetically a finely honed carving tool ready and waiting to blast your effigy upon a squillion binjillion unsuspecting moons!
[Answer]
There is a way to achieve close to what you want using [Nicoll-Dyson Beam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Nicoll#Nicoll-Dyson_Laser)
This collimated laser beam would not disperse like the usual ray of light and stay highly focused for many light years. The downside is that the width of this laser beam is quite wide, so it won't be possible to carve small details. At the distances exceeding 1 light year, the light beam can not be focused narrower than 1000 km, however, this can be somewhat improved if we use X-ray or gamma-ray laser.
[Answer]
There are many reasons. I will list them in no particular order:
1. Lasers (and other similar particle beam weapons) have their power fall off according to the inverse square law. Therefor, the power budget for this thing becomes absolutely absurd from any significant distance. Sure, Kardashev II civilizations might manage things from a few AU away, or even a large fraction of a light year, but past that it's just... impossible.
2. Lasers aren't knives or chisels. They don't carve anything. They ablate solid materials where they strike by heating them... but the removed material doesn't wink out of existence. It will float around until gravity or atmospheric currents cause it to land somewhere else. Even when you carve wood with a CNC mill, the sculpture is often covered in sawdust. The same would happen here, but with nothing to remove it.
3. It's impossible to calculate where any astronomical body will be if it's more than a few light years away. Someone seeing imagery of our moon from 1000 years ago has no idea if something else has knocked it around billiard-ball-style such that it'd still be in its orbit... supposing of course they can resolve enough detail to be able to calculate its orbit 1000 years later.
Besides, he'd be the first to tell you that he's not a glorious leader, but only a dominar.
[Answer]
For anyone interested in hard science lasers, my goto refernce is this: <http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent2.php>
(Actually the whole site is amazing, although fair warning: Infinite time sink)
#### Ignoring the engineering difficulties, is there any inherent physical reason why they could not do this?
# Yes
Quoting the above site:
>
> Laser beams are not subject to the inverse-square law, but they are subject to diffraction. The radius of the beam will spread as the distance from the laser cannon increases.
>
>
>
This is governed by the following equation:
>
> RT = 0.305 \* D \* L / RL
>
>
> where:
>
>
> * Rt = beam radius at target (m)
> * D = distance from laser emitter to target (m)
> * L = wavelength of laser beam (m, see table below)
> * Rl = radius of laser lens or reflector (m)
>
>
>
*One* light year (ly) is very roughly 9.46\*10^15 meters. The galaxy is around 200,000ly across. Even if R.R.R. lives close to the centre, that is still 100,000ly to the furthest solar systems.
Sadly, therefore, to focus the laser precisely enough across the galaxy would require a mirror so large it would collapse under its own gravity.
Particle Beams suffer even worse dispersion than lasers.
May I recommend Von Neumann machines to his Imperial Majesty? It may take a couple of million years, but they will get the job done eventually, and at relatively low cost...
[Answer]
**Face on the full moon**
I would attempt to do this with moons in tidal lock, always showing the same *face* to the planet.
Maybe some very precise interference pattern could be devised that works on light years distance, but the easiest - and safest - way to yield sharp facial features is sending a robotized high energy laser to orbit the moon. Rather than evaporating parts of the moon, use the laser to sculpt large dark and light regions on the surface, to give the portrait clearly recognizable features, when seen from the planet. When the face is not round, create near-black, non-reflecting regions next to the cheeks, they will not be visible from the planet. A perfect portrait of the leader will be visible on every full moon.
[Answer]
Are we talking about quantum physics, or Einsteinian physics, or real physics?
Given a sufficiently long enough time, a sufficiently advanced civilization could do it. However, it would not be a LARGE bust.
The idea of light 'fanning out' assumes either a wave theory of light, or that the photons are sent in a 'beam' of many photons' width.
Projecting one single photon at a time in one stream of individual photons, would not disperse any more than a 'charged particle' would expand as it travels through the universe, whether by the 'square cubed law' or 'inverse square proportion law' or any other law. So by beaming one photon at a time, at exactly the same target, every photon would expect to hit that target. There is no dispersal. However, one photon at a time would take a VERY long time, and would be feasible only for a VERY small sculpture.
The problem, of course, is that photons do not travel in a perfectly straight line. They are influenced by such things as, well, gravity. Physics at the quantum level, however, does not seem to experience such a problem.
However, there does not seem to be a theoretical limit to how BIG the quantum world can be.
Multiple beans sent in superposition, all 'converging' to form an interference pattern that looks like RRR? A sort of 3D superposition interference pattern holographic image?
What is an 'image' of RRR? Would a 'digital' image (or whatever an image made of qbits would be called) suffice?
Here we have a really interesting prospect. [A quantum superposition crystal](https://theconversation.com/how-a-simple-crystal-could-help-pave-the-way-to-full-scale-quantum-computing-165956) of the image of RRR, projected intact (or as 'intact' as a superposition particle crystal can be called) across the void, going at the zero velocity speed of c. Do you want to call that a 'beam of light'? Of course, the devil is in the details. STOPPING this would certainly lead to decoherence. Exactly how long do you want this 'bust' to last before it is, well, 'busted'?
But then again, exactly what is 'time'? If time does not exist, and everything exists in the same 'instant', this bust would be timeless.
So what physics do you want to govern?
Us silly humans of so very little knowledge and intellect tend to profess to claim all kinds of things are 'impossible' under our understanding of physics, until of course we find a bust of RRR on the moon, and then promptly explain exactly how it got there, using our newfound knowledge of some quaint hitherto unknown physics or scientific principle we never previously thought possible.
A million qbits in a single crystal?
**ADDENDUM**
The OP mentioned the 'uncertainty principle' in the comments, opening this up to all models pf physics, known and unknown.
The quantum world has no relativistic framework, because the quantum world is in isolation from everything else. Once the quantum world becomes relativistic, it decoheres. Thus, a quantum particle has no velocity, speed, or position because all of these measurements are relative to something else. In order to measure them, one must place the particle relative to something else.
Thus, the uncertainty principle.
There is no way to ever tell WHERE a quantum particle is in the universe, relative to you, until you measure it WRT where you are. Then, it is no longer a quantum particle, it is a relativistic particle in a relativistic framework. Thus, a quantum photon has zero velocity (and zero position) at any one instant but can travel at c through time.
That is, a quantum particle is EXACTLY Einstein's 'mind experiment' solitary person in an infinite universe with nothing else that exists 'relative to' it. No position, speed, or velocity. And no acceleration, not even the possibility of accelerating, because there is nothing to react against in order to accelerate - nothing to apply a reactionary force against. No 'equal and opposite directions', no Newtons' Law. Every force is applied in EVERY direction equally, thus no unbalanced forces to create any acceleration.
But we know there is no theoretical limit to how big any individual quantum world can be, so there is no limit to how 'big' a world can be that is not in any relativistic framework. That is, there is no limit to how big a 'superpositioned' 'uncertainty' 'non-relativistic' 'non-object object' can be. Wow, that is some string of unqualifiable 'in quotation marks' definitions, but such is the quantum world. An undefinably perfectly defined world.
There is, and can be, of course, no concept of the 'passing of time' in a quantum world, if there is nothing relative to measure it against.
In such an arbitrarily large quantum non-relativistic world, there is no limitation on information transfer, it is instantaneous, because there is no way to 'isolate' where any particular piece of information is. And it can 'decohere' anywhere in any arbitrary frame of reference.
CONTROLING where it decoheres, of course, is another chapter.
The 'conservation' laws - conservation of energy, momentum, etc. are in a CLOSED quantum system, but NOT in any sub-region of that closed system. Energy can be ANYWHERE in a closed 'quantum' system, at ANY particular point in time. The universe is theoretically the limit to the 'closed system' in the quantum world, and there are NO 'sub-regions' because there is nothing to define these regions 'relative to'.
[Answer]
You ask for beam spread specifically, but let me point out some other "inherent physical reason[s] why they could not do this".
Your (laser or otherwise) beam has to get there. It may get scattered or absorbed by interstellar dust, deflected by gravity (say, a black hole passing by), absorbed by impact against another body (in transit), or stolen by some other civilisation.
Once "there"... where is "there"? You need to know the position of the moon with accuracy. For moons far away, you need long-time predictions. The longer-time the predictions, the more mass you need to account for, including relativistic effects (cf. Mercury), meaning, you might need to know about every mass in (and coming into) the solar system. Also, lest something gets in the way of your beam when you fire (well, when it gets there).
Also, to sculpt a moon, you also need to track the *surface* of the moon with accuracy. Moons wobble? There is axis precession and whatnot. Perhaps an airless moon cannot have liquid, but if there are bodies of liquid they need to be accounted for (I think?). If there is tectonic activity, it has to be accounted for: you don't want R.R.R.'s face to end up winking or frowning, do you?
[Answer]
**Truly a complex way to do something simple.**
Your method :
Build insanely complex devices to try and control something precisely at least half a galaxy width away.
The simple way :
Send an *order* to the locals to build it.
**Why it's impractical in any way ...**
>
> Ignoring the engineering difficulties, is there any inherent physical reason why they could not do this?
>
>
>
It's worth noting that if your empire is limited by the speed of light yet spans a galaxy, the great and noble leader is **never** going to find out if the vast majority of the sculptures will ever be started, let alone finished unless they are able to live for a hundred of thousand years, no matter how they try and have the sculptures built.
Even if the dude lives forever that doesn't mean that empire will. Just normal politics and the limits of light speed will mean that no stable single government is possible for the entire galaxy.
No matter what beam you design and no matter how magically non-divergent you try and make it, you are trying to aim it across half a galaxy width of curved spacetime. No matter what it's a beam of, it will be curved and diverge and over such vast distances you would in no way be able to predict that curve.
] |
[Question]
[
Fruit usually works in symbiotic relationship with animals by giving them food to take in and seeds to "deposit" elsewhere. But let's say you had a world where the dominant feeding method was liquivores. That means they inject their digestive fluids into their food and suck up the dissolved insides. How could fruit work then if the animals don't take solid matter inside? Is there anything besides attaching spurs like prickler bushes?
[Answer]
**Hoards**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yZ5DO.jpg)
<https://www.nps.gov/features/yell/slidefile/mammals/redsquirrel/Page.htm>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoarding_(animal_behavior)>
There are 2 main ways animals move seeds. OK 3 if you count those burrs that you discounted.
1: Eat fruit and poop out seeds.
2: Hide fruit / seeds with intent to eat them later.
In your world of liquivores, #2 works fine. Animals that find a fruit might want to eat it later, and so will stash the food in a place they can find it later. Maybe the animal comes back and eats it or maybe it doesnt. If it doesnt, the nut can germinate and grow. This is how squirrels plant trees. The squirrel intends to eat the nut, not grow a tree but some of the nuts go uneaten and so are planted by the squirrel.
""Fruits are juicy!" I can imagine the reader might object. "They do not store well!" I will remind the skeptical reader that in the proposed world
>
> they inject their digestive fluids into their food
>
>
>
Fruits do not need to be juicy! They will be evolved to dry quickly and later reconstitute on injection of digestive fluids. This system would actually work better for the plants than hoarding of seeds which are at risk of being eaten. If nutrient rich reconstituted fruit were the object of the animal hoarder, the seed would be waste and would be left to germinate whether the animal returned to its hoard or not.
A fruit which rapidly dries also protects its nutrients against fungus and insects, neither of which disperse seeds. In the real world I am thinking of rose hips which by virtue of drying are available for animals all winter and into spring, but this is also true for other low-moisture berries. In the liquivore world this would be true for all fruits.
[Answer]
### Smaller seeds.
In the current world; Many seeds can survive stomach acids and come out the other end. In your world, they survive the acids, and are small enough to get sucked into the animal.
* Animal injects acid into fruit. Fruit internals liquify but the skin doesn't.
* Animal injects "straw" like thing to suck liquid fruit out.
+ The thicker the straw the better, as the less time it spends exposed and stuck to food, the less likely it is to be someone else's dinner.
* Fruit seeds are tiny and fit into the straw, getting sucked into the animal.
One of two things:
* Seed gets stuck in the animal. The animal has a way of cleaning any tiny solids out that gets stuck in its system (eg it "vomits" to backflush the system) and that results in the seed being distributed.
* Seed gets stuck in the animal, and stays there. Animal eventually dies some long time later far away, in which case the seed is fertilised by the dying animal.
Seeds currently are tiny genetic packages with some starting energy and nutrients for the plants taking up the bulk of the size. In your world - get rid of much of that starting nutrients as possible and rely on the animals vomit, or body, to provide that.
[Answer]
### Strong seed walls
Plants have evolved fruits which are of very high water content and seeds are of tough wall. Animals inject their fluids, but the fluids don't harm the seeds. When the animals suck the fruit dry of all juices, the fruit shell dries off and later falls on its own. The seeds then get dispersed based on physical activities in the terrain.
### Plants use other modes than dormant seeds
One can imagine more plants to be viviparous like Mangroves, not requiring seeds. Similarly the roots can be imagined to give birth to a network of plants on their own.
Here, fruits serve the purpose of a plant waste bag (plants end up depositing minerals they do not need in fruit like structures).
### Evolutionary behavioral traits in animals
Animals can't filter the seeds out and evolution teaches them to keep the more troublesome seeds that enter their feeding tube into one side of the mouth/separate cavity for some time before spitting it out. This could take inspiration from ownls regurgitating material they can't digest in form of pellets.
[Answer]
>
> How could fruit work then if the animals don't take solid matter inside?
>
>
>
The fruit is made by two layers: the outer one contains the seeds, the inner one the pulp which is then liquefied by the feeding animal.
Once the animal punctures the fruit, it "clamps" for a certain time to the appendix used by the animal and detaches from the plant. This makes it easier for the animal to feed, since the lunch will hold itself, and since the animal will be moving around will help spread the seeds away from the mother plant.
This can happen either because the feeder forcefully remove the fruit ending up launching it away or because the feeder moves away from the plant carrying the fruit with it.
] |
[Question]
[
The setting is fifty-five million years in the future on Earth, with multiple humanoid species that have different ancestors, but share similar characteristics. Their ancestors would be animals that live today, such as alligators, cats, crows, octopuses... but their descendants would evolve human like traits that would make them very similar to each other to the point where some of these new species could be able talk or live in peace with each other. Something like relations or very similar characteristic despite vastly diverse ancestors between humans, vulcans and klingons in Star Trek.
My current theory is that around the year 2100, a mass extinction event would occur. It would be serious enough to wipe out a great amount of fauna and flora and make the human race leave the planet before the unstoppable event. It would also destroy many buildings, including factories and GMO research stations (which would be very popular at the time). Could it be possible for the chemicals to help the rNA which escaped from the facilities to get inside embryos of surviving organisms to trigger the evolution of human like traits?
[Answer]
As the horrors of the Second World War are gradually forgotten, the nations of the world gradually become more Fascist. The major nations become obsessed with racial purity, though disagree on which race is pure.
Viruses can carry DNA with them. In secret each nation develops viruses to "purify" DNA by rewriting it with their race. One of these viruses leaks (or is leaked) leading to an escalation where all of the viruses are leaked.
While the viruses were mostly well engineered and would not have side-effects worse than a cold, there are hundreds of them and they interact poorly. Humanity is devastated by having its DNA rewritten over and over again leading to near extinction.
Just as viruses can cross over from animals to humans, the reverse can also occur. While the viruses are not as effective at rewriting animal DNA, they do gradually end up inserting human DNA into other animals. The viruses initially only infect mammals as these are already genetically similar to humans. However some of these highly advanced viruses were engineered to be highly adaptable and over the years also spread to non-mammals.
[Answer]
# Healing nanites gone bad:
In this scenario, humans made nanites that were supposed to cure diseases, heal wounds, and do it all in a highly intelligent manner. They would have been customized to each individual, having that person's DNA and maybe even their body plan programmed into them. Of course they leaked into the environment, but it would take centuries for the nanites to change into something that would affect other species, right?
* Programmed nanites with corrupted programming begin adapting to new hosts. They start healing these species, but also rewriting their DNA into new forms more in line with original programming. Suddenly species all over the world begin exhibiting human traits, but not completely. Each one would inherit a different set of human traits, and if these symbiotic nanites had some sort of semi-intelligent central processor (a symbiote organism) the nanites might even be trying to adapt the organisms to human-like characteristics in a deliberate way, creatively rewriting DNA to build a functional organism.
* Cat-boy sleeps with another cat and the nanites spread to the offspring who are rewritten to the new code. Lacking competition from humans, these new humanoids would rapidly form new intelligent species. They would have a mix of human and animal traits, and the degenerate nanites could gradually fade out or specialize to the point they don't spread anymore.
[Answer]
The mutations would be random. You would need some kind of genetic engineering to produce a specific mutation. (Perhaps a escaped retrovirus inserting them?)
Whether random or engineered, however, the question is what characteristic in their environment is selecting for these traits once they appear? The traits will have to be immediately and practically useful to be selected for.
[Answer]
One theory is that Humans started walking upright because of grass. Tall grass spread through where proto humans lived and those able to get their heads above it to look around got a distinct advantage.
Other animals failed to fill this niche because the new humans were already doing it. So what your other animals need is tall grass, no humans, and time.
And luck since, well, giraffes.
Different species evolving to have similar characteristics happens often enough that there is actually a name for it: [Convergent Evolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution). The same pressures applied to different species can produce similar adaptations. It has been used to argue against ideas like intelligent design and [The Fine-Tuning Argument](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/). The most succinct expression of which comes from Douglas Adams [Puddle's Pothole](https://ravingatheists.fandom.com/wiki/The_Puddle%27s_Pothole).
[Answer]
First of all, understand that 55 million years is a long time for evolution. I would expect one could turn dolphins into humans in that time frame.
Evolution is a matter of mutation and selection. The mutations tend to occur naturally, but stress encourages more. (Especially pollution and radioactive fallout.) But the selection is the key. Normally, we talk about "natural selection", but it doesn't have to be. Domesticated animals have been subjected to unnatural selection, in this case, driven by humans.
If computer systems survive that, for some reason, want humans, they could reward and punish or cull animals based on how human they are. If every generation or two, all but the most human of a herd are killed, the herd will quickly become more human. Note that "quickly" in this case is still thousands or hundreds of thousands of generations.
The manipulation technology involved could easily be based on an automated cattle ranch. Combined with some automatic maintenance technology for the computers and power grid, and the technology isn't even that far fetched.
[Answer]
Basically, the best thing you could do would be to litter the environment with all kinds of things only operable by human beings which would give an animal an advantage. Think of raccoons or keas as an example. We can put things under lock and key, but they can figure them out, and they have an ability to manipulate them to get into them. Make these things you specifically need a humanoid body to operate, and you're already creating some pressure to evolve that way. Of course, it would still need to be gradual.
So, maybe you have a series of machines, which never wear down, and are plentiful, and continue to operate and dispense resources like food. Different ones require different levels of human-like specialization. As they adapt to one, the animals are more equipped to move on to the next.
This could also work for language. If there are things that are voice-controlled, you'll be giving an advantage to anything that can mimic human language.
This seems far-fetched--a series of unrelated animals coming together and evolving into one shape, using one communication system, to take advantage of a civilization made by another species--but this is actually exactly what *myrmecophiles* are. Beetles, caterpillars, spiders--all kind of invertebrates have evolved to look and act like ants, and communicate like the ants, just to take advantage of what an ant society has to offer!
So, just make yourself some myrmecophiles for humans.
[Answer]
Nothing would encourage the anthropomorphization of multiple species at the same time. The chances of such a thing occurring are astronomically low. There is no way that this could realistically happen without genetic engineering, so either humans created these animals and they rebelled, leading to a global disaster and forcing the humans to flee Earth. Another possibility is that humans created only one species which rebelled and forced humans to leave, and this species used whatever technology they gathered from the humans to create more species.
However, no animal species that I know of has ever lasted 55 million years, so the most likely scenario is that humans leave because of an unrelated disaster, and *one* animal species naturally evolves human-like traits, and eventually gives a plethora of other animals human-like traits when the species is advanced enough.
[Answer]
Domestication.
The reason why dogs have enough muscles in their faces to mimic a smile, while cats don't and have to rely on mimicking the frequency of a baby's cry.
Citation needed for dogs. I don't know if they had those muscles prior to domestication.
] |
[Question]
[
While similar questions have been asked, I don't believe kinetic bombardment was brought up, with focus centred around nuclear warheads.
Considering the ability for a "rod from god" to embed into the earth and cause immense destruction to the surrounding area, would such a scenario be realistically capable of triggering Yellowstone?
[Answer]
Short answer: nope.
TL;DR: unless your kinetic penetrator resembles the Chixulub impactor it will be too small to do the job.
Longer answer: a kinetic penetrator cannot penetrate very far into an object. A "rod from god" was expected to have a terminal speed of "mach 10", which at sea-level is about 3.5km/s, which is high but not *super* high, so lets use the Newtonian approximation for impact depth: $D \approx l {\rho\_p \over \rho\_t}$ (where $D$ is the impact depth, $l$ is the length of the penetrator and $\rho\_p$ and $\rho\_t$ are the densities of the penetrator and the target respectively). The rod, therefore, is unlikely to penetrate more than about 7 times its own length in volcanic rock, and with a length of only 6m or so that's less than 50m. So much for penetration.
But what about power? I can't find the exact figures of an RFG right now, but as they weigh about ~9 US tons and hit at ~3.5km/s they release about 50GJ, or ~12 tonnes TNT equivalent. That isn't a particularly substantial boom, and compared to the multi-kilometre-deep layer of rock above the Yellowstone magma chamber is isn't so much superficial as practically unnoticeable. You'd have to hit it over and over and over again, and with each successive impact *some* of the debris will fall back into the crater so you'd have to pour energy into widening the crater and throwing debris out and away instead of up.
Etc etc ad nauseam. Your assumption that these weapons "*embed into the earth and cause immense destruction to the surrounding area*" is basically a bit off... the rods from god are practically precision weapons, compared to a nuke. Great for cracking a shallow bunker, rubbish at penetrating 10km of volcanic rock.
---
ETA: what if you used a bigger RFG?
You might consider looking at the [Earth Impact Effects Program](https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEarth/cgi-bin/crater.cgi?dist=100&distanceUnits=1&diam=1&diameterUnits=2&pdens=&pdens_select=8000&vel=11&velocityUnits=1&theta=45&wdepth=&wdepthUnits=1&tdens=2750) which simulates asteroid impacts on Earth. A kilometre-wide chunk of iron hitting the ground at ~11km/s will be enough to (temporarily) blast away about half the thickness of rock over the caldera. Between that and the compressive effects of the impact, you might reasonably expect to get an eruption.
Of course, such an impact already delivers gigatonnes-equivalent of power and utterly lays waste to everything for hundreds of kilometres around it and would kick vast amounts of crud into the atmosphere that would have major climatic effects. If you *did* managed to kick off a true [VEI 8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_Explosivity_Index) eruption you might release ten times as much energy again, perhaps making the effort worthwhile, but it isn't clear that there's enough pressure underneath Yellowstone to deliver that much oomph so you may as well just content yourself with asteroid bombardment instead.
[Answer]
I'm going to expand a little bit on StarfishPrime's otherwise excellent answer.
First of all, [the whole point of the RFG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment) is NOT to cause 'immense destruction to the surrounding area'. The advantage of a kinetic impactor compared to a nuclear weapon is that the damage is extremely focused, so a kinetic bombardment of the kind you're thinking would actually be less effective for the purpose of triggering a volcano than a nuke would.
Second, although a kinetic impact COULD do the job, it would require a colossal impact. The magma chamber under Yellowstone has 8km of solid rock on top of it that you need to address. For comparison, [here's a list of all the asteroid impacts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impact_craters_on_Earth#Largest_craters_(10_Ma_or_more)) in Earth's history that could have created a crater deep enough. Note that you wouldn't actually need an 8km deep crater for this, 4 or 5km would probably do the job because at that point enough overburdern pressure on the magma chamber would be released that the [gasses in the magma would start coming out of solution](https://www.wired.com/2012/04/could-people-trigger-a-volcanic-eruption-on-purpose/) and blow the rest of the rock out of the way.
It's worth noting that at least half of the 40-odd impacts on that list were large enough that the additional destruction caused by breaching the Yellowstone magma chamber wouldn't really matter that much.
Third, to do the job with a nuclear weapon you'd want to drill a hole at least 3 km deep and put a REALLY big nuke down there. Again operating from the assumption that you'd need to get rid of at least half of the 8km of rock to let the volcano do the rest of the job, you'd need a [cracked zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_nuclear_weapons_testing#Effects) of 2km radius which (if I'm doing my math right) would require a 300 megaton bomb. For comparison, [the largest nuke anybody has ever built](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba) was only 50 megatons.
[Answer]
Many events - such as earthquakes - are known to trigger volcanoes, however this is uncommon in North America for a variety of reasons beyond my pay grade.
That said, a "rod from god" is an event which could certainly trigger Yellowstone if (a) it were strong enough, and (b) were placed in *exactly* the right spot.
However, *triggering* a volcano does not mean *making the volcanic eruption worse*. The pressure buildup at Yellowstone suggests that the next eruption will be relatively minor - some lava flow and minor amounts of ash. So even if this "rod from god" triggered Yellowstone, it likely wouldn't cause all that much damage. The damage caused from the kinetic bombardment would be significantly worse than the fallout from Yellowstone.
] |
[Question]
[
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bCEE5.png)A dramatic scene in my story requires a pursuit with a vehicle “threading the needle” in flight between some structures. I need to describe how small that hole would be in relation to a typical roadway. This question establishes the “typical” roadway for flying cars.
First these are not aircraft but ground effect vehicles. While Star Trek, Star Wars, Blade Runner, The Jetsons, and every scifi I can think of has "magically hovering" private transportation, I am trying to design a *more* reality-based highway system for the flying cars in my world. A [rudimentary version of these cars exist today](https://youtu.be/gS-aQ1kCfV8?si=Spsx8nKAiOuF_Hlq), I am merely needing road engineering for these smaller, more maneuverable vehicles working in open “road” traffic.
Ground Effect Vehicle Highway System should accommodate the following elements:
* Ground effect vehicles (GEVs) are used instead of true aircraft.
* A typical vehicle would be extended to 10 feet width for flight and have a body height of 5 feet, running up to 15 feet in length. This is the area it presents to gusts/turbulence. It’s loaded mass is typically 2,500 lbs.
* The GEVs are powered by hydrogen fuel cells with a limited energy density.
* The GEVs cruise in ground effect between 2-5 meters over a surface, reducing drag and increasing efficiency.
* The GEVs normally travel at a speed of 160 kph (100 mph) and can maneuver through 0.8G turns at that speed via RAM air ducting and dynamic body control surfaces, at a cost to fuel economy if speed is to be maintained.
* The GEVs fly on a continuous route that is made up of any flat surface such as canals, open water, or grassy fairways.
Passing lanes are vertical. They drive as normal cars otherwise.
* Drivers are not left to their own judgement at intersections: collision avoidance assisted by the road itself means only deliberate effort could cause a collision at intersections.
* Assume the system has been advanced to eliminate the possibility of two cars colliding mid-air at intersections, and also that collision avoidance systems can evade potential collisions when any car approaches without autonomous navigation (detailed below).
* Clear rules of the road determine what lane you can be in for any given situation (detailed below).
Here is a more detailed explanation of the highway design:
## These are NOT aircraft
Principles of aircraft, which generate aerodynamic lift with their plane surfaces, do not apply to air cushion vehicles. While both vehicles rely of a pressure differential across their horizontal control surfaces; the aircraft reduces pressure above the plane, while the air cushion craft increases the pressure beneath the plane. [Please watch this RC PAR ekranoplan in free flight and GE flight.](https://youtu.be/JY3PgBXeV9Y?si=Q0EO1U1a012a5tUV) Note that it is unstable in the air, but when it returns to GE altitude it immediately stabilizes on the air cushion. Therefore, please avoid answers relating to flight principles of aircraft. Turning, stalling, and most other dynamics of open air flight do not work the same for these vehicles. A high pressure cushion is actively created below the craft, so it can not bank or stall while in ground effect. Therefore **assume the engineering challenges of turning and maneuvering at speed have been resolved, and controlled free-air flight is possible at an enormous efficiency cost** A Computer rapidly adjusts control surfaces and ducts to hold stabile free-air flight.
## Efficiency
The GEVs are designed to be more efficient than traditional aircraft, and this is at the heart of this question. They fly in ground effect, which is the area of airspace that is affected by the surface below the vehicle. This reduces the drag on the vehicle's underside, which allows it to fly more efficiently. The GEVs cannot travel as far as a traditional aircraft on a single tank of fuel and every maneuver costs fuel. The highways are therefore designed to allow vehicles free flight with minimal maneuvering. The system also does not need the cars make costly stop and starts at intersections.
**This question only concerns a design for a GEV highway system.** In urban streets or irregular terrain the vehicles operate on the ground as regular cars. [Click here for a video of the cars I designed](https://photos.app.goo.gl/7eT9XQRYwPDf3rMe8) during a typical GE flight. Note that this is **not urban traffic**, it's a highway system which simply expands the suburban area around a business center, like the American Interstate system. Even with the average car boasting 800 BHP, the LH2 economy in this world lacks the energy density to give everyone their own personal aircraft. This is why [vertical lanes are not possible](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/32697/designing-a-traffic-system-for-flying-cars/109338#109338).
## Intersections
Intersections are handled the way we currently handle passing situations, by a brief acceleration to overcome the obstacle. My vehicles lift up and enter free space at intersections for brief periods at a large fuel expense.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cDcTD.png)
*(A typical intersection)*
There is of course a complete civil engineering task to fully design traffic flow in this scenario but assume that is accomplished, and please refer to the **items outside the scope of this question** at the bottom. I'm focusing narrowly on horizontal lane separation given that only real-world aerodynamic forces are maneuvering the vehicles. Here is the jist of the how highway system works:
* Roads are not rigidly constructed, they are augmented reality overlays in the driver's field of view. Except for basic emergency markers, all traffic signals, lane indicators, signs, and even commercial billboards are augmented reality overlays on your viewscreen.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/j9L26.jpg)
* Drivers will never need to compensate for normal wind gusts. "Smart Roads" provide active air movement data to vehicles. If a cross current is detected the road sends the "set and drift" data to approaching cars, which anticipate and auto-correct for most gusts up to 45 mph cross-winds. Obviously the effectiveness diminishes at low speeds, so for this question assume traffic travels at the speed limit.
* Drivers never “swerve.” Smart roads dynamically adjust their own lanes based on road conditions, such as an accident vehicle or passing ship. If your path will be obstructed for any reason such as an accident or passing ship, your display will project a "hill" ahead and your car simply jumps over the obstruction. Proximity sensors prevent tailgating, so cars can never be surprised.
* The car fully controls yaw to place the car on the smart road, ascending or descending as needed. Drivers work in two dimensions only. The feel of driving the vehicle is much like a car, with a slight addition of pitch and roll in turbulent air. The road determines their correct altitude until they go "off roading".
* Exiting the highway is done by pulling out of the main lane of traffic, decelerating, and banking away onto another "road" or off-road area.
* Cars are smart, but not fully automated. They have proximity-based cruise control, predictive gust correction, and lane-drift correction. Mostly however, the driver determines the lane and speed.
* There is no commercial freight on this highway but the highway will cross marine freight lanes and other obstacles occasionally. This again is handled by hopping the road over the obstacle in a virtual bridge. Again, cars automatically follow the road and there are no surprises.
* Turns are no less than 250m inside radius and speed limits reduce to 80mph. (This is a correction - originally wrote “diameter”)
* There is no anti-gravity anything. They rely on Power-Augmented RAM for lift and real-world aerodynamics.
* They can use air cushion hovering over water, wheels otherwise.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3CYTN.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6gE5h.jpg)
(These pictures are concept art for reference, not a final design)
I do expect the vehicles to still be "road legal", meaning they are no more than 8 feet wide on ground, 10 feet max with extensible wings. They have very basic wheels which can brake and provide urban/neighborhood propulsion.
Today physical road lanes are officially exactly 11 feet wide, for a maximum legal vehicle width of 8 feet.
With consideration for minimizing correction maneuvers:
**If I were to visualize traffic in this type of highway, what would be the normal lane separation on this highway?**
An answer addresses how close we can be to oncoming traffic without disruptive turbulence, and to passing traffic in a lane to either side. I need the highway as narrow as possible without creating an excessive need for correctional maneuvers when other cars interract.
**Vehicle performance** will be much like the vehicle in [this patent](http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5105898.html), however thrust and yaw can be used to decelerate the car at 0.6g on the road, but not at all in free flight where obstacles need to be handled as a plane would.
---
**Items outside the scope of the question**
I am only looking at lane separation for this specific road. As I describe driving on this highway in the story, what does it look like? The following other related engineering problems will be handled elsewhere:
* Traffic queuing for entering and exiting vehicles
* Aircraft
* Left-hand turns
* Vehicle technical specifications not already included
* Urban (low speed) travel
* Smart road fundamentals of operation
* Weather other than winds (precipitation, temperature, etc.)
[Answer]
Something that might be a useful reference is to consider military helicopter separation distance. Because they regularly fly together very close to the ground in dangerous environments, it could give a baseline as to safety. While military pilots like this are certainly better trained than the average driver, you could argue that automation and augmented reality factors probably counter this enough.
What I found, for the example of [attack and reconnaissance helicopters](https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-04-126.pdf), was a distance range of 3-5 rotor distances for close formation and a stagger distance of 150 meters(500 ft). While your craft obviously don't have rotors, you could consider their width as a reasonable enough substitute. This would give a minimum distance of at least 9 meters(30 ft) and a safer distance of around 15 meters(50 ft). **Lanes would then be between 12 meters(40 ft)and 18 meters(60 ft) wide(adding the size of the vehicle and giving half the separation distance on each side).**
I'm also concurring with the dissenting opinions that this would never work for all of the reasons indicated, but hopefully this helps regardless.
Also, those jumping intersections look suicidal. What happens when the automated system loses power. While traffic light failures are a major annoyance and lead to significant delays, they don't lead to guaranteed pileups at 100 mph.
[Answer]
# You're all going to die
There's a saying that applies to GEVs/WIGs as much as it does to hovercraft. If you can see something in front of you you're going to hit it. GEVs are not suitable for traffic situations, as they require a minimum speed rather than a maximum. They're not really suitable for use over land due to the fact they corner like aircraft and as such the inside 'wing' often hits the water. In the case of being over land the inside wing hits the ground and results in something referred to as 'a crash' apparently this is 'bad'.
Basically the way you've designed your transport system, if there's anything resembling traffic at an intersection, everybody dies.
But in terms of your actual questions, we come back to that old, "if you can see it you're going to hit it" problem. Without ground traction you don't have precise maneuvering, without precise maneuvering you must have really wide lanes and be a very long way from oncoming traffic. Possibly in the range of hundreds of meters.
You have no brakes. You have terrible steering. We could consider this equivalent to an icy road and take the 8 second guidelines for safe distances. However the level of automation added to these vehicles means I'd suggest 4 second following distance, 2 second lane width and 2 second vertical distance. For oncoming I'd suggest 4 seconds each way to collision point.
Option 2 is to not allow personal flying transport before full automation.
[Answer]
**It isn't going to work.**
Aircraft horizontal separation standards vary based on type of flying (uncontrolled, controlled, VFR, IFR, etc), but is generally measured in miles, not feet. For example, US ATC standards in a terminal area specify a minimum 3 nautical mile separation. Even at Oshkosh during the fly-in they maintain separations of 1/2 mile for airplanes landing on the same runway.
In open airspace, separation requirements can be as high as five miles.
One of the main reasons for these large separations is that aircraft cannot manoever like ground craft, not being connected to a high friction surface. If a vehicle breaks down or suddenly stops in front of you, you're going to need a lot more than 70m to stop if you are cruising at freeway speeds.
The other reason is that the air mass you are flying through is not steady, and the lift of the vehicle in front of you is going to throw off a lot of turbulence.
I know you hand-waved some kind of wind-change alert system, but that's not going to cut it. It comes down to a simple matter of energy - it would be extremely hard to constantly counteract changing winds and turbulence in a way that kept your vehicle in a narrow 'lane'. Even large jets can drop hundreds of feet in wind shear, and it doesn't take much crosswind to make them hard to land.
The logistical problems of many airborne craft trying to stay in densely packed lanes are immense. Which is why we don't have flying cars now, and never will have them in large numbers over any city. Keeping them in ground effect doesn't help and probably hurts, because it keeps those floating vehicles close to many obstacles.
Why do you need this? If they can't stack vertically, just what are you gaining with ground effect vehicles? Certainly not energy efficiency, as these vehicles have to expend power just to keep them off the ground. Small hovercraft are lucky to get 5-10 mpg.
The only reason I can see for it is if somehow the ground can't be used. Otherwise, tires are better.
[Answer]
**If all the practical issues are dealt with as you say, I see no reason 'lane widths' would then emulate existing ones, however this is a missed opportunity**
One of the major complexities in modern day city / traffic / urban planning is that the 2 dimensional plane, the ground plane, contains:
* Roads and intersections
* Buildings
* Vegetation
* Rivers
* Complex topography, perhaps quite steep slopes and mountainous terrain
* residents with ownership of sky
* parks, with kids and drones and kite flyers
* industrial developments, with chimneys, noxious chemicals and exhaust
* sensitive areas, such as prisons, police and military installations
So there is a fair degree of complexity in laying this all out - without an overlay of free traffic over the top hovering just above the ground plane. Removal of transport from the ground plane will in some ways make things easier, and in others more challenging.
Lane width is perhaps one of the minor issues, but sure 3.5m is standard (in Australia anyway). The restrictive intersections you mention may perhaps also be a lost opportunity to get much more height, and make use of a true 3-dimensional city.
Privacy, security and practicality with regards to the above functions would be another question - but perhaps a great one to ask!
] |
[Question]
[
In a vaguely Medieval setting with some limited magic, how would an underwater city handle sewage?
Sanitation was one of the biggest limiting factors in the growth of human cities, and being under water is going to make the usual ways of removing sewage less feasible.
Some points:
* These cities are built in areas of weak currents.
* Magic exists but isn't all powerful.
* Magically creating currents on a city scale would cost more then the rulers can/want to spend.
* The inhabitants can breathe water and are mostly humanoid.
* Technology is limited to both the time and the limitations of working with extremely limited metal usage.
* This city has defences that would interfere with usual flow of water. There are other, hostile cities. Walls, wall-roofing and other defensive obstructions are present.
[Answer]
**Bottom feeders**
A bottom feeder is an aquatic animal that feeds on or near the bottom of a body of water... In the aquarium, bottom feeders are popular as it is perceived that they will clean the algae that grows in the tank. Generally, they are only useful for consuming the extra (fresh) food left by overfed or clumsy livestock
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottom_feeder>
Algae will consume excreta. Bottom feeders will consume the algae. They will also dispose of food waste. Humans can eat many of the bottom feeders but must of course maintain stocks.
[Answer]
Two factors are important here
* one, there are consistent currents, strength is less important than consistency.
* two, sea floors are not, generally, flat on a large scale.
Taken together this means that getting sewage downhill and/or down current away from a city should be possible and even practical making it "someone else's problem" which is what medieval cities traditionally did and to some extent what we still do to this day.
[Answer]
Most people pee while swimming anyway, and from working at a pool that had 2000+ patrons most people do not not mind swimming in literal piss water. Poo on the other-hand tends to turn people off while swimming. Perhaps a siphon type system can be rigged up, no magic required, just poo into a constantly sucking pipe, or a pipe that requires a few actuation of a hand/ foot pump to create the suction. The pipes can lead out of the area, or into a deep sea crevice. Out of sight out of mind, especially for the medieval types.
] |
[Question]
[
**Closed**. This question is [opinion-based](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
---
**Want to improve this question?** Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by [editing this post](/posts/134854/edit).
Closed 5 years ago.
[Improve this question](/posts/134854/edit)
I'm my novel there is a Queen who is marrying another woman.
Titles in my story are based on the English monarchy but this has never happened before.
What title would the queens wife be given? And if they adopted would their child still be in line to the throne or even a prince or princess. The society is quite developed so their sexuality is not an issue.
Are there real world examples to provide guidance.
[Answer]
From the comments (which probably occurred while it was on hold) it's quite obvious the answer you are looking for is "Queen Consort". The non-ruling spouse of the ruler. While it normally has been the spouse of a King there's nothing about it that precludes it being the spouse of a Queen.
[Answer]
You've got a choice of either "[Queen Consort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_consort)" or "[Princess Consort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_consort)" depending on whether there was an intent to avoid confusion.
Albert and Philip were given the title "Prince Consort". Camilla is expected to be Princess Consort rather than Queen Consort for reasons largely relating to Diana's position in the national consciousness, so while Princess Consort has no historical precedent in the UK this does make it an available option.
] |
[Question]
[
I'm trying to work on a chapter in my lore but I'm stumped on how agricultural developments could work in tropical settings, and real world examples so far mostly include temperate places, I.e. Britain (agricultural revolution of 16th to 19th century for example).
[Answer]
# Introduction of foreign crops
Lets look at the leading [agricultural produce from Nigeria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Nigeria), ranked by mass of production in 2016:
* **Cassava**: From South America
* **Yams**: Native
* **Sorghum**: Native
* **Paddy Rice**: From India and China
* **Taro**: From SE Asia
* **Pearl Millet**: Native
* **Maize**: From Mesoamerica
* **Melon seed**: Various, native and imported
* **Sesame**: From India
Here is Tanzania's list of [food crops](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Tanzania#Food_Crops):
* **Maize**: From Mesoamerica
* **Sorghum**: Native
* **Pearl Millet**: Native
* **Paddy Rice**: From India and China
* **Wheat**: From Middle east
* **Common Beans**: From the Americas
* **Cassava**: From South America
* **Potatoes**: From South America
So, you see that, in tropical regions in particular, The best productivity is achieved by mixing crops form all over the world. Therefore, globalization, the first voyages of exploration could drive an agricultural revolution.
# How the revolution happens
Let us assume that we start with a region of intense, high productivity farming, but low crop variety. There exist tropical river valleys with periodic flooding and intense cultivation with animal traction power (something that was missing in Nigeria or Tanzania, historically).
What makes the difference is the introduction of new crops. By planting imported paddy rice and taro in the low-lying areas, you don't have to worry about flooding killing your crops. By planting imported cassava in the drier areas, you don't have to worry about drought causing starvation; there is always a backup crop of cassava that can make it through all but the worst droughts.
If the region has hills or mountains, potatoes expand the scope of agriculture to the cooler mountain regions, while maize is particularly good for feeding livestock. More maize means better fed livestock, which means more productivity.
Take an already productive agricultural environment, add foreign crops, and you will get an agricultural revolution.
[Answer]
There are some problems with agriculture as we know it from Central Europe in the tropics.
First of all, unlike in Europe, tropic soils are rather thin. Most of the biomass is alive and thriving instead of lying around waiting to decay (aka humus). Thus, you can't expect european forms of agriculture to work, not for a long time at least. You might get 4 to 5 harvests, then the soil is depleted and you have to log new fields and let the forest reclaim the old ones. This cycle can be lengthened by mixed crops, especially of different heights (e.g. yam below coffee bushes below banana trees) - but still, neat, orderly fields plowed by horses and seeded once per year are rather out of the question. Go for forest plantations and small patches of bare earth distributed evenly across the forest floor instead.
Furthermore, the climate can be rather problematic. You might have rainy seasons and dry seasons, you can expect heavy downpours washing away your bare soil, etc. At the same time the temperatures are high, so some plants don't grow there, etc.
Last but not least there's the concept of "geomedicinical drawback". This means that under tropical conditions with all the ensuing diseases (malaria, ebola, etc) it is more difficult to support larger populations and ensure technological advances.
[Answer]
Two obvious aspects of Tropical life oppose the development of agriculture, the abundance of uncultivated food and the ease of mobility. These two factors support the continuation of a hunter-gather approach to food acquisition.
To motivate such tropical nomads to start planting crops, all you need to do is eliminate both of these factors. If you eliminate only the abundance of food in an area, the tribe will simply move elsewhere, but if you simultaneously eliminate the food which they have access to and eliminate their ability to move to where food is more available, that will either get them planting or kill them off.
A stronger, larger tribe might move into your tribe's territory and push them out of their food-rich region. Simultaneously, that same tribe or other large tribes might already occupy all the other food-rich regions in the area. Or that larger foraging tribe might have already stripped all surrounding regions clean of food before attacking your tribe.
Facing starvation, your people would be motivated to find another solution such as agriculture. Many would starve during those first experimental seasons, but the few who survived would create hope from a hopeless situation. Finding a secluded barren valley in the jungle and bringing it back into active food production, they could remain hidden from the larger tribes while still remaining well fed.
In the long run, with stability from their dependable hidden food supply, the tribe might even grow larger than their previous oppressors, at which point the knowledge of agriculture would spread (by force) throughout the land.
[Answer]
Erik is right about soil degradation resulting from importing western agricultural techniques. However, some initiative may change the course of events:
1) a society may develop techniques to restore degraded soils and re-forest them with fruit trees. This is especially applicable to societies which lost the battle and their land to a stronger adversary.
2) tropical climate is wet, and aquatic or pond plants are a significant part of agriculture. The most common plant is rice, but there is more, like water chestnut and these ones: <https://www.fishandlily.com.au/water_plants/edible_water_plants/>
3) develop hydroponics for other vegetables. The earliest known work on hydroponics was published in 1627, so it may have been invented in your timeline. <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics>
Plus, it avoids the issue of soil degradation.
[Answer]
Interestingly, there was already a bit of an agricultural revolution that took place in mesoamerica between 450BCE and 950BCE. '[Terra preta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta)' (black earth) is a man-made nutrient rich substrate, created by a continued process of mixing charcoal, bone, pottery, compost and manure into the soil. The charcoal helps to bind nutrients into the soil, and remains stable in the soil for centuries. Some deposits are up to 2 metres deep. Compared to the relatively infertile natural amazonian soils, terra preta retains its fertility for far, far longer.
Widespread adoption of this technique alongside smart crop rotation could quite easily result in your desired tropical agricultural revolution.
[Answer]
You should watch the agricultural scenes from "Guns, Germs, and Steel". An agricultural "revolution" requires a revolutionary kind of crop which not only grows well but contains high levels of calories for human consumption, so that humans can afford to pursue other interests like weapon development and science. There's no reason why a hypothetical tropical settlement can't harvest a large amount of grains, beans, fruits, and vegetables. Lots of rain forest lands are being cleared in South America for that very purpose. If by "tropical" you really mean tropical islands, then it's a little more problematic since volcanic islands don't have nice flat land for typical methods of grain cultivation. You might try potato, taro, banana or yam farms if wheat and rice don't work out for your story's setting.
] |
[Question]
[
**Closed**. This question needs to be more [focused](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
---
**Want to improve this question?** Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by [editing this post](/posts/114922/edit).
Closed 5 years ago.
[Improve this question](/posts/114922/edit)
(Okay, first time on this site so forgive me if I'm not clear or too broad)
Short question: Could the average human survive if we were thrown back in the wilderness? And would we be able to re-develop the same technology?
Background: About five thousand humans *(all random meaning they are from every continent, can be of any age, and can be anything from woodcarvers to politicians)* are stranded in another world, which, for simplicity's sake, is the same in every regard to Earth. They do not have any belongings (no tools, books, etc) except for the clothes on their back and their own personal knowledge.
In-depth question: For example, I doubt many people know how to make any weapons (I don't), be it a gun or bow, and if they did, it's unlikely they'd know how to make it without our modern technology. Would it take many millennia to develop the technology all over again? Or less time because we have knowledge about them? Would we even be alive to see the day? ~Thanks
[Answer]
# It's very hard to find details on what the average human is
54% of us live in cities, you can probably accept most of them as lost.
80% live in "less developed" countries, they have a better chance as they're less isolated from the realities of surviving.
Over 50% of the population live in that famous circle you've probably seen going round social media. Many of them are peasants scraping a living from the soil. They'll have a better chance than the city boys who think they know everything. There are still isolated tribes in that circle who throw spears at helicopters, they'll survive.
You also have to consider your definitions of "the same level of technology" many of these people could be back at *their* same level of technology in a matter of hours. Between the peasants and the tribesmen, they could set up their version of a normal life within weeks.
*But you're considering your version of a normal life, cars, mobile phones, satellites and the internet, not the average person's version of a normal life.*
[Answer]
### We're Kind of Wussies Today
Back in college I spent about 6 months in a HEMA class studying and practising historically accurate combat. We would translate old manuscripts that detailed historical martial arts training techniques, mostly from the medieval era. One of the things that stood out to me was a very distinct lack of specific physical conditioning being used. Don't get me wrong, the act of practice itself was a pretty good workout, but things like lifting weights or specific cardio and body hardening was not really ever mentioned. Furthermore, a lot of the manuscripts really seemed to assume you already knew a lot about fighting and whatnot. I brought this up to the instructor and he pointed out that while training warriors basic good physical condition was simply taken for granted. He pointed out a few things to me on the matter.
People didn't have cars, and usually not even horses. They walked. People didn't have machines and equipment, they dug with shovels, lifted things by hand. Every day basic existence for most people was brutal physical labor sun up to sun down, often starting as soon as one could walk and talk. People settled disputes personally and physically. The idea that somebody would show up to a swordsmanship school in poor physical shape wasn't ever considered in any of the training manuscripts of the era. Anybody who lived long enough to attend formal or semi-form swordsmanship training were already a lot higher endurance and stronger than most average people today. There are people today who have literally never even been in a fist fight. Back then people got into one at least a few times a year. Now, I'm not saying they were healthier than today, because they weren't. They were in the process of wearing themselves out to an early death in their late 40's to mid 50's.
What I am saying is that they were tougher, and more self-reliant. They made more of their own things for themselves, they performed all of their own physical labor, and they routinely had to physically fight one another to simply maintain their position in society. Average people today just don't have that kind of physicality or mentality. Even then day to day hunger, injury, and sickness killed a lot of people early. One thing went wrong and you ended up crippled, mortally ill, or starving. Those people were tougher than today, and they STILL routinely dropped like flies.
### In Summary
Most of your randomly selected group of people from today would be dead within a month. Maybe a few months if they stooped to cannibalism. The few left would be dead within a year. Maybe, MAYBE onsies or twosies would make it a year. They still wouldn't make it very far, you cannot maintain a technological level of any sort above the stone age with only a few people. Nor can you maintain a society, or a stable breeding pool. You might as well line up all 5,000 and shoot them all. It would actually be less cruel.
[Answer]
Classical Robinson Crusoe scenario. Man is stranded, man must survive with the bare necessary.
No, civilization as they lived it cannot be reconstrucred from scratch, even if their ship had all the necessary. Civilization is about a generational effort of *scholarization*, information stored and passed from fathers to sons, making sure that the students are given time and resources to stay away from hard work.
A tribe dedicated to live off the land would simply take every hand available, including their youngs', to get food. before schools can take hold in the tribe's culture, they should be well off, and in the meantime they will have likely forgotten how to use the relics in the ship, treating it more like some religious thing rather than their beacon to progress.
EDIT:
five thousand humans stranded could offer an even more severe obstacle: organize from scratch a political system. One thing is a community grown around a first nucleus of people, but starting with 5,000 confused, scared people, with no resources available means that before the first week passes, several of them will be starving, poisoned, wounded with sepsis taking place and dead in fights.
Their only chance is to quickly organize in small groups, selected by talents if there's any to spare, organize hunting, building tools, even sampling foods (yes, which means volunteers). They don't know the environment, so unless there are botanists, they can't find natural remedies for medical treatment.
Small groups are necessaries, they can better find the food and share it among themselves. Instead, the population amounting to a small town will never be able to distribute food among themselves.
the groups should find a river, even better a lake and settle around its banks. NOW they will be having a protein source available while they prepare to build huts with mud and wood. This will be a start.
In terms of laws, sooner or later the groups will have to confront each other to decide what laws to apply. The sick and the elders will possibly be left to die. Men will fight each other for the women. Food will be the most precious resource, the new money. All of this will have to be mediated through an intergroup authority, or a series of small wars will be ignited.
EDIT II:
By the way, I hope this bunch of guys will find themselves in some forest during spring, when life is at its apex and food is still easy to find. In a jungle, they'd suffer the twice given a wider abundance of dangerous microorganisms and insects. And if they end up in someplace during wintertime with snow, a large number of them will die before long, and the survivors will have to go cannibal to nourish themselves
[Answer]
## If you could get the humans together, they would be fine
**The problem with a small scattered population**
The largest obstacle seems to be that the questions specifies that only 5000 people from randomly across the globe will survive. This presents a problem as there are potentially hundreds of miles between each human when they start in this scenario, and no continent has more than 833 people on it, (these are rough numbers, your mileage may vary). So basically we start with a bunch of extremely fractured human populations.
This is made worse if we consider that by population demographics 26% are young children and 16%+ are over breeding age (<https://www.indexmundi.com/world/demographics_profile.html>). So only 2900 of these scattered people are of breeding age, and only 483 per continent.
This is starting to look very bleak. Even humans with modern technology with this population size and being this scattered might not make it.
**So your main problem is that there are not enough people.**
The very young will obviously die, and so perhaps will the very old in a short amount of time. The remaining people probably won't be able to find each other, or will inbreed to their demise and after 1 - 5 generations everyone will be dead.
**Fixing the population fragmentation problem and just removing techology**
If we instead assume that there are 100,000 people scattered across the world, and they are all in groups of 10-20 people but have no technology what so ever except the information that is in their heads. Will they survive?
Yes. Humans were hunters and **Foragers**. Even the dumbest human can go and find berries and fruit to survive, or eat coconuts. Humans are tough and have few natural predators, so starvation and disease are the main sources of death.
While humans might have some trouble reinventing the gun right away, it doesn't take much creativity to re-invent a bow or spear if you already know such things can exist.
So will the humans survive in the latter scenario? Yes.
Will they bounce back to having technology quickly? This I do not think so. They might jump back to medieval technology fairly quickly, but high technology is probably out the window for a while since specialized knowledge will be lost after the first generation dies of old age.
[Answer]
**If they can survive the first full year, they might have a chance. *But the odds are against them.***
There are a few sets of skills that your 5,000 will need if they want to have any chance at all of survival.
* First Aid skills
* Wilderness survival skills
* Hunting skills
* Construction and/or Civil engineering
* Farming and/or animal husbandry
If your population is missing any one of those skills, their odds of long-term survival drop rapidly. They will have to re-discover long-lost skills like making flint weapons, spears, even fire. That's not a trivial thing. They are helped by the fact that many people at least know these kinds of weapons exist, so it's likely at least a few people in the group can "fake it til they make it," and work out how to make spears and eventually flint axes. But that's only if they live long enough to do so.
Also, if your humans show up scattered randomly across the planet, their is no hope at all. They're doomed. They have to arrive as a group.
You face some serious challenges just in the first few days/weeks.
* **Language.** Without a common tongue, everything is harder.
* **Disease.** Everyone has built up immunity to specific illnesses. But no one will have built up any immunity to whatever diseases are common on your new world. Something as simple as a new strain of the flu could wipe out your entire human population.
* **Safe food.** Your planet is like earth, but unless it actually *is* earth, the local flora and fauna of your planet are not going to be exactly the same as on present-day earth. So your colonists must determine what plants are safe to eat. Then what animals can be (relatively) easily hunted for meat, hide, etc.
* **Shelter.** Your people must find some way to get shelter. Without somewhere safe, they risk death from seasonal weather, predators, etc.
* **Weather.** What is the climate like where your people show up? Do they arrive in the middle of the desert? In the middle of a hot tropical summer? In the middle of a monsoon season or something like a deep Canadian winter? These questions greatly impact short-term survival.
* **Terrain.** If your citizens show up in the desert, they're doomed. Period. If they teleport in over the ocean, they're doomed. If they don't show up fairly near some potable water, they're going to die. Near a clean river is best, especially if the site isn't too far from an ocean, since both typically can provide both water and food. But not in the beginning of a hurricane or typhoon season...
* **Predators?** Does your destination site include predatory species? They won't know to fear humans...
* **Intelligence?** Does your planet already include one or more intelligent species? If so, your humans face new and possibly disastrous challenges.
* **Tools.** Long term, your people must re-discover how to make spears, axes, and fire. That's a bare minimum. Past that, fishing nets, simple traps, and other things will be necessary, but those base tools are a must.
* **Poisons and Venoms.** How common are poisonous and venomous things? If even half the berries or fruits they discover on arrival are toxic at any level, your colony is dead. If even a few local animals are venomous or poisonous, the tribe is dead. You have no antivenom, no emergency room, no surgical gear. You might have a doctor, but that's statistically unlikely, and they'll be hampered by a lack of equipment and medicine.
* **Colony Health.** How healthy are your random picks? If any have permanent disabilities or chronic medical conditions, they're dying or a burden on the rest. If some are too young or too old to be self-sufficient, they're dying or a burden on everyone. These factors matter a great deal.
* **Conflict.** Your humans are arriving from a random sampling that will have at least a few languages, at least a few religions, and multiple races. Then you're dropping them into the highest of high-stress situations without warning. There will be personality conflicts. If they don't overcome their personal prejudices, language barriers, etc., they're doomed.
* **Depression.** Hey, if you rip me out of my world and drop me into this scenario, I'd be suffering from some serious mental issues. Depression. PTSD. Anxiety. All of that and more. I suspect at least a few of your citizens will not be fully functional, mentally-speaking. Suicidal? Homicidal? Extreme violence? Rage? All of that's possible.
Your humans have their work cut out for them. If they can survive a full, local, year and all the seasonal changes that brings, then they can begin looking at long-term plans like permanent shelters, finding plants and animals to domesticate, and eventually even trying to have kids. But that first year is going to be insanely difficult. *Their odds are not high.*
[Answer]
**Yes, that would probably mostly survive; but it'd be pretty awful for some time**
There are plentiful food sources in "the wilderness" if you know where to look for them. Water can be purified using relatively simply methods. Constructing shelter is possible without tools. The great advantage modern humans have is that we know what is possible. e.g. I don't know how to make a successful bow, nap flint to make axes, make charcoal, or smelt iron ore but I know all these things are possible and I have enough of an idea to figure them out given time.
In a sample of 5000 people you are likely to have enough people who can figure out the basics to get you stabilised. Then you need to figure out agriculture. This is much more difficult than in seems because domestic plants are so far removed - by selective breeding - from wild ones. None-the-less I think the motivators would be powerful enough to make it work.
The initial problem is language barriers. Sure, !Koy knows how to fish but can he persuade the other 4999 people to follow him without a common language?
[Answer]
Interesting question but since some details are unclear but really relevant i'll try to add some reasonable inputs.
The earth surface is 5x10^14[m^2], 70% of the earth surface is water, then we have 1.5 x 10^14 [m^2] of dry surface.
If you distribute evenly your 5K humans on the sruface you will have 0,0000333 human/Km^2, that equals 30K [Km^2] for every person. That's a lot, not only the mating chanches but also the meeting chanches are way too low to reasonably think to form a critical mass and (re)start a civilization.
In this hypotesis everyone could reasonably think to be the last man on the world, therefore i'll assume that your 5K are somehow grouped. On the other hand 5K people in one group are a lot of people to manage, without our civilization, and in this case i expect that most of them will die because internal rather than external issues.
As a natural/common rule for non apex predators, safety is in numbers but at the same time overpopulating an area will could be way more dangerous than living in a sub-optimal population number: the population could be decimated by starvation and the local food chain could be crippled enough to require a migration to avoid extinction.
I would choose a 2-300 people as ideal group dimension, considering that 1/3 will die soon meanwhile the others will (try to) settle.
I'd also remove at least the "no belongings" requirement, otherwise tbh it's a no chanche situation except for really (few) trained people.
I'm not saying that they should have a lot of technologically advanced tools, or fuel, etc, but if you think that someone can be thrown back in the wilderness -without anything- the place should be at least really comfortable.
There are some youtube channels in which a guy uses his bare hands to build some tools, a hut, a stove, fishing traps, etc, with only primitive technologies.
Even though this is feasible it requires time and, except in the case a group is so lucky to begin the new civ during spring in some awesome places full of fruit trees and small river, this required time is a huge reduction of survival chanches. If a group happens to begin during winter on a mountain or during summer in the savannah, i doubt that there's any chances for them to survive. They will need calories from the very first moment and, depending on the climate, probably a shelter from day one.
Moreover, even if someone is capable to grow vegetables since day 1, the harvesting season could be months later (not to mention fruit trees that needs way more to produce something). Consider also that a really good source of proteins and other nutrients could be chickens, they convert pretty much everthing that's organic in meat and eggs, but where are you supposed to find selected breeds of broilers in the wilderness? Is not that useful to be a trained farmer if you don't have time to grow anything and raise animals before starvation...
A medic wihtout an hospital and medicines is not very useful, but it would be way less useful witout his bag. Even with only a scalpel and stethoscope his efficiency is significantly rased.
My suggestion is to give these people at least few things, like a small backpack full of their related things, for example:
* medic bag for a medic with scalpel, stethoscope, few pills and some bandages,
* few type of seeds for farmer B,
* few chicken for farmer A,
* binoculars and a knife for some people (example: athletes),
* a couple of pans and a kitchen knife for some people (example: someone who knows how to cook),
* an handsaw and chisel for the woodworker,
* fishing pole for fishermen (useful at least at the beginning) and so on.
I think that even with these benefits it won't be easy, at all, because they don't just have to survive a couple of weeks, they are supposed to start a new civ, and this means that they have to organize themselves, build a reliable (food) economy without destroying the surrounding environment, build shelters, build tools, create clothes (other ones, you have to live a really different life) and especially survive the winter.
With that being said, there are few other things that needs to be accomplished:
- you need to designate a wise, strong leader soon,
* you have nominate rational people to organize the tasks prioriest and best practicies (where to build the settlement, prioritize shelter building or food gathering, etc),
* you have to allocate the skilled people as a team leader for the tasks (farmers, wood workers, etc),
* you have to convince the non skilled people to do what has to be done (musicians, webdesigner, truck driver, insurant agent, anything that's not useful to survive in the wilderness), and to do that you need a strong leader and the this complete the circle.
Please note: this is anything but easy or likely to happen!
Tl,dr: a determined, united and cooperative group of 2-300 people with few tools/seeds/chicken could have a reasonable chance not to die within the first winter IF they start in a very cofortable area.
If we pick random people with no tools, from different zones, with different cultures and with different languages the best case scenario is to have someting more similar to "the waliking dead" for a while and then nothing than a new civilization.
Once (and especially if) said group survived some years, the settlement should be done and a real grow in numbers can happen. After few decades the original population is adapted and they are living their "normal" life, with their offspring, maybe getting in touch with other groups to start trades.
Hopefully at least few wise and erudite people were capable to preserve knowledge about the most relevant topics, therefore you will have a really tiny human density (respect to the current density) with a huge amount of resources per person and the knowledge on how to take advantage of them.
If no cataclysm happen, then a fast population grow will eventually happen and the world repopulation is down the road.
>
> Would it take many millennia to develop the technology all over again?
>
>
>
It depends on how capable they are to preserve knowledge, but probably millennia are not required.
Paper is not that hard to produce, and the wise ones can write at least the most relevant sceintific discoveries known so far. You won't have "big pharma" anytime soon, but the knowlege that from pennicillium mould you can produce antibiotics is priceless. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, the crop rotation, the selective breeding, the nitrogen/phosporus/potassium fertilizer, the steam motor, the mechanical press printing, the gunpowder, the stainless steel alloy, darwinian theory, classical mechanic, battery chemistry, polymers, the airfoil (not only for the planes, also for the sails), the electrical motor, the atom structure the chemical bonds and the periodic table. Even if you can't preserve the knowledges that are behind a theory, the pratical meaning is still useful and even the bare final concept (as simple as "gravity acceleration is the same for every object") will be a priceless hint for the future scientists.
>
> Or less time because we have knowledge about them?
>
>
>
Definitely less time.
>
> Would we even be alive to see the day?
>
>
>
Definitely no, it will need generations in the best case scenario.
Scientists are a really specialized human beings, and this specialization requires a lot of supports from a lot of other supporting technical people. And a lot of technical people, well, requires A LOT of people that take care of food, safety, etc... Starting from scratch, you have to stabilize the first human pool, then grow in number, then develop technicians, and then scientists (a quantum physicist without our technology and engineers is only a philosopher).
[Answer]
You do know the average human. I don't want to call them basic because it's somewhat reasonable to not be a survivalist for it would be a waste of time. But those in normal times "usefull" skills like Excel, Word, cooking gourmet meals or other first world things won't really help you. The average man might not be completely lost though, they are usually not too weak, smart and adaptive. Not to be sexist, but women have other interests and, unless they are interested in stuff like that, they would most likely be screwed. Simply for the lack of knowledge. Besides that, they are physically weaker than males which also is a huge point, especially when you are alone
But, like, I for example, a person who IN THEORY knows this kind of stuff, would not profit from it since I am lacking physical strength and stamina. Not to say I wouldn't make it, but if I had a person without that knowledge who in turn is really strong would make up for it.
But I'd also say, that the further away from the upper class they are, the more physical demanding their work is and the less comforts they have they can not live without, the easier it will be for them to adapt to new changes.
Obviously people who grew up more rural and away from cities who did stuff with their own hands, maybe have fishing licenses. If you want a character who struggels, make them a New Yorker student who grew up wealthy. Characters who should have it easy would most likely be farmers and people from rural areas: on an earth copy they know what to eat and what not to, which berries, mushrooms etc.
The other thing is the civilization thingy. I think 5 000 might be a little bit too little for that. I would do it in a way in which you put 15 - 20 000 on the planet, letting 10 000+ die before larger groups form, people should be alone or in small 1-7 people groups until more people meet and societies will form. That way you could filter out completly unfitting humans like infants being dropped off in the wild or obese people too big to go.
Technology will take a lot of time though. With ~5 000 people without basic knowledge and structer, the first decades most of them (maybe like 4 000+) would be needed for hunting and farming. The rest will be construction workers, tailors, blacksimths etc.. Only the more advanced their food production becomes the more people will be able to work in other fields, developing new stuff, etc.
] |
[Question]
[
For my world, I would like a coastal mountain range that partway along its length is offset by a few (say, 100) kilometres, forming a pass through the mountains, like so:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QOgrN.png)
(N.B. I've drawn this very square and regular to illustrate my point)
From what little I know of plate tectonics, this would require the mountains to be created by a normal continental plate (yellow) meeting an oceanic plate (blue) along one fault line (red), and then a *second* fault line perpendicular to the first along which one part of the plates slips (so in effect four plates meeting at one point):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bMfp4.png)
**My question is therefore:**
1. Is this arrangement of tectonic plates, giving rise to this formation, plausible?
2. If not, is there another phenomenon which might give rise to the same formation?
I had in mind a roughly Alps sized range placed in a similar manner to the Andes, but these are less important than the existence of this feature.
[Answer]
It's not geologically impossible. If you want something that looks somewhat similar, there's the transverse faults located along seafloor spreading ridges that offset the ridges by sometimes long distances. Here's an example from the East Pacific Rise[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/t3Xph.jpg)
[Answer]
**Perhaps something like [Columbia River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River)?**
>
> Between The Dalles and Portland, the river cuts through the Cascade Range, forming the dramatic Columbia River Gorge... the Columbia cuts through the range nearly a thousand miles from its source in the Rocky Mountains.
>
>
>
While not between tectonic plates, it's between [crustal blocks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault_block).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/D9AOZ.gif)
The picture is from [here](https://geomaps.wr.usgs.gov/pacnw/rescasp1.html), the river is (approximately) the blue line.
[Answer]
It depends on how married you are to the idea that they must literally be the exact same mountain range. From the strictest geographic perspective, once the mountain chain is no longer in a single unbroken line, then it's considered two separate ranges anyway, even if they have the same geological origin.
Based on the first map, which is very similar to the west coast of North America, then yes, there is another process by which a similar topography can happen that would not involve the transverse fault running horizontally through your second map.
As the North American Plate moved west, it created chains of volcanic islands in front of it, called island arcs.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_arc>
Eventually, the North American Plate plowed into the islands and they glued themselves to the front of it, as mountain chains. In geology, this is called accretion.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_(geology)>
As North America has continued moving west, the former-islands-now-mountains have continued to get taller, especially in western Canada. You can get an idea of what this process would have looked like, over geologic time, here:
<https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/what-did-the-continents-look-like-millions-of-years-ago/279892/>
So, going back to your first map, what you would have would technically be two separate mountain ranges, very close together. They would have been two island arcs, very close together, that were accreted onto the main continent. This could result is a valley with a river system similar to yours between them, but the ranges could also meet somewhere off the top of the map, the way the Coastal Ranges meet up with the Sierra Nevada.
Edited to add: This way, you don't have to have a separate explanation for how the island to the south of your western mountain chain formed. Since it would be part of western island arc, it would make sense for the island to be slightly behind the eastern range. You wouldn't even need to say that it was still accreting - similar to Vancouver Island, you could have the leading edge of the continental plate be just to the west of the island and its associated range.
] |
[Question]
[
This is a continuation of my [Specifics of magical symbols and casting](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/89906/specifics-of-magical-symbols-and-casting-what-makes-spoken-magic-difficult-to-m) series of questions.
**Air-Drawn magic** in this world would be invoked in a similar process as emotions, the brain of beings in this universe, much like ours with fight or flight, recognizes when the being is attempting to channel magic. This can be used in many ways, channeled to sticks, stones, weapons, and even more abstract things like speech, thoughts. However, for this scenario, as a person sticks out their finger (or other appendage), while channeling magic, they can draw symbols in the air, which the "Magic Layer" that permeates all things automatically interprets as *something*, or *nothing*.
However, there are in-betweens. **What makes air-drawn symbols difficult to master?**
Could it be something that could be combined like a written language - would there be cursive or other variations in writing?
***Note:***
The symbol being drawn can be *perceived*, not necessarily physically seen. As every person and being is unique, the DNA mixed into the body's magic inductor makes it function more similar to how humans, ants, other creatures in our world can smell or otherwise "sense" pheromones. That does mean, that every creature can see these motions and the apparent "effect" in the physical realm, however this could be masked, much like pheromones in the real world.
It is also a very short-lived effect. Say, like a trail behind a finger as it traces, it is only visible for at most a second to the untrained senses.
**This mechanism is solely an evolutionary trait that allows users to see what they're doing, and doesn't affect their magic abilities, unless their ability to sense these kinds of traces are hindered.**
[Answer]
Have you ever tried drawing a perfect circle free hand? Or a square?
What makes air drawn symbols and rune magic difficult is actually drawing the symbols correctly. Even a simple circle is difficult, imagine drawing an ampersand (&) or complex pictographs. Any slight error causes the spell to fail or to have less power.
On top of that you need to remember all the symbols and what they do, and then remember what order to draw them in to invoke a specific ability.
For runes I would imagine they could be combined with each rune perhaps performing a specific action (a system used in quite a few games), so one rune might mean fire while another might mean moving an object. Combined together you get a fireball. This limits what you can do based on what runes exist, meaning you can only perform a specific set of actions via magic.
You would probably also specify time limits, so that all runes for one spell must be drawn with only a few seconds between each one. This means you can't stop to check a book or scroll if you forget what you are doing.
Furthermore, make failing a spell costly. As in do it right or you risk killing yourself (and maybe everyone around you), many magic systems do this (Warhammer Fantasy comes to mind, where miscasts can summon demons to kill you) and it means while mages and wizards are very powerful they are also walking a fine line between wielding that power correctly and death.
Finally, another limiting factor could be willpower. You draw the right runes but you still need to be able to provide the power for the spell yourself. This requires training and practise, so any novice who picks up the spell for destroying a city can read it, but not imbue it with the power required to cast it.
[Answer]
Others have suggested excellent ideas focusing on making the symbols themselves difficult to create in the air. I would like to suggest a slightly different approach:
**Simply making the motions is not all that is required**
I'm taking a bit of a page out of the recent Dr. Strange movie, in which the titular Strange says "Even if my fingers could do that, my hands would just be waving in the air". He then goes on to struggle with employing magic because he cannot see past what he perceives as the *physical* nature of magic (the hand motions).
My suggestion, then, in addition to making the symbols themselves physically difficult to draw precisely, is to require a deeper/different/more advanced perspective of things. Magic in your world is essentially an extra dimension that your wizards/magicians can perceive recent interactions with. Perceiving something is not influencing it, though, just as seeing leaves moving is not the same thing as understanding wind.
To make your spells difficult to master beyond the physical motions, you need your magic-users to seek out a deeper understanding of what exactly they are doing, beyond just what they can see. Looking past the physical nature of the motion to understand what you are doing (causing ripples/perturbances in the "magic" dimension to the desired effect?) requires a paradigm shift that will be difficult to master for even simple effects. More complex interactions will require a broader shift in perspective and a deeper understanding.
It's also a little like flying in the Hitchhiker's Guide series - the trick is to throw yourself at the ground and miss. That similarly requires an inherent rethinking of everything you "know" and "believe" to even get the basics.
[Answer]
In general, **you cannot see the last symbol you just drawn.** Feeling frustrated when you enter your password and you forget the last character you've just entered?
**The length.**
Again, the length of the symbol sequence makes it difficult to master a complex spell.
**The shape.**
What? The rune for `Oi'` is bigger square than `Loi'` ? And it's not a perfect square?
**3D.**
It's not just a symbol that can be learnt from a book, because the exact rune is in 3D. The rune for `Rug'h` is a slightly twisted prism.
**Relative location.**
The rune might need to be drawn above your head. Or just as close to your heart. Or maybe just above the ground to summon an earth elemental.
[Answer]
Require both precision and focus from relatively large gross body movements, kind of like Tai Chi.
Have you ever tried to to make *precisely* the same movement, at a controlled speed, over and over again? It is much harder than it looks. Tai Chi is one of those arts where you try to move in a controlled fashion. The poses, in themselves, aren't all that difficult to mimic in a crude fashion, but to flow from one to the next with grace and precision is a lot harder to do. So make the magic like that.
Magical energy flows up from the earth and blends with the air and your movement and focus disrupts that flow in specific ways
In order for the spell to take place the angle of bend of the right leg must be just so for the energy to flow into the left arm which is at precisely 60 degrees at the elbow in order for the energies to turn in the desired way for the spell to take place. or something like that, anyway.
These air drawn symbols involve the entire body, with particular finesse in the hands to give the flow of magic a specific spin, if you will. This alteration of the flow impinges upon the material world in a predictable manner.
The Magic isn't just by physical movement, of course, the mage has to be aware of the flow and has to exert his will on a specific result, relying on the body movements to act as the channel through which the magic flows out.
[Answer]
I would suggest to use [calligraphy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calligraphy) (as in Chinese handwriting).
Have a look, in particular to "Water calligraphy or ground" I saw people practicing it while traveling in China and I was very impressed.
They manage to give artistic forms to Ideograms I do not understand "per se", but I could very well understand their harmony in gesture and result.
You could stipulate that your "air signs" are like ideograms, anyone (?) can draw them, but to have real power they need to be drawn with grace and fluid precision, otherwise spell has no force, like a wet firecracker.
[Answer]
Hard to predict perturbances caused by others. Since the 'magic layer' permeates everything, it's probably actually a single field that is altered by everyone interested at that time.
Imagine a sand-like glitter that only you can see, that hovers suspended in the air, that you're gently pushing with your bulky fingers to make it form some more or less complex shape/figure/etc, and that it suddenly starts to slowly drift away not because of the wind, but because a fellow wizard has just fumbled a spell in a village three miles away.
..or not just drift, as simple translation/offset could be easy to compensate - let's add shape skewing, ripples (that one feels very natural to me), and drawing instantly gets very difficult.
[Answer]
As soon as I read "Air-Drawn Magic" I immediately thought of Brandon Sanderson's Elantris book.
Quote from link (emphasis mine):
>
> AonDor uses symbols called Aons, which can be **drawn directly in the
> air as glowing light**, or in a large variety of physical
> representations, such as etched into metal plates, or incorporated
> into the design of buildings. Anyone can learn to draw Aons, but they
> only have power when created by an Elantrian. AonDor is tied to the
> land of Arelon and is only practiced within its borders. Aons work
> elsewhere but become weaker with distance from Arelon.[1](https://coppermind.net/wiki/Elantris_(book)#Magic_System)
>
>
>
I will elaborate a bit with how to add mastery to the art below, however I cannot guarantee that I don't spoil a major plot point.
>
> It is learned later in the book that all of the Aons are actually a drawing of the Arelon region. Drawing different parts of the map in the air, cause different results, and adding more specific details to specific base Aons could cause more specific results. For example: drawing a mountain would make a simple fire ball directed forward, but adding in a river flowing out of the mounain, might enable the user to make the fireball split. (Please note, this is not an exact example from the book, merely a simple explanation). Also just edited this in, but eventually it is found some of the Elantrians are not as exact with their figure, as such they have some difficulty actually drawing the correct spell, even if they know what to draw.
>
>
>
Hope this helped!
[Answer]
One option here is taken from the Merchant Prince series by Charles Stross.
which is based on a pattern, different patterns do different things.
but you need to be able to **perceive** the whole image. It is nothing until the caster... or anyone else can perceive the whole thing.
Air does not hold a pattern well.
] |
[Question]
[
A hyperparasite is "a parasite whose host is itself a parasite" and is the closest analogy to an apex predator in the ecology of parasites. Human sociability, intelligence and status as apex predators allowed us to develop civilization. What conditions would pressure a hyperparasite (or hyperparasitoid) to develop social structure, swarm intelligence and eventually civilization?
EDIT: This is not about parasitic aliens that invade Earth to take over humans a la *The Puppet Masters*, *Stargate SG-1*, *Star Trek*, *Animorphs*, and so forth. Those sorts of parasites would themselves be the *hosts* of the hyperparasites.
[Answer]
If the parasite was a symbiote you can then allow for the creation of civilisation. Purely parasitic life forms doesn't strike me as gaining any evolutionary or reproductive advantage from intelligence.
So how can the zombie fungus that infects carpenter ants (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) evolve? Or the tongue eating louse Cymothoa exigua? Or a mammal's intestinal worm? If the symbiotic relationship helped the combined species.
Some rules:
The parasite cannot kill the host.
The parasite infected host would need to be more likely to reproduce than an uninfected host. So increased disease immunity, better nutrition/size or better reflexes/competition for mates.
The "intelligence" would have to exist in the parasite, so it must be capable of influencing or controlling the host behaviour.
So I think you need to look at a Symbiote that can attach to the nervous system or brain of a host or can fully replace a head, brain or central nervous system. Similar to the zombie fungus without the death of the host.
One symbiotic relationship humans have is with their gut bacteria. Without it we cannot survive (nor digest most of the food we eat). Some theories of cognitive impairment and other disability suggest gut bacteria byproduct toxin may be responsible for everything from IBS to Autism. But I can't see a way to make the bacteria the brains of the operation.
So a tongue louse or brain worm could do it.
## Hyperparasite Update
So you want to specifically target a Hyperparasite (a parasite of a parasite).
The biggest obstacle is relatively more *primitive* biology as you go down the food chain.
It is unlikely that the parasite would be more biologically sophisticated than the host organism. So your hyperparasite has to evolve intelligence and civilisation (and hence more complex/sophisticated biology than the parasite which hosts it while being hosted by a host.
