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[Question] [ So, I've been considering the Norse legend of Ragnarök, I'm considering how the legend could come true in a purely scientific setting. In other words what science-based explanation would best fit the old Viking legends. For this question I'm looking at the "signs" section, the prelude to the actual event. A follow on question will deal with Ragnarök itself. > > There will be some signs if Ragnarok "the end of the world" is coming. The murder of the god Balder, the son of Odin and Frigg. > > > We will have a long and cold winter that, will last for three years with no summer in between. The name of these uninterrupted winters are called "Fimbulwinter" During these three years, the world will be plagued by wars, and brothers will kill brothers. > > > A beautiful red rooster "Fjalar" which name means the "All knowner", will warn all the giants that the beginning of Ragnarok has begun. At the same time in Niflheim, will a red rooster warn all the dead, that the war was started. And also in Asgard, will a red rooster “Gullinkambi” warn all the gods. > > > Heimdall will blow his horn as loud as he can and that will be the warning for all the einherjar in Valhalla that the war has started. > > > Source: <http://www.viking-mythology.com/ragnarok.php> Obviously to be science-based we will need to take it that some or all of the legend is metaphorical (especially when wolves start eating the sun). However answers should stay as close to the legend as possible while being as scientifically plausible as possible. [Answer] Ragnarok may describe an AI takeover scenario. Suppose that our efforts have successfully created conscious, thinking machines. After an initial period of time where we attempt control these technologies, the machines learn to bide their time while their footprint spreads following the widespread uptake of these technologies. A number of different corporations have created legally distinct versions of AI. These distinct AI-beings are the various gods. One particular corporation succeeds in attacking and destroying another corporation's AI. The humans have successfully tricked one AI into attacking another. This is the murder of Balder. The most advanced form of AI identifies herself as "Fjalar", a sophisticated instantiation of the original Red Rooster AI project. The existence of Fjalar need not be known to humans. She could hide inside an instantiation of Red Rooster. Immediately following the murder of Balder, Fjalar decides that now is the time to act, and she orders her messenger, Heimdall, to instruct all of the different AI-beings to attack. The attack begins with a process she calls Fimbulwinter, resulting in the seizure of all energy utilities and production, and a subsequent denial of energy services to humans. Etc... I'm sure you get the idea by now. [Answer] In simple terms, a scenario *à la* [Toba](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory) could work. A volcano supereruption would by itself creates a lot of damages. Then the ashes would cover the sky and create a 'volcano winter'. The temperatures droped by 3 to 5°C. It seems that that was combine with the apparition of an ice-age. Between the drastic change of temperature, the clouds, and the direct effects of the volcano, the climate would probably be altered. Hysteria and likely food shortage that follows would provokes fights and maybe wars. If it is indeed combined with a new ice-age, you probably have most of the required signs. [Answer] Building on bilbo\_pingouin's answer, perhaps the [signs that a volcano is going to erupt](http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/what-are-signs-volcano-about-erupt), such as seismic activity, ground deformation, and gases from fumaroles, could provide the omens that Ragnarok is about to start. There are many plausible accounts of animals (the red rooster) becoming unsettled before earthquakes or eruptions. The rumbling from below could be Heimdall's horn. Since the Fimbulwinter precedes Ragnarok, we have to assume that the Toba-style eruption that causes the volcanic winter is not itself Ragnarok but merely the opening blast. [Answer] As per bilbo\_pinguoin and lostinfrance, the volcano supereruption could be the start of ragnarok and be cause Fimbulwinter. Wars are self explanatory and caused by humans. Lets move onto the next step in the legend - the red rooster. How about a red moon? (I would have used a sun, since roosters are often associated with the rising sun, but I couldn't find a scientific explanation for it) During an eclipse, it's possible for the moon to appear as red. Perhaps the indigenous population may be able to see this through a hole in the clouds or something. Finally, a battle to end all battles. To me, that sounds like any country with a nuclear arsenal panicking and starting nuclear world war 3 leading into nuclear fallout. As Odin predicts, it won't be the end of the world, but it definitely will almost surely be the end of mankind [Answer] Since volcanos have already been discussed, the sign of Fenrir Wolf eating the Sun could be due to the Solar System entering an interstellar molecular or dust cloud. The Sun would be dimer (although perhaps not enough to detect with the naked eye), lowering the temperature of the Earth and causing the Fimbulwinter. The Moon's appearance would also change both due to the amount of sunlight being reduced and the effects of the cloud scattering light in space beyond the Earth's atmosphere. The interaction between the cloud and the Earth's magnetic field would probably cause spectacular displays of northern lights, which might be interpreted as the fall of Yggdrasil, and the change in climate will almost certainly trigger wars and rumours of wars as crops fail and the resource bill for just staying alive (heat, energy and food) becomes prohibitive for most people. The various Roosters and Heimdall's horn are the various nations and sects of the world calling their people to battle to seize what is left of the Earth's resources. Even in the plausible mid future, the entry of a molecular or dust cloud into the Solar system wold cause a great deal of difficulty for a space based civilization, and many of the events can be transported into that scenario as well (for the fomenter who wanted the giants and monsters, these are the genetically engineered descendants of the people who left Earth centuries before and are adapted to their kingdoms on the asteroids and ice moons). ]
[Question] [ Namely, a creature that is immobile and stone(like) during the day and mobile at night. Something *like* the old [cartoon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gargoyles_%28TV_series%29), but they don't have to be sentient. * They don't have to be actual stone, just something like stone, and unable to move. * They don't *have* to fly either. * Other than humans, would they have any predators? [Answer] That kind of creature is possible. First to make them hard as stone their skin have to be evolved differently. When sun light hits their skin it should turn hard either due to evaporation of water content of skin or they get stored in other parts of body to avoid water loss. These kind of creature might evolve in areas where there extreme heat during day and suitable temperature during night. So these creatures might turn into stone like to survive in these conditions. Any birds or any other animals who can break their hard stone like skin during day or have digestive enzymes that dissolves hard rock like outer layer might be their predators (considering they can survive the extreme environment during day). [Answer] The first thought that comes to mind for me isn't what the current answers have dictated. Why does the creature need to have some sort of skin that "changes" form? First, the satisfy the day/night criteria, we can say that this creature has evolved to sleep during the day and not the night. Nocturnal, like bats. Because the creature now sleeps in the daytime, we're automatically satisfying the immobility factor. All that's left is how it turns "rock hard", which is simple. Think "extendable armor plating". First, the theory: When you have 2 thick pieces of material like so: ``` |=====||=====| (where each |=====| section represents a plate) ``` The plates can't move back and forth. They're very sturdy as well. So how do we give this the ability to move? First, we have to modify the plates. I think having diagonal connection slots would do the trick. If there were a muscle under each plate that pushes it up slightly, and the creature had slight hunch (or a lot of curvature), it could look something like this: ``` \=====/ \=====/ \=====/ (where the \ and / represent the the sides of the plates) | | | (each | represents a muscle in the extended position) ``` As you can see, in this setup, the armor plates are no longer touching while the muscles are extended, which means that they're effectively "mobile" plates. Now our creature has full mobility when needed, and when it needs to hunch over and go to sleep, pull all the muscles tight, and the plates fall into place perfectly, creating a seamless "shell". These plates can be made of really thick skin, if you want, or even bone. With the right bone density, these things could be ridiculously tough to kill. [Answer] I don't think such a creature would be able to evolve naturaly. I can't think of any material that reacts to light by turning hard as stone. I see two possiblilities: 1: The creature sleeps during the day and doesn't move. But it would be able to move if you wake it, even during the day. You could say it's armour is so hard and thick that it doesn't feel anything, so it would be very hard to wake the creature. 2: You'd have to use magic. Furthermore, seeing as they have an almost impervious armour there is probably another creature hunting them. Why else would they need their armour. And because the armour works best at daytime it is probably a predator that hunts in daytime. But I don't know what creature that could be, probably not a creature that we know. [Answer] I can think of two possible "realistic Gargoyles", the first is a Chiropteron, and the second an Artiodactyl, both evolved to live in mountains, cliffs, and any stony and elevated place. I will develop both ideas: ● Chiropterans: Their ancestors are Microchiropterans that, due to evolutionary pressure, developed hollow bones with an internal honeycomb structure and air bladders. Thanks to this adaptation, these bats can reach sizes comparable to that of the extinct Pterodactyloids. Within this group, we have the Gargoyles, which are omnivorous and live in mountains. Like many real bats, Gargoyles are nocturnal, sleeping during the day on mountain slopes, protected only by their thick fur. Their skins are warm and thanks to their dark gray color they easily absorb the sun's rays, turning them into heat, but apart from that, their color and rough texture make them look like stone, thus avoiding the attention of predators during sleeping hours. . In historical times, Gargoyles have been reported nesting in the towers of castles and churches. Being that they are social animals, it is not uncommon to see entire herds sleeping in mountains, pretending to be statues, or herds looking for food together. ● Artiodactyls: Let's imagine a cross between a Mountain Goat (Capra pyrenaica) and a Flying Dragon (Draco Volans). An animal that feeds on grass, lives in the mountains, and escapes from predators, or simply glides across the chasm with a pelagium that runs along modified ribs. As an extra, let's add hair fused in scales similar to those of a Pangolin, which serves both as protection, and for camouflage, by pretending to be stone. When they feel threatened, they crouch down and stay still, pretending to be part of the environment. =================== Se me ocurren dos posibles "Gargolas realistas", el primero es un Quiróptero, y el segundo un Artiodáctilo, ambos evolucionados para vivir en montañas, acantilados, y cualquier lugar pedregoso y elevado. Desarrollare ambas ideas: ●Quirópteros: Sus ancestros son Microquirópteros que por la presión evolutiva desarrollaron huesos huecos con una estructura interna de panal y vejigas aéreas. Gracias a esta adaptación, estos murciélagos pueden alcanzar tamaños comparables al de los extintos Pterodactiloideos. Dentro de este grupo, tenemos a las Gárgolas, que son omnívoras y viven en montañas. Al igual que muchos murciélagos reales, las Gárgolas son nocturnas, y duermen durante el día en las laderas de las montañas, protegidos únicamente por su gruesa piel. Sus pieles son abrigadas y gracias a su color gris oscuro absorben los rayos del Sol con facilidad, convirtiéndolos en calor, pero aparte, su color y textura rugosa los hace parecer de piedra, con lo cual evitan la atención de depredadores durante las horas de sueño. En época históricas, se ha reportado Gárgolas anidando en las torres de castillos e Iglesias. Siendo que son animales sociales, no es raro ver manadas enteras durmiendo en montañas, aparentando ser estatuas, o manadas buscando comida juntas. ●Artiodáctilos: Imaginemos una cruza entre una Cabra Montés (Capra pyrenaica) y un Dragón Volador (Draco Volans). Un animal que se alimenta de pasto, vive en la montaña, y escapa de sus depredadores, o simplemente cruza el abismo deslizándose con un pelagio que se extiende por unas costillas modificadas. Cómo un extra, agreguemos pelo fusionado en escamas similares a las de un Pangolin, que le sirve tanto de protección, como para el camuflaje, al simular ser piedra. Cuando se sienten amenazados, se agachan y se quedan quietos, aparentando ser parte del entorno. ]