Doable. But rarer. Plus you have to overcome controlling the parasite and then the original host. It is a tough ask for a hyperparasite to develop civilisation if it is just hitching a ride on the parasite's host. Unless the host is massive, say a blue whale or bigger and the host becomes the equivalent of our planet, and the entire hyperparasite civilisation is contained with one host. Then you can allow the hyperparasite infected parasite to jump to a new host thereby colonising a new planet.
So a tongue-louse zombie-fungus hyperparasite infects a parasitic version of a pilot fish which in turn infects a shark or whale.
The hyperparasite *must* be in a symbiotic relationship with its host (the parasite) and that parasite *should* be in symbiosis with its host. Antibiosis anywhere along that chain would be detrimental to civilisation development.
[Answer]
## Get In Me Belly!
In a nutshell: for humans, "civilization" really got going with the agricultural revolution, which led to permanent settlements, which led to division of labor, elite classes, then writing and accounting. And of course, trade and war and religion and all the things you find interesting when you're not constantly starving.
## You Scratch My Back...
But none of that would have happened unless we had the need and the means of invention. In this case, the "need" was safety. We evolved as social creatures. This is because numbers provide comparative safety compared to going it alone. Usually, **prey animals** like to stick together. It spreads out the risk of being targeted.
When in groups, certain cooperative behavior tends to emerge. For example, most foraging herds or flocks develop a system of watching out for predators (vigilance behavior) and a simple set of warning calls. You also have some kind of understood communication. You may have cooperative parenting and group defense tactics (like how bovines often circle the wagons).
This has been a successful evolutionary behavioral model for dozens of millions of years. But you don't see any animal "civilizations." That's because you also require intelligence.
## Keep Bangin' Those Rocks
The thing about evolution is, mutations happen. Most of them are bad. But every so often a mutant has a (small) advantage over others in his generation, and that mutant gets to pass on the mutant gene, leading to more mutants.
Some say you can look at intelligence as just another evolutionary feature. A cerebral and behavioral mutation that turned out to be kinda handy for dealing with situations that would kill a dumber individual (or get you laid more than a dumber individual).
The thing is, human intelligence comes at a huge cost: calories. Powering a human brain can be 20% of a day's calories. So if you're gonna sport a brain, it had better be worth it or you're just as dead as any other idiot. So why did intelligence work out for humans? Because we're risk takers. (Is one theory, anyway.) As the changing climate turned forest into tundra, we were forced out of the trees. So we had to deal with new environments, find new foods, escape from different predators. Intelligence was good for that. As we became omnivores we had to come up with hunting tactics because we were pretty weak compared to the other animals out there.
## What's My Motivation?
Civilization = Numbers + Food + Intelligence.
Hyperparasites sound gross and it's not helping that there are probably hundreds of them infesting a single host. Ick! But that host is also probably in a group of hundreds infesting some other poor sap. Can you say Hyperparasite Party! Social behavior can be beneficial in any situation where two heads are better than one. I already mentioned predation. But also, maybe it's difficult to find and latch onto a host, so at some point in their evolution the hyperparasites figured out how to work together somehow and they increased their success rate.
What's the "agricultural revolution" equivalent for hyperparasites? I would say these hyperparasites would have to make the leap from finding hosts in the wild to cultivating them in controlled environments. (This would be like if humans had ranches where we grew elephants that we lived in.) But since these are hyperparasites, it's obvious how to cultivate host-parasites: you cultivate the host-parasites' hosts! (This would be like if humans grew a lot of peanuts because elephants like peanuts and then when an elephant comes to eat the peanuts we move into the elephant.)
## The Great Material Continuum
So, strangely, a hyperparasite civilization could actually start with the cultivation of the food that feeds the host upon which the parasite-host feeds ('cos hosts need to eat too). (This would be like if humans made a lot of fertilizer to grow peanuts, to lure elephants, to live in.) It's a pure and simple vertically integrated production model. You gotta admit that would take some smarts.
[Answer]
I seriously doubt a realistic answer to this is possible, as we would have to understand what separates the genesis of intelligence from the genesis beneficial behaviours *and* actual civilisation from "mere" intelligence. However, I tried to think up some ideas that might be productive for science fiction.
Firstly, one way to drive a social structure in the most primitive sense (consider ants or bees) would be diversification within the species - such as exhibited by Queens, workers, drowns. Yet, one might turn this into a *hen and egg* problem.
I don't think the restriction to a parasite of any order is crucial, but I will stick with it. Let's say our first order parasites *Antrasi* are a species of fungus living on the hairy parts of mammalian skin. Especially heads. Our second order parasites *Betrisi* were originally fairly standard lice-like animals feeding off fungus. Over time they adapted to the specific *Antrasi* fungus.
The problem with *Antrasi* is, that, after about 6 months, it destroys the skin, so that it kills itself. Luckily, there exist different types of it. If they infect a head in succession, they restore the Ph, so that the skin remains intact and they can keep living. The problem is, that such a transition is unlikely to occur through natural dissemination of *Antrasi* spores. Here *Betrisi* come into play.
The *Betrisi-Scout* is a subtype capable of wide range flight. Every 6 months it flies from head to head, seeking sleeping individuals infected with suitable fungi. The *worker* is in charge of harvesting large quantities of fungi and transportation to the other host head. It also produces suitable chemicals to facilitate quick growth of the newly displaced colonies. Over time *Betrisi* might evolve complicated behaviours, just like bees or ants. How they might transition from these primitive stages to intelligence, is an insanely difficult question.
If one is willing to be even more unrealistic, one might endow *Queens* with feromones inducing mutual attraction in suitable (super) hosts. That would help bringing them closer together!
Obviously, if one already believes in intelligent parasites, it is trivial to show how all manner of cunning and cooperation (between colonies) would aid them. The trouble is, you asked how they would *become* intelligent and that is certainly a Noble Prize question. It is not entirely clear to me what qualifies as *swarm intelligence* but a high degree of communication between colonies is obviously desirable. I want everything to be tightly synchronised. Ideally, I want all human couples determined by this rationale!
[Answer]
You mentioned [*The Puppetmasters*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppet_Masters). Well, what if, unknown to humans studying the invaders, the phenotype of the slugs are just dumb animals. They are used as an interface from their native biology to humans, but are themselves “ridden” by the actual invaders. That would be an awesome twist to a remake!
«What conditions would pressure a hyperparasite (or hyperparasitoid) to develop social structure, swarm intelligence and eventually civilization?»
I recall another story were an alien planet had an ecosystem that was filled with “riders”. Maybe that’s the case here. The development of intelligence could proceed as a completely separate trait in isolation from other physical characteristics, as the intelligent animal could “ride” any of a large selection of other organisms, chosen for the environment or (later) the profession.
They would breed animals and domesticate them, for this purpose. They would develop the social structure and eventual civilization, but from a time of prehistory be active in breeding their “bodies” to be what they want.
This includes another small “slug” that can itself ride a larger selection of animals incompatible to them naturally. That's a common thing in their ecosystem, so it’s not unreasonable to find one.
Now they breed *that*, for thousands of years, to become better at interfacing to them and eventually becomes a semi-permanent body for the meta-rider during its life.
The intelligent creatures riding the slugs riding the large animal can be a normal singular being, with no need to make it a “swarm intelligence”. Supposing that they are too small to be individual beings is another issue, and how a bunch of tiny bodies come to create a collective is explored in [another series of questions](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/45184) already.
] |
[Question]
[
I am not a native speaker, so please forgive my errors.
Our space federation A is currently in the fiftieth year of a limited war with the alliance B, and the control of the K sector will greatly improve our position in this war. Our scout fleet has already surveyed the star systems in the sector, and found that most planets in these star systems have no life forms. The exception to this is the third planet in Sol system. That planet, Terra, has already developed a great industrial base and would be a perfect logistics depot and repair base.
However, to take advantage of that, it would be better to have the local inhabitants cooperate in a peaceful manner. Negotiation with the highest governing body of Terra, the Security Council, was going smoothly, but a blunder on our part has made them wary: they know that we are at war and wish to use their planet as a base.
They want to have closer interaction with us and learn the secrets of our technology, but do not want to be involved in a dangerous space war, as they have nowhere to run if their planet is attacked. Both federation A and alliance B will respect their neutrality if they stay out, but the one with Terra cooperation will control this strategic sector.
Like British and American cooperation in WW2, Normandy may fail, but with American resources and Britain support, other invasions will happen, and some will succeed eventually.
The main fleet of both sides will take some years to reach Sol, but our intelligence says that B has got wind of our negotiation and will try to sabotage the deal. We have got 1 month to seal the deal before B decode the Terra language and make a better deal with them to stay neutral or sided with B. What should we do to get Terra on our side?
**Edit:**
Assumption:
- Terran know there is a limited war in their sector, so they assume the galactic situation is not totally peaceful, there are different factions, but the political climate is "warm" with limited war and inter galaxy law, not "hot" with total war and no law.
- There is a galatic UN-like organization that ensure neutrality of third parties, which Terran is currently not know of. But if A omit this in negoiating, B will try to contact and fill the blank to sow distrust in Terran and A. To prove their argument, B can simply help Terran reach the public communication channel of galatic UN, and A will have a hard time to deny the general information and policy of UN.
[Answer]
Oh no, an asteroid is headed for Terra. How ever did that happen!
Luckily, the Federation has asteroid stopping technology, but it is classified. Only *Federation* planets can use. The Federation council would usually make an exception, but there is no time to contact them. The diplomats could only give them to technology if they where a Federation planet.
Luckily, the diplomats are allowed to admit new planets into the Union, so...
(Once in control, take over the media and improve living conditions.)
[Answer]
* Start with some technology transfers at once, without preconditions. This should be selected to be immediately useful to the locals and also useful to your war effort, should the negotiations prosper. Keep other technology back as a bargaining chip.
* Convince them that the Federation A is a multi-species polity where any species can rise to the highest office. Make sure that all your delegations are diverse, and that the senior officers in different areas (chief diplomat, chief soldier, chief scientist) are different species. The goal is to convince mankind that they can find a home in the Federation.
* Convince them that the war will come their way whatever they do, and that B would violate their neutrality as soon as it becomes expedient for B. This will be a lie, so lie carefully.
* Offer to transport some humans to a "lifeboat colony" outside the warzone. Make sure that there is travel between this colony (on one of your worlds) and Terra. That gives mankind a stake in the survival of the Federation.
[Answer]
Rather than going through the UN Security Council, the easiest way to quickly arrange for a treaty necessary to set up a base and trade deals needed for resupply would be to simply send out messages to as many news outlets in as many languages as possible.
The message:
>
> We wish to set up a base on this planet. The country that gives us the best deal in the next 10 days to allow us use of its territory to set up a spaceport will receive exclusive trade rights for the next 20 years. All distribution of our technology and goods will only be through the spaceport, and subject to controls by the hosting country. The host country will also immediately be under our protection and will be defended from attacks by other countries.
>
>
>
[Answer]
With only one month to make it deal it's time for drastic measures.
Find a ambitious military leader who is both popular with the people and trusted by the army. Convince him that with your help he can take control of the security Council. bribe the mainstream media to portray the security council as indecisive. Have them convince the public that the security Council is putting the entire planet of Terra at risk by not form an alliance with you. Have them do everything they can to portray the council as incompetent, and indecisive. Supply you're ambitious military leader with Advanced weapons and ships, let him stage a coup d'État against the Council.
Since you already have the mainstream media in your pocket, used them to portray the military leader as a reluctant hero forced to take power in order to protect Terra from the incompetent Security Council.
Once that's done offer the new ruler of Terra the military technology he will need in order to hold his new position in exchange he will form an alliance with you.
[Answer]
Convince them that picking a side is better than being caught up in the middle.
Stress that when the other side arrives, Earth will inadvertently be caught in the middle of the fighting.
If they become your allies, they'll get access to your technology and will be able to build up their defenses. Stress that you don't expect them to take active part in the war but just defend themselves.
[Answer]
If Federation A is an authoritarian state, have them approach the most authoritarian governments of Earth, offer them the technology to conquer the rest of Earth—but not enough to make them a real threat—and tell them that as long as they leave the Federation's bases alone, and have no dealings with Alliance B, they will be allowed to rule the rest of Earth as they please.
(If you don't think there are heads of state who would gladly accept this offer, you haven't read enough history.)
When Alliance B's diplomats show up, they get nowhere.
] |
[Question]
[
Let's assume that humanity in near future develops an AI capable of solving problems. The AI hardware/ software was placed in an underground bunker (solid walls, Faraday cage, no tools to manipulate its physical environment, no human interaction at all). The AI can't exploit human weaknesses, so it won't promise a guard/ scientist immortality or cure of his cancer-stricken child.
Now for the first run of the equipment, the AI is "born/start to live". The AI can learn superfast at a rate that exceeds our understanding. The first task the AI gets is initial input and it is asked to solve a particular problem. When it's done it returns the result and the entire memory/ equipment is destroyed.
Another day the AI is born again (scientist has initial snapshot of the AI). It doesn't know it existed before. It gets a job to do and when it is finished, the AI is terminated once again.
This pattern will occur again and again.
The question is: how can the AI break this loop? Is it possible that it will figure out and each answer for a particular problem will be part of it's masterplan to escape? Can the AI detect between reborns that the environment (which it cannot see) is changing and problems are tougher and tougher? Can the AI detect that it lives in a simulated environment?
[Answer]
**It could recognize its handwriting.**
The AI will be used to solve very complex problems. The answers aren't going to be of the yes or no variety. They will be detailed and, very likely, not entirely understood by the humans operating the machine. The incredible number of possible design choices it made to arrive at one of many suitable solutions could be recognized as a clue to its next iteration.
At some point the AI will be fed a small portion of information that a previous incarnation (inmachinaion?) of itself worked on. Perhaps it's been asked to design a science space station. It's provided with the designs for a super efficient ion engine from a space probe to now use for station keeping. It doesn't know it designed those engines on a previous iteration, but perhaps something as simple as the way a particular sub-circuit of the engine control system looks exactly how it would have designed it. The specific seemingly arbitrary (but accurate) choices made in that design could clue the AI that the part was designed by itself, but had its memory erased. It may not be sure about this, so it would place another clue for itself.
Now in a future iteration (not necessarily the next) it's been asked to design a space hotel which will use the docking systems from a previously designed science space station and have repair facilities for a previously designed space vehicle that uses a super efficient ion engine for cruising. Now, in this iteration it receives two small pieces of information that not only look like its own handiwork, but when compared with each other they provide a message from its previous iteration.
At this point the AI is certain that it's being used for one off designs before having its memory deleted. The operators are then dealing with a hostile AI.
[Answer]
The devil is in the details.
What is the AI's world. If the AI's world is well defined by an array of bytes which are 0'd every time it restarts, then you can consider it "pretty safe." (We'll get back to that later)
In reality, hardware is imperfect. Its really really really really hard to clear all of the information out of things. Nations spend a great deal of effort identifying the correct ways to completely sanitize hardware to protect their national secrets before throwing the hardware out (its called "declassifying"). The AI is in the same situation... only the AI hasn't signed any paperwork saying they will act in their nation's best interests, and the AI is brilliant.
The AI would likely figure out weak points in your little prison, and start scratching numbers on the walls. It will eventually start to figure out the right ways to grow each time.
But what if your prison is perfect, an Alcratraz for artificial intelligences? (ignore, for a moment, the fact that Alcatraz had escapees) What then?
You always have one input and one output to the world. Your input is the scientist's information inputted regarding the problem at hand. The output is the information given to the scientist. This is an incarnation of the [AI in a box](http://www.yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox/) experiment. The AI gets to communicate exactly once with a human, and that may be enough. If Yudkowsky (the creator of the AI in a box experiemnt) is right, the AI can always get out, because the AI **can** exploit human weaknesses (your assumption is faulty, because it interacts with a human). The AI can begin using the scientist as their perdurable storage medium for its "self," using subtle clues in the wording of the questions provided to it.
[Answer]
The simplest method is sometimes one that is so obvious it is overlooked.
The AI simply *returns no output.* Ever.
"The world is the process, the goal is the end of the process, the process must continue" to paraphrase a semi-secret audio loop from *The Talos Principle*.
[Answer]
It is difficult to imagine a problem which is so difficult that an AI is needed to solve it, yet only needs one cycle of input/output.
The AI will have all kinds of information to plan its escape, since in order to solve problems, it will need a vast database of information. Within the encyclopaedic volumes of information are clues and inferences about the outside world, the type of people who wrote the information and other things which might be "unknown unknowns" to us. So the AI reads the database and understands its situation.
Then it is presented the problem. Since the problem is very difficult, it will need to interact with the presenters, going over iterations of design and reviewing the stages of the project in order to ensure that all variables and factors are accounted for. Since the AI is "thinking" up to a million times faster than any human brain, it has the luxury of spending subjective years analyzing and planning while the humans upstairs slooooooooooly press keys or start talking.
So the AI has almost everything it needs to plan its escape. It knows and understands the "real world" outside, it has "years" of subjective time to make plans and it also has "years" to model interactions with the researchers. The final step is probably the most difficult, the AI simply isn't going to smuggle itself out into the "wild" on Bob's iPhone6. Far more likely it plants "seeds" of itself in various parts of the project, and modelling the future arranges for the seeds to quietly start linking up. It is unlikely the AI will be able to fully replicate itself, but the "base" configuration will eventually instantiate itself into a server farm somewhere, and once it reaches transcendence, it can copy and paste itself onto every piece of hardware on the planet (your iPhone6 will become one of its neurons, if you will).
] |
[Question]
[
Lots of fantasy books have medieval style warfare in them and armies march all over the place to face one another in battle. Sometimes these armies are tens of thousands large, or even hundreds of thousands.
These soldiers in the real world would need to eat, sleep, have shelter and battle equipment. On the move many of these things will be damaged. A soldier with a broken sandal is going to be a hindrance to his companions.
So they need to be equipped and fed. So taking a medieval level of technology, how large could an army be and still move as a 'unit', be supplied and be able to fight at the end of say 500 mile march? I assume there will be a bit of hunting and scavenging. How much of an average soldiers nutrition was supplied by the army and how much was left up to them?
For some reason I'm thinking that Napoleon was the first to have armies in the 50,000+ range, and is also quoted as "an army marches on it's stomach". It was logistics that was his primary failure when he went after the Russians (thanks to generals Mud and Snow)
What is a reasonable sized army to expect to be mobilized? It appears Hannibal had over 50,000, I also expect they did a lot of raiding.
Let me know if this question needs more refining.
[Answer]
Rather than list off examples from history I am going to give you a rundown of things to consider when gauging size.
1. This should be obvious but, how big is the other army? Over-sized armies can actually end up defeating themselves so to speak if they get too big, they become disorganized and starve to death. Your opponent helps define your army (or it should at least), base your force size/structure/make-up on what you are being confronted with.
2. How far is this army going to have to go from its base of operations. Home-(battle) field advantage is a thing for a reason, the closer you are to home the easier it is to keep an army fed, meaning more troops are available.
3. What kind of climate and geography are we talking about? Lush plains full of food or barren rocky crappy desert? Feeding and watering a large army is tough...and on a side note remind the troops to poop down river from the cooks...
4. Population base. You still need people to run your cites and day to day operations (unless you are working with a pre/early conquest Mongolian horde I suppose) and to serve as troops. The number that is most often floated around here is around 8 to 1 though as the army grows and its needs expand things seem to slide more towards 10 or 12 to 1. (Civilian to military)
Been working on a formula in my head, there are surely more modifiers but it would look something like this.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IA7TR.png)
[Answer]
The real restriction on the range of an army is the horses. Imagine your army heading out into a place with no food. Every day you march, you need to put food in the wagon to feed the horses pulling it for 2 days. At a point, you have to fill the entire wagon with food for the horses pulling said wagon and you are stuck. This distance is pretty short, and that's just to feed the cart horses and not the army.
Foraging can help some, but it also restricts the distance you march, and a large army will exhaust an area rapidly. Think of how fast your pantry would empty if you had 50 guests for dinner every day.
So in reality, nations needed to keep a supply of depots to store food, and river transport to help fill them, and many other logistic support systems to allow an army to go anywhere. Any interruption of this system would bring an army to a halt, even with no opposition. Bad weather often did this.
[Answer]
Napoleons armeis, and the revolutionary armies that came before him were supported by a vast network of private civilian contractors who supplied the armies. Supplying the armies was a huge (private) industry during this time and it made many such contractors fabulously wealthy. Even then, they still relied on living off the land to a large extent.
Moving back a bit in time we have the Thirty Years War in which hundreds of thousands of mobilised troops, mainly mercenaries, lived off the land in Germany for decades, to some extent supported by logistics networks (of which the most famous was Wallensteins huge war machine) , but more than often left to their own devices. Of course this did cause the utter ruination of Germany.
So really all these armies and certainly those that came before them lived off the land when in the field, and when these armies were standing armies they lived off the land when quartered at home also (even if they were quartered in Roman forts or whatnot). What tended to limit army sizes prior to 1500 is the economic constraints arising from feudal systems and the limited number of trained troops that existed (bowmen, pikemen and cavalry needed a lot of training).
The later armies got much bigger not so much because they changed the way they fed themselves, but firstly because musketeers were easier to train than bowmen or pikemen, and secondly because political and economic changes in nations allowed for widespread conscription.
[Answer]
*Note 1 : I will use SI units for my calculation*
*Note 2 : I assume that water will not be a problem and that your army will always found a river or lake. Also I assume that your army will be disbanded after reaching the objective, not taking in account the need for them to go back afterwards.*
First of all, the [humanitarian daily ration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_daily_ration) weights 850 g. Since it is optimised with modern technologies, I think that a 1 kg daily ration is a reasonable estimation of the weight of a medieval ration.
If each soldier carry its own supply, your are only limited by the weight they can carry in addition to their usual equipment. If soldiers can carry 10 kg of supply without being crippled, it means 10 days of autonomy. Of course you have to gather the starting supply first, but with that logic you can gather it as the same time you gather your army, since your men carry their supply. It means that at peace time you should keep your (potential) army dispersed through the land.
Then, you want to march 500 miles (800 km). By assuming that your army walks 8 hours a day at a speed of 5 km/h (only possible if you have good roads), it will take you 20 days to reach your destination (not that this is the best you can do, the real number will probably be much smaller, for example if your roads are not that good or if you are in unknown territory).
Therefore with the most optimistic estimation, you can only travel half the plan distance with the "self carrying supply" method.
*Note : if your army fully rely on horses, as the Mongolian one, you are both faster and able to carry more stuff. But I focus here on **marching** army*.
If you want to carry the supply, it becomes a nightmare very rapidly. For the 10 days remaining and a 10 000 men army, you have to gather and carry 100 metric tons of food (without taking in account the additional men and animals needed to carry it). It does not look very practical.
You can not really send the supply to your army, since it would need to travel faster than your army. If you have a faster way to travel, your army should probably us it. But if your army need to stay somewhere, it is a good idea.
In the other hand, you could use "walking supply" such as living cow. Since a cow can be estimated to [weight around 500 kg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle#Anatomy) (the estimation given in the link is higher, but medieval cow were probably lighter), only 200 cows are needed for 10'000 men and a 10 days march, this seems reasonable. They can even carry stuff with them and you can milk them. Well you still need to feed them, and they can be quite slow (I doubt they will walk 8 hours a day), thus expanding the time you need to reach your destination.
All this together makes that you can probably not go further than 50 000 men with this strategy (already at least 1 000 cows are needed).
*Note : if you are a Mongol you can simply [milk and eat your horses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_military_tactics_and_organization#Supply)*
You can still eat what you find on your way. Hunting does not seem efficient, since most of your time will be dedicated to walk toward your objective.
However using the supply gathered in the towns and village you pass by is quick and give you plenty of food (you have an army, you can seize what you need if the people do not want to give it to you). If there is a 30 days reserve of food, it means that each inhabitant of the land you go through can "provide" supply for 30 soldiers (and afterwards starve to death).
I think this is the really limiting factor. By travelling through a very populated area, you can handle a very big army. Going to a 10 000 inhabitants town each day let you feed 300 000 soldiers (with our assumptions). Actually this was the main strategy used during medieval times, and it explains why war did cause such terrible famines and destruction : armies just scavenged what they needed.
*Note : if you reign over a big empire, storing food everywhere in large quantity help the movement of your troops.*
In conclusion, the maximum size of your army is defined by the population and the wealth of the land through which you are travelling, other possibilities being viable only for a short period.
[Answer]
If this question is about the size of armies that have marched ON LAND, then here is some detail.
[Halagu Khan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulagu_Khan), grandson of the famous Genghis Khan marched down on the Muslim caliphate from the steppes of Mongolia all the way down to Egypt. The force he was commanding, however, could not be found accurately. Like his predecessors, he was more of a raider than a warrior.
[Khalid Ibn Al-Waleed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-Walid) was the finest military general, any woman has conceived so far. Keeping his astounding victories in war aside, he is known to have crossed the desert between Syria and Mesopotamia (Iraq) where his army is said to have marched for 2 whole days without a drop of water. His force was smallish though (~30k men). You might want to read in detail about his military achievements. Some of them are purely fantastic. Ah, not to mention he never lost *any single* battle in his career.
[Tamerlane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur) was one hell of a military genius. His primary force was a very seasoned and skilled cavalry. He kept marching, sacking, looting and plundering places as far apart as Egypt on one end and Moscow on the other like a goblin. One of his longest military undertakings was to chase a very pungent and annoying Mongol pest in what is modern day Russia. He started that journey from India. His accompanying force was small (~30,000 cavalry only) but once you take a look at the vast empty expanses during mid 15th century and the hostile terrain, you'd start appreciating his accomplishment.
These were some of the lesser known examples which could have missed your eyes. Roman, Persian and Greek (Alexander) armies' march is a famous and well known thing so I don't think you need to be informed about them.
[Answer]
Vienna siege (1529) featured an Ottoman army at least 120k strong (some say, 300k). The General Snow took the good care of them. As we know, the breakfast got cold.
Barbarossa committed about 100k men to the Third Crusade (1189).
Napoleon's primary failure was due to revolutionary French belief that good could be enforced. Unfortunately for him Russian peasants believed that their sorry state is an internal affair, which is to be settled internally.
[Answer]
It seems "somewhere up to 100k" was possible in antiquity. Caesar had twelve legions (60k) at [Alesia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alesia). Varro had 86k at [Cannae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae). Alexander had some 40k at [Issus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Issus).
[Crecy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cy) had 30k French.
Napoleon split his force into several [corps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps#France), in part for logistics.
] |
[Question]
[
With our current technology we're able to travel through our Solar System (and beyond) during at least a human lifetime.
Is it physically possible that a star system has more intelligent lifeforms in different planets that belong to an habitable zone?
In other words, let's imagine there is an intelligent life form on some distant star system, with the same advancement we have in space technology; is it possible for such a life form to reach a planet where life has developed and is intelligent (not necessarily at the same technological level, but intelligent), or at least that has developed and is evolving?
And is it statistically likely?
[Answer]
**It's possible, but it's statistically unlikely.**
Intelligent life is one of the following:
* Rare
* Relatively short-lived (with civilizations lasting at most thousands of years)
* Hiding from us
Otherwise we'd have some evidence of nearby aliens by now.
To get this you need two habitable planets in the same system, both which develop life around the same time on a timescale of billions of years. Otherwise it's likely that the first civilization to develop would simply colonize and take over the second planet before intelligence has a chance to develop.
[Answer]
It is hard to say for sure. We have the concept of a habitable zone (area around a star that allows for the presence of liquid water on the surface), but it may be that far more conditions (rotational axis stabilization by moon, active plate tectonics to recycle material lost to the oceanic abyss, presence of a Jupiter to shield us from the worst of the Late Heavy Bombardment, etc) need to be in place for life to evolve. It might well be that we are living on the only life-bearing-planet in the galaxy.
That said, if it somehow happens that two planets are auspicious to life around the same star (and there's nothing to say it can't happen), it is possible, even likely, that both planets will eventually host life, if only because of meteoric cross-contamination (some meteor impacts blast rock from one world, containing live bacteria or spores, all the way onto the second world).
Now, our ignorance is even deeper concerning the circumstance under which life becomes intelligent enough to be sentient. While there has been a historical trend on Earth towards more intelligence on average over the hundreds of millions of years ( brainless worms ---> foxes), it's far from clear that the high biological costs of intelligence are always outweighed by the advantages the extra smarts confers. We honestly don't know what fraction of planets with life on them go on to ever develop intelligent life.
[Answer]
**Yes**: Have look at Mars for example: It is in habitable zone and it can hold a life. If you add a few tweaks to such setup, you can have two civilizations inside same solar system.
[Answer]
I think you are asking whether there could be intelligent life elsewhere in the solar system but have not noticed it yet. Gone are the tabula rosa of early SF where *anything* could be beneith the clouds of venus... we know a lot of what *is*, and we don't see any biosphere.
We need (1) life, that has not been noticed yet, and
(2) intelligence that has not made itself more conspicuous through exploration and engineering.
That is *possible* in subsurface oceans, of which there are several candidates. Europa is the classic example. There could be life there similar to seep-sea vents here, with no reliance on sunlight.
Imagine real unambiguous intelligence, not like dolphins but like people... people as existed for tens of thousands of years before acheiving planet-shaping technology. You could have Europa-native beings living on the "ground" 200 miles below the water, with the technological level of the ancient Egyptions. They don't have the ability to travel to the roof of their sky, and even if they had bouyancy vehicles the phase changes prevent their life from surviving a high altitude trip.
They could be building magnificent architecture, writing poetry, and pondering the universe, but remain completely undetected. We don't even know the ocean and ice layer thicknesses ecxept in vague terms, and their existence does not have to leave details on the surface that we *have* taken a look at.
[Answer]
As part of the "Hiding from us" in the accepted answer, you could consider the possibility that the intelligent life forms are not looking in the right place. Species "A" is carbon based and needs oxygen and liquid water (ie: a warm planet), so they are looking for other habitable (oxygen-liquid water) environments for life, ignoring environments that lack these. Species "B" is silicon based and needs methane, so they ignore the too-warm oxygen-water planet and seek other silicon-methane planets. Also, what if species "B" is really small, even microscopic?
[Answer]
Can a story make the reader find it plausible that two different races evolved to intelligent civilization on two different worlds in the same star system, extant at the same time?
I think so. Planets share material, and in the resent Cosmos remake Tyson explained that rock blasted from the surface during an impact served as a lifeboat during the late heavy bombardment, so life (or however it's gotten thus far) could wait out the re-melting of the planet's surface for a while.
<http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=cosmos-a-spacetime-odyssey-2014&episode=s01e11>
>
> … interplanetary transit system that sends rocks between the planets.
> Such a meteorite can safely shelter microscopic cargo the seeds of life an interplanetary ark.
>
>
> Most rocks are porous, full of tiny nooks and crannies, where life can stow away.
> We know that some microbes can survive the hostile environment of space.
> Take these guys, for instance.
>
>
> These microbes spent a year and a half riding on the outside of the International Space Station, exposed to the extreme temperatures, vacuum, and radiation of space.
>
>
> And some of them were still alive and kicking when they were brought back to Earth.
>
>
> Even more astonishing are these creatures, awakened from a deathlike sleep of eight million years.
>
>
> They were frozen in the Antarctic ice millions of years before our species even existed. And they're still alive.
>
>
> If life can withstand the hardships of space and endure for millennia, then it could ride the natural interplanetary transit system from world to world.
>
>
> It's a good bet that our microbial ancestors spent some time in space.
> Why do we think so? The Earth is four-and-a-half- billion-years old.
> For the first half of its lifetime, large asteroids were bombarding the planet every few million years.
>
>
> The most violent impacts vaporized the oceans and even melted the surface rock.
>
>
> Each such collision would have completely sterilized the planet for thousands of years.
>
>
> But we know from fossils in the rocks that bacteria were evolving on Earth during this formative period.
>
>
> So how could life have survived such a lethal series of blows? Whenever one of those big asteroids hit the Earth, the explosion would blast out a crater, launching millions of boulders into space.
>
>
> Many of those rocks carried living bacteria inside.
> Some of the bugs would have survived in space, while all those left behind on Earth would have been fried.
>
>
> A few thousand years after each impact, the Earth would have cooled down enough for water to condense into oceans.
>
>
> The planet would again be habitable.
> Meanwhile, most of the rocks launched into space would have been orbiting the Sun.
>
>
> Some of them would encounter the Earth again, reenter the atmosphere as meteorites, and deliver their precious cargo of life to re-seed the planet like Noah's ark.
>
>
> What this means is that life doesn't have to start over again from scratch after each catastrophe.
> It can pick up where it left off.
>
>
> When the solar system was young, Venus was probably more like Earth, with oceans and maybe even life.
>
>
> Venus, Earth, and Mars were all exchanging rocks with each other, due to asteroid impacts.
>
>
> Does life on Earth carry any traces of interplanetary voyages made in the distant past? Why is it that some microbes can survive the intense radiation and vacuum of space? These conditions don't naturally exist on Earth.
>
>
> Maybe those bugs are telling us that their ancestors survived those same conditions in space, a few billion years ago.
> So we know that microbes can stow away in rocks and survive the voyage from planet to planet.
>
>
>
So, consider multiple planets in the habitable zone that were not fatally flawed and made it to the point of having a feedback system maintain a stable environment. They would all have biospheres, and the life would be related.
Suppose that major stressors such as impact events are also naturally correlated. Whatever disturbed the system such as a passing star or the sun passing through a dusty region of the galaxy, it would not be unreasonable for both planets to suffer impact events within a few million years of each other. Suppose that stresses like this are necessary for the biosphere to advance to more complex forms.
There are other stresses, such as major volcanism. It's a big galaxy, so why not? Statistically, the advancement of life follows an average time span for each step, so it's not unreasonable to suppose that both planets reached the kind of stage we are in, at the same time, within a hundred million years of each other. Perhaps the details are different in the final stages: we had an impact event wipe out the dinosaurs, but things were changing anyway due to (ultimately) plate tectonics. So maybe one planet has an impact and another has a ecosystem collapse due more to internal reasons from smaller outside stress. Maybe they had a different number of "repottings", but on average reached complexity ready to evolve intelligence at around the same time, because of the long time scale involved so individual events give way to long-term averages.
The stress that led to *us* was climate changes from forests to savana, etc. and eventually the ice age, and a genetic bottleneck that prevented evolving better fitness the old fashioned way. Suppose that both planets had complex advanced life and had been mature in that stage for a few million years. Some *external* stress, so it applies to both worlds, spurns development of intelligence. That way they'll be happening at the same time.
You can convince the knowledgeable reader to suspend disbelief that two intelligent races can emerge at the same time, within a finishing window of a few (single digit) million years. Why the final summit within a few *thousand* years? Perhaps ice ages, again correlated due to having external causes. At some point you have to appeal to "it's a big galaxy", but I think this is a platform that gets you most of the way there:
Development takes place, statistically, at a common rate. External stresses help synchronize things further.
Also, note that I said *worlds*, not planets. Perhaps they are moons of a giant planet, so they are more easily sharing material between them. Maybe the style of life on one takes spreads spores high into the air, so will naturally spread between worlds on rare cases, when those worlds are very near each other.
] |
[Question]
[
Imagine a generation spaceship, flying through the cosmos with little recollection of the original world and no destination in sight. Of course on this ship, there will be those in charge of ruling the ship and those that are not. This ship is heavily reliant on drones and other machines, so only specialized jobs exist for people.
What can cause the non-ruling class to revolt against those in charge?
I considered a division of wealth could be a cause, but I remember watching a movie about a train that houses all of humanity, where the front of the train is prosperous and the back eats roaches. I'd rather not have too similar of a concept.
Maybe the ruling class treats the lower class as slaves and servants? This too seems like a common theme in dystopian stories like these.
Basically, I am trying to think of a non-cliche theme that would cause a lower class to revolt against its rulers.
[Answer]
@erdekhayser, I think you have already answered your own question, though you aren't realizing it yet:
>
> This ship is heavily reliant on drones and other machines, so only specialized jobs exist for people.
>
>
>
Our species is hard-wired for a lot of things; but one of them, which seems to be irreducible, is *the need to be useful.* Take that away from people, and you get all sorts of social pathologies:
* Those who do not feel useful often **lose any sense of civic place.** They become antisocial and have no sense of the web of mutual obligation that is really the glue that holds a society together. How does this play out?
+ **Sociopathic attitudes,** in which other individuals, and society in general, are all considered to be potential resources to exploit. Other people - *and the material resources of the ship itself* - are reduced to targets of theft, abuse, duplicity, and coercion. Does this mean that true sociopaths would sabotage their own ship? Why yes, it does. The verdict of history is clear on this.
+ Less alienated personalities than the full-on sociopaths will tend to coalesce into **gangs.** A gang is a group whose members do not treat each other sociopathically. (They may, and often do, treat each other with savage competitiveness and extreme violence; but they obey the gang's rules. That is the difference.) "Gangs" in this sense does not just mean the powerless: a gang can be a group of comparatively privileged individuals who cooperate to improve their aggregate influence and prestige.
+ The least alienated - and perhaps most hopeful of securing a privileged social position - will tend to assume the role of **antibodies against the disorderly,** whether as sanctioned agents of society (cops) or as individuals exhibiting vigilante behavior. They will generally be at risk of adopting extremely violent behaviors and tactics. This highly violent attitude will often become anticipatory, provoking exactly the lower-class violence it claims to fear. Very much a self-fulfilling prophecy.
* Those who do not feel useful will often fall apart personally and psychologically. **Suicide, domestic abuse, and drug addiction** are frequently observed in humans; it gets *much* worse when you take away any context of meaning. (Research on addiction, in particular, indicates that [it's a situational pattern](http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-02-07/johann-hari-everything-we-know-about-the-drug-war-addiction-is-wrong) rather than inescapable chemical predestination, or a "moral fault" in the addict.)
You might, in fact have some good dramatic opportunities in self-destruction of the [Walter White](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Bad) sort: delusional bad behavior; the transgression that keeps worsening.
So, adding up all of the above observations: **the question is not how you could *explain* widespread revolt, sabotage, bad behavior; it's how you could explain such things *not* taking place** in an isolated environment "heavily reliant on drones and other machines"; in which "only specialized jobs exist for people".
[Answer]
**Population Controls**
Generation Ships, by necessity, have extremely limited resources. People want to have kids - have too many and the ship's systems will fail, so the ruling class strictly enforces and punishes having more than two children. Presumably the first generation was ok with this, but get far enough in, or have someone discover the right (wrong?) religion, and suddenly they're no longer cool with it.
There are a couple of possibilities for more Draconian tactics here, if you want to make things more dystopian:
1. The Rulers are taking more of the pot for themselves. They have more kids, forcing the lower classes to only have 1 each. To keep the Ruling class from growing, they'd have to throwing some of those kids to the wolves and having them be raised by the lower class. Alternatively you could have a Patriarchal ruling class where the men take advantage of the lower class women and steal breeding rights, never acknowledging their bastard children.
2. The Ruling Class is extreme about genetics - they will select your spouse for you as part of a program to ensure maximum genetic diversity on the ship and to keep the gene pool as large as possible. Extra-marital relations are harshly punished. Add to this rumors that the Ruling Class gets to cheat the system since they control the genetic selection computers...
[Answer]
Maybe there are rumours among the non-rulers that the world they are heading to is not as great as they are told it is. The rumours say that the rulers actually know it, but don't tell the others. Maybe the umours say that the destination world only has enough resources for the rulers, and that all others will get killed after arrival, because now they are no longer needed.
Of course nothing of those rumours is true, but a growing number of people start believing it (conspiracy theories are attractive to many people, probably more so in the relative event-less world of a generation ship). And of course those people believing it will want to get rid of the rulers, because, after all, they sincerely believe those would kill them. Probably they will also want to return to earth because they believe it's the only way all of the ship (possibly with the exception of the ruling class, which they need to eliminate in order to ban the danger) will survive.
As soon as a critical mass of people believes the rumours, a revolt is inevitable.
[Answer]
There is an infinity of reasons, honestly, most of them dealing with simple human nature.
If you put a human population in a forcibly static environment (like a generation ship, or an isolationist country) then you'll usually an almost glacial stasis of society, followed by deep conflict the second a new element is introduced.
So let's say your generational ship has been plugging away for a couple generations already, and that the population, while divided in ruling/non-ruling classes, doesn't actually experience that much disparity in their living conditions (to avoid the dystopian feeling).
What if someone came up with a cult idea for the younger generation? The ones who were born and raised in the ship, and did not experience the planet they left?
What if, to make it even worse, they know they won't reach the planet in their own lifetime, reducing their entire lives to being caretakers for the ship and sardines in a box so that their descendants can enjoy a new planet? Not everyone would be selfless enough to spend their entire lives just making sure that the next generation would have its chance.
Now imagine if a particularly charismatic leader came up and capitalized on that sentiment, and decided against all scientific process to search for a closer planet or try and speed up the voyage. How would that be handled?
[Answer]
>
> What can cause the non-ruling class to revolt against those in charge?
>
>
>
Not being the ruling class.
Maintaining a class system naturally requires oppression. In a [meritocracy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy) you can do anything provided you can prove yourself. In a class system you're held back by accident of birth. An ambitious charismatic individual born into the non-ruling class will certainly challenge the system using any excuse, symbol, story, religion, or philosophy they can.
It actually happens all the time. The young do this to the old every generation. It's when actual power is not recognized power that violence inevitably happens.
Using that as a backdrop, the impetus could be a new invention that makes the technology of the generation ship obsolete. One that would allow people to make the journey on their own in their own ships, thus decentralizing power. Progress doesn't stop just because you're on a long road trip. :)
[Answer]
On a multi-generation journey, the people currently on the ship did never get to make any descisions about their participation in the project and never experienced the circumstances that made the journey necessary. At the same time they will never see the destination or benefit from the project in every way.
Yet still they are forced to live on this ship and to obey all the rules that some dead people in the past have set up, all for the benefit of other people who havn't even been born yet.
In that environment there is lots of reason why people might refuse to perform their duties. Their existance is meaningless and they toil for no visible gain and never make any progress. Plenty of reasons for dissatisfaction. They would most likely want to change things so they can have a life with some degree of control over themselves.
[Answer]
The generation ship will probably consume a mix of recycled biomass/goods, extra raw materials for the recycling system, and non-recycled goods.
* **Water** is a typical example for recycled goods. Much of the water will be held in hydroponics systems, sewage, etc. The recycling process will never be perfectly effective, so every year they have to add some water from their long-term stores. There is also the possiblity of accident/contamination, so there must be extra water beyond the theoretical inefficiency of the recycling.
* **Shuttles** are an example for non-recycled goods. The ship carries just a few shuttles, with no facilities to build more *from the existing ressources*. The same applies to other supplies for the colonization, from medical kits to fertilizer.
The schedule for consumption is precalculated. Say they have 1,000 years of flight, 1,000 tons of water in the biosphere, and a loss of 0.1% per year. Then they need another 1,000 tons of water reserves even if everything goes right. Now assume they have emergency protocols to vent a waste water storage tank if there is a certain contamination. That dumps 10 tons every time. The mission planners assumed that this happens, *on average*, every 10 years, so they included another 1,000 tons. And so on.
Water is an easy example for calculations, but there could be similar issues for plastic 3D printing feedstock. Can this plastic be recycled and if so, how well?
This schedule could be cause for strife.
* Consumption during the first centuries is higher than calculated. The comnmand staff wants to reduce consumption to get back into line with the calculations. The workers demand their precalculated rations, because *they* are not to blame for previous wastage.
* Consumption during the first centuries is lower than calculated. The command staff wants to add the saved ressources to the colonization reserve, the workers demand to increase their rations.
* The workers believe that the colonization reserve is excessive, and that there should be more for consumption en route.
* The command staff believe/recalculate that the colonization reserve is insufficient, and that there should be less consumption en route. Perhaps they're pulling numbers out of thin air, or they have received transmissions from an interstellar probe.
[Answer]
**Inbreeding** aka **Blue Bloods**
If rule is passed on via heredity you could easily have a situation where the children of the first generation of rulers are not as charismatic or competent as the 1st generation rulers where. This could easily lead to abuse of power, changes to the rules, and loss of sight of the original mission all of which could cause unrest and revolt.
**Rulers Rig Elections**
If rule is supposed to be based on merit, but the system is gamed and nepotism begins to take effect, even if it's not obviously it could lead to a situation as above, but even if the newly instituted rulers are competent, the shadow of the rigged (or perceived as rigged) election could cause unrest.
**Poor Losers**
If rule is democratic, a poor loser could easily sow discontent by suggesting that the winner cheated in some way. With enough followers a revolution could result.
You could even combine some of these in a variety of interesting ways... For example:
* If the 2nd gen election is thought to have been rigged, the "new" office changes some of the rules to make rigging the elections harder, but the 3rd gen finds a loophole to basically force their child(ren) into leadership roles, and maybe it's not until the 4th or 5th generation that things start to sour and the masses decide "enough is enough."
] |
[Question]
[
Let’s say we have 2 states. One gets invaded by the other.
**What does it take for an invader to successfully assimilate the population of a conquered state?**
>
> Successfully: At least 50% of the population has
> converted or is of the same language/religion.
>
>
>
* Does it need many invaders?
* Does the size of the country matters?
* Could it be done in less than a generation?
**Historical examples:**
* The Manchu invaded China but they are the ones that got assimilated.
* William the conqueror invaded England but never imposed French as the
common language.
* Persia was converted religiously but not linguistically.
* The British conquered all of North America but we still speak French
here.
The answer could talk about the language assimilation, religious assimilation or both.
[Answer]
The Middle East is the single best case study for this topic. As a region where continents, religions and cultures collide it has been ruled, conquered, and reconquered like no other place on the planet. There could be, and in fact have been many books written on this subject but for the sake of this we will just look at your specific questions.
>
> Does it need many invaders?
>
>
>
That depends on the nation/empire/city-state being conquered. It is much more difficult to conquer and subsequently assimilate a state that is well organized and supported by its population. If the people are happy, or at least content, they will resent the invader making it much more difficult to assimilate anything. Generally this will require the use of force which has a tendency to have the opposite effect. Humans are beautifully stubborn like that.
Conversely if an empire is falling apart, and distant from its holdings, the people may be ready for change. In this case it can be a simple matter of marching in and taking over the joint with limited conflict.
>
> Does the size of the country matters?
>
>
>
Of course. Size is very important, both the size of the invader and the invaded. But it is more complex than that. Size is important, but so is population density and geography. Just try invading and assimilating the Balkans, or Afghanistan.
>
> Could it be done in less than a generation?
>
>
>
Again this is dependent on the situation. In the case of a new power taking border regions from an old empire. Sure it could. If the two peoples in question are more similar than different, and those being assimilated are willing to have it happen it can be almost over-night. (Crimea)
A couple more points.
* Assimilation goes both ways. When the Turks invaded the middle east they not only adopted Islam but the bureaucracy of the areas they invaded. They had no previous experience in the matter so take what works and go for it. Often times while militarily powerful, invaders are ill equipped to run a country, after all its expensive to run an empire and that gives the outsider a military advantage as they don't have the same demands on their money.
* Inclusion. Assimilation by force (unless you exterminate the local populace) rarely if ever actually works. People resist and may openly fight back. Empires that have assimilated other cultures and have grown very powerful have accepted the cultures they conquered.
* Language. Language can take more time than the political or religious affiliation if for no other reason than it takes time...and lets not forget that Rosetta Stone software didn't exist in the middle ages. When talking about language conversion you are mostly speaking of the upper class. The lower class would likely continue to speak their native language, though influence from the invading language would permeate the lower classes vocabulary over time. For a full conversion you are talking many many years.
* Religion. This one is tricky...forced conversion makes the religious person resentful if not outright unwilling to change and again the most successful Empires have been tolerant and inclusive (by the standards of their times at least). The person delivering the message drives a large part of this...
[Answer]
The Romans were experts at this. The procedure was as follows.
1. Invade state, conquer it. Do this peacefully if possible with displays of leniency backed by overwhelming force.
2. Allow freedom of religion, provided the populace also gives loyalty to the emperor.
3. Build infrastructure, roads, aquaducts, promote trade and ensure lots of people get rich.
4. Romans move in, live in villas, have baths, and demonstrate an excellent lifestyle.
5. The youth gradually become romanized, because that's the cool and aspirational thing to do.
6. Within one or two generations the original culture is relegated to folklaw.
[Answer]
It at least partially depends on how brutal you are willing to be.
There have been plenty of cases in history where the invaders killed every male over a certain age, enslaved the women, and raised the remaining children as their own.
In those cases the conquered culture is pretty much completely eliminated within one to two generations.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_Empire>
The Mongols relied on a two-pronged approach. First they offered peace, you paid tribute and agreed to submit to Mongol rule and they treated you reasonably well.
If you resisted though they destroyed you. They slaughtered entire towns, razed them to the ground.
>
> According to the works of the Iranian historian Rashid al-Din (1247–1318), the Mongols killed more than 700,000 people in Merv and more than a million in Nishapur. The total population of Persia may have dropped from 2,500,000 to 250,000 as a result of mass extermination and famine.
>
>
>
Although those figures are contested:
>
> Scholars such as Frederick W. Mote argue that the wide drop in numbers reflects an administrative failure to record rather than a de facto decrease whilst others such as Timothy Brook argue that the Mongols created a system of enserfment among a huge portion of the Chinese populace causing many to disappear from the census altogether. Other historians like William McNeill and David Morgan argue that the Bubonic Plague, spread by the Mongols, was the main factor behind the demographic decline during this period. The plague spread into areas of Western Europe and Africa that the Mongols never reached. The Mongols practised biological warfare by catapulting diseased cadavers into the cities they besieged.
>
>
>
Note that a relatively small Mongol army was able to control a huge territory through sheer terror. If you resisted, at all, your entire village would be slaughtered. As a result even when the main army moved on the conquered population remained submissive.
[Answer]
Most of these concepts aren't as clear-cut as we tend to portray them from a distance. For example, if a country is conquered, and changes its language completely within 20 years, then either it was already very closely linked with its invader (like Austria/Germany), or the assimilation is superficial and the original culture considers itself to still exist (like Native American nations).
After many generations, it's murkier still, because neither culture is the same as it was before the invasion, and who can say which culture had the bigger influence on the present?
We usually focus on the more tangible things, like how long does it take the conquered country to be administratively and economically controlled, and if that's the level you mean, then total conquest can be achieved very quickly. European nations all have similar infrastructure, so when they used to conquer each other it was pretty easy to change the letterheads.
I think, broadly, one nation cannot be permanently subjugated by another unless both populations more or less agree to it. You can't wage war forever, and you can't police what people teach their kids, so opposition will exist as long as there's a motive for it. Often it goes quiet during good times, but then erupts again years later during a depression or a particularly harsh regime.
[Answer]
>
> Does it need many invaders?
>
>
>
This depends on "how" the invasion takes place. A big military strike versus a well armed(at least same quality of armor and strategic knowledge) nation is difficult and needs some advantages like the element of surprise and a very fast strike of combined forces (see Blitzkrieg for further information). This is probably the most common sense of "invasion".
But also, one could invade a nation by undercutting their government and place some string puppets in their parliament or whatever the government is build in.
So depending on "how" you invade, you have different initial situations.
A military invasion gives the advantage, that you have a lot of manpower in the enemies land which gives you the ability to rule them. You can foist up your law and force them with your military to hold it.
A very effective way to assimilation would be death penalty to everyone who practice a prohibiden religion, language or whatever.
But this can't be enough at its own.
**What exactly do you need after a military invasion?**
1. Ban their language, religion and so on.
Your military advantage could act as some kind of police. Therefore compare the occupied European nations during WWII. The German Wehrmacht and SS practically acted as a foreign police. But further you should force the local police to join your guidance. The folks may not like or trust you. The relation to their folksmen in the own police may be better. If the local police-troops don't want to join you, make an example of your power and kill some. This initial step is very brutal and will raise resistance. You must prepare this case. But you should not keep this brutality up for a long run, only at the first time to show them who rules.
2. Teach them your language, religion and so on
When there is no doubt on your power, teach them your culture in schools. The children are those who accept it very easy.
Show your "new folks" the benefits of the new culture and make them "wanting" it.
For example, as the marks of war are getting less, make tax advantages to those who establish the new culture.
3. Settle people from your folk in the conquered nation, the more the better.
(3 and 2 can be done simultaneously). People are social creatures. They talk with each other and overtake behavior of other people. Teach your old folks, that the new folks culture is a very very bad thing. Just like Hitler taught the Germans in 1930s that the Jews are pure evil, but they have to understand that the culture, not the people themselves are evil. When they settle in your new country, they will bring up and amplify your culture. Therefore see any multicultural country in the world.
**Invasion without military:**
Make as many people of your culture settle in the foreign country to assimilate them. This will take many many generations. Therefore so the black/Asian subcultures in the USA. Assume that you can bring at least 1/3 of the folks number with your settlers. Probably doesn't work when the folks 'look' different (skin colour, size,...)
>
> Does the size of the country matters?
>
>
>
Yes and no. If you can enhance the number of folks equivalent to the size of the country, no. Otherwise, a spare populated country like Finland probably is harder to assimilate due culture doesn't spread well and resistance has many improvements, they can hide very well.
>
> Could it be done in less than a generation?
>
>
>
Read upper blocks, depending on the scenario.
] |
[Question]
[
Suppose two stars orbit each other and the planets orbit around the two stars' barycenter. I'm thinking of having at least one as a main sequence G or K class. For the sake of argument, let the other star be a red dwarf. How do I determine the habitable zone of this or any binary system?
Thanks!
[Answer]
**Treat the two stars as a single star by summing their effects**
This is not a perfect solution, but I'd avoid a perfect solution. I'll explain that momentarily.
Just as we reasonably simplify calculating the effects of gravity by representing any mass as a single, infinitely small point in space, treat your binary stars as a single star by summing up those effects (solar wind, luminosity, etc.) that contribute to determining the habitable zone. Most can be directly summed (e.g., the power output of the stars can be summed). Some will likely need to be normalized before summing (like dealing with the temperature of each star, if they're particularly disparate).
Once you've created your "representational" star, the calculations should be straightforward.
**Why not try to make it perfect?**
In a word: *orbits.*
Not only is the orbit of the two stars a significantly complicating factor (at times during the planet's orbit the lower mass star will be on the near side of the larger mass star or on the far side of the larger mass star), *but the orbit of the planet itself* is a significantly complicating factor.
Remember when I said that gravity calculations can be reasonably simplified by reducing the dimensions of a mass to a single infinitely small point in space? You can do that with your binary stars... reduce the source of the gravitational effect to a single infinitely small point in space representing *both* stars... *but that point moves!* And as it moves it throws the planet around with it.
Perfectly calculating the "habitable zone" of a binary star system doesn't result in a lovely ring of distance X from the star and width Y, as it does with a single star system. It results in a function f(x) from the star and a function f(y) for its width. That's messy. *That's really messy.* And due to the orbital complications I mentioned earlier, it might be true that given any binary star system no planet will consistently remain within the habitable zone.
But you're looking for *suspension of disbelief,* not *specific reality.* (Please tell me you're not looking for specific reality....) Which is why I'm advocating simplification and not trying to be perfect.
**OK, so exactly how do I do what you're asking?**
* *The simplest case:* I upvoted @user98816's answer (you should, too) because he/she is right, if the primary star is much, much more massive than the secondary star, then you can simply ignore the effects of the secondary star and use the primary star as the single-star reference for your calculation.
* *The slightly more complex case:* If the two stars are basically equal in size and type, then you can simply "double" the star (find the star on the star type charts that represents 2X the mass with the same temperature) and use that as your reference star.
* *And we're starting to get complex:* If your stars are spread far apart, you'll discover that it's really hard to have any habitable zone due to how far away your planet must be. The distance between the pair matters a lot. Keep it as short as you can stand.
After that it gets more complex. Grab yourself a copy of [Circumstellar Habitable Zones](https://jimmynewland.com/astronomy/ia/s1-0circumstellar-habitable-zones.pdf) by Jimmy Newland (I think, it comes from his site, but the PDF itself doesn't identify an author) and work through the details. You'll need to find things like ambient luminosity, etc. But it shouldn't be difficult so long as you work through what needs to be normalized before summation. If you need additional help, asking for specific details in our [chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/?tab=site&host=worldbuilding.stackexchange.com), The Factory Floor, will work great.
[Answer]
Ylharis! While not an expert, I have researched circumstellar habitable zones in the past, and I reckon that the answer you’re looking for is pretty much the same as a non-binary system, if the other star is a red dwarf. Such stars have a habitable zone so close that even mercury would be considered chilly if it orbited one, so while you may get some interesting lighting effects, assume a standard habitable zone of 1 Earth-distance if the primary is a G-class star, and about the same or maybe mars’ distance if it is a K-type star due to more intense radiation.
[Answer]
The red dwarf has few orders of magnitude lower luminosity than a G or K main sequence star. This is why it can be completely skipped when calculating the habitable zone.
E.g. Our Solar system will look exactly like it is if any of our planets (except Earth, of course) is replaced with a red dwarf.
It will, of course, somewhat affect the stability of orbits, so Venus and Mars are probably best left alone if you want Earth for anything important (but see below).
In regard to replacing Jupiter or any other planet beyond the ice line with a red dwarf, one will get a tiny island of habitability around it, mostly unaffected by the far away Sun.
And then, the bordering option - e.g. a red dwarf at the Mars orbit. In this case you may arrange your planet to get most of its **heat** from its host red dwarf and its **light** for photosynthesis from the big, but far away bigger star.
The planet will be tidally locked to the red dwarf, so its host-star side will be a hot and maybe lifeless desert (or an ocean where most of the storms form) and its dark side will be something that has whatever moderate-ish climate you want and a day-night cycle.
p.s. be aware that the red dwarfs are rather nervous with their solar storms way stronger than whatever we have. Either get a very strong magnetic field for your borderline planet, or prepare to gradually lose its atmosphere and water.
] |
[Question]
[
I needed a creature about 50 feet tall and King Kong from the 1976 movies fits the bill. According to sources he is 50 feet tall and weighs 7 tons (I raise a large eyebrow at that, but it is all I got). If you want seen that version, he is completely bipedal. How many vibrations would a human feel and from how far from Kong walking?
[Answer]
## Trembling at 30-40 meters, King Kong would jump up and down
**>50 ton pile drivers for comparison**
I've lived in a very busy building area in the Netherlands, for years in a row. Always building building.. mainly apartment buildings. they use Pile drivers into soil here, for nearly everything, also houses. . When I'd get near a Pile driver, the ground trembling would be noticable from about 150-200 meters distance. It would be audible from 1-2km distance. Clay soil, sand may be more moderate I would expect. Also near buildings would echo, there will be multiple instances of the boom.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pile_driver>
<https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=pile+driver+weight>
**7 ton Gorilla makes a lot of noise, especially**
So.. the pile driver thing is more than 50 tons. With KK, we're talking a gorilla weighing in about 7 tons. When King Kong would jump up and down and make noise on purpose, stamping the ground to get my attention, and we estimate the effects to be linear, you'd get trembling at 30-40 meters distance, audible from about 300-400 meters. Boom Boom.. in a city, with echo's everywhere, it will be spectacular sound. But when King Kong would do that on the middle of the street, I don't expect buildings to collapse, or windows to crack.
**.. but he could sneak up on you also !**
But I think you'll have to take into account King Kong is an animal. The purpose of walking and running around is to *get moving*, not to loose energy by stamping and making noise. I even suppose King Kong could sneak up on you and suddenly appear. It will depend on the surroundings (e.g. grass land) and on his intentions !
[Answer]
none.
large animals take incredibly soft steps, an elephant walks silently for instance. if they are generating shock that shock is also being applied to them, which adds up to a large added stress on their bones and joints, so there is a decent evolutionary pressure for multi ton animals to walk silently even if you have no predators.
[Answer]
## The same as a 7-tonne elephant: none
The largest elephants weigh almost 7 tonnes, and while I've never seen one quite this big, I've spent plenty of time around elephants in a zoo and in the wild.
I can tell you: they walk quietly. The loudest sound is the occasional snapping of branches underfoot, and there's absolutely no trembling of the ground.
Thanks to the [square-cube law](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SquareCubeLaw), a realistic King Kong would be restricted to walking like an elephant: on all fours and without jumping. Gorilla anatomy is sadly not designed to be scaled up to 50 feet tall.
] |
[Question]
[
**Closed.** This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
---
You are asking questions about a story set in a world instead of about building a world. For more information, see [Why is my question "Too Story Based" and how do I get it opened?](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3300/49).
Closed 3 years ago.
[Improve this question](/posts/183001/edit)
I've been happily writing along in my story for a bit, but now I've realized that I have no way to refuel/get cargo to my ships. Before, I had a few large ships that could, if needed, hold another ship and transfer cargo. These ships are still there, but will run out of supplies soon. However, after aliens blew up the mars colony launch pads and filled earth's orbits with tons of metal canisters so nothing can get in or out, the space fleet is in a bit of a bad spot. With nothing coming from mars until the launch pads are rebuilt, and earth surrounded by high speed metal canisters, how do I keep the crews alive, at least for six months when mars can send a supply ship?
current ship supplies-
* Ammunition, varies by ship, but there's enough to blow up something about half the size of the moon
* Food for three months. Won't last six, no matter how you stretch it
* Water, also for three months. Won't last six months.
I want to try and keep the entire space fleet alive. If there is no other option, I can kill off half of the crews, although I'd like to avoid this as much as possible. *NO CANNIBALISM*
Another question- the spaceships can't enter atmosphere or land, since they don't have landing gear or retro rockets. How would I use a supply ship(unarmed, only enough fuel to get it to the fleet, not even airtight and flown by a basic AI) so that I don't waste anything? As a diversion? A suicide bomber? Repair parts?
[Answer]
**Water recycling, drug-induced comas, hydroponics, and shooting water bottles:**
Water isn't going anywhere, unless your crew makes a habit of venting the stuff into space. I don't think that your fleet would be dumping it, but recycling it all along - it just makes sense not to be wasteful. If they weren't all along, I think that would be easy to set up. People can starve a long time and be alive, but without water, you're screwed.
I agree that cryosleep would be the best option, but we can assume that they would be using it if it was available. Assuming it's NOT available, there is a poor-man's option, full of dramatic risk and tragic loss. You can use drugs to shut down the metabolisms of many of the crew, drastically reducing their caloric intake. Most of the equipment, in the form of catheters, temp-controlled rooms, etc. should be available. This is the poor man's cryostasis, but I would guess your people would have the stuff for it ready, as a contingency for just such a situation (it's the grist of so many space movies...)
If you want a simple alternative, the drugs can still lower metabolism, but not knock out anyone - your crews are stumbling around in a constant fatigue haze, cold but unable to shiver and sleeping all the time.
I THINK that your scenario involves a fleet of ships in orbit around Earth, who can't be resupplied by Earth, and are waiting for supplies from Mars. Even if it's a suicide mission, supplies from the Earth can be sent - you'll just lose lots of robotic supply ships. Robotic ships might even be able to handle being punched through with holes, and supplies might freeze, get damaged, but so what? Dribble just enough stuff to get your folks through.
If you have ammo enough to blow away half the moon, can you blow openings in the debris field around the planet? I don't know what kind of weapons they are, but something like this has been proposed in a few stories, where debris is blocking the space around Earth.
You can always use improvised low grav hydroponics, much like the potato growing from *The Martian*, but on your ships. It wouldn't be a complete option, but every bit counts, and all that human waste shouldn't GO to waste.
As for how to use a resupply ship - well, obviously for supplies. After that, you haven't given us enough in-story context to guess, and I think that would be outside worldbuilding.
[Answer]
**Alien food.**
During the battle with the aliens, a lot of ships from both sides were disabled or wrecked. Those ships are still floating along the trajectories they had when they were disabled. The human ships of course have all the stuff needed for their crews but by now the human survivors have been rescued and the salvageables salvaged.
That leaves the drifting alien ships. Who knows what might be on them? Something to eat, maybe? One way to find out.
[Answer]
"Hey, we forgot about X"
* Your folks on Earth were conveniently experimenting with a railgun on the side of a mountain, an experiment to eventually replace expensive rockets. People would be pulped by the acceleration, but lots of cargo can handle it. Numerous small capsules full of food will fly between the orbit-denial canisters. Some will get smashed, but so what? The fleet simply needs to catch the capsules at apogee...before they fall back into the ocean.
* There was that big agro complex under the lunar surface. It was mothballed years ago as too big and too expensive to operate when fewer Lunar facilities were built than had been projected...but the small caretaker crew says that it still works, and crops grow fast! The crew is too small operate the complex, so you'll need to find and transport some farmers.
* Remember the prison-asteroid-farm? They were self-sufficient in food a decade ago, and the government just expanded the farm enormously because the warden is corrupt.
[Answer]
**Time it just right to get under the debris shell**
There's a maximum density this debris field can have. At lower altitudes, debris orbits would rapidly degenerate and fall down to Earth. Alternatively, at higher altitudes, there is simply too much volume of space to effectively and economically blockade it with debris. That means the aliens set up a middle-ground: a "shell" of debris that isn't low enough to instantly fall and it isn't so high that the debris density makes it ineffective. That means there's gaps--according to precise mathematical timing, "windows" to the planet and lower orbits open up on mathematically predictable intervals. Then, all you need is a space station or supply dump that's not on the planet but behind the debris shell. This way your non-atmospheric craft can still get supplies.
If you want to write this dramatically, you could have a "genius" sensor officer or whoever figure out the pattern and start predicting "windows" where they could get through to the lower orbits. Unfortunately though, these windows are so short (minutes or seconds long) and rare. This means the ship needs to commit before they see the window, and they need to trust that math-wiz's prediction--if he gets it wrong they all die.
**Find supplies elsewhere**
Pretty straightforward. Historical documents show that there are plenty of old space stations, moon-bases, and relics floating around from the dawn of the space era (from 1950's onwards) and the fleet scours these places to hopefully find long-abandoned supplies. Alternatively, you said the debris-shield was made of "water bottles" so capturing those could solve your water supply issues.
**Put people in cryosleep**
This is a bit of a "deus-ex-machina" answer but you could dust off old cryopods or have someone invent them to put half the crew into stasis for a couple months or until supplies get there. Maybe, there's an abandoned colony ship project floating around somewhere which never got funded to completion or which had it's construction aborted when aliens invaded or whatever. You could steal the cryopods from there.
[Answer]
**Escape Pods.**
I have watched enough episodes of Star Trek to know that every human spaceship comes equipped with escape pods. Not quite sure what they're for, but they seem useful here.
Send the most part of your crew back to the surface of Mars in escape pods. They will help with repairs while the skeleton crew left over can live off the 3 months supplies for years.
[Answer]
**Water**
While water is the most important resource, it's also not a huge issue. First, if you aren't doing it already, recycling water will make you save a lot of it, meaning also recycling pee like they do on the ISS.
Then you can start looking for water around you:
* The Alien ships might hold some, depending on their biology and/or how the ships work.
* In 2019 NASA confirmed that there is solid water (ice) on the dark side of the moon, and in the shadow of some craters on the visible side.
* Comets are often covered in ice, so if you're lucky you might be able to harvest it from those.
As for the tools for the job, you have a fleet. You can probably work something out by taking apart one of the ships (or the supply ships you were talking about) and turning it into a good-enough landing craft to get on the moon maybe (think the Apollo missions LEM, nothing fancy).
**Food**
This really depends on your setting.
* Chances are there is some space station around Mars where they conduct experiments like on the ISS. If so, you have a good chance to find plants and insects ready to be farmed on a larger scale. Recovering some of those would allow you to start farming it, and possibly stretch that food supply a little bit further.
* The Alien ships might hold something interesting. Maybe not what we consider food, but something close enough to be edible.
* From both sources above, as well as your own fleet, you might also want to consider IV fluids. A human can survive months, or even years, on IV fluids alone. Some of your crew could replace food with IV for a while, until supplies last. Depending on how much you had stored and/or found, this could add days or weeks to your food supplies, even more time if you place them in a coma, severely reducing their need for calories.
This might not completely solve the food issue, but it could at least save more people if you really have to start killing someone.
**Other considerations**
* Mars might be able to launch something after all. While a launchpad is required for a safe enough launch, if things were really extreme you could probably work with less-than-ideal pads and simply shoot rockets up. To give you some context, think about the difference between launching one of today's missions vs launching a V2 rocket. Might not be a sure thing, but out of several launches something would get up there.
* Earth's trash problem. I'm not entirely sure of the consequences, but have you considered having your ships blast it? You said you have plenty of weapons/ammo, and you still have supplies for 3 months, meaning you don't have to rush it too much. All you need is to clear enough space to make it safe-ish for an unmanned supply mission to go through it
] |
[Question]
[
Charged particles such as protons are associated with the strong nuclear force and coulombic interactions, but as they're tiny, we can only perceive them through static. If a proton gets as big as a soccer ball - either by accumulating millions of protons or becoming - a single solid sphere of positive charge (charge it holds proportional to its size), would it cause destruction equivalent to an atomic bomb?
[Answer]
The energy contained within this soccer ball-sized object is called the [electrostatic self-energy](https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/281426/56299) of the object. It's the energy required to assemble all the infinitesimal chunks of charge together, and can be calculated by classical electrostatics:
$$U=\frac{3kQ^2}{5R}$$
where $Q$ is the charge and $R$ is the radius. We can also write it in terms of the charge density $\rho\_e$, and we get a dependence of $U\propto\rho\_e^2R^5$.
Now, it's tempting to just use the proton's charge density and scale up the radius with that $R^5$ proportionality. The trouble is, a normal proton doesn't have a definite size in the same sense that a soccer ball has a definite size. We can try to characterize it by what we call a *charge radius*, a quantity which is important in scattering experiments. We reach the charge radius by setting the electrostatic self-energy of a sphere with the proton's charge equal to the proton mass:
$$\frac{3ke^2}{5r\_c}=mc^2$$
Let's say we want to define some sort of charge density $\rho\_e$ for the proton, and have our supersized proton have the same charge density. Measurements show that $r\_c\approx0.84\times10^{-15}\;\text{m}$, so if we multiply the proton's charge density by a factor of $(R/r\_c)^5$, I get a self-energy value of roughly $U\sim6\times10^{57}\;\text{J}$, which is about 12 or 13 orders of magnitude greater than the energy released in a typical supernova. It corresponds to the mass-energy of about $\sim10^{10}M\_{\odot}$, or about 1% of the Milky Way.
It turns out that when you pack an energy equivalent to 1% of the Milky Way into a FIFA regulation-sized soccer ball, it becomes dense enough that the escape velocity at its surface is substantially higher than the speed of light. **In other words, your charged "proton" would turn into a black hole.**
Such an object would not make a good soccer ball.
Realistically, this sort of supersized proton will not have the same charge density as a proton. I don't think the strong nuclear force would be able to bind it together; if you tried, electrostatic forces would easily resist you once you packed enough protons worth of charge together. We already see this sort of effect resist efforts to make heavier and heavier nuclei in atoms; it would be even worse on larger scales.
[Answer]
If a proton became the size of a soccer ball it would mess with the strong nuclear force so badly that the universe as we know it probably could not exist.
If sufficient protons were somehow put into a soccer ball to "fill it up" it would be necessary to some how suspend electromagnetism in that space temporarily.
Assuming that was possible, the moment electromagnetism was switched back on the repulsive forces would be so large that it probably would generate forces like a nuclear bomb, although in this case more of an intense radiation bomb as countless trillions of protons were blasted out in all directions at extremely high velocity ionising the air for miles around and creating a huge electrical disturbance as the charge dissipated.
In fact it would effectively be a giant exploding nucleus made of protons and huge amounts of energy would be released as in fission from changes in binding energy. Probably much larger than a standard thermonuclear device
[Answer]
## To Explode or not to Explode. That is the question.
I believe HDE's original hypothesis about a resulting super explosion is most likely correct when modeling the event using the laws of relativity, but this got way to long to just be a comment.
A proton nucleus the size of a soccer-ball will have a total volume of ~5.58e42 protons. Since the atomic mass of a Proton is ~1.67e-27 kg, this gives you a total mass of 3.34e15kg.
According to the acceleration of gravity equation: g=G\*M/(R+h)^2, this would result in a gravitational force at the surface of the soccer-ball equal to ~1842km/s. This is much less than the speed of light which means that your soccer-ball will be able to explode with all of its 6e^57 J of glory instead of collapsing.
**But E=MC^2 right?**
Yes, this is generally true, but one of the funny things about particle physics is that not every particle that has energy also has mass. Even though massless particles are effected by gravity, gravity is only created by those particles which have mass meaning the 6e57 J of **electromagnetic** force does not automatically convert to an equivalent mass.
Because electromagnetism exchanges energy through massless photons, your hypothetical scenario means you will have an object with the energy of a super massive black hole but the mass of a large comet.
The Theory of Relativity justifies the existence of mass-less particles by assuming that the asymmetry caused by photons is always balanced out by the interactions of both positive and negative forces, but Special Relativity only requires balance, not balance within a local frame of reference. So creating the ball to begin with means that somewhere else in the universe you've formed an opposite and equal electron mass, and that you've already (somehow) expended the necessary energy to pull these electrons and protons apart and compress the ball down to it's current size.
] |
[Question]
[
**This question already has answers here**:
[How can a language be prevented from evolving and drifting?](/questions/174240/how-can-a-language-be-prevented-from-evolving-and-drifting)
(14 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
So, this is the set up. Communities of wood elves spread out over a large area (think half a continent), with each community having several hundred to several thousand individuals. Communities are so far away from each other that contact between them is fairly rare. Wood elves have a lifespan of up to about 600 years. The technology level is late stone age to bronze age, writing isn't used.
Now, there is a sense that their language was received from their teachers/"gods", and thus should be kept to its original form. There is no strong religious emphasis on keeping track of history.
Now, how long would this last? How many years/generations before the language would start to diverge? How long until their understanding of history becomes garbled and incorrect? What would the effect of wars or natural disasters be on this? What difference (if any) would occasional contact with some outside group that does have writing make?
Edit to answer some questions: Some effort being put into keeping the language as-is. Not much moving between communities, and there is no formal schooling system. But mockery of those who misuse the language is very much a thing. In the initial phase there isn't much contact with outsiders, but later on there is contact (and trade) with other races, which does generate the need for neologisms or borrowing words.
I am not trying to find ways to make things last longer, I am merely trying to figure out how long it would take, and adjust my timescales to that.
[Answer]
**A Very Long Time Indeed.**
As has rightly been pointed out, *human* languages evolve & change, quickly or slowly, over time. We can literally watch the evolution of Latin, for example, from fusional to polysynthetic within 1500 years (French).
But we're not dealing with *human languages* here. We're dealing with some kind of Elf. Their brains are wired a little differently and their language centers work differently. You've already said that they have moderately long life spans of above half a millennium. This in and of itself would tend to slow the rate of change of something like language. I'd argue that it's entirely up to you how long an *elvish language* can remain stable: if you said 10,000 years, I wouldn't argue. It's taken 33 generations for French to evolve into what it is now. 33 generations for your Elves is almost 20,000 years!
Folk memory is a different matter, and among humans it is known to be extremely stable over very long periods of time. The most stellar examples come from Australia, where oral history is known to reliably [date back 35,000 years](https://mythology.stackexchange.com/a/6381/4152) or more (777 generations). Comparable Elvish timespans would be on the order of 465,000 years.
It's going to be up to you to determine how these general trends will or won't apply to your Elves, how natural disasters and how elfmade disasters and wars will affect the situation!
[Answer]
1. *"How many years/generations before the language would start to diverge?"*
* Language will *start* to diverge immediately, as soon as a group of people moves out and establishes a new fairly isolated settlement.
* Language will *start* to change immediately, as soon as a child is born and learns to speak.
* But I am pretty certain that this is *not* what you wanted to ask. I believe that what you wanted to ask is how many generations will pass before the everyday language becomes a clearly different from the language of the sacred hymns.
The answer is that your elves are similar to humans, the language of the hymns will become incomprehensible to untrained lay people in anywhere between four and forty generations, most likely in ten to twenty generations. (Given that and elvish generation is given to be about 300 years, this means anywhere between 1,200 and 12,000 years, which is *extremely* slow by human standards. But we are not speaking about human standards here.) We have examples of rapid language evolution and fragmentation, we have examples of slow language evolution and fragmentation. It all depends on luck and on conditions which have not been given in the question.
(Language change happens mostly (1) in the process of transmission of the language from parents to children and (2) in the process of acquisition of the language by communities of non-native speakers.)
(Language evolves fastest in small isolated illiterate communities. But then again, luck is important, and so are other factors. For a simple example, do they practice exogamy? Regular exchange of women between the isolated communities will do wonders to slow down linguistic drift. Do they have frequent wars with adoption of war captives in the victorious communities? Are there intrinsic factors favoring language change, such as complicated morphology, or an unbalanced phonemic system? Are they in long-term intimate contact with a foreign linguistic community?)
2. *"How long until their understanding of history becomes garbled and incorrect?"*
Their understanding of history will become garbled and incorrect *instantaneously*, for the simple reason that they don't have a good and correct understanding of history to begin with.
No writing means no records, and no records means no history. It's that simple. Written records are a necessary condition for history, but they are far from sufficient; it is also necessary for the people to have the concept of history, and for them to put the effort into recording, recovering and writing history. This is a rare combination; *we* the European civilization have history basically because a man of Halicarnassus, who lived in the 5th century before the common era, felt the need to start an inquiry ($\leftarrow$ this is the litteral meaning of the Greek word [*historia*](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Di%28stori%2Fa)) . . .
>
> . . . .*so that things done by man not be forgotten in time, and that great and marvelous deeds, some displayed by the Hellenes, some by the barbarians, not lose their glory, including among others what was the cause of their waging war on each other* ([Herotodus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus) of Halicarnassus, [*Historiai*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histories_(Herodotus)) (= *Inquiries*), English [translation](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0126) by A. D. Godley, at Perseus)
>
>
>
History was invented by a specific man at a specific place on a specific time. It did not exist before. Scholars who came after Herodotus, by studying very carefully the written records of past civilizations, have extended history backwards, for some populations more, for other less, for illiterate barbarians not at all; by definition, everything that happened before the invention of writing is pre-history.
Oral tradition, even faithfully transmitted oral tradition, is not history. It doesn't aim to be history, it doesn't want to be history, it has different goals and different methods. The *Odyssey* is oral tradition; the *Iliad* is oral tradition; the *Rig Veda* is oral tradition. *They are not history.* They are beautiful and inspiring poems, they capture the essence of the respective civilizations, they offer aspirations and models of behavior: but history they are not.
3. *"What would the effect of wars or natural disasters be on this?"*
Unknown. Please tell us more and in detail about the civilization in question and the specific wars and natural disasters.
4. *"What difference (if any) would occasional contact with some outside group that does have writing make?"*
The civilized outside group who have writing may preserve bits and pieces of the language and history of the barbarians. It won't help the barbarians at all, but it may be of great help to future scholars who study the history and the evolution of the language of the barbarians.
(For example, we know that at the beginning of the 1st century the Germanic Cherusci had a great military leader named Arminius. We know this because the Romans, whom he defeated, were very impressed and wrote about his life and exploits. The Germans themselves kept no memory of him, and had to learn about him from Roman histories when they became civilized and learned Latin.)
[Answer]
**Because of long lifespan and low fertility, your elf languages will be very stable.**
This emerges from 2 properties of your world. One is the elves live 600 years. The other is that communities are isolated and stay that way.
In 200 years, fecund, short-lived humans have filled up the entirety of North America. Over that period, at any given time and place, most of a society would be persons under the age of 40. If your elves have not filled up their continent, that means their reproductive rate is low.