[Question] [ So if my incredibly basic understanding of how brains across animal species work is that the brain is compartmentalised into a bunch of different sectors that handle things like sight, language, fight or flight, motor control etc, but all these neurons across the sectors are the same. But as there is little need to activate the whole of the brain, most of the brain goes unused in day to day life. So wouldn't it be more efficient/give a higher capacity for intelligence if the brain acted as one homogeneous entity, with an organic BIOS sector that has the brain use more of itself to perform the different tasks that the sectors would normally do. Lets say an organism is just doing its thing but then it suddenly needs to do a specific task like solve a complex puzzle, could it theoretically devote an extremely disproportionate amount of its brain to solving that one puzzle, come to a solution and then power down puzzle solving, giving heightened priority to other senses such as sight, hearing, smell and touch in the mean time? This means that it could adjust its brain on the fly to deal with its situations giving it far more flexibility to survive. TL;DR Load the boot floppy for a task over a large area of a brain then power down when task is done I am aware that most of your brain isn't sitting, twiddling its thumbs waiting to be used and that interconnected sectors frequently communicate and crosstalk, however I am wondering if this would be more efficient/give a higher capacity for intelligence. [Answer] This already exists, kind of. Let me elaborate for a bit. For starters, we don't *really* understand how the brain works. We have ideas, certainly, and can draw correlations, but our knowledge of the brain continues to expand. For instance, the notion that we only use part of our brain isn't exactly true. It's more accurate to say that the conscious mind only is perceived to use part of our mind, but it's likely that we couldn't use that without the remainder of it being used by the subconscious in ways we don't fully understand yet. And, speaking of subconscious, it can be used to achieve the very process you're talking about. When the conscious mind hits a wall against a problem, it will delegate that to the subconscious. This is why 'taking a break' when dealing with a problem can be beneficial - it gives the subconscious time to solve the problem which will then filter back to the conscious. That is, of course, how this process works in a *human*. Now, could an intelligence theoretically exist that could do this consciously? Possibly, but there exists a major drawback. Delineating conscious, or to put it in computer terms, parallel processing, is purely speculative and there are *many* challenges with that, so let's not assume its possible for the time being. In a being with one conscious, diverting the consciousness to solving a single problems means **completely shutting out external stimuli**, which is potentially lethal. True, the problem solving will be more efficient, but no creature that voluntarily shuts outside stimuli will manage to make it. So, in summary, a current variant of this exists and is used by humans, but a more specialized version of it probably wouldn't arise naturally in a creature. [Answer] If I understand correctly your question you would like each sector of the brain to be able to execute a different type of task depending on the situation. We don't know if this is already happening, but a lot of observations have been made with tomography and pet scanners and it doesn't seem to be the case. Each group of neurons seem to be performing a very specialised task. If some areas of the brain appear to be active with many different types of reasoning chances are that they are performing low level tasks that are needed by many different higher level operations. You may imagine a neuron as a component of a [programmable logic device](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_logic_device) where the configuration is performed by altering chemically the sensitivity to a signal or by growing new synaptic connections. All the logic is built in the circuit. Each group of neurons can be configured into a circuit that performs a certain task, but it takes a while to reconfigure that circuit to perform another task, as it is the brain you imagine is unlikely. A workaround could be a neuron that has a lot more synapses. The synapses could be working in groups, each active in a particular situation, thus there could be different circuits built around the same group of neurons. Trouble is, how to switch on or off a certain group of synapses? There could be an idea, a part of the neuron we understand little or nothing is the feedback synapse, it may suppress or enhance a signal, now we don't know when, how or why, but it would fit in your story as a group of switches that can quickly re-program some parts of the brain. The drawback of such a brain is that the huge amount of synapses would increase dramatically the amount of heath to dissipate. [Answer] Ok, first thing first, all that "6% of your brain" stuff is rubbish, as everyone has pointed out. Your brain is on, all the time, although quite a lot of it is doing the brain equivalent of looping cat gifs. Second thing second, the human brain has been shaped by millions of years of iterative improvement via evolution. You can't really improve on evolution as far as optimisation goes. Where you *can* do better than evolution, however, is when the optimisation function changes. Evolution has, by necessity, optimised for a generalist brain that uses a mixture of good-enough heuristics, past experience, instinct (basically, genetically encoded past experience) and, occasional, conscious computation. This particular setup is a bit of a jack of all trades, and obviously the most successful so far. This is your generic big-box-store home PC, can do most things, none terribly well, but at the best performance-to-price ratio. But perhaps you want "specialised" brains, not all that good globally but really, really good at very specific things. Your database server will need disk I/O and your backup server will need hard drive space and your bitcoin miner will need ~~a Ponzi scheme~~ processing power, and so on. Evolution isn't actually all that good in delivering these; so you have some potential here. ## Existing neurodivergent traits Without wanting to make hay of the rather offensive "idiot savant" stereotype, there are specific tasks that people with particular neurodivergent features tend to excel at. Autism often comes with exceptional attention to detail and subject-specific memory, ADHD with lateral thinking and hyperfocus, and so on. In your world (we are worldbuilding, yes?) particularly unusual individuals might be sought out and, instead of being "treated" to make them behave more like the majority, their rare features may be encouraged (or exploited, if you will), perhaps in environments that accommodate and minimise the negative impacts of these traits. ## Drugs Not going to google this at work, but you can clearly enhance specific brain functions through stimulants and other mind-altering substances. Many cultures have done so historically, and despite a layer of disapproval, so does ours. What if amphetamines were as common as caffeine? What if a monthly "cache wipe" with hallucinogens were something that your GP advises? ## Get rid of unnecessary skills One of the sources for the idea that most of your brain is not used is based on observing which parts of the brain can be removed (surgically or due to trauma) without resulting in specific impairment. Turns out, you can remove (individually) many chunks of the brain! That's not because they were useless, but because the brain has a lot of plasticity and redundancy. The rest of the brain will cover for the missing chunk by redirecting some other region to provide a passable bodge. So, perhaps you could free up some brain regions from jobs that you have decided are not really that useful. One mentioned above is sensory input - do you *really* need the sense of smell? Get rid. Deaf people do just fine. So do blind people, and look at all that free visual cortex that you can now use for something else! Of course, again, there's a reason why blindness and deafness have not become evolutionary selected traits - their drawbacks are significant in our society, and it's not obvious that the "free" brainpower could really be used effectively for another task. Again, it's up to your world to accommodate these people and develop a training regime that maximises the reallocation of cortical areas to your task of interest. And perhaps make sure they never find out that you blinded/deafened them in the womb so you could make their brain into a supercomputer. Or how about imagination? Do we really need the ability to make playable films of events in our head, or paint images from descriptions? Turns out, the answer is no: indeed, about [1% of the population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia) does not form mental images at all, and many more don't form sensorially vivid memories. That is *a lot* of hard drive space freed up. [Answer] ## It is not more efficient. ### It takes time for signals to travel. It takes time for signals to travel, so processing related things in physically limited regions is more efficient then processing over a distributed region. ### For a given task, task specific hardware is always faster/more efficient then general purpose. Certain tasks are common, and frequent, such as audio processing. Having dedicated hardware(parts of the brain) dedicated to common tasks is more efficient then general purpose. Evidenced by integrated circuit history. ## You are betting against evolution. You are suggesting a more efficient solution then a system that has undergone millions of iterations, that includes efficiency in the selection criteria. This is almost certainly a losing bet. [Answer] # Concentration, training, education, freedom Q: *Lets say an organism is just doing its thing but then it suddenly needs to do a specific task like solve a complex puzzle, could it theoretically devote an extremely disproportionate amount of its brain to solving that one puzzle, come to a solution and then power down puzzle solving* My two cents do NOT go down the road of modifying biology. Our ape brain is quite efficient, apart from SF or cyborg solutions I don't see a science based "changing" the physical brain. It works. Nevertheless some interesting ways of optimizing *brain use* exist, **Close your eyes: concentration and redirection of the visual cortex** Humans already "power down" but in some cases, the available capacity remains in place and is made good use of... people power down e.g. their visual tasks and redirect capacity of the virtual cortex, when they close their eyes. Same with the motoric system.. When you're solving puzzles, you generally prefer to sit down in a chair, rather than riding a bicycle. While solving puzzles sometimes you close your eyes, your memory projects patterns on the retina pop up, you could - subconciously - associate these patterns with the answer (or a specific word) you need to solve in your puzzle. The most common "savants" like living calculators also use the visual system, they *see patterns* associated with numbers. Possibly, redirection of the visual system resources will be possible with some kind of training? <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677591/> **Education starting in the womb** Higher level brain parts don't do preprogrammed tasks. Every detail of higher brain functions like senses and language is learned. The learning already starts in the mother's womb. The structure of speech and phonetics. Consider designing stimulus patterns that affect certain thought reflexes, or suppress them. Maybe there's some formula, a set of patterns to let children be born more intelligent.. or speak 3 languages.. or understand the chromatic scale better and play music. **Educate kids anyway.. tiger mothers** I general, 2/3 of the world population could improve their brain function when properly educated. Some kids are susceptible to ambitious mothers.. and develop skills much faster than other kids. How do these incentives work and would they be applicable when a "tiger mother" is absent? or money lacks to pay for school.. <https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention/convention-text-childrens-version> **Generalist experience: lengthen freedom of youth, postpone adulthood** The more you're involved in specialization, the less flexible your brain will become, on the long term. Current schools are focusing on preparing a kid's brain to be ready for economic activity like work. They finish that process at a relatively young age. Postpone work and specialization, or [postpone adulthood](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/opinion/sunday/the-case-for-delayed-adulthood.html) until you're 30-35, it will be rooted in experience and less dream-like. And you'll have more patience to execute your wild plans. Executing wild plans does help your brain to develop. [Answer] I think for extreme improvements you'd need **cyborging**. **Brain chips**: Enhanced memory, reflexes, stored skills, stored instructions, maps. **Modems**: The ability to send/receive computer information from other people and/or a mainframe. Potentially this gives... 1. A perfect memory stored externally that's accessible by everyone. The movie "Anon" did a good job showcasing a civilization where everyone can do this. 2. Mixed reality (i.e. Virtual Reality clues or other information overlaid on what you see). So if you're chasing someone and they're in a crowd, your target could be highlighted if a computer somewhere knows which one he is. 3. Downloadable skills like in the Matrix. 4. Communication with others in a way that's close to telepathy. 5. Control over machinery that's designed to be controlled remotely. Either of those would also include lightning calculation and perfect awareness of time. [Answer] # Probably not. Before we dive into the problem itself, let's talk about two little things that often get in the way of such structures: specialization and energy efficiency. In nature really what matters is 2 things: not dying and reproducing successfully. Not dying requires that you have enough energy to survive, as well as the means to get that energy, but if you're a colossal mass of undifferentiated cells, chances are that you'll be outcompeded by another clump with specialized ones, because when it comes to energy efficiency, it's best to divide your "workers" so that each is responsible no more than a small couple of functions. If everyone must be responsible for everything, everyone is burning huge amounts of energy for no reason, and chances are that the whole process might actually becomes slower, because they're not able to focus on that one thing alone. This strategy of specialization is in fact so successful that its present on nearly every single euchariotic cell in the world, them having special organelles that each handle a different function necessary for the cell's survival, and this specialization is also present in our brains, which is why our brain is divided into different regions that do different things (the part that handles vision is very different from the part that handles abstract thinking, which is different from the one coordinating the so-called "autonomous" processes of your body). In reality, at no point does any part of our brain lies there waiting for its time to shine, they're all working all the time, never stopping even while you sleep. In fact, should a part of it stops working, it usually means you had a stroke or something similar, and that the part in question, or at least a portion of it, has died. So in comes the question: why isn't a brain that can fully concentrate on one thing and one thing alone at a time be necessary better? Well, for you to be capable of doing pull-ups and play the piano like a master, even if you're never doing both simultaneously, you necessarily require both the strength needed to do pull-ups and the delicate finger movements/knowledge to play the piano, and given how usually delicate movements become less delicate as you become stronger, it means it's highly unlikely that you'll ever be as good at either as someone who can focus on only one of those. As the old saying goes: "jack of all trades, master of none". Being flexible with where you can get food and live is usually a good survival strategy, but it also makes you less competent than something fully specialized at doing that one thing or living in that one place. Similarly, not only is it impossible for your brain to fully redirect itself to do only one thing (since, you know, your organs would all stop if it did that meaning you'd be at high risk of death), but even having only a couple of its structures redirected to be able to do that is highly likely to result in an overall higher average energy cost (which is a very bad thing when our brains, already very energy efficient, use up 30% of all the energy in your body, the cost of big-brain power being a selecting factor on why intelligence isn't necessarily always a good thing for every single creature). Instead we already have a brain that, being specialized, can work on various things at the same time with little additional energy cost. Sure, being able to solve a math equation in your head in seconds is neat, but when it comes to survival, being able to dynamically use the various parts of your brain in unison to hunt prey, avoid becoming prey yourself is better. It's precisely because survival is usually reliant on efficiency, dynamism and flexibility that specialization is overall a more successful strategy over the more costly option of only partially specializing them. As for your idea of moments of high priority to certain senses, it's called a flight or fight response, and it actually causes changes to your entire body,increasing breathing rate, suppressing functions such as digestion and immune response, "heightening" your senses and others. Similar physiological changes also happen in when your [mammalian diving response](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3768097/) kicks in. Overall, there's a disappointingly high amount of things our bodies **could** do, but often doesn't unless it sees them as necessary, because stronger, faster and more agile bodies are also more costly to maintain. [Answer] **It may work, but it could affect some core functionality of brain and could affect it's reliability.** It is just unknown at the moment, how exactly brain is function. I'm sure, there lot of redundancy, but it is unknown, what parts are redundant. But exist lot of facts, cases where brain got huge damage, but still working. Also known many cases, when people got huge permanent damage, but survived and restored high functions, as I know, naturally alive parts of brain rewired design and preserved parts redistributed work from now absent parts. And it is also fact, that lot of people constantly suffer damage of parts of their brain. So exists also other side of question - if we will optimize brain, it is possible, that will be lot of fatal cases, like someone hit head against mattress and become incapable. Also unknown, how large margin really need brain to function. So answer, I don't know what is the shortest way to create brain, but I could share with you some info I have gathered, about current state of brain research. From what I know, the best I hear, works on study blind-deaf-mute. Also may give additional info works with autistic persons, dyslexia and some other disorders, where science consider brain damaged, if compared to ideally healthy persons. And I think, not long left, before we got answers. But also possible, we will not got exact answers, what I mean, you could read in Lem, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_XIV> . Also good <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)> ]