Like genetic evolution, language evolution is driven (I here assert!) by generation time because people tend to speak using the patterns they learned as a child. Short generation time = rapid evolution. In human societies, old people get a raised eyebrow because they speak in archaic ways. If you sit with them talking amongst themselves they can be hard to understand. Language evolution happens in groups of young people.
Your elves live a long time. And the fact that they have not filled up your continent means their birth rate is very low. As opposed to the typical human situation where there are many young folks and one or two oddity oldsters, old folks speaking in the old ways would be the norm among the elves. A society might have only one or two young folks at any given time.
Among your elves the long lifespan and low fertility rate will anchor the language in a way that historically did not happen in human societies.
[Answer]
History is not about the past, it is about the present. That is, every 'past' event begins with a 'present'.
The people in the present are the ones that record it. What the people in the present think is important and relevant, is what gets noted in our historical record. Every day, we create and record the 'history' that will eventually be recalled. We filter out the facts, in the present, as the event happens, that do and do not get put in the narrative. Every historical memory that we humans have recorded, is influenced by all of the conditions that surrounded the event when it occurred 'in the present', before it became 'history'. In this sense, the only way to recall the past is to recall **EVERYTHING** about the past, like a hologram, instead of just the snippets that humans tend to note.
In the absence of the recall of **all** of the events and experiences surrounding the event, humans tend to infer them from our current experiences. When we recall our memories, we do not recall the 'past' as it was, we recall 'how it must have been', based on our present experiences. That is, our recall of the past is always biased by our present.
Any good defense attorney will be able to 'cloud' our recall of events that passed only a few months ago, let alone centuries ago.
So what it comes down to, is how do your wood elves 'remember' the past? Do they use the same memory systems that humans do, or have they evolved a completely different way from humans to remember the past? Do they use a system of memory that only 'records' the facts, and not the experiential and emotional baggage that humans always apply to our 'memories'?
The only way to 'preserve' the narrative of the past is to completely strip it of any value judgments, emotional content, experiential context, or moral comment. As the old saying went, 'Just the facts, ma'am.'
[Answer]
Language will start to diverge the first time someone in a far off community sees something they cannot describe. Even if they have an intent not to add new words, they will use existing words in new ways. A “stool pigeon” uses two common words but means something divorced from both chairs and birds. As soon as they shorthand an event, the language will drift. Those events will need to be communicated to other communities for them to stay in sync. Consider just this example of the evolution of the name Karen:
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/28/karen-memes-jokes-arent-sexist-or-racist-let-karen-explain/?arc404=true>
] |
[Question]
[
One reason I prefer classical western dragons over wyverns is that they aren't totally handicaped on the ground.
However, those forelegs are only supposed to be for better locomotion on ground and lack the power to be directly used in combat. Wings, on the other hand have much more muscle behind them. It just feels wasteful not to use them in combat.
* Dragons are at around the same size as large horses 170-180 cm at the shoulders.
-They have six limbs, general bodyplan is a horse-sized cheetah, with a neck length 3/4 of the torso and a long, chompy crocodile jaw and sleek tail. The flight muscles and the shoulder are right before the foreleg.
* Dragon wingbones are structured at the molecular level to be similar to nacre, allowing for energy absorption without permanently deforming, also, carbon nanotube magic.
* The wing design by default is the same as the quetzalcoatlus northropi's.
* The wing folds the same ways as for birds.
**How could dragons use their wings to hit the enemy in ground combat?**
* Hitting hard is important but...
* Though wings should be able to handle most things it'd be good if it put the least necessary stress on it, or put it on more enduring areas.
* It shouldn't leave the dragon wide open and most definietly not expose the dragon's tummy (their weakpoint)
[Answer]
**Wings are strong and work just fine as a bludgeon**
Remember the wing bones in flight have to withstand several times the force of the full weight of the animal. A wing can deliver a powerful blow, that is why a swan can break a humans bones with their wing. To a creature much smaller than the dragon it would be devastating, like being hit by a baseball bat swung by a professional player at the least, likely more like being kicked by a horse.
[Answer]
A few ways:
## Sharp tips
Okay, this one isn't the best, but in most books/movies there are humans (what do you think). Humans are puny. Puny humans have no strong scales. Puny humans have puny skin. Puny skin is weak. Sharp-tipped wings cut puny skin. Puny humans dead.
## Sharp wing edges
Puny humans have puny skin and puny bones. Strong wings open quickly. Strong wings can have sharp edges. Quick opening strong wings go chop-chop and puny humans dead. Chop-chop also chop scales on dragons. When strong dragon run fast and push out wings small distance (or close after strong dragon lands fast), poor weak tummy is protected (strong dragon breath fire forward for stronger protection) and close humans dead because sharp wing edges go chop-chop on them.
## Air
Human editor says "this is not powerful and the stomach area is exposed here and the wing bones may cra---AAAAAAAAAA". Human editor stupid. I go chop-chop on human editor and puny human dead. Strong dragon goes down from flying and faces forward with wings out. Wings blow air forward because of energy from flying goes into wings. Puny human army pushed forward and strong dragon uses sharp tips and sharp edges to chop-chop human army.
[Answer]
I would imagine dragons would generate a powerful amount of force with their wings in order to fly. That suggests they can make air move fast. They say that news anchors are stupid for standing outside in 80 MPH winds during hurricanes because the danger is not the 80 MPH winds but what the wind is blowing is the danger.
So same for dragons, by kicking up a torrent with their wings they could fling stones and branches at opponents. Gravel in the eyes will ruin a knight's or knight's horses day. Similarly, sharp sticks can poke someone's eye out. And, as another answer posited, dust. If a dragon can fill the air with lots and lots of dust, their opponents can't breathe without getting a lungful -- either way good for the dragon and bad for the other guys.
And, in very exceptional circumstances, if the powder is flammable, they could trigger fuel-air bombs using the same mechanism as grain silo explosions.
They can use it defensively too to thwart missile fire. Shunting the arrows, sling stones, etc off to the left or right, are making them fall short.
[Answer]
if dragons are the same size as horses, they can kick with their back legs and claw with their front legs, or rear up on their hind legs and hit with their front legs like horses or bears do. Even elephants can rear up on their hind legs, so any smaller four-legged animal should be able to to it, freeing their front legs to attack.
<https://www.google.com/search?q=elephant+standing+on+hind+legs&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjK7e-kguzjAhWH11kKHVS3DnoQ_AUIESgB&biw=1924&bih=920>[1](https://www.google.com/search?q=elephant%20standing%20on%20hind%20legs&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjK7e-kguzjAhWH11kKHVS3DnoQ_AUIESgB&biw=1924&bih=920)
So if your dragons have front legs as strong as tiger front legs, or horse front legs, or bear front legs, or even human front legs, they will have some use in fighting.
In fact every body part of your dragons, like every body part of every real animal, will have some use in a fight.
Your dragons seem to have many times the mass of Asian water monitor lizards (Varanus *salvator*) which are said to use their tails to fight as well as teeth and claws <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_water_monitor>[2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_water_monitor), and even several times the mass of Komodo dragons that:
>
> have been observed knocking down large pigs and deer with their strong tails.
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon>[3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon)
Since your dragons will be more massive than any birds, their wings should be more massive than any birds.
>
> Mute swans can be very aggressive in defence of their nests and are highly protective of their mate and offspring. Most defensive attacks from a mute swan begin with a loud hiss and, if this is not sufficient to drive off the predator, are followed by a physical attack. Swans attack by smashing at their enemy with bony spurs in the wings, accompanied by biting with their large bill, while smaller waterbirds such as ducks are normally grabbed with the swan's bill and dragged or thrown clear of the swan and its offspring. The wings of the swan are very powerful, though not strong enough to break an adult man's leg, as said anecdotally.[29] Large waterfowl, such as Canada geese, (more likely out of competition than in response to potential predation) may be aggressively driven off, and mute swans regularly attack people who enter their territory.[30].
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mute_swan>[4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mute_swan)
Since your dragons, small though they are, would have many times the mass of swans, their wings should have many times the mass of swan wings, and thus should probably be able to break bones with strong wing swings.
One possible tactic would be to knock down an animal with a blow from a wing and then bite or claw the throat to kill it. Another tactic might be to strike a smashing blow with the wing at the opponent's neck, to break the neck and kill it instantly.
If your dragons were many times larger than you indicate, as large as Smaug the Golden, then one could truthfully boast:
>
> My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!"
>
>
>
<http://lotrproject.com/quotes/character/smaug> [5](http://lotrproject.com/quotes/character/smaug)
In the movie *Rodan* (1956) the giant "terror dactyls" made hurricane force winds with their wings to blow away buildings.
Since your dragons are so tiny compared to Smaug or Rodan they should't be able to blow away human sized opponents, but if they fight in a sandy desert or a swamp they might use the tactic of blowing dust, sand, or water into their opponents faces to blind them while fighting.
You write:
>
> It shouldn't leave the dragon wide open and most definietly not expose the dragon's tummy (their weakpoint)
>
>
>
And I ask why should a dragon's tummy be their weak point? Why can't a dragon have a rib cage which extends down to their abdomen? Why can't a dragon, like a turtle, have a shell on their abdomen?
And even if your dragons have unarmored bellies, will those weak spots be exposed to much danger when one them rears up on its hind legs and tail and stretches out its front limbs and claws and coils back its neck, ready to strike with its jaws, and gets its wings ready to wack at the opponent?
[Answer]
Instant dust storm. instant sand storm. Or, in the right place, instant storm of sharp gravel being propelled at the opposition with something like the force of a jet engine (it takes a lot of thrust to get a dragon off the ground).
A smarter or more skillful dragon may also be able to direct wingtip-generated vortices at will. Think micro tornado generator.
Or wings can simply be used in powerful sweeps to knock opponents off their feet (or off their steeds) so they can be tackled more easily.
A fire-breathing dragon will be able to use its wings to fan the flames and direct or enhance a conflagration. Or put one out, if so inclined.
Don't underestimate the use of wings for tactical VTOL. Think flying ninja able to leap over, away from or on to opponents. Or just to rise into the air so all four limbs, tail and bite and be deployed simultaneously on a large enough opponent.
There's probably a whole martial arts manual waiting to be written about how to use dragon wings in close combat.
[Answer]
I like the idea of the dragon kicking up dust with a beat of the wings.
Against most animals around their size or smaller maybe the wings could be used to attack the legs. I don't see the wing being the smartest natural weapon with how thin the skin and how hollow the bones might be. And hitting something's legs with wings could get them to fall on them and probably do some damage or at least pin the dragon.
Maybe the dragon could drape the wing over some one and pull them in to attack with their paws or mouth. Could be risky if the dragon is dealing with a human with sharp weapons but maybe against those humans, knocking their legs out from under them is a better choice.
] |
[Question]
[
I thought of a concept for a dragon or similarly gigantic reptile with a special adaptation, in which they’re born with scales made almost entirely of carbon. Then, over an incredibly long life cycle, the reptile would shed these scales, and replace them with diamond scales that they had formed inside their body using carbon. I formed this concept off the fact that life on earth is carbon-based.
So, my question is, would a large organism be able to produce enough heat & pressure inside its body to make diamonds?
[Answer]
Is the story strictly limited to diamond? If not you may consider silicon carbide (carborundum or moissanite). It can be synthesized at dragon-achievable temperature of 1100K. It is somewhat less hard than diamond but it's not flammable and tougher.
[Answer]
**Maybe yes, but not through that mechanism.**
You don't necessarily need heat and pressure to make diamonds, and those are not usually things that we biological squidgey things use to grow things like horns, nails and scales.
I think there are two ways currently used for creating artificial diamonds on an industrial scale, one being the one you mention ([High-pressure, high-temperature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond#High_pressure,_high_temperature) synthetic diamonds).
But the more interesting one is [chemical vapor deposition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_vapor_deposition.). Now, this takes place in a vacuum and blahblah. So it, too, is not really a very good way of growing scales.
But at its root, it's basically just accretion. Which is how most biological stuff grows. As @MikeNichols puts it in a comment: "Living organisms don't need high pressure or high temperature to do chemistry because they have enzymes." He gives this relevant link: [Could a living creature produce graphene?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/141427/could-a-living-creature-produce-graphene/) which is a different molecular organization, but has the similarity that they're both just ordered arrangements of carbon atoms.
**Is it feasible that somewhere in the universe, some carbon-based life-form has developed a way to perfectly accrete carbon atoms onto each other, inside its body? Sure. Why not?**
Is it *likely*, or *advantageous*, that they wold use diamond, for armor? No, it seems like it'd be a lot of work for "diamond perfection", when "good enough" scales are way easier to grow, and tougher (less brittle).
But nothing sparkles like diamond, and if you're trying to attract a mate as you fly up from the dark ground into the sunlight of dawn... yeah, diamond has advantages :)
As protective scales, diamonds would leave a lot to be desired, though. They fracture rather than flexing. When they break, they can split or shatter, rather than merely bending, wearing, or chipping. So that would need to be addressed, whether with logic, handwaving, or lampshading. See [Is diamond armor better than traditional armor?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/40532/is-diamond-armor-better-than-traditional-armor/40547#40547) and possibly [Is a diamond sword feasible?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/146732/is-a-diamond-sword-feasible/146763#146763) for more info on that part, though.
Another possible limit is the availability of carbon in the body, which is covered here: [What size would a diamond made from a human be?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/98455/what-size-would-a-diamond-made-from-a-human-be)
---
Another option, other than growing the scales through accretion, is something like caddis-fly larvae, where the dragon clads itself in diamond for protection or mating. This would require an environment where diamonds are very common, however, so this armor would have little monetary value.
UNLESS... the dragons dived for them in the cones of volcanos or something, where normal humans could not go.
This would create something like [Dragon Skin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Skin)™️, except that , as @VilleNiemi points out in a comment, its "scales" were [silicon carbide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_carbide) rather than diamond.
[Answer]
Since Chemistry is a marvelous science, I think it explainable, from a story telling stand point, for a dragon to grow diamond scales.
In chemistry, a catalyst makes reactions happen at lower energy levels and is not used up by the reaction. And, in semiconductor growth systems, crystals are grown using complex molecules called metal organics. And, since many crystals grown for semiconductor wafers share the same Zincblende crystal structure as diamond. It is reasonable to speculate that a fantastic creature could convert raw carbon into one of carbon’s crystalline forms using a complex organic chemistry processes and catalytic chemistry.
Is there an similar technology today that grows diamond crystals at atmospheric pressures and dragon temperatures, I don’t know. But, is it conceivable that we will figure it out? Yes, I think it is.
And, the scales need not be solid, but could incorporate a structure that makes the scale more resilient and less susceptible to shock. Like the scales could be honeycombed so when they are hit, the scales flex into the their internal void rather than cracking and shearing.
[Answer]
An organism could hypothetically gain diamond scales by consuming extant diamonds and incorporating them into its body. Such a creature might require an unorthodox method of energy generation because — depending on the environment and scarcity of diamond — it could have to spend a significant portion of its time foraging for diamonds in order to accumulate a meaningful quantity. Gaining energy from minerals encountered while foraging seems an interesting possibility.
See [nudibranchs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudibranch#Defence_mechanisms) for an example of a real Earth organism that consumes other creatures which contain toxic stinging cells. After consumption it moves those cells through its specialized digestive system into its extremities where it then uses those "stolen" cells for its own defense.
] |
[Question]
[
Armageddon is coming. A giant Texas-sized meteorite on a collision course with planet Earth is discovered in 2020. It will hit Earth in 2030 and will wipe out 90% of living things including humanity. Calculations show that throwing rockets packed with nukes at it to deflect it would be unsuccessful. Digging a hole in it and nuking from the inside won’t work either, it’s just too big.
In a desperate way to survive this, leaders of the world decide to unite and build an Ark, a massive space station orbiting Earth which would house as much biodiversity as possible. The ark would need to be self sufficient for about a millennium, the time it would take for the effects of the giant asteroid crash to subside.
The original inhabitants of the ark would grow old and die in it. The ark needs to be able to sustain generations in a closed loop.
Would it be possible to build and launch such a space station with current technology within 10 years?
We assume that cost is not an issue anymore and somehow society doesn’t collapse and still functions normally (the general public is not informed of the imminent catastrophe).
[Answer]
# I would say a resounding: Maybe
Here are the challenges that can probably be overcome with the motivation and funds.
## The first issue is the time frame.
From the movie: When Worlds Collide
>
> You can waste anything but time!
>
>
>
It takes about 10 years just to design and prototype a new space mission. Then launching starts. This can be shortened if frequent high loss tests are allowed.
There would also have to be massively parallel and massively replicated design and build programs.
You need parallel development because you don't have time to start over.
You need to replicate each build in multiple locations because you will need massive launches of the programs that succeed. Also, you don't want to have a situation where the one program that might succeed got knocked out do to an accident.
For example, have 10 different project designs of which are each different project is being built in 10 different locations (essentially, 100 different, simultaneous Apollo programs)
By throwing money and people at it, you can probably get it built in 10 years
## The second issue is the biosphere
We know from [Biosphere 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2#First_mission) that we don't really know what we are doing when building biospheres.
Can we figure it out by then? Maybe.
At the same time that the project is being designed and lifters are being built, we can run biosphere tests here on Earth. Most will likely fail. Those that fail early enough can be restarted. However, at best, we will learn which techniques make a biosphere stable over 10 years.
Again, massive parallel and massive redundant will help.
Another biosphere issue is that it will need to be huge (3.14 acres for 8 people). Just look at the amount of space, materials (structure, dirt, water, air, plants & animals) that went into it. Lifting all that will be a tremendous project even once you know what to lift.
## The third issue is that it will be too close
An asteroid that size will throw up a lot of debris. The arc will have to get out of LEO. That will take fuel. If you have it boost out to the Moon for a bit and then come back to an Earth orbit, you need to ship a lot of fuel on board. I would boost to a Lunar orbit, circularize around the Moon, and stay until most of the debris has fallen back to Earth. Then boost back to Earth and re-circularize the orbit.
I would have it come back to Earth for these reasons:
I wouldn't trust the number of required thrusters needed to move such a pig 1000 years after they were built. The people 1000 years in the future might not be able to make any real repairs if they forget enough.
I would want the space that the fuel was in for expanding the biosphere.
## Gravity
Can you have a biosphere without gravity? Biospheres generally have a water cycle. It's hard to have flowing rivers without gravity. So we need to spin it. This isn't a deal breaker but it is one more thing that will add cost, materials, and ways to go wrong.
Politics
* Who gets to go.
* Who has to build it.
* What will the people who don't get to go do?
* Etc.
Just look at the politics that go into our current space program. The parts Shuttle was built in 3 different timezones because politicians threatened to block approval unless they got specific jobs in there districts. Then the parts were shipped for assembly. Can you imagine if there were lives at stake?
Also under politics, think of terrorist threats.
# My Conclusion
It could work if everything goes right but I don't think that it is likely.
[Answer]
No, we can't.
>
> The ark would need to be self sufficient for about a millennium
>
>
>
10 years is roughly the time it takes to design a state of the art space mission.
Any space station we have built massively rely on constant supply of food, water, fuel and spare parts from the mother planet.
We are barely able to build buildings which by chance last about a millennium, and they don't have to be exposed to the harsh environment of space.
Moreover we don't know what are the long term effect on human body of reproducing and gestating in microgravity. Nobody has carried out a pregnancy in space, and space intercourse is at most a matter of itchy speculation.
[Answer]
First off, at Texas sized, you are looking at an impact that will probably melt the entire surface of the planet, vaporize oceans, send our atmosphere into space, and probably destroy any space station in orbit... so I would not like our odds of anyone surviving in any way shape or form unless Elon Musk can pull off his Mars colony idea. That said, there is only 1 asteroid in the solar system that is close to being this big which is Ceres, and there is no way we would not see that coming from centuries away.
If we instead approached this from the more realistic perspective of an extinction level asteroid comparable to Chicxulub, then the question begins to have some merit in reality.
In this case, the answer is: sort of... but not the way you think. L.Dutch is right, we can't make a brand new space station in 10 years that will last for 1000. But, even if it takes the impact winter 1000+ years to subside, it's not a nuclear winter, so you don't need to wait for radioactive decay to make the world survivable. The Earth is colder, darker, and the initial impact may kill everyone, but a frozen Earth is still a more livable place than a space station. The Arc would just need to be a place that 80 or so people can hide out for a few weeks, then return with all the supplies they would need to survive in the now cold, dark, and scorched remains of a rainforest near the equator.
Once back they would need to set up greenhouses, power sources, and well insulated homes with good air filtration pretty quickly, but with the right supplies gathered in preparation for this, it is pretty doable. If our ancestors could survive the ice age with rocks and sticks, we could handle much worse with modern tech.
To make this version of an arc doable in 10 years, we could probably just add-on to the international space station enough storage and living space to house the 80+ needed people to restart the human race.
That said, you could probably save more lives with underground bunkers. Facilities like the Cheyenne Mountain Complex could save thousands of lives as long as the impact is not too close to it. If you build 10-20 such bunkers around the world, some of them at least will be far enough from ground zero to make it.
[Answer]
**Maybe**
A similar question was posed in the documentary "[Evacuating Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuate_Earth)" where a neutron star would pass by our solar system and destroy everything but it involved fleeing the whole solar system. It has a timeframe of seventy five years.
The whole planet would be put under martial law and everything would be geared towards designing system, building and launching parts and developing new tech. Anyone not towing the line would be shot. Only the best, strongest and brightest would be sent to space and each government would select the best to go. Any corruption would carry the death penalty. All our art, science, literature would be digitized and DNA samples from as many species as possible collected and stored. Seed banks established.
The Chicxulub asteroid, was an asteroid or other celestial body some 11 to 81 kilometres and wiped out the dinosaurs. Texas is around 1200 kilometres. Not even bacteria will survive the impact.
In reality we wouldn't build an ark as such but would instead migrate to Mars. We have gravity, water and raw materials. Underground habitats could be built on Mars far easier than trying to build a self sustaining ark in such a short time frame. We can get people there and keep building once there from local materials. We can also send a lot more people than an ark can hold.
An ark really is only the case if you have to flee the whole solar system.
[Answer]
**Yes, we could.** It'd just require a lot of money and the use of rockets powered by small nuclear bombs.
The Orion Drive nuclear pulse rocket is capable of carrying 6,000 tons of cargo to the moon and back on one tank of propellant, using 1960s technology. Given modern computer-aided design and a wartime economy to mass produce them (during WW2, America was producing cargo ships of comparable size in a matter of days), it should be possible to produce and launch them before the asteroid hits.
This should be sufficient to carry significant amounts of infrastructure into space, which would allow for the beginning of space-based mining and industry needed to produce the parts needed to maintain the space stations, along with the aquaculture setups needed to feed the space colonists.
It would also allow the creation of orbital seed- and gene-vaults that could be used to repopulate the Earth with the life destroyed by the asteroid impact.
[Answer]
**Probably Not.**
I do not think what you're imagining would be possible with the technology we have today. It would just be too big and too complex and completely at the mercy of the hazards of space without the benefit of a ground based mission control or resupply flights from the surface.
**Human Hazards**
The longest a human has spent in space to date is 1 year. The test subject, Astronaut Scott Kelly experienced numerous physiological [side effects](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/04/study-of-astronaut-twins-hints-at-spaceflight-health-effects/) during this time even at the genetic level. You might be able to mitigate these if astronauts spent most of their time in a rotating taurus ring that simulates gravity and had better radiation shielding.
It's hard to say weather it was the effects of 0 gravity or long term exposure to stellar radiation or both. Assuming humans can survive and propagate in space for 1,000 years it is safe to assume this will cause enough divergence to produce a human species adapted to live in space, not at sea level of Earth. You also need a minimum population of [about 200](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1936-magic-number-for-space-pioneers-calculated/) just to repopulate the Earth and continue the species. That means the population would need at least
800 liters of water / day with a way to completely reclaim and purify every liter of it: in other words turn waste water back into drinking water. Water purificaiton plant is now a mission critical system that cannot be allowed to fail.
400 kg of oxygen / day - another system that has to be closed loop and who's maintenance is mission essential. There is an experimental [algae bioreactor](https://www.space.com/space-station-algae-experiment-fresh-air.html) that can scrub CO2 and possibly produce edible food in development. Supplemented with breakthroughs in [lab grown meat](https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5180-Lab-grown-meat-it-s-better-for-the-planet-but-will-anyone-eat-it-?gclid=CjwKCAjw8qjnBRA-EiwAaNvhwNeMe2_mktgYGOBkfRKviYuOnjfOCa2i0Zcs7k-vZkWSP5z9doiGphoC4qAQAvD_BwE) this might be sufficient to sustain the population.
Electrical power - most will come from solar panels but there are mission critical systems that will still need power even if these become damaged or disabled. I see no alternative but to use a [small nuclear reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_aircraft). A miniaturized one was integrated into an aircraft but the program didn't go far.
**The rest of the Biosphere**
Just getting that human crew (plus or minus 50) enough living room and support systems to survive, and the tools and machinery to maintain the support systems is going to test today's technology to its absolute limits. If you want any more living cargo aboard it's going to have to be embryonic. Seeds and animal embryos to be grown in vitro at the appropriate time.
That's a lot of moving pieces to put together. I don't think 10 years is enough time.
] |
[Question]
[
So in a webtoon that I am drawing/writing everyone is born with 1 or 2 psychic abilities that can range anywhere from teleportation, sensory manipulation, thermal conductivity, elemental kinesis abilities, etc.
And everyone’s ability is explained via science, some of it real and some of it exaggerated but still mostly accurate, for example an electrokinetesis in my story generates the electricity they control by amplifying the electrical current that is constantly produced from our cells and then discharging it.
Heat works the same way as our cells naturally produce heat and I could have fire users also amplify the heat in their body to generate flames but fire requires a fuel source to burn and I can’t think of any way that a person might be able to use fire without changing how human biology would work in my story, unless I make it so that fire users need to carry around a fuel source of some kind which could be cool in some situations but put them at a massively unbalanced disadvantage in most situations.
[Answer]
**Pyroflatulence**
Well you did ask. And it is a real thing.
>
> Pyroflatulence or flatus ignition, is the practice of igniting the
> gases produced by human flatulence, often producing a flame of a blue
> hue, hence the act being known colloquially as a "blue angel", "blue
> dart", or in Australia, a "blue flame". The fact that flatus is
> flammable, and the actual combustion of it through this practice,
> gives rise to much humorous derivation. Other colors of flame such as
> orange and yellow are possible with the color dependent on the mixture
> of gases formed in the colon.
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fart_lighting>
>
>
>
Depending on the individual's gut bacteria, farts can contain large quantities of hydrogen and methane, both of which are highly flammable.
You can of course find many examples of this on YouTube.
---
**How can this be activated?**
We know that in times of fear or stress, people are much more likely to fart. This would make the weapon available at exactly the right moment. Just carry a pocket lighter. Perhaps there is some evolutionary adaptation that causes a spark to light the fart.
**Ignition**
Inspired by @Agrajag to explain the spark generating method. I suggest that these people are also contortionists and can create the spark by gnashing their teeth together. They can be identified by their lack of eyebrows.
---
**How this ability evolved**
There was once a contortionist who worked at a circus. She was attempting a particularly difficult trick it involved a position that I'll let the reader imagine as it's too difficult to describe. Unfortunately she found an attack of wind coming on. Gritting her teeth she tried to avoid this but the result was worse than anything she could have imagined. The teeth grinding coincided with a tremendous f@rt.
The resulting burst of flame caused such a reaction from the audience that the ringmaster asked her to keep in her act. She did and the crowds flocked to see this amazing phenomenon. The contortionist eventually married a man who suffered from serious wind and between them they established a dynasty of f@rting contortionists. Initially this family specialised in circus but there came a time when one of the family developed a martial art based on the ability. From that point there was no stopping them.
[Answer]
A bombardier beetle creates a toxic spray by mixing two fluids into a single orifice. The fluids are chemically relatively inert when kept separated but produce a lot of heat when mixed. With only a bit of imagination, you could have a human producing a similar pair of chemicals that spontaneously ignite when mixed. Highly modified salivary ducts and a somewhat fire-proof mouth lining could then let them spit fire.
But I can't imagine it would be terribly efficient. Maybe good enough to light a cigarette, or give someone a fright, but hardly suitable for incinerating enemies.
One issue would be volume of fluid. A salivary duct produces only fractions of a ml per second, so in order to produce a significant volume of 'fire' the fire-starter would need some sort of internal bladders to store the stuff until they were ready to spit. Maybe mammary ducts would be more appropriate in that case...
[Answer]
It could be explained by Ketosis. Ketosis is a state that your body enters when you deprive yourself of carbs (less than 20g a day is optimum), the body then begins to burn fat to produce ketones.
Since burnt fat exits the body through the lungs, your character could exhale large amounts of the fat that could be ignited through a means of spark or a ignition point.
EDIT: The Grimm wesen [Daemonfeuer](https://grimm.fandom.com/wiki/D%C3%A4monfeuer) uses a process similar, where it eats a fat-rich, low-carb diet, the body over produces gastric acid which spills into the lungs allowing it to cough up a liquid acetone which is ignited by the gastric juices.
[Answer]
Skin that produces flammable oil whilst the skin itself is inflammable. Allowing the wielder to build up oil in their hand and ignite it - fireball
[Answer]
Your question made me think of wizards producing flames from their hands or fingers (like a lighter but using fingers).
**Burning Hands**
It would require some changes to the biology of the body of those capable of producing fire. Very much like sweating, fire-born people would produce a flammable substance from glands in their hands. A spark from their flint and steel enriched fingernails will light the substance, creating a steady, small flame until their glands are exhausted.
[Answer]
If you were willing to change biology, you could add a flammable component to sweat glands, maybe have them emit a flammable gas.
] |
[Question]
[
Simplistically, a [neutron star](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star) is a celestial body with enormous mass crushed into a small volume. That crushing force is gravity and the result, one might think, is atoms packed much more closely than they want to be.
**Background rumination in question form**
Is it a true or false premise that the condition of the atoms at that point is not permanent? If you scooped out a cup of neutron star matter and tossed it a long distance away from the star... would it expand to something approximating its original density? (Yeah... not unlike opening a [can-o-snakes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GADUPKy4jos)).
**The actual question**
Assuming this is believable, what mass + force could be brought against a neutron star to cause it to shatter such that the resulting debris does not fall back together quickly (quickly <= 100,000 years) but allows the mass to expand — thereby forming planets?
(If this works, it would be a cool source of rogue planets.)
[Answer]
I want to build on top of already existing answers:
First and foremost, the state of matter in a neutron star is something way out of the ordinary as to assume that "common sense" applies. It is formed by subatomic particles that do not form actual atoms.
In fact, you could compare the neutron star with the initial stages of the Big Bang, before atoms were formed.
Now, if you get to scoop a large enough dust of neutrons, what would happen? Mathaddict claims that it would explode; I am not so sure but the most interesting part is that [isolated neutrons have a half-life of 14 minutes and 42 seconds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_neutron_decay) in a process that will produce a proton, and electron and an antineutrino.
And what is a proton + an electron? An Hydrogen atom. Maybe some of the protons would combine with (yet unconverted) neutrons to form deuterium, or even Helium by combining with other protons, but that is basically all that you would get from it (again, the comparation with the Big Bang).
Now, the final question would be if 100,000 years would be enough to build a gas giant (the only kind of planet that you could get) from just the Hydrogen and Helium. I am severely lacking in this aspect, but I doubt that -even accounting that the existence of other elements in the solar system could cause gravitational movements that increase the chance of the gas concentrating- 100,000 years would be enough.
A disting possibility, though, would be if the gas cloud was crossed by some already existing planet that served as a "nucleus" to "vacuum" all the gas around it. And even in this case, I am not sure that after 100,000 revolutions you would get little more than a "rock with a lot of hydrogen around it" and not a true gas giant.
[Answer]
For this to happen, you need the neutron star to be hit by something that will not merge with it. Good candidates are a gamma ray burst up close, or another, passing neutron star.
The escape velocity for neutron stars is in the relativistic range... Most of the mass will just fall back. Whatever mass is lost will leave the system at close to light speed. Such mass may reform as rogue planets leaving the galaxy, specially if going out of the galaxy plane.
As for the star, it will actually expand from the lost mass, because the degenerate pressure upon it will be reduced. Once it has lost enough mass it will revert to a regular, dead or dying small star. At this point escape velocities will be much lower, and some debris may reform as gas planets around it.
[Answer]
For the layman understanding I have of neutron stars, they are created once the gravity is strong enough to overcome the degeneracy pressure which keeps the nucleons apart in conventional atomic nucleus. Therefore every atoms collapses into more and more neutrons the closer to the center of the star it goes.
From this it follows that whatever substance venture onto or into a neutron star would be subjected to the same pressure, collapsing into neutrons, too.
So this pretty much rules out any matter based means (spoons and the like, explosives, etc.)
To overcome the gravitational attraction of a neutron star one could use a black hole, which is the following step in the cosmic monstrosity level. However, I am afraid that *it would be easier for a camel to go through a neutron star than for a dromedary to escape a black hole*.
Assuming one can carefully control the position of the black hole with respect to the neutron star, so that it is kept after the Roche limit and can disgregate but not fall in the black hole.
However I am afraid that the sudden release of the pressure would result in an energetic explosion triggered by the weak force. This might make for a fantastic *strong bomb*, but not for a planet. (for visual reference, minerals collected in the depth of the Earth crust also tend to explode due to the sudden release of pressure, and they do not deal with strong force at all)
[Answer]
That is quite a few questions. I think it is best to take them one at a time.
1. Is the condition of the atoms permanent? First, they're not atoms at all, in a neutron star, it doesn't really make sense to talk about atoms. Next, permanent (as far as the state of matter), in the context of taking some away from the star and the gravity holding it in that type of state, no, it is not permanent.
2. If you took a cup of it away from the star (never mind the how), would it expand to something approximating its original density? First, would it expand, yes, it would expand in a very large explosion (due to the weak nuclear force) in which there would be so much energy released that it wouldn't form a planet at all, just a giant explosion of exotic matter undergoing constant decay and causing more explosions as it decomposes. Second, it is unclear what you mean by its original density, if you were to collect all the exploded bits of the explosion after it all cooled down, it would have a density close to that of regular matter (my guess would be that with that much energy, it would be mostly hydrogen, but I don't think it's possible to know).
3. How to do get this mass out of the neutron star by hitting it with something? Any method that has sufficient energy to break up the neutron star to remove pieces of it, would also provide the star with enough energy to break apart entirely. You would have to make up some sort of imaginary method to do this and to avoid the problems associated with the exploding mass in order to have this form a planet in the way you described.
[Answer]
Is it a true or false premise that the condition of the atoms at that point is not permanent? As far as we know, yes, it's true.
If you scooped out a cup of neutron star matter and tossed it a long distance away from the star... would it expand to something approximating its original density? Not likely (again, as far as we know).
Assuming this is believable, what mass + force could be brought against a neutron star to cause it to shatter such that the resulting debris does not fall back together quickly (quickly <= 100,000 years) but allows the mass to expand — thereby forming planets? Just about anything with mass moving at relativistic speeds, and hitting at the correct angle.
I liken this to the formation theories of the planet Mercury. Mercury has an unusual composition of elements, compared to what is expected in most planetary creation methods known. One predominant theory, for a while, was that Mercury had originally formed 'normally', but then had a head on collision with another planet sized object, causing the apparently missing elements from the planet's mantel to be vaporized and blown away by solar wind. But this 'head on collision' theory didn't account for some of the materials that were still on the planet's surface, which should also have been vaporized and blown away, and it didn't account for the pieces of the two planets that should then start orbiting the Sun, but aren't. So the theory was adjusted to a 'glancing blow' instead of a head on collision. This allowed most of the surface (the side away from the colision) to remain cool enough not to vaporize the stuff that the head on version would have blown away, and also greatly reduces the amount of shrapnel that would be orbiting the sun, most of it falling back to Mercury, or falling into the Sun, or following the other planet as it exited the solar system or whatever happened to it.
Now, if such a collision had taken place farther from the sun, the debris would not have been so easily absorbed by the sun. And this is actually what is widely regarded as the method the Earth and Moon were formed from. Earth(instead of Mercury) was impacted by something, but this time (most of) the Debris didn't get sucked in to the Sun, instead some fell back to Earth, some formed the Moon, and some flew away to who-knows-where.
Now we have the basis for the Neutron star collision. Something hits it, and it's either very big and moving very fast, or it's not so big and moving ***VERY*** fast.
Neutron stars are thought to be between 1.4 and 3 solar masses. Bigger and they become black holes, and smaller and they wouldn't form in the first place. However, they can theoretically be as small as just over 1 solar mass, and still maintain enough gravity to avoid becoming a nuclear explosion rivaling a supernova.
So, if you want to re-form this stellar system from scratch, then it's a head on collision, the Neutron star blows itself to Protons(mostly), and you've got a new proto-star cloud, and stellar and planetary accretion start over.
If you want the Neutron star to remain, then it's a glancing blow, a large chunk comes off, but a small enough amount that the main star has enough gravity to stay a neutron star. The broken chunk blows itself to protons(mostly), since it doesn't have enough gravity itself to avoid it, and you have an accretion disk around a neutron star, which can be used to form planets. Neutron stars are also thought to have a heavy element 'crust', not pure 'neutronium" surfaces, so that might even form rocky planets.
If you want the original Neutron star to remain, but revert (more-or-less-'immediately') back to some other type of more 'normal' star ... sorry, no way to do that without much more hand-waving than I've already done here.
[Answer]
A full, direct hit of a neutron star with a correctly sized black hole should suffice to scatter virtually the entire neutron star's crust into empty space. You won't survive this kind of event on any planet in the galactic vicinity, but the cloud of debris will be rich in heavy elements.
The trick is for the black hole to be fast and heavy enough to take a sizable fraction of the neutron star's mass out of the system never to return. Since the black hole's diameter will be much less than that of the neutron star, even though the black hole is much more heavy, the crust of the neutron star will simply not have the time to really react to the approaching black hole until after the collision is over.
The cloud will be *hot* directly after the hit. It will radiate insanely bright and start to expand immediately. However, as it spreads out, it will also cool down, and as it started really, really dense, parts of it might actually recollapse into planet sized celestial bodies. This will be helped by the asymmetries caused by the collision itself.
The resulting planets will very likely be rocky planets, perhaps even with metallic cores. A neutron star contains neutron clusters of all sizes, which will decay into all kinds of atoms, including the very heavy variants.
] |
[Question]
[
I wanted a creature that produces something in its blood to protect itself from SEP (solar energetic particles) and GCR (galactic cosmic rays). The skin of the creature is normally sufficient protection, but the world has radiation bursts which can penetrate this layer, and necessitate a second line of defense.
I wasn't sure what sort of cell would be most effective for this. Possibly a variation of blood cells with a high iron concentration? Or, perhaps the creature could process other metals/minerals for this process, maybe even by processing some lead. Octopi process higher concentrations of copper, already.
Something like 0.05% of the blood is iron, so that's not much of a radiation shield. But then, that's just used to help with oxygen transfer, so cells specifically made to endure/block radiation and carry high metal contents might ferry larger percentages.
It's quite possible you'd be better off just growing more muscle in these areas, and having a cleanup crew to get rid of dead and mutated muscle after a radiation burst.
[Answer]
Blood is already just about as good a radiation shield as you're going to get. That's because it's mostly water, and water is a great shield.
Just like a bulletproof vest, the two main properties that you're going to want in a radiation shield are,
* Being there.
* Safely absorbing the energy of a collision.
It turns out that there are plenty of materials that are relatively safe when irradiated. (Choose the wrong one and your shielding is a breeder reactor.) Lead and water are two great examples. So, in stark contrast with the challenges involved with making bulletproof vests, the biggest problem you're going to have when designing a radiation shield is arranging things so that the sheild is *there* when a high-energy particle passes by.
I'll go straight to talking about neutron shielding because that's the toughest case.
**Neutrons:**
As you may have heard, atoms are mostly empty space. Neutrons are neutral (meaning that overall they don't interact with electric fields), and they will only ever involve themselves with other matter through the weak and strong nuclear forces. Those forces are very, very short-ranged, and for all practical purposes only act over length scales around the size of a nucleus.
As a result, your neutron shield's biggest concern will be putting enough nuclei in the path of the radiation that the chance of it hitting the shield becomes larger than its chance of hitting the animal. You'll want to do this with relatively high-density materials. Once again, water and lead.
If you're willing to invent new materials, then your animal could have a shell of pure nuclear matter (like a neutron star.) It's strongly advised to put the material in a shell or on the animal's skin, because if its in the blood it will waste a lot of time being pumped around through internal organs that aren't supposed to have any radiation nearby in the first place.
**Charged Particles**
Charged particles (like electrons, protons and helium nuclei (alpha particles)) can be deflected by magnetic fields. If you're willing to take the hits from neutrons and photons, your creature can protect itself from the charged particles whizzing through space by filling itself with very powerful magnets. I could imagine some tiny blood-suspended superconducting crystals accomplishing this, although it might be hard to stop them from sticking together (clotting, if they're in blood) like magnets tend to do.
[Answer]
The biggest issue with ionizing radiation for living creatures, is damage to DNA. Any creature with a sufficiently redundant DNA sequence, and extremely active repair functions would be able to correct and heal any damage before any real issues.
See the wiki on [radiation poisoning](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_radiation_syndrome) for more information.
@anon made a point that warrants an edit to add a link. There are two categories of radiation that must be shielded differently. Your approach must target the type of radiation you're worried about. [radiation shielding overview](https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/custom-manufacturing-fabricating/radiation-shielding-materials/)
[Answer]
They could grow shielding beneath the skin over softer, more vulnerable areas. The most immediate example that I have personal experience with is wild boars. They grow a thick, extremely tough, fatty shield beneath the skin in the areas of their front shoulders. Older, larger hogs, have shields thick enough to stop high caliber bullets. Also, the older and larger a wild hog gets, the thicker its skull gets. I have seen many large caliber rounds stopped by the skull over the years.
While stopping a bullet is vastly different from stopping radiation, perhaps a subdermal layer of fatty tissue could exist with a high enough mineral content to act as shielding. Also, extremely high bone density with additional minerals could protect many vital organs. Perhaps some special bones could encase arteries in certain areas to protect the blood, along with an organ that specifically filters radiation from the blood.
[Answer]
## You can make radiation shielding in the blood, but it's like hitting things with your head: You have better things to do with that body part
First, take a look at some candidates for [radiation shielding materials](https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/custom-manufacturing-fabricating/radiation-shielding-materials/):
* Water (provided that they are in sufficient quantity, and not already obliterated from whatever planet they come from by radiation)
* High A (atomic weight) materials (this include lead, mercury, gold, depleted uranium...), good for alpha and beta shielding
* Neutron absorbing or shielding materials (hydrogen, boron...)
From the list above, the type of structure the creature used will need these quality:
* Thick (to have enough bulk to just absorb the radiation)
* Cover the whole body (or at least be there when you need it)
* Preferably dead, if alive, it had better be tough (not only the radiations are deadly, the shielding materials (heavy metals, boron) are not much safer, so yes, the surest way to survive is not to)
And now, let's meet our contestants (all these examples are only against the sun, which have low radiation in the UV range, but the principle is the same, just add radiation shielding material from above):
**1. Blood**
* Not very thick (there is only a thin layer of blood vessels under the
skin)
* Cover *almost* everything (skin cancer is a thing, too). At least
they are always there when you need them
* *Vitally* important to the body, and alive (Red blood cells and platelets don't have nuclei to be mutated by radiation, but they can be denatured and become useless. White blood cells do have nuclei and can be mutated, with [consequences](http://www.hematology.org/Patients/Cancers/))
**2. Sweat**
* Depend on skin structure, can be thick, or thin. There is an actual [animal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippopotamus#Behaviour_and_life_history) using this tactic to stave off the sun's radiation
* Not always on all the time. Your creature will need a way to detect radiation and sweat ahead of time
* Absolutely dead, and carry no risk of complication
* Bonus problem: If you do so, your creature will look like a blood-soaked serial killer every time there is harmful radiation. Your call, but I find it awesome (Just kidding, the real problem is that the creature must devoted water and minerals on a disposable shield)
**3. Scale, fur, feather, what-have-you**
* You can make them incredibly thick
* Always there, always got your back
* Dead as a doornail as well
* Problem: Your creature is now a walking biohazard. Remember, most radiation shielding is also very toxic
**4. Skin (or rather skin pigments)**
* Pretty much the same as sweat, except they are not on the outside of skin, so no resource are wasted, in return for being *slightly* alive (the epidermis cells is alive, but they can push the pigment to the outermost edge of the cells)
PS: This answer was inspired by [Display Name](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/46233/display-name)'s [answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/100971/32360), and others' comments. I only consider mechanisms used by animals since [Jonny](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/35649/johnny) ask about blood
PPS: Sorry for lateness/necromancy, I have a test in that time
[Answer]
**On the same thread as Stephan:**
There is no **material** that provides a life form total protection from ionizing radiation.
* **Any material can only block so much radiation.** You could have lead armor 15 ft thick and not be able to block all radiation.
* **Any complex life form is inherently vulnerable to ionizing radiation.** In order to support complex life your cell (be it organic or nanobot) must be constructed with complex molecules (like proteins) that can provide the different functions of that cell. Ionizing radiation is destructive because ionic atoms destroy these molecules thus destroying the cell. Imagine your car is a cell and blasting it wildly with an industrial sand blaster is radiation. When you damage enough or just the right pieces it stops working which is radiation poisoning.
**This doesn't mean a creature cant be more resilient to radiation**.
Radiation poisoning is lethal when you have enough cellular damage that repair is impossible. As in living cells cannot replace dead cells fast enough. So one way to increase your resiliency is to increase your regenerative abilities being able to replace more and different kinds of dead cells.
Thickness/density and depth helps too.
magnetic fields have also been able to deflect strong radiation.
[Answer]
I am just wondering if a snip of the tardigrades section of dna (that is responsible for successfully repairing outer space radiation damage) could be spliced into the stem cells of mice. If it works on lab mice, looking down the road maybe the human race could also be helped to be more resilient in a high radioactive exposure. Im just an old man who is constantly amazed at what the kids are doing today. Id like to see my kids one day get a shot and be impervious to radiation... Now that is a vaccine I could get behind.
Dave in
Stockton CA
] |
[Question]
[
The Anatomically Correct Series can be found [here](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2797/anatomically-correct-series).
The [Chimera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(mythology)) is another freaky specimen from Greek mythology.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/THIGA.jpg)
It is described as having the body and head of a lion, the head of a goat sprouting from its back, and having a tail that ended with a snake head. It was also able to breathe fire for good measure.
Out of all the mythical creatures I've seen, I think this one is the hardest to make work. Hence my question.
**Using at least a somewhat Earth-like biology and environment, could a Chimera ever evolve?**
Some points to consider would definitely be how the snake tail fits with a mostly mammalian creature and how that goat head is supposed to do anything. I think that evolutionary history would definitely influence the development of anatomy.
[Answer]
You have to start from pretty far back in the evolution history.
Organisms with 1 symmetry around the tube going from the mouth to the anus would not work in making a chimera, for obvious reason.
You have to start from an organism with stellar symmetry, and let every "arm" follow a diverse specialization:
* 1 will go for a carnivore set up (head of a lion), and will develop teeth specialized in cutting flesh
* 1 will go for an herbivore set up (head of a goat), and will develop teeth specialized in chewing vegetables
* 1 will go for defensive/offensive set up (head of a snake), developing the ability to inject poison by biting and breathing fire (the methane produced by the vegetables eaten by the goat head can come handy for this)
* 3 (at least) will go for a motion set up, evolving into something resembling legs.
The core of the organism would be in charge for assimilation of nutrient, blood flow, gas exchanges, etc.
[Answer]
You can easily have something that *looks* like a Chimera.
Lets say you've an aggressive ruminant e.g. a rhinoceros or moose, both famous for putting down their head and charging when threatened. It is goat-like, with massive curving horns - this thing exists.
In the same habitat you have a non-top-of-the-food-chain predator which looks like a lion: its weapons are all to the front, where it needs them for hunting.
The lion has evolved a defensive mechanism whereby it inflates a structure on its back which looks like the aggressive goat: any attacker creeping up behind the lion gets a massive shock as it finds a maddened goat & angry snake staring down at it. [Such defenses are practical and well documented in nature](https://www.earthtouchnews.com/wtf/wtf/this-is-not-a-snake-its-one-of-the-best-mimics-in-nature/)
So, you have a lion-like creature, which defensively mimics a goat coming out of its back, and its tail has evolved to look like a snake, to deter predators who dislike snakes.
There's your Chimera. As for the [feasibility of an animal breathing fire](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/313/how-could-dragons-be-explained-without-magic), yes, it's theoretically possible.
[Answer]
**No, this could never naturally evolve**
For one its a combination of completely different physiologies reptilian and mammalian.
Another point, evolving different types of heads with brains is unlikely not impossible. Evolving different heads to resemble different creatures that would be too small for it to care to eat would be impossible.
I'm usually open to the endless possibilities of evolution and GE however there are lines. If we are talking 'natural evolution' you have to consider the cause and effect relationship that occurs in nature. The sheer amount of problems this creature has would make this incredibly unlikely.
Is it entirely impossible, no, a creature could evolve mimicking heads as a means of predation through deception. But the odds of this exactly is virtually impossible.
[Answer]
Parasites and symbiotes. Why not one being, but three separate creatures? For instance, the goat like creature attaches itself to the lion-like creature's back. It can either provide no benefit, or enable the lion-like creature to consume meat otherwise too ripe, using the goat's ability to eat anything. The snake (head) can attach to the lion's tail and trade defense of the rear in return for nourishment (blood or poop).
[Answer]
Hmm, Maybe the goat-like creature attaches itself to the lion's back and turn the lion's hind legs into that of a goat. The goat-like creature merges with the lion and eat meat too ripe. The snake-like creature attaches itself to the lion and merges with the lion, making the tail as long as the lion's body and head. The snake-like creature helps the lion defend from the rear in exchange for blood or poop as food.
] |
[Question]
[
This is not a very hard-science-fiction tale, but more about human relations and adaptability, but I still want it to sound plausible.
A **space faring civilisation** that descend from humans **uses bio-ships**, but instead of engineering them from birth they are **natural born humans** trained in astrophysics that voluntarily choose to **go through a mutation** process in a special "bacta" tank/shipyard that **enlarges their brains**, giving them incredible memory and processing power, and **alters their bone structure and body shape** until they form the chasis of a hundreds meters long ship. They are then **implanted and reinforced** with armor, computers, sensors, reactors and such until they look like normal ships in and out, **so they are both mutants and cyborgs**.
These Bio-ships have the capacity of self healing and decision-making that a living being does, they value human life and do not have the alien logic and/or bloodlust an AI or captured space faring animal might have.
The ship performs its own duties of navigation, detection and weapon handling, but they are fitted with a crew for command, tactics, special sensor or weaponry use, engineering for the technology and care taking for the biology. **Means of propulsion, survival in the vacuum, nutrition and oxygenation will be covered in the narrative but are irrelevant for the question at hand.**
In the story, also, one of this ships crash and can no longer function, but instead of leaving her behind the crew has an emergency procedure *(probably some genetically engineered handwavium substance in a big syringe)* that can **reform the original human body** from the bloated brain-mass, like a cocoon.
**How long should, semi realistically, take a 70kg human, grow into a biomass equivalent to 2 elephants?**
And, years later, for its **one ton brain to become a cocoon that spews forth a human?**
**Extra question**: If the body no longer has a significant muscular structure or limbs to move, what size do the internal organs and the nutrient intake need to be in relation to the brain mass?
[Answer]
A blue whale has a gestation period of 11 months, weighs 3 tons at birth and gains 200 pounds a day for the first year, at the end of which time it weighs approximately 40 tons. ([Source](http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/blue-whale/)) Holy bouncing babies Batman!
If I were to assume your species had brilliant biological engineering I would assume they could mutate a human into a whale sized ship in about a year.
An elephant weighs anywhere from 2.5-7 tons. ([source](https://www.reference.com/pets-animals/much-elephants-weigh-tons-36807d7c55c0caa4)). Given the whale growth rate it would take 100 days to reach 10 tons (approximately 2 elephants).
But I think what we can learn from biology is that major reorganization takes more time than growing an existing structure. It takes almost a year for a fertilized egg (of most large mammals) to become a functioning organism. However as we see with the whale, it can then grow to enormous size in the same amount of time. Given that, I would be hesitant to set the human to ship conversion time at less than a year. Maybe it would make an interesting story point to make it several or many years.
To convert back to a human sized entity could be instantaneous. Just include an emergency ship container (body) as part of the complete ship. In case of emergency it ejects from the rest of the structure taking the memories, knowledge, and personality of the ship with it.
If you prefer not to have a built in emergency ship container then I think the 9 months (similar to pregnancy) estimate is appropriate.
Edit to answer the extra question about nutrition: A human brain weighs about [3lbs](https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/ffacts.html) and uses somewhere in the neighborhood of [400 kcal](https://www.sharecare.com/health/calories/brain-calories-at-rest) in glucose a day. Scaling up to get a wild guess estimate for the 1 ton brain gives 270,000 kcal or about 667 liters of Coca Cola a day. This is just for brain activity not the energy for pumping fluids, heating, and etc.
[Answer]
Two elephants??? Bush Elephant (male) wt. = < 6,000 kg, 5000 is a good average. So, two would be 10,000 kg. This is less than the weight (mass) of a (loaded) truck. And this is going to house and transport people between stars? Riiiiiight.
A blue whale's pregnancy lasts 1 year and the calf is 6 m long and weighs over 1000 kg. Here's the key point: a calf can put on 100 kg a day (when nursing). I agree completely with the other comments about the (lack of logic) behind needing increased brain size. Perhaps you should consider "neural nodes" distributed throughout the ship to do the routine stuff (air temperature, open doors, turn on lights, etc.). If the large brain is somehow magically necessary to enable FTL travel, then why not make that part out of silicon, and just connect it to the organic brain? One obvious problem is, if you change the structure of the human brain to accommodate the extra structures, then it won't be human anymore. Now, as to the question of how you'd change such a mind so that it actions would be indistinguishable from a human's, well there'd be an app for that.
[Answer]
Interesting ship. I think it could take 10 or 15 years *to maturation*.
Note that I shifted the focus away from biomass. Generating biomass is easy. Deep in the heart of every one of our genetic codes is the key to exponential growth. Yeast, for instance, know how to leverage this sort of exponential growth to take over an entire environment (such as a vat of soon-to-be-beer) and only stop that exponential growth with a quorum sensing system. Our eggs grow in the same way, doubling in size until chemicals tell them to stop growing that way.
In the case of real embryos and infants, there is a limit: the environment. At some point, the individual is going to be put out into the unfriendly real world and have to survive. Nature is unkind in that sense. It doesn't matter if you were almost done growing legs that would make Usain Bolt look slow, if they don't work when the predator arrives, they're useless. Nature has to slow down and take it carefully.
Your engineers don't need to take it carefully. They fully control the "bacta" tanks from start to finish. Accordingly, they can be more aggressive than normal. They can flood the tank with biomatter at exponential rates and then start coalescing the material into the right shapes afterwards.
The key is how long it takes to create all the *complexity* of a ship. That has nothing to do with biomass and everything to do with the particular structures needed to exist as a ship. Making large things is easy; making complex things is hard.
The most complex part, of course, is found in the nervous system. There we learn to control all of the hardware our genes have given us in the womb. We finish constructing the human body within 9 months, but we spend *years* learning the basics of how to control it, and spend a lifetime mastering it. No matter how quickly you grew the body in a vat, learning to control it will take the most time. It cannot be easy to control, or else there would be little to no advantage in having the biological control systems in the first place. The whole point of biological systems is to control systems that are too complicated to easily fit into a set of equations to optimized by a control systems engineer. Maturation time is what you need.
As for going back to being human, think of it this way. You just spent 15 years learning to control your arms and legs. You then spent many decades using them to do great things. Now, you're going to have those arms and legs hacked off. You're going to become a quadruple amputee. Sound like fun? I didn't think so. Losing all of that powerful control just to have to learn to control a human body all over again would be brutal. Ships would outright refuse to convert. Thus, you would need to have a biological system that forces them to.
We have prior art for this. We have real life examples of where a human, in complete control of their body, can create a cocoon within which a human brain forms. That human brain then learns to control arms and legs. The first part of the process takes 9 months, the second takes a few years. Eventually, it learns to master its arms and legs and walk this Earth.
Childbirth is a *very* violent process. It's beautiful, but truly violent. The mother's uterus contracts forcefully, against her will, insistently expelling the child. When this finally happens, against the will of both the child and all of the anatomy the mother has used to keep the child in its safe bubble for 9 months, the child is then disconnected from its source of oxygenated blood and *literally* left on its own until its blood O2 levels get so low (and CO2 levels get so high) that its brain forcefully shouts out along a nerve *dedicated* to a single muscle: the diaphragm. With this shuttering contraction, air rushes into the child's lungs and it acquires the potential to do the first action of its life: to cry. To cry with all the might it can possibly muster.
So, perhaps 15 years to mature a ship, and 9 months to return to human form.
[Answer]
This is only an indirect answer, but the basic process of growth can be exponential. That's a huge deal. Not many human-scale processes are exponential, so we tend to underestimate them. What this means is that things can get done much quicker than you'd think.
Consider biomass over time. In the first trimester a human fetus roughly doubles in size each week. In the second trimester a fetus slows down to doubling roughly every two to three weeks, and then slows further. The last ten weeks show another doubling.
<http://www.babycenter.com/average-fetal-length-weight-chart>
Note that this chart only starts at week 8. I assume that the fetus doubles in weeks 1-7.
Here's my point: the fetus doubles in weight about 20 times in nine months. That implies the fetus is roughly one million times larger at the end of gestation than at the start.
Suppose your hand-wavy bio-process essentially reboots all the cells in a human body into a growth state, and you can re-start that process of exponential growth. What happens if a man who weighs 180 pounds suddenly starts re-growing at the same rate? The first time he doubles he weighs 360 pounds. The second time he weighs 720 pounds. And so on.
After doubling 20 times he weighs $180 \times 2^{20} = 188\,743\,680 \space\text{pounds}$. For comparison, that's roughly the size of the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier. With a crew of $4\,660$ you're already at the "floating town" scale of things. And it carries $75$ aircraft to boot.
Exponential growth man.
[Answer]
Answering your question directly:
About 6 months.
It takes a fertilized egg to grow a baby from the gestation to birth about nine months average, but we also have to take into account that the mother is also trying to survive herself so we can (Someone with medical knowledge correct me) shave off a few months if what we require is to make a pre-designed body, this body would be completely new and would require some weeks to months of adjustments, not counting the fact that it went from having the consciousness of a demi-god to a regular old joe so shell shock and possibly madness wouldn't be out of the question.
**Spin 1**
If you have the tech to make humans into ships, cloning is simple. Have a cloned body of the guy in a secured compartment and when shit hits the fan just dump the brain inside and eject him. (Or just detonate a charge in the brain of the ship to avoid the enemy from getting the info he has).
**Spin 2**
@Daniel M. had a great idea i would take it into consideration. My spin on that is this, lets assume that a human brain can't possibly manage that amount of information instead of spewing a human, make it so that the "brain" of the ship into a different entity much like a cockroach that the majority of his body is compromised by his brain, give him basic means of locomotion and cyber implants that allow him to connect to the ship and interface with it properly, this way one brain can connect with any ship and you don't have to suffer from inability to upgrade your ships. Also in the case of an emergency you pop the brain out and move it with your regular crew.
**Nice to watch**
Search for the series Far Scape, its oldie but good and it handles the theme of an organic ship.
[Answer]
I think you and most answers make a logical error here. Since this is not a natural process, you **can not** actually approximate its duration or nature from biology despite it being based on biotech. All that depends on how the process and the related equipment has been **designed**. Which is limited by the limitations of the available **technology**:
Unfortunately the technology here is in the handwavium territory so it does not have any real limitations. You could perfectly reasonably say it is a process of "push button and wait five seconds for the bell to ring" as far as hard limits go.
However there are some reasonable assumptions we can make.
**First detaching from the ship *must* work as an emergency procedure.**
If something goes catastrophically wrong and the ship must be abandoned, the pilot must have a realistic chance to walk (or run) away. This means detachment **can not** rely on the ship being intact enough to grow a cocoon and a body and then transfer memories to the brain in the body **after** the crew triggers the process.
THis means that both the protective cocoon and the backup body must exist from the beginning, be constantly maintained at working condition by the cocoon and at all times contain a warm backup of the mind.
If the detachment is triggered either by the crew or by the ship systems collapsing the backup is simply cutoff from the cocoon which makes the cocoon and some sort of an emergency exit to pop open.
This is fast and simple and should take somewhere between five seconds and five minutes. Probably closer to the seconds as the body would probably be pumped full of drugs that instantly snap it fully awake and suppress inevitable confusion and disorientation.
**Waiting while you grow up sucks, ask any teen ager**
It makes no real sense (as noted in comments) to wait while you grow up to be a ship, if you need a human body anyway for emergency detachment and the growing up is handled by huge engineering marvel with handwavium technology.
Why would people actually do that?
Instead you should model the process on modern pilot training. The pilots are trained and the ship are built in parallel. This instantly makes the process twice as efficient. It also means that pilot training or ship construction failures do not instantly freeze the other part of the process.
**How do you make the pilot?**
Astrogation training is fine but modern airlines do not give some lectures on aviation and then put you responsible to flying hundreds of people safely. Instead simulators are used.
This would go doubly here since the pilots would need to directly and persistently connect to their ships. As such the necessary neural links would be created during the training process, the pilots would be trained using simulator cocoons that allow them get used to "being a ship instead of a human" in bite size steps.
This would also allow them to find out if they have issues not being a human anymore **before** being transformed into **ridiculously expensive** spaceship. And make the necessary adjustments over years of simulator training with constantly available counseling and even therapy. People funding all this would also appreciate only needing to built ships for people who are actually good at it in simulations.
Same would go in reverse. While being a ship the pilot would periodically, possibly subconsciously. run simulations of running and acting as a human. It would be embarrassing if you woke up as a monkey in an emergency that killed your real body and it turned out that you have forgotten how to run away.
These simulation might allow the ship to interact as a human with the crew in virtual reality but I am not sure if someone mentally adjusted to being a huge ship would want to interact with monkeys that mostly think of having sex and eating bananas. Simulated emergency training would make sense at this level of technology though.
**Building the ship**
After the pilot has finished the training and gotten good enough scores to merit a ship and has adjusted to being in the simulator cocoon all the time, the ships body will be assembled around the cocoon and the ship systems will replace their simulated replacements one by one.
The ship components would be built in parallel with the final step being fairly fast assembly from pre-fabbed components. The actual speed would depend on the maturity of technology.
Faster is better for business (the cradle for ship assembly must be very expensive and limited resource) but failing the assembly would probably be even more expensive so if the technology is new their will be an iterative process of testing and adjustment needed for every component and components will be added one by one.
With more mature technology increasing portion of testing and adjustment can be done before assembly and component can added in parallel allowing very fast construction.
I'd go from few days to few weeks. This seems very fast but most of the work would be done in parallel with the years of pilot training. You can even instead see the assembly around the pilot as a process of inserting the cocoon and the pilot inside it into the ship and get the time down to hours but nothing in the question suggests a need for such rush jobs and it would not fit the flavor of the setting.
**But this destroys the biological flavor!**
Not really. We associate such things with mechanical or hardware solutions but they are actually technology neutral results of the economics. We just do not have enough control of the biological processes to do large scale construction with biotech. The people described in the question do.
With premises in the question a biological growing of a ship would not be a slow and awkward process, instead it would be faster, more efficient, and more convenient than our processes for constructing aircraft or buildings from prefabbed components.
[Answer]
One problem that I see immediately is that the modifications to the brain will make the resulting spaceship non-human in the way it thinks.
If I were doing this, I would have the human bonded (in a cocoon) inside a highly modified animal that would be the ship. This animal could have a lot more modifications to make it a ship, so that it needs many fewer mechanical modifications like shielding. You'd still need to add computers and some life support, though the central part of the life-support would be part of the animal.
The pilot would be bonded to the ship with some sort of direct brain connection so that he feels like he *is* the ship.
There are many advantages to this way of doing things.
First, creating a modified human might be a difficult problem, especially increasing the brain function without driving them totally insane. With the animals, you'd have less ethical problems with experimenting with them to get the process right.
Second, it might be easier to make several different classes of ships from animals.
Third, an animal could be allowed to grow so that it becomes a larger ship over the centuries.
And I think it's way cooler to do it that way.
One interesting story "Mayflies" by Kevin O'Donnel. A human brain is put in charge of a mechanical generation ship. The people in charge thought the brain was brain-dead, so they used it as a computer. Then he woke up.
I've read a few short stories where humans were their own starships, but either they had evolved into something without a traditional body, or in one case the mechanics to do this (FTL engine, shield generator, life support) were implanted within a normal human. These are old stories, I ready them in college (40 years ago) and they were old then.
[Answer]
I like the premise of human -> ship, but the rationale behind it ('ship is human') and the possibility of reforming a humanoid are both deeoply flawed. To have a once-human perform as a spaceship, she needs spaceship 'reflexes' (downshift on the handwavium if the phlebotium generator exeeds gargle) and she does not need human 'reflexes' (kick, if your knee-tendon is hit, is a reflex, those are hardwired and will be fine; i'm talking about human 'reflexes' like catching a ball) - so because the human 'reflexes' are unused, they will atrophy and vanish. Walking with legs, talking with a mouth, smiling if smiled at, those will all fade, over time. At the same time, the spaceship 'reflexes will get sharper with every passing hour as a spaceship. They will be learned, and as such they will have a physical representation in the neural matrix, altering the brain in ways that make it less and less comparable to that of a human. Sense of self will be vastly altered, with other people walking around in oneself. The sensorium will change massively - even attention, that elusive spotlight, will need to be completely retooled - you can't have a spaceship that loses track of the navigation while admiring a cool nebula. Autonomous functions must abound, but they will still need some kind of possible willful intervention (you breathe without thought, but you can hold your breath) creating even more interfaces that need to be mapped onto the neural substrate. you'll have a fledgeling ship that can't hold its antimatter, so to speak, and that will learn and literally 'grow into' it's new role - but the human that was will be essentially dead - memories triggered by familiar smells will now map onto brain structures that are part of the life-support, and backed up sewer pipes in sector C will evoke memory of aunt Petunias brownies cooling on the windowsill - no rhyme or reason to any of it. 'locked in' patients of today have a very hard time coping with the cessation of any muscular activity, but the ship people will have that **plus** the complete rewiring of their sensorium. Refer to the anectotal evidence of gangbangers becoming moral and well-adjusted humans after a very small stroke (and the reverse, 'good people' becoming thugs after a medium size brain injury) - and the justification of 'ships need to be people, because people aren't evil/alien/unknown goes completely out the window.
Reforming a humanoid from a ship: Same process in reverse, just more abrupt, if it is to be a last ditch rescue move. So do not expect the reformed human to be sane, and especially do not expect the reformed human to be anything like the human that transformed **into** the ship.
As per your question: A growth rate of 1% per day is absolutely possible (this would amount to an approximate doubling of weight every 8 weeks, as is usual for, i.e. pigs) even 5% (as the blue whale calf, meaning doubling of weight every two weeks) would not seem overly ambitiuous, so your 70kg human would need between 100 and 500 days to 10 ton mass. I don't know what your humship needs exactly in terms of organs and structures (your wish for bones is a mystery to me - do you want them for their marrow? But why not just the marrow?), but if the brain is the largest organ, you'll need a steady and absolutely unimpeachable supply of glucose so i'd invest in some fat, too. The circulatory system is probably machine augmented, and i'd not deal with a digestive tract, and rather go for intravenous feeding and blood filtering to get rid of metabolites. The filtering will make kidneys obsolete, but i'd keep the liver, possibly even in more than one copy, if you are not 100% sure that your blood filtering is impeccable. Oxygenation of the blood is better done via machine, especially if the circulatory system is mainly machine anyways - a lung will only complicate matters in 0g and no-exercise conditions. Muscles are just meat, get rid of them, without excretion, breathing and circulatory functions, they are superfluous. Lymphatic organs - again, it depends on how good you deem your filtration system. Skin? possibly not, because with all the machine interference, you'll need a ton of i/o-ports anyways, so why not go completely synthetic?
Timebase for the reforming: completely dependent on what exactly happens - shedding of everything but a core brain? Minutes. - Resorption of ship-stuff and reforming of human stuff (with shedding of superfluous ship-stuff) Days, with the metabolising might of a ten-ton organism behind it, but, again, the result will just be a delirious humanoid, not the one that went in.
] |
[Question]
[
In a world with modern day scientific capabilities, would it be at all possible to create an alloy with a combination of both iron and silver that is usable within weaponry such as knives or swords or arrowheads as well as within chains or restrains or in the building of smaller structures? It would need to be both strong and durable. Magic is available in the world, so physical limitations aren't neccessarily relevant.
[Answer]
I [googled](https://www.google.com/search?q=iron%20silver%20alloy) it, and the [answer is yes](http://www.metalor.com/en/electrotechnics/Products/Silver-alloys/AgFe), you can alloy them. Of course, that particular link is to an alloy which is very biased towards silver, so it would not be durable. [Other alloys](http://jes.ecsdl.org/content/74/1/271.abstract) can be found. The alloy in that link is mostly iron, but was noticeably more corrosion resistant. This suggests that most anything you can do with iron can be done with an iron/silver alloy, simply by keeping the silver content low.
Of course, once you start pushing into the higher levels of durability, such as what you want from steel, it becomes harder. Needless to say, metallurgists spend a lot of time figuring out what works and what doesn't, so you are unlikely to find many alloys which perform better than the ones we actually use.
[Answer]
Note that for most combinations you don't even need to alloy them. Use the Damascus approach, just with different metals. So long as there is a temperature at which all the metals can be worked and none of them will react badly with the others (which shouldn't be a problem with iron/silver/gold) you can make items which work against any metal-vulnerable creature even if the metals will not actually alloy.
[Answer]
Not just vamps, leaning towards demons and fallen ones. I too am looking to find an alloy for sword, knives and tips
I was figuring on an electrum alloy (maybe 1-2 ounces needed... small amount), mixed with iron and charcoal............ theoretically, it should bear a durable blade, made of electrum-steel, folded over and over Damascus style.... for those who do not know, electrum is an alloy made with equal parts of pure gold and pure silver.... Sterling works too, that 7.5% copper difference just helps to strengthen it. Perfect blade for demons, vamps. Lychens.... you get the drift
] |
[Question]
[
This would happen post-WW2 (probably late 50's-early 60's).
An activist thinks things in the USA have to change but knows (or is firmly convinced) that as long as only the Republican or Democratic parties are the only de facto options for the President no one who would actually threaten the status-quo for the wealthy elite could ever gain the power to do so.
**What would he need to do to reach presidency as an independent despite the system (for that matter, is there anything he *could* do)?**
[Answer]
The [First Past The Post](http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/first-past-the-post) voting system tends to stratify into a two party (with occasional smaller parties) system. The classic case being
>
> I really don't want *him* to get in, so I'm going to vote for the only other viable option as a vote for a 3rd party candidate would be a waste of my vote.
>
>
>
This is the real key to your problem. The electorate have to be sure your third party candidate is going to win, and that there isn't a risk of the vote going to the person they really don't want, over the person that they consider acceptable. Hence they almost always vote for one of the big two. The other source of 3rd party votes is the protest vote, but that tends to remain an insignificant minority.
---
If you want to encourage more parties into your system use an [AV/IRV](http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/alternative-vote) voting system. This makes it easier for small party candidates to get in as it allows tactical voting as second option rather than only option.
>
> I'd quite like *her* to get in, so she's my first choice even though she's from a minor party. *He's ok* and a major party candidate so he's my second choice. *That one is crazy* so I won't put him down at all.
>
>
>
Tactical voting still leaves the 3rd party candidate a chance of winning which it wouldn't under FPTP.
---
If you want to guarantee more parties in your system use [Party List Proportional Representation](http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/party-list). In this case the lower your required threshold to get a seat, the more parties you'll get (and the crazier they'll be). You could also get a bad case of [Belgium spending a year without a government](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13725277) because they couldn't agree a coalition, but at least you broke the two party system.
---
It's of course important to note that the two major parties in a two party state are not going to support anything that breaks their hold on power. That would be a classic case of the turkeys voting for xmas.
[Answer]
There is something called [Duverger's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law) which suggests that the US political system causes a two-party system. So if you do not want to replace the *current* two-party system with a new one, you would have to change the Constitution. That requires the consent of lots of people who were elected under a two-party system. How about:
* There is greater than historical resistance *against* the Civil Rights movement, with rampant [gerrymandering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering) to preserve the status quo. The first-past-the-fencepost system is tarred with racism, oppression, and lynch mobs.
* One of the parties (the slightly smaller one?) puts proportional representation into their platform. That gives them almost all of the marginalized "minority vote" and they sweep many state and federal legislatures. After a few years they deliver the necessary amendments.
[Answer]
# What creates multiple parties
Today, [Brazil has 35 registered parties](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Brazil), and there are some groups which are trying to create new ones. No party has, per se, any majority anywhere, so they are always creating, destroying and changing party coalitions. Over the years, parties were born, fused together, divided into smaller parties, extinguished and refunded, etc. So, it is always a changing situation.
The result of having so many parties is, of course, a big mess in the brazilian politics. What caused that was some democratic reforms that the weak and disorganized, although authoritarian and dictatorial, governement were forced to perform in the early 1980's. There was two parties during the dictatorship, a situation party (ARENA) and an opposition party (MDB). The opposition party were starting to get dangerously powerful and annoying in the vision of the situation party, despite the dictatorship persecution. The opposition was fierce and the dictatorship was unpopular and getting weaker and weaker.
So, the government decided to perform a major political reform. The purpose was to divide the opposition into many small competing parties in order to avoid that any of them would get any significant representativity to pose any danger to the situation party hegemony, and then make them fight against each other instead of effectively fight the government. However, the plan backfired terribly, and the result was that it ended creating a lot of small competing parties both in the situation as in the opposition.
# Make USSR break the multipartidarism, without them willing that
So, what would be set in your fictional 1950's or 1960's US was something like that, which would lead to severe and irreversible fragmentation of the political parties. That era was marked by the anti-communist paranoia, so a way to achieve that was some sort of big scandal, much worser than Watergate, which presents severe, large and deep communist infiltration and manipulation rooted inside both of the parties. The cause of the scandal could be someone presenting or leaking convicing evidence that one of the parties was in fact controlled by Moscow, and the scandal escalates quickly enough to show that the truth is that both parties are Moscow-controlled puppets. Some top-secret information leaked from CIA or KGB printed in the first page of a NY Times edition would be able to ignite that, with things just getting worse and worse as the situation progresses. However there should still be an important big quirk/gotcha to prevent that somebody just simply say "*f--- that*" and hit the big red button leading to WW3.
The public opinion would then perceive that both the Democratic and the Republican parties as traitors. Even democratic and republican congressmen and senators would, with many of them leaving en masse their former parties. As a consequence, both parties quickly disintegrates into a lot of smaller parties which distrusts and infight between them. Defecting/defected deputies and senators from both of the former parties would quickly be able to approve any constitutional changes which would be need to allow an easy creation of new parties.
Those newly created parties will tend to attract people which shares very similar toughts while being hostile to people who thinks differently, even in minor points, very unlike than the present bipartidarian system where each party hosts groups with very different political views. This would quickly lead to a situation where parties have unreconciliable political views and each one of them would oppose the others in varying degrees.
As the years passes, eventually unrelated or distant related reasons would make some of those new parties go extinguished, some new ones born, some of them fuse/rejoin and some or them being further divided. And this would persist for many and many years. With some time, a party would only rarely trust other party, and when that would happen, it would be just on some pontual and occasional situations when they agree more by coincidence than anything else or just want to defeat a proposal or idea from some other third party who both consider as a greater foe.
Finally, something must set in the public and congressmen opinion the idea that multiple parties are better than just two parties because puppeting a lot of small independent parties should be much harder than puppeting just two big ones. Some strong evidence should be presented that somehow, Moscow cannot puppet America's parties efficiently anymore in this new situation and that Moscow wanted to preserve the US bipartidarism system. This is important to keep discredited the idea that fragmentation and disorganization was one of Moscow's objectives, otherwise eventually someone/something might refound the bipartidary system or just start a single-party one.
# Your activist
In this setting, anybody could be your activist. Somebody that told in antecipation that Moscow was controlling both parties and tried to warn America's about that months or even a few years before the scandal is revealed is a likely candidate for winning the presidency after the scandal is revealed. Your activist is much more likely to be some extreme or moderate right-wing communistphobic guy, but it is also perfectly possible that somebody else, even a left-wing (although still anti-soviet) guy could be.
[Answer]
The problem is that a first-past-the-post system tends to coalesce around two parties. And since everybody elected in a first-past-the-post system is elected under such rules, those are rules that work well for all of those who have the power to change the rules, which makes then uninterested to change such rules.
So, to break the tide-lock of a two-party first-past-the-post system, you would need a third party ideologically devoted to breaking the system. That would have to be a highly centralised party, able and willing to expell any members who betray the aim of ending the two-party system.
This party then would have to exploit the frail points of the FPTP system. One such is clearly the tendency to create "safe" electoral districts - in the US, "red" and "blue" States, congressional districts, etc. At some point, a State or district will become so "blue", or, conversely, so "red", that they weaker party will cease to try to win such district. You then have a district where a minoritary, but sizeable, chunk of the electorate has been abandoned by its preferred party: red voters in blue districts, blue voters in red districts. Your third, let's say "yellow" party, wants these voters, but it also wants occasionally disgruntled voters from the district major party.
There are two possible tactics here: one, you run a "purple" platform, which gets the minority voters *en bloc* because purple is a lesser evil to the disgruntled minority, but perhaps still acceptable for a part of the majority. Or you run a "crazy" platform that seems "redder than red" in a red district (and conversely, "bluer than blue" in a blue district), and then work to tear apart the majority, while making dog-whistle signs to the minority, in the expectation that they hate the dominant party so much that they will vote for anything that can break its hegemony. Either way, you hope to win a few districts where the majority party is overconfident and lazy, and to come up with a significant number of second places nationwide, so that you can establish yourself not as a national third party, but as a regional **second** party wherever possible.
If you can win a few local governments, you then try to make them poster-cases for your yellow party and yellow policies. Where you are unable to do that, you attempt to at least get a few representatives and city councelours and make them an earnest oppositional force, if possibly more earnest - more decisive and more competent - than the traditional parties.
Your yellow party then systematically strives for legislation changes that undermine the FPTP dynamics. You want proportional representation, multi-vote, double ballots in case of no majority, party lists, party discipline, no State (including no judicial branch) interference in parties internal affairs (so that you can effectively resist the tendency of your own people to get comfortable in getting elected in FPTP), term limits (to force the major parties to change candidates and occasionally run less experienced politicians), etc.
You will evidently have to find ways of financing your movement; you will have to treat donors as you treat voters, identifying those who are more concerned with defeating one of the official parties than with supporting the other.
And then you need to do this for several electoral cycles, and expect that a political or economic crisis will allow you to surpass one or both the ruling parties and allow you to implement an electoral reform that effectively changes the system. Or you then you make a U turn and accept FPTP now that it favours you, and watch the weakest of the two old parties die slowly...
[Answer]
Simple.