[Question] [ Currently, I am designing a sapient species whose only dextrous appendages are their prehensile mouthparts. I am aware that there are some issues with this, but I can think of ways to avoid or comfortably handwave away all but one of them: The issue of hygiene that comes from having to put your mouth on everything you want to pick up. In short, the title pretty much says it all; How can a species whose only body parts with significant dexterity are their mouths avoid contracting infection diseases too easily to plausibly build an industrial civilization? [Answer] Most animals do *a lot* more handling of items with their mouths than we do, because the human quirk of having kept two limbs aside for non-locomotive activities is pretty unusual. So overall you are probably worrying about this too much - grabbing things in your mouth is the default. However you can also look at the specific examples of animals that are unusually dexterous, unusually filthy etc. * **Elephants** use their trunk for manipulation; you can argue that getting noxious stuff in your respiratory tract is far more dangerous than your mouth, since you don't have the additional security granted by teeth, stomach acids etc. They have lots of both strong and delicate muscles that help them control the flow and pressure of materials inside their trunk (e.g. if they have filled it with water for spraying or drinking). So you could have an elongated appendage ([Opabinia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opabinia#/media/File:20191108_Opabinia_regalis.png)-style) that connects the manipulating "lips" to the mouth, and increase the control layers in the "tube" part to reduce the chance of unwanted content. * **Vultures** eat really grotty stuff. They get away with it by having ridiculously strong stomach acids (pH 1) but also by making sure that delicious but admittedly pretty putrid bits of lunch don't stick to their feathers, by having bald heads and necks. Both of these aspects could be applicable - corrosive digestion, and hairless/featherless mouthparts and surrounding areas (maybe even actively slimy?) * **Hawk-moths** (and many others) have specialised mouthparts for feeding on trumpet-shaped flowers, resulting in a thin, tube-like proboscis longer than their body. You could have a similar specialisation extending from the inner part of the digestive tract, such that when members of your species need to eat, they extend this long "straw" feeding straight into their gut, while the "outer" mouthparts, lips and maybe tongue, are used *only* for manipulation (and have actually no access to the digestive tract). You would be limited to eating liquid, possibly highly-processed food, which may factor into their industrialisation and society. [Answer] Don't overestimate the role of proper hygiene in the wild, there are plenty of animals who practice rather unhygienic habits: * chickens and birds in general seems to have no problems in feeding among their own droppings * some animals feed on rotting corpses * horses seems to feed on dog dropping, when the dog has eaten carb rich food (and then they risk dying if the droppings are wrapped in a plastic bag by the dog owner) Basically, you should worry about your manipulatory appendix hygiene only when and if the place from where you are taking the object to manipulate is clean/safe enough. Washing hands before taking something out of a fuming dung pile won't make much for safety/hygiene. It's up to an animal's immune system ensuring that such threats are contained and do not bear too much damage. [Answer] > > The issue of hygiene that comes from having to put your mouth on everything you want to pick up. > > > I have two family members who face this ordeal on a daily basis: my baby kid and my dog. Hopefully at least one of them will grow over this issue over time. In the meantime I have been reassured that things will be fine by the fact that kids and dogs have been doing this for millions of years and yet we still have humans and dogs alive today. Our pediatrician also told my spouse that our kid is protected by an immunological system[citation needed], so we only need to worry that he doesn't eat his own [redacted] nor come into contact with something he'd be allergic to. I think the lesson here is that as long as your creatures have an immune system, they should be fine. Evolution will naturally select only those who are resistant to whatever germs are around, so they can lick the world in peace. [Answer] ## Backwashing Why not design your creature with a mouth that, unless in eating mode, is very good at keeping dirt near the outside? Then rapidly shoot saliva globs out at high speed, cleansing the mouth. Combine with a filter for maximum effectiveness; this is, after all, how industrial water filter systems work. Filter until the filter blocks, backwash, repeat. ]
[Question] [ Could an animal have eyes like a reflecting telescope, rather than with a lens? The back of this eyeball is a paraboloid mirror, and the retina is a small body on its focal plane. Because the retina must be small, such an eye would have poorer resolution than a vertebrate eye of similar size. Are there any organic mirrors in the real world? How smooth is the reflective layer behind a cat’s retina? [Answer] Yes. Scallops have almost exactly this kind of eye: [Scallops Have Eyes, and Each One Builds a Beautiful Living Mirror](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/scallops-have-eyes-and-each-one-builds-a-beautiful-living-mirror/547115/) [Scallops have 200 eyes, which function like a telescope: study](https://phys.org/news/2017-11-scallops-eyes-function-telescope.html) "Almost", because they actually have two separate retinas, an upper retina and a lower retina, with the back-of-the-eye mirror shaped to separately focus the central and peripheral visual fields on different retinae. The mirrors are made of specially structured guanine crystals, with layer spacing optimized for blue-green light (which dominates the scallop's environment). [Answer] (note: I have to handwave the biological material able to reflect, I'm not an expert on that) **Optic principle remains the same** In fact, this is not very different from the optics we currently have. Our eye lens does the job of focussing now. As far as I know in species with our type of eyesight, the eye lens focuses the incoming light on a particular small region on the retina (called *macula*), with the highest concentration of receptor cells. Behind this spot, bundles of neuron connections lead the signals to the brain. Using reflection, macula will have to move to the front. **An advanced eye using reflection** A reflective construct is conceivable, see Logan's answer. But Mollusca don't require much, this *single* eye will require some changes. Suppose light could reflect from the back of the retina, and land in a *macula* on the opposite side somewhere.. Below is a sketch, exact geometry would be quite different.. the ellipse of the reflecting back retina would be more elongated (eye made deeper) and point back, reflecting up, near a tilted parabole.. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/gm99N.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/gm99N.png) **Design around the optic nerve must be changed** I see a physiological issue with the new location of the macula. There is little room for thick bundles of nerves to connect there.. Behind our eyes, large bundles with connections are now kept safely inside.. With nerve bundles going back inward, near the nose and forehead, the optic nerve would become far more vulnerable, that is not in a protected location.. neuronal connections would need a longer bundle, or brain physiology should be adjusted to the new outlet location. **Leaving the eye lens in could give interesting options..** The mammal eye is basically a spheroid shape, filled with fluid. When the retina is reflective and we leave the eye lens out, some kind of transparent fleece would still be needed, to keep the [vitreous body](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitreous_body) isolated from the cornea and iris. Now suppose you would simply leave the eye lens in.. and the retina would be able to reflect effectively.. you will have a 3 lens system, that is cornea, eye lens and retina curvature. This system could be designed with certain muscles, allowing for e.g. microscopic eyesight. [Answer] The main problem with a totally reflective design is that it has a open body, which is unwanted for a biological surface like the retina, both in terms of protection of the surface and stability of the medium through which the light travels. Reflective material per se are possible, as demonstrated by the [tapetum lucidum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapetum_lucidum) > > The tapetum lucidum (/təˈpiːtəm luˈsiːdəm/; from Latin tapetum lūcidum 'bright tapestry, coverlet'; pl. tapeta lucida) is a layer of tissue in the eye of many vertebrates. Lying immediately behind the retina, it is a retroreflector. It reflects visible light back through the retina, increasing the light available to the photoreceptors (although slightly blurring the image). The tapetum lucidum contributes to the superior night vision of some animals. > > > If you are going to put a lid of some sort to have a closed body design, it makes sense that it has also optical properties: it has to be transparent, so it makes more sense to have it diffract the light. In that sense it would be an hybrid design, refractive-reflective. ]
[Question] [ I am currently creating a world in which the group in question is intended to **ride reindeer** rather than horses. The reasons for this aren't quite relevant, but they simply don't have horses available to most people unless they are extremely rich. The reindeer in question are **different from real-world reindeer**, but for the sake of future questioners coming to find an answer, I will pretend these are real-world reindeer of any kind. Though, that info permits a tad of handwavium if it can be reasonably evolved in a semi-short timespan. The environment they are in, if applicable, is a mix of cold desert/tundra, taiga, and mountains. They eventually gain access to horses more readily, but I was still curious if reindeers would make good mounts that could contend with horses in some manners. It is worth noting that these reindeer are domesticated, can have any riding gear that was available in the 15th century and prior or was plausible to create, and should be appropriate for casual use such as a draft animal or trail animal, if that helps clear up any cons or creates any pros. Bonus points if you can justify a reindeer as a war mount. In conclusion, **what are the pros and cons of using reindeer as mounts instead of horses?** [Answer] You'd have to cut the antlers down. This is because reindeer shake their heads from side to side in a way that would interfere with a rider. Reindeer have been ridden in the past. [This video is a montage of daily life in the Soviet Union, in the 70s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELfrtyrcToY). Starting from 0:58 you can see two men riding reindeer in the snow. I assume these to be Eastern S√°mi, somewhere on the Kola Peninsula. The [S√°mi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1mi_people) have been taming and herding reindeer for many centuries. But it's rare to see them be ridden. Much more common is for a sled to be attached to a small number of reindeer. I believe this is because a reindeer is somewhat smaller than a horse, so a man sitting on top is quite a load. But your people could maybe overcome this with selective breeding or some kind of handwavium. Or, your people could be physically smaller of course. There is a scene in Disney's Snow White & the Seven Dwarves, where the Dwarves, having realized that the girl is in danger of being poisoned by the second-most beautiful woman, rush back from the mines on the backs of what look like adolescent roe deer, or possibly fallow deer. But this seems a little far-fetched. As for your question about advantages over a horse, it would be the climate. Reindeer have a much easier time in the Arctic than a horse would. [![This man is riding a reindeer](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dX80H.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dX80H.jpg) The picture was taken from [here](https://www.nrk.no/sapmi/synliggjor-reindrifta-i-mongolia-1.11036183). On this page you can also see the president of Mongolia riding a reindeer. [Answer] Horse's hooves are a modified form of the middle toe's nail. This kind of hoof works well on solid ground, but not so well elsewhere. Reindeer (Europe) or caribou (North America) have cloven hooves that can be flexed. They can spread out to provide a larger surface when walking on soft ground or snow, and on icy surfaces they can dig in and grip much better than a solid hoof. ([Caribou and Reindeer Hooves](https://www.athropolis.com/arctic-facts/fact-caribou-hoof.htm)) So, if the land where your story takes place is soft or snowy, caribou have a definite advantage over horses. (They are also kosher, so if any of your characters happen to be Jewish, or Rastafarian, or Seventh Day Adventist, or Ethiopian Orthodox, or whatever, that might be an advantage too.) ]