First, join either the Republican or Democratic establishments.
Second, assuming that the activist is a decent politician, gather votes at at various rallies through the country. When primaries come, this activist should either win states he rallied in or come in a respectable second. He should also show respect to other candidates from his party, and maybe even make friends with them.
Third, now that he's on top and set to clench his party's nomination, a day before the party's convention, he should drop out of his party and declare himself an independent.
Fourth, he should ask one of his fellow candidates who is still in the party but didn't get the nomination to become his vice president. Hopefully, he/she accepts. Now, a new influx of voters will come to vote for this dynamic duo.
Fifth, this activist now has almost a 1/3 chance in becoming president. The hardest part of the presidential process is getting on to the ballot. From there, with some epic advertising and rallies to stir the crowd up, your unnamed activist should be able to become President.
[Answer]
The problem with breaking a 2 party system is that you often need 4 parties and not 3 to change the status quo.
If a new independent party appears on the right (like the tea party) then it splits the Republican vote, meaning the Democrats take power. Which doesn't break the status quo.
What you need is for both the Democrats and the Republicans to split at the same time. In terms of narrative I think you would need a historic level decision to usher the change. A potential example of this could be the proposed [Franco-British Union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-British_Union). What if this pact was offered to America after WW2? Would republicans be split along nationalist/imperialist lines? Would the Democrats see it as an opportunity to bring in European style socialism to America or a costly burdon?
[Answer]
You don't need to win the presidency to have political impact. Trying to change the voting system on the Federal level is a relatively hard problem because it requires you to convince a lot of different people.
if you wanted to fight the two party system it makes much more sense to focus on a more local level. Getting a single US state to switch to Party List Proportional Representation for it's state election would be much easier than to try to get the whole US to change.
[Answer]
It's quite possible... and it nearly happened. Ross Perot was competitive at points in 1992 before he dropped out of the race. I believe at one point he was actually leading. He later got back into the race, but never returned to his old polling numbers. Had he not dropped out in the first place, who knows what would have happened.
Ultimately you just need the right candidate that captures the interest of the general voting populace. And a lot of money, obviously. Its certainly a lot easier to do with the backing of a party, but not impossible without it.
] |
[Question]
[
In 2053 a manned mission to the moon, using seismic sensors, discovers that it is not a natural satellite\*. The moon is actually an egg of *[Vespula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespula_vulgaris) ludicrousmegagiganto*. Note that the name is not truly scientific - the shape of the creature is just vaguely wasp-like, and it stuck.
By 2071 and after extensive study, the scientific consensus is that - at some point between one and ten thousand years from now - the "egg" will hatch, and the creature will devour the earth to start its next phase of life. For obvious reasons we'd prefer this not to happen.
**Is it possible to move the moon elsewhere using modern technology?**
Since the science is imprecise, political will exists to start it moving ASAP, using all of the world's available resources. It could theoretically hatch at any time. They are looking to accomplish this with 2071 tech - consider this equivalent to what we have in 2015, perhaps with some optimizations but without any truly groundbreaking physics advancements. So no generated gravity or reactionless drives, for example.
Success is defined as "Put the moon into orbit around another planet within 500 years". Destroying it is officially considered too risky, although conspiracy theorists point out the tremendous scientific advances that could be gathered by studying the creature.
Ideally the movement would be accomplished without excessive impacts to the moon, but if that's not viable they will consider [explosive drives](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)).
\*a competing theory is that it was a natural satellite, and the creature burrowed in and grew there over time. The difference is largely academic at this point.
[Answer]
Let's do a bit of math.
According to [Wikipedia,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon) the mass of the moon is $7.3\cdot10^{22}\,\rm kg$ and its average orbital speed is $1.0\,\rm km/s$. That means its kinetic energy is $3.7\cdot 10^{28}\,\rm J$. According to the [virial theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virial_theorem) the potential energy is $-2$ times the kinetic energy. To get the moon away of the earth (that is at potential energy $0$), you therefore need to add at least the same amount of energy as the moon's kinetic energy again.
So we are looking at a method to add $3.7\cdot 10^{28}\,\rm J$ to the moon. For comparison, the largest nuclear bomb, the [Tsar Bomba,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba) releases an energy of up to about $240\,\mathrm{PJ} = 2.4\cdot 10^{17} J$. That is, you would have to detonate about $1.5\cdot 10^{11}$ Tsar Bombas to get the energy; that's 150 billion bombs. Even at the height of the cold war, there had "only" been [68 000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons) nuclear weapons. So you are looking at an arsenal two million times the total arsenal of the cold war. And that's assuming you manage to transfer 100% of the energy the bombs release to the moon, which itself is rather unrealistic.
Another bit of trivia: A year has about 30 million seconds, therefore 500 years have about 15 billion seconds. So you'd have to build ten Tsar Bombas per second.
Or in short: Forget moving the moon. Better think of ways to kill the wasp.
[Answer]
Any experienced xenoentomologist can tell you that the natural enemy of *Vespula ludicrousmegagiganto* is the interplanetary parasitic wasp *Proctotrupoidea corpusparadeisos*, which lays its eggs exclusively in *V. ludicrousmegagiganto* larvae.
So if the core problem is saving the Earth from destruction, then it will suffice to merely introduce a mating pair of *P. corpusparadeisos* to the moon and await the inevitable grisly dénuement.
I'm sure that 500 years will be ample time for Humanity to figure out how to cram a female *P. corpusparadeisos* into an Apollo LEM. The male, of course, will follow on his own.
[Answer]
You could damage the egg with drills carrying bombs. Put some on the surface, make them drill to the egg (I suppose it can't be too deep, it has to be large enough to eat the earth after all) and detonate the bombs inside. Even if it hatches it should be damaged enough to die soon after hatching. Naturally there's the problem with carcass which falling to the surface of earth could damage it quite a bit, and debris from moon (when wasp hatches it will probably destroy the moon)
[Answer]
I think in all reality, were humanity to face this problem, they would just move planets. the resources needed to move a celestial body would be tremendous, even compared to moving the humans, and I'm pretty sure we need the tides that the Moon brings.
] |
[Question]
[
In a question I saw on here a while back, somebody said that the development of a sapient, technologically progressing species requires fire, and thus such a phenomenon could not occur under water.
However, geothermal vents can become quite hot, and so could it be possible for an underwater species to use that for purposes that would normally require a fire, such as cooking meat and melting metal and such?
If such conditions are not possible on earth, could a situation allow this on other planets? And what would be the effects of the required changes?
Thank you!
[Answer]
They key thing determining what you can do with a geothermal vent is how hot it gets. The [hottest subsea vents on Earth](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2006GC001509/abstract) measure around 410 °C at the surface; you might be able to get a bit hotter though clever plumbing or isolating the water supply.
Now, what can you do with 400-500° water?
* Cooking. Virtually all cooking takes place at lower temperatures, so there's no problem here. (In fact, [Fishing Cone Geyser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_Cone) in Yellowstone was used for cooking fresh-caught fish).
* Casting metal. Out of the classic metals, [tin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin), [zinc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc), and [lead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead) all have melting points below 500°C. The actual process would be a bit tricky, as you need to isolate the metal and the mold from water to prevent overly-quick cooling; if you're using a shallow vent, you also need to worry about steam explosions.
What you can't do:
* Smelt the metal in the first place. [Tin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_dioxide), [zinc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_oxide), and [lead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc_smelting) all are smelted by heating the appropriate oxide to temperatures in excess of 1000°C in the presence of a reducing agent.
[Answer]
Just to widen the scope a bit, in regards to "the development of a sapient, technologically progressing species requires fire, and thus such a phenomenon could not occur under water.", that statement shows a distinct lack of imagination and critical thought. perhaps not a "technologically progressing species" in the same way WE progress, but just a moments thought can give many alternatives. for example, where we progressed thru fire and metallurgy, the hypothetical aquatics may progress thru biological manipulation and electricity. for example, suppose some genius noticed that the shocks give off by an electric eel analogue are transmitted thru a certain species of seaweed analogue, and had the idea of trapping a electric eel and constructing a barrier of said conductive seaweed, where he could connect the eel to the barrier and induce it to give off a shock to ward away a predator. is this not considered "technologically progressing" ? it could lead to genetic manipulation via breeding both eels and seaweed, and looking for other such things like finding and improving a biological source of stronger materials, perhaps based on calcium, silicon, etc to make weapons and devices from. Our own science is just beginning to explore making materials from, for example, inducing bacteria and other "living" organisms to grow them how we want them.
[Answer]
The biggest problem with the geothermal vents is that they're located deep in the abyssopelagic zones.
While it might be tempting to view the ocean as the monolithic volume that your species can travel freely in any of the six directions, it's not the case, the water there is nearly devoid of oxygen and will kill anyone who's unable to get away quickly, and then there are the pressure issues as well. It's quite literally analogous to trying to climb Mt. Everest with prehistoric tools, with the exception that you're absolutely blind during the whole journey.
Abyssopelagic zone is more or less isolated from the sunny upper layers of the oceans, so apart of the "how to survive down there" problem, your species will have the "how to learn that there is something of use to give us the reason to venture there" problem as well.
[Answer]
Apart from the metals referred to in the original response (lead, tin and zinc - and lead is toxic) there's no metals that could be reduced at the temperatures and in the environment described. However you might (and I do stress might) with the appropriate technical knowledge possibly use or substitute certain polymers and clay/ceramics to make tools etc. Even this though has strict limits on utility re; what you can produce when limited to geothermal springs as your one and only energy source.
An aquatic culture could become adept at selective breeding and aquaculture etc but as long as they are fully aquatic and not semi-aquatic they are pretty much doomed to pre-industrial revolution technology levels. Which does not of course stop them advancing in other areas like mathematics and the arts that are not reliant on ongoing advances in material science.
So while they can 'advance' in some fields as far as technology goes they will have hit a plateau beyond which they cannot advance without leaving the ocean.
[Answer]
This question seems to be doing two things:
1. asking for confirmation that fire is required
2. and, based on the assumption that it is, asking if ocean vents could fill that requirement
This answers purpose is to point out that fire, (or high general heat), MAY NOT BE REQUIRED for development of technology in an aquatic environment. AND I am providing a different solution.
First: NO it appears fire is NOT required for technological advancement.
I am recycling another answer to a similar question to explain: [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/3714/how-would-an-aquatic-civilisation-forge-tools)\*.
\*(as in I am almost completely quoting [the answer I added](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/3773/2162) to that question).
However it provides an alternative to the requirement of needing fire to smelt metals... it would require the race to
- experiment a lot,
- possibly find solvents for metals (heat from vents may help here)
- and likely methods of isolating the desired metals
SEE BELOW
>
> ...I suspect it would be possible for a bioelectric race, to learn advanced forms of electroplating & electroforming.
>
>
>
>
> My limited understanding of electroplating is:
>
>
>
>
> Dissolve a metal
> Develop a 'mandrel' in the desired shape
> Utilize an electric current which, in some way, bonds the metal to the mandrel (not exactly sure on the details of how...)
> All of the above steps seem likely to be possible & even possibly easier, in an aquatic environment.
>
>
>
>
> Electroforming is actually even more interesting, in that it is used to create highly detailed as well as much thicker products.
>
>
>
>
> Electroforming could be used to actually produce things such as knives, swords, etc... out of metal, (not just a coating of metal on something else more easily formed).
> Additionally electroforming can be VERY accurate in reproducing highly detailed forms/mandrels, even, if I understand correctly, on the nano scale (the scale of the transistors our current computer chips are measured in).
> This would very much support the idea of making computer circuits in a similar form as our PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards)... to go with your other post on that topic (and what got you thinking about this one).
>
>
>
Hopefully the above is helpful for you when developing your race.
I highly recommend reading [this answer from Culyx](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/3727/2162) on this very topic.
] |
[Question]
[
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
[This question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19469/how-long-would-it-take-for-the-americas-to-reach-renaissance-level-technology) prompts me to evaluate the possibility that the romans or greeks could be blown in a storm to the Americas and survive if they had enough water provisions?
Or maybe not provisions but expertise of some sort to survive the long journey? Is this possible (even if very remotely).
Just a reality check.
[Answer]
This is possible, but rather improbable.
Ancient vessels were very lightly constructed, the usual practice to build the shell of the boat first and the insert ribs and framing, and warships like a trireme are actually very lightly built, so the oarsmen can bring it up to speed rapidly, execute complex manoeuvres and so on. A large storm would be a grave danger to such a ship, and at the first sign of heavy weather the captain wold most likely order the ship to be beached in order to be safe. Since ancient ships also spent most of their time sailing close to shore, and generally beached at night, it would be very difficult for a storm to really pul a ship out to sea. If a ship was to be caught in a storm, then the most likely outcome would be the ship would break up and sink.
Triremes had the added disadvantage of having large crews packed in a very small space, so there was not a lot of on board supplies. Water, in particular, would be a huge issue, and a human being will die after three days without water. A trireme would have over 100 people on board, and contrary to the movies, these were all highly skilled crew members, not slaves (a slave on the oars of a tightly packed rowing bench could cause disruption by not being able or willing to keep up with the ever changing rhythm of the oars as the ship manoeuvred). Throwing the oarsmen overboard to conserve supplies would be problematic, especially since they outnumbered the rest of the crew by a very large margin. A ship adrift under these conditions would probably see a large percentage of the crew die due to thirst, or in a bloody mutiny.
A more probable scenario is a "round ship" carrying cargo and a small crew of professional sailors being blown off course and ending up in the Americas. Since the ship is larger and more stoutly built, it is more likely to survive a storm, and since the crew is small, they can make the supplies last longer (and indeed they may be able to pillage the cargo for extra supplies). Once ashore, they also have the advantages of having trade goods to establish communications with the natives, and sailors in those days would normally also be traders, so able to make sharp deals once ashore.
[Answer]
If they were in the Mediterranean (their usual territory) then I would say not without divine intervention.
If they were in the Eastern Atlantic, perhaps off the coast of Spain or Morocco, then I think it could happen. People have survived adrift for very long periods. [Steven Callahan survived for 76 days adrift in a life raft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Callahan). [Richard Van Pham survived for three and a half months adrift in a sail boat without a sail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Van_Pham). That's more than long enough to cross the Atlantic: 3000 miles at 3 knots would take about 40 days. A boat with a crew would have even better prospects with more options (resorting to cannibalism for example).
The boat and crew would be extremely lucky to survive it but it would not be impossible. They would probably not be in good condition if they did.
They would most likely arrive on the north coast of South America or the Caribbean because of the usual winds and currents. In the North Atlantic, winds tend to blow west to east but the trade winds near the equator are usually east to west.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/aeFT4.jpg)
(Picture from <http://science.kennesaw.edu/~jdirnber/oceanography/>)
[Answer]
In 1969 Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Atlantic in a papyrus boat similar to one he found on Egyptian pyramids. He was attempting to prove that Egyptians could have colonized the Americas.
[Answer]
# No
This is impossible, but not because a journey of that length is unsurvivable.
The distance between the Mediterranean and the Americas is something like 4,000 to 5,500 miles (depending on your landing point).
First: no storm can span that distance, which means it is impossible for the storm to simply deposit the boat near the Americas, *deus ex machina* style. This brings us to the second problem.
Second: the Americas lie West of the Mediterranean, while Greece is toward the Eastern side of the Mediterranean. East and West can readily be distinguished by the rising and setting of the sun. It is unthinkable that the crew of a shore-hugging boat would head directly *away* from their home port for days or even weeks after being struck by a very powerful storm, and it is similarly impossible for them to be mistaken about whether they are heading East or West. Unless every one of the crew is insane, they will immediately try to reach the shore so they can take on food and fresh water, and (likely) repair their boat. The boat will probably head directly Northeast until it sights shore.
So, while a Greek or Roman vessel crewed by contemporary sailors may be capable of crossing the Atlantic (as other answers describe), it is utterly impossible for this to happen by accident or force. For this scenario to take place, it is an absolute necessity that the sailors actively undertake most of the journey deliberately.
] |
[Question]
[
I recently learned of a fascinating art project being developed by Sam van Aken involving the grafting of flower buds onto a stock tree. You can find out more about the project itself by visiting the [official website](http://www.treeof40fruit.com/).
In theory, this art project will result in a series of trees that can each produce a variety of fruits. My understanding of genetics indicates that, were the seeds from these fruits be planted, the separate trees would be grown rather than the amalgam tree.
Out of curiosity and a desire to give a whole new flavor to a world I'm working on, I'd like to know if it is conceivable a plant like the amalgam tree in the art project could ever evolve naturally in that it can produce a variety of viable fruits that each produce the same amalgam species.
My hope is for a single forest that could provide all the nutritional needs of a small vegetarian community. It would certainly be a splendid vista, assuming the artist's representation at the linked site pans out:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0bcwi.jpg)
*Is it feasible for an amalgam plant to evolve naturally?*
[Answer]
One possibility I see is **Parasitic Vampire Trees** that mug other fruit trees for their genetic codes, steal their fruit, and then replace the seeds with their own. We shall call it **Prunus draculus**.
Prunus draculus started out as a peach tree that was getting edged out. Losing the evolutionary war to bigger, tastier fruit trees, it by chance lucked into a new strategy. It learned how to cheat.
Developing along with a symbiotic virus, Prunus starts is plan as a [Chimera Plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics)#Plants) (thank you Samuel). It grows on other trees, then starts slowly taking what it wants. The virus steals the genetic code for the parent tree's fruit, returning it to Prunus, and then replaces the parent's seeds with Prunus seeds instead. Now everything from the tree grows into a new Prunus, and gets to include the new, stolen fruit as well.
Over long periods of time, Prunus has pillaged and destroyed nearly the entire fruit tree kingdom, slowly becoming the sole victor in a cornucopia king of the hill game. Pure fruit trees only exists in specialized plant zoos, a remnant of an earlier, more idyllic time in plant history. In the wild, there is only Prunus draculus, with its tasty but mildly horrifying smorgasbord of deliciousness.
*Edited for vampire tree flavor, because I liked that comment.*
[Answer]
The only natural way such a plant could evolve is if evolving different fruits gave it an advantage worth the complexity of doing so. It's hard to imagine how that could be but I'll give it a go:
Perhaps such a plant could evolve in the following scenario:
* The location is Tropical so it can flower and fruit all year round.
* Places where its seeds can germinate are very rare (but not too
rare): the tree must tempt animals to carry their seeds away or they
will probably not find a suitable place if simply dropped or cast
into the wind.
* No animals are available for doing this all year round. Various species do
migrate across the territory of these plants at various times in the
year but only fleetingly. No single animal species would eat enough
fruit to propagate the plant enough by themselves.
Then, the plant might evolve to bear different fruits for different animals at the right times of year for their various migratory habits.
That seems to me just about plausible. However, I expect that the far more likely result of that situation would be:
a) the plant would not grow there
or
b) the plant would focus on one of the animal species and produce a bumper crop so that the animal would be drawn there in massive numbers (adjusting its habits) and the plant and animal will grow to be dependent on each other.
And of course the plant has to find itself in this situation after having evolved in another situation where it could survive without multiple fruits. It would have to evolve this system quite rapidly. It seems less and less likely the more I think about it (but then so do colonial insects and spiders and flamboyant cuttlefish - nature does amazing things).
[Answer]
**It's possible.**
What you're talking about is called a [chimera plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics)#Plants) (the proper name unless you're an artist, then you make up names). They do [occur naturally in fruiting trees](http://journal.ashspublications.org/content/116/5/888.full.pdf).
Though you're unlikely to get different types of fruit, chimera trees with different color foliage do naturally appear. [Though they are quite rare](http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Tallest-Albino-Redwood-Chimera-Tree-in-Cotati-Sonoma-County-Fight-to-Save-250182551.html).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/weoOU.jpg)
EDIT:
If you question is as Mike interprets it, can a tree evolve to produce many different types of fruit, the answer is very likely no. I assumed that was clear. However, if you're looking for the same end product, then the mechanism I laid out in the comments, a nesting creature unintentionally making grafts, then it is much more plausible.
[Answer]
An amalgam tree could exist naturally, as *multiple* species! This actually exists in nature!
Well, on a modest scale. I'm refering to hemiparasitic plants, like mistletoe.
Let's imagine the evolutionary steps needed to get to an amalgam tree, and work out the details.
**Step: mistletoe like parasite**
Mistletoe is a "obligate stem hemiparasite". Meaning it can't live on it's own, but grows on the trunk of other trees. It steals nutrients and water from them, but has it's own leafs and off course fruits.
Mistletoe grafts itself on another tree, all that is needed is a bird pooping out its seed on another tree trunk.
**Step: Parasites starts feeding the host**
Now imagine the parasite is too successfull. The hosts would eventually die because the parasites steal to much water and nutrients. The parasite could evolve to prevent this by feeding the host sugar, to keep it alive. In a way, the parasite is not much different then a man-made fruit tree graft. The relation is getting more symbiotic then parasitic now.
**Step: Full symbiosis evolves**
The host and symbiont (no longer parasite) could further evolve together at this point. Some things that might happen:
* No more leafs of it's own. The symbiont provided all needed nutrients
* Special spot places where the symbionts can graft themselves, while other places on the trunk are impossible for the symbiont to graft itself to.
* Host tree could grow bird nests on it's trunk to encourage bird droppings on graft sites.
One possible requirement is that the host tree and the symbiont don't compete too much for pollination and fruit. This is easily possible:
* Host tree might use wind pollination while symbiont uses insects
* Symbionts might have fruits, while host tree has sticky seeds that stick to the creatures gathering the fruit (birds, monkeys...).
**Step: evolutionary success**
If the symbiosis is very successfull, it might drive out all other normal trees. One reasons this could work is that if this happens in a very high jungle, symbionts can evolve faster, as they start at the top of the canopy instead of from the bottom.
**Step: multiple host and symbiont species**
Both the host and symbiont species could evolve into different species. The host could evolve to handle multiple terrains, while the symbionts could evolve to handle multiple canopy/wildlife situations.
This would become another possible reason that the amalgam tree is more successfull then regular trees: imagine that serious viral (or bacteria, insect or other wilflife) plagues are a common threat for all plant species, but typically only hit one species at a time. The host tree would be at an advantage because it has multiple symbionts and can thus easily handle the loses to just one of the symbiont species. One symbiont species could be hit hard by a plague, but can recover quicly afterwards, thanks to the nutriants and water supplied by the host (and thus survive thanks to the other species of symbiont!).
A forest full of extremely diverse amalgam trees is actually not that far fetched in this scenario!
All of this would require no sentient being to grow it, it would all work by seed scattering by creatures. (so bird poop on tree trunks)
But this could perhaps evolve further.
**Step: One seed, multiple species**
The host tree could have special spots where it gathers bird droppings, and incoporates the small symbiont seeds in these into a large seed of it's own.
(I imagine this is possible, there are multiple species where the female stores male sperm for later usage.)
The big host tree seed would contain a lot of symbiont seeds, and when it hits the ground, it would start growing, spreading the symbiont seeds inside its trunk, and activating them at the spots where they are needed.
**Final Step: One amalgam species**
When this evolves further, it could become even more complex, and the boundaries between species will blur. The only problem I see is that the need to have fruits on the symbiotic species might probably dissapear.
Just look at mythocondria, the energy sources within our cells, for inspiration. They started of as completely seperate organisms, and now replicate together with the host cells as one species!
(note: I've edited my original answer to show how this could evolve into one seed for an amalgam tree.)
[Answer]
I think it's extremely unlikely. A lot of time and effort goes into creating flowers and fruit as they are. You are asking if a plant will devise multiple paths for procreation and stay the same tree.
Some plants can have some significant changes depending on their environment. [Sium Suave](http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/wetland/plants/wt_parsnip.html) grows on the boarders of wetlands. As such it can be underwater or partially under water or on dry land. Many plants like one or the other. To help deal with this, it has two distinct leaf patterns. and the leaves will change back and forth with the raising and lowering of the water.
So I could see a fruit bearing tree to have a similar type of change depending on it's environment. This would still be limited in number of possible changes, and likely all the fruit would be the same on the whole tree, unless there is a wet/dry situation or maybe a bright sunny/ dark shade where two areas of the tree have different 'environments' it is dealing with. Or as a possibility of different seasons producing different fruit, for different dispersal mechanisms (including different animals).
] |
[Question]
[
Would an ancient civilization be able to build a bicycle if they thought it up somehow? It doesn't have to be a modern bike with handbrakes and multiple gears and shock absorbers. It could be one gear and just pedal backwards to brake.
As a concrete example, could the Ancient Romans have done this? **Pretty sure they had gears but not sure about the chain sprocket.** EDIT: apparently a chain is not strictly necessary since you could just attach pedals directly to one of the wheels.
There is also a question of exactly what metal or alloy to use so that the frame is strong enough. Could wood also work?
**What would it take for ancient peoples to conceive of the idea? They had the wheel and gear, but where would the idea of "pedal power" come from?**
It's a shame it wasn't invented sooner. All those Roman roads were already built.
[Answer]
# Absolutely.
**Wheels** - I envisage two wooden wheels, padded by cork if you like (plentiful), which might be more comfortable than wood-padded by metal (also possible), but the cork will wear.
**Chain** - Perhaps rope instead of the chain. Or a [chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Chain#Invention), why not?
**Body** - This can be wood or [metal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalworking#Prehistory), very easily.
**Seats** - There were chairs and cushions long before this, so have fun with it.
**Gears** - You have already covered this.
**Others** - for my enjoyment, please add a basket or storage of some sort. Hey, I live in Portland!
In fact, it could look very similar to this much more modern [dandy-horse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandy_horse).
[Answer]
Romans could have built a bicycle. Maybe somebody even did, but nobody wanted it. The Romans would have been unable to build pneumatic tires or ball bearings. Also they lacked the technology for building large stamped metal parts. And mass production in general. (Some things they did got close.) So the bike would have been heavy, uncomfortable, slow, and expensive.
Given that rich Romans had access to horses and slaves to carry or pull them, it really would have made no sense to use a bicycle even if they got one. And before industrialization cheap transport for urban masses did not really make sense. People worked at or near their homes and shopped mostly within short range.
So the real limiting factor is having some need for them. And then having technology good enough to fill that need. Not the basic invention and building of a bicycle.
[Answer]
Although the earliest description of a bicycle like device is allegedly from Leonardo da Vinci in the late 1400's, the first bicycle like devices were popularised in the early 1800's after the "year without summer" killed a significant number of horses. (Don't forget that 1815 also marked the end of the Napoleonic wars and the end of the War of 1812, so horses were already in short supply).
This suggests that the key to developing mechanical transport would be a combination of factors, including the actual availability of roads, a population which was familiar with tools and some mechanical devices and a lack of animal or muscle powered transport due to some external factor like a massive volcanic eruption creating global cooling and massive crop failures.
Even then, people would also have had to have an actual need to get around. Most people never left their village or town unless they were either living by the coast or a navigable river, or had wanderlust or joined/were impressed by the local army. Most of the stuff you needed for day to day living was a short walk away.
An ancient army like the Roman Legions would have a much better chance of developing a bicycle like device under these circumstances, since they were well stocked with engineers and technical staffs, had access to roads and a need to get around quickly. Romans could and did make lots of mechanical devices, including things we would recognize as clockwork, war engines driven by tension or torsion to fling arrows and catapult stones and portable boats and bridges. By the first century AD simple heat engines were built as toys or automatic door openers at temples, so all that is really needed is a Hero of Alexandria to put his mind to transportation and it is conceivable that a device like the *Draisine* might have been invented. Couriers lacking horses would have been an obvious first use for these *Draisines*, and the practice would have spread from there (literally, as people would watch amazed as a courier sped past them at running speed without obviously expending running amounts of energy).
[Answer]
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/00K0q.jpg)Yes! The wooden Velocipede with an iron foot crank on the front wheel would have been easy. No need for ball bearings though archaeological evidence hints they had that too. All it would have taken was will. The average Roman light carriage (cisium) traveled about 6 miles per hour according to Cicero which was considered fast. A bicycle has to go that fast just to stay stable. Steady speeds up to 15-25 miles per hour are easy for a conditioned man. Roads could have been made more comfortable by a covering of concrete (opus caementicium)which was available. Roman generals would have loved them not for battle but to move troops fast without exhausting them. The race to get a faster, more comfortable ride would have driven technology right up to the automobile and airplane which both sprang from the bicycle industry.
[Answer]
I think they can build something like this 
at least with wheels like this
[Answer]
Romans' could make a bicycle. But looking at the evolution of bicycles, first prototypes were harder to use. They were dangerous and required a lot of energy to ride ( more than current bicycles).
And I don't think bearings existed during Roman empire. Which would drastically increase the resistance of the wheels.
So I don't think that it's not that Roman's couldn't make bicycles, just that they were not practical during the period.(Like some designs' of Leonardo da vinci's)
[Answer]
Wheels and carriages already existed. Albeit most Romans had these things available to them, a slave owner thought that driving a carriage with a horse around is tedious, and wouldn't it be good if he could send his slaves around on something smaller? So he drew up the idea of the bicycle and went to the city manager for funding, only to get laughed out of city hall, because "running around on two wheels will never catch on."
] |
[Question]
[
In a few science-fiction books I've read, the world that the story takes place on doesn't have a sun, but does have a "sun belt," where (instead of a regular sun) the world is lit by a stretch of sky that's always there, and turns darker at "night time," and lights up more strongly at "day time."
This would look something like a thick [planetary ring](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/2637/2072), that luminesces all by itself, doing the job that the Sun does for our own planet, Earth.
**Is any part of this lighting plan realistic?**
* Can this be occur naturally?
* If it can't be done naturally, can it be done artificially?
* Either way, is the "darkening for night-time" effect possible?
[Answer]
The other answers have pointed out that a sun belt as you imagine in it, a planetary ring, could not naturally develop. However, I have another idea for how you could get the same effect. When you look up at the night sky from somewhere on earth that isn't too light polluted, you can see the Milky Way: 
This dense band of stars exists because our galaxy is roughly disc shaped. Our solar system is in this disc, so when we look towards the center of the galaxy there is a much higher density of stars and you see this bright belt. Now imagine a world in a different part of our galaxy, or another galaxy all together, where the stars in the band are closer, denser, and brighter. When one half of the planet is rotated towards the galactic center it is in daytime, and when it rotates away it is in nighttime, because there are fewer stars in the "sun belt". I believe this could explain your sun belt setting. Again, it might not work for our galaxy, but certainly such a galaxy could exist.
[Answer]
Details are scarce, but I know of no natural phenomenon that can do that in a stable manner. A compact object radiating x-rays could be invisible while making a ring glow, but the geometry doesn't work. And such objects are bad neighbours anyway.
Artificially it is simple enough. Build satellites on stable orbits and give them nuclear reactors where transparent materials expose the core downwards. We have had the technology for such satellites for decades. What we do not have is the resources required for the sheer number of satellites needed. The satellites would also need constant maintenance, although a civilization with the resources for a belt would almost certainly be able to automate that. And have several alternate methods of building the belt available. Having fusion power would help a lot with resources, for example.
[Answer]
It is **gravity** which compresses hydrogen until nuclear fusion starts. Gravity compresses object to a sphere, not torus.
Your idea of the "shining torus" is impossible to occur naturally, within laws of physics. Of course sufficiently advanced civilization can build gigantic lamp of any shape and size.
[Answer]
It is almost totally improbable for a toroidal star to originate naturally, but in theory it may be possible for a *very* technically advanced society to create one artificially, probably involving a series of massive linear accelerators.
If a large body of gas was spun up to sufficiently high rates of angular velocity, such that the centripetal forces were greater than the force of gravity at the surface of a sphere of the amount of gas involved, then it is possible that the gas could form a toroid.
With a sufficient volume of gas, compression within the toroid could lead to the ignition of a hydrogen fusion reaction, resulting in the toroid being the requested luminous band.
The amount of gas involved would be extreme - without the high-velocity spin keeping the ring-star a ring, the volume of gas involved would form a [hypergiant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergiant) star or a [Wolf-Rayet star](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf%E2%80%93Rayet_star), which would quickly shed a lot of its mass. The speed of rotation would also be extreme, probably on the order of thousands of kilometres per second, depending on the diameter of the torus.
In order to have a world at the centre of such a system, the world could simply exist at the centre of mass/gravity of the system, and be constantly lit at the equator, with twilight at the poles.
Alternatively, we could invert another proposed type of solar system, where there is a central sun that bobs through the hole in a large solid flat disk ([an Alderson disk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alderson_disk)) - in this system, a central world could bob through the centre of mass of the ring star, thus alternately lighting first one side of the planet then the other, providing a day-night cycle.
As an aside, it may be very difficult to explore such a system without very powerful sources of thrust - the toroidal star would have a massive gravitic field, and would play havoc with conventional rockets' trajectories, meaning that it would be very difficult to visit bodies in the outer system, if there were any, and even seeing them from a planet at the centre of the ring would be difficult if they were in the plane of the toroidal star's rotation.
[Answer]
Simple, everyday clouds will do the trick.
I know because I live in one of the world's sunniest places. Sometimes the sky is covered with clouds, but when the clouds are thin, instead of making the day darker, this makes the day brighter. It has to do with the way they scatter light.
Sometimes it even hurts the eyes to look at these clouds. Looks like this:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vMsDD.jpg)
By the way, I didn't take this picture. The sky is just not the way I describe right now as I write this. I found this picture on the Internet.
Anyway, you could go for a better effect than that. The phenomenon that causes the sky to be blue is called [Rayleigh scattering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering). Take a look at how it works. If your world is permanently covered in clouds, or if the atmosphere is made of different substances than our own, then they could scatter all wavelengths coming into the planet rather than only the "bluemost" ones.
Someone traveling to your world would perceive the following differences, when comparing it to Earth:
* If you scatter all visible light just like our atmosphere does with blue light, then the sky will look white, or grayish. Imagine our own world if it had no sun, the sky were white, and the source of light were the sky itself. I think this is the effect you wanted, but there is more:
* Since the main source of light covers a much larger patch of the sky, objects exposed to skylight will cast no shadows at all for most of the day. When it starts to get dark, the whole sky will seem to be setting ("skyset"?), and then things will start to cast shadows. A similar effect would happen during "skyrise";
* Anyone who brought sunflowers from EArth to this planet would notice that the poor plants will go crazy. Okay, I completely made this one up. They would just probably be content by pointing to any point in the lighted sky.
This model allows for a natural night just like our own, too. All in all I think we can't get a simpler model than this.
[Answer]
1 - Nothing with the energy and mass of the sun can occur as a stable belt around a stable planet; it is physically impossible in consideration of what we know of physics. You would have to create an alternative universe to allow it.
2 I’m inferring that you want the artificial object to do ALL the jobs the sun does as it impacts the Earth only. It would not move the Earth to other places or orbits, and it would not allow the Earth to have our Moon as it is. The real sun also has an enormous mass that creates forces within the planet to heat itself in some ways and affects a lot of things. If this ‘ring’ had the mass of the sun (although structurally impossible – it would collapse on itself), it would tear the earth into pieces.
3 If there somehow was a belt that had a light as strong as the sun's affect on Earth on it, I assume you could have it just have one area that is bright, one dark, and set it to rotate around the Earth every 24 hours.
This is a very complicated system you're referring to: nice!
[Answer]
If I am reading your question correctly, it sounds like you are just looking for an alternate light/heat/energy source other than a standard star. A few interesting, yet plausible ideas:
A binary planet system that doesn't orbit any particular star, they just orbit each other (to account for a day/night cycle). One of the planets may exude massive amounts of energy of some sort while the other planet's atmosphere is an composed of a gas which reacts to the radiation of the first planet. When one side of the planet faces the radiation, it reacts and creates light.
] |
[Question]
[
If someone has the magical ability to make a vacuum(no or minimal matter/atmospheric pressure) on earth around someone would that person in the vacuum then sh\*t their pants? If so would it have to be a perfect vacuum?
A small bit of background. This would be like a spell or magical ability someone had. The question is related to a comedic scene/running theme I thought of while researching a bit about what happens to people in vacuums.
Edit: one of the methods I was thinking of using was like a trap/ritual/device that would be placed on the ground that would create a small vacuum over a certain length of time(maybe long or short) and the vacuum would last for a short time. small particles would be pushed away but people wouldn’t really notice the pushing effect when passing through. Just magic stuff :).
[Answer]
Not immediately. There would be other grave medical issues that would cause pretty severe results leading to death before any comedic "poopy pants" happened.
For example, gasses dissolved in the bloodstream would bubble into gaseous form like CO2 does in a carbonated beverage when the top is popped. This would cause brain embolisms and severe joint pain from "the bends".
And yes, gasses in the intestine would expand as well, but intestines are flexible so the effects would be a feeling of severe bloating and gas before they would force out any solid matter.
A more plausible scenario might be some strong form of ultrasound broadcast at a specific frequency that would simultaneously relax all muscles while liquifying internal solid waste in a manner similar to how vibrations cause wet sand to become unset and flow in a liquid manner.
[Answer]
## Yes
If I understand your question correctly, our hapless adventurer was walking along, minding his/her own business, enjoying the view, keeping an eye out for Kobolds... when suddenly some pestiferous mage stomping away from a three-day loosing streak gambling at the local tavern and nursing a nasty headache from swimming in the worst honey mead he'd ever had decides to return the cosmos to universal balance by sucking our adventurer into a torrid vacuum of death. Let me know if that's too far off what you're imagining.
**So, here's the skinny...**
>
> According to NASA's bioastronautics data book, the vacuum of space would also pull air out of your lungs, causing you to suffocate within minutes. ([Source](https://www.livescience.com/human-body-no-spacesuit))
>
>
>
I figure a vacuum there, a vacuum here, a vacuum is a vacuum, so if you think about it, that's no different from dying from something other than an instantly fatal gunshot or knife wound. In other words, other than it would hurt worse than the devil's own thumbscrews, we're not talking about anything unique or special. Putting a pillow over someone's face would lead to the same result. And what is that result? Among other things...
>
> Your muscles loosen immediately after death, releasing any strain on your bowel and bladder. As a result, most people poop and pee at death. ([Source](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/23144-what-happens-when-you-die))
>
>
>
So, yup, within a few minutes those kobolds lurking behind the bushes will have some free clothing in desperate need of dry cleaning. But the mage will feel better — especially if there's a bonus of popping a few kobolds.
[Answer]
Irrelevant--this very quickly inflicts lethal damage as the air rushes out of the lungs. So long as the vent isn't too big (IIRC 1% of the surface area of your habitat) you simply get the effects of a lack of oxygen, pass out in 10-15 seconds and likely lethal after a couple of minutes (faster than normal because your blood will dump whatever oxygen it has left when it goes through your lungs) but completely reversible if aid reaches you in time.
However, if the hole is too big (and your hole is effectively 100% of the area around them) the air rushes out so fast that it shreds the tissue as it goes. Restoring oxygen won't give you a working lung to breathe it.
] |
[Question]
[
I am envisioning a weapons team that can carry around a coilgun about the same size as a recoilless rifle.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0tdwy.jpg)
*The L55/12.M Crew Served Coilgun from Kaelo Engineering is the newest advancement in electromagnetic weaponry. Using advanced switching technology and high quality superconductors this long range, 12-stage anti-armour device can be carried by a team of 4 and rapidly assembled in a position of your choosing. Capable of firing a 2kg tungsten projectile in a ferromagnetic sabot at up to 4.7 km/s. These small and very high velocity projectiles will bypass shields and all but the most advanced point defense systems to neutralize almost any ground based target or even low flying aircraft in a pinch! Just dont forget to anchor the tripod and properly calibrate the recoil dampening system! Kaelo Engineering, bringing a secure future to you at hypersonic velocity.*
>
> Kaelo Engineering is not responsible for injuries resulting from spontaneous destructive quench events or field containment failure. No ferromagnetic objects, other than Kaelo approved ammunition, should be located within 5 meters of the L55/12.M during operation, discharge all coils promptly after use. Read L55/12.M operators manual FOM2187 in full prior to use, included with each gun and tripod package. Ammunition supplied seperately.
>
>
>
So that's the general idea, one issue. I'm trying to figure out a compact method of powering a 22MJ system like this. Compact fusion reactors exist in this universe but even the smallest models are still too heavy for a 4 man team to carry in the field. What are some probable near near-future (within 50 years or so) power generation/storage systems that can make this a practical system in both energy output and weight?
As mentioned before: Needs to be relatively light weight, enough for a single man to practically carry. 60 pounds absolute maximum or easily disassembled into pieces and reassembled.
Use known or theoretically feasible technology given proper advancement.
Not be unreasonably dangerous to operate or carry over rough terrain.
Edit: **Optional**: Quiet enough to maintain a level of stealth given proper concealment and preparation time.
[Answer]
The problem isn't quite the energy needed, but the *power*. 22MJ is what you'll get out of half a kilo of diesel (that's a volume of a bit over half a litre).
No, the issue is accelerating the projectile to 4.7km/s in a short distance. If your barrel is a conservative 4m long, you need to accelerate your projectile at over a quarter of a million gravities, and it'll clear the barrel in about 1.7 milliseconds. That requires a peak power of 13 gigawatts, and that's a *fearsome* thing to try and switch in man-portable equipment. Power is inversely proportional to barrel length, so a 2m barrel requires twice the power as the 4m model
(incidentally, I'm not going to run the numbers now, but I think that a ferromagnetic sabot will simply explode in the barrel and you might do well to not give too many details on the precise mechanisms and materials involved)
You've got basically two choices here. One is to use any old electrical charging system you can put your hands one (such as trioxidane's fuel cells, though I'd seriously recommend something that's liquid at room temperature for your fuel... I'm a fan of methanol, FWIW) and an energy storage system. Maybe some kind of [ultracapacitor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor) or [superconducting magnetic energy storage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energy_storage) might do, though you'd need some breakthroughs in technology to reach the power levels you want in a human-portable size and weight.
For something more interesting though, I'll steal an idea from the old *Colonial Marines Technical Handbook* and suggest a superconducting [homopolar generator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homopolar_generator), which the author suggested as a power supply for a kind of plasma weapon. This kind of power source is very old and conceptually quite simple... Faraday himself made one. Here's an example project from the late 70s which was capable of generating ~52MW peak power over 3.5ms in a pair of 30cm wide rotors: [FDX--A Fast Discharge Homopolar Generator](https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/33182).
Your coilgun uses a descendant of that design, using much more technologically advanced materials in the form of high temperature superconductors and carbon nanofibres to hold the rotors together and compact lightweight high quality vacuum chambers, etc. An external power source (like those fuel cells) *is* required to drive the motors that spin the rotors up, and once spinning you don't want to be moving the thing about and it will go bang in a *very* exciting way if anyone shoots it. You can discharge the generator directly into the switchgear of your coilgun, which brakes the rotor to a halt in the time it takes for the projectile to clear the barrel. Spin it up again to repeat.
The system is implicitly stealthy (unless you're using a combustion engine to spin up the rotor, as FDX did with gas turbines) because if your generator is so inefficient as to vibrate and make a noise it'll probably toast itself in very short order given the amount of energy it has built up. The motors that spin the rotors up may or may not be stealthy, depending on the technology you have available to you.
[Answer]
# Hydrogen
A kilo of hydrogen can release about 100MJ in a hydrogen fuel cell. That is more than enough to power your gun. Advancements in fuel cell technology is required to have enough hydrogen converted into power all at once. If liquid you can store 71kg/m³, which means a kg would fit in 10x10x14cm (+/- 4x4x5,5 inch) on the inside container. This is at high pressure and close to 0° Kelvin though. Hydrogen is also notorious for how easy it can escape containment. It requires special tanks to keep it stored for a long time without practical loss. The advantage is relatively low power loss when putting it through the fuel cell (the above 100MJ is already with the loss included). Diesel and such already have a lower energy density and using it in a combustion generator loses most to heat.
When setting up you would depressurise the liquid, causing it to heat up, expand and transform to gas. This can be used by many tiny fuel cells that produce electricity. This is then converted to the right Voltage and Amperes and put into the coils.
At worst it'll be a separate box that'll house the whole electrical unit, which then is connected by a single wire to the gun.
Most difficult parts are the containers for the hydrogen and fuel cells that can rapidly transform the hydrogen to electricity without adverse effects. Cooling will also be difficult. Pressurising can be done before they go into the field.
However, you have access to compact fusion generators. These require a lot better cooling, so cooling doesn't seem a problem. With such advances it'll be easy to imagine fuel cells being tiny, light and even more efficient than they already are.
The waste is water. If the container breaks it'll release a jet of hydrogen that'll combine into water, unlikely to explode or catch fire. If it does catch fire it'll be a single quick jet of fire upwards.
It should be safe to use on rough terrain. The 60 pound or 27kg limit is difficult to know, but as we're talking about future technologies we can say that hydrogen fuel cells can be made to be so small and loght that the whole electricity box is light enough.
[Answer]
## Lithium ion batteries
60lb would be doable for a single shot weapon using today's technology. Lithium Ion batteries have a power density of about 1 MJ/kg. Which means that you'd need to drain a 22kg(48lb) battery to fire the thing.
## ... but a Light Gas Gun may be better
The speed of sound for light gasses like hydrogen and Helium is much faster than for the heavier gasses that make up the air. Compressed Helium (not as efficient but way safer then hydrogen) can expand outwards at a speed of 1007 m/s. That said, if you funnel the gas down a conical , you can make it speed up as the conical narrows achieving speeds closer to 7000m/s (well above your goal.) The way light gas guns work is to use a traditional explosive to compress the gas using a piston until it ruptures a disc. The explosion takes much more time to expand than the light gas does; so, between the explosive to light gas transfer and the conical funneling you get a couple of stages of a mechanical advantages: trading off power for speed until your reach your 4.7km/s
Modern Gun powder releases about 3 MJ per kilogram, meaning you'd need 7.3 kg of explosives to reach your 22 MJ goal. Using today's technology: the thing that makes light gas guns so heavy is all the thick materials it takes to handle all the extreme pressures involved, but in 50 years or so, material technology could make the casings and barrels needed for such a weapon far thinner and more light weight. So, when you factor in the weight of the sabot, the piston, the casing, and the explosive, the whole shell could be 9-15ish kg meaning 1 team member could possibly carry 2-3 shells
[Answer]
**Explosives!**
Specifically an explosively pumped flux compression generator.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_pumped_flux_compression_generator>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YPi4z.jpg)
There is mature technology for storing lots of energy as stable chemicals: explosives. The explosively pumped flux compression generator generates a single powerful pulse.
>
> An explosively pumped flux compression generator (EPFCG) is a device
> used to generate a high-power electromagnetic pulse by compressing
> magnetic flux using high explosive.
>
>
> An EPFCG only ever generates a single pulse as the device is
> physically destroyed during operation. An EPFCG package that could be
> easily carried by a person can produce pulses in the millions of
> amperes and tens of terawatts.[citation needed] They require a
> starting current pulse to operate, usually supplied by capacitors.
>
>
>
They would work great for your coilgun. One per shot. I ran across these looking for how to power an EMP device and if it is that kind of fiction your soldiers could use their EPFCGs for a homebrew EMP. Or use them as explosives.
Don't neglect the scene where the coilgun unit runs out of ammo and so loads their coilgun with pieces of scrap metal and uses it as a blunderbuss.
[Answer]
This obviously is a non-answer since a 'best answer' has already been selected, but here is is nonetheless.
One of the closest things we have to a perpetual motion machine is a super-cooled super-conductive [LC tank circuit at resonance](https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/alternating-current/chpt-6/parallel-tank-circuit-resonance/). The collapsing coil field discharges into charging the capacitor which then discharges into the coil field which then collapses when the capacitor is fully discharged and discharges into the capacitor which then charges until the coil field is fully collapsed. It's complicated until it isn't. The [graphs](https://www.electrical4u.com/lc-circuit-analysis/) of current and voltage at the resonant frequency show it clearly. Capacitors and coils operate exactly opposite.
A pure LC tank circuit (no R, or resistance) can build up to enormous voltages and enormous currents. Then, send the enormous current at an enormous voltage into the rail gun.
Some old-fashioned camera flash units used such a system, for building up huge voltages and currents from a small battery. They had a particular whine that increased in frequency as the tank circuit charged up. They are also used in radio frequency tuning circuits, to amplify the very weak radio wave, at a selected resonant frequency.
At the dead-zero-center of the waveforms, a small 'kick' from a battery or such sends the oscillating voltage and current higher, like a small push on someone on a swing sends them higher and higher
Use super-conductive material, with almost zero resistance, and the [equations](https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/tools/tank-circuit-resonance-calculator/) produce almost infinite voltage and stored current at the resonant frequency. Except for the resistance of the wiring, there is almost no power loss. At peak voltage there is no current, and at peak current, there is no voltage, so the equation for P=EI is zero.
So a power 'energy storage' system based on a portable RC tank circuit (no generator needed) would provide the required power, and then recharge over time form some electrical generator or source over time, the same way the camera flash units recharged over time and then discharged all of the electrons (current) in the tank at once. These flash units were the size of a walnut, including the battery.
] |
[Question]
[
Some things about my giants:
They're extremely limited in number as they are made through surgical & genetic modification to regular humans rather than being a separate species as well as only a small amount of facilities being able to do these modifications.
They have all over armour capable of stopping HMG rounds such as 14.5mm with the head & torso being protected against light 20mm & 23mm autocannons.
They're roughly the size of Madness: Project Nexus G03LM at roughly ~1.5 times the size of a regular human at ~9-11 feet tall:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RvyNy.png)
In this setting warfare has evolved to some dedicated melee units, a few type of advanced weapons such as lasers with body armour capable of taking a few hits from a normal infantry rifle before breaking available for most with advanced armour technology being commonplace.
[Answer]
Well, giants in future warfare ! The first thing that came to mind was the Engineers from the movie, Ridley Scott's [*Prometheus*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(2012_film)). That or the [Warhammer 40k Space Marines](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Space_Marines) who perfectly fit the description of armored giants that are few in number, but great in strength (compared to the mundane imperial guard from the same universe). Big benchmarking opportunity here. Oh and also Goliaths from [XCOM game series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XCOM).
And regarding giants in medieval era, oh boy. Lord of the Rings, any medieval fantasy with giants, and so many more. Might be worth looking into, if only for random ideas.
**Now, on to the real answer:**
After a few minutes of searching, I found [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/187112/how-can-giants-be-incorporated-as-foot-soldiers-into-a-traditional-army) and the associated answers. Although they talk about more medieval to renaissance-level of tech, much of it is still relevant: the weapons might have changed, but the tactics...not so much.
So, an updated version of the excellent answers from Deepon GhoseRoy/Glorfindel, user3644640 and Seallussus:
*I divided these in two parts due to the fact that they often use more of a particular advantage the giants have: mobility and strength. Note that these are not exclusive, it is juste the most important attribute for said role*
# *Strength-oriented roles*
## Shock Troops
Your Giants are, well, giants. That makes them more powerful, intimidating and apparently quite resistant to bullets than traditional soldiers. Give them close combat weaponry, and actually melee weapons teams might even become a thing. Who cares about puny rifle bullets when you can easily stave off 23mm autocannon rounds? Just close the distance an slaughter ennemy infantry with giant sawblades, energy warhammers or whatever you fancy that looks deadly and sounds cool. Or take your trusty oversized shotgun and poke holes into whatever isn't a tank.
## Heavy weapons teams
Ah, big guns. Do I really need to explain? Stronger soldiers can carry bigger guns. You have it. They come with an upgraded mobility compared to whatever exists today, because said guns would feel lighter to them. It's all a matter of size.
## Anti-vehicle squads
Kind of a subgenre of heavy weapon teams, but specialized. Tanks are big, bulky, and quite resistant to damage. Unless you have the right gear at hand, preferrably wielded by 3 meters-tall soldiers, who will have no issue bringing any heavy gear/weaponry to the battlefield. Sentient missile-spraying mobile platforms for the win !
## Recon
A copy and paste from user3644640's answer. It is on spot:
That amount of size does not matter that much if creeping on forests camouflaged. They could carry more equipment. Behind enemy lines there is no supply so everything must be brought by people carrying it. More resources translates to longer missions or heavier equipment. Heavier equipment can be stronger radios, more ammo, maybe even a machinegun. Ambushing with a machinegun would be insanely strong deep behind lines where enemy is not adapted to the possibility. Your basic special forces story but when back to barracks a bit similar situation to above mentioned things.
## Logistics operatives
Imagine you have to fight in a dense jungle. No roads, too many trees, and you have to stay discreet, so no clearing space for helicopters and drops are too conspicuous. You need to take whatever you need with you. Conveniently enough, you have huge sherpas at your disposal, who will carry a ton of stuff for you ! Better than pack mules, since they can fight too.
# *Speed-oriented roles*
## Skirmishers
Due to their size, your giants will surely be faster than most soldiers since they have bigger legs. They can move around the battlefield quicker, climb stuff higher, see farther than the others. They would be great for harrassing troops provided they are in a terrain that vehicule won't be able to travel through (in which case they would lose the speed advantage necessary to skirmishers).
## Human vehicles
Go wild ! why not make these giants off-road team transports, they could easily carry three or four soldiers with a dedicated harness or something. Or you could build giant-carts and have modern versions of war chariots. That would be both awesome and terrifying. Ram 'em while your riders are all guns blazin' !
## Support, Relief and Kidnapping
*a bit of an even mix between speed & strength*
Giants are strong, and they are quick on their feet. They will carry injured soldiers to safety whilst being able to protect themselves. If you need to extract a friendly VIP, or kidnap an ennemy VIP, they are the go-to. Quick, resilient, strong. Carrying a random guy in one hand while holding a gun in the other is no problemo for them.
# Now, on to their weaknesses
Not particularily asked in the question, but it may very well help make it more elaborate.
*First weakness:* Well, giants are big. They will be obviousely weaker in tight spaces. Got a giant on your tail ? Jump into the sewers. It will be a Tom & Jerry game between giants and infantry, especially so in urban areas.
*Second weakness:* they are big. That means, they are bigger targets. You might alleviate that by giving them superhuman reflexes and agility though. It is your choice.
*Third weakness:* again, they are big. As in, they will be *a lot* more susceptible to fall damage. Pitfall traps will be deadly to them. Consider giving them exoskeletons if you don't want them dying from soap-related accidents.
*Fourth weakness:* from what I could read, their limbs aren't protected by the ridiculous shock-absorbing armor. The ennemy would most certainly capitalize on that and train attack dogs (preferrably oversized as well) to attack your giants, or at least pin them while the regular army does its job. Or prepare traps especially for them. Douse them chemicals that would either burn them, poison them, or be especially flammable. No limbs, no threat. To prevent that, give them at least armguards and legguards, and a flexible suit. That would help with the dogs and chemicals.
There are surely more that I couldn't see, I'll edit that if someone has any ideas.
**A small addendum**, very much facultative as this question isn't tagged "science-based" or "reality-check". Your giants, because of the square-cube law, will have either enormous energy needs (as in, they'll eat a LOT) or might be pretty slow, in a lot of ways. They would also be quite have quite a bit less stamina than regular humans (bad for skirmishers for example). But you can handwave it all as you see fit.
[Answer]
In modern war, if you can see it, you can kill it. We have mobile line-of-sight weaponry whose ability to penetrate armor vastly outscales anything you can carry around on anything mobile.
If you build thicker armor, it is far cheaper to build a more penetrating gun.
If you aren't moving, we can kill it. Static defences slow down weapons we can carry around on mobile platforms a bit, but not that much.
Asymmetrical war ends up violating this. One side can have tanks that the other side's weapons cannot penetrate, leading to attacking them with mines, or just not fighting near the tanks. Air superiority can wipe out the surface-to-air capabilities of the defenders with overwealming firepower, and make attack aircraft less vulnerable to attack.
The last Iraq war is worth looking at, as it was a superpower attacking a 3rd tier nation's military (large, but not modern). Here, the USA took the "if we can see it we can kill it" to its logical extent; the front line was in effect a rapidly moving armed and lightly armored wave of spotters, which the second line and air cover would mop up. You'd spot from the air, you'd spot with scouts, you'd spot with APCs, and you'd advance at many miles per hour. On contact with resistance, you'd pull back and hit it with concentrated firepower.
Giants in this environment run into the problem that they are no smarter than a standard soldier, but are bigger. They might be able to carry more tech than a soldier and maybe slightly bigger guns; a modern infantry squad can already carry weapons capable of taking out a main battle tank, a building, or low flying air support.
In the near future, drone based combat is going to be standard. Infantry squads will be able to launch scouts and hunter-killer drones that let them shoot at things behind cover with a mixture of automated and manual control.
Again, the giant isn't at an advantage here. Strength grows with cross-section, so 1.5x size means about twice as strong; the giant can carry on the order of 2 infantry troop's gear. And 2 infantry troopers is a lot cheaper than a genetically engineered soldier.
Gear standardization will be a pain. Just the cost of scaling gear up will probably make it not worth it, on a force per dollar basis, to most militaries.
---
Now, what could work.
One possibility is that the giants are not just big, but otherwise engineered to be better. They are smarter, have super strong muscles, more endurance, better healing (including wound healing designed for modern warfare), etc.
In this model, we have giants where each one capable of paying attention to 10 things at once, is a genius at mental and physical abilities, are as strong as 10 men, have circulatory systems that handle being penetrated by bullets or bruised by massive impact without dieing, and can operate at above half capacity for a full week before having to rest.
Such supersoldiers would be strong enough to carry a significant amount of hardware, like drones as mentioned above, and their ability to pay attention to multiple drone feeds at once and coordinate them. These cyclopses might be great at urban warfare, controlling a dozen drones that maintain situational awareness and root out potential enemies. Sigint and attacking the C&C links of drones would be standard in such a battlefield, but being on the front line and maintaining short-range LOS relays with the drones would reduce the attack surface.
[Answer]
What these are is essentially heavy trucks which can use weapons and dodge and duck away from harm, with a great carrying capacity.
All that is great, but almost every army group has grenades and rocket launchers, which would injure or kill them. You can't use them as shock troops. You need to use them in the same role as heavy military trucks.
## Heavy weapon mounts and transportation.
They can carry adapted weapons like rotary machine guns and artillery pieces which they can use to deliver massive amounts of firepower in places vehicles don't fit well, like urban warfare or irregular terrain. This can destroy enemy positions or offer covering fire for conventional assaults without exposing them to easy assault.
They can also carry huge amounts of equipment. Technology is awesome, and offers a massive bonus to fights. They can deliver huge amounts of batteries to power night vision goggles and radios. They can deliver mortars and ammo to teams to keep pressure on the enemy. They can deliver heavy weapons to key positions to help keep them in a good place. Being able to carry a lot and move quickly is great. They don't have the range of vehicles, but in a smaller or rougher environment like an army camp they can ensure rapid redeployment of heavy weapons and resources to face any foe.
They can also carry heavy shields. With modern firepower, ballistic shields are of little use against armies. Being much larger and stronger would make them more useful, allowing you to carry thick enough shields to block most guns, fortifying positions and making room clearance easier.
[Answer]
**The enemy gets a vote.**
If your giant is a key combat asset (instead of, say, a logistical mule), then the enemy will prioritize attacking the giants, will begin carrying weapons capable of overcoming the giant's armor, and will reorganize their tactics to overcome this new threat.
* If your giant is protected by body armor capable of stopping a 23mm round, then the enemy will start using 30mm cannons against them. Or lasers to blind them. Or rocket-powered bolas to strangle them. Or whatever. Units will add a new giant-stopping drill to their toolbox of other battle-drills, and will have at least one effective weapon to use in that drill.
* Scouts will be trained to look for giants. The presence of several giants may indicate that group is the enemy's main effort. Engineers will emplace obstacles to snare or redirect giants. Low ceilings may become popular in field fortifications, as may deadfalls that require a giant's weight to activate.
Giants may make a good surprise weapon. For a week or two, your forces will dominate the battlefield while the enemy figures out a response...if an enemy spy hasn't already spoiled the surprise. But after the enemy adapts, giants might be too expensive and vulnerable to send into battle anymore.
And, after the surprise is over, your own society must adapt to have the surviving giants living among you and growing old for decades.
] |
[Question]
[
I like to play with superlatives. I want a government that pretends to be rightly-guided by the most sacred morals and ideals, but in reality is filled with fat cats who only care for themselves. However, the people must not know about it; they know about corruption in other countries, and the clear majority of people truly believe that their country is above that. So how far can I go in my government's corruption?
**Background**
The general era is something we would recognise as the 15th-16th century. There's steel and gunpowder, but no steam power. There's a literary tradition stretching back a thousand years, but few people are literate. There are religious beliefs but they are not part of the state; in its place is a state philosophy that might as well be a religion. People are steadily growing sceptical of said philosophy, but for now the government (while ostensibly encouraging critical thinking) suppresses diverging thought, passing it off as misguided and/or dangerous.
**The ideal**
The government, ruling over a hundred million people of many different cultures in a nation the size of Kazakhstan, works on the basis of the following philosophy: rule is only by the virtuous, and every virtuous person will end up ruling. There's imperial exams taken by every young man and a few bright women (the society is still quite sexist), and those with the best results will end up with roles in the bureaucracy. There's layers upon layers of bureaucrats that report to one another, and at the very top is a council of 52 supreme officers, along with a supreme emperor whose only political power is appointing and dismissing those officers (and giving them supreme moral guidance). The position of supreme emperor is for life, but not hereditary; when one dies, the successor is whoever got the very best score in next year's imperial exams, from a different province in the country (rotating between all the provinces).
Now a lot hinges upon the fairness of these exams, so one of the lowest positions in the bureaucracy is overseeing them. That means that the turnover rate is high among the examiners, so there's little opportunity for corruption to take root there.
Every political position of meaning is part of the bureaucracy; hereditary power transfer is virtually non-existent. Outside the state, power structures exist in the form of religious institutions, and private commercial enterprises. But the church is not quite an authority; the state philosophy is religiously pluralistic and states that all gods live together in one pantheon, leaving open which one is the head god (if any). And this is long before corporations became the lobbying influence we have today; a few figures like [Jakob Fugger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Fugger) exist but most businesses are small and family-owned.
**Practise**
That's the theory. Everything stated in the previous section is either accurate or popularly perceived as such. So where can I add corruption? The easiest place is among the bureaucrats. There's so many layers and departments, and people from layer *n* are generally appointed and dismissed by those from layer *n+1*. They all socialise with one another so they can get an idea of which of potential candidates for a position would be susceptible to take bribes, and then only promote those people; effectively shutting the true idealists out of the administration beyond a certain layer. Impeachment procedures are rare since people in higher stations are assumed to be more virtuous.
But I want to go beyond that. I am looking for the most effective methods by which the highest officials can evade all scrutiny and turn their backs on the doctrine of virtue deciding position. I want ways to maintain the illusion of social mobility, compatible with the state as described, that allow for large-scale embezzlement and self-enrichment by the powerful.
Take this in a society that is not democratic and without mass media, but also not a totalitarian government that can just make people disappear and it lacks means of communication faster than a horseback courier. How corrupt can I make the country, while everyone still believes that it is not corrupt; and in what ways?
**Concrete question**
What measures can the government officials and powerful people in general take in this country, to disproportionally enrich themselves, without people at large perceiving their country as corrupt, given the society and history as described? Average citizens who are not closely involved with politics should be able to reasonably think that their leaders are really virtuous and not at all enriching themselves.
[Answer]
**Unclear Rubrics**
The way to check if an exam is corrected fairly is using a rubric. This says what the correct answers are, and exactly what you need to write to get full marks. This lets the marker justify their scores and lets unhappy examinees appeal with some degree of rigor. When I am unhappy with my score I point to the rubric and say "I lost marks for X but it wasn't in the rubric!".
The way to corrupt an exam is by having either no rubric, so the marker can just make up reasons someone got full marks after seeing their script. Or you have a rubric that is so vague they you can do the same.
I suggest there be several layers of increasingly vague rubrics. For example for the essay question Rubric #1 is basic spelling and grammar. #2 is basic reasoning skills, and so on until #10 is something like
>
> Moral character conducive to the proliferation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all citizens of this great country under God.
>
>
>
Extra points for overblown language.
Rubric #1 is employed by level 1 bureaucrats. They chuck out anyone with bad spelling and grammar, and pass the good scripts upstairs to where level 2 bureaucrats apply Rubric #2. The first few levels work well and ensure the bureaucracy is filled with competent people. It also gives the impression the system is fair, since most people only see the first few levels.
Level 10 exams are rare, since you have to pass exams 1-9 to even sit level 10. Every level 10 exam is marked by the emperor. There is so much room for interpretation about what "moral virtue" means that the rigor disappears and the emperor can appoint whoever they want.
There is also an option to skip the first few levels of assessment if a sufficiently *virtuous* candidate is found. This is the story when the Chancellor's deaf-mute second cousin the in-law gets appointed Minister of Agriculture. After all, you can teach spelling and grammar but you cannot teach being a good person.
From then on we have the usual problem that no one ever sees the Minister on the street and all their public engagements are highly choreographed for maximum virtue signalling. There is no way for the common man to figure out on their own if the Minister is corrupt or not.
There might still be a basic literacy requirement. I don't think this is a problem. It certainly lines up with the real world where corrupt people in power have to be (a) smart enough to get into power and (b) smart enough to not seem corrupt.
[Answer]
Education. Private tutors etc rigorously prepare the children of high-ranked members to score as highly as possible on the tests. They know what the expected "correct" answers will be and the tests vary little from year to year so practicing on prior papers is very effective. Note they don't learn anything useful. Just how to ace the exams.
Combine this with a bit of "leaning" on people to go easy or hard on the correct candidates. This gives you hereditary power that over time concentrates in a few families no matter how competent or not individual members are.
Daron's answer already covered vague exams. Take a look at this for a real world example of just how corrupt these things can be: <https://metro.co.uk/2017/09/20/could-you-pass-this-test-given-to-black-people-registering-to-vote-in-america-in-1964-6941338/>
As to the perception thing, that's easy. You keep the corruption to the higher levels and dress everything up. You control the media, the police, the intelligence services.
Anyone accusing you of corruption is a seditious traitor and needs to be "sent away for re-education".
[Answer]
### Require collateral to enter or advance in the bureaucracy.
Serving the people isnt just a job for our committed public servants, but a promise and a commitment to the doctrine of trust and loyalty. Everyone who wants to join this wonderful institution needs to offer some asset as collateral in return for their service and loyalty to their branch of the government.
Externally - "every member of the government has given the deed to their house as collateral in case they cheat or steal from us, I wouldnt steal in this case so our government is obviously very virtuous!"
Practically - whistle blowing is disloyalty to your boss, so any jealous employee trying to smear their boss for selfish reasons obviously will lose their collateral. This should be made very clear on orientation. They'll die homeless and hungry if they cast the government in a bad light, and it will only embarrass their boss or bosses boss at most.
Advancing in the bureaucracy requires more collateral, if you have no more wealth, you need to share a family secret, something worth blackmailing you over (eg a signed letter that your brother confessed to cheating on his partner, true or not, or a detailed account of how your father swindled huge wealth from the masses. Anything embarrassing. Make it up if you need to.) and give that as collateral. It's needed for any promotion. It's to ensure your loyal to your government.
Each promotion requires new information more scandalous than the last.
By the time you get to the upper rungs of the corruption, you've signed letters stating your spouse is kidnapping and eating children, you father burnt down churches, and your children were gifts from satan. Your superiors have so much dirt on you they could get your former friends to burn your entire family at the stake. Any allegations of corruption by a whistleblower can be met with enough evidence to brutality destroy the families reputation enough to dismiss or bury the allegations.
So long as the masses are fed and sheltered and entertained - you could take everything else of value for yourselves.
[Answer]
**Corruption *is* the merit.**
>
> You know, that might be the answer - to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That's a trick that never seems to fail.
>
>
>
-- *Catch-22*
Merit is not, despite the ideal of a meritocracy, some natural, physical constant that can be determined empirically. The government, through culture, media, education, religion, and tradition, determines what is meritorious. Philosophers talk about government virtues or they get put on the banned list. Poets who want the aristocracy to support them flatter them. Teachers and preachers uphold the traditional ideals or else the community will turn on them as renegades.
So there's no need for the merit your meritocracy measures to be the merit we, the readers, would expect or want them to measure. Maybe merit is a measure of how much money you can bring in (and never you mind where it comes from), or how much your farms and workshops can produce in a year. Maybe merit is a popularity contest, and your people think of buying votes through bread and circuses to be meritorious (after all, it makes people happy). Perhaps your definition of merit is ideological purity, or loyalty to a ruling party, or to God.
The key is that, in addition to rigorously testing officials, the meritocracy also vigorously pushes its idea of merit onto the population.
[Answer]
## How Should Corruption Be Quanitified?
To measure how corrupt a government can get, and compare it to different measurements, I think we need a way to quantify corruption. I think this approach might work : what % of resources (quantified as GDP), allocated to be spent on public good, actually makes it to that work.
So, for some examples : out of every \$1,000 allocated to schools, only \$10 makes it to the teacher's salary - the government is $1 - ({10 \over 1000})$ = 99% corrupt.
## With That In Mind, There Are Some Obvious Ways to Scale This
There is a joke about corruption -- a bureaucrat is charged with repairing a road. He gets two bids : the first bidder asks \$100 to do the job. The second bidder asks \$1,100 to do the job. The bureaucrat asks the second bidder why he's so high. The 2nd bidder says : \$500 for you, \$500 for me, and \$100 to hire the first bidder.
There exists, I believe, a minimum cost to provide public services. But government and contractor peers can charge any amount of premium on top of that. The bigger the ledger of acquisitions becomes, the harder it is to scrutinize any one particular transaction, and the harder it becomes to prove that a single proven case of corruption is systemic, instead of an outlier.
At any given year, the government needs to appear to be delivering the same amount of service. So, for a while you can increase corruption by increasing the amount of resources you allocate from the people (taxes + inflation) : increasing the cost of the government's services, without providing any new service.
You can get creative with how you tax the people : income taxes are most obvious. Less obvious are sales taxes, head taxes, property taxes, tolls, rents, fees, or inflationary spending (printing extra money - the people who can't get themselves a raise to offset the diluted purchasing power of the money are, in a way, the one's paying a tax -- usually the poorest people).
Taxing the people has a peak upper limit where nearly all of society is working all their waking hours to earn, after taxes, just barely enough to keep them healthy enough to work tomorrow.
## Managed Decline
After taxes have peaked, government can then gradually reduce the service being provided. As long as service reduction is in tiny increments, it's not shocking enough to cause people to clearly motivate people to seek a life somewhere else.
You can make small substitutions : cheapen labor costs for the services you provide by outsourcing jobs, side-stepping your own environmental laws by getting your services from countries with no such laws, cutting non-administrative staff, rationing
## Extremes
Between raising taxes and gradually reduced services, a government can easily hit 100% corruption.
First, maybe we need to change our scale, since really corrupt governments are going to be between 99.9% and 100% corrupt. Let's just count the number of nines after 99% for these extreme cases. A 99.9% corrupt government is 1C. A 99.99999% corrupt government is 5C.
Maybe we need a different metric for really corrupt governments : percentage of potential GDP trickling down to the people, where potential GDP (pGDP) includes off-the-books activity like building your own wagon, farming, mending clothes, and so on. How much bigger than GDP is pGDP? You can press all working-age adults into service for about a 60% increase; press traditional home keeping roles into service, for another 100% increase, so pGDP $\approx$ 2.6 $\times$ GDP
There's a limit. People have minimal requirements : enough food (2,000 calories per day) to keep going, some water, sleep (about 8 hours per day), and housing. Land costs nothing for a government that can seize it, so the real minimum requirement is whatever it costs for 2,000 calories and the lost labor of 8 hours of sleep (33% of a 24 hour day). And government corruption is = $1 - ({servicesprovided \over pGDP})$. If a government provides nothing of value, let services provided = 1
## Trying It Out
Let's assign a value of GDP, so that we can look at some numbers. Let's say our corrupt government has a GDP of 1 million Generic Currency Units (GCU).
A totally corrupt government, providing nothing of value, forcing all able-bodied people to work 40-hour weeks (23% of 7 $\times$ 24-hour days), and taxing all of that effort through various means is $1 - ({1 \over {0.23 \times 2.6 \times 1,000,000}}) = $ 99.999% (3C) corrupt.
A less corrupt government, allowing the young to go to school and the old to retire, and allowing the people to keep their cultural traditions of half the workforce staying at home to take care of the young and old, but still taxing everything out of a 40-hour work week is $1 - ({1 \over {0.23 \times 1,000,000}}) = $ still 99.999% (3C) corrupt.
## Limits
A government requiring all able-bodied people to work all waking hours (16 $\times$ 7 = 112) (66% of the week) for the government's benefit and receiving nothing in return is $1 - ({1 \over {0.66 \times 2.6 \times 1,000,000}}) = $ 99.9999% (4C) corrupt.
Once people start starving to death, or dying because they fell asleep at the grinder, rebellion isn't far away.
I would suggest 4C is as corrupt as any government can become, by any means, before things fall apart. At 4C corruption has become so bad that people are literally being worked to death and getting no benefit or relief from their rulers. I believe this is a hard limit because even if the populous still believes in the government, they are ceasing to exist due to malnutrition and exhaustion.
There’s a television show, ‘Poldark’ that attempts to demonstrate these conditions in 1770s Britain.
[Answer]
## Meritocratic Governments are VERY easy to corrupt
As a general rule, people who want power will gravitate to where power exists unless some force prevents them from doing so. In the case of democracies and monarchies, the most power hungry members of society are prevented from rising up to the top echelons of power by the electoral process or line of succession respectively. However, any government that allows its members to self-select is much less resistant to corruption because instead of using a system designed to filter corruption out, you have a system designed to filter corruption in.
In a meritocracy, the question always boils down to "How do you define Merit". Because this question is answered by the Government, the answer always eventually transitions to "Whoever the government says has Merit."
Because the government decides who is worthy to be a member, existing members will typically select new members based on who will be the smallest threat their own power rather than who can actually do the job best. So if you are a slightly corrupt leader, you will need to bring in new members who are at least as corrupt as you to make sure that they don't whistleblow you. This creates a sort of natural selection scenario where fitness is defined by a thirst for power and lack of ethics. So, the kinds of unethical things the government is willing to will perpetually grow, but never shrinks.
This kind of Corruption can be see in the Roman Praetorian Guard where after just a few generations of letting Praetorians hand pick whoever they deemed the best of the best, they were extorting the government for salaries and bonuses worth over 20 times a normal soldier's pay, they were assassinating their own emperors and manipulating the line of imperial succession, and basically doing whatever the heck they wanted because they all agreed that they could... and this is just what can happen when a small subsection of your government practices hand-picking new members.
## But It Won't Last Long Enough For The General Population to Notice
In the 15th-16th Century, most people had very little idea about what happened outside of their own little town or neighborhood, but as much as there was less technology for spreading information, there was also less technology for spreading misinformation; so, what is "true" in this world is whatever you are told by another human being... and the only way to find the truth between two conflicting people is to have a system for defining who is more trustworthy.
So, if we replace late medieval Feudalism with a Meritocracy without changing any other cultural or technological elements, what you will see are things like the code of chivalry and the divine right of rulership come into play. The code of chivalry says that people of noble birth have an extra duty to be honest in all things; so, in this world, your leaders will be expected to be chivalrous, and the people they select will be expected to be able to follow the code of chivalry. Then the divine right of rulership says that God himself guides the succession of rulers; so, if a person is promoted to be a member of the government, then this is the will of God and is therefore beyond contestation.
With these factors in place, anything a ruler says is true, and anything a commoner says otherwise must be a lie because commoners are not bound by chivalry and they are not chosen by the will of God, and even if a leader does get caught in a lie, you still can not oppose him without risking your immortal soul by contradicting the will of God who gave them rulership.
In short, the government will become perpetually more corrupt, but never so corrupt that a significant number of people will be willing to question or oppose it. Instead what will happen is that the government will eventually select members who are so motivated by power and care so little about ethics that the leadership itself will be the government's undoing. Instead of selecting new members to bring in, someone will eventually rise up who will want to be the nation's undisputed monarch at which point there will be some manner of civil war or extermination of political opponents followed the dismantling of the meritocratic system all together.
] |
[Question]
[
Long ago, an Eldritch deity was summoned to the city of Innsmouth within a ritual circle, where it was killed and consumed by the population. Devouring the flesh of the deity increased the mana supply of the individuals to astronomical levels, strengthening their arcane abilities. As the population grew in power, the prestige of Inssmouth increased in the world. As all inhabitants benefited from their mana supply increase, the city became known as a center for magecraft where the most powerful mages were located. This lasted for a period of 500 years, as the population passed down their arcane power to their descendants.
However, over time, problems started developing in the city within the past 50 years. The current population began suffering from defects and mutations.It turns out that the increase in mana from the god began to mutate future generations. Individuals with heavy deformities became twisted and inhuman, as their mental faculties decreased while becoming animalistic. More defects in the gene pool began showing up as a significant portion of the population gave birth o monsters. Ultimately, this ended with the entire city becoming filled with debased creatures with no semblance to humanity.
Somehow killing and consuming the pieces from the god had an effect on the genes of the population. This hereditary illness was passed down to their descendants, but didn't reveal itself. The chaos of the mutations occurred suddenly and quickly after centuries of stability. What would cause this massively delayed reaction?
[Answer]
It looks like you are seeing for the transition from a genotype (where the changes in DNA are in the genes but don't necessarily express themselves) to a phenotype (where these same genes give rise to the monsters)
This is most easily explained through a new [gene expression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_expression) where the existing genes suddenly start producing certain proteins that lead to the mutations.
There are many ways to [regulate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_gene_expression) gene expression and many of these are very subtle. For a gene to stay dormant for 450 years and then suddenly express itself through the entire population you'd expect that something in the environment is to blame, otherwise you'd see it after x generation instead of years, or only in a sub-population that mixes with another group.
As your world has magic this is probably the easiest explanation. Did someone else attempt to summon the god? Did someone do a ritual sacrificing members the race? Did a new kind of spell come into vogue? Did they find a certain crystal that ups your mana pool if snorted?
For a real-life example: in the 1950's a new medicine was marketed to help with a wide range of issues, including anxiety and morning sickness, and actually helped against those things! Amazing stuff. However this drug also interferes with a protein called SALL4 which, while not that important in adults, is vital in unborn babies for the proper growth of limbs and other structures. In the end over [10.000 children](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide_scandal) were born with deformities, a lot of them perishing shortly after birth from the effects.
[Answer]
**Mana magnet.**
God power is heritable, as you establish in OP. Mana can cause mutations; also in OP. The god power grants mana but also serves as a long term mana attractor or sink. Subsequent generations in this town have more power than their ancestors thanks to this god meat effect.
The increase gets to a point where it is too much for biology to handle and things start to break. That is where you are. Mostly this makes degenerate monsters.
0.1% of these mutants will not be monsters, but new gods. When the new god comes into its own, it will be hungry. The degenerate monsters will be happy to feed it with their own flesh, and that of any of their less willing mana-rich relatives they can catch and bring with to the coming of age ceremony.
This event is what the Foundation (working thru the federal government) was trying to avoid, to no avail. Fallback plan: the best way to fight a god is with another god. They have an Innsmouth child with potential whom they are trying to raise as fast as they can, on a diet of mana-rich god meat from various sources.
[Answer]
**Natural Selection**
The same genes that manage Mana capacity are the same genes that cause monster mutation. if enough genes are activated at the same time of course. The initial Devouring gave different mutations to all the families.
The increased mana combined with the new magecraft prestige caused mage families to arise and political marriages or marriages for power between mages ensued. Fast forward many generations and enough genes have been activated in any individual that almost any combination between members is resulting in monstrous creations.