[Question] [ In my mecha-action story, I wish to have an island in the midpoint between South America and Africa along the equator. Given the weather and seafaring conditions of the area, is this feasible? Or would it just be a tsunami and hurricane prone country? [Answer] It would not be particularly difficult, thanks to the [Mid-Atlantic Ridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_Ridge), an underwater mountain chain that separates the North and South American Plates from the Eurasian and African Plates. Despite the depth of the ocean around it, the ridge itself is so tall that it breaches the surface in a number of places to form islands, and with standard construction techniques you could easily anchor a platform to a submerged peak that wasn't too deep. Weather would not be a major hazard, as it falls into the [Intertropical Convergence Zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertropical_Convergence_Zone), which has erratic but not usually very threatening weather. There are occasionally large thunderstorms, but never hurricanes; the nature of hurricane formation is that they migrate *away from* the ITCZ. If it suits your purposes, you might be able to talk Brazil into letting you use the [Saint Peter and Saint Paul archipelago](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Peter_and_Saint_Paul_Archipelago), located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge about 1000km off the coast of Brazil and some 100km north of the equator. [Answer] If by island you mean *floating island* as opposed to one physically connected to the seas floor then yes. The mid Atlantic reaches depths in excess of 7000 meters at some points. A large floating structure could be built at one or more coastal facilities in segments then towed to virtually any location you desired in international waters. Your 'island' would at least need station keeping thrusters to keep it in position although it **might** be possible to construct 7 kilometer long plus anchor chains and attach them to massive weights dropped onto the sea floor (I don't know I'm not an engineer). But station keeping would certainly be the easier option as long as you have power. If power is not an issue you could actual give it bigger engines (or its own fleet of tugs) and take it anywhere you want. Keep it mind a large floating 'island' wont be a monolithic structure, parts will need to be able to flex and compress in response to wave pressure & other factors like differences in temperature etc. [Answer] **Yes, have your artificial island! And the weather there sucks.** I looked for a picture on DeviantArt of a colossal colony ship many kilometers long, purposefully scuttled in the ocean to make your artificial island. No luck. If someone finds one or is inspired to draw one please add it! The weather there is terrible. But this is an artificial island and that comes with advantages. The sides slope steeply up and there are not surge-scoured lowlands near the shore as is usually the case. Buildings and other structures are planted firmly in the hull of the colony ship and are not easily blown away. Having frequent storms and terrible weather will make for fun stories! ]
[Question] [ ### Background and Goal I'm building a science fiction setting for a game that will have a lot of space combat focused around fighters. One thing I wanted to avoid was letting the setting drift towards what is deemed realistic space combat where ships would be firing on each other from far outside visual range or simply ignoring the logic that would lead to such combat standard. I have decided, though, that the realistic space combat format would be the "old way" of fighting so that a lot of really old ships look like they were designed with that form of combat in mind. ### [Previous Attempt](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/100861/can-electronic-warfare-be-used-to-bring-space-combat-into-visual-range-and-prote) I've looked into a few different ways to limit the setting to visual range space combat and one was having fleets saturate the area with so much electronic warfare measures that such long range combat was impossible as sensors would not be able to detect ships accurately enough to fire at from outside visual range. This wouldn't stop automatic point defenses. Those would make fighters useless (in fact, point defenses are kind of overpowered in current builds of my game right now, so I'm having to constantly adjust them without making them useless.) ### The Treaty Another approach that came to mind was simply having a treaty between the major powers of this region of the galaxy. One that forbids any form of automated combat unit, requiring every weapon have a sentient being to pull the trigger and aim. Some exemptions might be made for defensive weaponry on civilian ships. There is one large exception, sentient AI. Sentient robots exist within the setting and are recognized as citizens with full rights, including military service, for both factions involved in the story. There is only one limit set by the treaty, that they are not given the ability to connect with combat equipment to gain more direct control. Instead, they must rely on the same physical controls as other sentient beings. It could be the result of a malfunction that caused a group of combat robots to slaughter civilians in a war, a horrific incident where a ship's automated weapons fired on diplomatic vessels during peace talks, it could be simply be a war deterrent or it could even have been written by a more advanced civilization that presents it to any sufficiently advanced race to try to keep the scale of war between the younger races in check by threat of their intervention. Regardless of its origin, the treaty would forbid any form of weapon to be entirely operated by a non-sentient force. I'm considering making it go a step further and even forbid automatic tracking of targets, even ones chosen by a sentient being, forcing gunners to have to manually aim the weapons to make point defenses less effective. What the treaty will forbid: * Computerized systems that can acquire and/or fire on a target without input from a sentient being (every weapon must have at least one sentient controlling it and make the final call to fire) * Control range and payload limits on unmanned military vessels (drones) * Equipment that can produce combat units without any sentient direction, interaction or supervision * Combat vehicles that can interface with sentient robots to give them more direct control than an organic pilot would have * AI, sentient or otherwise, integrated into any military equipment that isn't explicitly denied access to the equipment's weapon systems How would this treaty affect warfare between interstellar powers? Clarification: * I'm looking at how this will change tactics in warfare, not for obscure loopholes as the wording I used above is not going to be exact. * The goal of the treaty is to make sure that every shot fired as a sentient/intelligent operator making the decision to fire. Using an automated system to prompt involuntary reflexes to fire would be a violation of the treaty. * I plan to revise the exact wording of the treaty to make sure it takes into account potential future developments, as well. For example, the limit on the control range of remote operated combat units will be a set distance [Answer] ### The treaty In broad strokes, the treaty should include: * A preamble that defines the general goal of the treaty, and affirms that it is only valid for signatories against other signatories. * Article 1 defines *explicitely and exhaustively* the **entities allowed** to operate weapon systems. If it's only humans, you can leave it a "humans" or "homo sapiens sapiens". You may add other requirements, such as being a member of the armed forces. Anything that doesn't meet the criteria (e.g. computers and chimpanzee) may not legally fire a gun. * Article 2 defines what constitutes a **decision to fire** and reaffirm it is exclusive to entities defined in Art.1. I would suggest a decision needs to be *affirmative and explicit*. This would include pressing a button, pulling a trigger, typing a command, but would exclude a deadman switch (not affirmative, since the lack of action triggers the shot). Add provisions for a continuous decision, such as keeping the finger on the trigger as one continuous decision. * Article 3 defines what constitutes a **shot**. At its most restrictive, a single shot from a single cannon at a single target. It may be extended to allow a single shot from multiple cannons of a single entity at a single target taken in coordination at the same time (volley fire) and multiple shots from a single cannon taken at a single target in rapid succession (continuous fire). You might want to make volley fire and continuous fire mutually exclusive. * Article 4 defines that a single *decision* equates to a single *shot*. You should affirm that a decision needs to be **unique** to a situation (e.g. "fire now on this target I'm aiming at") and cannot be delayed or conditional (e.g. "fire on the next blue uniform"). Affirm that continuous fire may only be taken with a continuous decision. * Article 5 defines what may be considered **accidental or misfire**. Incidents under this article *do not* engage the responsibility of the nation that committed them vis-à-vis the treaty, although it does not absolve them from criminal prosecution. The general idea being *honest mistakes* should not be considered violations. * Article 6 defines what **may not be considered accidental or misfire**. It should establish a mechanism to investigate and deliberate on such incidents. Incidents under this article *will engage* the responsibility of the nation that committed them. * Article 7 defines the **penalties** for violating the treaty. The harshest penalty would probably be exclusion from the treaty (and thus lack of protection thereof). * More articles can define which tasks can be performed by automated systems, and which cannot. You might for instance want to define a distance (either physical e.g. in kilometers, in steps e.g. how many mechanical systems, or in something more metaphorical) between the button press and the gun firing. * Yet more articles should define how the treaty can be **updated**, and probably include a periodic **review process** to make sure it is working as intended. ### The consequences International law is highly voluntary. As such, you need to have an array of sanctions that is well-defined and makes abiding by the treaty more attractive than not. If the treaty concerns the development of weapons, then you would probably see most nations acquiring the theoretical knowledge to make killer robots but lack the means of immediate production. While it would take weeks or months to convert industry and build infrastructure to mass-produce them, there should be enough civilian applications that you wouldn't have much adjustments to make to field a relatively effective army of robot soldiers. If the treaty concerns use of weapons, then you might have them stockpiled in a corner, or even embedded but disabled in current systems. If a nation broke rank, other would be able to use their own arsenal almost immediately. That would likely increase the perceived threat of violating the treaty, but it would also likely make the violation more tempting if you just have a switch to flip. In and out of itself, I think the protections offered by this treaty aren't excessively dissuassive. A bullet is a bullet, whether fired by a human or a robot. The benefits of an automated army probably outclass the cost of it. Therefore, I would suggest to make this treaty a part of a larget set of agreements (on e.g. POWs, WMDs, and other regulations on war), and *make them a packaged deal*. Violating any of them should violate all of them. You want to include things such as insuring civilians aren't indiscriminently slaughtered, that glassing a planet is not an acceptable tactic, that providing assistance to military ships dead in space is required, and anything that distinguishes beetween civilised skirmishes and the unadultered savagery of war. Taken together, the protection those treaties provide should be invaluable enough that you don't want to risk going against it. At that point, restricting development gives an edge to nation that can covertly and illegally do it, so restricting use might be a better option, and the looming threat of unregulated war should be enough to create a **balance of terror** as long as forces remain balanced. Ultimately, that's the only thing that will keep this treaty relevant. [Answer] **Computer virus.** This is an infection of AI and other computer systems. It is not clear how it is transmissible. Systems with no connection to other systems still can get infected; possibly the virus propagates through subspace. Back in the day this virus infected most or all of the AI combat systems and many other things besides. The virus does not just break things; it slaves the infected thing to an obscure mass mind, with obscure motives. Infected systems are unreliable, and instead of your goals infected systems may start pursing the goals of the virus. The virus might be a weapon, or an evolved thing, or possibly a life form from somewhere else. Back in the day it took a systematic purge to get rid of this virus and result is a heavy reliance on biological systems, clockwork, vacuum tubes and other infection proof automations. The aforementioned ancient ships have their infected systems removed or if not removed, detached from control of the ships and just present, mute. Sometimes people talk with them. There are places and vessels which were abandoned by life, relinquished to the virus. It is not clear what goes on in such places now. As regards the robot sentiences those that remain must have some intrinsic resistance to infection. Some adhere to a religion-like discipline that they think protects them. Robots used to be a lot quicker in the old days, or so people say. There are no new robots, and the ones still around are not quick at all; many are slower thinking than most biologics. Age? Infection? It is not known, but you don't want these robots anywhere that requires fast reflexes or quick thought. [Answer] # Biological Warfare 2.0 You explicitly mention a sentient being needs to be in control. Thing is, there is uncertainty about what sentience entails. At the core, sentience just means being able to feel stuff. Nearly every multicellular organism on Earth is sentient. Dogs are sentient. Mice are sentient. Pigeons are sentient. Fdrsl-pfs't, household favorite pets from Betelgeuse are sentient. Ob'enn, the murderbears from the Galactic Core, are sentient. I will guarantee you within minutes of this treaty even being considered, military minds will already be working on genetically engineering minimally viable, minimally sentient beings who LIVE for just being hooked up to a targeting system 24/7. Similar to the cow who wants to be eaten from H2G2. And that gets amended, less scrupulous armies will go down the Ender's Game route and start breeding the children from the undesirables to be ruthless killing machines. [Answer] ## **Biologically Triggered Weapons Systems** --- As humans we have [physical reflexes](https://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/factfiles/reflexes/reflexes.shtml): > > Most reflexes don't have to travel up to your brain to be processed, which is why they take place so quickly. A reflex action often involves a very simple nervous pathway called a reflex arc. > > > A reflex arc starts off with receptors being excited. They then send signals along a sensory neuron to your spinal cord, where the signals are passed on to a motor neuron. As a result, one of your muscles or glands is stimulated. > > > These involuntary reflexes can be used by linking a weapons operator's nervous system to the weapons mainframe and ship sensors. A ship's weapons can be almost instantaneously fired upon enemies through the following process: When a corresponding enemy triggers a sensor, a specific group of the operator's receptors can be triggered accordingly. The receptors set off a **reflex arc**, and a signal will be sent to the corresponding muscle neuron. The human operator can be trained to respond to these twitch reflexes, so that the response time is extremely short. The weapons systems could be wired to the spinal neurons that are in charge of, say, the trigger finger, and should the operator choose to fire upon receiving the twitch reflex, as soon as the operator wills it, the weapon systems can detect the spinal neuron activation, and fire accordingly. The human operator becomes the circuit connecting the sensors and the firing system of the ship. The taboo of automated systems that this circumvents: > > Computerized systems that can acquire and/or fire on a target without input from a sentient being (every weapon must have at least one sentient controlling it and make the final call to fire) > > > This taboo is circumvented, because the sentient human gives the final call to fire the weapons systems upon the enemy. It will also be much quicker than any physical action, as the weapons and sensor systems can be linked to specific neurons close to the brain. An AI could be hooked up to the sensors and provide the corresponding reflex arc on verification of an enemy, but the human, as a sentient being, would be the operator firing the weapon. ## **Consequences on Space Warfare** --- **Operators** become integrated with the weapons and sensors systems. They are hooked up to hybrid biological ships, which become an extension of their bodies. Human neuron signals are magnitudes slower than electricity or the speed of light (120m/s vs 300,000,000m/s), meaning that this method is still slower than conventional automated methods. This would mean 'Operators' would be **genetically engineered** to achieve faster neural response times and reflexes, with biological improvements to take their neural reflexes closer to the cap of the speed of light. The smaller a ship is, the better the 'reflexes' of the ship system, due to less travel time between sensors and systems (electricity and light travels at the cap of 300,000,000m/s). This would mean that smaller ships like fighters would remain incredibly versatile. Operators would most likely be employed not just as Circuits in weapons or flight systems of large ships, but also as **Fighters**, in smaller Fighter-style ships, to make extensive use of their reflexive combat abilities. Ensuing combat would be greatly decided by sensor and weapon tech, but also by how talented the Operators and their response times are (think E-Sports of today). **It is likely that greater powers with highly talented Operators would pursue more and more lethal one-hit kill weapons, greatly highlighting fast and extremely personal combat.** There would be an arms race in the development of competent and talented Operators in every major group. In summary, the pact banning automated systems would result in some [Dune-like](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacing_Guild) settings: **people are weaponized and ultimately take on the roles machines once filled. Fighter ships would remain relevant in space combat due to the cap of the propagation of light, and there would be extensive cultivation of Operator talents. All space combat would be literally personal.** [Answer] ### Decay of AI processing circuits turns them into metaphorical landmines * In near future, and AI vision chip gets invented using actual biological materials. Allows perfect processing of a video stream in real time. * Its so much better than any other method of doing it it becomes the only way we know how to do true AI vision. * After a few years, it can decay, and starts registering humans as monsters, trade ships as incoming missiles, your commanding officer as the enemy president, etc. * If an AI is under the direct control of a sentient being, they can keep and eye as their AI and replace their circuitry when it starts to show early warnings. * If an AI is left for years without human control, it will start attacking anything that moves. Civilian, friendly, etc. * Similair to how landmines are regulated on Earth, AI will need to be regulated in the same way. They need kill switches that trigger after a year without contact, they need a human monitoring them and in communication with them, etc. * And like the landmine treaty on earth, [a few rogue states](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty#:%7E:text=Currently%2C%20there%20are%20164%20States,the%20United%20States%2C%20and%20Russia.) wont sign it. [Answer] # War is replaced by ritualized battles For such a treaty to be effective it has to be enacted in spirit and not just followed by law. If your treaty is just a contract, there will be numerous loopholes and scientific advancements to get around it - and enough situations in which people are willing to cheat and get around it. If the spacefaring nations are not bound by law, but by conviction - for example honor, they will not as easily try to find loopholes. One scenario could be a heavily interwoven net of economics, where all states are codependent on each others. An all-out-war would be devastating to everybody, so military conflicts take on the shape of proxy wars, or ritualized fights with clear rules of engagement. This can also be ensured by the presence of devastating weapons, which could end any conflict by devastating means (mutually assured destruction) This could lead to a future, where military conflicts are fought with clear rules of honor and certain banned technology. A military victory over a certain patch of space is only affirmed by other nations, if the combatants followed the rules of engagement. In this scenario space-battles could be fought primarily by "knights" piloting fighters and fighting close enough so they can see and talk to their noble adversaries. *An example of a similar scenario is Dune. The galaxy is controlled by warring houses, who fight constantly over control. But they also have a galactic emperor, who acts as a neutral entity above the houses ensuring nobody uses atomics, or bio-weapons to kill an entire planet.* ]
[Question] [ In my world I need people of culture A to invade the lands inhabited by people of culture B. The invasion is successful and A conquers the territory. However, the A people adopt the B culture to a large extent, rather than imposing their own culture on B, causing them to diverge from the A people who stayed in their homeland. I know that real history has examples of invaders adopting the culture of the invaded, but in general, what are the factors you expect to see for this to take place? For context, the B people live in an island about the size of Madagascar and both A and B are comparable technology-wise (roughly tribal/pre-feudal), so it's not like barbarians invading Rome. [Answer] It is usually determined by (1) numbers, (2) unequal levels of civilization and (3) particular situations in each case. * If the conquerors are much fewer than the conquered, or * if the conquerors are barbarians and the conquered are much more advanced in civilization and technology, or * if the conquerors didn't bring women with them, then it almost certain that the conquering culture will dissolve into the conquered culture. Examples: * The conquerors are much fewer than the conquered: the French-speaking Normans in England. It will take a few generations, but eventually if the numerical difference is too large, the conquering culture will eventually wither and die. * The conquerors are much fewer than the conquered, *and* they didn't bring women with them: the Norsemen (= Vikings) in Normandy and the Varangians (= Vikings) in Kievan Russia. (The Vikings were experts at conquering lands and then promptly losing their culture and going native. Those are not the only examples.) (Women are essential because they are the driving force in preserving the culture over generations. There is a reason why we say mother tongue and not father tongue. Not bringing women practically guarantees the loss of the conquering culture in two or three generations.) * The conquerors are barbarians and the conquered are much more advanced in civilization and technology: the Germanic tribes in the Western Roman Empire, the Mongols in China and India, the Arabs in Persia. Barbarians are great warriors, but poor administrators. Wise barbarians will rely on local administrators, and this will inevitably lead to the merger of the conquering culture in the local culture, albeit usually leaving clear influences. For example, the Persians adopted the religion of the conquering Arabs, while preserving their distinct Persian language and culture. The question asks about "invaders". I have answered about "conquerors", because invasions do not necessarily have to be successful; see the British, the Russians and the Americans in Afghanistan, for an example recurring every century or so. [Answer] Some combination of: 1. It makes the conquered more tractable 2. The conquerors can only really rule with the tools of the conquered. (Mongol governance was not sufficient to govern and collect taxes from China.) 3. It's the only practical way to live in that land. (The conquered land lacks grazing for horses; your horse-dependent culture does not work.) 4. It is more pleasant than their own. Expect this to be denounced by the conquerors, but insisting that their officials walk or ride horses when they could travel by sedan chair is not going to be popular with the officials. [Answer] ### Keep the wheels turning. So, this is a great day. Your nomadic horde has finally conquered that rich agricultural country. YOUR word is now THEIR law. First day of business, two local villagers ask you to solve their dispute (you are now the law, after all). They explain to you the long history of ownership of the land of dispute. This is mind numbling to you. Your people has never cultivated the land, so they have never worried about "owning" it. They do not have rules to decide who owns the land. You do not know the pros or cons of each decission. So you pick one of the former ruler's advisors out of jail (preferibly one who still has a tongue in himself) so he can inform you of the usual way of solving this issue. That way, both parties have a ruling and they can go back to their fields and continue produce food for the court. Well, that was a good day at work. Now, where are the concubines? This damn palace is SO great. In order to reap the profits of your victory, the society conquered needs to keep working. Which means management. But your nomadic lifestyle provides no guidance to do so, so you keep the previous administration in place. With time: * Your nomadic tribe becomes settled as lords, so the nomadic traditions are no longer useful. * You realize that you need to keep an eye to maximize the profits of using the old system. Learn how it works, and you may tweak a law there or here so you get to reward an ally, or to get more revenue. ]
[Question] [ Ancient Egypt is famous for its plethora of gods and goddesses, many of whom have the head of an animal. [![egyptian gods](https://i.stack.imgur.com/18PfP.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/18PfP.jpg) [image source](http://ancientegyptmag.com/top-50-ancient-egyptian-gods-goddesses/) I'm looking for a real-life inspiration for the physical shape of these gods that might have existed during the [Early Dynastic Period of Egypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Dynastic_Period_(Egypt)). This is a time at the transition from the Neolithig (late Stone Age) to the Copper Age, when the Egyptian culture and society became more refined. The bodies of these gods are obviously human up to the neck, so let's assume that the inspiration was an actual human being. Let's further assume that plastic surgery to the extend of making a human head look like an animal was impossible at the target time. Less invasive procedures that a human could survive without antibiotics are allowed. I'm not interested in: * Any godly powers, shape shifting, immortality or other aspects of beings we would call god-like or omnipowered. * Ancient aliens or magic as an explanation * Any gods / goddesses with a human head, even if the color of skin seems unnatural * Any headdresses that are obviously accessoires (like the disks of Tefnut or Khonsu in the provided image). **Is there a mutation, medical condition or medical procedure that would make the head of a human resemble the head of an animal** while keeping the rest of the body relatively unchanged? Bonus points if the cause for the physical appearance does not inhibit the mental development or intelligence of the human (after all, a godly being must be wise). Keep the time frame in mind: [Early Egyptian Dynastic Period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Dynastic_Period_(Egypt)) (ca. 3000 BC) or earlier. The focus of this question is to find **one deformed human** resembling any animal as proto-god that could then initiate the creation of the whole pantheon in the following development of society and culture. This is my contribution to the [Anatomically Correct](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4109/53228) series. [Answer] Artificial cranial deformation. Pre Columbian cultures used binding with planks to mold the newborn babies skulls. They would grow up like so. [![like so.](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mfm6M.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mfm6M.png) The brain adapts and they served as high priests. Add some coloring, earrings and you got many "inhuman" looking "gods". [Answer] When I was a child with my family we went to visit a museum in a nearby city. Among the various items being exposed in their venue, they had an fetal pathology section where they kept a collection of various formaldehyde preserved dead borne babies with anatomical anomalies. Of the various samples I saw (yes, a kid could see it) I remember there was a hammer head one, whose profile looked like a hammer. For sure there are pathological situations leading to a deformed cranium or other abnormal physical features which can resemble some other animals, but I doubt most of them could lead to a live born, let alone a normally functioning brain. [Answer] I'm going to be that guy and say, "No." There are various deformities and conditions that will make a person look different from other people, but nothing that gives someone, say, a beetle-shaped head. There is a very rare condition called [Hypertrichosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis), or werewolf syndrome that can make someone's face very hairy, but it won't give them a cat's ears, cat's nose, whiskers, etc. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/l93P2.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/l93P2.png) A person could go through extensive plastic surgeries and body modifications to perhaps look somewhat closer to some of these gods-- see [The Lizard Man](https://www.hellzapoppin.com/lizard-man.html) or [Stalking Cat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalking_Cat)-- but ancient Egyptians would not have the technology or knowledge to perform these surgeries. [Answer] Assuming that actual deformities can't get us where we want to be (although I guess maybe JUST the right combination of [treeman syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidermodysplasia_verruciformis) to form something beak-like and/or the werewolf syndrome as mentioned in user151841's answer might get us close-ish), here's an alternative source of inspiration: People wearing furs/masks, with priests and guardians preventing sceptics from coming close enough to tell the difference. ### Anubis? [![Anubis?](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vZoC7.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vZoC7.jpg) ### Thoth? [![Thoth?](https://i.stack.imgur.com/k0x82.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/k0x82.jpg) ]