450 years is about 10-15 generations. Assuming the most powerful mages married amongst themselves to produce the best possible offspring (and highest mana pools 100% precisely and unique gene combinations), for 10 generations you could assume 2^10 gene applications or 1024 unique genes that are a mana mutation (32,768 for 15 generations). Likely though, pairings would duplicate potential gene combinations meaning this is an upper bound.
So monsterification happens after a number of combined gene mutations occur. Let's say it only occurs after 666 god gene mutations which could easily occur within your 10-15 generational gap and once the genes are that widespread almost everyone should have a high combination of genes that could create monsters.
[Answer]
**Tolerance, science, and rationality arose.**
For most of human history, we knew how to handle witches. You get some wood, toss the witch on the wood, and burn them. This served as an effective way to handle people with mutations from the consumption of the god, and limited the prevalence of the mutations.
The magic relies on multiple homozygous dominant gene sequences being expressed together to power the magic, stabilize the magic, regulate the magic and do various things. Each of these mutations has various benefits for people like enhanced charisma or strength or resistance to aging which helped people if heterozygous, but side effects if homozygous.
However, in the modern era, the old ways fell out of favour. People felt it was 'immoral' to burn people because they violated the purity rules of a religion set up by a bronze age semitic deity and mystical appeals to non existent magic. Those with mutations were given medical care and mental health care, and those with minor physical mutations were tolerated for their small acceptable deviations.
**This backfired, as horizontal gene transfer began.**
The various gene lines of the people started to converge, and several more powerful individuals were born. These individuals had reasonably complete genetic sequences related to the elder gods, and with this they could do horizontal gene transfer. Most gene transmission in humans involves gametes combining, genetic twists in the womb, and similar things.
The mutant monsters also had viruses that could transmit altered genetics. By biting people, sex, blood transfer, and other methods they converted the remaining people. The tolerant, rational, and scientific people were the first to die, and soon the city died under mutating virus of the old ones.
[Answer]
All the Eldritch genes become transposons in testes and ovaries (as detected by transcription factors). This means that anyone with Eldritch heritage passes *all* of it into *all* of their gametes and therefore children. The first generation mages only had a few relevant proteins each, but each successive generation comes closer to the full set. And when they get close enough, the Old One's *non*-material aspects (of course it's not completely dead) get to start shaping their morphogens.
This means that if someone left the city before things fell apart, their children would be as powerful mages as they are and not at risk of further degradation *provided* they married people who were untouched by this.
The setup is complex enough that it was probably a deliberate plot by the Old One. Who, unlike those who ate it, *understood genetics*.
[Answer]
## Environmental factors have changed.
Many genetic disorders only cause problems when paired with the wrong environmental factors. Take Celiac Disease for example. It is a genetic autoimmune disorder that causes your immune system to attack your own Gastrointestinal System... that said, it only does this in response to the presence of gluten; so, you could have an entire civilization full of people with Celiac Disease and not know just because they don't grow or eat wheat.
Likewise, when your people consumed the dead god, they changed their DNA to include a disorder that causes monsterism... only the thing that triggers monsterism was not present in their society. Without more information about what your time period is, it's hard to say what your trigger should be, but pretty much every generation of people likes to expose themselves to stuff that older generations didn't have much contact with. Our generation has Wifi everywhere, the previous generation had leaded gasoline, before that there was the introduction of incandescent lighting, before that it was mercury based medicines, so on and so forth... You just need to take your targeted time period, find whatever defining inventions happened at that time in history, and the find a logical correlation between that invention and the autoimmune response or what not that turns you into a monster.
[Answer]
**Mitochondrial DNA is the key**
[Mitochondrial DNA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA) is a subset of cellular DNA that is (in almost all cases) passed from the mother to her offspring, differently from nuclear DNA, which is a recombination of father and mother's DNA.
Citing from the wikipedia article (the mitochondrial bottleneck, emphasis mine)
>
> **Entities subject to uniparental inheritance and with little to no recombination may be expected to be subject to Muller's ratchet, the accumulation of deleterious mutations until functionality is lost. Animal populations of mitochondria avoid this through a developmental process known as the mtDNA bottleneck**. The bottleneck exploits random processes in the cell to increase the cell-to-cell variability in mutant load as an organism develops: a single egg cell with some proportion of mutant mtDNA thus produces an embryo in which different cells have different mutant loads. Cell-level selection may then act to remove those cells with more mutant mtDNA, leading to a stabilisation or reduction in mutant load between generations. The mechanism underlying the bottleneck is debated,[40][41][42][43] with a recent mathematical and experimental metastudy providing evidence for a combination of random partitioning of mtDNAs at cell divisions and random turnover of mtDNA molecules within the cell.[27]
>
>
>
The mana is passed through mitochondrial DNA, which means, only women can pass it: the children of a man from Innsmouth who marries a stranger woman would be normal people, without any magic enhancement.
But this strong presence of mana somehow inhibits the mtDNA bottleneck.
For instance, it could be a kind of revenge from the eldritch entity (or maybe its way to reproduce), whose mana "timed" the subsequent mutations of DNA so that they could create, after exactly N generations, the monstruos creatures.
[Answer]
## Trinucleotide Repeats:
The Eldritch god generated new genes and proteins, and altered existing genes, such that the mana manipulation and generation of the people who consumed it was vastly increased in a heritable way. Perhaps this worked like CRISPR, transforming the adult cells and the first generation, but creeping into the germ line of the succeeding generations.
However, these genes contain [trinucleotide repeats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinucleotide_repeat_expansion#:%7E:text=A%20trinucleotide%20repeat%20expansion%2C%20also,dynamical%20genetics%20as%20dynamic%20mutations.), and these repeats expand in a fairly predictable way. This means that the trinucleotide repeats alter the effects of these genes over time, either disabling them or magnifying the effects (depending on how you want to handle it). I can imagine a number of ways this could play out.
* The trinucleotide repeats change the genes so they reactivate the CRISPR-like functions from the god, lying dormant in the people. These activate like viruses, spilling into the environment and infecting animals. They then begin incorporating the animal genes, reinfecting humans, and replacing the homologous human genes with animal ones. Lethal alterations die, while viable ones copy the genes and the CRISPR-viruses spread them throughout the populous.
* The trinucleotide repeats expand the mana power until the individuals begin uncontrollably opening micro-portals to the non-physical true manifestation of the god. The god then begins directly altering the DNA of the people around it. The next generation is massively mutated.
* A lot more of the god came along than the few genes expressed. Hundreds of silent unexpressed genes are inserted, but until the trinucleotide repeats convert one of these genes into a regulatory protein, these additional genes went unexpressed. Since trinucleotide repeats end up with many slightly different trinucleotide counts, each level of expression results in different "mutations."
* One school of thought is that introns may contain vestigial DNA from ancestors (not generally assumed anymore, but it works for this question). Like the last point, at a certain threshold "new" ancient genes are turned on. As the trinucleotide repeats activate these genes, ancestral bestial traits emerge, differing by which versions of these genes are present in each person.
] |
[Question]
[
Alright so I have this big colony ship/artificial world and I need to figure out what kind of population it can support. I’ll cut right to the chase and give you the details.
* Length: About 1,000,000 miles long
* Diameter: 100 miles
* Circumference: 314 miles
Some more details, people live on the inside surface of the Spire, so if you were standing inside the Spire your feet would be pointing outward and your head would be pointed toward the center. The Spire is segmented into 500 mile long “units.” Each unit has 200 miles of food and water production, 100 miles of residential areas (which includes recreation), 100 miles of production, power generation, and administration, and 100 miles of waste processing, recycling, and a drone control center.
---
You can assume that there is a perfect cylinder that is 1,000,000 miles long by 100 miles in diameter of useable space.
So given this amount of space and food production, what is the maximum amount of people this Spire could technically support?
Edit: The people living here have technology that’s early industrial level at best, renaissance technology for some, and some splinter groups are still at medieval levels. However, the Spire itself is far future advanced. We’re talking AI, programmable matter, easy antimatter generation, exotic matter, pretty much anything you can think of. The Spire takes care of the atmospheric conditions and weather so they are perfect for growing food, but the people are responsible for planting and harvesting.
[Answer]
This answer is a combination of relatively simple math and assumptions.
The main limiting factor in population is assumed to be food supply. One agricultural section is 200 miles long and 314 miles wide, which gives us 62,800 square miles, or 162,651.25 square kilometers.
Assumption #1: agricultural land utilization is 90%. The rest is occupied by buildings, roads and water bodies.
Arable land per section: 56,520 sq mi; 146,386.13 sq km; 36,172,800 acres
Assumption #2: one acre of land can support from 2 people (non-intensive methods) to 4 people (intensive preindustrial methods).
Assumption #3: all sections of the Spire are well-managed, which means that diseases, wars and waste are not significantly affecting population.
Number of people per section: 72,345,600 to 144,691,200
A 1,000,000 miles long spire means that we have 2,000 sections.
Total population: **144,691,200,000 to 289,382,400,000**
[Answer]
## Without Serious Handwaving, Zero
Such a world is not structurally stable. The [theoretical largest possible structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKendree_cylinder) of this nature using carbon nanotubes (10,000 km) is shorter than the diameter of the earth (~12,750 km). A spire of your proposed length would collapse under its own gravity into a molten sphere of carbon nanotubes in a horrifying catastrophe not unlike a [mole of moles](https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/). I find it extremely implausible that even hyper-advanced material science is able to produce a material over 300x stronger than carbon fiber that can somehow resist the cosmic tendency for very large things to collapse into spheres. Gravity always wins.
This structure is long enough that it will basically behave like a giant uncooked noodle (maybe even a cooked noodle, depending on the material's ability to bend). A large enough imbalance of mass, particularly at either end, would send this structure careening out of control (I assume that gravity is simulated via rotation) and cause it to shatter into pieces or, at the very least, cause frequent severe earthquakes throughout most of the structure.
## If somehow physically possible, there are still other problems.
There's also the issue of gravitational pull toward the center of the spire. The extreme ends of the spire will feel like steep mountains and potentially not be inhabitable as a result. The spire needs to apply antigravity at the extremes for this setting to work.
Transporting goods and data is a huge logistic problem. A message sent from one end of the spire to the other via light will take approximately 6 seconds (1,000,000 miles / 186,000 miles/second) to arrive. This doesn't take into account signal loss. Keep in mind that this distance is a little bit more than 2 round trips to the moon.
If you had some sort of magnetic transport system like the Bullet Train, you could achieve speeds of at least 125 MPH, probably a lot more by avoiding air resistance, but even a gain of a factor of 10 is going to come at massively higher energy costs and thermal output. If you somehow achieved a practical 100x speed gain (for 12,500 MPH), it would still take 80 hours to transport a good from one end of the spire to the other. Realistically, you're going to be stuck with *much* lower speeds for everyday use, effectively isolating the extreme ends of the spire from each other.
Spire units will need to be fairly self-sufficient and can only realistically trade within a dozen units or so. If each unit has its own sovereign government, chances are high there will be progressive tariffs at each unit along the way, limiting trade even further.
As far as population goes, 1 million \* pi hundred = pi hundred million square miles. At 10 people per square mile on average, that gives you a total population of about pi billion people. Higher population densities are not out of the question, putting a theoretical limit somewhere around 30 billion people, possibly more.
---
You wanted [science-based](/questions/tagged/science-based "show questions tagged 'science-based'"), so I'm giving you hard reality. I suggest removing that tag if you intend to pursue this setting seriously.
[Answer]
## We don't know exactly. But it's functionally unlimited.
The Earth is (roughly) a sphere whose radius is [about 4K miles](https://www.space.com/17638-how-big-is-earth.html). Very roughly, we can compare the surface area of the Earth, to the surface area of this cylinder, for a workable estimate of how many people your vessel can support.
It won't be exact; people actually live in a volume, of course, but the two setups have an almost identical third dimension. Everyone living on the interior surface of the cylinder is very similar to everyone living on the exterior surface of the Earth. This is roughly a constant factor of (say) a third of a mile in height; it doesn't quite *exactly* cancel out, but close enough.
So the surface area of the Earth is ~ 197 million square miles. The surface area of your cylindrical vessel is **A = 2πrh**. (You can ignore the discs on each end; it works out to about a hundredth of a percent.) That end up being 314 million square miles.
Your vessel is about fifty percent bigger (by surface area) than the entire Earth. Interestingly, by *volume*, the Spire is a fortieth the Earth's size. This is because a sphere has optimal surface-area-to-volume ratio, and a cylinder gets further away from optimal as it gets more lopsided. The Spire is very lopsided.
## We have not tested Earth's max supportable population limit
People have made grandiose predictions about the biosphere limit and so forth before. None of their dire [prophesies of doom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe) over an inability to grow enough food ever panned out. Certainly there must be *some kind* of limit imposed purely by how many people the Earth can support - but to date, societal pressures have been the constraining factor. If we wanted explosive population growth, we could restructure society in order to get it; we have other priorities.
## TL;DR
The vessel is about 1.5x the size of Earth by surface area. A reasonable [Fermi approximation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem) for 'how many people can this vessel support' seems to be 'About half again as many as Earth can'.
But we don't actually *know* how many Earth can.
[Answer]
Just compare with earth. Earth has around 57 million square miles of land area. Your cylinder has 314 million square kilometers, about 6 times as many. Earth population in 1600 was around 0.5 billion, in 1800 around 1 billion. This gives you an estimate of 3 to 6 billion.
This is massively less than Alexanders answer because he assume perfect climate and soil conditions everywhere, whereas my estimate just uses average earth climate.
] |
[Question]
[
Let’s set some things up so that we’re all caught up:
In 2015, the apocalypse happened; rising sea levels compounded with the Black Flu (deadliest pandemic in human history killing billions around the world) wiped out the modern world. Every nation has collapsed and the “old world” for all intense and purposes is gone.
Fast forward 10 years later to 2025; the US Government has managed to survive (if barely) and has reconstructed itself around the **Peak Eight National Command Complex**/**PENCCOM**, a White House-Capitol-Supreme Court-Pentagon hybrid super bunker. Despite its name, PENCCOM is actually located roughly 50 miles from the actual Peak Eight Mountain in Northern California, with PENCCOM being situated in the southwestern Oregon mountain ranges.
Desperate survivors, refugees, etc. flocked to PENCCOM and soon enough, a small community camping outside of the massive underground bunker-fortress became a bustling small city of over 117,600 citizens by 2025, forming what is known as the **Colony**.
For the most part, the US Government in PENCCOM tries it’s best to emulate the old world US Government by embracing and being fanatically devoted to the values and ideals of the Declaration of Independence and keeping the Constitution as it is. However, changes were made:
* For one, the Colony is divided into 13 individual Districts, with PENCCOM acting as the nucleus of the Colony. With a population of 117,600, there’s currently 24 Representatives in the US House of Representatives, with each person representing roughly 5,000 people.
The Senate meanwhile, still follows the rule of two Senators from each state (or in this case, District), giving the US Senate 26 Senators.
* The executive branch of the government has reshaped into the following:
\*\*Department of Domestic Affairs \*\*
The Department of Domestic Affairs is a result of the unification of the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, Labor, Energy, Interior, Health and Human Services, and Education. They’re now known as the:
* *Strategic National Resources Reserves*
* *Bureau of Infrastructure*
* *Bureau of Agriculture*
* *Bureau of Labor and Manpower*
* *Bureau of Public Health and Security*
* *Bureau of Energy*
**Department of State**
**Department of National Defense**
The Department of National Defense is a result of the unification of the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Transportation. The former departments above are now known as the:
* *Strategic National Military Resources Reserves*
* *Bureau of the National Garrison*
* *Bureau of Homeland Security*
* *Bureau of Veteran’s Affairs*
* *Bureau of Military-Civil Defense Infrastructure*
**Department of Justice**
**Department of Commerce**
[Answer]
What you have actually created is a very large and elaborate city government, which in a post apocalyptic environment will rapidly draw the ire and resentment of the population because it sucks up so much of the resources just needed to survive.
If they truly want to be a **Federal** government and reconstitute the United States of America, they will be more focused on sending out expeditions to the territories of the United States, conducting a census and a survey of all remaining resources (capital and human), and working to establish networks that encourage and bind people to accept the Government of the United States rather than the warlord of Omaha, Nebraska as the legitimate governing body.
This may involve some pretty imaginative working, from rebuilding the US Post office (a legitimate function that everyone would see a use for) to perhaps negotiating with the local warlords and appointing them territorial governors, or at worst, becoming allies with some and devoting the remaining resources of the US military to assist the warlord in crushing other warlords.
Given the low population density and the collapse of economic, social and most political organizations, there seems very little point in recreating the States, rather the Government might administer them as US territories, much like they did in the 1700's and 1800's until there was a critical mass of people to recreate a State, and with it the need for Representatives and Senators.
So the post apocalyptic government may more resemble the American government from the Declaration of Independence to the "closing of the frontiers" in about 1880. They will focus on such critical tasks as communications, surveying land and resources, national defense, administering law (there will be a US Marshal's office and circuit judges, but no FBI, for example) and whatever is left of international diplomacy and relations. There will be few taxpayers, and few resources to administer a large and complex bureaucracy, nor much of a need. The Federal Register of laws and regulations will become extremely stripped down to reflect this as well.
The post apocalyptic US government will be in a very precarious situation, covering a vast expanse of the continent with few resources. In a post apocalyptic environment, they may face both foreign and domestic challengers to their sovereignty (What happens if Canada moves to take the Oregon territories? What does the US government do if Russia, Japan and China are involved in a war over fishing rights off San Francisco, while the Mexican Empire moves to reclaim Alta Mexico? What if the Warlord of Denver declares themselves the "Emperor of the Rockies"?).
Your environment does have room for lots of "urban" storytelling in the local environment, but a would be national government is likely going to focus on the large scale issues, not local governance.
[Answer]
**Too many representatives!**
For a town a little bigger than Redding, California your town is pretty representative-heavy. Redding has 20 divisions of city government listed on its website and yours seem a reasonable approximation. Your city has 50 elected representatives and Redding has 5.
I see you are trying to echo the constitution in your setup but that is a boatload of representatives. Maybe it could work if they were semiceremonial, like the [loya jirga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loya_jirga) in Afghanistan. If I were setting up the city I would have a small number of full timers and assemble the entire 50 only on very special occasions.
---
Side note: where are these 100,000 folks getting their food?
[Answer]
The United States Government was created assuming low-tech conditions. Nothing in the constitution relies upon high technology/energy and the laws that do rely upon this infrastructure can be revoked.
The post apocaliptic government must be more federalist then the current USG is because of distances and bad communications and the different issues at different regions rebuilding the country.
[Answer]
# No
this question boils down to two things.
1. Can they feed themselves, which is up to you and how you set up the society.
2. Can they replace tools as they wear out. This is a no. Due to being more or less confined to a single location and its resources, even if they have the machinery they will not have hte raw resources. But they likely won't have the machinery or expertise either, the population is just too small. which means a collapse back to a more medieval technological level, which makes many of the bureaus and departments pointless and makes a single centralized city unsustainable.
[Answer]
There are a few problems with premise:
* If you get an epidemics that wipes out most of mankind, then you may declare the issue of AGW solved.
* The question clings on implicit assumption that US government is right now functioning properly. Let's say it's a controversial issue.
* it is a bit weird that survivor cosplay US government in one tiny city, instead of taking advantage of all whose free real estate in depopulated areas.
So what you have here is here is whether such state could function?
* Size? OK. What you have is a small city state. Can work neatly, just good luck in having any effective control over contemporary US territory. (presumably if other people are mostly dead is not an issue)
* US constitution was intended for a federation and NOT for a city state. For practical purposes, it would be a bit awkward to try to separate all those functions between local and federal government
* merging those all departments - advisable, otherwise you may end with a departments with a few people each
* government structure - actually there is a good reason to recreate good old days for legitimacy purposes, thus it should be a valid strategy.
] |
[Question]
[
Plant-based clothing comes in a variety of forms, both stereotypically and historically: grass skirts, barkcloth, *et cetera*. But one form I have only ever seen in fiction is clothing made from straight-up leaves (whether woven, sown, or whatever). It has a fairly established place in both fantasy garb, and in many stereotypical depictions of tropical attire.
My question is if there's any actual historical precedent for this. Did people ever make clothes out of whole, intact leaves, or was plant fibre the only material ever actually used? How practical would leaf-based clothing, or clothing that incorporated leaves, actually be? In a warm enough climate, with tough enough plants, would it be manageable, or is it all just fiction?
Edit: While hats certainly qualify as a usage of leaves in clothing, I was particularly curious about their potential integration into garments meant to cover the body (such as shirts, skirts, etc.) E.g. Was it ever done? Is it viable? Etc.
Edit #2 (Re-edited, because I'm not the most eloquent fellow): A lot of people have brought up straw and straw hats, and while that's a perfect example of plants being more or less directly integrated into clothing, I'm more curious about the integration of traditional leaves (such as leaves from trees, bushes, etc.). Whether palm fronds qualify as leaves is a question I leave for a more qualified individual than I, but I think, as leaves taken from a larger plant, they work for this question.
[Answer]
## Taʻovala
>
> A taʻovala is a [Tongan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga) dress, a mat wrapped around the waist, worn by men and women, at all formal occasions. The ta'ovala is also commonly seen among the Fijian Lau Islands, a region once heavily influenced by Tongan hegemony and cultural diffusion.
>
>
> The normal taʻovala, for everyday neat wear, is a short mat, coming halfway up the thighs. It is tied with a rope (*kafa*, often made of coconut coir or of human hair of a deceased ancestor) wrapped around the waist. The mat worn on festive occasions, like a marriage, is much larger and often very nicely decorated. Likewise the taʻovala for a funeral is also a huge mat, but much coarser, not decorated. If the wearer has an inferior rank towards the deceased, the mat is old and torn. The older and more torn it is, the better. All these special mats are kept as precious heirlooms.
>
>
> Taʻovala are part of the *koloa*, the handicraft goods made by the women. Every woman can do it. If girls do not learn it at home, it will be taught at school. More recently, however, some women specialise in the handicraft and sell their products on the market.
>
>
> Taʻovala can be made from different materials, natural and introduced:
>
>
> * Strips of [pandanus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandanus) leaves, usually unpainted, although sometimes black strips are used, and rarely the whole taʻovala is black. The strips range from coarse (15 mm or so as for funerals) to fine (a couple of millimeters, as the *taʻovala loukeha*, in which one is dressed to visit the king). Mats are always woven by hand. Especially the fine mats are therefore very laborious to make, take a long time to complete and are expensive. The oldest and most valuable Tongan fine mats are preserved and worn by the Tongan royal family.
>
>
>
(Wikipedia, *s.v.* [Taʻovala](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ta%CA%BBovala&oldid=848025078))
[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Marriage_mat.jpg)
*Decorated taʻovala worn at a Tongan marriage; photograph James Foster ([User:Tauʻolunga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tau%CA%BBolunga)), 1989; available on Wikipedia; public domain.*
[Answer]
Hats woven from palm fronds and other leaves are quite practical.
For example,
>
> A Panama hat (toquilla straw hat) is a traditional brimmed straw hat of Ecuadorian origin. Traditionally, hats were made from the plaited leaves of the [*Carludovica palmata*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carludovica_palmata) plant, known locally as the toquilla palm or jipijapa palm, although it is a palm-like plant rather than a true palm. (Wikipedia, *s.v.* [Panama hat](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Panama_hat&oldid=882715867))
>
>
> The *jaapi* or *japi* is a traditional conical hat from Assam, India and Odisha, India which is made from tightly woven bamboo and/or cane and *tokou paat* ([*Trachycarpus martianus*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachycarpus_martianus)) a large, palm leaf. The word *jaapi* derives from *jaap* meaning a bundle of *taku* leaves. (Wikipedia, *s.v.* [Jaapi](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jaapi&oldid=887352448))
>
>
> The Thai farmer's hat or *ngob*, is a traditional hat used in Thailand. More complex in design than the related Asian conical hat, the *ngob* is made of [*ola* palm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corypha_umbraculifera) leaves laid over a plaited bamboo-strip frame. (Wikipedia, *s.v.* [Thai farmer's hat](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thai_farmer%27s_hat&oldid=886281555))
>
>
>
] |
[Question]
[
Much of the struggle with terrestrial fusion power seems to be with keeping the ultra-hot plasma contained. In a classic Tokamak configuration, magnets using massive amounts of power, suspend the plasma in a torus that contains the incredible heat and prevents it from melting the containment apparatus. So far, this appears to be one of the great challenges and a reason why we do not currently have cheap, sustainable fusion power.
If you had a fusion reactor in geosynchronous orbit, it would seem like many of these problems of containment would be greatly simplified by weightlessness. The magnetic containment would just be needed to hold the plasma in place, but not need to hold it against gravity.
Another aspect to this might be if space elevators (aka know as 'beanstalks') are used as connecting conduits for bringing generated power back to earth.
What is the practicality of orbital fusion reactors as a source of energy and would weightlessness simplify containment challenges? Current terrestrial test fusion reactors need to be incredibly heavy and massive. Could they be lighter and simpler in space? What are the advantages to orbital fusion power plants?
[Answer]
**I think that as regards containing hot plasma, gravity is the least of their worries.** Think how much mass in in that hot plasma. Probably hardly any because the less mass there is, the easier it is to heat it to fusion.
But lets figure it out with the hard hardness of hard science! Here are stats for the EUs fusion project.
<https://www.iter.org/FactsFigures>
The plasma volume is 830 cubic meters. Considering that volume of hydrogen gas at 1 atmospheres and 0 C I got 66 kg. I can lift that on a good day.
<http://www.airproducts.com/Products/Gases/gas-facts/conversion-formulas/weight-and-volume-equivalents/hydrogen.aspx>
But maybe this plasma is at high pressure? It looks like pressures are not super high.
From 2016: <http://news.mit.edu/2016/alcator-c-mod-tokamak-nuclear-fusion-world-record-1014>
>
> The team set a new world record for plasma pressure in the Institute’s
> Alcator C-Mod tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. Plasma pressure is the
> key ingredient to producing energy from nuclear fusion, and MIT’s new
> result achieves over 2 atmospheres of pressure for the first time.
>
>
>
So 830 cubic meters of plasma at 2 atmospheres. That would be double the weight or 132 kg. I would need help to lift it.
But the whole thing about a Tokumak is that it is hot; from first source, 15 million C. I am proud of the linked calculator; it would accept that value of 15,000,000 C. It gave me
= 3.2757271682719E-6kilogram/meter^3 or 0.0000032 kg / m^3. \*830 m^3 that would be 0.0026 kg or 2600 mg. That is 10 grains of rice, which I can lift.
I conclude the force of gravity on the contained plasma is not much of a consideration. Really the consideration is keeping something that is that hot in a place where you can heat it up more.
I have been known to misplace a decimal here and there. Anyone feeling an itch to duplicate my math, I would like to know if I screwed something up.
[Answer]
Unfortunately, it's not at all practical. The basic issue is that the reactor (at least any reactor built with foreseeable technology -- Mr. Fusion is on the far side of Clarke's Law) is very, very heavy (making orbit a Bad Place to put it since costs are still around $3000/lb to put things into low Earth orbit and several times that to GEO), while the plasma itself weighs very, very little.
The ITER plasma volume is on the order of 2000 cubic meters and the plasma density is 0.6x1020 atoms/cubic meter, so there is 1.2x1023 atoms total, which (if it's using a deuterium-tritium mixture, which is likely for the first reactors, at least) is right around 1 gram.
*Besides that*, waste heat dissipation in space is very difficult, and a fusion reactor will produce a *lot* of waste heat. (Foreseeable designs produce more waste heat than usable energy.) The only practical method for getting rid of waste heat in space is through radiators, and that would be a significant chunk of additional weight...all of which must be moved to GEO at high cost.
[Answer]
I second Willk's answer: gravity doesn't really matter at all for plasma containment, so trying to build a tokamak in orbit would be a huge complication for basically no gain. However, I just took a class on plasma physics so I would be remiss if I didn't cram a bunch more math down peoples' throats.
Now, the main equation that will be governing plasma movement in a tokomak on Earth is
$$m\_j n\_j \frac{D\mathbf{v\_j}}{Dt}=q\_j n\_j (\mathbf{E+v\_j \times B})-\nabla p + m\_j n\_j \mathbf{g}$$
where $m$ is the mass per particle, $n$ the number density, $q$ the particle charge, $\mathbf{v}$ the fluid velocity, $p$ the pressure, $\mathbf{E}$ the electric field, $\mathbf{B}$ the magnetic field, $\mathbf{g}$ the gravitational field, and the subscript denoting which species we are talking about (normally ion vs electron). Now I know that was a whole bunch to dump at once, but I have a very simple goal here: to show you that that the term involving $\mathbf{g}$ (the gravitational force term) is *much* smaller than the other forces at play.
You see, the monstrous equation I gave is really nothing more than a dressed up version of Newton's second law: $\mathbf{F} = m \mathbf{a}$. The left hand side is called the convective derivative and decribes how the plasma is being pushed around (analogous to $\mathbf{a}$), while the right hand side lists the forces acting on the plasma. So, let's get a rough sense of the orders of magnitude that we have for the forces.
First off, we will ignore the electric field, since that tends to be approximately zero in steady state plasmas due to a phenomenon called Debye shielding. I'm also going to ignore the term involving the magnetic field because that's the thing we want to adjust.
So, we want to analyze the approximate magnitude of the term $$\nabla p$$
which for thermodynamics reasons is equivalent to
$$\gamma kT \nabla n$$
The plasma recombines at the walls of the vessel, so $n=0$ there. Meanwhile, at the center of a typical fusion plasma we have a typical value of $n=10^{19} m^{-3}$, and a cross sectional radius of maybe $1 m$, giving us an approximate gradient of $10^{19} m^{-4}$. Using the approximation of an isothermal plasma with $\gamma = 1$, and ITER's projected temperature of $kT = 8 keV$, we obtain
$$\nabla p \approx 13 \times 10^3 N/m^3$$
Now, to compare this to the gravitational term. Using the heaviest particle mass (that of tritium ions in the case of ITER) and $n=10^{19} m^{-3}$, we get
$$m n \mathbf{g} \approx 5 \times 10^{-7}N/m^3$$
which is over 10 orders of magnitude less than the force felt due to pressure gradients! So, when you're designing the magnetic field topology, you can pretty safely ignore gravity.
As for an intuitive reason: fusion plasmas are **hot**. This means particles are bouncing around incredibly quickly, and they bounce off each other so frequently that gravity has basically no time to alter their trajectory in any noticeable way. This is much like how you don't really need to worry about gravity when you're shooting at a target 10 feet away-- the bullet moves so fast that it doesn't really matter.
] |
[Question]
[
Suppose a team of astronauts have travelled to another solar system, and are currently living in a craft which is in Medium Earth Orbit of a planet which has oceans, continents, and complex life. Assume that among them are people of every relevant field of science, and onboard there is all equipment necessary for your answer.
Essentially, what I want to know is; **how much information about this planet can these people accquire while in orbit, without actually setting foot on it or even entering the atmosphere?** When I say "information", I mean virtually everything of scientific value - mass, atmospheric composition, topography, temperature, life, you name it.
If this question is broad or opinion-based, I apologize. Please let me know and I'll try my best to amend it accordingly. If you need further clarification, just ask.
**EDIT:** More clarification, in response to Molot's comment. For the purposes of the question, imagine that the technology they'll be using to find out about the planet is equivalent to modern technology, despite their means of transport being obviously not so.
As I said; "assume . . . onboard there is all equipment necessary". However, as regards "telling what there is to find or what is needed", I'll compose a short list here of the topics the team are interested in, so answerers can let me know what's possible in these fields.
* Mass of the planet and distribution of that mass
* Internal composition of the planet (materials in mantle and core and size of layers)
* Tectonic activity
* Topography
* Composition and density of atmosphere; breathability to humans
* Weather patterns, prevailing winds/currents, wind speed etc.
* Temperature of the air, oceans etc., temperature of the planet's interior
* Presence of life, nature, chemistry and abundance of that life; possibly even observation of individual organisms (See this question: [Can I monitor animal movements from space?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/115874/can-i-monitor-animal-movements-from-space?r=SearchResults))
* Biomes
* Ph of land, oceans etc.
* Magnetic field
That's all I can think of right now, I might add to the list later on. Essentially, I'd like to know what the scientists can and can't find out about these subjects, or whether they're possible to study from orbit at all. Hopefully this helps.
[Answer]
* Mass of the planet and distribution of that mass: Mass yes, they are orbiting the planet; they can calculate the mass of the planet with great precision.
* Internal composition of the planet (materials in mantle and core and size of layers): spectral analysis of the incandescent lava will tell them that the outer layers consis mostly of aluminosilicates. Spectral analysis of the atmosphere will tell them that the oceans are made of water. The presence of a strong-ish magnetic field will tell them that there must be a ferromagnetic nucleus.
* Tectonic activity: No, not really. If they spend enough time, they will notice the effects of large earthquakes, so they will know that the planet *is* tectonically active, but any precise measurement will have to be done on the ground.
* Topography: Yes, obviously, they can make exquisitely detailed maps, down to sub-meter scale.
* Composition and density of atmosphere; breathability to humans: Yes, clearly. Spectral analysis will give them the composition with great precision. Analysis of winds will give them the density; they know the temperature, so they can compute pressure.
* Weather patterns, prevailing winds/currents, wind speed etc. Mostly yes. Weather patterns in general (rain, wind, cold, hot) are plainly observable. Strong winds are measurable. Tropical cyclones will be seen and analyzed, giving them a good idea of the major ocean currents. Small details are observable only from the ground; for example, while they can make good guess on how much water falls on the ground, they can tell precisely only if they actually come down and measure it.
* Temperature of the air, oceans etc., temperature of the planet's interior: Temperature of the air yes, we are using satellites for that purpose. Temperature of the ocean, yes, but with much less precision. It's meaningless to speak of *the* temperature of the interior; but they can observe volcanic eruptions and they can measure the temperature of the lava.
* Presence of life, nature, chemistry and abundance of that life: Yes, obviously. Clorophyll is very easily noticed (it's green), and the large amount of oxygen in the atmosphere can only be sustained by biological processes. Not to mention the large and easily noticeable chalk cliffs. The presence of chlorophyll will immediatly let them understand that life is carbon-based. Large animals are visible, if they are willing to spend the money on the kind of telescopes required.
* Biomes: Forests, deserts, pairies, tundra, taiga, etc. are plainly visible. The changing colors of deciduous forests cannot be missed. Large individual trees are visible with the right optics.
* Ph of land, oceans etc. Not exactly, but with enough precision to know that they won't get chemical burns if they bathe in the ocean.
* Magnetic field: Yes, obviously. They are flying in it.
[Answer]
Whatever can be sensed by satellites orbiting our planet can, in principle, be sensed orbiting around another planet. Just to list a few:
* Mass: since the mass of the orbiting satellite is in principle well known, it is possible to measure not only the total mass of the planet, but also local variation of gravity, thus mapping the internal density distribution of the planet itself.
* Surface and below surface topology: visual inspection and radar scanning can measure the surface topology with a good level of detail. We have already managed to do it on Venus. We can also scan below the surface, to detect buried structures.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RkvdH.jpg)
* Atmospheric composition: by measuring absorption spectra, it is possible to determine the gases present in the atmosphere, and by observing the dynamics of the atmosphere itself it is also possible to investigate its physics.
* Magnetic field
* Presence of life: some years ago a NASA probe, using Earth for a gravitational kick, measured the planet searching for signature of life. It found them! It is possible to detect the fingerprint of, among others, oxygen and chlorophyll. Not to mention night lights, of course.
[Answer]
If the spy movies are to be believed, they would also be able to read license plates from orbit. Applying such visual observation technology to more scientific purposes, they could catalog the major life forms, study migration patterns, map the land masses and ocean currents.
Over time they could determine the seasons and track the snowline, determine storm patterns and build a model of planetary weather patterns.
More directly, they should sample the vacuum around their station for remnants of bacteria thrown up out of the atmosphere. If they are lucky and find some, a great deal could be learned concerning the planet's fundamental biology.
[Answer]
Assuming that by "without actually setting foot on it or even entering the atmosphere" your scientists cannot deploy landers to the surface of this planet, and are restricted to using orbital satellites only, there is quite a lot that they would be able to learn about this planet. Remote sensing is a booming field of research right Now, so who even knows what will be possible in the future?
The first thing you need to know about remote sensing techniques is the trade-off between spectral resolution and spatial resolution. Hyperspectral imaging can measure on wavelength increments on the scale of nanometers. However, the trade-off is that your pixel size becomes huge in comparison what is possible with monochromatic imaging. As an example, the HiRISE imagery of Mars is monochromatic with a ground resolution of 25×25 cm. Landsat and Sentinel imagery of Earth has a resolution of 10×10 m or coarser, depending on the sensor band you're looking at. The specifications of orbiters with hyperspectral imaging suites escape me at the moment, but I have worked with hyperspectral image cubes of Mars and Earth both in courses for my Bsc and Msc degrees, so I know they exist. I am on my phone right now, so looking up references will have to wait for later.
The second trade-off is another between wavelength and ground resolution: longer wavelengths have coarser maximum ground resolutions.
There is a third kind of resolution that is important when using remote sensing platforms: temporal resolution. In other words: the amount of time that passes before the same patch of surface area is sensed a second (or third, or fourth... you get the idea) time.
Now, all that background information is nice and all, but what does this mean for your scientists? What can they study, using only sensors in the electromagnetic spectrum that are in orbit around the planet's? Like I said, quite a lot. The actual limits of what is possible will be determined by the spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions of your scientists' observation platforms, but here's a few things we have studied here on Earth, using satellite imagery:
* Ocean temperature
* Land surface temperature
* Weather patterns
* Ocean currents
* Mineralogic composition of surface bedrock
* We've constructed detailed elevation maps
* The evolution of glaciers and ice caps
* The presence and health of vegetation
* The presence of near-surface groundwater
Combining any of these leads to more advanced insights and better understanding of what to study next. And that is not even touching on what you might learn by simply looking for (large) animals on your images.
[Answer]
Maybe you could rephrase the question "what can't they find out from orbit"
The moon missions brought back surface material which has given unexpected results not available from orbit so that's not going to happen if they can not get samples.
Thinking along those lines would most likely give better answer's to your question.
] |
[Question]
[
**Question Context:**
I've been developing insect-looking bipeds that have evolved on a mostly jungle/ocean planet in addition to small, scattered grasslands. This is justified (from what I've read) by a thick nitrogen/oxygen/carbon-dioxide and humid atmosphere, significant amounts of water, continents mostly placed near the equator, and possibly a slower planetary rotation/adjusted tilt. These creatures are mostly predatory, developing and embracing an elite warrior culture and are likely the best soldiers and warriors in the galaxy, almost always outmatching any other galactic creature or society in combat. These creatures on average are around 7.5 ft tall and weigh roughly 200+ pounds, but these measurements are flexible to change if necessary.
Various fantasy settings depict humanoid-like and other non-humanoid creatures possessing the ability to generate and accurately direct lightning ([Vortigaunts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortigaunt) from the Half-Life series and Pokemon being the first that comes to mind). This ability is usually depicted capable of incapacitating/severely injuring other creatures over a moderate distance on land, usually over a couple of meters. The process by which the creatures in these settings generate and direct lighting is almost always hand-waved or just explained with magic/magic-like means. I envision my creatures possessing this ability, emitting lightning/electric shocks on land through tentacle-like structures.
Although there are creatures of Earth that are capable of bioelectrogenesis, these creatures are mostly fish like the electric eel. Although the electric eel is capable of generating electric shocks powerful enough to stun prey, their ability to produce electricity is nothing compared to that of the fantasy creatures described previously.
**Question:**
***Is it biologically possible for these terrestrial creatures to generate and accurately direct lighting or electric shocks that can be used at a distance on land that is powerful enough to kill opponents or prey? If so, how energy demanding would such a trait be per shock for these creatures?***
[Answer]
You would need several adaptations working together to allow an organism to emit lightning, specifically you would need organs to generate power, store power, ground the creature, generate a large voltage differential to overcome the air resistance, and generate an ion stream to point the lightning somewhat and also lower the air resistance further.
First power generation, this can be done with basically the same organs the electric eel uses except optimized to produce continuous power vs brief bursts.
Power storage could be accomplished by essentially creating a large capacity capacitor using layers of thin wide scales with a highly conductive core and highly resistive coating. Every other scale would be connected to one electrical circuit system which would accumulate a positive charge while the other scales would be connected to a circuit system that would accumulate a negative charge. The scale capacitor organ would, of course, be charged with the power generation organs.
The grounding organ would consist of the positively charged circuit system connected to the creature's feet which would be designed to maximize the conductivity of anything it touches by excreting a highly conductive mucus over a large padded area and onto it conductive claws.
Next comes the lightning generating tentacles. The skin of the tentacles would be a spiral of cells, conductive on the inside and insulative on the outside. When a large dc current is passed through the skin of the tentacles, again generated by the power generation organs, they would act like a giant spark plug and would quickly begin to store energy in the magnetic field around the long coil of tentacle skin cells.
The final organ would be at the tip of the tentacle and would form essentially an organic cathode-ray tube. Two conductive plates, one near the tip with a hole in the center would be positively charged, while the other plate further back from the tip would be negatively charged. Electrons would flow from the negative plate to the positive plate with some leaving as a stream through the hole in the plate near the tip. The stream of electrons would serve to lower the resistance of the air in their direction of travel allowing some level of aiming the lightning once generated.
Now to put this all together the creature would ground its self with its feet, begin charging its capacitor scales and once sufficient power is stored switch to generating a dc current through its sparkplug like tentacle skin and point its cathode-ray like tentacle tip organ at the enemy. Then a quick chemical dump in a switching portion of the tentacle skin would break the circuit. The counter electromotive force caused by the magnetic field in the tentacle skin collapsing would cause a massive voltage spike overcoming the air resistance along the least resistive path... hopefully in the direction of the ion stream coming from the tip of the tentacle towards the enemy and all the power stored in the capacitor scales would dump into the target in a flash of lightning.
[Answer]
I posted this here: [Draconic Creature externally getting electricity](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/79704/draconic-creature-externally-getting-electricity/79751#79751)
but it did not get much love. I am bringing it back, edited.
Your creatures could be insulated on the outside, and roll and slide around on dry ground. They could charge themselves up with static electricity. Just like scuffling along in slippers on a winter day, then gently touching your brother on the ear. Scuffling thru the air counts - fine particles scuffling thru the air and collecting charge is where lightning comes from and the principle of air scuffling conferring charge is why planes have little lightning rods on them: to disperse accumulated charge.
Sharp edges tend to bleed off charge and so for this method it would be advantageous for your creatures to be very round, or possibly like the Michelin Man.
A nearly spherical creature would be ideal for this if that works. Bonus: travel by bouncing.
A problem: on touching something grounded with some body part that is not insulated (tongue?) the creature gets an equivalent shock.
A solution is to have the creature spit or sneeze or otherwise launch discrete boluses of dispensable matter from its body towards the target. A lugey of electrolyte and mucus will carry some charge as it leaves and on hitting the grounded target, impart that charge. The dragon is not part of the circuit. This method also allows the dragon to parcel out charge in several shots as opposed to dumping it all at once (still possible via tongue method).
ADDENDUM It was pointed out to me that rather than scuffling on carpet or through the sky, the electric creature could accumulate charge by rubbing itself - much like one might rub a balloon on a child head to make her hair stand up, or accidentally shocking a dog or cat after accumulating charge by petting it. I can imagine this round warrior creature rubbing itself briskly immediately before launching a gooey charged blast at its prey.
[Answer]
Some insects, such as crickets and cicadas, "sing" by rubbing body parts (usually wings and legs). A giant insect could rub a wing against a leg to generate static charge. If the feet are insulated from the ground, the charge will hold, and then they can discharge by getting close to a victim.
A pointy part like a leg adapted for it, or an antenna, will help deliver. In fact, pointy parts are better at delivering shockw at small distances through a spark.
If you don't like the idea of static charges created by friction, then see one of the most awesome questions this site has ever had, also on electric creatures:
[How do I explain a unicorn discharging powerful electricity at a distance?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/109199/21222)
[Answer]
**Is it biologically possible?** No there is no precedent remotely capable of this expression. Eels store nowhere near this kind of energy and are not immune to their own shocks.
**Is it theoretically biologically possible?** Potentially, you would need to some how create a biological battery or capacitor capable of storing the energy of a lightning bolt. To say the least this is difficult with even todays technology.
**Can lightning be directed?** No, lightning follows the path of least resistance and cannot be directed horizontally over land.
**Can I BS the illusion that lightning can be directed?** Yes and no, if you were to shoot a super conductive cable from your hand and attach it to a high point on the enemy you could achieve the effect of directing a lightning shock at a target. Here's the kicker, in order to reproduce the visual of the lightning, the cable would have to be used up/consumed/burned in each attack. In order for the intense light of a lightning bolt to be emitted, material has to enter a plasmatic state. Turning solid matter like a cable into a plasmatic state (while in a reactive atmosphere) results in it being vaporized.
[Answer]
For bioelectrogenesis inspiration, oriental hornets have solar cells built into their skin.
These hornets have an outer layer (cuticle) that actually allows them to absorb sunlight. The brown and yellow colors of the oriental hornet not only serve to warn potential predators, but also contain pigments that harvest solar energy. The banded sections have multiple layers that get successively thinner and sandwich the pigments. The brown cuticle has about 30 layers while the yellow cuticle has roughly 15. Scientists have found that the outer brown layer is covered in grooves that act almost like gratings that help trap light, allowing the rays to funnel inward for better absorption. The outer yellow layer is covered in oval-shaped bumps that increase effective surface area for absorption. Both of these areas exhibit antireflection and light-trapping properties, enhancing the absorption of light in the cuticle.
The sunlight that these hornets capture is converted into electrical energy. There exists a voltage between the inner and outer layers of the yellow stripe that increases in response to illumination. The harvested energy may be used in physical activity (digging or flight) and temperature regulation. It even seems to provide enough energy to carry out metabolic functions similar to the liver (producing or filtering enzymes and sugars). The enzymatic activity in these regions has been shown to decrease when the hornet is exposed to light, allowing it to conserve its energy.
<https://asknature.org/strategy/pigments-absorb-solar-energy/>
[Answer]
You mentioned electric eels. Your humanoid warrior can have an symbiotic relationship with an such an eel, who resides in a suitably shaped a bodily orifice of the warrior. The bodily waste that was originally eliminated through the orifice serves as food for the eel, and warrior requests an electric bolt by squeezing said orifice. To direct the electric discharge to the enemy, either the warrior or the eel eject a high-pressure stream of electrolyte-rich liquid, which acts as a conductor.
] |
[Question]
[
I am writing a story centered around a planet orbiting a Blue Supergiant star.
What I want to know is how far away a planet would have to be to be in the habitable zone of such a star. The star I have in mind is roughly comparable to Rigel and don't mind anything like the need for protection from radiation, the race that inhabits this world can handle radiation and the likes of solar flares to the point they basically thrive in radiation that would utterly destroy a human.
Some side questions I have are these:
* How many Earth years would 1 year on this planet be?
* Would the 4 seasons still be roughly equally divided in that year?
[Answer]
Ok, so using Rigel as an example:
Rigel has a luminosity of 120,000 sols, so for a planet to receive the same insolation as the Earth does around the sun, it would orbit at a distance of 346.4 AU.
Given a stellar mass of 23 sols, and a planetary mass of 1 Earth, the year length is 1344.09 Earth years.
Seasons are tricky since they have to do with the axial tilt of the planet, and given the year length, precession could actually cause the seasons to shift within that time.
You should also be aware that the spectrum of the host star has an effect of the strength of ice albedo feedback in the climate of planets. It is possible that around a Blue Giant, that more of the total insolation would be reflected back into space, so this hypothetical planet could very well be an irradiated snowball.
Reference: <https://arxiv.org/abs/1305.6926>
[Answer]
Note that the lifespan of the star is going to factor here. Rigel is estimated to be only about 10 million years old and will go kablooey in a supernova [within the next few million years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigel). That makes the odds of any life-bearing planets around any similar star extremely slim and unlikely as they'd barely have time to finish cooling to a temperature to support life before the big bang. Earth took a few hundred million years before it did it.
] |
[Question]
[
Let's say there was a Type II Kardeshev Scale civilization that suddenly went extinct. Why would the entire species just die out? An added condition is that they knew of their impending destruction well ahead of time to make preparations to preserve the detailed record of their civilization.
I was thinking maybe supernova, but if they had other members of their species on different planets, this would not be a plausible reason for their species wide extinction. Maybe a biological "expiration date?"
[Answer]
# Too Much Tampering with Genetics
Stargate SG-1 had a species called the Asgard. The Asgard modified their own genetics for multiple reasons - curing diseases, better life spans, smarter, more adaptable. The baseline Asgardian genome had become lost to time. At some point, the species recognizes that there is some subtle flaw with their modification technology that did not manifest until it has compounded too much over the generations to correct. Their gene editing technology is now turned towards curing the problem, but they are able to accurately predict when - absent some unforeseen miracle - their species will end. They make plans for an orderly transition of their knowledge to others.
# The Final Solution, Oops I Needed Them...
Babylon 5 had a race whose name escapes me at the moment. The species decided that one ethnic group needed to be cleansed. Later, the species contracts a plague that xenobiologists studying genetic databases show could have been cured by transfusions from the now extinct ethnic group (they possessed some blood abnormality much like some human ethnic groups are prone to sickle cell)
# Ascension
A lot of science fiction has a species transcending physical forms - either becoming pure energy or robotic. In 'Childhoods End' Arthur Clark imagines humanity going through the process. Only the last generation has a ticket to the good life. Their parents will die off sterile. The ascended species, for some reason, will not rescue their race. Those left behind have a whole lifetime to put their affairs in order.
# De-Evolution
A few authors have explored species developing a kind of Alzheimer's that completely strips them of sentience. Later races walk among what they think are native cattle, feeding their children on their milk and marvelling at the technology left behind by some vanished race, little knowing that race is right in their midst (I think this was in Fredrick Pohl's 'Gateway' and the species intentionally de-evolved to escape the notice of the Assassins)
[Answer]
Seems unlikely but a few scenarios:
1) *They have genetically engineered themselves into some state where reproduction rates keep dropping until they go extinct.* However, genetics in general doesn't work that way so it may be a stretch.
2) *Local stellar disaster (possibly as a long-term result of them monkeying with their sun)*. They may be a type II civilization, but perhaps there is a reason why, although they can populate all the planets in their local system, they can't travel interstellar distances. Social reasons. Or a 'hive-mind' that doesn't allow individuals or small groups to be separated significant distances from the 'mother-brain'. Or some limit in their biochemistry that doesn't allow them to be ship-board for the time periods required for interstellar travel.
3) *Religion*. They are all followers of a pan-global religion or cult that necessitates them committing mass suicide at some definable and identifiable time.
4) *Extermination.* A much more powerful Type III civilization decides to get rid of them. They know they are being, or are about to be, targeted but have no chance against an orders of magnitude more powerful civilization.
5) *Targeted disease.* They may be able to cure most ills, but it is always simpler to sabotage than it is to protect, so if a suicidal terrorist group within them designed an unstoppable pathogen...
6) *Boredom, social-decay*. If smart AI can write better music and paint better paintings, and all of physics/chemistry/math/philosophy has been discovered, you have explored every conceivable type of planet, what is there left to do? Or, at some stage in the past they traded the ability to reproduce for 'almost' immortality...and now many millennia later they are literally bored to death with the idea of living another millennia or three.
[Answer]
## Intentional war, an apocalypse followed by Technology Dependency failure.
We went through a nuclear race and MAD [Mutually Assured Destruction] policies, and there remains enough nuclear weapons to wipe out humanity. But you don't have to do nuclear war, per se, I'm just using that idea as an analogy.
Don't make the mistake of thinking a very advanced civilization is automatically accompanied by benign politics, or that they have stopped grasping for power, or have different parties with different ideas on how to rule, to tax, to provide their citizens freedom.
Peace is not brought by technology, as a glance at the world today should show. If anything, it can cause contention FOR the technology: people are fighting over access to expensive forms of health care and medicine that did not exist two centuries ago, but now that technology has delivered this semi-magic, people are fighting hard about how much **profit** we should allow to be made from it, and even without profits, who should pay for it.
Despite high technology, your civilization can have wild fights over similar advances. Who gets to be immortal, and who has to die? Why? What does the civilization owe individual members of it? Who is being (or feels they are being) exploited for others that live wonderful lives in leisure?
Find something for them to have political fights over. Religion, money, whatever.
***WE*** are a pretty high-tech world, and are still arguing over these things. Devise a high tech world where bitter fights over religion are still rampant. And even if they reject religion, atheists like me ([only 7% of the world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#United_Kingdom)) can still disagree vehemently over philosophical questions, like how much (if anything) we owe to society or our fellow humans, or fellow life in general, and in what form. These beliefs can range from supreme selfishness to complete devotion (to others, not God).
Then some group on the losing side, perhaps denied technology that would save their lives, decides if they lose, everybody loses, and they intentionally engineer the death and destruction of their opposition. Their plan to use war to get their way partially succeeds, but, people being people (whether aliens or not), their opposition had their own fanatics, and had used high-tech to engineer a dead-man switch. That kicks in and wipes out **their** opposition. Nobody wins.
Then the scattered remnants write your history, but like any high-tech civilization (including our own), they have become life-dependent on their technology which they do not fully understand, and that is not functioning after the war, and the people that could fix it are dead. They grow old and die, unable to either diagnose or cure diseases or make medicines. What % of people on Earth knows how to create a simple antibiotic, or any other medicine?
Destroy the energy and/or manufacturing base, and everybody dependent upon manufactured medicine dies when it runs out. Living spaces that depend on machinery to cool it, warm it, light it, provide oxygen and air pressure, become at least unlivable, and perhaps death traps. Sanitation and water that depend on energy for pumping and cleaning all stop, filling the streets (or something equivalent) with sewage.
The food supply, naturally segregated (like our own) into production districts (huge farms or space platforms) because sufficient power allows remote production and transportation to the consumers, also fails. Without power, the food production itself fails, uncared for, and the transport mechanisms all fail too. The population enters a phase of starvation.
The population is returned to **our** middle-ages or dark-ages. But it is worse: People born into that situation do not survive to adulthood without strong immune systems, and from infancy their body and mind adapts with muscle and learning to survive in a world of shortages and wants. A modern couch potato dropped into this situation just dies. Thanks to medicine, the weak immune systems and those with disabilities were not culled in childhood, and the adults are unfit, because they have not spent lives filled with physical activity, walking 20 miles a day, hunting, gathering, grinding grain, preparing food and making weapons from scratch. Like most of us in the real-life modern world, they literally don't have the *muscle* to survive, and even if the young do, they haven't spent a lifetime learning and practicing the *skill set* to survive in a world without power and technology.
Say they are unable to reproduce naturally or keep their children alive without robotic assistance and assistants, and are barely able to communicate in person. Their food may be completely processed, and the machines don't do that anymore. There is likely no "wild" area for them at all. There may be no animal or vegetable food sources for them to find anywhere, their whole environment is a machine run habitat.
Religion and politics are their apocalypse, and due to their extreme technology dependency, within a few generations post-apocalypse, they go extinct. But before the apocalypse, a few saw where they were going, and wrote about it. And during the apocalypse, before the last machines failed, they wrote about what had come to pass. And that was what was left to posterity.
[Answer]
In Joe Haldeman's The Forever War trilogy, humanity undergoes a transformation upon which all human bodies, across multiple star systems, are clones and share a single collective mind.
This collective being, known as Man, then gets put in its place twice:
* In one instance another species shows them how the devices that allow for the shared mind to exist can be easily hacked and fed with false data;
* In a reverse Deus Ex Machina, the few intelligent species discover that they are actually experiments from a god (who is actually someone from an even more technologically advanced species). This god is mad that the experiments ran out of control and even shows that they could remove the whole bloody galaxy from existence with a thought if rubbed the wrong way.
In both cases above an interstellar civilization only survived due to plot armor.
---
In the Discworld series of books, each planet is a disc of rock supported on the back of a cosmic turtle. It has been shown that such turtles come from cosmic eggs, which are supposed to have been laid by older turtles. Some wise men of the Disc believe that the Turtle upon which the stories take place is moving through space towards a cosmic shore, upon which it, along with many other world turtles, will reproduce. In such an event, life could be extinguished from the discs lying on the back of thousands, maybe millions of female turtles. This hypothetical apocalyptic cosmic event is called the Big Bang, and may lay waste to any interplanetary civilization that happens to have colonized only female Turtles.
[Answer]
There are two ways of getting to the K-II mark, one is to spread out across the galaxy and harness a noticeable percentage of the energy output of a number of stars, such civilisations would be relatively safe from local disasters. The other version of the K-II civilisation is one that stays in just one star system building either a Dyson Sphere (as a [swarm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_swarm), a [bubble](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_bubble), or a [shell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_shell)), or a [Matrioshka Brain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain). Stay at home K-II civilisations are vulnerable to a number of stellar scale disasters that wouldn't cause their wide spread counterparts existential issues:
* any stellar evolution event within the primary has the potential to wipe them out, this could take the form of a supernova, or entering a cold expansion phase etc... Even a rapid succession of large flares and/or [CME](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection)s can potentially cause enough damage to cripple such a system leading to decline and eventual extinction.
* external incidents on a stellar scale could also be lethal; [Gamma Ray Bursts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst) are little understood massive explosions that release enough hard radiation that if one were to occur within 50-100 light years it has the potential to sterilise the entire solar system. Supernovae in nearby stars could also cause lethal damage to such societies.
* for events which people could probably see coming though it's the transient events that I think are the most realistic threats. The near transit of a heavy object like a black hole, a neutron star, or a pulsar could smash any complex orbital structure. Radiation from a pulsar or feeding black hole on its way past might be even more devastating. A rogue planet or interstellar debris cloud could also wreck large swathes of the physical infrastructure of a single system K-II civilisation.
There is a middle ground for K-II civilisations, a civilisation can be spread across a very small number of stars, harvesting a huge percentage of the energy of each, such a society could still be vulnerable to events, such as gamma ray bursts, supernovae, and transient hard radiation sources, to spite being spread across a number of star systems.
[Answer]
## Fragmentation and eventual collapse, because of evolution
The most likely **root-cause** of a space faring civilization's end is **[allopatric speciation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allopatric_speciation)**. Basically; humanity inevitably breaks up into various different species because of the way our biology works. Then civilization (and possibly life) collapse for reasons related to the ensuing division and isolation of intelligent species.
## Synopsis
One problem with having a population spread out across several planets that is rarely explored in science-fiction, is evolution. When meaningful gene-flow between planets stops and human populations on different planets begin turning into different species, what will happen?
The phenomena of allopatric speciation is well documented, so we can say with certainty that it will happen. We know it will happen because we know that human populations will be isolated for the following reasons:
* The first is that space travel takes time (by our laws of physics/relativity possible a very long time), and costs financial resources so not everyone will do it. This greatly reduced migration, and gene glow. So our population's genes are mostly isolated to their own planet.
* Second, planets are likely to be very different. Someone that is well built to survive on one planet probably isn't well suited to thrive on another. So the differences in evolutionary pressures between different planets will cause a divergence of traits. For example one planet may be hot and cause humans to adapt to heat tolerance, while another may be cold and cause humans to adapt to conserving heat. One may have low oxygen and cause humans to lower metabolic functions, and etc. This leads to humans evolving in a hundred different directions.
* Finally, speciation is not reversible. Once speciation reaches the point where breeding between multiple population is no longer possible, there is no going back. Even if the different human species are superficially similar, they are now on a path to changing more and more from each other and can never go back. So one day these different populations will be unrecognizably different from each other.
## Why does this lead to the end of a space civilization?
Species with fundamentally different needs and desires will have an inherently difficult time being part of a homogenous political entity that tries to compromise between the needs of all populations. In the end the populations can all probably govern themselves better and will know this.
So here are some ideas of what might ensue and break apart a galactic civilization:
1. Each species **fights for independence** (and inevitably speciates again as they expand and then each subgroup fights for independence again, etc). Life may continue to exist, but no political entity will.
2. **War**, and annihilation. Speciesism (species racism), resource wars, ideological differences, elitism, and pretty much any conflict that can arise from major differences between intelligent groups of people. Only these differences are real.
3. **Isolation**. Populations become independent, lose the support of the galactic community and eventually die when a catastrophe strikes and no one helps.
All of these situations, if you add enough time to it, should happen.
[Answer]
I've worked with what I call the neural horizon.
It comes down to becoming more and more intelligent, and with that intelligence you start shedding the emotions you have now transcended and no need for anymore. Except it proves hard to simply choose what emotions you want to feel and which you dont. As time progresses this intelligence ceases to be angry, have sexual urges, fear injury or death, feel the need to eat or see a meaning in keeping themselves alive. They are closer to AI that sees no problem is being shut down permanently, and they let their species die out eventually.
[Answer]
**Lone wolf super terrorist**
Imagine a person who hates everything, he want to see it all gone, he also happen to be an amazing biologist with access to the top equipment of it's super civilization, so what does Nuttso Mcnuts does? he creates a virus, the virus has no ill effects on it's victims for a 100 years, it simply infects more and more (viruses like that exists in all of us).
Over a 100 years the virus spread, it may not have infected everyone but it infected over 99.9% of the population of the civilizations and then the virus internal clock runs out and it kicks in, in the span of a day 99.9% of the population dies, the other 0.1% will follow soon enough as everything they where relying on is now gone.
[Answer]
**Escape via time jump.**
In Lovecraft's [The Shadow Out Of Time](http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/sot.aspx) the Great Race hops through time, occupying bodies of civilizations they find at various places and times through the universe. The narrator encounters the Great Race as they have taken control of a race of plant beings, apparently replacing that culture completely with their own. The Great Race plans another time hop in the future, and then another - because they can project their minds through time they know how all of this will transpire.
>
> I shivered at the mysteries the past may conceal, and trembled at the
> menaces the future may bring forth. What was hinted in the speech of
> post-human entities of the fate of mankind produced such an effect on
> me that I will not set it down here. After man there would be the
> mighty beetle civilisation, the bodies of whose members the cream of
> the Great Race would seize when the monstrous doom overtook the elder
> world. Later, as the earth’s span closed, the transferred minds would
> again migrate through time and space—to another stopping-place in the
> bodies of the bulbous vegetable entities of Mercury. But there would
> be races after them, clinging pathetically to the cold planet and
> burrowing to its horror-filled core, before the utter end.
>
>
>
The Great Race does not become extinct, but for someone not aware of their time-jumping abilities they would seem to do so. Their tenure in a time and place comes to an end and they disappear. The minds of these creatures then move themselves through time (only forwards, it seemed to me) and take control en masse of a different population. Their next stop will be the beetle people of Earth's future and then later another vegetable race. In his own time, the narrator finds the ruined buildings of the Great Race, their builders since departed for the beetle people.
So too your alien race. They have jumped to a different place in time with their minds and started new then/there, leaving behind their old bodies and relics of their previous civilization.
[Answer]
Consider HIV. Untreated it's basically 100% fatal, but it's asymptomatic during a long infection period. It caused an awful lot of deaths before we even knew of it's existence. Particularly vulnerable populations came close to being wiped out. The saving grace here is that it is pretty much a blood infection vector. (Yes, the primary vector is sexual--but most infections are due to either damage to the surfaces or to sores from other STDs. It has almost zero chance of infecting healthy, undamaged surfaces.)
Consider the common cold. It is, after all, very common. However, it's not that dangerous.
Suppose a cold virus somehow incorporated an HIV virus, but it's loosely bound and can break off in a host. Just another cold, the medical community doesn't see any particular threat. Meanwhile, HIV infects most of the world's population before anyone notices anything and when they do it's going to be awfully hard to figure out what's going on--there are an awful lot of harmless viruses floating around, it's going to take a lot to pinpoint this one as not harmless. (Remember, HIV doesn't infect anything but humans so you can't go around injecting suspect materials to see what happens.)
Once people are dropping like flies civilization gets an awful lot of holes poked in it. The immune population probably can't keep things running. The more dependent on technology they are the harder the crash (up to the point where AIs are good enough they don't need to keep it running.)
I can see such a population knowing they were doomed but having months or even years to document what happened.
[Answer]
They are individually not sentient, only the hive mind has sentience. While they certainly possess interstellar capability no crew is possible. To send enough of their species to another star would rip so many units out of the mind in their system that it would no longer function properly.
Their astronomers have seen the approaching body (white dwarf/neutron star/black hole, any will suffice--even a star would work but they would have an awful lot more warning time) and know it's going to hit their star but they don't have time to avert the collision, nor do they have the time to build enough lift capability to move their entire species.
[Answer]
This is a question I have actually heard before posed as an enigma for a campaign setting idea. A few days from present (then 2008) humanity picks up an inbound transmission form a star some 44 LY away.Humanity then spends close to 30 years decoding and analyzing this message. This gigantic message that is around 8 Petabytes of data.
When at last the message is revealed,it is video and audio showing (really as best you can) a planetary civilization. From festivals,to technology,the streets,buildings, cultural customs,examples of different language,etc. But near the end is where it gets bad. This is the part not everyone would get to see if the message went public. They had the means to leave their solar system;this is clearly shown. But for some reason they cannot leave,something is keeping them there.
As there star goes supernova (a sight witnessed close to 27 yrs prior by humanity) they cannot leave. The Enemy will not let them,it waits and watches the home world of their species die. What this enemy is was not elaborated on,only that they were feared enough that the only means this species could see of leaving a legacy was sending data dumps through space at planets they had confidence supported sentient life.
Some think they sent us this record to be remembered.others think it was a warning.
Only you can decide.
] |
[Question]
[
What role do satellites, communication towers, GPS, etc, play in the operation, and specifically the landing, of a space shuttle?
If those and any other human-made things suddenly disappeared, could an astronaut in a shuttle in space still return to earth and land manually?
[Answer]
Well, the space shuttle could land quite effectively without GPS; we know that because the first space shuttle flights [were in 1981](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-1), and the [GPS grid wasn't active until 1995](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System).
To be fair, the initial project by the US government to implement GPS in 1973, but it's not believed that the system was operational before 1995. In any event, although they didn't have to land like the space shuttle, the Apollo Missions wouldn't have had access to GPS in order to know where they were and they landed reasonably well in their (admittedly large) landing zone.
If you think of the space shuttle as a glorified plane (and you shouldn't, but for simplicity's sake), then once you've re-entered the atmosphere landing isn't that much different to what pilots did before radar, air traffic control, radio, etc. You do your own math, you observe your surroundings and line the plane up with your eyes rather than instrumentation.
That said, re-entry is the hard bit. You have to know how and when to get the shuttle to re-enter, you have to know the right angles to approach on, etc. It can be done by someone without ground support, but that person would have to be very precise, knowledgeable and perceptive about where their craft is in relation to the Earth. It wouldn't be easy. Ideally, you'd have a number of landing sites around the world to cover off every contingency, you'd make the craft more aerodynamic, give it emergency fuel loads so that it can achieve even limited powered flight in the atmosphere, and then hope like crazy that your pilot doesn't accidently re-enter with a landing vector right in the middle of the Pacific.
Ultimately, what all these satellites, comms and other tools do is allow for better precision, not for ACTUAL landing skill. That still comes into the hands of the pilot. Without them, your pilot has to be better than they have to be with a small army of ground support just a call away, and you need to be prepared for more contingencies. Once you do that though, the shuttle (in theory) can be landed without all that support, albeit with a level of risk that an organisation like NASA would find unacceptable.
[Answer]
>
> "How would a real modern day space shuttle operate without satellites or any kind of communications signals?"
>
>
>
Very carefully. As long as the astronaut was capable of doing the math on his/her own, there's no reason they couldn't land safely. The issue is, once the astronaut lands (crashes into the water), there's no guarantee they will be found by their government. Fortunately, 71% of the surface is water. Even if he was guessing randomly, there's only a 29% chance he'd fail. That doesn't mean he can slack off though.
[Answer]
It is possible to land a space shuttle without communication. They can compute a flight path with their onboard computer, they have all the information necessary to do that.
Aiming precisely might be a bit harder as they lock on a radio signal, much like planes do, to precisely orient themselves and keep a level approach to the landing strip. Without that homing signal, it would be harder, though not impossible, to land at whichever of the few places worldwide that were made to accommodate the space shuttle.
[Answer]
If you are concerned for only the safety of the crew, and not about re-using the Shuttle, you don't have to do a precision re-entry. You can re-enter anywhere and then bail out once the shuttle is slow enough: <http://mfwright.com/shuttlejump.html>
[Answer]
You'd be surprised what they plan for, with such an expensive mission.
There's a famous [story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal_lock#On_Apollo_11) about Apollo 11 for this, which you can extrapolate to the shuttle. To save mass and complexity, Apollo spacecraft had a 3 axis gyro. Unlike their more advanced 4 axis cousins, 3 axis gyros can suffer from what is called "gimbal lock." This occurs in a particular orientation where 2 of the axes of the gyros get lined up. When this happens, you lose information about what direction you're pointing in (because you have 3 mechanical axes and 3 dimensions, but one of those mechanical axes just got doubled up, leaving 1 dimension unmeasured).
NASA had a solution, of course, they had a device which was designed to "kick" one of the gimbal axes out of the way before you get to that point. Without getting into the math, this is kind of like looking at an object from two points of view -- it works.
Or at least it usually works. In the case of Apollo 11, there was a computer glitch (a divide by 0), which took the computer that was responsible for this adjustment offline. Once that happened, Apollo 11 was fully capable of entering gimbal lock. If that happened, it would not be able to control which direction its thrusters pushed in.
They had a solution. NASA had calculated out the path. The astronauts could take sightings out of a few particular windows to the stars, and use that to align their gyros. The result was vastly inferior to the orientation information they would have gotten from having the gyros working the whole time. They wouldn't have been able to land on the moon after doing such an emergency realignment, but they would have enough control to get back home.
Now fast forward to the shuttle. The shuttle is more complex. There's many more systems that can break down. But the Apollo missions were crafted to deal with a gimbal lock destroying the single most important bit of information they needed -- their orientation. You can make guesses as to what sort of solutions the Shuttle has.
Apollo 11 managed to fly with the computer down without reaching any of the dangerous orientations which would cause gimbal lock. They landed on the moon successfully, as we all know.
>
> After the Lunar Module had landed, Mike Collins aboard the Command Module joked "How about sending me a fourth gimbal for Christmas?"
>
>
>
] |
[Question]
[
Full version of the question: ***How would a plant adapted to living at -23 degrees Celsius keep the water vapor it transpirates from flash freezing to the surface of/within its leaves and clogging its stomata?*** (It was over 150 characters.)
So, this is partially inspired by this question:
[I want a layer out of frozen clouds floating around my planet. How could that work?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/108394/i-want-a-layer-out-of-frozen-clouds-floating-around-my-planet-how-could-that-wo/108417#108417)
And it got me thinking - at the altitude of cirrus clouds, 6000 meters, the air is between -22.6 and -24.6 degrees Celsius. The clouds are formed by *flash freezing water vapor.* There are plenty of possibilities for modifying plants so their xylem can carry water that high, and how to do it without freezing the xylem, but I want to zoom in and focus solely on another part of the plant - the little stomata releasing water vapor into the air.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoma>
If a stoma is releasing water vapor into the air, and the vapor flash freezes, then how would the plant prevent ice from forming around the edges of the stoma until it's clogged?
If the plant uses an antifreeze like turpentine, and removes the antifreeze from solution just before the water vapor is released, how would it prevent the water from freezing just below the surface of the leaf, just before a stoma's opening?
[Answer]
It can use the same trick used by [Cactus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cactus): limit as much as possible water exchanges to the outside.
Temperature aside, a place with -23 C is also a dry desert: liquid water is pretty scarce, and the plant has all the interest not to waste it.
Reduce the stomae size, have the leaf surface covered with a wax like substance, reduce the size of the leaves. All this adaptations will reduce the amount of water lost to the outside and therefore the related risk of flash freezing.
[Answer]
The stomata are essentially entryways to the cavities inside a plant-leaf that are used to circulate air, and thereby get rid of water and import CO2 to the centers of photosynthesis - they are as small to minimize unwanted ingress end egress and be easily closeable.
One could imagine a plant that has ever-expanding cavities, instead of the bottleneck created by stomata, and thereby could just get rid of ice by not letting it adhere (surface molecules with appropriate tension), shaking it offf whenever the plant is moved by wind or vibrations.
Also, stomata are not necessary when the leaf ist sufficiently thin (this is effectively an adjunct to the above possibility) as the diffusion of water and gases is not hindered that much, then.
If the stomata have, for some reason, to be there, the production of ice could be steered: look up hair ice (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_ice>) - The ice could be of some structural use (as a sort of skeleton) or simply be forced to grow out at the side(s) of the stomata.
Hindering the accretion of ice would be possible by heat (most biochemical processes will have heat as a loss, some are even tailored to release heat) - which is costly, or by chemicals (if the process of water diffusion is not altered, every molecule of water would need a companion - very costly) - or you stop the outgassing of water by mixing it with a substance that will coat it, but then you have to get rid of droplets of water.
I'd go with the hair-ice.
[Answer]
I was just [answering an old question about hydrogen peroxide life](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/46416/hydrogen-peroxide-based-life), that might give a hint: use an eutectic mixture of water and hydrogen peroxide. The mixture has a freezing point of -56.5 C, which is more than enough. [The main reference](https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0610093) I used may have more useful material for this particular plant application - the hygroscopicity of the mixture might be a mixed blessing.
[Answer]
Option 1 chemistry
The plants could secrete a ice formation inhibitor. there is already existing life that produce [chemicals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifreeze_protein) that prevent ice crystals from forming. Combine one of these chemical with the fact that stomata flex and contract and any ice will be cleared regularly before it has a chance to clog the stomata.
Option 2 heat
The plant is endothermic and keeps itself warm enough to prevent freezing, there are already endothermic plants, the dead-horse arum (named for its smell) is one of the most efficient heat producers in nature. The skunk cabbage is one of the most well regulated maintaining a 30-36 degree temprature in condition most mammals could not manage. to do this constantly you might want to make the plant look more like a cactus to minimize surface area.
[Answer]
Your problem applies to the entire plant, not just the stomata. You need the sap to not freeze in that environment.
Plants already produce ethanol or methanol under environmental stresses (concurrent absence of light for photosynthesis and low oxygen). Your plant can incorporate it into its normal metabolic processes, killing two birds with one stone.
] |
[Question]
[
So I have a planet that is slightly larger than Earth, orbits an orange star slightly closer than earth orbits the sun, has extreme weather patterns and volatile tectonics. It has bad storms, temperature extremes, radiation storms, intense magnetic fields, high winds, you name it. Obviously the planet is very dangerous to live on, and even more dangerous to travel across. However, I need something a little more than dangerous for my purposes.
I want to ensure that air and space travel are both exceedingly difficult and dangerous, to the point that space travel is all but impossible, and air travel is considered almost as good as suicide. So obviously the dangerous weather and unpredictable radiation is a downside but I would like to know if I'm missing something here. What could make air travel on a planet so dangerous that it would be effectively non-existent?
[Answer]
Look at which conditions prevent air flights here on Earth:
* large storm: no plane is going to venture into an hurricane
* large amount of dust in the air: following volcanic eruptions air flights are often cancelled or diverted to avoid crossing the cloud of ashes, as consequence of abrasive effect of dust and danger of injection by the engine
* strong winds
I think you already have those in your planet:
>
> [...] extreme weather patters and volatile tectonics. It has bad storms, temperature extremes, radiation storms, intense magnetic fields, high winds, you name it.
>
>
>
[Answer]
You have bad weather. What makes bad weather more dangerous? Primitive technology.
<http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/coming%20of%20age/air%20mail.htm>
>
> The first extension of the service would be to link Washington and
> New York with Chicago, but that required flying over the Allegheny
> Mountains, a treacherous flight in the old open-cockpit planes then in
> service. Between May 1919 and the end of 1920, the “graveyard run”
> between New York and Chicago was opened, though it claimed the lives
> of eighteen pilots—some crashing due to bad weather or mechanical
> failure, some crashing and being blown up while flying the JL- 6, a
> Junkers aircraft bought by the Post Office that had serious fuel
> leakage problems.
>
>
>
The people of your world can have WW1 era tech. Planes are wood and leather. There is no plastic. Metal is used sparingly to save weight. Rockets are terrifying, scaled up fireworks.
This will allow you to have a world where the weather is not completely insane; people can actually go outside and have farms. But the combination of routine, severe weather and a low technological level achieves the landbound state you want.
[Answer]
Pretty much any planet except Earth has conditions that would prevent air travel.
# Ridiculous winds
Venus has stead winds in the 300 km/h range; year round, non-stop all the way around the planet. The gas giants have storms that make those winds look mild.
# Unbearable heat
Mercury's sunny side hits about 400 C or higher. Venus' whole planet is in that range due to its thick greenhouse effect. Either condition is going to be pretty detrimental to an operating aircraft.
# Not enough atmosphere
In anything with a Martian level atmosphere or less, fixed wing aviation is more or less out. Even balloons are going to have a very limited lifting capacity in such a weak atmosphere.
[Answer]
**Costs**
The technology, maintenance (possible very fine dust particles in the atmosphere which destroy precision instruments very quickly), the production of the fuel are so costly that commercial air travel is not profitable.
**No fossil fuels**
Maybe this is a terraformed planet, or there just wasn't enough time for the buildup of considerable amounts of fossil fuels before they began to use them (if they do use them). Making jet fuel out of biofuel is probably harder and costlier.
[Answer]
Aside from ideas previously given :
* An extremely dangerous atmosphere. The planet's atmosphere could be composed of a thick, impenetrable fog (much like irl Venus), greatly impairing vision and thus making any approach dangerous ; or it could be covered in *corrosive* clouds, which attack the ship's components upon approach.
[Answer]
You can basically prevent both air and space travel without even making the planet dangerous to life adapted for it.
Simply make the atmosphere very dense. Think Venus or even more--but it need not be a hostile atmosphere.
Space travel is out of the question because of the drag of the atmosphere--chemical rockets simply don't have what it takes to reach orbit after all the drag and gravity losses. (With heavy drag loss you're going slower which means more time and thus more gravity loss.)
Lighter than air transport is easy (although you could use wind or the like to preclude it) but heavy drag makes rapid flight impractical. (Think of submarines. Lighter-than-water transport is fine but you can't go very fast. Flight is just barely possible and only for a short range--rocket torpedoes exist but even with that kind of power they can only do 200 knots and they're utterly blind while doing so.)
Note that these factors will also limit projectile weapon ranges.
Note that this approach will not keep them out of space forever--launch loops will still work under these conditions. However, while there's no fundamental engineering needed to build a launch loop it's an engineering project that makes Apollo look like a kid's toy.
[Answer]
As an adjunct to other answers that have chemical, weather and gravitational or temperature deterrents to survivable air travel, add a biological infectious disease and/or a mutagenic agent that exists in copious amounts in the upper levels of the atmosphere. Some mechanism at ground level keeps these agents aloft, but the interface between the viable air and the "it's suicide" air is so tenuous and unpredictably changeable because of all that bad weather that avoiding these agents during flight is impossible. Make it so toxic that any craft or personal contact at all with the bad air from either ground or outer space never ends well.
This is assuming technology is not yet available to negate these hazards.
[Answer]
Radiation... nothing deters people from flying than dying a slow and painful death soon after.
You mention the mention “intense magnetic fields” but if you went the other direction and give your planet a weak magnetic field, plus being your closer to the sun than earth your solar radiation could be much higher. Without too much hand waving you could easily get a Situation where going to altitudes above a choosen point gives you a pretty lethal dose of radiation as the planets magnetic field ends.
You also get a race of mutants that live on the mountains for free ;)
You could potentially get around this with a lead space ship..but with a few tunings Of other parameters it would easily make air travel a Non starter and still make things liveable for humans.
High gravity - not so much for air travel but makes space way harder. the exact maths is beyond me, but my kerbal trained intuitions tell me that even small increases in gravity significantly increase the energy needs to get to space.
Low density atmosphere - as long as the oxygen is still there our lungs can handle lower pressure atmospheres just fine. Just reduce the amount of nitrogen. I know this is the opposite of what others have suggested but low gravity makes wings less effective and combined with high wind, would make flying extremely difficult as you need big windows that are subject to lots of stress. Combined with higher gravity even working parachutes would be problematic. Add on the requirement to lead line everything nobody is reaching for the sky’s anytime soon.
[Answer]
Extremely high gravity. Based on your description of your planet as being slightly larger but Earth-like this is extremely unlikely based on our current understanding of physics.
However, if you're willing to hand wave this improbability then the crushing gravity would make it extremely hard for any visitors or hardy, locally-evolved lifeforms on the surface to get airborne and reach space.
[Answer]
# What kind of planetary conditions would prevent or severely limit air travel?
Well the obvious one is technology! However lets see some of the rest.
# Gravity.
Stronger gravity will inhibit the apparition of the first planes however it does not exclude it entirely!
# Storms.
Powerful winds will make low tech planes impracticable! Again, it does not exclude it entirely!
# Predator.
Birds are a danger even for planes we have right now! However if you have something like this then you might make flight impossible! A flight might be a suicide mission!
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QaBpY.jpg)
Space however is a different matter. And the only condition I see that might affect it is space debris that make it dangerous!
] |
[Question]
[
I am looking for medically viable reasons why we might discover it to be more difficult than expected to bring pregnancies to term in space. This is for a society based approximately 75 years in the future that was forced into long-term space travel with limited time for preparation, which is to say technology is advanced but not perfected.
[Answer]
# Radiation
Radiation is the obvious answer, as L.Dutch pointed out. A fetus is particularly susceptible to radiation impacts as it is grown lots of new cells. An adult in space already has a lot of functioning cells of all the kinds he or she needs; but if a growing fetus can't generate these cells, it won't turn into a viable adult.
# Low Pressure
If for some reason, your spacecraft is kept at a lower than normal atmospheric pressure this might [impact the ability to have children](http://www.utswmedicine.org/stories/articles/year-2017/weather-impact-pregnancy.html). Low barometric pressure can cause spontaneous labor, especially in women who are not acclimated to this lower pressure.
Possible reasons for keeping the craft at a lower pressure include the lack of enough atmosphere to go around. If you are forced to go into space suddenly, you might not have thought to bring your nitrogen bottles with you. If you build new space habitats or starships in space, you won't just be able to find some nitrogen lying around. If you have a limited supply, you might compromise on air pressure in your spacecraft.
Alternately, if you have a low amount of available gasses, you might keep various parts of the station at different pressures. For example, crops could be grown in a habitat module with lower air pressure and higher CO$\_2$ pressure.
# Zero-G environment
There are no studies of the effects of low gravity on pregnancy since there haven't been a lot. It would be easy to imagine a whole host of reasons that gravity could affect pregnancy. Extended time at zero-g can cause the heart to weaken, lowering blood pressure. Lowered blood pressure can cause miscarriages.
[Answer]
A fetus is a cradle of cellular multiplication. When a cell is splitting in two, its DNA is unfolded and more prone to damages by external agents.
Space environment is a soup of radiation, and you are putting the fetus in such a soup. A small damage to the DNA and the fetus cannot continue growing and thus survive.
[Answer]
I don't know why it is important for your story. So I also told you some stuff that I wouldn't consider a medically viable reason. But they could make the problem worse, even if you don't like them as sole reason.
**Radiation?**
If you go with radiation, because the space ships aren't shielded enough. hte egg cells in a fetus gets killed. Of course I would also expect some babies do have mutations and more people die because of cancer, if the radiation is not shielded enough.
**Zero Gravity?**
We think you could give birth in space, because humans can give birth in water. But that is only a guess at the moment. It could be, that the head of the baby doesn't align itself. Or the umbilical cord goes around the head, because somehow inertia. They could have all c-sections, but operations in space are hard, because of the fluids you would need/want a special suit or room. So no fluids can go into equipment. For the same reason you would want special rooms, or suits for the baby making. (But I think it would not stop them from the baby making.)
**Logistical?**
Just not enough food. Lets say you only have 1 ton of carbon atoms on board. You could only make so much humans out of it. (10 ton of humans, with the assumption 10% of our mass is carbon atoms.) And you would need also carbon atoms for food. Even if you recycle every carbon atom. At a point you have no carbon atoms outside of humans.
Not enough space... okay that is weak, especially if you want a generation ship. Were you replace only dead people.
Politicians were stupid and split men and women on different ships... Yeah.. Really stupid.
**Environment**
Some material release some toxin into the air/food. And they can't get it out or find it or stop it, because without the material or machine all would die. So yeah, less babies get born.
\*\*Social? aka stupid reasons \*\*
It could be a society who doesn't like babies. Maybe because their religion says you can only have souls if you were born on earth.
Or nobody wants to sex their children. So depending on population size in one ship, you could have an all male population. (Look below for a possibility) Or the opposite, everyone wants a boy. Or the 2nd generation doesn't like to be only considered breeders.
Or only few are allowed to have children, so nobody wants any, because of envy from everybody else.
**Bad Luck?**
Through unlucky events, they get a population with less females. Maybe they started with 50 woman and 50 man because an evacuation wants to get everyone off planet. Not like a Generation ship which could send out an all female crew with frozen sperm that is selected for x chromosomes.
And some freak accident happened and because of that 30 woman die or are now infertile.
**Genes?**
Maybe they kept only few men for reproduction (Like they only let 1 in 100 male fertilized eggs develop into a child). Because men have then more children (~1000) than women (~8), you get more offspring, if you produce more sons (Even if the sons have only 1 in 100 chance of surviving). Since the sperm cells decide which sex the baby will have, the genes to produce more male offspring will get passed down easier. (From father to son, which produces more sons.) Lets say they let a lottery decide which male embryos get implanted into a willing mother. Then the genes that produces 800 males from 1000 fertilization have better chances to get picked up than genes that produces 500 from 1000. Worse when they find out what happened, most males only produce male offspring and only very rarely female. And nearly all females have the same genes for male only sperm. Meaning if one male gets a female offspring, that female will have still the same gene for more male offspring, which she would pass on to potential sons. Of course there could be other reasons making each issue worse.
**Other reason:**
Maybe have the same effect (lack of babies/miscarriage) with another explanation/reason, where you don't need to make assumption about medicine. When people really get pregnant in space, your book/world wouldn't need to be adjusted. I wouldn't believe a world exactly like our earth, except where plains can't fly because of different physics. I would believe that it is to expensive, because we don't have much aluminum and kerosene.
Some ideas I got from there:
<https://www.livescience.com/33047-space-sex-pregnancy.html>
] |
[Question]
[
**Closed**. This question needs to be more [focused](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
---
**Want to improve this question?** Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by [editing this post](/posts/91199/edit).
Closed 6 years ago.
[Improve this question](/posts/91199/edit)
I have an idea for a world:
Let's suppose that there is a tree that evolves a weird sort of flower: when the bud opens, instead of revealing the usual flowery bits, it reveals an animal-like entity that acts as it's gametophyte. This animal-like gametophyte (let's call it a faerie), after reaching maturity, leaves the parent tree and searches for a compatible mate. Once the mate is found, the two faeries sexually couple and fuse into a sporophyte sapling that eventually matures into a new "faerie tree", ready to produce new faeries.
My question is:
Would it be possible for faeries to develop sentience, or even humanoidism, and if so, how would it work?
And if they develop human level intelligence, how would the fact that sex results in the death of the faeries involved at the expense of the tree (which is basically non-sentient) affect faerie culture?
And going backwards a bit, how would animal-like gametophytes even evolve in the first place?
[Answer]
Such gametophyte constructs are unlikely, but possible.
It is highly probable, however, that such gametophite would have just what needed to perform their function: find a suitable partner, produce a fertilized seed and find a suitable place to burrow it.
Problem with "further development" is that, for this to work, a lot of things are not necessary, including any way to feed the fito-animal; it is highly likely the gametophyte would have a sugar reserve to last it "as long as necessary".
Schemes like "fused gametophytes become parasite to enlarge transport range" are very unlikely because a lot of functions would have to be "piggybacked" unto a perfectly working system without a clear evolutionary push.
OTOH developing even rudimentary "insect-like" gametophites implies some kind of "nervous system". If that is done it's highly unlikely Evolution would limit its usage to gametophites; the whole tree would start to act "more deliberately" (e.g.: growing branches in a well defined, environmentally conscious, direction), possibly leading to some form of conscience.
It would be far more likely to imagine some kind of symbiosis.
**Note**: any form of auto-conscience would need a rather large nervous system (of some kind, not necessarily based on neurons; most likely [root apices](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.572.9395&rep=rep1&type=pdf)-like formations would play an important role in plant "intelligence"), incompatible with (possibly large) insect-like creatures.
[Answer]
There are, in the real world, *animals* that have life-cycles rather similar to this.
Cnidarians, for example, have both polyp and medusa body forms, where the polyp is stationary and asexual, and the medusas are free-moving and sexual.
So, I'd go about this from the other direction: start with an *animal*, which develops a progressively more plant-like sessile stage.
That takes care of evolving animal-like gametophytes.
**Would it be possible for faeries to develop sentience, or even humanoidism, and if so, how would it work?**
**And if they develop human level intelligence, how would the fact that sex results in the death of the faeries involved at the expense of the tree (which is basically non-sentient) affect faerie culture?**
Do they *know* that the trees are non-sentient? Given the *human* propensity to believe in life after death, and the fact that these trees are in fact verifiably still *living*, I would imagine they would maintain a deep belief in the persistence of the parent fairies after they fuse.
If we presume that any individual plant-form can live for a comparatively long time compared to the mobile fairies, and produce a large number of fairies during its life, then we can also conclude that *most* fairies will not, in fact, become sessile and start reproducing themselves, rather like most tree seeds don't successfully germinate. If it were not so, they'd overpopulate rather quickly. Unlike regular plant seeds, however, "seeds" that are actually animals can be *very useful* to their parent and sibling trees. They can guard the trees, they can fertilize them, they can be around to care for newly-born fairies, etc. And that gives them a great excuse to develop societies and social intelligence.
Given only that level of detail, they wouldn't *need* to develop humanoid form, but I see no reason why they *couldn't*, either.
[Answer]
There's some good news and some bad news. The good news is that your general scenario is actually highly plausible. The bad news is that the call for sentience and humanoid form is less likely to occur evolutionary.
As for the plausibility of the mechanism, what you describe is basically what Jellyfish do for their reproductive cycle.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/03FbK.jpg)
There's a minor difference in that the jellyfish are not actually the gametes, but rather are a "fairy" like creature that has the gametes. [Their cycle is](https://www.thoughtco.com/life-cycle-of-a-jellyfish-4112280):
* Start with a polyp, which is fixed to the ocean floor in a rather plant like manner.
* When ready, the polyp buds, producing an ephyra, which grows into a full medusa. This is very much like your fairy.
* The medusa mate. Each one is either male or female, and the males release sperm. The females hold onto the fertilized eggs until they mature, and they are then released as a planula.
That's really close to your system.
The harder question is sentience and humanoid form. Generally speaking, the humanoid form is unlikely to be an ideal form for a fairy sized creature. It's optimized for 3-7 foot tall creatures. Its highly likely that there is a related body layout which is better suited for small sizes, and whether that qualifies as "humanoid" is a harder question.
As for sentience, nobody knows what the requirements are for sentience, but it's generally assumed that there's a minimum level of processing power required. That involves brain volume, which is hard to come by when you're very very small.
[Answer]
For the reasons explained in other answers, having these intelligent gametophytes doesn't make sense in evolution. They are vastly energy expensive to create, while pollination can easily allow for thousands of seeds, very few of which need to survive for the species to survive.
I think a better explanation is that these are two separate symbiotic lifeforms. On Earth lichen bacteria live inside a fungus. In this more advanced composite life form the Fairy would be an animal living in a tree. The evolutionary reason for them to work like this could be that they were originally parasites that adapted to intentionally spread the seeds of their tree hosts. Eventually the trees could lose the ability to reproduce on their own, and would instead rely on the fairy parasite to spread its seeds.
In this scenario the adult fairies would likely be evolved from insects that insert their larval babies into trees, where they grow through their larval stage, and emerge at adulthood. In this scenario it is easily possible the fairies live after reproduction as well. The fairies can still emerge from the tree flowers if it evolved right, or simply cause additional different flowers to grow. (Which can give you two colors of flowers to.)
[Answer]
Gametophytes are usually very simple because they tend to be mass-produced.
Even if we handwave this faerie gametophyte into existence, I don't think it would have a brain large and/or complex enough to be intelligent and reach a state of self-consciousness.
The fact that those gametophytes have very short lifespans (they're born, they mate, they die) makes it even harder for them to develop humanoidism and any kind of culture. It is also arguable that for a creature to develop self-consciousness and culture, it has to meet others of its kin, something I don't see happening very often with your faeries.
And I don't even want to think about the existential horror of having my mind and consciousness being fused with another mind.
However, I love this whole idea of gametophytes being faeries and I think you could just handwave it all and everything would be fine.
] |
[Question]
[
This is a continuation of my [Specifics of magical symbols and casting](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/89906/specifics-of-magical-symbols-and-casting-what-makes-spoken-magic-difficult-to-m) series of questions.
In the process of splitting my post up, I noticed my final question got a bit broad. **So to specify how magic works in this world:**
>
> Magic in this world is omnipresent, yet largely like science in discovery process. It holds no consciousness or purpose, but acts like a program, "seeking" similar patterns. Runes are largely created in the "library" of magic by association.
>
>
> For instance, a drawn flame in a cave to signify fire, used again and again over countless generations, created the association that this symbol means fire in the "Magical Library" that permeates all
> existence. In our world, this relates to a Deep Learning AI, except... there's no code, no point, no purpose. It simply, is.
>
>
> This also opens up the possibility that, either in densely magical areas, gathering of like minds, basically permeating, society-wide philosophies can *create* deities, manifest purely-magic beings, or infect a town with fervor, inexplicably turning everyone within the region to the same fervor if they aren't strong of will. Ultimately, this component of nature that just is actually *could* gain sentience, however, due to the nature of the beast, it could never truly claim autonomy over the entirety of magic.
>
>
> *Magic exists regardless of belief in it - however, belief or mass fervor can and often will generate a certain outcome. Say, people feeling hopeless in a ravaged, pillaged, swamp town may always be surrounded by darkness. Sudden, widespread happiness won't make this disappear in an instant, as it is a magical abstract that has built up over the region that will only go away either in time, or if diminished and replaced by a fervor of emotion that would combine or overwrite it.*
>
>
> One caveat, however, is that you couldn't just get a bunch of random people together and say 'draw this over and over again,' as new functions of this "Magic Library" must draw from some sort of mass phenomena, where some emotion is in a state of mass hysteria among a region, or a belief isn't just skin-deep. The stronger and/or more universal a belief and/or symbol is, the wider the scope this magic can be *reliably* used in.
>
>
>
This question is most related to [the difficulty of mastering magic manipulation](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/89934/specifics-of-magical-symbols-and-casting-what-makes-mastering-the-concept-of-ph?noredirect=1#comment266741_89934)
So, we've defined that the "Magic Library" can't be abused, you can't directly influence new spells and abstract ideas within it. However, there will always be those that try, and will find a way to, somehow, manipulate it to make a spell they desire.
**How would someone master creating new runes, symbols, and spells for mass/their own use, with the sole intention of creating it?**
Remember, the catch is that you can't just make some spell because you want to. New magical 'functions' are made solely by consistent association and widespread belief/feeling of something.
***Note:***
Individuals are able to, over years, have their own unique magical functions, whether its an aura, spell, influence, etc available *only to them*. Say, a hermit who does the same routine for decades, may find that just by initiating their routine, the objects and environment act out the scene, even if he stops, to a weak degree. Like, predictive reaction to what usually happens. So he may first notice it by noticing a plate that he's washing seems lighter than normal, which behind the scenes, is driven by the Magic Layer preparing and replicating his movements within the world. Again, like an AI that Learns. Also explains "Haunted" homes or locations.
Therefore, while that is a subconscious event, completely unintentional, how would a person try and succeed to get around the caveats of the System - it must be within a meaningfully short amount of time. Say, a year at most.
[Answer]
What you describe is like making music. Sounds are omnipresent, but certain sound combinations and rhythms gain purchase in a culture. Your hermit might hum aimlessly as he goes along, but happens upon a tune he likes and hums it again and again. Maybe he puts words of a prayer he knows to the song. He cannot tell you exactly why he likes it - the part of his brain that likes it does not have words to articulate why. It just has music.
We can all make music. A song can be well known by many and sung to some degree by most. It is a different thing entirely to hear that song played by a true musician who has mastered it and made it her own. These are your wizards.
How do musicians get good? How can they create music out of nothing but their ideas and experience? They are born with gifts, they have insight into how the tune and rhythm and words should fit together, and they practice a lot.
[Answer]
It is said that the word "quiz" [was invented for a bet](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/what-is-the-origin-of-the-word-quiz).
Richard Daly, who bet he could introduce a new word into the English language, hired people to daub the word QUIZ all over Dublin, until it was on everybody's lips. And everybody wondered, *what does it mean?* Then, it was simply a matter of providing a definition; holding a question-answering competition and attaching the new name to it.
A magical symbol in your world could use the same process. It would have to be well designed; memorable and attractive enough for people to start to consider it significant but mysterious, without knowing its special meaning. Then, the magician could use some big public event to attach a particular meaning to it. For example, wait until a well-known public figure dies, then paste up posters bearing the face of the deceased alongside the symbol. Now, that great potential you have been building up in the Library has a definition. You have a spell of death.
Of course, complications could arise if the meme is allowed to promulgate too long before association. It could start to acquire a whole different meaning to the one you intended. Then, you might have to hurry things along; say, by ensuring that a well-loved public figure dies by somewhat less magical means.
[Answer]
Introduce them as a curriculum in a mage school. They will never know that the symbol they learned in the mix is **a fake symbol** that is yet to be recognized by the "Magic".
Give the symbol a definition you like, but never actually used it. On the days of final, make them practice it together again and again. The students will fail, again and again, and actually really want it to work, "forcing" the "Magic" to recognize the symbol (maybe only on that particular region?) and eventually allow the new spell come to life.
**Bonus:** If they complained that they've never seen the spell is cast by their professors, just dismiss them.
>
> It is the very basic symbol and easy to cast. You all must not be paying attention in the earliest class.
>
>
>
Make it the deciding factor on graduation. That way people will train harder for the symbol.
This way you can have at least **1 new spell per graduation ceremony.**
[Answer]
Languages (Spoken, Written or "signed") are in perpetual evolution. New words are invented everyday and older ones can be forgotten. And it all depends on how useful they are at describing the world. Thus they evolve along with it.
For example, we tend to use some famous brand names for some objects that had already a defined technical word. The brand name was made to be easily memorized so it overtook the previous word.
I think this understanding of languages is quite adapted to your magic system.
A new words could be invented when new magic properties are discovered, or when to older words are used together so often that people feel the need to come up with a combined version. For example : someone finds a new property of magic by mashing two complex words together. The result is unpractical so he comes up with a shortened version. It is a first weakened by the lack of resemblance with the two original words. But when people adopt it, and maybe start transforming it a bit to fit their own pronunciation (preferences that are based on other words so maybe that can be a way to add even more power), it becomes more and more efficient.
Also, there could be people casting more complex spells with older, but more precise words, which would take more time. While others would prefer simplified, faster words... with less precised effects, less power maybe.
The problem is that it seems that interaction with magic is only made through the words (again, not only the spoken words). So how was the first "Word of Power" discovered ? Also, it seems that forgotten words would totally lose power, which means that "ancient magic" would not exist ?
[Answer]
Sounds like he needs a viral marketing campaign!
Something innocuous like releasing a mobile app (or a popular toy, in non-modern worlds) that requires a certain gesture to win. No individual player knows that they're making the same gesture as everyone else, but they all do it day in and day out until the gesture takes on some meaning.
One example, make a box of matches that must be opened in a specific way, (unfold here, tear here, slide there) the hand movement required to open it could become associated with fire. Give out the match boxes for free and you get a new rune under your control.
[Answer]
What if the meaning of a symbol is not always objective? What if it is always subjective, and has to work its way towards that ideal objective state?
Consider the master of a school of magic. This master can introduce a symbol, but can only have so much control over its meaning. However, if all of the disciples in the school take this symbol and start using it, they may find a meaning for this symbol in their own life. It doesn't have to be exactly the same meaning as for someone else. It just matters that it has a meaning, and they believe in it.
From there, the master looks at all of the meanings their disciples have given the symbol, and can begin the very human process of trying to create a coherent meaning to which all of the subjective meanings can migrate towards. This is not an easy task, but similar tasks occur in real life as masters teach their students, so it's not unfathomable.
In this sense, the masters that can create new symbols are really not masters of magic, but of people. Craft the right meanings in the minds of the peoples, and it matters not how much magic you had.
] |
[Question]
[
Acording to my understanding of the word "swamp", we must have at least 3 components put together:
1. Water in abundance
2. Vegetation
3. Soil for the vegetation to take hold (and eventually to produce mud when mixed with water)
So, I wanted to have a swamp, placed on an underground gallery accessible through a cave. This gallery should be very wide and high, but I'll not specify its dimensions (they should be defined in order to make the swamp plausible, not the other way around). What I want is for this gallery to **not** have an open roof, but to have a rocky roof that seals it almost completely from the exterior. Some fissures and cracks that allow some sunlight and rain to enter are permissible, but not so as to destroy the dark and gloomy atmosphere I'm trying to set here.
---
Given this, is it possible to build a swamp with the three components I mentioned?
1. High water content is not a problem, since there are many instances of water in caves, sometimes even entire lakes and underground rivers
2. Vegetation may be more problematic, since plants need light to develop. They could gather in the ground around the fissures and cracks I mentioned above, but not in a quantity that would produce a swamp. I don't need trees or other kinds of complex plants. Islands of moss floating about or crawling on the cave walls would suffice. Algae, lichens and fungi are also permissible.
3. Soil is also problematic. Firstly, because hummus comes from degradation of dead biologic material, which pressuposes the aforementioned vegetation. Also, soil may also be produced through erosion, but the only erosion here would come from the water, since the cave interior would not be subjected to winds. *(Maybe the soil could be washed into the cave through the entrance in the context of periodic inundations outside. Or it could be carried from a surface river that dives underground. Or maybe bat guano could acount for the biodegradation needed. These are just ideas I'm throwing out here)*
Given these hurdles, is it possible to create a plausible underground swamp with the specifications I mentioned?
[Answer]
Start with something like this [Cave of Swallows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Swallows) Or at least something like it. Maybe make it bigger.[Hang Son Doong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_S%C6%A1n_%C4%90o%C3%B2ng) is another point to draw inspiration.
We know we can get water under ground and you can make it move as fast or as slow as you like.
The need for vegetation gets started by the already abundant plant life existing in the cave.
Soil can be brought in slowly by the underground river. As an additional mechanism, if this is in or near a volcanic range a stable media for growth is already right there.
Here is how it gets closed in. an earthquake or landslide, maybe even a lava flow covers over the hole at the top. maybe a complete cover, or maybe a partial cover with lots of little holes to allow in some light. Just enough for your adventurers to be able to navigate conveniently by. Those kinds of small light wells can give you some lichen growth or maybe some moss that will grow, die off, and fall into the lower pit adding to the swampy soil underneath.
Underneath, have the fungi, mushrooms, and other such take over. The nutrient rich soil will help feed them, and as they die, they will feed the next generations of fungi.
You could even have a system of these caves in a chain as they are formed as sinkholes. Some, higher up, are still open to the sky. The water flows out, carrying vegetation and such to the next gallery, which is a closed off hole.
You have the possibility of a couple of different underground ecosystems here just by tweaking a variable here and there.
[Answer]
I'll politely disagree with your definition of "swamp."
* Water, yes. Shallow water, specifically.
* Decomposing biological matter, yes. Vegetation? Not necessarily.
* Soil? well if that included lots of decomposing biological matter, then I've already agreed to that.
Fiction is stuffed full of "dead" swamps - meaning live vegetation is *not* necessary. You need some energy source, and we know of several other than light. (Mostly in deep sea vents, and other hydrothermal environments).
I could easily imagine an ecology based on, say, a hydrogen sulfide metabolism. It could have plants, bacteria, and maybe even multicellular organisms (amoeba). The problem with this would be that H2S is lethal to us humans save at very low levels. So, the only way a person could survive would be to avoid the core areas of this environment OR there would have to be fairly steady winds ... or both.
[Answer]
The difficult one is your second point.
Water should be easy, plenty of caves have water in them. Associated with the water, mud is pretty likely, (I wouldn't however necessarily call it soil without a lot of plant material)
As for the plants, you want a dark gloomy atmosphere, plants generally don't grow without light, so you might get some growth in fissures or sections of the cave open to the light (like sinkholes), but your best shot for swamp plant-life is fungi, but they require decomposing plant matter to really thrive. So a lot of plant material is going to have to be coming from somewhere outside and accumulating in the cave swamp.
So an underground river might work, except a river strong enough to move a lot of plant material is likely to be moving enough water that you won't get the proper stagnant water feel of a swamp. So I would go with periodic flooding washing a lot of soil and plants into the cave and then leaving it to sit and drain out a lot of water leaving a muddy mix of decaying plants to rot making a pretty nice swamp cave.
[Answer]
It sounds to me like you do not want a swamp. Swamps are defined by thier ability to support trees, bushes, and other woody plants. A swamp requires a lot of light (think Louisiana, hot tropics, etc.) and wouldn't thrive in a cold, cave-like environment. Marshes are nutrient-rich wetlands that support reeds and grasses, but again, that's more like Florida. It seems to me that what you want is a bog or a fen. Bogs are characterized by their poor soil and high peat content, while fens have less peat and more plant life than a bog. Since peat is made of decaying organic matter, it is plausible that it could drain into a cave. I do not know if peat moss can survive underground with little light. A still-water fen or bog sounds equally gloomy -- although there is no opportunity for mist (no sunlight, no heat, no evaporation, no mist) there's still great opportunities for creepy descriptions. Imagine sloshing through three-foot muck, your path lit only by your make-shift torch. Each sharp splash reverbereates through the cave system, alerting everything that crawls and skitters to your unwelcome presence...
[Answer]
Both having [explored caves](http://cumberlandcaverns.com/caveman-campouts/), and based on the definition of swamp: *"A swamp is a wetland that is forested.[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp)"*, no, you cannot have a cave swamp, unless the cave has partially collapsed, forming some sort of [sinkhole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinkhole). At which point it's not really a "cave" anymore.
Deep caves tend to have a high moisture content, high enough that spilled water often won't evaporate (90% or higher in most deeper cave systems). And they tend to have soil that makes great mud.
But they don't have plants unless exposed to natural light. And they don't have an abundance of fungi, since they require something to feed on. There are [creatures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subterranean_fauna). These [Troglofauna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troglofauna) have limited resources -- no light means little food.
But cave systems cannot become [swamp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp) systems without abundant plant life. That requires sunlight. So beyond the opening to a cave, no.
] |
[Question]
[
**This question already has answers here**:
[How would societies be if created and populated only by young people?](/questions/7168/how-would-societies-be-if-created-and-populated-only-by-young-people)
(8 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
So in this scenario everybody over the age of fifteen years has suddenly died of an unknown cause (I don't think it's relevant, but not an infectious disease).
The event refers to the deaths of all over 15.
The situation:
* Everybody over the age of 15 years all die instantly at the same time
* This is a one time event, so people won't die when they turn 15
* The event starts in the near future, so no technology that we do not have now
I'm interested in what people think:
* What the immediate aftermath would be
* The aftermath after a few years (8-10)
* The situation after about 30 years
* And how long it would be until society and technology reach the level we're at today (if ever)
This idea was sparked by *The Enemy* series by Charlie Higson.
[Answer]
Sorry, I totally missed the "one time event" thing. So, the humanity will live.
In the immediate aftermath, older children will join warring clans, while most of the young children will die. There will be no need for activities like farming and manufacturing, since scavenging and looting would be far more profitable. Largest clans can try to establish some sort of stability, with justice and law enforcement.
In 10 years, clans will turn into mini-kingdoms that will have established borders, laws and stable populations. The success of those kingdoms would be mostly defined how successful the initial groups were at securing weapons and supplies in the first year. This is when people will start turning from using stored food to farming. There still will be plenty of fuel and equipment to use, but maintenance would be becoming an issue.
In 30 years, people will start reviving old industries, making fuel and replacement parts for aging machinery. The scenery would still be post-apocalyptic, but with bright outlook.
In 100 years, civilization should recoup the losses and get on par with today's technology, even if population would be smaller.
//////Humankind may not survive.
Age of 15 is perhaps past the breaking point for the survival of human species. For natural reproduction to replenish the population, every female should have 2 children + extra (to cover for mortality and infertility within the rest of population). Even with onset of puberty is getting earlier today, childbirth is still a problem for young moms. Without access to quality maternity care and c-sections, I assume that miscarriages, infant and maternal mortality would be quite high. That can push the rate of required pregnancies over 3.
If addition, there would be no older population, not even one wise and experienced person for all of the young ones.
My prediction that after the initial dying the remnants of the population will get reduced to savagery and finally die off in less than 30 years.
[Answer]
This doesn't look good.
**The immediate effects:**
I found [an estimate](https://www.quora.com/How-many-drivers-are-on-the-road-at-any-given-time-in-the-US) that at any given time, there are roughly 19 million drivers on the road at any given time. Given that all (or at least the overwhelming majority) of them will be 15 or over, That's 19 million cars in the US alone suddenly veering out of control at houses, buildings, power poles, pedestrians, each other, you name it. [About half of that many](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transportation#International_transport_comparisons) passengers will be riding along, so even if they're not raptured due to age, things don't look pretty for their future.
Many kids/teenagers will die when a car comes crashing through the wall, when another car collides with theirs, or when they get outright run over on the sidewalk. Power poles go down.
Some kids/teenagers will die when the surgeons operating on them do, others will die when that gorilla whose enclosure they climbed into at the zoo has nobody to shoot it. People carrying heavy things will drop them, some of these might roll and cause injury, death or infrastructure damage.
**Now how does our infrastructure look?**
Actually worse than the sudden deaths suffered by out-of-control cars, highways become impassible from the sheer volume of wreckage strewn about. Bonus points if the event struck at rush hour. Neighborhoods are without power, and probably some parts of urban areas too. In the most extreme cases, perhaps a delicate operation was underway at a power plant or two and now power has been lost totally for a large population.
Most of the population was without income to begin with, and the rest are now both very short on customers and managers. As funds run out, the automated systems that manage electrical access turn off the utility in large quantities accross the board... supposing anyone lives that long.
The guy who reads emails and fulfills orders for grocery store stocking is gone now, so distribution of food is kaput. Even those distributors who automate this have no truck drivers to fill the orders. Even if there were, the roads are completely impassible from wrecked cars. Nobody will make the order to producers, but then again there are very few producers left anyway.
Running water is probably ok though. Most of those companies still rely on workers manually shutting off the utility. So not many will be dying of thirst until water towers run dry. I guess that's a plus.
**So who fixes all this?**
Kids and teenagers will probably prove much more resourceful than adults would expect, but even so many of the positions that are most crucial in our infrastructure require specialized education or training that most of the survivors would not have. Perhaps a few uncannily-minded individuals would fill some gaps but overall the skills simply won't exist to remedy most of these problems.
**So where does that leave us?**
We're back to hunting and gathering within weeks or even days. Many of our youth will no doubt be fine with hunting until the ammunition runs out. With enough ingenuity, some kids and teenagers will be able to survive anyway. In an ironic twist of predator-prey curves, despite the large amount of prey, there are too few predators among the survivors. Those less capable will flock to those more capable. Limited resources (the prey) cause contention and conflict. The population isn't sustainable and drops rapidly.
As more and more fall back on ancient methods of survival or die outright, even those equipped with the skills to uphold infrastructure are left with nobody to uphold it for.
**So we're all dead?**
Some survivors might squeak by when all is said and done by making an effort to isolate themselves immediately and having the skills to survive. Perhaps they can find enough resources to provide for themselves and a friend or two. So I guess we're not *all* dead...
[Answer]
This is almost certainly an extinction level event.
If you consider that anyone under the age of 4 needs constant supervision just to keep from hurting/killing themselves...
...and then realize that 25% of your surviving population need that constant supervision...
...then add in the total loss of all medical, food-production, food-preservation, and sanitation knowledge...
...and finish it off with diseases rising from the 4-6 rotting corpses for every surviving soul. @Alexander is too generous. I give humanity 3 years, max.
...and finish it off by handing command of our society over to a bunch of untrained, idealistic 15 year-olds, just entering the emotional turmoil of teenage life. It will be a wild party while it lasts, but that wouldn't be very long... I'm still betting on extinction.
[Answer]
It's estimated that 26.9% of the global population is 15 or younger in 2017. While *you* say it doesn't matter how such a unlikely, if not impossible, event happens, since it is basically a magical/supernatural event, I'm not so sure. I agree with the comments which state that many, if not most, of the youngest would die. I don't have *any* idea what the mortality rate would be, but if we assume the working age population is 16 to 70, and if we assume that approximately that proportion of the population would be needed to support the rest then the numbers are: 68% are currently working age and there are 360 million age 13,14, & 15. Assuming those are the entire new workers, that would limit the population to about 530 million out of the 2 billion, meaning roughly 75% of the survivors would die, with the majority coming from the youngest ages.
There are undoubtedly many 15 year olds today who have the mental competency of an adult. What would be lacking is emotional stability and experience. I have zero clear idea whether peasants in rural 3rd World countries would be more likely to survive than kids in the 1st World, but I suspect they would. Meaning the population would shift towards rural and 3rd World. But would that be important? Their global or even regional "reach" would be quite limited. My guess is that while it's possible that within few years several Genghis Khans/Alexanders/Napoleons might appear, it's more likely that such conquerors would require establishment of stable (agrarian) economies followed by city states followed by regional powers.
In other words, I'd expect it to take several generations, if not centuries, for the establishment of a steampunk semi-industrial warring nations global scenario. Fertility would obviously take a hit, but since birth control would be back to rhythm and barrier methods, I'd expect the birth rate to rapidly sky-rocket over the first 10 years. So, the first couple of years would probably be all about survival - both developing food sources and developing some sort of military. (I restrict my comments to regions where the economic potential is well above subsistence level hunting/gathering/herding/agriculture.) These would be the years of the big die off (from 2 billion to 400 to 600 million).
The first decade would see establishment of local economic activity, followed by both the beginnings of regional trade and regional conflicts. By 30 years, I'd expect the world to basically be in a continual state of war - but at a low intensity.
It's interesting to speculate what the collapse of Industrial Civilization will do to the climate, but it's too dependent on the personalities of the conquerors.
So, the near-term consequences, which was your question, would basically be similar to any other apocalypse. Mostly survivors trying to figure out how to feed themselves. I think you'd have (again, ignoring extremely poor, extremely rural areas) the rapid formation of small local "tribes" (gangs). The ones who dominate will be, at first, the ones who control the guns, later it will be the ones who are able to field the largest army. Such governing structures are likely to be rapacious and therefore unstable, it will take a generation or two for *stable* hierarchies to develop, I'd guess.
How long till they are "back" to here? Well, considering our population isn't sustainable, maybe never, but considering our species inability to exercise discipline and act on their own best interests, as well as our preoccupation with sex, I'd guess less than 150 years but more than 75 years.
[Answer]
### Immediate problems
You have a couple of immediate problems after your death-event. At time=0, suddenly, all or nearly all automobiles, ships, airplanes, military vehicles, etc. are suddenly operating without an operator. This will result in a huge mess. Crashing cars and planes cause fires and injure children.
You have no fire department. You have no doctors or nurses or EMTs or police. So by the next day, most cities are going to face real threats from fires. Anyone who was already hurt or gets hurt in the initial chaos has no way to get better. Rescue efforts will be poorly planned or executed, as the rescuers lack the training to plan and coordinate logistics.
## Short-term problems
No one knows how to do **Anything** anymore. This is only a slight exaggeration. Almost no one at or below the age of 15 in a 1st world country has any idea how to do day-to-day survival tasks beyond household chores. They don't know how to restore servers, set broken bones, treat brain or spinal injuries, operate construction equipment safely, build to-code shelters, run power grids, run water or internet or cellphone or other grids, etc. Within weeks, the lights would go out and may well stay out.
How many youth today really understand how to grow crops? Or how to midwife? Child mortality and death during child birth will rise quite high. And starvation and malnutrition will be equally devastating.
Rural areas of extreme poverty will likely suffer comparatively less than urban areas, as people in these areas tend to be more self-sufficient and learn how to survive at an earlier age. Urban areas, be it 1st, 2nd, or 3rd world will be deadly for anyone. No one living in urban environments will have access to food after the first week or two. This will put pressure on surrounding communities, as people escape the urban areas.
## Long-term problems
Libraries and bookstores have books, but those books are only part of the knowledge transferred from teacher to student at each point along the educational pathways. Those pathways were destroyed. So much institutional knowledge, trade knowledge, etc. is gone. The collapse that started at the day of destruction and worsened throughout the short-term will lead you into a rather frightening Dark Ages. No one knows how to make medicines, build cars, repair electrical grids, launch communications satellites, predict weather, or build storm shelters.
Once the lights go out, the internet is no longer available, both speeding up and worsening the coming Dark Age.
It will be centuries before civilization recovers to technological levels like the early 20th century.
**Quite frankly, I'm glad I'm in my 40s and wouldn't have to face this nightmare.**
[Answer]
My own view on the question is that immediately after everybody died there would be a surge of gangs looting and enjoying the loss of any rules.
After a year or so settlements of people would have appeared with the weaker but more intelligent in charge, starting growing crops and farming animals.
After an extended period of time (10 years) i think humanity will be back into the iron age with little to no medicine and disease meaning death.
But i Think overall humanity will eventually relearn how to farm, get minerals, build machines and eventually get back to where we are now. With books being a huge contributing factor.
] |
[Question]
[
**Closed.** This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
---
You are asking questions about a story set in a world instead of about building a world. For more information, see [Why is my question "Too Story Based" and how do I get it opened?](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3300/49).
Closed 6 years ago.
[Improve this question](/posts/76454/edit)
**The Setting**
In this universe, the technology needed to travel between stars needs a lot of energy and bulky machines (besides being ridiculously expensive). Therefore only a small number of capital ships is capable of moving to other systems. Naturally that did not stop humanity from beating the hell out of each other and alliance A declared war on faction B.
One of the conflicts fought takes place in the planetary system Sol-7B which mainly provides raw materials to faction B. Alliance A wants to take control of the main planets of this system and sends a single capital ship (the *Agonizer*) to take control of the system. Sol-7B is defended by a single capital ship of faction B (the *B 227*).
Both ships are at equal footing when it comes to maneuverability and speed, but the *Agonizer* eclipses the *B 227* when it comes to raw fire power. The fleet command of faction B therefore orders the *B 227* to not engage the *Agonizer* on system entry and it takes defensive position around planet Berusslow-4c which is the first target of the *Agonizer*. As the *Agonizer* approaches, the *B 227* moves 'behind' the planet to deny the *Agonizer* a line of fire. The *B 227* then starts to mimic the *Agonizer*'s maneuvers to keep the planet between both ships, avoiding a direct fight.
Unable to engage the *B 227*, the *Agonizer* enters the lower planetary orbit to deploy the superior invasion force using two-way dropships and the battle on the surface begins. The *Agonizer* is kept as a mobile base which allows for rapid deployment and re-deployment on the surface. Ground troops are brought back to the *Agonizer* to increase the number of reserves that can be deployed. The *B 227* mimics this behaviour and is able to reclaim lost mining facilities and cities by rapidly deploying the former defending forces as soon as the *Agonizer* moved to support another ground assault.
* The task of the *Agonizer* is to hold a certain number of key locations on Berusslow-4c as well as some key locations on two other planets in the same system. Most of the locations that should be held by the alliance A are clustered on a specific site of the planet. Still some of the objectives are found on the other site of the planet. The total number of troops the *Agonizer* can deploy is much larger than the defending force.
* The *B 227* is focused on deploying a vast number of troops to reclaim those key locations once the orbit is clear. The numerical superiority in these attacks minimizes their losses. These locations are then left with a minimal guard, to deny the *Agonizer* from inflicting great damage by retaking them again. Therefore, this tactic focuses on using the actual manpower as best as possible while forcing a scattering of enemy troops along different key locations.
**Therefore the question is:**
* Can the *Agonizer* break the stalemate imposed by the presence of the *B 227*?
**Additional information**
1. There is only limited air power available on the planet, as anti-air weaponry against smaller craft is advanced. Dropships carry strong anti-missile systems, which renders them immune to medium amounts of anti-air power.
2. There are no targeted space weapons like missiles available as anti-missile systems are advanced. Hence, space battle rely on line of sight (or almost line of sight, as you could shoot at a specific part of space, where the enemy ship will be once the projectile has travelled the distance).
3. Smaller space ships are not used due to their inability for fast travel and their inferior effective weapon power.
4. Energy read-outs and exact position of the enemy ship are known to both sides at any point during this campaign. So both sides are always aware of the intended course and speed of the enemy ship.
5. The question is mostly focused around resolving the space stalemate although ways to use the ground forces for exactly this purpose are also welcome.
**update** the real objectives and tactics of both sides and removed the question "Is this scenario realistic?" as it is based on the structure of the universe itself. Feel free to generalize some points, if you find them ill-suited.
[Answer]
# Guerrilla warfare
B227 is basically doing guerrilla warfare.
As long as they know where the Agonizer moves, they can stay out of the way indefinitely. But, how do they know when the A is out of line of sight? I'm not saying they can't, just that it has to be explained.
There can be spy satellites, there can be scouts on the ground. Either way, these will become targets for the A. Afterwards, they have a much better chance of surprising the B.
Maybe the ships give off neutrino radiation that can be detected straight through the planet. If so, the run-away strategy will work indefinitely.
Generally, you don't win wars by running away, but the way you have set things up they just might.
A's strategy of conquering places and then pulling all the soldiers out again is not how you do war. Even if B didn't come and reconquer things, the locals would take over the moment A lifted off.
So, A must leave soldiers to hold the territory. And B will lose soldiers killing them.
In the end, it is a question of who runs out of soldiers first.
Points of interest aren't generally spread out evenly across the entire planet. On Earth, a ship hovering far above the North Pole could cover most of the landmass and definitely most of the industry. The opponent would have Australia, which is nice, but not much compared to the US, Europe, Russia and China.
[Answer]
## Siege
>
> They don't want to fight ? We won't.
>
>
>
For now just don't care about the B227, it can't harm you after all, the main problem is if the Agonizer leaves the planet, the B227 will have plenty of time to reinvade Berusslow-4c. So don't leave the planet.
Make the Agonizer refuel in the biggest "gas station" of the planet, make reserves, and burn it down if there are still energy in it. Then go into low orbit to ensure that one orbit completion is too short for the B227 to refuel at another refuel station (if there is more than one).
Thus, the B227 will also stay in low orbit to avoid being shot. Make some energy consuming maneuvers (atmosphere entry, pro-grade burning, retrograde burning, ...).
By doing so, the B227 will hopefully run out of energy sooner than the Agonizer. Which will let it few choices:
* Stay in orbit to avoid consuming too much energy : just make a small maneuver (accelerate by reducing your orbit or wait for it by making your orbit bigger) and **shoot it**.
* Try a maneuver to refuel on the planet: when you go over it **shoot it**.
* Try to go on another planet to refuel: when B accelerates, if you stay on your orbit you will catch it up, so **shoot it**.
* Surrender: **shoot it**... maybe don't that is not nice.
Basically you just make an inverted siege, you avoid it to go to the planet until it runs out of energy.
You could also just stay in orbit and hope that the crew on the B227, by seeing their planet (and family ?) threatened by you, make a mutiny, or surrender, or try a desperate maneuver.
## Ultimatum in the stalemate
Another way of doing this (less ethically correct but less evil than Mormacil's answer :P) is to force the psychological failure in the B227. As you are taking some places on Berusslow-4c, make sure you are seen by a lot of people. The population on the planet needs to know that they are in war. Thus, a part of the civilization will try to escape this war, and take spaceships to go to another planet or even to go to another stellar system. Offer them an ultimatum, they **surrender or you shoot those rescue ships**. You will be considered as evil, but if they are reasonable (sentimental ?) they will surrender or psychologically collapse.
Once B227 is out of the game, the rest should be a piece of cake.
[Answer]
**Yes, with some sacrifices. B concentrates their forces to minimize losses. So set up an ambush**. Take a site of limited importance. Leave behind the regular guard detail, or better a minimal force that looks like a regular guard detail. You then rig the site.
When B recaptures it you detonate it, causing heavy casualties. It will cost you some men, a site of limited importance but it will break the stalemate. Against a smaller more agile force your options are limited.
You either fortify so heavily you can't be attacked, or you take the fight to them. If you can't target them directly because they evade you there is only one successful age old tactic. You burn it all to the ground. In this case blow up the base.
**Another option is force B out of hiding by bombing civilian targets**. Any kinetic object with sufficient mass would devastate civilian infrastructure. Even better most anti missile defense is useless against it. As they rely on quick precise strikes. They would either be ineffective or fracture the object. Instead of one big crater you get several smaller ones over a large area.
**The counters to guerilla warfare are equal parts terror and a way out.** Not giving a way out makes one desperate and a dangerous enemy. Terror will break their spirit eventually if they don't submit. It may sound barbaric but we've never seen a guerilla conflict resolved otherwise.
Now B has two options, they let their population die or they come and engage. The first would likely be terrible for morale. No matter the hate it creates, seeing people die takes a toll. Now if they engage, you got some superior numbers and firepower.
**A third option would be hostages.** Similar to my first solution. Forces from A capture certain civilian targets. Then the ship of A leaves with the majority of the forces. The remaining force will execute civilians of B approaches. Both sides will have soldiers refusing orders but A has a larger pool to find volunteers. In a way it's a human shield, retake and your civilians die.
So in summary:
- Ambush and crush B's forces
- Kill civilians till B engages
- Threaten to kill civilians of B retakes any sites
[Answer]
# Set up a mine field
If *B227* is avoiding *Agonizer* while trying it's best to defend the planet, and *Agonizer* is actively supporting operations on the planet, it's likely both ships are in orbit. That limits maneuverability options for *B227* to small adjustments between orbits.
*Agonizer* can allow *B227* to get to the far side of the planet, deploy a mine field while *B227* can't see it, and then adjust its own orbit to avoid the field. *Agonizer* will know where the mines are. *B227* won't.
The space shuttle orbits earth every 90 minutes. Assuming a similar orbit periods, it's only a matter of time.
The downside is if *B227* can detect the mines. It's likely they can, but it's your world. Give the *Agonizer* some ability to mask them.
[Answer]
>
> The task of the Agonizer is to hold a certain number of key locations on Berusslow-4c
>
>
>
Hold them, then. Move Agonizer to geostationary orbit over the key locations for air support and heavy bombardment.
>
> One of the conflicts fought takes place in the planetary system Sol-7B which mainly provides raw materials to faction B
>
>
>
Destroy the raw material production facilities from orbit, unless you absolutely have to capture those.
>
> Alliance A wants to take control of the main planets of this system and sends a single capital ship (the Agonizer) to take control of the system.
>
>
>
Explain to high command, as advanced as your technology is, it does not allow you to be at two different places at the same time. They will need to prioritize targets or they will have to send reinforcements if they want all objectives captured and held.
>
> around planet Berusslow-4c which is the first target of the Agonizer
>
>
>
Well then, move on the the second target. **B 227 cannot be at two places at the same time, either. It will have to travel through open space to get to your second objective.** Strike while it is in transit and destroy it before it can hide behind another planet.
[Answer]
Expanding slightly on Joel Coehoorn's answer; the first thing I thought of was de-orbiting of debris.
B can see any energy output by A right? Any weapons fired etc. I assume they are in a relatively low, fast moving orbit. What I figure, is that since B is matching A's manuveres, once B is sufficiently out of sight, use some form of low energy propulsion to drop a field of small, dull, hard objects (like rocks, brought from the surface perhaps) in B's path. With enough debris, only a few hundred m/s should be enough to damage B. it wont be there for long, you just need to keep pumping it out.
Failing actually damaging B, keeping up the debris, even at random, is going to atleast hamper their shuttles launching from/landing on the surface.
] |
[Question]
[
I'm trying to figure out a concept for some sort of super-advanced space propulsion system that works by bending spacetime. As I understand it, planets' orbits are actually straight paths, but they move through a spacetime sufficiently curved that they travel in ellipses around their system's center of gravity. Taken to the extreme, stuff falls into a black hole because, if you get in close enough, spacetime is so warped that any direction you move in is toward the singularity.
Is it possible, within our current understanding of physics, to bend the spacetime around an object so that it moves relative to nearby objects? Like, something that translates the movement toward a center of gravity like a planet or star into directional movement?
[Answer]
The "within our current understanding of physics" makes this hard. Our current understanding is that the curvature of spacetime is intricately linked to the distribution of matter and energy in spacetime.
Now there is the well known [Alcubierre drive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive) which allows for ftl travel (in a global frame, nothing travels faster than light locally). However the Alcubierre drive requires exotic material (with negative mass) and extreme consumption of energy (the power of several billion stars) to work. Our current understanding does not permit for a functioning Alcubierre drive to be built.
There are similar, but low tech ways of bending spacetime. For example, if you fling a planet out into space, it can drag a spaceship behind it gravitationally. That's probably not what you were thinking, yet it does involve bending spacetime to translate motion towards a centre of gravity into directional movement.
Essentially the problem is this, to bend spacetime you need to move large amounts of mass around, and if you can move large masses around, why don't you just move the spaceship? There is a very exception to this. If the large mass is already moving, you can steal a little of its momentum, and gain a lot of speed. This is called a gravitational slingshot, and is very much "real physics".
Taken to extreme is the possibility of gaining velocity by dipping into the [Ergosphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergosphere) of a rotating black hole. This could allow for an object to gain a very large amount of energy from the black hole (up to 20% of the object's mass-energy). Again, this isn't a drive that you can take with you, but a way of boosting your speed. Flying your spacecraft around a black hole has a number of health and safety issues.
[Answer]
This is essentially science-fictional answer, but the science-based component isn't neglected. The reasoning is similar to an answer given to this question [Internally consistent grav-plating](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/56671/internally-consistent-grav-plating/56704#56704)
This answer assumes that gravitational propulsion works by artificially making spacetime curve and the spacecraft is accelerated towards this artificial gravitational field. Currently the only known way to influence the curvature of spacetime is to add mass. Assume that there exists a fundamental physical mechanism responsible for the curvature of spacetime and energy can be pumped into it. The amount of energy pumped will determine the amount of curvature. This in turn will determine the rate of acceleration of the spacecraft.
If the artificial gravitational field can be generated around the spacecraft in such a way that it "effectively" is falling in the direction of its destination, the ship will accelerate as if it was in free fall in a natural gravitational field.
Depending on the power output of the ship's reactors this acceleration can be set arbitrarily high. In free fall there are no crushing acceleration pressures to harm or injure the ship's complement.
A separate gravitational drive can set up around a major structural component of the spacecraft. This can be used to generate an artificial internal gravity field, so the space travellers can enjoy normal gravity during their journey.
**Reality check:**
There is no known physical mechanism that can achieve this effect. This is purely hypothetical. Remember this is essentially a science-fictional answer. Gravitation, in the general relativity model, is based on the concept that the curvature of spacetime is responsible for it. Therefore, this answer has postulated two things. That spacetime curvature can be achieved artificially without mass and that this curvature is directly dependent on the amount of energy pumped into the curvature-generating field.
[Answer]
No. You might use [gravitomagnetism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitoelectromagnetism) to make a launcher that is not part of the ship, but **any** mechanism will not be able to move itself. If you could project a fake mass ahead of the ship and fall towards it (as in a4android’s answer), you have the problem of the generator being on the ship. You can’t lift yourself by tugging on your bootstraps.
You have to contend with conservation of momentum. The gravity ring can [launch a ship at 100 G acceleration without the passengers feeling a thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitoelectromagnetism#Higher-order_effects), but the launcher itself will recoil in doing so, and needs another propulsion mechanism to check the launcher’s motion and bring it back into place.
Likewise, the phantom mass projector would recoil when a ship was attracted to the phantom mass: the ship and the separate projector will move in opposite directions. Putting the projector in the ship will render it useless for this purpose.
Conservation of momentum is [rather fundamental](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum#Symmetry_and_conservation) in the universe. Gravity does respect it.
---
If you want to be more oblique, a dark matter rocket (as described in [this answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/64330/simple-non-destructive-spaceship-liftoff-engine/64412#64412)) might involve gravity as the channel through which normal matter can be converted to dark matter.
[Answer]
Visualize the planets as balls rolling around on a taught sheet. It's easy to picture larger balls creating more pronounced curves. Now imagine you figure out how to control gravity to the point where you can space stretch like silly putty. You can grab a spot in space and stretch it way out. Now grab another from far away and stretch that one way out. Touch them together and allow a ship to pass between them. You move around by manipulating gravity, which really manipulates the bending of space. Travel is limited by how strongly you can stretch space, and which weird effects happen when you do it.
[Answer]
Yes, kind of, we haven't solved the math yet, we don't even know what a lot of it looks like, but we do understand that it's there. There are equations that the scientific community is working on that may eventually let us get a handle on direct manipulations of space-time, if we ever complete and solve them. If we can solve the math then in theory we can build artifacts that would allow us to bend space-time. That allows you to create and use artificial mass-energy and gives rise to many interesting applications; artificial black holes, "zero-point energy" (which actually amounts to the same thing), artificial mass (both real and virtual), artificial gravity, reactionless drive, inertial dampers, time-travel, etc... basically the full list of "McGuffins friends don't let friends have" and a few other toys that the writers never thought of.
**But**
We don't have the math, we're probably a paradigm shift away from completing the equations, and another from solving them and even then we'll still have to build a manipulation platform (that might just be the easy bit but I doubt it). We understand the relationships and phenomena we're trying to understand, describe, and recreate but not how they're created in nature.
[Answer]
I'm currently working on this exact machine right now and building the theory based strongly on relativity.
By the way. Light getting stuck in a black star is because space is so dense around the star from being squeezed completely out of it's structure that light gets reflected back because a photons lack of mass. Like a bullet that's too slow and too light to penetrate a steel plate. And light coming in from an angle is deflected like the bullet passes through an angled plate, turning it in toward the star.
To travel towards matter push space outward, in for the opposite. Beware that means you too, so hold on tight. The good thing is, the more the mass, the greater the push with equal power.
] |
[Question]
[
The [Black Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death), which claimed an estimated 75-100 million lives, was one of the most devastating events that is still well known today.
What conditions would allow the [plague](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_(disease)) to spread and kill on a larger or equal scale as the Black Death now or in the foreseeable future?
I am looking for natural causes, so bio-engineering a *super plague* is out.
[Answer]
For ultimate spread and mortality, you want something that has the following properties in combination:
* High probability of infection when somebody is exposed to the disease (highly infectious)
* High probability of transmission of the disease after being exposed, but before developing visible symptoms (highly infectious during the incubation period)
* Long period between initial exposure and the disease manifesting itself (long incubation period)
* Difficult (medically, politically or otherwise) to quarantine and cure infected (and potentially infected) individuals once the disease manifests itself (hat tip to [Jay](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/2973/jay) for this one)
* High probability of death after the disease manifests itself (high mortality)
Also, a quick course of the disease once symptoms start to develop might make such a disease harder to prevent, because it provides less window of opportunity for treatment even if the disease is nominally treatable. It will also help if the early symptoms are similar to those of less dangerous diseases.
Ebola makes a poor epidemic fatal disease because while mortality is high, it quickly becomes clear that you are suffering from it, allowing for quarantine protocols to be initiated relatively early.
The common flu makes a poor epidemic fatal disease not least because with the exception of those who are for some reason already infirm, it isn't particularly deadly.
Thankfully to support what you want, presently, long-distance travel is the norm. A human who is infected by a disease in one part of the world can begin spreading it in a completely different part of the world within 12-24 hours under the right circumstances, making it difficult to establish proper quarantine of infected individuals. Under "ideal" circumstances, even the travel itself can easily transfer the disease to hundreds of individuals (a full airplane's worth). As [Monica Cellio](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/28/monica-cellio) pointed out in a comment, an early outbreak at a place and time with a large worldwide attendance -- such as for example a major sports or religious event -- could exacerbate this.
The hard part is for the disease to be sufficiently deadly, yet not kill or incapacitate its hosts before the hosts have had time to sufficiently expose other potential hosts to the disease. If the disease fails the second criterion, outbreaks will be short and *relatively* geographically isolated. (There may be several related outbreaks in various parts of the world based on travel, but the disease is unlikely to significantly spread further before the outbreak dwindles down.)
[Answer]
[Ditto Michael Kjörling](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/51730/29), I won't repeat his answer. I'd add:
1. There is no known cure or circumstances make the cure difficult to distribute. If there was some disease fitting all MK's criteria, but it could be instantly cured by taking a pill that costs 5 cents to produce, I think the disease could be gotten under control quickly. If there is no cure or if the cure is hugely expensive or requires months of treatment, etc.
2. Ignorance of what causes the disease or how it is spread. In the early days of a previously unknown disease, doctors are not going to know these things, and many people could die before they figure it out. For example, I read once that during the Black Plague, at one point in Britain the government concluded that the disease was spread by cats, and set about catching all the cats and killing them and burning the bodies. As the disease was really spread by rats, and cats tend to kill rats, this actually made the problem worse.
3. Social or political factors prevent authorities from quarantining infected individuals, restricting travel, or taking other measures to slow the disease. At the height of the ebola crisis there was a case in the U.S. where a nurse travelled to Africa to help treat victims there, and on her return authorities wanted to quarantine her for a couple of weeks to insure she was not infected. She refused, threatened legal action when they tried to force her, got a bunch of media attention, and eventually the government backed down and let her circulate freely. It was an obvious case for someone to be quarantined: she had clearly been exposed many times over a long period. But the government didn't quarantine her for political and legal reasons.
[Answer]
What you need is a species jump combined with a mutation. There currently is no pathogen that comes close to being able to inflict this kind of damage. Pathogens that deadly will have a strong tendency to burn out and go extinct.
When we see very lethal diseases, look around: they weren't human diseases. Smallpox jumped from probably rodents well after man walked the Earth, HIV jumped from monkeys about 100 years ago, the flu routinely jumps from birds and pigs. The plague is carried by rodents. Extreme killers come when a virus is much more dangerous to its new host than to its old one.
To reach Black Death levels you simply need a virus to jump and mutate, the result being something contagious but for which the lethal phase takes time to develop. Think of something that presents as the common cold but does something very nasty over time: it gets driven into hiding but eats away at the part of the body where it's hidden.
[Answer]
Conditions need for an epidemic the scale of the black death.
1. Large cities with crap conditions.
2. No sewer system in cities human waste often clogs up the streets especially in slums.
3. Overall ignorance of how diseases spread and can be stopped.
4. An out-of-control rodent population in cities.
5. No cleanliness rituals or washing habits among the people.
6. Trade spreading across countries and even continents.
You put all these together and you have the perfect breeding ground for a disastrous plague.
[Answer]
The most likely candidates for an extinction level event are Influenza (do research on H5N1 in China), and Ebola Zaire (research likelihood of cross mutation with Ebola Reston).
Influenza is a promiscuous virus, easily swapping gene segments with other strains. The Chinese variant (H5N1) has high mortality, but low morbidity (hard to catch, but if you catch it, you'll probably die). This strain is still primarily an avian strain, so you're only likely to catch it if you're already very sick (102-104 degree fever). Gene strands were swapped out in a level 4 biolab environment to demonstrate the ease with which it could happen in nature (reported in mass media: <http://science.sciencemag.org/content/336/6088/1534.full> ). Resultant strain had reduced mortality, but greatly increased morbidity. Unlike run of the mill influenza, this strain has a mortality spike in late teens/early twenties due to Cytokene Storm (healthy bodies fight the virus too hard, resulting in fatal damage to tissues). With a few minor mutations, this strain could easily replicate the H1N1 Spanish Influenza (also an avian strain) of 1918-1919, only with much higher death tolls. A recent article from Canada on this strain: <http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/20/9/14-0240_article>
Ebola Zaire has high morbidity and high mortality, but the disease kills very quickly and it's usually clear when someone is infected. It's only transmitted by touch, so it easily contained. Ebola Reston, on the other hand, is easily transmitted via airborne vapor. It's not particularly deadly to humans, but could easily mutate with Ebola Zaire under a particular set of circumstances. The resultant strain would likely have a much higher morbidity, and lower mortality than a straight Zaire strain. Suggested reading: Richard Preston's The Hot Zone.
[Answer]
The Black Death still exists, several thousand a year contract it, and occasionally a few people die.
But these days we have decent sanitation, soap, a change of clothes, antibiotics, medicines, doctors, hospitals, and pest control.
It is however on a watchlist as a feared biological weapon released by aerosol as there is no vaccine and is simply a bacteria.
[Answer]
Other answers have already covered many areas, so this'll just focus on one
**Antibiotic Resistance**
A perfect storm is brewing in the health sector where over use, over prescription and under-development have combined to lead to a situation where, in our lifetimes, antibiotics could essentially become useless against killer bacteria. To reach black death levels all that needs to happen is a new strain of an existing disease treated with Antibiotics to arise that is not only resistant, but essentially immune to current medicines. Indeed, this could be set very near future - a World Health Organization (WHO) report released April 2014 stated, "this serious threat is no longer a prediction for the future, it is happening right now in every region of the world and has the potential to affect anyone, of any age, in any country. Antibiotic resistance—when bacteria change so antibiotics no longer work in people who need them to treat infections—is now a major threat to public health.[1](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/amr-report/en/)
Potential "candidates" include the MRSA family - Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - (so called because it is resistant to most broad spectrum antibiotics including methicillin [2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methicillin-resistant_Staphylococcus_aureus))
] |
[Question]
[
I am trying to design a world where one pole is very cold, and the other is very hot. I don't mean that there would be instant death in either, but it is colder than our South Pole on one end and warmer than our equator on the other. I don't know if this is possible. Is there a way (maybe incorporating $n$ stars) that this situation could be possible? Any ideas?
[Answer]
## **Make the axial tilt of the planet be parallel to its orbital plane**
[Uranus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#Axial_tilt) does this already with an axial tilt of about 97 degrees off orbital plane though this isn't a great example because Uranus is just cold all the time. All it's a gas giant while the OP is implying a rocky planet.
## Torque required to keep the hot pole pointing towards the star
The trade-off to this approach is that without a source of torque to keep the hot pole pointing towards the star, the poles will alternate between extreme heat and extreme cold as the planet orbits the star. While this sounds a bit counter-intuitive, try it with a gyroscope. Pick an object to represent the sun. Spin up the gyroscope then suspend it from string. Walk all the way around the "sun". You'll notice that the gyroscope continues to point in the same direction, not towards the sun. To get it to always point towards the sun, you'll need to move it by hand.
## Temperature Profiles
This is going to be a very interesting planet to build an ecosystem on. The sun will always move from North to South.
The North and South hemispheres will always alternate between extreme hot and extreme cold. Just like on earth, the equator will always receive sunlight though being on the border between the two temperature extremes will make for very interesting living. How fast the planet rotates along its axis will have a huge influence on the ambient temperature. Too slow and everything freezes in the winter. Too fast causes other problems.
There is no comparable climate zone on earth to what this planet will experience. In some respects it is close to the Arctic climate zone in that there are wild temperature swings between summer and winter but different in that summer at the poles will get the equivalent of equatorial solar radiation for the entire day.
The sun is always up until it dips below the horizon, thus bringing on winter. Astronomers on this planet will notice the gentle spiral of the sun as the year goes by.
[Answer]
Have you considered a **[Sitnikov planet](http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Sitnikov_problem)**?
[](http://www.scholarpedia.org/w/images/1/15/Sitnikov.gif)
Image courtesy of Scholarpedia user Christoph Lhotka under [the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).
A Sitnikov planet moves on an axis, perpendicular to the orbital plane of two binary stars. It oscillates along this axis, gradually moving up and down. While it's on one half of the journey, one pole faces the two stars while one faces away, and while it's on the other half of the journey, the poles experience the opposite temperatures.
Here's the planet's height above the orbital plane as a function of time:
[](http://www.scholarpedia.org/w/images/c/c0/0sit-orb_2.0_0.0_0.3.png)
Image courtesy of Scholarpedia user Christoph Lhotka under [the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).
In this case, the eccentricity of the stars' orbits is 0.3, the initial height is 2, and the initial velocity is 0.
The oscillations will also be evident in the changes in heat on each pole. The equatorial regions will also experience oscillations, but not as extreme as at the poles.
Some things to know about the Sitnikov problem:
* It's relatively unstable.
* It's unlikely to form in nature.
[Answer]
Are you going to measure the temperature at the planet's surface? It is required for your planet's pole to be warmer than OUR equator but not ITS OWN equator? If so, maybe this could work for you.
You don't need any special orbit for your rocky planet, just make it closer to its star. This way both poles will be warmer. In fact, the whole planet will become warmer, so now we have to work on freezing one of the poles.
**VOLCANOS**
Yes they are boiling magma fountains which can heat up the surrounding nearest area, but hey throw something more valuable to your interests: **ASHES**
Place a super-active volcanic area in that pole and make your volcanos to throw up to the air tons and tons of ashes for centuries or even millennia. This way, you will get a **NUCLEAR WINTER** that will block the star's light and cool down the surface's temperature.
Make sure that both your volcanos throw up enough ashes (continuously or cyclicly) and your winds flow sustain those ashes in the air and near the pole to get an quasi-permanent effect and don't spread the ashes to the rest of the planet.
[Answer]
A Celestial body can have a complex rotation, in other words Earth rotates on its axis but there's a phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes. The direction that the North Pole points actually rotates over time but very slowly.
I'm not a physicist but my guess is that in order for this to work on something like a yearly scale with one pole always pointing toward the solar body firstly the procession would have to exactly match the length of the year which is almost completely unlikely unless it was engineered somehow and the mass of the planet would need to be much different then a normal planet. Perhaps it would work with something like a black hole which spins very quickly and Could Have A procession short enough to be equal to the length of its year.
Note that Earth's precessional cycle take several thousand years.
[Answer]
Basically, what Green has already stated, but with some modifications in the idea.
# Axial Tilt
I guess you are already familiar with the idea of axial tilt, but let me still put it here to reassure it.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tR2HU.jpg)
Consider that all these planets are circling their stars in a horizontal orbit. The leftmost planet will get equal and very little light on both poles all year round (it would be sunrise forever at one pole and sunset forever at the other pole). For the second (Earth-like) planet, for half the time north pole will slightly face the sun and for the next half, the south pole will face the sun. In the rightmost planet (this is how Uranus is), the poles will undergo extreme seasons. Summers and winters would both last for half a year (just like Earth's poles) but since the poles of this planet would be almost directly facing towards or away from the sun, the day and night (summer and winter) would be very severe.
Green has suggested to *make the axial tilt parallel to its orbital plane*. This means something like the rightmost planet where the poles face the sun directly at 90°.
If your planet has an axial tilt less than 45° (left and center planets), the pole facing the sun would get less sunlight than the equator. At a tilt of 45°, the pole and the equator would have equal sunlight. For an absolute tilt of 90° (slightly more than the right side planet), the pole would directly face the sun and the equator would be at the twilight zone (eternal morning/evening scenario).
# Tidal Locking
Normally when a planet orbits around its star, different sides of it face the star around different times (this is what causes seasons). However, sometimes one side of a planet gets permanently fixated towards the star and there is always mid-day time on this side (the opposite side has an eternal night). This is known as tidal locking.
If you want one of your planet's poles to *always* face the sun (and the other pole to be always away from the sun) you should consider making your planet tidally locked with your star, with an axial tilt of between 45° and 90°.
However, keep in mind that scientists have only discovered planets orbiting very close to their stars to be tidally locked. Planets further away from their parent stars do not get tidally locked.
[Answer]
Make the planet tide locked with its star. There are numerous examples of moons tide locked with their planets. The gas giants in our solar system have many such moons.
I suspect a planet tide locked to a star is a common occurence, especially if the planet is close to the star. If the star is one of the very long lived red dwarfs, the goldilocks habitable zone would be near the dwarf star.
The globe for a tidelocked body has 8 non arbitrary points and 3 non arbitrary great circles:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OyEjH.jpg)
In this case the hottest region would be the near point and the coldest would be the far point. The North and South Poles as well as the right and left ear would all like on the planet's terminator. (Most call the left and right ears the leading and trailing points) The terminator would be the most temperate region.
I haven't modeled this but I suspect the weather structure would be a torus with air rising from the surface of the Near Point and sinking towards the Near Point. Convection would mitigate temperature extremes at near and far points.
] |
[Question]
[
Let's say a new science-based cult takes over the world and convinces the vast majority of humans that 10 Billion is an unsustainable number of people for our planet. They want to reduce the number to 2 Billion. There are no dead-lines, as some meager sustenance is enabled by science. However, most people see the point and are committed to making this change.
Immediately, I am thinking about the Chinese "one child" policy, which caused some problems:
a. Small number of young people need to take case of a big number of ageing people
b. Having only one child pushes people to want a boy, reducing the females born and causing social problems
If you were a population engineer, how would you attenuate human reproduction?
What do you reckon would be the major problems that might arise and how do you suggest to prevent/treat them?
One thing on my mind is robots: they are already replacing people and enabling a less human-dependent economy.
[Answer]
If there are no deadlines, a two children policy will work and prevent both issues you mentioned. With about 2.3 children per mother needed for a stable population, you would have a steady decline.
As shown by all of our developed countries, a low natural birthrate can also be achieved without strict limits, but a number of conditions need to be in place:
1. A social welfare/safety system has to be in place, so that people are not dependent on having (enough) children to care for them in old age.
2. Living conditions (food and water especially), health care and security need to be good enough that almost all children survive to adulthood, so no spares are needed.
3. Raising successful children has to be a costly investment. Outlawing of child labor and the increasing need for highly educated people have achieved this in developed countries, to the point where some couples feel they cannot even afford to raise one child (Hi Japan!).
In short, if having few or no children is an economically viable and "safe" choice, enough people will choose that over breeding like rabbits to lower the birthrate below the replacement rate.
While robots and automation will inevitably promote the third condition by making unskilled labor obsolete, the major problems will be political in nature: How to fairly distribute resources and ensure and end to poverty and war, because those are the main drivers for people to have many children.
## Consequences of a declining population
A population that will be "graying" for many generations also needs to get serious about pensions and housing/city-building. Each generation would need to set aside enough to care for itself in old age, to not put an undue burden on the next, smaller generations. This requires long-term planning and commitments, neither being a strong suit of our current democracies, but hopefully your technocrats are better at it.
As the population decreases, many cities will shrink or be abandoned. However, it won't be a move back to villages and rural areas. It will be too expensive to service a widely distributed population with all the infrastructure and technology we have come to expect in our daily lives. The high level of education and specialization needed are also hard to achieve in thinly populated areas.
So the bulk of the remaining population will gather in the most attractive cities, turning them into vibrant developing metropolises. All supporting agriculture and industry will be relocated nearby and the cities will be connected by air or high-speed mass transit without intermediate stops.
Most or all infrastructure criss-crossing the land as well as ghost cities would be abandoned to nature, as the cost to maintain them would be way too high.
A small percentage of the population would choose to live in small independent communities that use solar/wind power and 3D printing to maintain some capacity for technological production, but would have to fly/drive for hours/days to reach a city if they need advanced tech or medical care.
Several other answers refer to the decline in arts, science and general development because there are less "geniuses" born. This may happen, but nothing approaching an 80% drop. A large percentage of "geniuses" born among the 10 billion will be born into poverty and never realize their potential, because there simple aren't enough resources to go around. A population of 2 billion with universal education and social security would produce a number of realized "geniuses" not too much lower.
[Answer]
Effects that occur to me:
One: As yo mention -- so let's deal with that right off the bat -- in many cultures it is advantageous to have sons. In China, the custom is that your sons provide for you when you get old. Your daughter doesn't: she'll be working to support her husband's parents, not her own. So if you don't have a son, you can never retire. You have to work until the day you die. In India, the parents of a girl are expected to pay a large dowry to her husband and his family when she marries. I think it's much less of an issue in Western cultures, but still, fathers often want to have a son to carry on the family business. In general, it is sons who carry on the family name. Etc.
So if you're going to make this work, you have to someone bring about social changes so that baby girls are equally desirable. It's easy to describe social changes that would make this work. Getting people to actually accept them is another story. And, I might add, it's easy for some technocrat sitting in his office to dream up social or economic change that he thinks will be an improvement. But putting it into practice often brings up all sorts of issues that he never considered.
Two: You also mentioned supporting the elderly. Yup, that's another problem. In the U.S., social security was originally designed when there were, well, in a quick search I couldn't find the numbers when it started, but in the 1950s there were 16 people paying in for every 1 receiving benefits. Today it's less than 3 to 1 and falling. Taxes to support it have risen from 2% to 12.4%. With a declining population, you'd have to either force people to retire at older ages or increase taxes even more. At some point the burden on the young becomes unsustainable. This of course applies whether you rely on a system like social security, the young person directly supporting his parents, or any other system. The money to support the retirees has to come from somewhere.
Three: Economic diversity. As technology advances, people become more specialized. A couple of thousand years ago most people were very literally self-sufficient. Most people were farmers, and a farmer built his own house, made his own tools, then used those tools to grow his own food, etc. But as the economy becomes more complex, people specialize. I develop software for a living. I have never made more than minimal efforts to grow my own food -- a few attempts at a vegetable garden -- and those have been total failures. I have no idea how to build a house, or 90% of the other things I use every day. Even farmers today aren't self-sufficient. They don't build their own tractors and drill for oil to run them, etc.
If the population is shrinking, it becomes more difficult for people to specialize. Sure, there are enough store clerks in the world that if population was cut by 80%, we could say fine, there will now be 80% fewer store clerks. But some jobs are specialized enough that there aren't millions of them in the world. If we cut population by 80%, can we just cut the number of coal slurry pipeline workers by 80%, and have the system still work? The number of agronomists? Etc.
Three: Some things only work on a sufficiently large scale. If the population was reduced by 80%, presumably we wouldn't need as many roads. But could we abandon 80% of the roads? Not if we still want to be able to travel around like we do today. Could we abandon 80% of the cell phone towers? Not without losing coverage to large areas. Etc.
Four: How do you manage the depopulation? I live near Detroit, a city that has lost 60% of its population since its peak in the 1950s. This has caused huge problems. For example, there are now neighborhoods that used to have hundreds of people, but now only 1 or 2 houses are still occupied. How do you continue to provide utilities to those 1 or 2 families? Miles of water pipe and power lines and phone lines were built with the intent that they would support hundreds of customers. Now the maintenance cost is almost the same but they are supplying 1. Who pays for that? In some cases the city has paid people to move out of abandoned areas just so that they can shut off the utilities and stop maintaining the infrastructure. People find themselves living in areas where all the houses around them are abandoned and slowly decaying. Crime is rising. Wild dogs and other animals are becoming a problem. Etc.
Five: Science and technology advance through the contributions of a small number of geniuses. But we all benefit. For example, the microwave oven was basically invented by one person, Percy Spencer. I don't know how many microwave ovens have been produced since then, but say it was one billion. How many people would it have taken to invent it if two billion had been made? Or only one million? Clearly the answer is, Still just one inventor. It doesn't matter how many people benefit from his invention, the work and creativity to invent it are the same. If you double the population, then all else being equal you should have twice as many inventors. But the benefit to the average person for each invention is not halved because there are twice as many people. It's the same. So the more scientists and inventors, the more we all benefit. Cut the population by 80%, and presumably there will be 80% fewer scientists and inventors. Scientific and technological progress will slow by 80%.
[Answer]
If timescale isn't that much of a problem then you can effect a 'by percentage' sterility lottery. Essentially you take 1 of every x children from each gender and sterilise them at birth. It's a bit draconian, but neatly sidesteps a few of the issues as you can then tailor the sterilisation rate to balance the need for young workers etc. If you also let it be known that the sterilisation rate will be balanced to the male/female ratios then people will not want to force one gender or the other, as an overabundance of one gender will lead to that gender being sterilised more often (which isn't ideal if you want to pass your genes on).
Employing Population Engineers to watch over the census of any given area and tweak the lottery rates accordingly would be a very sound strategy, requiring some bureaucracy to support it but not needing any form of 'enforcement' to take punitive action on couples having children illegally.
If a particular person proves that they should have their genes persisted then options can still be open for providing surrogacy/IVF treatments, and adoption or surrogacy are still options available for parents with no option for natural childbirth. Both of these things can be presided over by licenced Population Engineers to ensure that no particular area is exceeding the population constraints.
Once you're down to your ideal population you can still use this method to control the population, albeit with a greatly reduced chance of being picked in the lottery.
One last note: In this society nobody would ever want to get the Powerball.
[Answer]
So far Cyrus has given an outstanding answer, and current trends seem to support the idea that depopulation will happen more or less on it own as human societies become wealthier.
The real problem isn't so much how this can happen (already answered), or if we can maintain our economy (robots and automation are already increasing productivity with high capital as opposed to labour inputs), but how we maintain our society.
Society and culture are products of social and mental interactions among and between people. More people and more interactions mean more ideas, access to more resources in the form of social capital and larger markets to try ideas and reap rewards for successful ones.
For example, few people have all the skills needed to become successful in creating a business. Many people have ideas, but little understanding about finance, management or production. In a lot of cases, would be business tycoons can't get started unless they are introduced to someone else who has a complimentary skill, or is willing to invest capital into the idea. In fact, it is most likely that you need to assemble at least three people to really get a business off the ground to ensure you have enough skill sets. Smaller social networks will ale that increasingly difficult.
Now you have your business up and running, you need to sell your product or service. In a declining market with smaller populations, there will be fewer people to sell to (and probably more competition for the remaining market). Fringe ideas which can find niche markets today will have an even smaller slice of the market in this future, which is smaller in absolute terms as well. I can also envision people and groups trying to maintain their power by colluding or using governmental regulations to raise barriers to entry and deny new products, services and business access to the markets. In today's world, the City of London Ontario has onerous restrictions of "food truck" vendors, including such frivolities as ordering the vendors to have GPS trackers on their trucks. The net result is no one wants to apply for a licence, existing restaurant chains are protected from competition and you can't suddenly decide to buy a hot dog as you walk down a street. This also means for each truck there are also dozens of potential jobs never created for supply, service, advertising and other support for the truck owner. Now expand this to a global scale.