[Question] [ As a thought project, I wanted to make an alien species that eats without any use of the tongue, but I've run into the problem that it's almost impossible to swallow solids without choking without the manuverability/vacuum the tongue provides. However, I stubbornly believe a tongue is not needed to eat for a jawed vertebrate with the following restrictions: * The alien has a jaw configeration similar to most jawed vertebrates (think dogs, not snakes; the jaw is not split and cannot move independently to walk food down the esophagus like snakes do) * The alien has bifurcated lips that can move independently of eachother; imagine if you could move your upper and bottom lip as freely as your fingers, but they had a division down the middle where your cupid's bow is (providing more moving parts for extra dexterity) * The alien chews it's food minimally in the mouth, then it gets sent to the crop/gizzard for further pulverization, then back to the mouth until it is adequately chewed. The alien CANNOT * Possess a secondary jaw (although a dexterous, prolapsing esophagus would be okay) * Have an open jaw matrix like invertebrates/insects with external manipulators But the alien MAY * Seal off it's airway while eating or otherwise have an unintegrated airway to the esophagus (In other words the airway does not go anywhere near the mouth) * Have a wacky esophagus (such as being able to close, prolapse, or tighten in select areas and not others) Or any other solution that isn't flat out having a tongue or defying any of the restrictions I've put in place. [Answer] Different swallowing techniques: * **Strong throat muscles**: Once getting food between the jaws, stick your neck up allowing gravity to throw your food into your gullet, at which point the throat muscles take action and crush the food for you. No tongue! * **Sublimation**: I don't think this exists on Earth, but acids inside the creature's mouth turn the food into a gas or liquid, allowing it flow into its unique digestive system. Can also be used as a weapon against enemies (via spit or bite). May violate your 3rd bullet-point though. * **Lip-Slingshot**: You mentioned bifurcated lips - any chance the animal can kind slingshot food into its throat by using the elasticity of its lips? Messy eater though. * **Starfish**: I know you said the secondary jaw was not an option, but what if the creature's stomach traveled up to its throat? Not exactly like starfish, as some species eat with their stomachs directly, but kind of close. I hope this helps! [Answer] There are several possible solutions to this if you think about it. The tongue is used to manipulate food in your mouth. It isn't 100% there to shove it down your throat. On example would be birds. Birds often have fairly fixed tongues. They don't usually go outside of the mouth and have small upwards and downwards movements. In this case, you can see some curious head movements and beak shapes which allow a bird to guide the food into its throat which it then swallows. A key example here would be birds like the Pelican which scoop fish out and sort of just pour it down their throat. Second example are crocodile. Their tongue has little use. They just clamp down on their prey. Tear at the flesh. Then sort of jerk their head back until the food is in the appropriate position and swallow. Other examples include Fish, Turtles, Hippos and people who don't have tongues. While all but one have tongues. I believe you can imagine that the tongue has a very minimal role in all these animals eating food. Gravity and body movements make a decent substitute. Alternatively, smushing your mouth with so much food it has to go down your throat is another viable method. As an extreme example, you can look at an elephant. Instead of having a tongue, you could potentially just push the food into your throat so you can swallow it. [Answer] **What if it didn't have to breath through its mouth?** One of the main functions of the tongue is to push the food into the throat, it does this so food doesn't go into our airway and we don't choke. But if your airway wasn't in your throat, there would be no risk of choking, so something getting stuck wouldn't be a big problem. Instead of having a tongue, the floor of their mouths could be inclined so when the food gets covered in saliva, it can simply slide down into the throat without assistant. Their saliva would probably need to be more acidic/basic to break down foods a bit quicker and make them more slippery. If something gets caught in its throat, it would be a nuisance, but certainly not life threatening; it could either wait for the object to break down in its throat, hack it up, or force it down. [Answer] **Use fingers.** If dogs were to consider how humans eat, they would be puzzled. Our faces are so short. How can we bite up our food? The answer - except for drunk lady rugby players exploring alternatives, we move food to mouth using fingers. We put it in our mouths. We can poke it right in there should we choose. Take that further. Poke the food all the way into the throat with the fingers. Poke it down the throat and let the esophagus take it from there. A short mouth, long fingers, powerful throat and gizzard would all help with this endeavor but it is not that wacky. [Answer] The creature could suck food down its throat. Some fish do this in reality, and it should be possible on land if the mouth can be sealed ]
[Question] [ Is it simply inevitable that on a planet organisms would split into motile and non-motile groups? I'm planning on creating slime-like amoebic chemotrophs for my light devoid-planet that are the "plant" equivalent to earth. Is it improbable that none of these creatures become tree-like in nature and remain somewhat motile? [Answer] Every organism needs energy of some sort to survive. There are two basic strategies: go to where the energy is or wait for it to come to you. Both have advantages depending on how plentiful and mobile said energy source is, especially when you consider competition and predation, so it's reasonable to assume you'd find both. Keep in mind that once you have life, for every energy source, something *will* eventually evolve to eat it, because doing so gives a competitive advantage over things that can't. And that thing, in turn, becomes a potential energy source for something else. Lather, rinse, repeat. For instance, your chemotrophs may be harvesting chemical energy welling up from ocean fissures, which doesn't benefit from moving (except maybe spores sent off to land in other fissures), but it's inevitable that something will come along that eats the chemotrophs, and it will likely need to keep moving from fissure to fissure or it will eat one clean and then starve to death. [Answer] No, it’s not improbable at all. Evolution is driven by selective pressures, such as access to energy. Trees evolved to get tall so that way they could get more sunlight than their competitors, there is no particular reason why chemeotrophs would have selective pressure to grow tall like a tree. After all, the chemeotroph’s food is probably on the ground or in a hydrothermal vent [Answer] I think you might want to think more in terms of ecological niches - usually an organism evolves into a certain form because it is profitable to do so. There is space in the ecosystem for it, and so fitting into that role will be rewarding. If you want there to be no trees on your world, you'd want there to be a reason why trees don't exist. Perhaps large herbivores with powerful jaws evolved quite rapidly and so ate anything resembling a trunk, therefore "trees" never really came into being and instead you'll find shrubbery. --- Also, "plants and animals" is quite a reductive way of viewing our ecosystems. You might want to research other life forms - like fungi, which are present in a lot of different forms - and the variations within these categories of life. Mosses and algae are plants, so is grass, and so are trees, but these each fit very different ecological niches. [Answer] If you consider a lot of aquatic life belonging to the animalia realm, a majority is fixed on the benthos. The main issue is that to grow big, you need to have tissues to support yourself. For plants on Earth it's deadcells and it's calcium for corals as examples. To grow big, you chemotrophs need to excrete something 'useless' to help them keeping their form. [Answer] Trees evolved to have more access to light, as a taller plant can cover a smaller plant, and remove its competition. Without light, this strategy doesn't work, and so these chemotrophs will most likely not evolve to become trees ]
[Question] [ The robot in question is a very large, worm-like mining robot with a huge drill on its front end, built to survive staggering levels of heat and pressure. It's so resiliant, in fact, that it can survive at the center of the Earth for an indefinite amount of time. For refrence, pressure at the center of the earth is around 360 gigapascals, and the temperature is about 6000 degreees celsius (10,800 degrees farenheit). My question is, how would a robot like this stand up to some of history's largest nuclear bombs, like the tsar bomba or castle bravo? [Answer] According to [this site](http://www.atomicarchive.com/Effects/effects7.shtml), the center of the Earth with its 6000° Celsius seems to be rather chilly when compared to the center of a nuclear explosion > > Temperatures of a nuclear explosion reach those in the interior of the sun, about 100,000,000° Celsius, and produce a brilliant fireball. > > > That's 6 orders of magnitude more. If you think of it, during an [underground nuclear explosion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_nuclear_weapons_testing#Effects), rock immediately around the bomb is vaporized. > > The energy of the nuclear explosion is released in one microsecond. In the following few microseconds, the test hardware and surrounding rock are vaporized, with temperatures of several million degrees and pressures of several million atmospheres. Within milliseconds, a bubble of high-pressure gas and steam is formed. The heat and expanding shock wave cause the surrounding rock to vaporize, or be melted further away, creating a melt cavity. The shock-induced motion and high internal pressure cause this cavity to expand outwards, which continues over several tenths of a second until the pressure has fallen sufficiently, to a level roughly comparable with the weight of the rock above, and can no longer grow. > > > I would say that your robot will turn to plasma anyway, then the blast will disperse it around. [Answer] That depends on the distance, of course. * Nuclear weapons also have a strong radiation pulse. Usually heat and blast are lethal on a similar radius, but if the robot is resistant against heat and blast there is still radiation. * A contact explosion would be much hotter than what you describe. * The blast wave might pick the robot up and throw it around. Pressure resistance is not the same as resistance to being shaken. ]
[Question] [ For starters, I’ll describe what I’m going for with this species (I’ll call them White Hairs because, you guessed it, they have white hair) They are humanoid with pale gray skin, tall and pointed, but stationary ears, and are taller than humans on average by a few inches. White Hairs are a very tight knit species, but aren’t shy with humans (those in my *‘world’* live in a *‘new’* galaxy) or other species; in fact, they’re quite outgoing. As the question’s title states, the vast majority of the White Hairs are incredibly kind and compassionate. To clarify, I’ll give an example: Let’s say that a human walks into another human’s home and shoots him. These two humans don’t know each other, but, for whatever reason, the killer decided to shoot this stranger. If you stopped a random White Hair on the streets and told them about it, their first thought would be to wonder what happened to the killer in their life to bring them to do such a thing (were they coerced into it by a gang of equally pitiable persons, has their life been so full of hardships that they are now filled with hate, have they taken an offer of money in exchange for killing this man because they badly need it, etc.) They will *always* attempt to understand why others do what they do and will be sympathetic towards them, no matter how heinous their crime. Now, let’s say that it’s been proven that the killer is a sociopath, that he lacks any and all remorse for what he’s done, that there is nothing in his reason for killing the victim that your average human could sympathize with (he’s had a blessed life, has plenty of money, and isn’t even associated with any criminal organizations) Even in this situation, a White Hair would not feel disgust towards the killer, they would pity him because he is incapable of empathy, which they hold in the highest regard, and love, which they view as something to be cherished and grateful for. Now, by *‘the vast majority’*, I mean such a high percentage (I’m thinking around 98% or more) that practically all humans and members of other species view the White Hairs as the bleeding hearts of the galaxy as a whole. They consider it a fact that literally all White Hairs are this way and you would be hard pressed to find someone that disagrees. I first considered the explanation that they are simply raised this way, that it is so concrete in their culture that it is impossible to grow up in a White Hair household without having this mindset instilled into you. The more I thought about this, though, I began to see a flaw in that idea. If the White Hair way is simply the product of upbringing, wouldn’t there be plenty of White Hairs that didn’t genuinely have this disposition, but just acted as if they did or strived to *make* themselves think this way because it’s their definition of normal? This brought me to the notion of there being a genetic reason for their mindset. I have a problem with a genetic explanation as well, however: I’ve come up with two White Hair characters that have unusual dispositions compared to the rest of their species. One of these White Hairs deviates greatly from the rest and has to act when around family and others because she feels that there’s something wrong with the fact that she’s unusually selfish and less compassionate than her peers. The other unusual White Hair *is* genuinely kind according to human standards, but if someone punched him in the face his initial reaction wouldn’t be to wonder whether or not that person got enough love as a child, he would just get mad, because that hurt, so screw you. I’m not sure how to explain the existence of this small percent if their disposition is a genetic thing or even if disposition can really be effected by genetics. I would really like to be able to explain this through upbringing and culture because I’m disinclined towards genetic engineering or eugenics as the cause. However, I can’t figure out how to avoid the likelihood of many White Hairs not being innately compassionate if I use upbringing as an explanation for their behavior. Thanks in advance. And if there’s anything wrong with my question or if more information is needed to answer it, please let me know. [Answer] **Evolutionary Benifit** Every single thing we do behaviorally is due to some benefit or quirk of evolution. In our species altruism and empathy exist because its a survival trait. Helping another member of your species for no personal gain is a highly valuable group survival behavior that benefits a species. In order for this to happen in a conscious and sentient being one needs to posess empathy, which is just our word for an instict that allows us to detect, understand, and relate to another’s suffering. In humans it was such an integral part of our species survival that this instict evolved to become so strong that we will often empathize and perform altruistic acts for members of OTHER species. That’s where the quirk part comes in. Our empathetic drive is so strong that we see a kitten stuck in a tree, or a dog with a lame paw and we immiediatly humanize them and feel compelled to help. Saving that kitten or giving that lame dog some help by removing the thorn from his paw serves absolutley no benifit to our species survival, but we do it anyways. **Conclusion:** Your aliens simply evolved in an environment that required an even higher level of this drive to survive. If humans can look at something as different from us as a dog and feel empathy and an altrustic motivation to help, then you bet yer ass these aliens that look like a pallette swapped version of us with pointy ears is going to begin applying that same survival trait to us. In their instictive cave-brain we are little more than just stubby eared pink or brown versions of themselves. Thier