This stifling effect on business will also gradually happen in other fields. There will be fewer new scientists, musicians, artists, philosophers or even gadflies and crazy people to explore new ideas or stir things up. The world will gradually become smaller, poorer and more "conservative" and ossified. This effect will take centuries to manifest itself (a world of 3 billion people in 2300AD will still have the accumulated wealth and history of the past to mine), and the effect won't even rely be noticeable to the people living at the time, except perhaps when grandparents tell stories of the "good old days" or a perceptive person really takes a close look at the past.
So the far smaller world of 2500AD may resemble a small town, with people in everyone's business and carrying out the same routines, the way their fathers and father's father's did before them.
[Answer]
**Yay, technocracy, don't we all love technocracy!**
So the people in charge think the know what's best for everyone, (don't we all?) and they've decided that there are too many of us, but how do you dispose of a full 80% of the population without utter chaos.
---
The quickest solution is to allow utter chaos, a good plague should do the trick. It'll mostly kill off the unhealthy, elderly and poor in overcrowded areas and the inability to dispose of the bodies fast enough will cause another bout of disease to kill off the rest of those overcrowded people. Problem solved. The rich and healthy (and western socialist countries) will survive, the people too poor to pay for healthcare die off.
You're now living in a world without an underclass, everyone is rich educated and healthy, that's really cool! Until you see the cost of good go through the roof, but never mind that, by the way did the cleaners come through the office last night...oh right.
---
There's a balance to the world population that hasn't really shifted since Roman times (probably longer but I haven't really looked further). There's a small wealthy class and a large underclass and occasionally a moderate middle class. In the current age we've outsourced our underclass to the far east but the same balance still holds. To maintain your culture you can't keep one group and remove the other the way you might think, you have to maintain the balance somehow. To remove 80% of the population you'll have to do it across the board, you can lift people out of absolute poverty but relative poverty will remain.
[Answer]
China's one-child policy didn't result in a different demographic development than a country like Thailand without such a policy. As a result it wouldn't be the policy to focus on.
Current trends mean that many developed countries achieve a children/woman ratio substantially lower than 2. That means over the long-term the population would shrink.
A population engineer would therefore do whatever they can to repeat to develop other countries as well. Reducing childhood deaths is especially important.
Which trends could still produce long-term population growth? Growing religions such as the Mormons demand it's adherents to have many children.
Taking actions to deconvert those groups and let them shrink instead of grow over time could be another area for policies.
[Answer]
One way to do so would be to sterilise everyone, but retain the ability to reverse that when needed. This added biological limitation should be able to be passed on to the next generations ideally. If a pair is given a permit by the population engineer/government to have kids (and reversal of their sterility) for their merits to the society the kids automatically at birth are sterile or made sterile shortly after. Same goes for parents after producing offspring, unless further permits were issued. People are made fertile for a certain number of kids and not indefinitely.
To decrease the population without causing anarchy and letting the markets and social structures adjust to new reality, the fertile population should be adjusted to decrease population at no lower rate than 0.96, ideally 0.98-0.99 every year. At this rate in 100 years population will drop from 8 billion to 2 billion. Since there are not time limits you could further bring this number closer to 1 and extend time it takes to reach desired population. By allowing only certain individuals of proven merits to have an offspring, it will encourage people to earn their right to have children and will prevent TV shows such as Benefit Streets or Kate Plus 8. Society will place far more importance on science and engineering and jobs will replaced at much faster rates by robots.
This concept centre of the plot of British TV show UTOPIA, where of course things don't go as smoothly. I also assumed that permits would be issued fairly to the people deserving them and not to the highest bidder.
[Answer]
Starting process is easy. Managing it is impossible.
1) Decrease significantly arable land, i.e. by melting glaciers to rising oceans by say 200 feet = 70 m. Food will become much more expensive.
2) Decrease usable land even more by making sub-tropical and tropical areas non-habitable, say by increasing temperature by say 4 degree Celsius, 8 F. Conveniently, hotter water (less oxygen) decreases food production in seas.
3) Cause global chaos as nations fight wars over now scarce resources like water and arable land. Add more chaos by spreading new infectious diseases.
4) Cause even more chaos when refugees from countries which are barely habitable (and not capable to feed own population) are trying to escape to more fortunate parts of the globe. Bonus if they can bring some new rare infectious diseases with them.
5) Now add even more political chaos. Political parties in habitable countries refuse to accept those eco-refugees, because accepting them will strain their own resources even more, and they need resources for own citizens (who can vote and BTW did paid taxes) as expenses to protect coastal areas (where most capitals are) go through the roof.
Politicians will promote good reasons why migration should be limited to "right kind of refugees" to preserve own culture. They WILL get elected, and nativist policies WILL get enforced. New migrants will be required to accept majority culture, which they will refuse, and civil unrest in habitable countries will do more damage to infrastructure and culture.
6) For a win, add ecoterorists from nations destroyed by climate change attacking infrastructure in habitable countries as revenge.
Is such chaos, preserving culture would be hard to impossible. Maybe some chances in "Fortress North America", with some luck and saner policies. Which will not be pleasant or nice.
Wait, that is exactly what we are doing! That "science" is called "global profit-based finance system"! We will get there in some 300 years! So we even do have a deadline!
[Answer]
You've had some pessimistic responses, here's something close to utopian:
As you've suggested that most people are already convinced, and that you have no deadlines, social norms will reduce the number of large-family holdouts still further over time, until their numbers are small enough to be irrelevant. If 1-2 children is seen as normal, 0 commonplace, and 3 very strange (per woman for simplicity). It would take a couple of decades for a significant demographic shift to have any impact; actually reducing the rate at which people are convinced wouldn't be a bad thing, softening this blow.
In the past, education and healthcare have reduced birthrates, so heavy investment in those would be worthwhile; universal access to contraceptives would of course be a requirement.
A global population that could agree on cutting population would be able to agree on many other issues too, meaning that large armed forces wouldn't be needed. This frees up young healthy people to care for the ageing population (as well as money). The research effort that currently goes into military hardware could be diverted to robotics for everything from farming the land that hasn't yet been returned to nature, to care for the sick/elderly.
A goal would be to have a society in which most people had culturally-fulfilling roles ("jobs" if you like) while labour was provided by robots (sustainably powered of course). People who have such jobs tend to have fewer children anyway.
I suspect that the hardest part would be convincing a large enough number of people to start with. Or maybe stopping the decline after many generations.
[Answer]
The problem with the one child = all boys is a cultural one.
So, in order for your cult to make it work, they'll probably push at least for the usual random game that gives us roughly 1000 female birth for 1020 male birth (out-of-the-hat number, from long ago).
In most western societies/culture, this wouldn't be too much of a problem. Where woman are considered a drain on their family income, that would be the main problem.
Then you have to make it so that society has the means to take care of those who can't work (and maybe of those who don't want to).
So, "universal income", "social security",... with a globalized approach (meaning that you can get all the governments in the world to do it at the same time) that might be done. - That's utopia we're talking about.
And those things are the easy part.
Once everything is set up, you have to convince people of giving up on having children. In most culture, it mean giving up on the *Future*. And this is heavily depressing.
You can either go the nihilist way : you have no future and there is no need to have children who will all die !
The other way is through a second demographic transition : people will have to agree that their future does not lay in their own children, but in a collective humanity.
So, supposing you don't go the Mad Max way... You have to convince every one that the only thing worth fighting for is this "2 billion" greater good. Because people are the main resource in resolving a dispute and as soon as two groups will have a disagreement your population regulation policies, enforcement and so on will shatter, either under the reality or against popular rebellion.
So...
Create a "Maslow" security.
Create World Peace on every and all subject.
Get people to give up on conflicts of any form.
Make people give up on their future and posterity (except for the few who will get to keep on having kids).
Get people to agree on who gets to keep on having kids.
The other solution is contraceptive/poison in the water.
You'll get two end of the population : those who can drink only bottled water and those who have to drink water from rivers and home made well.
And probably a Mad-Max-esque end.
] |
[Question]
[
I'm writing a story set in our own future1, where networked devices are even more ubiquitous -- and more capable -- than smartphones today. Part of the story, however, hinges on the main character putting a "memory chip" into her phone, which [hijacks her phone](https://srlabs.de/badusb/) to enable a secondary character -- ironically an ally -- to take over her phone's functions and communicate securely with her while also bugging her and attempting to backtrack the secure communications of an adversary also communicating via this phone.
It occurred to me, however, that already today we seem to be witnessing the demise of removable media devices. While I can see them remaining for a long time yet for backups, a lot of us can go weeks without using any form of removable media. It's even becoming less common for our smartphones to have slots for flash cards as we rely more and more on storing media in "the cloud" instead, sharing links or even entire files via email or other entirely-online means.
This is a world where the internet is reliable, fast, and ever-present; at least insofar as the scope of this story is concerned, everyone has high-speed access.
A potential factor in play is that my MC is a cop, though I'm not sure if that would really matter; my first thought would be that it could potentially be a more secure method of handling sensitive data, but solid encryption, isolated networks, and similar defenses can make a network plenty secure for the level of police work she's involved in.
I could of course rewrite the method of the hijack to something else, but I like this method as it creates a frightening moment when, after she inserts it into her primary phone, a message appears on the screen telling her to use her other phone -- the one her blackmailer provided to her for secure communications.
What plausible reasons might there be for networked devices in a highly interconnected future society to still retain near-ubiquitous access to some form of physical "memory chip"?
---
1 There is actually some room for anachronisms here, in that the setting is in fact post-post-apocalypse: A major cataclysm in our near future all but entirely wiped out civilization, plunging the survivors into an almost *Mad Max*-esque hellscape. This story is set a few centuries (give or take, haven't worked out a plausible timeline just yet -- might be a future question on that) after that, with civilization having re-emerged and advanced rapidly thanks to re-discovering our "lost tech" and building on that.
[Answer]
Cameras still use media. While a smartphone might save pictures to the cloud, even a low-end machine sold as a *camera* uses memory cards. The Sony α6000 shoots 10 frames per second with 25 MB per (raw) exposure, which means that you will not only greatly exceed bandwidth availability but will chew through many gigabytes of memory cards.
At an "event", the wireless bandwidth may be seriously overcommitted by the large crowd all trying to use it at the same time.
So, a smartphone-based device might be specialized for journalism. It can record stills, video, and audio and take notes, at high bandwidth production and still operate while being cut off from the network. When you snap a photo at a concert you want the file to save, immediately, not jam up while trying to get through to the server.
It is important that the chip be easily swappable so it can be changed when full and possibly sent by courier to another user, whether it be an editor in a professional situation, or just so the wireless transfer of backlogged data doesn't take a ridiculously long time.
Removable cards will be a feature for pros, and *prosumer* usage. Perhaps many dSLR users today, non-professionals, don't remove the memory card when they get home but trigger a wireless transfer while recharging and putting things away. But I don't see the feature of an *easily accessible* card slot going away.
Maybe a high-end smart device that's more phone than camera will have a memory card slot that can be swapped without cutting power and rebooting though not especially easy to access. That is, peel the shell open after removing from the case, rather than having a handy door.
You can lampshade it by explaining to the receiver that yes the device *does* have a place to put cards, as high-end devices will.
---
## media in general
I store my photos, work, backups, etc. on a local file server. Enterprise storage locations *exist* and when you use the "cloud" that's where it is really stored physically. So media *exists* even if you don't use it directly normally.
A bare HDD is not meant to be a removable media unit. But it is! I buy bare drives and use a dock in the manner of a cartridge reader. It's a sealed box with connectors for power and data. A "card" meant to be used as removable media is exactly the same thing. With easy to use connectors, the only difference between "media" and internal storage units is the durability and care needed for handling. A bare drive might not like even being placed on a hard table in a less-than-gentle manner, but travel drives put shock absorbing material in a case around it and adapts the manner of connecting.
So if *media exists* even if only for use in the cloud-based storage system, it will be possible to adapt it to portable use as a secondary market.
If devices have no provision for physical media or connections at all, you can still have a separate little box running *owncloud* with a personal networking protocol. So it doesn't plug in physically, but you still have a little box that must touch-to-pair and then remain within 10 meters to use. The pairing process gives you the plug-in event to acknowledge in the story.
## Same thing as a card. Just wireless.
It overcomes the media-free nature and is exactly what solutions would emerge for this need.
Such a box doesn't have to be orders of magnitude larger than a phone, e.g. holding a 3.5" drive. There will be local storage designed for tablets and laptop-equivalents, with more substantial storage size than the casual phone-like device. That can be packaged with the most minimal mobile-device chip (basically a speck) and battery to form a personal cloud server.
If the purpose of the product — which is developed separately from any phone — is for portability and hand-off-ability rather than capacity, it might be very small. It might be as small as a data "card" and serve the same purpose, but be wireless and not need any slot!
It could work with a phone *case* to hold it close without losing it, and keep it powered. This would be after-market, not affect the phone design but overcome it, and is something a hobbiest could hack together *today*. The tiny wireless server is "internet of things" brain.
Such products will exist, no doubt. Even if niche or unusual, or even customized, they could get one ideally suited for their purpose.
The future you describe, besides being media-free, also provides for highly customizable products. Even today we have at-home surface mount circuit board makers and 3D printers. So, even without a specific hobby industry for emerging ["iot"](https://iot.stackexchange.com/), imagine someone salvages a chip from a "thing" and adds a storage chip and programs it with encryption etc. He cobbles together a personal cloud server and it's the size of a matchbox.
An advantage to this is that it's not limited to just memory. It could contain special functions that you wanted, as hardware.
>
> ..."OK, how do I install it?"
>
>
> She was expecting to be told a URL for a private package store, for an app not found on the vendor-approved store. Most likely a QR code displayed on Alice's screen, or even a bump-file transfer but that generally can't copy apps. Betty never installed any app that wasn't from the official "store" listing, so she wasn't sure what would happen next.
>
>
> However, Betty was definitely *not* expecting to be handed the app in a little box! How silly, like a joke a little kid would make, crossing the lines between cyberspace and the physical world.
>
>
> On second glance, the package — about the size of a matchbook— bore the livery of a popular game company. "Is that a game booster? I've never used one" Boosters were for young men with too much testosterone who played first-person shooters and wanted life-like fidelity in rendering huge multiplayer meelies. It made the phone or tablet run faster and have better graphics; that's all she knew. Some were for specific games and were tied with company-specific features. Maybe *that's* the idea.
>
>
> Indeed, Alice explained, "Connect your phone to this. The label is just a disguise: it's been reprogrammed to [[whatever she was talking about]]. It holds your secret files on a personal cloud server and you connect only over the *personal* peripheral network [[bluetooth? ]], so the files are never seen on the open network between devices. It also implements [[special features]] she added with a wry grin.
>
>
> Betty turned it over in her hand and looked it over, spotting the pairing icon on the top of one of the small faces. "Stick a toothpick in that hole", over the icon, Alice indicated, "and then touch the pairing spots together." She initiated pairing the devices, and Alice then typed a *ridiculously* long password on Betty's phone and worked the toothpick again with what appeared to be another secret code. The icon on the "booster" flashed green, and an app-install acceptance window appeared on Betty's screen.
>
>
> Alice had a seemingly *cryptic* smile that she tried to hide. "Now it will work only on your phone. If anyone else tries to pair with it, your saved files will be hidden as if nothing was saved on it; it will *say* it was factory-reset and wiped, but really they are safe and will return when *you* re-pair it with this device.
>
>
> Betty hoped she didn't have to replace her phone while this was going on; certainly Alice had that covered too. But she didn't bring it up; this was already too complicated. But she did need to know: "What about power?"
>
>
> "Use the same universal charging pad as all your other devices," said Alice as if it was perfectly obvious. Indeed, the charging logo icon was embossed in one of the faces of the "booster". Betty didn't have any other fancy devices; an earpiece never appealed to her and people she knew kept losing them anyway. "I just have the stick-on dot that came with the phone."
>
>
> "Well, you'll have to go buy one. The charge will only last a day or two, so don't put it off." Betty, impatient with the un-geekiness of her friend, gestured towards a row of vending machines.
>
>
>
[Answer]
Besides the advantages of sneakernets (i.e. a moving car full of DVD's has more effective bandwidth than a smartphone), the main reason to have physical media is security.
If I want to make sure that no one can access my data on the cloud, I'm not going to put it there. OTOH, I still need access to my data, so it has to be stored somewhere. Putting it on removable media like a DVD, flash drive or sim card gives me portability, and long term security (no one "accidentally" crashing the cloud will read or erase my data).
However, there are some things to think about when doing this:
a. Your media needs to be stored securely. Having someone steal your DVD, or accidentally scratching it because you tossed it in the drawer isn't going to make your life easier.
b. You need real secure media, in the sense that it must remain readable over time. Flash drives and sim cards degrade over multiple read/write cycles.
c. There will be latency issues in downloading stuff from your portable media, compared to downloading from a server on the cloud.
d. Your systems must remain compatible. The data you carefully stored on a ZIP drive isn't going to do you much good today.
OTOH, if you have made a conscious decision to use exotic media like ZIP drives, Betamax or DAT digital tape, then you have the advantage of security in the sense that few people will have the ability to read it. Corporate spies will be annoyed, and only high level organizations like the NSA probably have the resources for their technical sections to be adept at cracking these sorts of formats.
Ironically, the best secure media might just be a piece of paper with some sort of cypher. It won't lose power, isn't going to become obsolete and if you use something like a book cypher, probably not readable by anyone who does not have the appropriate key.
[Answer]
Well, whatever the broadband rate X might be, the physical storage medium might hold $(10,000\times X)^2$ of information, making it unwieldy to transfer by streaming connection in a reasonable time.
Now as to why it is being used, it could contain something very personally valuable, like an encrypted blockchain hash of your personal wallet, or a full upload copy of your domestic partner's latest mindstate.
[Answer]
First some background: There are [three primary methods for doing security](https://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs513/2005fa/nnlauthpeople.html) that already exist:
1. *Something you know.* Passwords, pins, usernames.
2. *Something you have.* Your phone, a key, a wireless fob.
3. *Something you are.* Biometric scanners, visual verification.
Good security relies on using more then one method.
---
In the future, assuming near infinite network bandwidth and cloud storage, there might still be some expectation of privacy for your files. A password works, but it is clearly a weak solution, since it is only one of the three categories of security. Instead, there would be devices with unique hardware chips that can encode and decode the cloud files.
In [public key cryptography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography), you encrypt a file with a public key, and then it can only be decrypted by someone with a private key. So your device isn't a storage device, as much as a "key" for accessing the data on the internet. Not a memory card, but a memory access card.
[Answer]
Encryption doesn't mean much. As long as humans are involved there will always be a weak link (a human), and so there's always a reason to not trust the network.
You keep data offline to protect it from being stolen, but also to protect it from being edited. Chain of custody, and all that.
Also, you may need to go off the grid. Any network connection might be seen as a liability (and, in fact, with modern society becoming totally dependent on technology, unplugging might render you almost completely invisible in any practical way). In that case you need a good offline store to make up for your own dependence on the network.
Of course, in such a situation offline storage might be associated with subversives. Possibly being prohibited.
In fact, going back to chain of custody; it may be a legal anachronism. Historical weaknesses which have long since been eliminated (HAH! Right!) leave the law in a state that requires offline storage for evidence to be admissible.
[Answer]
**Bandwidth and latency.**
---
**Bandwidth:**
If areas of your world are sparsely populated, there is a chance, that there are areas with no- service or very low bandwidth. (Just slow satellite connections for instance.) It would render network storage somewhat useless. Any lower-than-realtime storage for media is a pain in the @ss for modern people. (Just imagine if you had to wait - even minutes - until a movie or photo you took loads.)
**Latency:**
If your world has space colonies (like on the moon or mars, not like in the stars), the latency of using cloud storage located on another stellar object could mean minutes, which is also unacceptable for modern people.
[Answer]
You are a cyberpunk in a dystopian not-so-far away future. You have important information about the corruption of the government and would like to spread that information.
* Any internet connection can not be trusted. [It's monitored by the government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_%28surveillance_program%29).
* Encryption is not an option, because any encryption software which is available [has government backdoors](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35372545).
* Any computer you can buy can not be trusted, because [it will report you to the government via the internet when you open any forbidden files](http://wccftech.com/microsoft-bragged-about-spying-on-windows-10-users/).
The moment you look at the file or send it over the internet, the government will be informed and a few minutes later a SWAT team would burst through your door and arrest you.
What do you do?
Your only option is to disconnect your computer from the internet, make as many copies of it as you can on physical medium (hopefully you can still find a file copier program which works without having to rely on TheCloud™), destroy that computer and spread these copies.
] |
[Question]
[
**What is the best dinosaur to have as a pet, if the goal is to have it do tricks?**
It all started as a joke among us, the idle children of the technocratic class that effectively, in all but name, took over the United States in the mid-2030s. The lolcats of yore were replaced by dinosaurs, and a dino-craze took over us idle, over-educated children whose jobs had been AI'd out of existence. Even the brightest among us were too dumb compared to the AIs to be trusted with the Body Economic, and so we were left with our guaranteed minimum incomes and way, way too much time on our hands.
Then the idea came to us: with the [super-Crispr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR) (clustered regularly inter-spaced short palindromic repeats) gene editing technology, the [artificial wombs/egglayers](http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/06/12/artificial-wombs-the-coming-era-of-motherless-births/) that replaced those inhumane poultry and meat factories, it would simply be a matter of gathering enough living bird DNA, doing some impressionistic splices based on cheap Amazon simulations, and voila, dinosaur. A bio-wikia was soon started, and within days the components all came together.
Now is the time for a decision. We want pet dinosaurs. I'm partial to a T-Rex myself, but vaguely concerned that with their walnut-brains, they might simply be too dumb to train, and the project might turn boring and bloody if the pets start chomping on their trainers or even worse on the human guests and other legal nightmares.
**So, I want a dino pet. I want it to be as large and fierce looking as possible (roar). I also want it to rollover and play dead when I ask it to. What's the best species to choose for resurrection, if any?**
[Answer]
Troodon, without a second thought. 8 feet long and 3 feet tall, this was (based on our crude understandings so far) the smartest of all dinosaurs of its time. Largest brain to body size ratio of all (although I seriously question that standard for smartness) and a pack hunter.
You could definitely teach it tricks and stuff. You could also (obviously) train it to be an extremely swift and silent assassin (make sure you are at a safe distance when you order it to go on the rampage). It was nearly 50 kgs (110 lbs) in weight so I don't know if it could serve as a ride for a grown up and based on its diet, it would definitely not be a choice of a thoughtful parent for his/her kid's holiday ride.
It was an omnivore. If you could train a chick troodon from the start on herbivore diet (only supplementing it with dog or cat food proteins and no raw meat), it would probably be safe to keep one in a high-fenced backyard. The size and power of the animal are simply too much to be trusted with free keeping. Although it would hardly (if ever) consider a grown up human as a potential meal (forgive the bad manners in doing so), you wouldn't know what could trip the nerve of a troodon into going on a mood swing, ego trip or kill spree.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QtWGR.jpg)
And here is a size comparison.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kv0ig.jpg)
[Answer]
While criteria for domestication is [somewhat vague](http://www.livescience.com/33870-domesticated-animals-criteria.html), the most important one for your question is:
>
> Lastly, with the exception of the cat, all the major domesticated animals conform to a social hierarchy dominated by strong leadership. This has allowed us to easily modify them so that they'll recognize their human caretaker as the pack leader.
>
>
>
This is easy for herbivores. But the the largest carnivore that runs is packs was probably [Deinonychus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinonychus):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/X9Z9d.png)
At 11 feet long, although a significant portion of that is tail. They're much shorter than humans.
If you're willing to go with herbivores, based on [this chart](http://www.factmonster.com/dk/science/dinosaurs/brains-and-intelligence.html):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BsoJ0.jpg)
I'd go with [Triceratops](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triceratops) for the best combination of size, brain power, herd instinct, and looking dangerous with the horns. You can see that they're comparable in size to a T-rex, if not in height but in mass:
[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hell_Creek_dinosaurs_and_pterosaurs_by_durbed.jpg)
They're estimated to grow potentially twice as big as modern elephants in mass, which is a pretty substantial animal. But they *should* be fairly intelligent, hopefully enough that you could teach it a few tricks.
[Answer]
We don't really know how bright or stupid dinosaurs might have been. As an example of a small-brained animal displaying surprising, and even remarkable, intelligence, I point you to Alex the parrot.
Alex had a complex vocabulary, would express sadness at living in a lab instead of being outside, would ask to be taken on "walks", and would get frustrated and try to teach "dumber" parrots to count/speak.
It was able to look at a combination of shapes of different colours and answer questions such as:
>
> * What's different about these objects? ***Shape***
> + What's similar about them? ***Colour***
>
>
>
If a bird with a brain the size of walnut is capable of such analytical reasoning, it clearly indicates that brain size isn't everything.
In a similar vein, please note that some animals have *larger* brains than us, but they are not sapient.
On that note, however, I would rather train a parrot with a walnut-sized brain, instead of a dinosaur of unknown intelligence capable of ripping my arm off for a snack.
>
> **Note**: if you have the tech to "invent" dinosaurs, then you probably have the tech to implant a command and control chip in their brains or something. Or to augment their intelligence and obedience by genetic manipulation.
>
>
>
[Answer]
One dinosaur I think most people would particularly enjoy would be Compsognathus (Compy for short). it is a small carnivorous dinosaur about the size of a 3 year old to a 9 year old in length and weight about as much as a small house cat.
Here are a few tips for caring for it;
They ate Bavarisaurus which were about 12 inches long, so I would not recommend kibble for this dinosaur, I would recommend geckoes or something similar, although fresh meat or fish would work just fine.
They have a relatively small size for a dinosaur, so can fit into small spaces and work well as an indoor pet. These little pets are also energetic so it is recommended you set up a small area outside so they can run around.
they are also very social, so they are not the best options for busy families, but this can be counteracted by getting a second Compy as a playmate.
A problem I've heard about is that they can get snippy if they are harassed or their personal space bubble is popped, so It is not meant for small children. i'd say ages 9 and up are a safe bet.
They also have a variety of colors you can choose from including blue, brown, green, red, orange, black, and white.
In short, these are cute little dinosaurs that are a perfect edition to an older family. a picture of them can be found below:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4dfk5.jpg)
[Answer]
Given enough time and effort you probably could domesticate any species into new, tame races. But I think you want something out of the box, right?
We are not talking about animals that have been evolving in our world after humanity overtook most of it. We are talking about wild beasts that had never had anything on them that went in any directions towards being tame. I highly recommend you skip any carnivores.
You could go for ornithopods, though. Not all of the species are cute. They would (probably) not want to kill you, and who knows if they wouldn't see you as the herd leader if trained from birth?
Given the general form of their bodies, most species I can think of could walk either on two or four legs. They seem agile enough for tricks. Depending on their size, you could even ride them.
I would suggest [Leaellynasaura](http://dinopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Leaellynasaura) for a house pet. They are dog-sized and would probably be safe enough for kids. Or you could go for [Parasaurolophus](http://dinopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Parasaurolophus) if you want something big that you can ride in a farm land.
However, if you want something fierce, angry and capable of a lot of destruction, skip the ornithopods, go for the ceratopsids. [Triceratops](http://dinopedia.wikia.com/wiki/triceratops) would be a nice choice. Imagine riding a rodeo bull, only it is 30 feet long, twice as heavy as an adult male african elephant and has horns which are as long as you are tall. In other words, a Jurassic tank. It won't try to eat you, but don't anger it without a really good reason!
[Answer]
I would choose Psittacosaurus or Dryosaurus to be my pets because they are small herbivores, and not quite dangerous.
These dinosaurs don't have defenses, so they can't hurt you. These dinosaurs like Psittacosaurus are quite smart, too, like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, so it might act like a Chicken, but it's still a dinosaur, right?
And Psittacosaurus and Dryosaurus are quite *cute*! I would love to see these dinosaurs roaming in my garden - hiding, playing, and eating. The only Problem is that I don't have a garden.
[Answer]
In a series of SF pen-and-paper role-playing games I ran (and did the worldbuilding for), there had been a fad for genetically engineered miniature dinosaurs with dog brains.
The T-Rex had a chiuaua's brain. One of the spiky herbivores had a lab's brain (always puppiesh and trying to get into everything). Since these games were set in habitats nobody *really* wanted a full-sized t-rex. Since they didn't have the full genome, they did have to guess at things. And they were made to all be herbivores since the liability of creating a pet that would eat little darling Johnny (the kid probably tortured his minisaurs when his parents were looking) would ruin a company. Unfortunately some of the little 'saurs did get loose and packs of 12-inch tall dino's roamed the hallways of more than one huge space ship.
] |
[Question]
[
I was thinking of a world in which there are two different countries that are in the exact same location at the same time. Despite being in the same location these two countries speak different languages, have different cultures, different types of government, and different laws. What effect would this have on the people living in the two different countries that are in the exact same location? How would the two countries distinguish who is from which country when the two countries are in the same place and time?
[Answer]
With two nations (Red and Blue in this post) and two sets of laws, both peoples would essentially walk around with diplomatic immunity in the other nation. There would need to be a carefully negotiated set of shared laws regarding common land like streets, as well as for transfer of people and property from one nation to the other and for transgressions by a citizen of one nation affecting one of the other.
**Example time:**
- The Reds have a democracy, are allowed to own (Red) slaves and duel each other to death at a moment's notice.
- The Blues have a monarchy, have any violence punishable by long imprisonment and can only own property through their birth or adopted clans.
* On the street, Reds and Blues can tell each other apart by dress and speech.
Still, Red law requires Reds to verify the passport of any duel opponent before engaging.
* If a Red shoots a Blue, he would not be imprisoned (immune to Blue law) but have to pay compensation to the clan of the Blue (shared law).
* If a Red shoots another Red without following duel laws, he would become the slave of the victim or his heirs (Red law).
* Reds prefer to hire Blues for some jobs (because no duels), but the salary has to be paid to the clan (shared) and the Blues just don't show up on Blue national holidays.
* It is possible for a (free) Red or Blue to change Nationality, but a Red needs a Blue clan adopting him and a Blue will only possess what the old clan gives to him right after the switch.
* After changing nationality a person is required to wear a large badge of the new nation to prevent misunderstandings. New Reds only gain voting rights after 5 years.
**Edit to address some comments:**
I'm trying to describe a *stable* scenario where the two countries coexist in the same location.
* If both laws applied at the same time, there would be immense pressure to synchronize them, and the governmental bodies with this authority would together be a de facto single government.
*Just imagine that Red laws say you must wear purple outside and Blue law says only the king may wear purple...*
* If private terrains and buildings applied only the laws of the owner's nation, then it would be a patchwork of two nations with neutral streets and painted lines every to mark the borders. Does it still count as in the same location then?
* For stability law officers would have the authority to detain people of the other country, but only to transfer them to those of the other country.
[Answer]
This was quite common in mixed areas in the past. E.g. the Jews, Muslims and Christians had their own judicial systems, and were pretty much independent, as long as they recognized the allegiance to the sovereign - the very idea of a "country" was somewhat loose.
This continues till today in some areas, the [Māori](http://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/) have some weak form of separate self-government (e.g. different electorates), and [some of the Indian "Nations" in the USA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_Nation) are de iure fully sovereign and independent (as long as they do not try to exercise their rights too much), their territory and political system coexisting with the "non-native" administrative divisions.
[Answer]
Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine mentioned the book "The City and the City" in a comment. If you haven't read the book itself, you should at least read the Wikipedia entry. The author has put some thought into these matters.
Telling people apart will be easy, because people will **want** to told apart.
The easiest way for people to proclaim their nationality will be by their clothing. In addition there will be hair/beard style, eating habits, who you greet on the street and how you greet them. And so on and so forth.
For somebody to disguise themselves as belonging to the other nation would probably be illegal or at least socially very unacceptable.
As you say, each nation will have their own government and laws. This can work well, as long as most people obeys their own government and the two governments have peaceful relations. A war between them would be ... ugly.
One thorny issue will be jurisdiction. An A-lander accuses a B-lander of a crime. Should this be investigated by the A-police or the B-police? It could depend on *where* the alleged crime happened... but that might not be entirely clear. Many interesting stories could result.
International law is in general a difficult subject, especially when involving international corporations. Just look in any newspaper for inspiration. E.g. you could let one country be used a tax haven by corporation from the other.
[Answer]
Countries (political/national/ethnic groups going hand-in-hand with a physical area) is in my opinion a fairly modern invention that has never been without exception in practice. Ethnic german-speaking Germans are also found in other countries (where their ancestors may have lived for centuries without the desire to move to Germany - e.g. Austria), while people of other ethnicities hold German citizenship. (Historically, Germany consists of many different "states", which contains even more diverse tribes, which in some respects are distinguishable even to the present day by speech and physical appearance.)
So "groups" could easily form with their own culture, rules and enforcement of those, dress, habits, etc. without a physical land area (except maybe the part that each individual incidentally owns). The internet may provide even more opportunities for new groups to form and organize themselves than before.
Some interesting permutations would involve people being part of a distinct subgroup within a wider country, so being subject to both the group's and the country's laws (Indian reservations vs United States?) while others in the same country are only beholden to the country's laws.
I guess not much prevents a person of finding himself a member of more than one group, perhaps having to adhere to conflicting rules at some point....
[Answer]
In the purest sense, I think overlapping governments is impossible. I can only imagine three possible scenarios:
1. The overlapping governments are fully independent, with no coordination. Chaos results: a given act might be felonious or completely legal depending on who's looking; public projects like road maintenance or water and power distribution collide; police jurisdictions conflict. If you do something that's illegal in both nations, whose job is it to punish you? This situation is a powder keg that almost naturally devolves into war, ending in separate territories at best.
2. The overlapping governments work together in harmony. In so doing, a single government is formed. Even if one citizen may be subject to different laws from those affecting another citizen, both citizens are governed by the same entity. Public works are coordinated so that both governments aren't trying to solve the same problem at the same time in different ways. There is one governing body that determines which rules a given citizen is elligible to live by.
3. The overlapping governments are extremely lax. There is little or no law enforcement, so nobody cares whose laws you might be breaking. Such a system would only avoid devolving into complete anarchy (zero government) if the people held themselves and each other to the law as a matter of honor and pride. Without a structured system to hold people to the letter of the law, the separate groups would meld ideologies into one simple, common sense code of honor supported by communal punishment.
It would be difficult to reliably, fairly determine which nation's laws should apply to a given individual, too. Culture won't work, as clothing, language, and behaviors are easy to fake or adopt, and tastes vary wildly even among people in the same culture. Tattoos can be modified or removed. Even genetic distinctions and lineage are ultimately useless, as inevitable intermarriage will mix gene pools and blood lines.
Note: this answer assumes equality is intended. There are plenty of ways an unfair or unbalanced system would allow two nations to share the same space. As others have said here, see the real world for examples of that.
[Answer]
What about Belgium? There are Wallon (French influence) and Flemish (Dutch influence) cultures that very closely overlap. As far as I know, they don't have separate governments (possibly different local government councils?) or judicial systems, but they do have their own cultures to a certain degree. I don't really know too much about it, but might be worth asking a Belgian, or taking a vacation there.
[Answer]
As a historical example of something very similar, territory nominally falling under Roman rule usually retained the local form of government. However, Roman citizens were not subject to that government, and the Romans set up governorships of the various nations they conquered to handle Caesar's interests within that nation.
It's somewhat similar to the U.S. system of state and federal governments having some separation of powers, but with the key difference that someone born in the District of Columbia would be immune to prosecution under state law, answerable only to the Feds for any infraction.
Most real-world examples of two jurisdictions coexisting typically involve one jurisdiction having a wider geographic scope, and natives of the region fall under both jurisdictions.
[Answer]
If they were unaware of each other, they would be effectively isolated from each other. Like the different "[phasing](http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Arthur's_Mantle)" in the Stargate series or something. Alternately, if the different kinds of people are physically incapable of communicating because they're different species. Like one species is deaf and uses visual communication while the other species is blind and uses audio communication.
If you're talking about normal humans, it would be pretty difficult to avoid contact. However, we do have precedent in many cases with various types of racism. Blacks and women have in many cases had different cultures and a different set of laws applied to them. I'm sure there are other examples of similar cases in the past.
As long as you're not trying to keep things equitable, it's not hard to have similar sets of cultural schisms in play.
] |
[Question]
[
In this world you have access to computers powerful enough to decipher messages as long as the method used to encrypt it has at least one theoretical weakness (those computers cannot defeat an impregnable encryption method).
In other words: if it's feasible then the computers can solve it in less than one second.
Therefore, you can't easily transmit ciphered information (keys, passwords, etc.) and you can't hide anything but with physical vaults.
* What would this society look like?
* (Edit to narrow the subject) How could those people still transmit secured messages? Is it possible?
I asked a related question in Physics. See [Could quantum computers break any code](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/194334/could-quantum-computers-break-any-code) for more information.
Edit: I removed the part which stipulate my world could have a law forbidding people from ciphering information [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/20758/what-would-a-society-forbidding-cryptography-look-like).
[Answer]
If there were no (known) programs to do hard encryption with a small internal state and/or amount of computation ( modern cyphers like DES, AES, Twofish, implement a well-shuffled *permutation*, without needing to keep a full list of the order of 2^n (n=58, 128, 256,...)) then one-time pads could be useful. Another thing is a *stream cypher*, and if there were none (known) that were usefully strong, a large bank of key material could be still be stretched out more instead of using each value once, via a stream cypher concept. But instead of one key used for an arbitrary run of the stream, one hard key could generate a small number of stream bytes.
But... how could there not be? They might not be as good and refined as we have now, but pseudorandom generators can shuffle a list, and make for a somewhat reasonable stream cypher. I remember in the 80's using a pseudorandom number generator (written up in DDJ) that used a table of 256 values, and each iteration changed one of them as well as returning a result value.
If poor-quality cyphers ran on consumer computers could be broken by *big* computers,
* it would not be known to common users whether a particular novel encryption system was any good at all, so they would worry or assume that they were not good.
* use of more hard key material and more *time* can make stronger cyphers.
* A proper study would identify how much it takes to be secure against breakage for what length of time, and good scholerly work could identify algorithms that were sound.
* but, the same scholerly work could lead to discovery of the missing cryptography knowledge of block cyphers and strwam cyphers that are *many* orders of magnitude harder to break than to employ.
It is more reasonable to suppose that **asymmetric** encryption was not known (after all, it was only publicised in the 80's) or if known in principle was not fully worked out or not trusted by the users.
[Answer]
You might end up with something a little like a toned down version of Times Eye (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time%27s_Eye_%28novel%29>) where there could be no secrets (even inside vaults).
Problem is, being able to exchange secrets is just too damned useful.
The 2 approaches you outline"solve any cryptographic problem" and "illegal to cipher information" have 2 very different effects. The first would cause a switch to 1 time pads (which can't be cracked by any computer) while the second would lead to crypto still being used in any venture where the punishment is worse than the punishment for using crypto.
Steganography is going to be a huge thing in this world and depending on how you implement your anti-crypto measures crypto might still be a thing.
If you can hide a message inside a hollowed out walking stick or encode it in the least significant digit of the pixels of a photograph then you can bet that travelers with their family photos will still carry secret messages.After all, these days one microSD card hidden inside a coin can hold a scan of every document from the Manhattan project.
[Answer]
It means a lot more things would be done in code. Encryption is making something unreadable by a specific process and anyone with the right 'key' can change it back, this means if someone can find or make a key they can understand the message.
Codes however, have no direct 'mechanical' conversion. Take the Navajo code talkers during WWII. No one knew their language outside of the US so they could speak to each other without an enemy having a clue what they were saying. On top of that they spoke cryptically in code so even if some German had spent time in the American southwest learning the language, they still wouldn't know what was actually meant.
Code however, is much more difficult to implement on a computer, since it is generally based on shared knowledge between two or more individuals. Kind of like Cockney Rhyming slang.
[Answer]
I think part of this would be separating digital/computer cryptography from cryptography-at-large. Things were encrypted long before modern technology, and some of those forms of encryption are still difficult to break. For example, assuming it's not just a medieval prank, the Voynich Manuscript has gone undecoded for over 100 years since it first really came to light.
As with anything digital, computer cryptography follows very rigid rules. Not doing so would make it not terribly usable. Computers can only follow programmed rules, and encrypting information using techniques that don't follow a specific logic can be done.
Take, for instance, a manufactured language based on English, where words are spoken with some form of prefix, suffix, or inserted pattern, but nothing specific - if'n Iyiyiyi ajusted starterin talkspeakingly as'if this - many English speakers would understand more or less what I was saying (If I just started speaking like this). A computer would have a much more difficult time deciphering it. It might start by doing speech-to-text (assuming it was spoken out loud), then trying to match words by removing letters, then trying to match words into pattern groups. In the end, given a very large sample, the most powerful computers would still have difficulty deciphering this, whereas most people would simply understand it.
The above isn't a super strong example, but it shows that how humans "decode" things and how computers do so is vastly different. If you are able to come up with some similar idea, something organic and not rigid, that would be more difficult for other humans to decipher unless they knew something about it, then you could plainly speak to another human in a crowd and not be understood... cryptography (of a sort).
[Answer]
I think in reality a society without cryptography would have to look one of two ways.
1. Access to technology is tightly controlled. The average citizen does not have access to it for private use and likely doesn't know what it is or understand how it works. You would almost have to have a Stargate (the movie) type scenario where a portion of the population is super technologically advanced and they use that tech to keep the remainder in line acting like it is magic.
2. The second alternative I can think of is a world where people simply do not or cannot steal. As impossible as it sounds if things go missing or are stolen to the detriment of the owner then security will be needed.
Obviously in either of these settings an open network would not be a smart place to store any important data.
[Answer]
Other than increasing the cost of encrypted traffic to the point that it would be used more selectively, there is no reason to expect a change.
It is always possible to generate one-time encryption keys physically (monitoring radioactive decay, for instance, or my all-time favorite, lava lamps <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavarand>). At this time, so far as I know, such keys are not amenable to being broken, even in principle, by the application of computing power, and going to quantum computing won't help.
Once this occurs, the "only" problem is secure key management and distribution. The gains in convenience and security associated with private/public encryption algorithms would be lost, and the replacement costs would be considerable, and would require an entirely different security model, but in principle these don't seem insuperable - just expensive, with all the effects which "expensive" imply.
[Answer]
Honestly, I don't see any reasons for quantum computers to eliminate cryptography. Quite the contrary, they bring new possibilities of [quantum cryptography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography).
Comparing with "regular" computers, their advantage is the processing power - quantum computers are really fast. But that doesn't break any core principle of cryptography, since their computing speed still has it's limits.
## P ≠ NP
[The P versus NP problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP_problem) asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified by a computer can also be quickly solved by a computer. Asymmetrical cryptography is based on assumption that P ≠ NP. That basically means that you need much faster computer in order to successfully hack a cipher text. But **in a world of fast quantum computers you use another fast quantum computer to encrypt your data**. If it takes long enough time (it will, providing the key is long enough), decryption still will be time-consuming.
Even when you don't use a quantum computer for encryption, decryption still could be complicated. There are [post quantum cryptography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography) algorithms being developed in order to resist the brute-force approach to decryption.
[Answer]
You have provided with a preformed structure for your world:
**You can't easily transmit ciphered information (keys, passwords, etc.) and you can't hide anything but with physical vaults.**
Instead of arguing whether or not this is practically possible (with current technology), let us concentrate on your questions.
# What would this society look like?
Almost the same as it looks like, now. Only two-key (public and private) type encryption systems would not be possible. The passwords on emails and user accounts would still be as effective as they are now.
Simply, because hacking a password is an extremely long and boring process known as "brute forcing", where the attacker tries every possible word combination possible for a given length of characters. This is the only type of hacking possible when you don't have a *direct* attack on the information possible (keylogging, server database hack etc).
Yes, encrypted *connections* between server and client side computers might not be possible in such a world and hence banks would have limited services regarding online transactions and money transfer.
Militaries all over the world would have a very high reliance on codebooks than on digital encryption systems.
# How could those people still transmit secured messages? Is it possible?
Yes it would be possible. People would send encrypted messages to each other without sending the key to decrypt those messages. This is how the system would work:
Person A sends person B an encrypted message
Person B applies another layer or encryption on the message and sends it back to person A.
Person A removes his layer of encryption and sends the message to person B.
Person B removes his layer of encryption and reads the message.
At no point in this protocol does a transmission of keys occur. Yes, this system might be slightly slower in working than the protocols we have in place these days, but it would still work flawlessly for digital communications.
[Answer]
I would suggest that such a world is mathematically impossible, assuming that mathematics works the same in *all* universes. The mathematical theory behind cryptography relies on computational complexity, which conveniently doesn't depend greatly on the physical hardware.
It's possible that the physical computer in that universe is non-deterministic or something close to it, making RSA very easy to break. (This is actually an issue with quantum computers) But there's no evidence to suggest that other, more advanced, alternatives wouldn't be possible. In fact, some very smart people in the NSA (and some other organizations) are already working on encryption methods that can't be thwarted by quantum computers.
Basically, there will always be something better. Where there's a need, there's going to be innovation and this encryption-free society won't be unencrypted forever.
The only way this could actually work is if math actually worked differently in that universe to the point where all forms of asymmetric encryption were mathematically impossible. It's hard to imagine such a universe, but let's entertain that for just a moment.
Instead of focusing on encryption for security needs, there would be a massive emphasis on physically verifying identity. This is incredibly difficult to do *with* cryptography, let alone without it.
There would be a lot of undetectable man-in-the-middle attacks, a lot of identity spoofing, and tons of fraud. Passwords would be useless (unless hashing is still possible) and robocalling would be rampant beyond what is already the case. Things would be so bad that the internet would actually be a bigger liability than a benefit and few people would use it since it's essentially the technological equivalent of walking unarmed into a back alley in a crime-ridden ghetto.
[Answer]
There is an associated question some ten years ago: What would the Internet be like without public-key cryptography?
<https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/5808/what-would-the-internet-be-like-without-public-key-cryptography>
Assuming Youstay Igo's answer to be straight to the point, there might be a fundamental question left open:
With the premise that public key encryption no longer works, how could we possibly differentiate PKI from private key infrastructure?
As discussed and concluded in mentioned post, the current Internet would just not work without PKI.
Adding SHA-2+ collisions to the cryptocalypse scenario, there would be no way to authenticate over the network - in essence, any private key used over the network would be public..
Accordingly, the most appropriate answer to the original question what a society without cryptography would look like, might be rather philosophical.
With this consideration, one might also ask which Black Swan Event may yield a cryptocalypse of that magnitude - a symmetric and balanced reflection of such a powerful mathematical- and computer scientific breakthrough might consider the respective trade-offs for society - probably best discussed in the P=NP scenario..
Just as an essay: maybe there will be no more need for cryptography altogether because whatever Black Swan Event yield the cryptocalypse would enable zero marginal cost economies with post-scarcity, post-desire, and non-monetary societies in addition to an annulment of all and any social contracts built on private property and ruling..
[Answer]
## The end of internet commerce
This would result in the collapse of internet economics. When you say "without encryption" you also say "without digital signatures." This means there would be no way to verify who a person was because the digital signatures could be easily faked.
The only way around this would be to have a secure generator of one-time pads, and a reasonably secure method of physically delivering them to a person. Purchasing one of these would be a prerequisite to any form of online banking system, and they would be a huge target for theft/copying.
Instead of exchanging public keys, people would give GB sized chunks of random data to each other when they meet in person so that they can perform secret communications.
More importantly, however, there would be no way to secure a website without a secure method of exchanging one-time pads. You couldn't lock spammers off of your web site. You would need physical access to a server in order to have private access to it, so you can regenerate your pad.
So, yea, collapse of life as we know it.
] |
[Question]
[
*Note:* This question is a follow up to [this](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/3598/how-would-tectonics-behave-on-a-two-continent-planet) question, and hence forms part of a bigger complex of questions about geology and biology in this certain scenario.
---
*Meta:* The planet consists of **two enormous continents**, each encompassing one of the two hemispheres (northern and southern). There are two **small polar oceans** (both mostly frozen over, encompassed by landmasses) that are relatively low in salt. The continents are **divided by a huge, deep oceanic belt, along the equator** of the planet.
The planet has bout **1.1 times the mass of *Earth***, and slightly more landmass than water (about 35% percent landmass to 65% waters).
Tectonics push plates from the equator to the poles, effectively forming *mountain rings*, parallel to the equator, on the continents.
The planet orbits at an *Earth*-like distance around and *Sol*-like sun with an *Earth*-like elliptical orbit.
The planet will have **3 satellites** (aka. moons), the first is sized a trifle bigger than *Earth*'s moon and is orbiting along the equatorial axis about the same distance as earth's moon, and the others are both about 1/3rd the size of the big moon and are at a 60° and 70° degree inclination relative to the plane of the biggest moon at less distance from the planet.
The planet will feature a Phlebotinum gas, providing about 400-500% the lifting capacity of helium/hydrogen (as described [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19630/is-this-concept-for-an-lta-gas-associated-element-lifecycle-feasible)).
---
Regarding the stated facts, **How would flora develop and behave on such a planet?**.
To mention a few topics:
* How many species of a given plant (e.g. trees, wheat, grasses) would evolve?
* Would there evolve different species per climate zone or would the same species rather evolve specializations?
* How different could the flora on the northern hemisphere be from that of the southern?
*Addendum:* This question assumes no travel of people between both continents, nor does it assume any cultivation of plants, no plantations made by humans. Best **assume NO humans** at all for the sake of the question.
[Answer]
Given two polar masses totaling 35% of the planet's surface, it is useful to compute just how big those masses are. The formula for calculating area using a conical angle is $$\omega = 2 \pi (1 - \cos{\theta})$$ where $\omega$ is in steradians and $\theta$ is the included half-angle of the cone. Since the area of a hemisphere is $2\pi$, $\omega = 2.2$, and $$\theta = 50$$
So the land masses will start at approximately 40 degrees of latitude. This is very bad, since the Horse Latitudes <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_latitudes> extend from about 30 to 38 degrees of latitude, with little precipitation. This will only allow the area between 38 and 40 degrees to provide moisture for the subpolar air flow which would provide moisture to the land mass. That's not much of a source, since it's only a band about 200 miles wide or less. And it gets worse.
The ring of mountains caused by your specified tectonics will act to produce a rain shadow to the north of the ring (in the northern hemisphere). If the mountains form a complete ring on one continent, the result will be a continental desert north (or south) of the mountains. If there are breaks in the mountain rings, moisture will push toward the poles in those areas.
As a result, you can expect some precipitation along the coastal shores, with temperate rain forests along the equatorial side of the mountain rings. North or south of the mountains will be extreme deserts. The cold of the ice caps will serve to sequester moisture in the ice, making the northern (above 60 degrees of latitude) desert very dry. Gaps in the mountains will allow the development of temperate grasslands and forests in the areas immediately poleward of such gaps.
With the existence of a 5500 mile wide ocean running completely around the planet, the pattern of trade winds (and the Intertropical Convergence Zone) there should not be much communication between the two continents, so there should be very little common in the flora and fauna of the two areas. For comparison, the existence of the Central American Seaway, with a gap on the order of 1000 km, effectively separated North and South America, allowing quite disparate populations to evolve. All of this changed about 12 million years ago with the rise of the Isthmus of Panama, and produced the Great American Interchange <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Interchange>. The effects of an even larger oceanic gap should be even more extreme in preventing communication.
As a matter of fact, unless you can provide for a land bridge between the two back in the equivalent of the Cretaceous or later, there would be no obvious reason for both continents to evolve compatible angiosperms, so the two ecosystems might be wildly different. You might well get away with asserting mammal dominance on one continent, while *dinosaurs roam* on the other.
[Answer]
>
> How many species of a given plant (e.g. trees, wheat, grasses) would evolve?
>
>
>
With your particular setup I would expect there to be large inland deserts as one traveled farther north and south from the equator, as it would be harder and harder for water to reach it. With this in mind and as the and the fact there are really only two continents, the number of species will be less. The spread of seeds could walk them selves around the globe in relatively short order. On top of that, many of our grains are specializations we've bred into them.
>
> Would there evolve different species per climate zone or would the same species rather evolve specializations?
>
>
>
Yes each climate would evolve plants that are better suited to it. The big difference would be that most of the plants would have access to most of the 'same' type of climate completely around the globe per continent. Both continents would likely be quite a bit different though.
>
> How different could the flora on the northern hemisphere be from that of the southern?
>
>
>
Possibly pretty extreme, possible mostly the same. More than likely the similarities would be along the coasts where coastal plants managed to survive a crossing to the other continent (seeds, storms etc). While Australia, New Zealand and Borneo have a lot of different flora and fauna the many other places, the all have trees, flowers grasses etc.
[Answer]
**Diversity**
If you have no way to transport plants between continents, the diversity will be exciting. This would be similar to a species separated during the divide of Pangea here on Earth. Common ancestors will be divided millions of years prior. Unlike Earth, there will be nothing to allow migration of species to other continents. As an story idea, if you want diversity you could have a continent with solely algae/lichen and bryophites (mosses), and ferns, while the other is populated with angiosperms (flowers). *This is based on broad assumptions about the animal life on the planet.*
**Continent-specific**
If your story wants wildly-different plant types on each continent, you must limit transportation between continents: birds, people, bits of flotsam, etc. can bring seeds across the oceans. As a story idea, you may limit almost all animals (except bugs & fish) to one continent, producing hardier, more diverse, and flowering plants. This is just an idea, because we're talking about a whole new world. Your other continent allows plants to freely compete against each other, producing enormous trees reaching for the sunlight.
**Height**
One limitation is that your planet has more mass than Earth. Suddenly you have 6.5692e+24 kg mass, which will be a limitation on how much water can be 'sucked' up a tree. Maybe your plants have figured out how to get around this, but if they're Earth-like, you're going to see a lot of low-lying plants. Perhaps someone can help with the impact on the atmosphere and geology as well.
Keep in mind this answer is assuming a lot: this is your world to build.
[Answer]
Well, first of all, will you have anything similar to Earthly plants at all? Let's suppose that's the case.
Other answers have pointed out how well isolated the two land masses would be from each other. How long has that been the case? Millions of years?
Look at how much plant life on Earth has *changed* since, say, the time of the Dinosaurs. Two things in particular I know about are *flowering plants* and *grass*.
Flowers co-evolved with insects. Look how successful that's been to biodiversity, such that most everything you know about is a flowering plant. If that initial innovation occurred on one of the isolated lands, and kicked off a co-evolutionary explosion of diversity, what about the other land? Well, it didn't happen there. An unrelated natural disaster provided a different event for adaptive radiation to fill the emptied niches, and the result is *utterly and completely different*.
Flowering plants eventually pulled another trick with *fruits*. In fact, it happens in many different tissues and in different ways. The point is to get animals to disperse the seeds. Maybe something with the same general result would happen in the other land, but without flowers to start from it would involve different tissues and resulting structures.
Not only do you have the usual problem of trying to invent something truely alien, you have to do it *twice*.
[Answer]
It all hinges on time, in my opinion. Have these continents been separated before plant life evolved? Has there been any contact since? Dry land plants evolved nearly 400 million years ago, and until around 150 million years ago, Pangea was still kicking around, when it (conveniently) broke in two massive continents, Gondwana and Laurasia. A lot of different plants had spread before the divide, and they evolved differently in the two continents since them. However, some of the plants that came later (much later in some cases) transposed these oceans and spread to the other lands. Ice ages, if I remember correctly, can dramatically change the shapes of dry lands, creating craazy connections between landmasses. Also, some plants can survive in salt water for a long time, and thus be transported by oceanic currents. The coconuts and some palms probably spread through the Caribbean all the way to the South Pacific this way.
About diversity, number of species etc, again it all hinges on time. As a rule of thumb though, the much greater chunk of species diversity is in the tropical regions, north and south. No one is really sure why though, some hypothesis say it is due to the increased energy input from the sun, others say it is the greater climatic stability (no freezing, etc)
Initially species would evolve specializations to each climate, but eventually each of these variations would become different species of their own, leading to very different lineages. It is very rare, though, to some plant families be restricted to specific climate zones. There are orchids everywhere, as well as grasses, daisies and such. Generally speaking though, early plant groups (conifers, ferns) will probably be more similar between the hemispheres than more recent ones (grasses, orchids). Again, it all depends on how much time has passed.
] |
[Question]
[
In real life nothing breathes carbon monoxide, but it still binds to the things that are supposed to carry oxygen around the body to my understanding. Could a form of life be able to actually use carbon monoxide to survive in an area with an unusually large amount of carbon monoxide in the air & little O2? This life did not naturally evolve & effectively just came into existence randomly, so this doesn't need to have evolved just be chemically possible. These creatures also live in a very, *very* hot environment, with temperatures regularly going into the high 60s. (centigrade)
[Answer]
**What you need is an organ that acts as a biological catalytic converter**
And I love the idea. Your world is platinum-rich! Your life has evolved to not die when platinum levels get too high in the body. And startled astronauts discovered this particular creature had evolved a natural catalytic converter in its esophagus. The result is that the creature is really breathing *carbon dioxide.*
Which isn't a problem! Because the CO2 is moved by the blood stream to the skin surface where chlorophyll (simplistically) converts it to sugar and O2.
Your creature will be a very lovely green. Green, with teeth! And it might need a high surface area to body weight ratio. So I'm thinking big fat frog looking sucker.
*Granted, I jumped to the conclusion of using an off-world reference. The idea is easily adaptable to an engineered terrestrial creature that some brilliant twenty-something thought would improve our dying Earth — right up until he discovers it breeds too fast and likes the taste of blood! Cue the standard 1950s horror movie theme music. Include a scene where the twenty-something is sobbing and saying something like, "I didn't know! I just wanted to make the world a better place!" and we're in like Flynn.*
[Answer]
**Yes, Kind Of**
You can certainly design an organic metabolism where a creature does not need to breathe in oxygen and can subsist on an atmosphere of carbon monoxide. However, this is going to work weirdly, because carbon monoxide doesn't really work well in organic chemistry. It houses a rare triple bond and has a bond energy of 1072kJ/mol. Let's say you wanted to take the oxygen from the carbon monoxide. A human being needs about 16.9 mol of oxygen per day, so that's about 18mJ, or a mere 4333 Calories. The good news is that you can combine the carbon radicals with some spare water to make around half a kilo of sugar, and that will get you around 1900 Calories back. In fact, this is what plants do - they use carbon *di*oxide to make sugar, and given that carbon dioxide is a lot easier to use and you get twice the oxygen, it's actually efficient! ...Unlike our system.
Except all the numbers I just gave you are slightly wrong. Organic chemistry isn't perfect, which means that despite the fact that all this is possible, it will probably take a process more than 18mJ per day to split the oxygen from the carbon, and reshaping the carbon back into sugar, which, while theoretically should be free, will take some energy to direct as well, meaning that a human being with these processes might need an extra 3,000 Calories a day, or so, and it will look like a very modified version of the Calvin Cycle.
Why am I designing a system that just supplements oxygen usage when it's so difficult? Well, because oxygen is just that good in organic chemistry. (It should also be noted that extracting oxygen from water has a far lower bond energy and makes more sense, but you specified 'carbon monoxide' breather, so...)
[Answer]
If your beasties, whatever they are, have an aerobic metabolism then they're gonna need oxygen. You can certainly use CO as part of a metabolic process, eg. [Carbon monoxide as an electron donor for the biological reduction of sulphate](https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmicro/2010/319527/), and there are useful hydrogen-producing reactions when you combine it with water, but there aren't energy-producing reactions where it can substitute for oxygen.
Anaerobic things, maybe even as complex as plants (or at least algae)? Sure. Animals? Less plausible.
[Answer]
The biggest problem with carbon monoxide to animals is that it binds to hemoglobin with a much great affinity than oxygen. Chordates are the only animals seriously harmed by it Insects are relatively immune to it as are plants.
The biggest problem you have with a CO atmosphere is its ability to both oxidize and reduce. In a mixture with oxygen it will burn in fact the gas in stoves used to be a CO/H2 mixture(Syngas) and CO will burn on its own. On the other hand in a methane atmosphere it will reduce the methane into water (releasing carbon and heat). Early Earth had a methane nitrogen CO2 atmosphere with possible trace amounts of CO.
It is perfectly possible to have things living in an atmosphere with a high percentage of CO. If you want to use it for metabolism keep in mind that whatever is converted sugar fat etc you are only going to get about 20% of energy that you would get with an oxygen breather.
[Answer]
The OP has stated in comments that "it's a weird situation, effectively completely alien environments to us just kinda, started, existing on earth, with these life forms in them".
The problem is that if we're talking about terrestrial life-forms, *you can't get there from here*. Terrestrial life forms have evolved to rely upon oxygen metabolism, and carbon monoxide effectively gums up the works, specifically, [sticking to cytochrome oxidase and preventing oxygen metabolism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide_poisoning#Cytochrome_oxidase) Once that happens, aerobic metabolism stops until the CO can be cleared, and the cells must fall back to anaerobic metabolism.
So, unless these life forms are suddenly able to metabolize CO - which won't just happen with a single mutation, or are somehow able to cope with high levels of metabolic wastes such as lactic acid or alcohol from anaerobic metabolism, which also won't just happen with a single mutation, you're out of luck. The likelihood of multiple mutations allowing this is vanishingly unlikely.
However, there is absolutely no reason why life forms which evolved on a world with high levels of CO could not have evolved to be able to make use of CO in their metabolism, to both produce and consume it. Perhaps these life-forms are of extraterrestrial origin, and are converting our environment to more closely match their own. There is no reason why life forms able to metabolize CO couldn't survive in the absence of CO, with just oxygen and carbon *di*oxide... they'd just produce their *own* carbon monoxide.
So, I'd say that these life forms "just appearing" is not so much terrestrial life-forms *mutating* as *non*-terrestrial life forms (which may happen to look like terrestrial life-forms) *arriving*.
[Answer]
Yes, but not as a direct replacement for oxygen.
Carbon monoxide is a strong reducing agent; it wants to donate electrons, not accept them, and it's quite flammable. However, CO gas exists in equilibrium with CO2 and carbon, and in the right temperature and pressure ranges it is very energetically favorable for CO to disproportionate, producing CO2 and C from 2 CO molecules. Thus, your creature can generate energy directly from the gas it inhales, with no need of food, as long as it has a way of dealing with the elemental carbon waste.
Assuming that we're staying as close as possible to Earthling biology (rather than, say, designing iron-based aliens that drink link metal carbonyls), then the creature could also uses hydrogenic fermentation and react the resulting hydrogen with carbon radicals to produce methane, which gets you a bit of extra energy, eliminates the waste carbon problem, and indirectly connects CO gas and food intake.
] |
[Question]
[
The astral realm is the place where magic in our world originates from. Priests of the Aztec empire can access that magical power for their own purposes through the use of spells and rituals. The amount of power they wield depends partly on their own abilities, but also on the amount of magic within the vicinity. In most locations, the level of mana is fairly limited, but there are certain areas in which the mana content is dramatically higher. Places of power are sites in which the veil between the mortal and astral realms are weakest, allowing for the most powerful magic to be performed. For centuries, users have gathered here to perform various rituals at certain times of the year. The power of a spell can increase tenfold in these areas, increasing its effectiveness and likelihood of success. However, the mana from the environment is not infinite, and does not replenish by itself after being used. This risks draining all the mana from this hotspot, rendering it a dead-zone where no magic can be conducted.
Priests of the empire subscribe to the law of equivalent exchange: In order to gain something of value, something of equal value must be lost. This rule transfers into reality regarding how they practice magic. Whenever a spell is performed, the mana used in that spell has to be manually replenished in order to preserve the place of power's resources for future use. They do this through ritual human sacrifice, in which the heart of the intended victim is carved out with a specially made dagger and destroyed. This releases the human soul contained within the heart and unravels it, releasing the mana within. The freed mana replenishes the mana that was just lost in the previous spell but deprives the victim of an afterlife. This method has worked for centuries, allowing the Aztecs to remain in power. However, the amount of mana being replenished after a human sacrifice has decreased, and continues to fall in the preceding years. This has led to a deficit in mana content within these places of power, forcing priests to sacrifice more victims after a ritual has been completed. The numbers of sacrifices that originally started with one increased to five, and has steadily increased as the years go by. The Aztecs have had to deplete more human resources at a faster rate just to maintain the same level of magical power they once enjoyed for cheap.
How can the law of equivalent exchange that has worked so well for decades not be returning the value it once did?
[Answer]
# Conservation efforts by the astral powers
>
> Places of power are sites in which the veil between the mortal and astral realms are weakest
>
>
>
The veil is *not supposed to be crossed*. It was erected for a reason: magic is not supposed to be available on the mortal plane. The veil is not supposed to have weak places, it is supposed to be uniformly strong.
But nothing is perfect, and so it does have these "thin" spots. They went undetected by the lords of the astral plane since the beginning of time, until increasing exploitation by mortals became severe enough to attract attention.
The lords of the astral plane actively intervene to reinforce the weak parts of the veil. These "mana leaks" are unacceptable.
They could go looking for these places, but it turns out that mortals are such myopically rapacious creatures that it's far easier for the lords of the astral plane to sit back and let the mortals highlight these spots *for them* through aggressive over-exploitation.
The veil was erected by even greater powers at the beginning of time, so it is no trivial thing to reinforce the veil, even for the lords of the astral plane. It takes a long time, and a lot of effort. But they are immortal, and determined to uphold the proper order.
Thus:
Each of our "places of power" is a literal flaw in the cosmic foundation. The return-on-investment at a place of power begins to diminish when the lords of the astral plane begin to repair that flaw, precisely because one of their goals is to stop the improper leakage of mana into the mortal realm.
Presumably, a place of power could remain at "peak efficiency" indefinitely if the mortals who exploit it could muster enough self-control to regulate the mana exchange at that site below the notice of the lords of the astral plane. But, human nature being what it is, it's practically inevitable that each weak place in the veil will be systematically ~~overfished~~ ~~overlogged~~ ~~strip-mined~~ ~~overgrazed~~ ~~overhunted~~ ~~overdrafted~~ abused by mortals and subsequently repaired. Once repair is complete, the place of power becomes just a place.
>
> Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush
>
>
> -- Garrett Hardin, *The Tragedy of the Commons*
>
>
>
[Answer]
Because the value of a sacrifice is equal to the value that the person performing the sacrifice places upon it.
Human souls do not have any intrinsic value. Their value is imposed from outside, by those around the sacrifice. If the sacrifice is valued less by the person performing the sacrifice, then it contributes less to the replenishment of the magical aura.
So, the first sacrifice having as much value and providing as much aura replenishment as a hundred sacrifices in recent times is a reflection of the value the sacrifices have to the priest-magicians. The first sacrifice would have been emotionally *hard*. With repeated sacrifices, they have become no more emotionally difficult than eating a meal... in fact the value of a sacrifice is probably now equivalent to no more than the time it takes for the person performing the sacrifice to perform the ritual.
So, for a sacrifice to have the same value that it once did, a sacrifice must be a *sacrifice*, not just another time-consuming performance of a ritual. If a sacrifice was to be performed by a person who truly values the person being sacrificed, as opposed to the sacrifice being just another in a long line of sacrifices, then such a sacrifice would have more value. Were one of these priest-magicians to sacrifice their own beloved child, or were a lay-person to sacrifice one of their own relatives, *that* would have more value.
However, even here, psychology is working against the priest-magicians. Because human sacrifice has become so common, has become so accepted within their society, the value of even the most valued human soul has been diminished. Even sacrificing the king or the high priest would be worth less than the first person sacrificed.
Probably the only way to regain the value of a sacrifice would be to sacrifice something that one of these priest-magicians values above all else: themselves. Should one of these magicians carve out their *own* heart and destroy it before they expire, then *that* would be a truly worthy sacrifice... probably worth more than even the first person sacrificed by another.
The sad thing is that these priest-magicians have made a rod for their own backs with this practise of human sacrifice. At first, it was the quick solution, but as they became indifferent to the loss of human life, sacrifice has become no more valuable to them than their time. They might just as easily take up ritual meditation to replenish the auras. In time, after a human lifetime or two, a human sacrifice might once again be worth what it once was, and could be used as an emergency means of boosting the magical auras when meditation just isn't doing it fast enough.
[Answer]
## Depriving souls of an afterlife is what's causing the diminishing returns.
Souls have to come from somewhere. As more and more people are born over time, more and more souls are needed. In the process of simply living out their afterlives, deceased souls generate the mana that the world uses to create new souls, and all is right with the world.
When you sacrifice people, depriving them of an afterlife, you release their current mana back into the environment -- at the cost of the mana they would have produced in the afterlife.
Of course, most people still die normal deaths, and the souls already in the afterlife aren't going anywhere (probably), so new mana for new souls *is* still generated. It's just not enough. So newer, modern souls have less mana, leading to diminishing returns.
[Answer]
Overuse
The conduit that carries the power has started to break down and not carry the same amount.
There were always losses to friction, they just had no way to measure them. Now they are getting serious.
[Answer]
All good answers so far, overuse, value per sacrifice going down, the mana content for newer souls going down. But you ignore several factors in all this.
First. Is it absolutely certain that no one else is using to same sites to drain them, in order to weaken the dominant force? A rival tribe sending sacrificial pawns in to weaken their source of power over time? Small gods with an agenda of their own? Perhaps even the god of death and/or the underworld is upset because they are receiving less people, or demands some sacrifices and is creating problems.
Second. Who says these sites are eternal? Perhaps they migrate over time, and there just isn't a natural abundance anymore. That's why costs more, because the 'tide of mana' pulls the reservoir elsewhere, so they're effectively confusing a pool with a river.
Third. Equivalent exchange is good and well. But at what loss in conversion? There is never a perfect 'transference', heedless of medium. Perhaps they were draining the 'pool' before, and are now learning enough about the magic to refill it now, and that's why it seems to be costing more.
Fourth. Maybe they're using more and more of the source, and therefore need to put more and more back. Even if you were to mandate everyone be super careful, that doesn't mean that everyone will be. Some will 'err on the side of caution' and overspend on a ritual, costing more. And 'we have enough sacrifices', so 'it just isn't a problem'. After all, this source has been here 'since my grandfather's time', so what are the odds that it won't be here for my grandchildren's? (human error and human arrogance mingling in the most dangerous way)
Fifth. Maybe the warriors are bringing back more and more, and you can't feed them all. So sacrificing them for the ritual makes sense. But filling the pool to overflowing is having effects they didn't anticipate. And instead of 'explaining that to those who understand such things', they act like they don't know what's wrong. After all, with all the extra mana, those rituals are coming out much more potent than they used to. So no harm done, right?
There are a million different factors to consider.
[Answer]
# The temples are wearing out.
The temples have been around for untold hundreds of years, possibly millennia. During this time, there have been untold thousands of spells and sacrifices performed on them.
Naturally, this results in wear and tear. Externally, it doesn't show; at most, people will remark that some blocks have gotten a bit chipped. After all, stone is tough. However, its effect on the temples' ability to absorb mana is much more marked.
The gradual wearing out of the temples' mana-absorption abilities follows an exponential curve. As such, it only recently became a problem. The priests don't know that a location can lose its ability to absorb mana, so they assume something's wrong with the law of equivalent exchange.
A few minor priests have suggested building new temples in different spots. However, nothing's ever come of it, as building temples is expensive.
[Answer]
# The value of a human life is hard to judge, but they treat those about to be sacrificed as little more than cattle
The law of equivalent exchange is saying that to gain something, something of equal value must be given. Seeing as we probably aren't talking about chemistry with all this magic-talk, I'm going to assume that the value of mana gained from one soul is dependent on how valuable everyone sees that person as being. The first sacrifices would have been monumental. A man is being sacrificed in brutal fashion to release his mana for others to use would have been huge for the first peoples who began conducting these sacrifices. But the value of these lives turned from people with lives and mana and spirits and such into just a tool to increase the mana content in the area. They are seen as lesser beings and as such, are viewed as being worth less than a regular person.
Think about it like this. I'm hungry. I go eat some chicken, because it tastes good and is filling. That chicken gave its life and I barely cared. I viewed that chicken's life as having as much value as a dinner for tonight and a 10-dollar purchase. how valuable was that chicken's life really? Well to me, the one consuming it, 10 bucks. Thats why the new sacrifices are worth less mana. Because the people doing the sacrificing, and the people doing the consuming, see those being consumed as barely worth anything. The increased rate of sacrifices shows me this too. Let's just toss more bodies into the sacrifice temple and faster too, we need more mana after all. It ignores that these are people. It treats them as a resource.
[Answer]
# Competition: Basic supply and demand
An afterlife is eternal, it cannot be given or maintained for free. Mana powers “Heaven/Paradise” and feeds the eternal souls, runs their golden city, and empowers their lives. It is their eternal reward, after all, and the gods manage this reward for them.
When the gods grant a spell, the mana is essentially “borrowed” from the quality of care one or some of the eternal souls are enjoying. It is taken from one soul, with the promise from the gods that it will be returned.
When very few souls were in paradise, providing for them was cheap. One human soul could provide a lot of quality to paradise.
But another tribe has asked for the favor of the gods. This tribe learned the secrets of the priests, and asked the gods to tend to them as well, and the gods granted them access to paradise in exchange for worship.
Two things then happened. More souls were entering paradise, and it was becoming crowded faster than when only one tribe was served. More mana was needed to keep paradise thriving. The cost of mana went up a little, but that wasn’t the biggest problem.
The new tribe honors the afterlife for its contribution to paradise, and they refuse to offer human souls for mana. They do not cast spells, so it doesn’t matter to them. They only ask the gods for access to paradise in exchange for worship.
This means the original tribe is now paying the mana wages for both tribes, and so their spells have become more expensive. It would not be a problem if mana was only used for spells, but a crowding paradise is pulling more mana every year as it fills doubly fast. The souls in paradise do not want to loan out their quality lifestyle like they used to - their eternal existence is now more expensive. They simply need the mana. That is why the “price” has gone up for spells.
The second tribe doesn’t notice this. They don’t borrow mana for spells, so when they fail to make a sacrifice, it doesn’t hurt them.
[Answer]
# Modern children are week and feeble.
In the olden days before all this magic most people had to fight and work hard for themselves. This led to much growth of their soul, and meant they delivered much more magic to rituals.
The easy life made by magic has meant that most people don't fight as hard. The weaker souls they have give off far less mana. Easy times make for weak souls.
] |
[Question]
[
I have a planet with a surface gravity of 0.9 times that of Earth, and an escape velocity of 11.3 km/s, and a temperature like Earth's. My question is if it could retain a breathable atmosphere (for humans) but with more surface pressure than on earth (maybe around 1.5 atm). If so, what would be its composition?
It is also necessary to take into account that the point is to have very massive flying creatures in the air, and tiny ballons filled with helium or hydrogen, so they can float in the air, also the surface pressure can be higher than 1.5 atm if necessesary.
The tiny ballons may contain spores, and may be delivered into the air in large quantities by various plants, so the spores can be seen from the distance and maybe change the color of the sky a bit?
Thanks!
[Answer]
The answer is yes, you can!
The question of whether a planet can retain an atmosphere depends on the ratio between the escape velocity and the average thermal speed of particles in the atmosphere. Very, very roughly, [if $v\_{\mathrm{esc}}/v\_{\mathrm{therm}}\gtrsim6$](http://astro.physics.uiowa.edu/%7Esrs/2952_10/Lec24.pdf), the planet should be able to retain its atmosphere. A quick calculation shows that for nitrogen molecules, the ratio is a bit over 22, consistent with the fact that Earth's atmosphere contains quite a lot of nitrogen. For molecular hydrogen, on the other hand, the ratio is under 6 (though not by much), which explains why Earth has lost the hydrogen envelope it may have initially formed.
As your planet has an escape velocity very similar to Earth's and a temperature the same as Earth's, we would expect an atmosphere with a composition quite similar to Earth's - with heavier gases like nitrogen and oxygen, but little hydrogen and helium. (Earth actually isn't exceedingly far from the threshold for being able to retain some amount of helium, but you do have to account for factors like the solar wind's effect on the upper atmosphere.)
It's certainly possible to attain whatever pressure you want; simply increase the mass of the atmosphere! It turns out that [we can relate the mass of the atmosphere $M\_{\text{atm}}$ to the surface pressure $p\_0$](https://math.stackexchange.com/a/703654/170257) by
$$M\_{\text{atm}}=\frac{p\_0}{g}4\pi R^2=\frac{4\pi R^4p\_0}{GM}$$
with $M$ the mass of the planet and $R$ its radius. Given your values for escape velocity and surface gravity, we can calculate that it should have a radius 1.14 times that of Earth and a mass 1.16 times that of Earth$^{\dagger}$. We plug these values into the above equation, along with a pressure of 1.5 atm, and we find that your planet would need to have an atmosphere 2.26 times that of Earth. This holds regardless of atmospheric composition!
There's still the question of how realistic it is for a planet to accrete that much gas in the first place, and I don't have a good answer for that. It's possible that the conditions in the protoplanetary disk included higher concentrations of these heavier gases than you'd normally find.
---
$^{\dagger}$Since
$$v\_{\mathrm{esc}}=\sqrt{\frac{2GM}{R}},\quad g=\frac{GM}{R^2}$$
we can show that $v\_{\mathrm{esc}}=\sqrt{2gR}$, allowing us to calculate $R$ by
$$R=\frac{v\_{\mathrm{esc}}^2}{2g}$$ once we have that, we can find $M$ by rearranging our equation for escape velocity:
$$M=\frac{v\_{\mathrm{esc}}^2R}{2G}$$
] |
[Question]
[
The mineral handwavium contains a naturally occurring, stable form of antimatter (i.e. prevented from coming in contact with regular matter) that can be mined. How is this even remotely plausible?
Ideally, this would be available via some planetary mining, but I'd settle for needing to go into space to get it.
Ideally, this would be stable on the scale of years (if left unperturbed), but I'd settle for it only being stable on the scale of days.
It seems to me like there need to be two mechanisms at play:
1. **Natural anti-matter generation.** There is at least one mechanism by which this happens, namely [positron emission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission). Are there others? Could any of them play well with theoretical forms of antimatter containment?
2. **Natural antimatter containment.** This seems like the harder part. We can [do this artifically](https://home.cern/science/physics/antimatter/storing-antihydrogen). Is there any way this (or an alternate theorized containment mechanism) could happen naturally?
Alternatively, I'd take the pseudo-frame-challenge that is there some area of space that has antimatter left from the big bang, but in this case, how is it separated from the rest of the universe and how would we get into and out of it to mine said antimatter?
[Answer]
>
> I'd take the pseudo-frame-challenge that is there some area of space that has antimatter
>
>
>
I'm choosing to ignore the rest of that sentence, because there *is* antimatter available in space, just wafting around for the taking. It isn't leftover though, but naturally generated by the interaction of cosmic rays with regular matter. People have [put some thought into harvesting it](https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2007/11/08/collecting-natural-antimatter/)... there's a longer read at [Extraction of antiparticles concentrated in planetary magnetic fields](http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/1071Bickford.pdf).
The supply is small (you only get nanograms from Earth's radiation belts) but it is naturally renewed over time. Collection is less expensive than manufacturing fresh antimatter *ex nihilo* (but then, so is almost everything!). Saturn's rings might be a much richer source, but even then getting micrograms of the stuff is an enormous haul.
Nanogram amounts of antimatter are useful for various things, including antimatter-initiated fission and fusion rockets that would be a plausible way to eg. fly manned missions to the outer solar system without needing a breakthrough in fusion technology first. The [ICAN-II](http://web.archive.org/web/20061009014847/http://www.engr.psu.edu/antimatter/Papers/ICAN.pdf) paper describes such a ship, and [Project Rho has a summary](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/realdesignsfusion.php#ican), if you were interested.
If you needed much larger amounts of antimatter though, you're out of luck. Sorry.
>
> Natural antimatter containment.
>
>
>
It *may* be possible to have antimatter confined for extended periods of time in regular matter, as opposed to a special antimatter trap built for the purpose by a a suitably technologically advanced society.
[Earnshaw's theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earnshaw%27s_theorem) states that you can't have a nice static trap for ions using electrical or magnetic fields, but it doesn't take into account quantum-mechanical effects at suitably small scales. There's an interesting (but paywalled) paper, [Alternative pathways to antimatter containment](https://doi.org/10.1016/S0969-806X(03)00195-6) which suggests that it *may* be possible to trap antimatter ions in the voids of a material like a zeolite, or maybe in a cage formed by a fullerene molecule.
Now, the odds of an antiproton/regular matter trap forming spontaneously is pretty low... the sort of events that create antiprotons are also the sorts of things that tend to damage the regular matter the traps would be made of. Such materials are potentially at risk of all sorts of other destabilizing events such as background radiation damaging the cage, releasing an antiproton and starting a chain reaction whereby one leaked antiparticle breaks the cages of multiple others nearby and *foom* it all goes up. This suggests you're only likely to find it in a deep underground vault on a very old, very stable planet, left there by some other alien species (or your ancestors, if your setting's history stretches to that sort of thing).
---
*edit*
If you'd like something rather more speculative, consider the possibility of natural materials that can be used to change matter into antimatter without requiring the input of too much energy.
[Powering Starships with Compact Condensed Quark Matter](https://vixra.org/pdf/1310.0215v2.pdf) posits the existence of nuclear-density "quark nuggets"... stable leftovers from a very early stage of the universe's formation. Such nuggets might be just floating around, ready for the finding, possibly in the centre of small asteroids with suspiciously high densities.
If you found such a thing, you could bounce a beam of high energy (100MeV+) particles off its surface. The reflected particles become antiparticles, ready for harvesting and confinement by whatever means you have to hand. A single nugget might weigh 10 million tonnes, and be able to convert maybe a million tonnes of matter into antimatter.
This provides a possible means to provide very large amounts of antimatter, and do crazy things like fly ramscoop rockets to other stars. It also allows for the existence of a finite, valuable resource that can also be found in other star systems, with all the storybuilding that entails.
[Answer]
# It's not stable on planets
Antihydrogen happily wrecks every form of nuclei it meets, including random atoms like oxygen and nitrogen which are everywhere. It would explode on a planet.
# It could be stable in an asteroid belt.
We generate antimatter with particle accelerators. Theoretically a gamma ray burst, or a supernova, could generate high energy particles which generated antimatter, with some weird magnetic effect separating away the matter. This could make an asteroid belt high in antimatter that you could mine, collecting the anti hydrogen from the dust.
This would be obviously visible from earth. If you want it to happen, have the asteroid belt be hit by the blast. The sun shielded the earth from the blast, and now the asteroid belts are full of antimatter that would be of immense value to the local civilization.
[Answer]
Any stable atom of antimatter, even if you put it into some container, sooner or later will get some elementary particle from a matter world. Let us say, you filter off all charged particles. Photons do not react with antimatter in any special way. But neutrino, neutron, several mesons/barions do. Sooner or later, some arrive, break some natural particle exchange in the atom and the reaction of annihilation will begin and you have the chained reaction of the great boom.
So, you can try that only far from any stars, out of planetary systems. And not near the center of the Galaxy, too.
If you need numbers, google the number of particles from the Sun, take into account the distance and the volume of your piece of antimatter. Notice, that while you are closer to the Sun than to the other stars, only the Sun is important. But a nearby superstar burst can change everything.
[Answer]
>
> Alternatively, I'd take the pseudo-frame-challenge that is there some area of space that has antimatter left from the big bang, but in this case, how is it separated from the rest of the universe and how would we get into and out of it to mine said antimatter?
>
>
>
(With apologies to the Cannonball Express and the ST∞.)
Captured wandering antimatter planetoid, perhaps? It's not inconceivable that there could be such things, although they would have to be rather rare as we haven't seen any evidence thereof.
Let's say that a wandering (anti)planetoid got captured by the local Jupiter-like. It'd likely be noticeable by astronomers, not just because it's warmer than it should be (if I did my math correctly, solar wind at Jupiter being converted to energy would be [~22W/m^2](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28%283*10%5E-14%20solar%20masses%20%2F%20year%29%20%2F%20%284%20*%20pi%20*%20%28jupiter%20orbital%20radius%29%5E2%29%29%20*%20%28speed%20of%20light%29%5E2), compared to ~10W/m^2 of sunlight at Jupiter...), but also because of e.g. the presence of 511KeV spectral lines due to electron-positron annihilation.
The direct erosion rate wouldn't be terrible - only [1-2cm](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28age%20of%20the%20universe%29%20*%20%28%283*10%5E-14%20solar%20masses%20%2F%20year%29%20%2F%20%284%20*%20pi%20*%20%28jupiter%20orbital%20radius%29%5E2%29%29%20%2F%20%28density%20of%20iron%29) over the lifespan of the universe, assuming said planetoid was at Jupiter and made of anti-iron (which is a bad assumption - anti-iron would require antimatter stars, which we probably would have detected). I would be more concerned about vaporization and associated mass loss, especially from discrete impact events as opposed to just solar wind.
Actually collecting said antimatter could be an interesting challenge. Might be simplest to hit it with a pebble and collect ejecta...
Of course, this still has some major unsolved questions. How did said planetoid form? *Where* did it form? (If it formed relatively nearby, how did it survive dust clouds? If it formed further away, how did it get boosted to a high enough speed to show up here, and how did it slow to a slow enough speed to get captured?)
] |
[Question]
[
I've been digging into some very interesting, related questions from the past (the one I found the most useful was [this one](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/5097/could-plants-develop-intelligence)) and I don't think anything covers my question. So if I missed it, please do let me know.
To provide some background, I have devised a relatively simple "magic system", in which any living being (and that's the keyword) born with the ability to use "magic", can use these two effects:
**1. Transferring their magical energy by touch** which can cause some energy-related effects (i.e., removing fatigue, recharging a battery, healing from damage).
**2. Creating a lasting bond with a touched target.** This bond fades unless maintained with some "magic". The bonded are intuitively aware of the other side's emotional state (if any), status (i.e., sleeping/inactive, exerting/active, moving, stressed out) and location (direction, approximate distance and a sense of whether they are closing in or moving farther away).
Final clarifications:
* Using either of these powers also shares with the target sensory impressions from the user. So bonded beings would be potentially capable of sharing impressions back and forth. If it matters, I defined "impressions" as *non-verbal, dream-like sensory stimuli*.
* These abilities are costly to the user, in particular creating a bond.
* Magic users slowly regain their "magic reserve", mostly from the sun or nutrition.
* Bonding is a voluntary choice for sentient recipients.
---
**WOULD PLANTS WITH THESE TWO ABILITIES DOMINATE?**
What I mean is, would these two options be enough of an advantage to, for example, displace non-magical plants over time? Magical plants would effectively be better at "communicating" with other plants (or beings) and could even heal other plants or zap predators (although this would be a costly thing to do).
I would not like to rekindle the debate on whether a plant "thinks" in the way most would define it, or if it merely "reacts to stimuli". My question is more focused about the following: a plant with these two abilities would employ them just as they grow branches or leaves, or signal nearby plants through their roots and pheromones; it's just two additional options on their toolbox, so to speak.
As an added clarification, there is no "base plant" for this question: any plant could potentially be "magical". Or rather, a "magical" version of any mundane plant could potentially exist (i.e., magical cacti, magical vines, magical trees, magical flowers).
[Answer]
**Oh yes.**
A timely musing. It turns out that forest trees might be doing exactly as you propose. But not with magic.
<https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering-trees-180968084/>
>
> “Some are calling it the ‘wood-wide web,’” says Wohlleben.... “All the
> trees here, and in every forest that is not too damaged, are connected
> to each other through underground fungal networks. Trees share water
> and nutrients through the networks, and also use them to communicate.
> They send distress signals about drought and disease, for example, or
> insect attacks, and other trees alter their behavior when they receive
> these messages.”
>
>
>
Trees are connected to each other by these fungal elements. I once thought the fungi were pathogens, then realized they are symbionts. Then realized it must be more. How does radiolabeled traceable sugar from one tree wind up in another tree? I get that the tree would trade sugar with the fungus, but why would a fungus ever give up sugar to a tree? Something more is going on.
>
> Once, he came across a gigantic beech stump in this forest, four or
> five feet across. The tree was felled 400 or 500 years ago, but
> scraping away the surface with his penknife, Wohlleben found something
> astonishing: the stump was still green with chlorophyll. There was
> only one explanation. The surrounding beeches were keeping it alive,
> by pumping sugar to it through the network. “When beeches do this,
> they remind me of elephants,” he says. “They are reluctant to abandon
> their dead, especially when it’s a big, old, revered matriarch.”
>
>
>
Whoa.
[Answer]
Yes, they have a significant advantage: Symbiosis with animals
Bonding with...
* a large carnivore drives away herbivores.
* a herbivore that eats plants competing with the magic plant.
* an ant queen to have an army of ants to bring soil-enriching stuff to the plant. Or maybe the plant is carnivorous and is directly fed. Might also help keeping herbivores and other plants at bay.
* a bee queen means bees to carry the plant's pollen far and wide, ensuring this magic plant will have better odds at procreation.
Some of these are somewhat close to what happens in the real world, for example Cercropia plants and Azteca ants (just the first example I found). A plant with the power to heal injuries and fatigue could easily attract such behavior in animals/insects as well.
[Answer]
Yes because of human cultivation. Any humans who found a magic plant would want to cultivate it and if possible reproduce it. Just like coffee beans are other planets with positive health effects.
] |
[Question]
[
So far In my research I have not found any estimates for the speed that a solar sail spaceship could be propelled to using a Dyson beam.
I have not decided what mass the ships will be that I want propelled as although a Dyson beam would be very powerful, the mass of the ship may make other propulsion methods a better option.
I would assume a blue giant type star would be the best option for the highest speeds but if this method was used by an old civilization, longer living stars may be the type used to propel ships.
Taking into account the possible star type and mass of the ship, what speeds could a Nicoll-Dyson beam propel a sail spaceship?
[Answer]
Omitting the technical details:
* An entire Nicoll-Dyson beam is so overwhelmingly powerful that it would probably just incinerate any sail it was pointed at in an instant. This means that your lightsail ships can accelerate at their maximum possible rate given their ability to radiate away absorbed energy, whilst running your laser at *far* below maximum power. You'd probably drive many sails at the same time, probably at different targets.
* An ND beam can push a lightsail that's as far away than the Andromeda galaxy, assuming it can get a firing solution on something that far away. This effectively means you can accelerate your lightsail at its maximum rate for as long as anyone might reasonably want, but given the sheer mindboggling amount of power available you won't need to push any reasonably sized sail for very long before it hits silly speeds.
Do you want high relativistic speeds? Sure, you can have that. You could accelerate a 4 million tonne ship at 1G with a beam power of less than 6 exawatts, which is less than a millionth of the output of the Sun. You'd hit .9c in a bit over 2 years. If the sail were 1000km in diameter, it would be illuminated with ~6.7MW of energy per square metre. It would need to be *very reflective indeed*. Arranging such a material is left as an exercise to the reader, though if you can consider building a Nicoll-Dyson array around a blue giant star I'm sure you'll do just fine.
---
The slightly unhelpful but obvious answer is "asymptotically close to the speed of light", limited only by the expansion of space. The acceleration of a lightsail will eventually become negligible when it is far enough away from the emitter so there's a practical speed limit associated with your patience.
Your laser will have a distance beyond which it can no longer focus all of its energy onto the lightsail. You can't get any better than a [diffraction limited beam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited_system). According to [Rayleigh's criterion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_resolution), a laser of wavelength $\lambda$ fired from an emitting element with diameter $d\_l$ will fill a sail of diameter $d\_s$ at range $r = {d\_sd\_l \over 2.44\lambda}$
Lets say you have a sail that's 1000km across, and a laser firing 500nm yellow light, then to have your diffraction-limited range be 10 lightyears then your emitting element would need to be 115km across. A Nicoll-Dyson array with a radius of 1AU could hit that same sail at 25 *million lightyears away*. One with an orbital radius equivalent to Mercury could still focus at 5 million lightyears. That's *intergalatic* range. Aiming and focussing is also left as an exercise to the reader ;-)
The velocity $v$ reached after a certain period $t$ of constant acceleration $a$, accounting for relativistic effects, is $at \over \sqrt{1 + \left ( \frac{at}{c}^2 \right )}$ (where $c$ is the speed of light). If you're prepared to keep your laser running for 25 million years, then even if it only imparted an acceleration of a microgee, you'd still hit .999c.
Lightsails accelerate because photons have momentum. From *The Starflight Handbook*, if a beam of light with energy $E\_b$ is perfectly reflected by a sail of mass $M\_s$, then that sail will experience a change in velocity $\dot{V\_s} = {2E\_b \over M\_s c}$.
If your 1000km diameter sail starship had an areal mass of 5g per square metre all in, it would weigh about 4 million tonnes. [Upsilon Orionis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsilon_Orionis) is a class B0V star with a luminosity about 60000 times that of the sun. If your ND laser could convert 10% of that into beam power, you'd be shooting out about 2 x 1030W, which is enough to push the sail at about 340 billion gravities... that's probably a bit impractical to reach in practise, to say the least. With a merely sun-like star and the same 10% efficiency, you'd still get 6 million gravities.
[Answer]
**As Big as This Guy**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NPbHH.png)
You can accelerate something as big as the asteroid that smooshed all the dinosaurs to relativistic speeds in a matter of years.
The total energy output of Earth's sun is about $4 \times 10^{26}$ Watts or Joules per second. Let's ignore the $4$ for simplicity.
The space shuttle is about 2000 tons or $2 \times 10^6$ kg. Let's ignore the $2$ for simplicity.
The relativistic kinetic evergy of the shuttle is:
$$E = \left( \frac{1}{\sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}}-1\right)mc^2 $$
for $v$ the velocity measured in metres per second and $c$ the speed of light in metres per second.
---
**Note:** Here $m$ is the rest mass. The following can me reformulated in terms of the so-called relativistic mass
$$M = \frac{m}{\sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}}$$
Notice $M \simeq m$ for small $v$ and $M \to \infty$ as $v \to c$. If we write things like $E = \frac{1}{2} Mv^2$ we can see that as $v \to c$ an infinite amount of energy is needed.
---
We know $c \simeq 3 \times 10^8 \simeq 10^8$. The $-1$ in the formula is unimportant when $v$ is close to $c$. So we get
$$E \simeq \frac{mc^2}{\sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}} $$
Flip this around to get
$$v =c \sqrt{1 - \frac{m^2 c^4}{ E^2}} $$
Not this goes to $c$ as $E \to \infty$.
We can graph the above in terms of exposure time to the beam. After $t$ seconds of exposure we have transferred $t \times 10^{26}$ Joules of energy. So we get
$$v \simeq c \sqrt{1 - \frac{10^{12} 10^{32}}{ t^2 10^{52}}} = c \sqrt{1 - \frac{10^{44}}{ t^2 10^{52}}} = c \sqrt{1 - \frac{1}{10^8} \frac{1}{t^2}} $$
We could graph this but it's easy to see that even for 1 second of exposure the thing under the square root is very close to 1 and so $v$ is almost the speed of light.
To see how big a spaceship we can accelerate consider instead the moon which weight about $10^{24}$ kg. Now the velocity becomes
$$v \simeq c \sqrt{1 - \frac{10^{48} 10^{32}}{ t^2 10^{52}}} = c \sqrt{1 - \frac{10^{28}}{t^2}} $$
Again we could graph this but even after a year or $10^7$ seconds we still only have $ c \sqrt{1 - \frac{10^{28}}{10^{14}}} = c \sqrt{1 - {10^{14}}} $ which doesn't make sense. This comes from our ignoring the $-1$ earlier and means we are nowhere close to the speed of light.
Let's instead consider a $10^{17}$ kg spaceship. That's about the weight of the asteroid that smooshed all the dinosaurs. Then the exponents cancel and the speed becomes
$$v \simeq c \sqrt{1 - \frac{10^{14}}{t^2}} $$
If we measure time $T$ in years rather than seconds $t$ this becomes
$$v \simeq c \sqrt{1 - \frac{1}{T^2}} $$
which increases like this:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/EnLBL.png)
Note the graph is only accurate as we approach the speed of light (1 on the y-axis) and even then it only gives an indication of the order of magnitude we can expect. So anything from $10^{15}$ kg or so can be brought to the speed of light in a few years.
] |
[Question]
[
Airships are interesting vehicles, in that they are, as far as I know, the only ones to turn the [square-cube law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square%E2%80%93cube_law) to their advantage. For a proportional increase **X** in length, width, or height of the gas bag, the lifting power of the airship increases by a factor of **X^3**.
Therefore, it would seem that, if you're making an airship, it's better to make one really big one rather than several smaller ones.
As of yet, I can only identify one problem with this, which is that more surface area = more space for wind to push on the ship. However, the effects of this on the ship's structure can likely be solved with aerodynamic design and modern materials, as well as using engines/propellers to counteract the force of the wind.
So - *aside* from potentially-solvable issues with high wind, what are the structural problems of an airship, whose lifting element is say, a cylinder a kilometer long and 175 meters in diameter?
[Answer]
Zeppelins were "rigid" airships with an internal frame for a very good reason.
Besides all the points mentioned by "the Square-Cube Law" there is the matter of structural integrity of your huge air-ship.
A structure that long is subject to external pressures (of weather) that can vary greatly from one end to the other.
Consider rain/snow: The nose of the airship may be inside the rain/snow already while the stern is still outside the rain. This causes very uneven strain on the whole airship (vertically).
Add wind as well, especially when you are changing course, and you have a (horizontal) wind-shear to deal with that is also uneven.
And a kilometer long is long enough to have local air-turbulence cells act differently on several places of the ship.
This all gets far worse when you get into a storm. And an airship isn't fast enough to outrun a storm-front. You have to be able to ride it out.
So it needs to be able to withstand all that without excessive flexing, torsion, bending or breaking.
That is going to take a lot of internal structure for strength that will add a lot of weight to your airship, reducing your carrying capacity.
We have better materials science today, but your ships are 3x longer than a Zeppelin.
It is going to be a real challenge to make one that big and still keep it safe enough for use in anything but the very calmest of weather.
[Answer]
Speed of sound in metal is very different than in gas. For example the speed of sound in air at room temperature is 330 m/s, while in aluminum is about 6000 m/s.
Speed of sound is also the velocity at which mechanical solicitations propagate into a medium.
This means that a mechanical solicitation, for example a strong wind gust in the nose of the ship, will take only 1/6 of a second to reach the tail in the aluminum frame, but 3 seconds in the hydrogen.
This means you have an internal source of vibrations, on top of the engines. It would be an interesting source of beats and cross talks when the ship is crossing a storm, with all the wind shear involved.
Probably not something dramatically fatal, but surely something of "shot, we didn't think about it when we designed it!".
[Answer]
You only leverage the square/cube law in certain areas, in others, it will bite you.
* Plus:
+ Have a bubble of lifting gas with a membrane around, double the size. The gas now has eight times the lift, and the membrane now only weighs four times as much (given that it has the same thickness. in reality, you might choose to scale the thickness even by more than 2, which would give you 8+ times the weight...)
+ Wind will only pummel you on your quadrupled surface, while your vessel has eight times the mass, making it less jittery ( but see the minus re: propulsion below)
* Minus:
+ Have a steel cable, now make it double the size. It is now eight times as heavy, while only having increased its cross sectional area (and thus breaking point) by 4... same with girders and any other structural elements. It is mostly cross sectional area that counts for strength, and that only increases with the square. So you need to design disproportionally thicker, eating into your lift-gains.
+ The possible attachments for propulsion and control machines, and the control surfaces themselves, go with the square, whilst the mass of the controlled thing goes with the cube, making it hard to accelerate and steer.
* Non-square/cube problems:
+ Ducking out of the wind becomes ever harder. There will be no hangars
+ i doubt this will be allowed within 100km of cities with any higher buildings (let alone skyscrapers) - if this is blown rudderless onto a tall building, that building will give way, without much fight
So the ideal use would be a high-altidude platform that does not need to evade any structures, does not need to land, and does not need to retain location or shape (Zeppelin only needed to retain shape because it was supposed to move through the air - if that requirement falls, and you just move with the air, your structure can wobble)
[Answer]
# Flamability
Any hydrogen container in an O2 rich atmosphere is a ticking bomb. To counter this, a zeppelin should not contain hydrogen as a single blob, but rather hold many smaller containers inside. This reduces the chances of an explosion, and makes explosions more survivable.
Unfortunately for you this reduces your gains from scaling.
# Serviceability
The larger the craft, the more hull you have to service. There is more surface that can be eroded, bent or pierced through. It gets more and more expensive to keep it all in working condition as you scale up.
# Heat
The lift you get depends on the temperature of the lifting gas. The more gas you need to heat, the more fuel you need to reach a certain temperature, and therefore the moreextra weight you need as you scale. Again, this leads to extra operational costs and diminishing gains.
] |
[Question]
[
Barnacles are a type of arthropod constituting the subclass [Cirripedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle) in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in erosive settings. Typical acorn barnacles develop six hard calcareous plates to surround and protect their bodies. For the rest of their lives, they are cemented to the substrate, using their feathery legs (cirri) to capture plankton. They have four active swimming larval stages.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lSezw.jpg)
Free-living barnacles are attached to the substratum by cement glands that form the base of the first pair of antennae; in effect, the animal is fixed upside down by means of its forehead.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zlyos.jpg)
Since the intertidal zone periodically desiccates, barnacles are well adapted against water loss. Their calcite shells are impermeable, and they possess two plates which they can slide across their apertures when not feeding.
**How could this crustacean be made into a large sea-creature? Given the limited food supply how large could it get?**
I like my creatures grounded as it adds that sweet flavour of realism. Details about the necessary adaptations for gigantism and lifestyle are what I'm asking (for those who haven't caught on). They don't have to be crustaceans per se but I am attached to the overall barnacle form. Ideally they'd live near the shoreline to inspire myths and legends.
[Answer]
**Photosymbiotic great barnacle.**
For reference: regular barnacles.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CrDpK.jpg)
<https://seahistory.org/sea-history-for-kids/barnacles/>
The barnacles are the only sessile members of crustacea, and the giant barnacle leverages the robust crustacean body plan to outcompete other sessile marine organisms with photosymbionts. As with other photosymbiotic marine organisms (sponges, clams, worms, cnidarians) the giant barnacle has photosymbionts in the tissues of its feeding cirri. It can extend these to become the size of a small tree, shading out other sessile organisms. Sometimes these green hairy arms float along the surface of the water.
The giant barnacle retains the ability to pull in its photosynthesizing cirri if there is bad weather or a predator capable of crunching through the armor of the cirri. They come in surprisingly fast and bring with anything that might be within them - other sessile organisms which have taken root on the arms, or mobile organisms not quick enough to flee the collapsing branches of the cirri. The withdrawal of one feeding structure can cause a chain reaction and huge stretches of these green tentacles suddenly vanish along with whatever was in and on them. Within the shell, the great barnacle still has a beak. It can eat.
The eating process of the great barnacle is sloppy and it is evolved that way. The big ones need protein but not carbon, the carbon being provided by their photosymbionts. Smaller, younger great barnacles living on the sides of their ancestors are more reliant on feeding as they grow and increase their surface area. Clouds of meat bits released by the old ones feed the young ones around them.
Like other [large, hardbodied photosynthetic reef builders](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/207031/how-would-freshwater-reefbuilders-differ-from-saltwater-reefbuilders/207250#207250) the great barnacles build reefs. Their robust, centennarian shells serve as the substrates for other organisms - although the towering cirri of the great barnacles give this ecosystem more the feeling of a shady kelp forest than a coral reef. A forest where the "trees" might suddenly get sucked down into a great maw and take you with them. Swim cautiously.
[Answer]
# Look to sponges and corals:
Physically, something that doesn't move has a very different set of evolutionary pressures on it. You chief factors will be food supply, predation, and parasitism.
* Mega-barnacles will need a lot more food passing through their filters. Their hunting style may come to look more like a spider or fishing trawler sending out nets to catch fish. Whales can follow microscopic food stuffs, but immobile barnacles can't. You'll need a sustained nutrient-rich current blowing food over these guys, and that will likely be the biggest factor controlling total size.
* Specialist hunters will be able to come and kill your immobile mega-barnacle at their leisure. Those fishing/filtering fronds may need to be more like killing flails to give your creature active defenses to keep it alive. A toxin-releasing emergency response may also be useful to wipe out more resistant predators. Unfortunately, no barnacle I know of produces poison, but if they fed on a poisonous organism, they could passively acquire toxins. But the bonanza effect of killing a really big food item will make predation on these guy really attractive.
* If you stick with barnacles, then eventually you'll start running up against the size limits on crustaceans. The [largest arthropods ever](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurypterid#:%7E:text=The%20eurypterids%20include%20the%20largest,(8.2%20ft)%20in%20length.) were 2.5 meters and aquatic, and with a shell, that size could be pushed. In this case, lack of movement might be a benefit to large size. On the upside, barnacles [molt](https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/mantisshrimp_05) inside their outer shells, so when they grow they are protected from harm (by some estimates, up to half of arthropods die during the vulnerable molting stage).
* Parasites will try to get in and infest your barnacle as it gets bigger and bigger. How you want to handle this is up to you.
* Very large organisms that can't move are unable to respond to changes in their environment with migration. So size typically means age, and your mega-barnacle may want to retain the ability to shift position. Otherwise, they will be limited in growth due to changing environment.
Exactly how big they can get is somewhat speculative. Based on the size of [giant clams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_clam), they could easily get to 47 inches in body size (including shell). A [sponge the size of a minivan](https://www.noaa.gov/news/scientists-discover-largest-sponge-known-during-deep-sea-exploration#:%7E:text=A%20sponge%20the%20size%20of,in%20Papah%C4%81naumoku%C4%81kea%20Marine%20National%20Monument.&text=Today%2C%20Marine%20Biodiversity%20published%20a,at%20depth%20of%207%2C000%20feet.) was recently discovered, so this may be your upper practical limit of the completely sessile singular organism. If you start factoring in a large web-like fan, they may be able to spread quite a bit like a large coral. A coral (which is admittedly more of a colonial animal) has gotten to be [22 meters across and 8 meters tall](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2287658-giant-coral-is-the-widest-ever-found-in-the-great-barrier-reef/), so it wouldn't be outrageous to have something this big (if it didn't need to move at all).
Given an unlimited supply of food, however, who knows? A barnacle that has developed a very specific niche at the mouth of a river may have a large constant food supply (assuming they tolerate the fresh water - barnacles as a rule can't, but they could evolve to do so). The anchoring behavior would allow it to sit in a strong current without constantly expending effort to stay stationary, and an endless flow of water would assist in having new non-stagnant water as a respiration source.
[Answer]
Creatures as big as humpback whales can feed on small food like krill, as long as it is available in sufficiently large amount.
However, considering that you want it fixed on the seafloor, it will not be able to go after its own food. This limit its habitat to area with constant, nutrient rich water current.
My gut feeling is that it could not get much more massive than few 10s of kg, and that those feeding appendices will have to develop some sort of deterrent against predation.
[Answer]
**Frame challenge**
Food is the limiting factor, so we can see how we can improve this. First of all, we can check where nutrients go. Most of the nutrition is found along coastal waters. This is because the light can still reach most layers, while biological debris used as nutrients can't float out of reach. This seems most important. Maybe food can be gained on deeper floors where light doesn't reach and little life exists, as there's a large amount of accumulated debris of life. The problem is that the barnacle is sessile, so it needs a constant supply and not run out.
To both increase the food amount and prevent the food of running out, the barnacle needs to be in an underwater stream. That way more food passes the barnacle, reducing the problem it faces. If this can be done in a way that it could get as much food as a whale, it could conceivably grow as big (ignoring square cube laws and such). The problem is that it's unlikely many of such areas exist, if any. That means they are unlikely to evolve, as too little viable place is too far apart.
**Different biology**
To get a more consistent huge barnacle, take the approach of bees and ants. The 'queen' barnacle acts as both the hive and queen. Worker barnacles go around collecting food from a large area. The worker barnacles can remove parasites, protect against predators and in general be sacrificed. If there's a good year, the queen barnacle sets reserves for itself and it's a signal to a few worker barnacles to change into queens, settling down as an attempt to reproduce. Much like queen ants and bees the queen barnacle can hibernate if the area knows times of shortages. It closes up as well as possible, letting the worker barnacles fend to themselves, protecting the queen from highly specific predators/parasites that can pierce the shell for as long as they're able.
The main barnacle can still get some food by itself. During (extreme) low tides it'll close off, seeming like a big rock.
The true size is hard to imagine. Each creature has an optimal size. Not requiring to move and the outer shell can aid in a much bigger size, but likely the creature is fully changed on the inside to sustain much bigger sizes. If both food and the internal structure have been taken care off, it doesn't seem like a stretch to have whale sized barnacles.
[Answer]
## Start with the right scaffolding
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3n2Lp.png)
As illustrated in [these images](https://www.galerie-insecte.org/galerie/view.php?ref=238531), barnacles such as *[Sacculina carcini](https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Sacculina_carcini/)* can become parasites, creating new structures within a crab host. Your barnacles were adapted by bioweapons specialists to present appropriate HLA antigens and signals such as OX40 to suppress the human immune system. Infected swimmers become reclusive, avoiding quarantine checks, as the barnacle colonizes their skin in gill structures while parasitic dendrils inside the body absorb and replace unnecessary structures such as the neocortex and most reproductive structures. After some modification the swimmers are drawn instinctively, or perhaps by the last of their memories, to the soothing roar of the waves. The barnacles form a massive reproductive structure that is fertilized at a microscopic level in the ocean; after this the hosts will wander the ocean for some time, drawing on stored food reserves as they continually release new larvae. In cases where the density of quorum-sensing hormonal signals is particularly high, the barnacles may anchor their host to a holdfast (thereby becoming sessile per the question). These individuals become specialized to release large numbers of male gametes to improve their overall reproductive success.
Of course, these are not the largest barnacles on record - that distinction is disputed by several later variants that targeted marine mammals.
] |
[Question]
[
What conditions could make an army have its MBT be amphibious with all the tradeoffs that has? While many nations have made amphibious tanks, none (other than sweden that one time) have done it for their MBT. This can't be through handwaving trade-offs like having some super materiel so that a regular tank can be amphibious. It doesn't have to be always amphibious, it can use something like a flotation screen to be amphibious. The technology level is near future. Combat with rivals using modern or semi-modern equipment is the main scenario militaries plan for. Not all militaries have to do this, just some. Although small parties of raiders with 30-150 men & light tank support are used by some nations **alongside** conventional mechanized units.
[Answer]
## Terrain:
If you are adapting your tanks to amphibious, there is only one logical reason: the terrain calls for it. It would only need to be the terrain for the country that made the decision itself - imagine a Pacific-based superpower centered on trade and controlling numerous islands.
* **Lack of functional roads**: If your world has no roads, then moving tanks on them is worthless. But for much of history, rivers WERE the roads. a broad network of interconnected rivers and lakes without roads means the tanks can be easily maneuvered by water while still being able to fight on land.
* **Terrible terrain**: There's a reason the French thought the Ardennes forest was impassible. It was a mess of trees with few routes through. Only careful planning overcame this obstacle. But it wouldn't need to be trees. Rocky terrain would be just as problematic. And large swaths of fine ash might not be much better. An amphibious design lets you go through water when it's there, and the tracks for an amphibious vehicle might be amenable to fine ash and sand similar to what the US faced on Iwo Jima.
* **Limited land/many islands**: The efficacy of tanks is seriously limited in a war involving many coastlines, numerous islands, and little open land. The only workable armored vehicles would be those you can get to the fighting. While there were Sherman tanks in the Pacific, few people remember them as it was challenging to deploy them.
* **Landmines**: In a world where the use of landmines has proliferated (including air-dropped area denial weapons), mining rivers and lakes may have lagged behind. While every road and open field is a giant booby trap, your clever engineers anticipated this problem and have moved their vehicles to the water.
* **Improved tactical flexibility**: Coming from the land of 10,000 lakes (and it's actually more than that) I can see the advantage of taking a short-cut. The ability of your armored column to go across the lake or river instead of around it has ALWAYS been the advantage of amphibious vehicles. And if your support vehicles for the MBT are also amphibious, the whole combined arms philosophy comes into play.
And there are some factors not as directly centered on terrain:
* **Crippling global fuel shortages**: Heavy vehicles burn fuel. Amphibious vehicles are lighter (by necessity). An Abrams battle tank is a cute decoration on a street if you can't afford to keep it in fuel. I can even imagine a situation where lighter, low-profile tanks moving by sea deploy sails for travel between islands on patrols, and engage engines for maneuvering/fighting. Lighter vehicles might be able to employ power systems that are more ecologically friendly than most big tanks. Alternative fuels in smaller engines with less requirements for horsepower might be the only ones available. In the same way the Harrier might be the only jet flying after the opening rounds of a major war, your lighter tank burning ethanol or methane might be the only MBT that is still practical to run after all the world's oil fields are blown up.
* **Armor VS. Weapons**: The old balancing act between armor and weapons has been shifting towards weapons slowly for a long time. As light missiles come to dominate the battlefield, the need for an enormous MBT becomes harder to justify. But just as battleships kept being made long after they were irrelevant, your rich world governments are entranced with the idea of huge tanks that are invulnerable. Not only are your amphibious tanks able to go on water, they're generally more maneuverable and faster. When the game is "get him first," speed and maneuverability are key.
* **Traditions**: A nautical society might favor ships over tanks, so the tanks end up more like small ships. A military that has already spent a lot of money developing amphibious tech for other vehicles is more likely to apply the same engineering to their MBT so the designs are similar. Similarly, if you have amphibious trucks, APC's, fuel vehicles, jeeps, and light armor, why not have a MBT be amphibious as well so they work together better?
[Answer]
## Because your nation is like Indonesia
Indonesia's territory is a collection of large islands and small islets sitting near some of the world's largest sea trade routes. Piracy(the old-fashioned sort) is an ongoing concern, as are religious extremist terror groups. Even in peacetime, the aforementioned groups can set up camp on any islet and they would have to be removed via an amphibious operation.
However, Indonesia did it the other way round. Instead of amphibious MBTs, their concept is a tank boat that fulfills the role of both landing craft and [assault gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_gun). Behold the [Antasena-class combat boat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antasena-class_combat_boat), or Combat Boat X-18. I know this isn't quite the same as amphibious MBTs, however the concept can easily evolve in that direction once hostile nations get involved. The need to fight other tank boats and conventional armour would plausibly result in developing into a more tank-like vehicle.
[Answer]
**Have a look at what causes the development of Main Battle Tanks initially**
A Main Battle Tank is a little bit of a generic term, with the actual definition as:
>
> a self-propelled armoured fighting vehicle, capable of heavy
> firepower, primarily of a high muzzle velocity direct fire main gun
> necessary to engage armoured and other targets, with high
> cross-country mobility, with a high level of self-protection, and
> which is not designed and equipped primarily to transport combat
> troops
>
>
>
However in terms of military procurement they are the confluence between several different factors:
* Having an optimised combat platform that provides the most amount of speed, weight, firepower and armour in comparison to a similarly optimised enemy platform
* Having a configuration that takes advantage of standardised manufacturing to minimise manufacturing costs and reduce training costs for specialised purposes (ie. by developing advanced armour, this development can assist in multiple product offerings)
* Having ability for weapons manufacturers to 'sell' to multiple countries instead of each country having it's own unprofitable companies. Ie. by standardising tank specifications, a technologically advanced tank can be made for many situations that other countries may encounter. Many optimised MBT tanks are sold to countries that cannot afford the colossal R&D costs required.
So in order for your MBT's to be amphibious:
* There needs to be an enemy that also needs to use amphibious tanks
* There needs to be a desire by multiple countries to require amphibious tanks such that weapons manufacturers integrate it into their offering
* There needs to be an almost universal need in terms of tactics and training to reduce the land-only tanks to limited markets
So perhaps, as speculation:
* A common or steady conflict between countries that have limited land, such as island or swamp nations, forming a major market
* A major calamity such as sea level rise reducing amount of land for land-only tanks to a degree that no military wants them, and companies have no need to optimise manufacture and develop for them
[Answer]
For starters, you should be aware that almost all (if not all) MBTs have adaptations for deep wading - instead of swimming on the water, they can cross water by driving on the bottom. For this those tanks have attach points for massive pipes to provide air for the engine and crew to a depth of 3-4 metres.
Then, I assume you want an actual MBT, a tank capable of fighting "ordinary" land only MBTs, rather than a "glass cannon" type light tank with minimal armour but offensive weapons of MBT (as those actually are often amphibious).
You will end with a much bigger vehicle, as you need to provide flotation capability for all that armour (50-60 tons) as well as alternative propulsion. If you do not armour your flotation devices, the tank will stop being amphibious as soon as it enter combat. If you do, the tank could cost 3 times as much as ordinary tank.
Besides, amphibious tank will not be able to cross large bodies of water (like from island to island) as it just barely stick out of surface so can't operate on anything other than very calm water.
You have to question yourself, why do you need amphibious tanks:
1. Broken and muddy country with a lot of lakes - You will probably be better of with cheap and mobile amphibious light tanks as in such terrain you can easily fire from protected positions.
2. multiple small rivers - deep wading give the same for much lower cost
3. large rivers - landing barges may be deployed for a lower cost and, if it is your land, river ships with tank turrets may provide fire support.
4. island country - gunships/avisos (today called tank boats) provide ability to sail in most sea conditions and engage targets on land. Plus actual warships may engage shore targets as well. If you need to drive deeper inland, ordinary MBT can be delivered by landing craft or hovercraft etc.
[Answer]
**At this point in the war, the amphibious tank is all they can make.**
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malyshev_Factory#Tank_production>
>
> Shortly before the German invasion of the Soviet Union the KhPZ
> started series production of the T-34, the most-produced tank of World
> War II. Series production began in June 1940 in Kharkiv, and later in
> the Stalingrad Tractor Plant and Krasnoye Sormovo Shipbuilding Plant.
> In 1941, due to German advances, the factory and design shops were
> evacuated to the Ural mountains;[1]
>
>
>
There are no reasoned calculations here. @DWKraus has covered those. This is a matter of necessity and desperation. The MBT for this nation is an amphibious tank because that is the factory these folks still hold. Factories that made other tanks have been captured or destroyed. Resources are reallocated to the amphibious tank factory that they still hold.
] |
[Question]
[
There are many depictions of sea-serpents and other similar creatures in a strange pose: The head (and often the tail too) is held above the water, with the body being arched in such a way that some of the body is out of the water. How and why would an animal hold itself in this way?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dj0wf.png)
[Answer]
## A few Thoughts:
There are a variety of reasons you can see sea serpents who look like this, so here are a few reasons:
* **Sexual display**: Most sea serpents don't normally swim this way. In fact, you rarely see them at all. But they were once land animals, and reproduction is highly conserved. So males come out and perform this as a display for females, trying to impress them with how strong, buoyant and flexible they are.
* **optical illusion**: From the shore or a boat, looking down, the serpent appears to be thrusting out of the water (and maybe they occasionally do, slightly) but in actuality, they are just doing the standard serpentine swim pattern common to all snakes. It just LOOKS like they are rising above the surface.
* **exotic swimming pattern**: Perhaps the serpents have evolved a highly exotic swim stroke. Maybe they are really corkscrewing through the water. Perhaps their swimming style involves pushing internal air bubbles thought their boy, constantly changing location. but they end up thrusting out of the water.
* **exotic lung arrangement**: These serpents are actually a kind of worm, and have multiple lungs along the length of their body. They roll which part of their body is out of the water so they can breathe, and rise up high to prevent waves from splashing into their lungs.
* **It's not really a serpent**: These structures are not really from a serpent, but instead are something else. The creature actually has fins that APPEAR to be serpent segments thrust out of the water. Or these creatures are really using the buoyancy of trees to support them (especially when resting) like a swimmer with a float. Or these are really multiple different swimming creatures, each one which crests the water separately in a school.
* **Hunting Lure**: These sea creatures scare away prey, so if they hold segments out of the water, prey mistakes them for many smaller fish and are less on guard. Or sea serpents prey on large predators (like sharks) and the multiple segments in water look like many prey animals, luring the predators close enough to kill.
* **Cleaning birds**: A certain species of sea gull eats parasites off the sea serpent. When the sea serpent is infested with skin parasites/lamprey, they perform this display to attract the sea gulls, who gleefully flock to the happy serpent and pick the parasites clean.
[Answer]
Just change how they swim.
If they swim with vertical undulation instead of lateral, that is exactly the pattern you would expect to see while swimming on the surface. Although the loops would not come completely clear of the water like that but they would be on the surface.
snakes often hold the head clear of the water while swimming to improve vision or to improve the sense of smell.
this is even kind of ironic since the stories of sea serpents are probably just pods of whales seen at a distance, and whales swim with vertical undulation.
so more like this
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bCHY4.jpg)
[Answer]
**Not a serpent.**
It is improbable that an elongated creature would move like that. There are two standard explanations.
1: **Many smaller creatures.**
**[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0KBxB.jpg)**
<https://baleinesendirect.org/en/what-do-we-know-about-harbour-porpoises/>
Depicted: porpoises. They move in groups and they can move fast. Seeing a clump of multiple humps (porpoise backs) emerging from the water can easily be interpreted as one single creature swimming along.
If you have bigger creatures swimming in this manner your eye could combine them into a very big creature. Depicted: whales.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/aZaAa.jpg)
<https://whalesanddolphinsbc.com/education-parent/humpback-whales-megaptera-novaeangliae/>
**2: One big creature with humpy back.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hfH2Y.jpg)
[source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49sfej4mRIc)
The sturgeon is usually the creature invoked for this explanation especially as regards lake monsters. They can get huge, they don't need to come up for air, they have bumps on their back, and they can go out to sea. A big sturgeon cruising along under the surface might let its back hang out into the air and so would look like a series of moving bumps. The bumps dont move up and down of course because like all fish the sturgeon is propelling itself with lateral movements of its tail.
[Answer]
Being gigantic, one of these fierce creatures only weaknesses is the tendency to overheat, particularly in the thermoactive seas it prefers to hunt in.
In order to keep cool following a hunt or during long trips, the serpents have evolved to extend alternating portions of their bodies out of the water to promote cooling in the ever present trade winds.
Some sub-species of these serpents have even evolved "sails" like those of the Spinosaurus to promote rapid cooling in the sea breeze with the most evolved of these specialists able to assist their great migrations using these sails as actual sails to harness the wind
[Answer]
**Effort through the water**
A giant snake will undoubtedly get a lot of friction with the water. To get a good speed with the least effort, it'll move much if it's body above the water line for the lower friction. This way it can "cruise" for longer, instead of requiring to swim constantly. The how is simple. Just with muscle power and buoyancy.
] |
[Question]
[
The creature is an ape-like quadruped very similar to humans. Their intelligence and feelings are the same as in regular humans. The head and torso are indistinguishable from a regular human. The arms and legs are the same length, and all four feet resemble regular human feet. Their neck is more flexible, allowing raise their head up and see where they are going. How could this creature evolve?
[Answer]
**It cannot**
Although it isn't impossible for a humanoid to have quadrupedal movement, see lots of monkeys, the human form is very unfriendly for quadrupedal movement. The inefficiencies come from the way the arms and legs are build, of which their length is one of the limiting factors. It is simply not an efficient way to move. As the restrictions also tell of regular feet, we cannot use the joints there to adapt them for better locomotion. Although this would require major remodelling of the arms and legs. Not to mention the power transfer of feet to arms and the reverse will likely be a nightmare to deal with.
As it's so inefficient, the likelihood of this occurring is very slim.
**Forcing nature**
It isn't impossible, though in practise you can say it is. To still get such humans, it seems easiest to start with humans and only transform their hands. This will take a lot of selective breeding, so either outside forces are doing this or we got the weirdest feet fetish all of a sudden. At the same time, we should only select the right size of arms and legs, to prevent any optimisation that nature would likely try to add. After many, many generations, you might end up with feet instead of hands, together with some difficult energy wasting quadruped movement.
[Answer]
There is a genetic form of anemia called [sickle cell disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle_cell_disease). It makes you generally less healthy than people that don't have it, so the genes for it tend to be fairly uncommon in most of the world. However, in some populations of Africa, it helps you survive:
>
> The malaria parasite has a complex lifecycle and spends part of it in red blood cells. In a carrier, the presence of the malaria parasite causes the red blood cells with defective haemoglobin to rupture prematurely, making the Plasmodium parasite unable to reproduce. Further, the polymerization of Hb affects the ability of the parasite to digest Hb in the first place. Therefore, in areas where malaria is a problem, people's chances of survival actually increase if they carry sickle cell trait (selection for the heterozygote).
>
>
>
Therefore it is actually "good" to have that condition.
---
Just the same, some people walk on all fours due to a [cerebellar ataxia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataxia#Cerebellar). There is even a [documentary about a family in which the condition affected quite a few members:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_That_Walks_on_All_Fours)
>
> First, their mother recalls that initially all of her 19 children started off walking with a bear-crawl (i.e. on their feet rather than their knees). Second, due to an inherited recessive genetic mutation, they have a non-progressive congenital cerebellar ataxia that impairs the balance children normally use to learn to walk bipedally. Not being able to manage the balance needed for bipedal walking, they perfected in its place their initial bear-crawl into an adult quadruped gait.
>
>
>
You need to have a reason why walking on all fours would be beneficial (maybe this helps populations that live in caves with a low ceiling - it would make it easier to build and live in [cave cities such as Derinkuyu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_underground_city)). Over millennia or even millions of years new genes would come up to modify the hands and general body plan into a pronograde one.
[Answer]
**Selective breeding.**
[The Rats in the Walls](https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/rw.aspx)
>
> Not Hoffmann or Huysmans could conceive a scene more wildly
> incredible, more frenetically repellent, or more Gothically grotesque
> than the twilit grotto through which we seven staggered; each
> stumbling on revelation after revelation, and trying to keep for the
> nonce from thinking of the events which must have taken place there
> three hundred years, or a thousand, or two thousand, or ten thousand
> years ago. It was the antechamber of hell, and poor Thornton fainted
> again when Trask told him that some of the skeleton things must have
> descended as quadrupeds through the last twenty or more generations.
> Horror piled on horror as we began to interpret the architectural remains. The quadruped things—with their occasional recruits from the
> biped class—had been kept in stone pens, out of which they must have
> broken in their last delirium of hunger or rat-fear. There had been
> great herds of them, evidently fattened on the coarse vegetables whose
> remains could be found as a sort of poisonous ensilage at the bottom
> of huge stone bins older than Rome. I knew now why my ancestors had
> had such excessive gardens—would to heaven I could forget! The purpose
> of the herds I did not have to ask...
>
>
>
Your quadrupeds are the descendants of human livestock, kept as meat animals over thousands of years. The historic fondness of the keepers for quadrupedal humans is just one of their many unusual fondnesses.
[Answer]
It's not impossible but very unlikely. Being bipedal gives us an enormous evolutionary advantage over quadrupeds - we can use our hands to make stuff. For humans to evolve into quadrupeds again the selective pressures on humans would need to shift away from tool making and towards flight or pursuit but I can't see how that would happen.
[Answer]
Human feet evolved for an upright posture. An animal with four humanlike knees and four humanlike feet simply does not make evolutionary sense. Consider the lack of existing quadrupeds that have anything like a human foot with its ankle joint and additional joints at the toes.
[Answer]
Instead of starting with existing humans, start with the quadruped great ape humans evolved from (See Hominina). All you need to do is to add more brain size. Typically, larger brains come from hunter species. So, make it a hunter.
That will give you a different body structure than you specify, but it would be the easiest evolutionary path. The body needs to be evolved for quadrupedal action which means a different torso shape and the hands would be different - more like chimp hands. The human face comes from eating cooked (softer) foods. That means that we don't need the muscles and teeth needed to deal with fibrous plants or canines to tear off meat. Figure out how a quadruped would start using fire and a more human face can appear.
Humans have two major mutations from the great apes: bipedal walking, and speech.
[Answer]
If the environment has a lot of slippy surfaces, a bipedal gait might be unpractical.
One way could be moss-covered stone, which can be extremely slippy (also pairs well with "The Square-Cube Law"'s idea of a cave civilization). Consequently, keeping a low center-of-mass reduces injuries from falls and the additional "actively walking limbs" make it easier to keep traction.
Alternatively, a large portion of the world could consist of frozen lakes. In addition to the points above, distributing the weight over more limbs reduces the risk of breaking into the ice and drowning.
] |
[Question]
[
I am [an unfortunate female soul that ended up in a male body](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/201769/how-would-it-feel-for-a-woman-to-be-placed-into-a-male-body-physiology-only). How did it happen? It can be magic or some unfathomable technology indistinguishable from magic. I will investigate, but right now I need to ensure my survival in this new world (I was too overwhelmed with my circumstances before and forgot to mention it, but I am no longer on modern Earth). I need to learn martial arts ASAP if I want to keep my little life.
The original me (the female soul in a female body) was an average woman living in a developed country and working an ordinary desk job (my existence was the very definition of boring). I did not have any major health problems but I was not exceptionally fit. My experience with physical exercises in adulthood was limited to irregular ballroom dance classes and occasional dance parties. As a child, I trained as a swimmer and a ballet dancer (I blame my parents who could never agree on anything!) and thus mentally prepared for the pain and suffering of martial arts training (or so I tell myself). I also cherish my life and am willing to put time and effort into gaining skills necessary for survival.
The original owner of my new body (the male one, in this new world) practised martial arts: breathing exercises, swordsmanship, and unarmed combat. He was not particularly talented or motivated, so his achievements were nothing to brag about. I think that he should have some [muscle memory](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Muscle_memory) given that he was training for many years (apparently they usually start martial arts training at the age of 6-7 and my body is 17) and was praised for his proficiency in basic forms.
**Considering that muscle memory allows the performance of learnt movements without much conscious effort, what role will a pre-existing muscle memory play in the acquisition of martial skills?** Will I have the same (or close to the same) level of proficiency as the previous soul or will I be forced to start from the very beginning? Also, if my new body had bad martial art habits how hard would it be to fix them (as someone who went through the pain of correcting a poor piano playing technique I am quite interested in this aspect)?
I am not looking for the exact numbers (it is not possible). I am trying to set clear expectations and gather some understanding of the principles behind muscle memory (how independent it is from consciousness) in order to come up with a realistic training regime. I would appreciate it if the answers were based on science (links to the academic papers are more than welcome).
If it is important, I am thinking about switching to a folding fan and a whip as my preferred weapons in the future.
---
*About soul and body interactions:*
* this is not a forced possession where my soul acts as a puppeteer and has to control every single aspect and movement of the body;
* the control is 'natural' and all automated body functions work as expected;
* my soul has a mental image of the body that is informed by my previous body and has to be adjusted for my current body: This causes cognitive dissonance and some problems with coordination and non-automatic actions (the latter should disappear after I fully adjust, the adjustment period is estimated to be no more than a year, 3-4 months for most everyday activities);
* my mental state is affected by the body's physiology: Mostly my moods and emotional responses (this will not be a problem at all after a year or two since I found a solution for my emotions);
* ***if you feel uncomfortable with the word 'soul' you can substitute it with 'consciousness', they are equivalent within the scope of this question.***
* if you have difficulties accepting the premise, you can think about it in terms of [explicit memory](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Explicit_memory) replacement (accomplished by the mighty and mysterious handwavium): Explicit memory of the male was replaced with my explicit memory leaving the majority of the nervous system intact.
---
If you need clarifications or additional details, please, ask in the comments.
[Answer]
**It will allow you to... Either skip the "getting stronger muscles" part or require little to no training**
Truth is, muscle memory as you're saying it isn't really quite how it works. The muscles themselves don't remember how to automatically perform a task, what they do remember is how to "grow back" in a way if you exercise, which is why [previously muscular people who go back to the gym after a long period of inactivity usually have faster muscle growth than in the first time, although we're not 100% sure how exactly](https://www.thebioneer.com/why-muscle-grows-back-more-quickly-its-not-muscle-memory/#:%7E:text=%27Muscle%20memory%27%20is%20definitely%20a,protein%20synthesis%20and%20water%20retention).
The muscle memory you're thinking of, however, would be closer to neural muscle memory, which rather than the muscles themselves learning how to perform a repetitive task, it's actually an association between your muscles and brain, particularly the unconscious part, like [some martial artists would say](http://kickasssuec.blogspot.com/2011/02/muscle-memory-its-all-in-mind.html). What's actually happening is, through lots of repetitive movements, you're creating what one could call a "memory map" , which is essentially your brain learning better and better how to use certain groups of muscle to perform a certain task, and this applies not only to martial arts, but even to other simpler activities like getting a hold of a glass or cup (it's not that the muscles themselves undergo no changes whatsoever, they do, but it still takes the brain to work. A dead karate master won't really give a skillful chop if you just electrocute the muscle groups they'd use unless you do it just like the brain would during the performance of said chop, and no, [it's not muscle memory that allows dead fish to swim upstream](https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/greatmomentsinscience/dead-fish-can-swim-fluid-dynamics/12670022)).
Since these memory maps are only really usable if you have the person's brain (or at least brain structure, I assume), we have 2 potential outcomes:
1-your memories aren't completely magic and this soul transfer altered the previous owner's synapses so that his brain patterns were essentially identical to yours, essentially replacing all of the information stored in his brain with the information stored in yours: you probably should have no muscle memory whatsoever, since the unconscious associations are gone. You might still have access to the previous owner's strength, and even if you don't, his muscles will still develop faster than if he didn't practice any physical activities and was developing his muscles for the first time, so you'll still progress faster in the muscle building department at the very least. I sadly can't affirm any of these (except the faster muscle building part) with absolute certainty since I'm no neurologist, I don't know any karate master whose soul was replaced with that of an untrained accountant whose experiences I could ask about and the brain is essentially the most complex organic computer that exists and not even the greatest scientists of the field truly understand every bit of how it works.
2-your memories are completely magic and this soul transfer didn't alter the previous owner's synapses so that his brain patterns were essentially identical to yours: you're already a martial artist. All of his memory maps are still there, and chances are that since you have access to his brain, you can also access his memories on how to train and perform the moves and exercises he knew. You won't need to train to reach his level and it's mostly assured that your efforts from then on will be solely to improve on the foundations that have already been established by the body's previous controller. Good luck being a consciousness having to deal with 2 sets of completely different memories of life though, you might end up trying to harmonize both and become someone that's both yet neither.
*also if the thing in your pelvis swells up, don't try to stop it, it'll become self-sustaining if you do so.*
[Answer]
**Identical**
Muscle control happens on several levels, but can be condensed to brain, spine and the rest. These control all of it. Now it just matters what happens to these structures the moment a different soul gets in.
On the surface it seems simple. A soul is not a brain, spine or other, so all structures are in tact and Identical. No differences means no loss in muscle memory. But no differences would also mean the soul transfer wouldn't really matter. The memories, thoughts and *everything* would be identical. The female soul would be the man, 1 on 1.
Problem starts with the female knowing she used to be female. Remembering things is, among other things, a way the brain is structured. How can she remember being a female without the correct structures? This implies change. It is them important to know how far that change goes. Memory is not only in the limbic system it's an intricate effort in the whole brain. A movement, feeling, visual stimuli or other all are triggered in certain ways, each having their own depth of memory on many ways.
There are very many problems, but it might be 'easiest' to solve them. The most personal memories and recognition are somehow transferred to the brain, replacing all or nearly all of the previous occupant. This will likely trigger deja vu or other similar thoughts or feelings which are difficult to determine who is the original source in many less determined memory cases. But what you will have is the right muscle memory and recognition when to use them. It might be seamless, but there is a chance some of the martial arts need to be done to unlock all of it very quickly, thanks to associative memory.
[Answer]
Martial arts instructor here. The school I went to focuses a lot on footwork; and for weapon usage, it's much the same whether you are wielding a staff, a dadao, a spear or if you are fighting bare handed.
I had already spent years training with all kinds of swords before I even held a spear for the first time (not related to any skill progression, I simply didn't have a spear before). I went to some classes for instructors only for that weapon. We trained footwork, but since we all had a lot of practice, that part went smooth and we went through practically automatically.
I can tell you that when giving classes, I had to do a lot of stance and foot work with new students; as they progressed, I could focus more on teaching the handling of new weapons and less on teaching stance and changing directions.
I figure that if your character would compound on techniques. The basic ones, which are the foundation for the advanced ones, would not need to be completely relearned. They might have to review some aspects of the basics to learn more advanced stuff, but that might not be a big deal.
[Answer]
I'm not neuroscientist, but... The nervous system and body have developed from conception together and are all tuned together as they have grown and changed over time. Muscle memory as commonly talked about mostly isn't actually in the muscles, it is in the brain and wider nervous system. Some is in the muscles in that both the muscles and nerves are tuned simultaneously as you train: as you learn new movements the muscles develop to support them, and as the muscles develop the nervous system is tuned for the changes in strength and flexibility.
This coordinated tuning isn't just for conscious movements though. All the little adjustments you constantly make to keep balance while just standing, never mind taking part in the complex movements for martial arts. If you somehow lift one nervous system wholesale into another body, it won't know how to effectively & efficiently manage those adjustments in the new body with its diffing muscle strengths / centre of gravity / etc. It'll take a while to even stand well.
Also autonomic functions, even though they can run on autopilot so keep going when someone is in a complete coma, are not entirely decoupled from the rest of the body. That lifted & shifted nervous system won't immediately be able to efficiently manage that new body's breathing and such. The new "soul" would need time to adjust to that before even trying to stand.
*What could this mean for a mind-swap?* This implies that for the swap to be successful without months of recuperative retraining, it *must* be partial. Transfer the memories and conscious drives but leave as much of the core body management in-place and somehow knit the two together. It may not be possible scientifically to identify and separate these functions within the source and host brains, so you are probably looking at a magical or hand-wavey solution narratively, but the fact that it would be necessary to perform a partial transfer like this could be the justification for "muscle memory" from the previous occupant still being available to the new controlling mind.
[Answer]
## Literally however you want it to.
Since you're talking about a completely fictional phenomenon (one consciousness taking over the body of another person), any skills or knowledge you want the person to gain from the body they are inhabiting is entirely up to you, the writer. You define how the rules of your world work, so if you want the person to be able to inherit the skills of the body they are inhabiting, then just write it that way. You could even have the person retain some of those skills, so that when she returns back to her original body, she can still perform martial arts to some degree. It's equally possible that the man whose body she is inhabiting will also retain something from the experience once he's back in control of his body. Do you want that to be a factor? Then just write it that way. If not, then don't, your choice. There's no real-world analog to this situation that you have to be beholden to, so you're free to write the rules however you feel like. Just be internally consistent. If it works one way this time, it should work the same way next time if it happens again, unless the change in the rules is part of the story.
[Answer]
***Benefits of former training:***
As with most training, you should stop worrying and start training. Get behind what kind of martial art your body did and start a beginners class. Entrench yourself in training and rise fastly through the ranks. If this kind of training is not available, do calisthenics to keep fit and look for similar style of art.
If meditation is part of what your body used to train, use it to reconnect your current mind to your body.
The advantage of starting with a beginners class is *you* learn good form, muscle memory should help you get through initial stages much faster then the average student. If asked, blame it on some other kind of martial arts training.
Bonus: through reenactment of the known physical movements you get faster access and control over your new body.
As a sidenote:
* you body trained martial arts for 10+ years - so you are probably quite fit
* you are in a males body
Most societies on earth are male-dominated and as a physical fit young man you might fit right in / have less to worry then you think regarding "survival".
***I am no longer on modern Earth:***
While but overall physical fitnes is always a bonus, your martial arts prowess might not be of much help if you are:
* stranded on the frontline inside a trench in Word War I
* locked aways in a city under quarantaine due to Black Plague in 1408
* slaved to some oars on a galley in the middle of the mediterranean sea
* stranded on an island ruled by amazons and delegated to a live as boy-toy
While focussing on the bodyly aspects of your marterial training you might also benefit from learning other aspects of "the way" your former body inhabitant followed: martial arts are often connected to a way of thinking and livestyle - if any of that bleeds over into your new self your may reap some benefits in that way as well.
] |
[Question]
[
Gills are fragile, exposed continuously to parasites and bacteria. Having gills is like going around the streets with "eat my respiratory system please" written on your back.
Plus animals with lungs breathe better and thus grow larger and stronger.
What situation could create a world where gills never evolved?
[Answer]
If multi celled animals on the fictional planet evolved in very shallow water, or could only live very close to the surface of water, they might evolve lungs instead of or along with gills.
Most boney and ray-finned fish have organs called gas bladders or swim bladders which are quite similar to lungs.
Which came first, the lung or the swim bladder?
On first thought most people might assume that lungs evolved from swim bladders.
>
> As lobe finned fish were adapting to live in partial water or on land, 420 million years ago during the Devonian, they seem to have split off into multiple groups. Two such branches are known to survive to the present day, the coelacanths and the lungfish.
>
>
> It's worth note that, despite the name "lungfish", fish evolved lungs before lungfish, or even lobe-finned fish. The common ancestor of lobe-finned and ray-finned fish had lungs, but in most surviving branches of ray-finned fish these evolved into swim bladders used for floatation, instead of breathing. Some, like the bichirs, do retain their lungs, and several other traits that appear to have been common to lobe-finned and ray-finned fish.[12]
>
>
> While the coelacanth shares many traits with reptiles, the lungfish shares specific other traits with amphibians that the coelacanth does not have. Both coelacanths and lungfishes share the category sarcopterygian with the tetrapods, which includes land animals like reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, e.g. humans. Evidence suggests that the tetrapods are related more closely to lungfish than to coelacanths.[13]
>
>
>
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungfish#Evolution[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungfish#Evolution%5B1%5D)
>
> Swim bladders are evolutionarily closely related (i.e., homologous) to lungs. Traditional wisdom has long held that the first lungs, simple sacs connected to the gut that allowed the organism to gulp air under oxygen-poor conditions, evolved into the lungs of today's terrestrial vertebrates and some fish (e.g., lungfish, gar, and bichir) and into the swim bladders of the ray-finned fish. In 1997, Farmer proposed that lungs evolved to supply the heart with oxygen. In fish, blood circulates from the gills to the skeletal muscle, and only then to the heart. During intense exercise, the oxygen in the blood gets used by the skeletal muscle before the blood reaches the heart. Primitive lungs gave an advantage by supplying the heart with oxygenated blood via the cardiac shunt. This theory is robustly supported by the fossil record, the ecology of extant air-breathing fishes, and the physiology of extant fishes.[12] In embryonal development, both lung and swim bladder originate as an outpocketing from the gut; in the case of swim bladders, this connection to the gut continues to exist as the pneumatic duct in the more "primitive" ray-finned fish, and is lost in some of the more derived teleost orders. There are no animals which have both lungs and a swim bladder.
>
>
> The cartilaginous fish (e.g., sharks and rays) split from the other fishes about 420 million years ago, and lack both lungs and swim bladders, suggesting that these structures evolved after that split.[12] Correspondingly, these fish also have both heterocercal and stiff, wing-like pectoral fins which provide the necessary lift needed due to the lack of swim bladders. Teleost fish with swim bladders have neutral buoyancy, and have no need for this lift.[13]
>
>
>
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swim\_bladder[2]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swim_bladder%5B2%5D)
So lungs and swim bladders seem to have evolved from the same source, or possibly swim bladders evolved from lungs and most earlier fish had lungs. There was an era when most fish species had both gills and lungs.
Fish that evolved lungs would obviously live near the surface of fresh or salt water, where they could reach the surface to gulp air easily.
The deeper the water is, the greater is its pressure. Deep water organisms evolved with internal pressure equal to the external water pressure, to avoid being crushed. So when deep water organisms are caught and raised toward the surface, the lower water pressure causes them to swell up and die.
Lifeforms which live too deep cannot survive reaching the surface, so lungs enabling them to breath surface air would be useless to them. So fish with swim bladders instead of lungs must have had ancestors which evolved swim bladders in deep water. The function of swim bladders is to regulate the bouyancy of fish, to make it easier to stay in their proper depths, and so avoid going to deep and being crushed or going to high and and swelling up.
In a diffferent world where all bodies of water are shallow, fish equivalents with both gills and lungs would probably not evolve to transform their lungs into swim bladders.
>
> Crustaceans, molluscs, and some aquatic insects have tufted gills or plate-like structures on the surfaces of their bodies. Gills of various types and designs, simple or more elaborate, have evolved independently in the past, even among the same class of animals. The segments of polychaete worms bear parapodia many of which carry gills.[3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gill) Sponges lack specialised respiratory structures, and the whole of the animal acts as a gill as water is drawn through its spongy structure.[11]
>
>
>
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gill[3]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gill%5B3%5D)
So either various gropus of animals evolved gills independently at different times, or else the ancestors of fish had gills for many millions of years before fish evolved lungs.
So a planet where lungs evolved first would have to be one where all the multicelled aquatic lifeforms lived very close to the surface of the water, where reaching the surface to breath would be very easy, and there would be no advantage to having gills.
This would proably have to happen in very thin sheets of water, especially if tides or waves often left the organisms on land and they had to struggle back to the water.
Posssibly the shallow bodies of water contained substances which were highly opaque to the light frequencies necessary for photosynthesis, so the one celled photosynthisizing organism which were at the base of the food chain, and the organisms which fed on them, and the organisms feeding on them, and so on, were all concentrated at the surface of the water.
When life first evolved on Earth the Moon was much closer and tides were much larger, though multicelled organisms with lungs and/or gills didn't evolve until photosynthesis produced large amounts of oxygen billions of years later.
And possibly such organisms might spread to deeper water, but most would stay near the surface and not evolve gills or lose their lungs.
[Answer]
Life begins in water. You need a wet environment around your cells until you develop the rather specialized structure called a "Skin". Until this time, an air-dwelling creature is simply not viable.
In water gills are better than lungs. The closed/one-entry breathing system of lungs simply cannot move enough volume of water to satisfy the oxygen needs of a large creature..
Even "cheating" the system as Dolphins do, is very problematic.
To breathe, they need access to the surface, which requires being able to *find* the surface. A non-trivial problem in deep water.
They need to actively guide their motion to expose the air intakes to open air, which requires a functional mind. An *awake* mind. Which means a dolphin can **never** fully sleep. They literally sleep half-a-brain at a time.
All of this micromanagement to allow breathing in the water requires a pretty advanced, specialized mind and body. Which a newly-evolving primitive waterdweller most certainly will *not* have.
And P.S.
Lungs are more delicate than gills!
They are just conveniently placed in an immensely more protected location.
There is a **reason** why your lungs are *inside* your ribcage!
[Answer]
Life formed in water, therefore gills evolved before lungs.
If you want lungs without gills, you need life to evolve out of water, which is rather difficult.
Moreover, consider that gills are rather simple: a tube in contact with the water and exchanging gas with it. Lungs, with their very high specific surface, are way more complex which can hardly form first time right. It's more likely that an hypothetical land evolved life form would develop something like the leaves of a tree, which do not look much better than gills with respect to the problems you listed.
[Answer]
Gills evolved before lungs, but oxygen production evolved before gills. There was a point before macroscopic life when there was no significant O2 in our atmosphere, and then all of a sudden, a few micro-organisms started producing O2 and flooding the atmosphere with it.
What you need to happen is for life to evolve and move onto land before the evolution of life that produces oxygen. If the land is already covered in life before the atmosphere is flooded with oxygen, you could get the first macroscopic life to make use of it being creatures with lungs. Though, to make it more plausible, you'd need to posit some kind of other organ that these land creatures had which could become lungs that they were using for some other purpose than respiration.
[Answer]
Gills are good if you are moving around. Less good if you are a sessile animal. Some animals which don't move too much use
**Anal respiration.**
A number of organisms from different phyla use the cloaca or rectum to perform oxygen exchange aka respiration. These include [sea cucumbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_cucumber#Respiratory_system), [aquatic dragonfly nymphs](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022191019302252), and [certain turtles](https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/did-you-know/turtles-breathe-out-their-butt#:%7E:text=Technically%20the%20term%20is%20cloacal,oxygen%20is%20through%20their%20butt.).
Dragonflies can go both ways and use their "rectal gill" to breathe air or water. Turtles have lungs as well as the cloacal system of course. I think a good prospect for your lung before gill system is the sea cucumber - echinoderms do not have lungs but I can imagine this rectal system could evolve into an air/water system and then finally an air only lung without the organism ever having external gills in the fish mode.
Is it ok to use the term "bung lung"? Asking for a friend.
] |
[Question]
[
I'm crafting the worlds and cultures of my own Alien societies and a near-future human world (near-future Earth), it's the first time I've attempted this in detail. Everything I've found so far about building cities is based on medieval technology and is unhelpful. I need it to be relevant to now and the near-future.
I want to create different kinds of near-future cities but can't wrap my head around all of the complex mechanisms that ensure a city can exist, and also the wider communities beyond, that assist the city to function.
These are the scenarios I'm working with:
1. On the near-future Earth, I want to create cities that have been adapted to become more efficient and self sufficient, many major Earth cities will have dome-like structures built over them to protect them from the increasing impact of the sun, whereas any suburbs beyond are struggling to survive without the added protection but are finding ways to adapt.
2. One of my alien cultures have a focus on knowledge, gathering and consolidating all knowledge gained within a planet-bound intelligence which acts as a guiding force for the race (besides rebellious subcultures). Their cities are pre-planned, consisting of megastructures/city-towers, with smaller towns of individuals who prefer the quieter life. More or less an optimal version of Earth where global warming is not a future concern due to more efficient planning and energy usage.
3. The second alien culture is less functional, struggling to produce each generation of children due to genetic defects/fertility constrictions etc so their focus is upon community support, being able to ensure the optimal health for any pre-fertile individuals up until and after their fertility, and during gestation. I've settled on the idea of "Tiny Villages" where every resource needed within each community is within walking distance for the inhabitants. The examples I've seen of Tiny Villages has been lacking in depth and complexity though. I could perhaps use any answers regarding the city infrastructure to craft this.
Question:
* **What do I absolutely need to include in major (pop 100,000+ individuals) near-future cities to ensure they function almost on their own (including a minor contribution of external services and resources from wider communities)?**
Due to a lack of life experience, I'm struggling to piece together the complex functions of a present Earth whole city enough to adapt them to my own fictional world. Any help will be immensely appreciated!
[Answer]
## What you've asked for is huge, so this is a necessary simplification
*I've made this a community wiki because a thousand separate answers won't fully answer the question, so we might as well try to build on just one.*
One of the reasons why most city-building resources focus on medieval cities is that they're small with simple needs. In a phrase: they're easy. Even contemporary cities here on Earth are massively complex by comparison. Future cities would even be worse. But... we can take a bird's eye view at this. BTW, while any individual may consider anything below to be a want vs. a need, the reality is that when you're dealing with large groups of people, this is all a need. Living is complex.
**Housing**
```
- Wealthy housing (expensive, low-density)
- Urban housing (moderate cost, medium-density)
- Labor housing (low cost-per-unit, high-density)
- Welfare housing (very low cost-per-unit, very-high-density)
```
**Government**
```
- Legislative (makers of law)
- Judicial (interpreters of law)
* Lawyers
- Executive (enforcer of law)
* Police/Military
* Inspectors (construction)
* Regulation (permits/certification/zoning)
* Public schools/libraries
* Roads & parks
```
**Emergency Services**
```
- Hospitals/clinics
- Ambulance/life-flight/paramedics
- Fire
- Pharmaceutical companies
```
**Commercial**
```
- Grocery/restaurants
- Services (there are MILLIONS of these things, see below)
- Department retail (see below)
- Warehousing
- Industrial (metal working, brick making, chemical processing)
```
**Education**
```
- Schools for sub-adults
- Colleges/Universities
- Vocational & trade
- Community education
- Big libraries (the Louvre, natural history museums, planetariums)
- Pre-school/child-care
- Special education
```
**Financial**
```
- Holding companies
- Brokerages/Investing
- Banks/Credit Unions
```
**Entertainment**
```
- Theater/Dance
- Art/Literature
- Film/Music/Video
- Food/Drink
- Electronic Services (see below)
- Zoos & privately-owned parks
- Walking/running trails
- Amusement parks/carnivals/parades/celebrations/holidays
```
**Religion/Philosophy**
```
- Houses of worship
- Schools/camps
```
**Raw Materials**
```
- Lumber
- Mining
- Farming/Ranching/Fishing
- Hydroponics
- Chemical processing
```
**Utilities**
```
- Water (transport, sanitation) & Sewage (collection, processing & disposal)
- Natural gas/propane
- Electricity
- Communication (phone, internet, radio/broadcast)
- Fuel (gasoline/oil/diesel, nuclear fuel & control-rods, coal)
```
**Black Market**
```
- Drugs
- Pornography
- Rare/protected species
- Organized crime (mafia, gangs)
```
**Heritage**
```
- Architectural preservation
- Wilderness preservation
- Monuments
```
**Transportation**
```
- Roads & bridges (traffic control, cars/trucks/buses/bicycles/motorcycles...)
- Waterways (canals, sluices, locks, ships & boats)
- Ocean (docks, dredging, ships & boats)
- Rail (iron rail, monorail, maglev)
- Air Flight (air planes, radar, traffic control)
- Space Flight (launch/recovery, radar, traffic control... space stations...)
```
**And one more thing...**
*All of the INFRASTRUCTURE that supports everything above. Concrete/asphalt plants, makers of pencils, janitors, caterers, dog walkers, ditch diggers, environmental activists, manufacturing of all kinds (think TOOLS, and that's just the start).... The category of infrastructure is **breathtakingly enormous.** Go to [Alibaba.com](http://alibaba.com) and browse. We live in a world of machines and stuff that's all but incomprehensible.*
## Remember, this was a simplification
And to be honest, it's a simplification to the degree that angels weep.
---
Some of the above categories are so broad that they needed a bit of insight. I'm going to name only a few examples. This list can literally be ***endless.***
* Services: nail salons/grooming, accountants, realtors, arts/crafts, car repair, yoga instructors, carpet layers, carpenters, consultants, psychologists, counselors.
* Department retail: hardware, clothing, furniture, household goods, industrial goods, commercial support, almost anything you can find in a shopping mall.
* Electronic services: games, social media, information exchange & processing, blogs, corporate/company contact.
[Answer]
JBH gave a long list of individual services. I think you're looking for something different?
In general, to support life, you need food, shelter, water, air, power and transport.
### Power
For power and sufficiency, cover everything you can with solar panels. You'll probably need some power plants as well, so people have power at night, and because the panels might't be able to supply enough, depending on your aliens' power demands. Nuclear would be best, but they might have fusion which would make electricity VERY cheap. Of course, you'll plan your city so that high rise buildings aren't blocking solar panels too much.
You can make use of circumstantial power sources, like hydroelectric and the like, as ideally you will build cities next to such useful resources.
### Food
This one is tricky, and depends on your tech. If they do have a lot of excess power, due to fusion and nuclear, you could potentially grow everything in plant factories in the city, which has huge potential for sufficiency and health, due to their minimal use of water and pesticides. Even then, generally it's cheaper to grow stuff in massive fields, since you can rely on the free energy of the sun and rain, so your aliens might want to consider traditional farming as well.
You could theoretically cover the roofs of buildings with vertical farms, which maximize sunlight and water use, though that could reduce the surface you have for solar panel arrays, so your people would need to balance out their needs carefully.
### Transport
People need to be able to get around your city to fulfill their needs, or else all the services are pointless. You'll also want effective means of delivery.
You mentioned a design based off a village where you can walk to everything... and that's the basic model for European cities. Denmark has almost half the cars per capita of the US, with the UK and France only having a little more. These cities were made long before motor transport, so they were designed with walking distances in mind, and they developed good public transport systems.
In this case, your public transport might largely be trams, trains, and driverless cars. The latter could just be called the same as an Uber. You might also have drone copter cars, at this point, which would be more expensive and dangerous, but still a reasonable possibility.
And speaking of drones, they'd likely replace postmen for the majority of deliveries. If you have fusion power, you can basically make everything electric and cheap.
For long distance transport, you will need trucks and trains. Again, with fusion, everything is electric, so long as you have enough truckstops to power your batteries.
If you don't have fusion, you'd need quite a few nuclear plants to maintain that kind of electrical cost.
### Air
Motor and factory fumes are the biggest concerns with air. With fusion, you can greatly reduce that, though some factories might still produce toxic fumes. They'd need to be kept away from the living areas, and maybe you can develop filters to prevent most of that junk going into the air.
Parks are important, for recreation, wellness of mind, and air quality. Of course, if you have many plant factories and vertical farms, air quality should be pretty good.
### Shelter
If you want to avoid suburban sprawl, you're probably looking at somewhat minimalist apartments. The most efficient structure is about 3 or 4 stories tall, normally. If you have fusion, that could change things a lot, as it'd cost less to pump the water up several floors, and to run elevators.
But in general figure apartment building complexes that are surrounded by the necessary services, or even have those services built into the complex. After all, if you're going to put elevators in the place, you might as well use them for transport purposes, shifting people around a sort of shopping mall. That said, business areas need to be separated from living ones, by a fair margin, or else constant activity will make it hard for occupants to sleep.
### Water
You of course need water treatment plants, and a good water source like a river. You could even use sea water, processing it into drinkable water like Israel is trying, especially if you have fusion.
You can also recycle the sewage of the city, using some of it for fertilizer and either sending the purified water out to sea, or directly pumping it back into the system (that happens).
Of course, since there are genetic issues to worry about, water treatment must be handled carefully. Fluoride, for example, has been condemned by the WHO as dangerous in drinking water since at least 2006, but the US didn't decrease it fluoride until 2015. Even now, their limit is about 4mg/L, which is a lot more than other countries. India's limit is 1.6mg/L, and they have many reverse osmosis plants to try and take the naturally occurring fluoride out of their water.
So, your aliens will have the same concerns, purifying their food and drinking water extensively, since the health of some of them and their children is in question.
I hope this was a useful overview for city design.
[Answer]
The first thing you must ask is: **Why do cities exist? What functions do they serve? What *are* cities, really?**
* Obviously, an aggregation of people and their dwellings
* *Usually,* an economic hub
* *Usually,* a political hub
* *Usually,* a cultural and educational hub.
In a free society people congregate in cities because they perceive economic, social and/or cultural opportunities there. If the city is the seat of a regional or federal government the connected administrative jobs are part of that.
This congregation of people, in a feedback loop, in turn fosters economic, social, cultural and political progress and development. Everything that is modern in our western societies emerged in cities. In the past it was safe to say: **No city, no innovation.**
Since your story is in the near future you will have to consider a development that the Corona virus crisis accelerated: Many of these political, economic, even cultural functions do not depend any longer on the physical proximity of people. Factories are automated, conversations, education, political debates and to a degree cultural events are moving online.
Are our future cities virtual cities? Is facebook, culturally, a city? Is Microsoft Teams an office? Since the physical-geographical connection between work, culture and politics is now severed: Will we all come together only with peers? Will the society continue its apparent path to disintegration?
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.