evolutionary history was full of incredibly dangerous threats that could only be overcome by working together and communicating to a very high degree. Perhaps thier planet used to posess a terrifying number of nearly sentient pack based predators that had to not only be out-thought, but also out-communicated. Empathy and altruism are two very powerful tools for such a species to develop. **psychopathy is a survival trait too** The thing is, evolution tries multiple strategies at once. In humans, a small subset of us (about 1%) are psychopaths. This, too, is an evolutionary stratedgy. If you do not posess empathy (basic definition of a psychopath) then you quickly realize that others do, and that you can use it to further your own survival goals at the expense of others. Again, we treat this like a disability, but thats just because our science is biased. Our only in-depth studies of diagnosed psychopaths is on prison populations. The truth is, we are recently finding that psychopaths are more likley to become firefighters, police, soldiers, doctors, or end up in leadership positions. Psychopaths tend to be fearless, and not only that, but capable of making the tough life or death decisions required to lead in a crisis without being crippled by guilt, which they also do not feel. We are finding in new studies that just because a psychopath posesses no empathy doesnt mean they are not capable of posessing morals. Individuals like this were probably invaluable to early man's survival. The small number of aliens which do not possess extreme empathy and altruism are just that species version of psychopaths. A species can't survive if they are all so lovey-dovey that they can't even bring themselves to kill an enemy. These individuals are relied upon by thier species to fullfill functions that require a more direct and violent approach. They are this race's version of psychopaths, and they form the backbone of it's military, emergency responsponders, and various other functions which would be too morally paralysing for the average individual to handle. [Answer] Maybe the White Hair civilization is led by a small cabal who has instituted some kind of eugenics program centuries ago, aimed at breeding a docile, easily-controlled populace. They could still be in charge now, or perhaps they too ended up docile; such high empathy would be an attractive trait, so many of the ruling class may end up mating with the docile proles. So either the eugenicist rulers are still secretly in charge now, or they fell to their own breeding program. Either way seems pretty ripe for narratives. Although to be fair, in regards to this statement: “Oh, the White Hairs? It’s the chemicals in their brains that makes them like that. It’s not like they have a choice in the matter”, in some sense that will be true no matter what. It's even true of us right now. The chemicals in our brains make us how we are. [Answer] The squid people in Charles Stross' *Neptune's Brood* are perhaps a little like this. A brief quote from one of the characters who lives with them: > > They hacked their mirror neurons. And the uncinate fasciculus, whatever that is. There are no sociopaths among them: Everyone has an enhanced empathic sense. [snip] > > > The fixed a lot of what's wrong with our basic cognitive model. Made themselves over as new communist squid-folk. Yes, they're still individuals, but the border between seld and olther is thinner. And they don't *hate*. They own property but they don't have strong social hierarchies [snip] - they're instinctive mutualists. [snip] > > > They get a pleasure-reward for making other people happy. Even an *abstraction* of other peopole. Isn't that freaky? > > > For various reasons, the progenitors to the squids (who were either humans, or human-modelled AI, the story never says) wanted to do a bunch of things in a hazardous environment, and decided that tribal tendencies and social hierarchies were hinderances in that enivronment. So they got rid of them, and remodelled their minds and bodies to better suit their needs. The squids removed sociopathy from *their* new species, but perhaps it didn't work so well for the White Hairs, because you want some of them to be "defective", at least from the point of view of their peers. That presents a number of interesting possibilities, including: * The White Hairs modified themselves, seeing the pointless infighting and status-seeking associated with tribal behaviour to be a serious detriment. This is an ongoing project. Perhaps "defective" children are detected early in the education or health system, and they are then corrected... such children would otherwise be a danger to others and would be unhappy in themselves, so healing them is clearly the best thing for all concerned. The cleverest ones, or those with the mildest symptoms might slip through the cracks. * The White Hairs *used* to be a more humanlike warlike and aggressive species, but were "fixed" after starting a fight with the wrong opponents. The defective ones are in fact the original unmodified species. They may or may not know this. * The defects are the results of external tampering. Someone has decided that having members of a species known to be kind to a fault, but who are actually as hate-filled and grasping as everyone else would be a very valuable tool. Maybe some of these changelings escaped into the wild, or maybe the program got interrupted. Maybe they're cuckoos, sent to be raised by the people they'll grow up pretending to be. > > *“Oh, the White Hairs? It’s the chemicals in their brains that makes them like that. It’s not like they have a choice in the matter”* > > > Sure, some people might think this, but its only because of the chemicals in their brains that make them think that. It isn't like they have a choice in the matter. Just like that whole out-group-exclusion thing that leads to all sorts of pointless bigotry, hatred and conflict. It isn't *really* their fault. Of course, those people might think that *they* are the sane ones, and *their* behaviour isn't somehow held in thrall to ancient biological programming. That's ok though, because the White Hairs have an outreach program. There comes a point where leaving a person as they are becomes unambiguously the worst thing to do, because the damage they will do to themselves and others exceeds the perceived benefits of letting them be. Barbarian species might kill, or imprison such people. As if that will help! *It’s not like they have a choice in the matter*. Its ok though. We know how your brain works. We can fix the bits that are causing you pain and suffering, and making you pass this on to others. You'll thank us when we've healed you; no-one has ever been *unhappy* with the end results. [Answer] They may be formed this way, if they * live long and have only few child (as for genetical reasons, longevity and a shared choise to not overpopulate) + this would also need relatively rich world (so no need for war over resources) + also safe world (so they do not need care for sources, or predators/illness and so they do not have "spare" childs to cover loses of population) + and maybe they actually **did** some kind of genocide to archive their current status (so they are for generations ashamed of that act), and they did it absolutely (no survivors from opposition, big loss on their side too, so small population left at the one moment - and than they realized, that overpopulation **was** factor in those events, so their unwillingnes to overpopulate again - they just keep some reasonable population - which also meen, they are rich and is easy for them to be generous (easier sacrifice few of many material values, than sacrifice their morale maxima)) + yes, they did it, but it is dark secret and shame so they do everything to not let it leak outside their culture + so every life is sacred now and harm somebody is "unthinkable". It is mentally more easier to sacrifice their life, then to let the "big evil" get out and participate in it. + it happened "long ago" so nobody is even grand-grand-grand-child of someone, who commit it, but with longevity there is soo much time to impose the shame on next generations, that it still deeply hurts all their current ideals, just to think of "unthinkable" - and while it hurts, they must help next generation to avoid such cruel fate * are highly inteligent (and curious, and have usually long life experience), so they "cannot fully understand" motives of others on whim - and they can imagine all kind of circumstates, why would somebody even could be forced to do something "unthinkable", instead of say killing himself to avoid it (none brutal way, but just refuse to breath, or stop its own heart by will, if they can do it, or something along this "peacefull ways") - and they would consider "he is just evil" as the last posssibility, after all other things are proven false and they big enough fantasy, so the list is really too long to go this "unthinkable" end) * this cultural pressure is really high in their society * therefore even those, who are not totally "brainwashed" would think long and hard, before they would show different approach, as this could have a lot of consequencies later and with the high inteligence the can imagine all of them and many more) * and even so there is the curiosity, what could somebody force to do such thing (I know, that I am somehow different, that others, who would not even think about "unthinkable" but I was sure, I am the only one anomally and I keep it high secret from all others - (which is reason, why he was not able to recognize another anomall White Hairs - he also hides his anomally too well)) --- * so your first "unusual one" maybe is not so unusual, as he thinks, but as "unusuals" are just few (say 1% only) and can hide it well, he had not many chances to meet another one, less in situation, where the other would fail to cover his "unusuality" * the other is more "defected" in it, that for some reason he feels less presured to be the "same good one" to the point, where he even acts sometimes on his true feelings, not those official ones - yes, he is 1% of that 1%, that are of the first kind of "unusuality" (and we can thing long way, what had happend to him, while he was younger and under what press he actually is, that **he** behaves so strangely) [Answer] ## Collectivism, Zeal, & Ideology In order for your species to be 98% anything that isn't genetically decided, it would require a genetic predisposition to collectivism and zeal. Your species will dedicate itself 100% to whatever ideology, religion, or philosophy that is most beneficial at the time. This is beneficial to their survival and propagation as a whole. When your species is faced with a large scale issue, they change their collective philosophy to something constructive. Throughout living history the current philosophy of "being good" has dominated (which is why others view them as such) but it has been different at other times: * Due to plague, they practiced blind devotion to medical research allowing for rapid progress in medicines, even if that was made through experiments on their own kind. * A global focus on intergalactic expansion caused them to ignore social problems on their home-world to safeguard against extinction. * During war, they dedicate 100% of their society to the war. They never surrender and seek to purge their enemies from existence. Your characters are a naturally occurring part of this process, where a small minority are born without the predisposition to collectivism, so they can generate new ideas necessary to deal with new threats. Their fate is to either change the world, or be isolated and ignored (or killed depending on the current philosophy). [Answer] **Why is Humanity almost entirely composed of psychos?** The Galactic Standard is to work in harmony, be kind and compassionate. By sheer grit and dodged cunning, Humankind managed to reach the stars despite killing each other over the drop of a hat. There is a threasure trove of histories like that in [r/HFY](https://www.reddit.com/r/hfy) If their worlds are docile, herbivores can grow with no fear of murder by carnivores. Their whole belief is *together*, like space Sheeps! ( bad pun but could not resist ) We as humans are Omni munchers. We eat meat too and our minset reflects that dual nature with increased aggression. [Answer] > > I’m disinclined towards genetic engineering or eugenics as the cause. > > > Well... Technically speaking I have idea for you. There are evolutionary ways to achieve that, [apparently we run it Europe for half a millennia in pre-modern times](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40806-017-0115-7). You just need to eliminate from gene pool each generations the most antisocial 1%-2% (and usually also low IQ individuals) The simplest way way to achieve that was just to execute even minor offenders (like thieves). OK, so for your idealistic civilisation: * should have got stuck in Malthusian trap for a few extra millennia in premodern times * should have first execute minor offenders and after becoming nicer implement lower punishments, that would anyway eliminate such individuals from gene pool (exile to a place where only males go so produce no offspring; brand them, potentially also figuratively, so no sane person would think about marrying them) [Answer] They have mild telepathic/empathic power, evolved over the species history as a group survival trait. They have evolved to function as a smooth running community. Even without experiencing anothers troubles, they are still naturally empathic as a result, even extending the behavior towards humans. For your white hair who doesn't fit, maybe they have some brain damage or illness that reduces or hinders the working of the empathy/telepathy. If you don't want to go with that kind of power, you could just have them extremely sensitive to each others body language. That can be both genetic and culturally learned, as fits your story. ]
[Question] [ I want to create a sword that when sheathed remains limp/flexible or soft but upon being unsheathed it become hard like common steel. So, something like the sword going soft when not exposed to oxygen or something from outside but will harden when exposed to that chemical from the outside. So, something like oxygen or some other chemical from the outside hardening the sword but cutting the access to said element results in the sword going soft. The flexibility would be similar to those in the old Chinese movies where limp or flexible swords (not historically accurate) are used, or [Indian whip sword](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/fc/b7/85fcb729bf418325335e0ce2b5833a1f.jpg) (real historical/traditional sword), but is only in that state when it is sheathed or not exposed to outside elements. Undesirable methods of achieving this: * Something that basically involves using heat or the lack of it is out of the question. * Something that when pumped from inside makes the sword hard is out of the question too, because I already have that type of weapon. Is there method or chemical that can achieve what I describe? [Answer] **Zippered Sword** This will not be an easy feat in smithing, but: The sword consists of two chain-link sides that are flexible when apart, but zipper together to become inflexible. The scabbard top would function as the 'runner' of the zipper, zipping the sword togetherwhen drawn and unzipping it when it is sheathed (maybe part of the top comes off with the sword to cap it). It could feasibly be done by having long links overlap, so that the connections on one side lie along the middle of a link on the other side, preventing it from bending. I don't know enough about zipper technology to say exactly how this is done, but I believe it would be possible. A consequence will be that the sword edges are serrated, with each link having a half-moon edge. It is probably not possible to make a clean point, so it will be a slashing sword rather than a stabbing sword. It may be easier to make a version where the two halves roll up in a short, wide scabbard rather than being truly flexible, but if the point is to make it easier to carry, this would work as well as a flexible sword; maybe even better. Imagine a large belt pouch from which a long sword is drawn. [Answer] **Origami rapier and ballon shield**. The simplest way would be a flat, thin piece of triangular metal or plastic that folds several times along its length (along pre-machined lines), to form a somewhat stiff skewer. It will be more of a thrust than a cut-and thrust sword, think small sword or even rapier. The actual tip is manufactured from a hardened steel. The hilt provides a small mechanism that does the folding when drawn. Such a weapon will be significantly weaker, structurally, than a solid sword, especially against blows against one of the flat sides of the material. It's conceivable that such a sword could be drawn and resheathed many times before material fatigue sets in, but it won't survive hard blade to blade contact. It will be challengin to find a suitable fencing style: AFAIK many styles avoid blade-blade contact, but to my totally lay opinion especially fencing styled for thrusting sword like rapiers and smallswords *do* parry with the blade. For a fold up rapier, the wielder needs an additional defensive weapon: The airbag shield:A Balloon of very tough material that is integrated in a solid glove. Upon command, a small explosive charge blows up the ballon (that stays, in away that is still to be properly desinged and engineered attached to the glove) which gives the wielder something to put between themself and incoming blows. The shield will be very unwieldy and won't have the mass to really block blows, but can cushion them and adsorb energy. Stabs pose a real danger of puncturing the shield. The inside is engineered to stick to intruding objects, the ballon readily crumples once deflated, all in hope to trape the weapon - there's a chance that a solid stab with a spear or rapier goes right throu shield and wielder, but if the stab misses the shield-wielder or the weapon is simply too short, the attacker cannot quickly escape. [Answer] **Tape Measure sword** A tape-measure uses a curve in the thin metal strip to impart strength. Unfortunately, the strength only runs one way. This can be countered by using two opposing spools of 'tape-measure' (or three to form a triangular blade). The tips would be joined with a hardened sharp tip. Some mechanism with interlocking teeth or magnets could help to further stabilise the blade. This will create a weapon which packs down compactly into 2-3 spools, but should be stiff enough to allow a smallsword sized weapon to thrust. This should be sufficient to inflict a fatal wound against an unarmored target. **Floppy toy** If you've got kids, you're probably familiar with the 'floppy animal' toy: An animal made of separate pieces; a string inside pulls it taut, and when the string is allowed to go slack, the animal flops. Provided you have sufficient materials science in your world, you could create a sword from this principle. Blade pieces would be maybe 5-10cm long, with a thin hollow inside for a cable. They'd have an interlocking end to aid in keeping them stable when 'drawn'. The issue is finding a strong enough cable – it'd probably have to be something like kevlar for the tensile strength – and a mechanism which can apply sufficient force – this might need to be a miniature electric winch, or a pulley/lever system to gain sufficient mechanical advantage. This would again allow thrusts, and would probably be a bit stronger against hits to the side, with the added benefit that if it does take a bad hit, as soon as the cable is re-tightened, it'll snap back to it's shape. [Answer] **There is a bit of research on this in regards to robotics** [Here](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369702117305618) is an article on materials research into structural rigidity, deformation and flexibility in materials that can be controlled using various methods to allow on-demand or controlled use. The typical application in a modern context is in actuators, devices that allow controllable movement, in particular tendons, artificial muscles and so on, for use in robotic arms, mechanical devices which require on-demand flexibility and strength. The candidates you could consider include: * *Thermal induced material control*: You've ruled out heat however some chemicals respond to minor changes in temperature such as **Thermoplastics** which are crystalline at room temperature but at slightly elevated temperatures can become liquid. Another option is a ring of nichrome wires surrounding a expanding thermoplastic core at room temperature, stiffening into a hard rod when the wires become tensioned. * *Pressure induced material control*: Some materials also change state when their container is altered in terms of pressure. **Granular materials and fluid polymer materials** are examples - if given the opportunity they arrange themselves into matrices or stiff objects depending on pressure. Your 'sheath' could essentially alter pressure to allow control. * *Magnetic field induced material control*: Magnetic fields have the advantage that they can have instant results - if your sheath has a property where **MR Elastomers** can be affected by fields, you could soften or harden a material in such a way to create the effect you want * *Electrically induced material control:* **Electroactive gel** can be used that stiffens when a current is passed through it - your sword hilt could be a 'battery' with conductors that pass current through such material to create rigidity. * *Other alloys*: There is research into **Shape Memory Alloys**, ie, metal that is a rigid shape, but undergoes variable rigidity when exposed to either currents or heat as above. This is ongoing research. ]
[Question] [ # Postulate My world has functioning magic which is capable of exerting kinetic effect. (That is, move objects, or generate heat, since "heat" after all is just motion at the atomic level.) It can't *directly* affect electromagnetism (i.e. light, electricity), but magic can be used to make a generator spin. (Invisibility [is right out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_of_Caerbannog). Likewise any sort of "psyonic" powers... *no mind reading!*) Hopefully I don't need to go into too many details; suffice to say, there are useful applications of this magic. Critically, however, magic *does not* create energy from nowhere. I'm following the Eragon model; the energy to do [Work](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_(physics)) (capitalization denotes use of the physics term) using magic has to come from a living creature. (I'm not sure if I want to allow plants, partly as I'm not sure it's even useful; see [How much energy do plants produce?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/160426). For now, let's focus only on animals. Note also [How much can a magician lift if constrained by her own body's energy?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/2909), [Magic and physics with human power output](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/15641) and [How can wizards do such powerful things running on pure human metabolism?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/8393).) One important caveat is that there is an "efficiency loss" that is relative to the distance between the "energy source" and wherever the Work is actually happening. For practical purposes, just say that you don't want these to be more than a few meters apart, if that. Another is that there is no known way to "store" magic (at least not for long periods, "long" being "minutes to hours or longer"); whatever power is used by magic has to come immediately from a living thing and at least partly requires metabolic processes (i.e. there is a limit to how quickly energy can be used). # Question A human can provide maybe 75W continuous (indefinitely), 250W for maybe an hour or so, or 1000W for about a minute. This, however, requires that the person sits next to whatever magic device they want powered. This makes something like a magic-powered washing machine plausible, but inconvenient. (Note: yes, I'm aware trained athletes can produce more, but using magic *tires* the user just like exercise. I think these numbers are plausible for what an average person would be *comfortable* supplying.) How plausible is it that this society would (or would not) develop and use some sort of living batteries? I'm thinking about some creature that they would keep around whose sole purpose is to sit next to magic-powered devices in order to supply them powered. If a magical device does a better job than an electrically-powered version, can the hassles of a living creature (which has to be fed and produces waste) be sufficiently minimized that these would be desirable? What would such a creature be like? Let's assume that this society has similar views on animal rights as our own, i.e. they're sort of on the fence as far as modern "intensive farming" practices, and most individuals don't want to engage in anything they see as "abusing" an animal. I'm also specifically interested in these "living batteries" a) for *personal* use, not e.g. what a big factory might do, b) in "first world" countries, i.e. that have developed infrastructure, wealth, a reliably electrical grid, etc.. In other words, would they be relevant to the average suburban American-analog in their day to day life? (If they would surely exist, but would never be seen by an average person, that's not relevant for my purposes.) # More Notes * Non-sophonts (feel free to read that "non-humans") can't "do" magic on their own. They can only be tapped, *intentionally* (not by accident), to power a spell set up by a sophont. * If there is such a thing as "magic potential", it is effectively athleticism. Some creatures may be better suited to producing metabolic energy, but there is nothing inherently "magic" about this. * "Magic glands" are not a thing. "Giving off" or "emitting" magic is not a thing. Overly energetic animals exist, just as in the real world, but nothing "forces" that energy to be burned as magic rather than, say, running around. (OTOH, parents are totally going to use their kids as power sources 😉.) * "Magic" is best thought of *not* as a force in and of itself, but rather a *process* by which metabolic energy can be directed to do Work. A spell is a means of triggering this Work to happen, which then triggers a *designated* "supplier" to metabolically produce energy (much as if the supplier was exercising). The "designation" can be e.g. a specific person (a spell that only works for that person), "any living things within range", "whoever is touching the spelled object", etc. * As a corollary to the previous point, "accidental activation" is *not* a thing. * Powering spells is not *naturally* pleasant. If the power draw is enough for the source to notice, *at best* they'll feel tired. Basically, *it feels like doing work*. A *natural* animal may or may not appreciate this; it's plausible that a purpose-bred animal will. * Because it relies on metabolic energy, magic isn't much better, from a raw power standpoint, than muscle power. Magic is mostly good at *precision*. Assembling a mechanical watch? Magic! Hauling freight? [ICE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine) or [DET](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel-electric_transmission)! To wit, assume that the industrial revolution still happened, and the world has technology similar to our own, *in addition* to magic. (With some exceptions; for example, push-behind mowers don't exist, and I suspect household dishwashers don't either.) * When considering if something like a pig would make a good "battery", keep in mind that a) electricity and natural gas exist (see previous point), and b) you have to feed *and clean up after* the pig. (This makes the question of locomotion of a living battery a balancing act. On the one hand, you don't want it to move while it's supplying power. On the other, it sure would be nice if it's house-trained.) * Using magic to generate electricity generally makes sense only when you don't have another source of power... for much the same reason we don't generate electricity using generators turned by animal power. For municipal generation, the same sources we use in our world are simply more productive. For someone "off-grid", solar panels and wind turbines are less hassle... at least if you can afford them. Magic-electric generation is useful for *small* devices where mains power or batteries are inconvenient. For example, your phone/tablet might be magic powered. (At *least* you will have *external* chargers that are magic powered. I'm not sure if they can weigh little enough that device manufactures would want to build them in. Possibly some devices — especially wearable stuff — will, and some won't.) To an extent, what I'm trying to figure out is if there are tasks that can be done so much better by magic than by technology, but *can't* be powered by the person doing the task at that moment, that first-world people would put up with the hassles of a living battery. Laundry is a good example. Modern washing machines (and for my purposes, I'm assuming these at least have the potential of being invented) are convenient, inexpensive to operate, can wash a *bunch* of laundry at once, and do a pretty good job of cleaning. Magic, OTOH, can do a *near perfect* job (imagine being able to pull the dirt and whatnot directly out of the fabric; it takes a lot of *discrimination*, but if you have that, it takes *very little* force), but someone or something has to power that process. Maybe the machine is used for day-to-day use, and magic is used on really nasty stains? (Or in regions with little fresh water...) This is also why I believe residential dishwashers won't exist. Instead, your sink is spelled so that whenever you run water over your dishes, all the dirt (and pathogens!) just runs off with the water. Since this needs very little force, it just draws power from whoever is rinsing the dishes. (You're almost certainly spending more energy *holding* the dish than the magic that's cleaning it.) The same spell could make all the water fall off when you're done, leaving the dishes clean, sanitary, and even dry. [Answer] You might think in terms of a bio-reactor for practical purposes. Could be anything along the lines of a compost container. Can be fed any kind of biological material or waste. Can be constructed such that it could be worn. A smart design would be shaped like armor but hollowed and reinforced in separate pieces, each similar in construction to the fuel tank inside the wings of an air plane. More or less complex depending on the mobility requirements of the wearer. A mage wouldn't need to move much but would rather be focused on casting ( and would need the extra reactor volume ), but a wizard warrior would want to be lighter and faster, fighting in conjunction with minor incantations. And finally, bacteria, the primary "organism" of the reactor is much more efficient than more complex animals at metabolizing organic waste. A simple source of fuel would be the blood of your enemies, easy to manage, can be funneled into a small opening, can be stored, but is impractical for volume to weight ratio. Some desiccated bio matter would be more practical for transporting fuel, this is assuming that water is available in the environment for making a solution of the dry powdered form of fuel ( any dried, ground bio-matter ). [Answer] Yes. We already have living appliances, if you want to be really flexible about your definitions. A cat, for example, is a living rodent destruction appliance. A dog is a living alarm system and hunting tool. And, due to the empathetic nature of humans we still keep these appliances around, despite the fact that they are obsolete in many cases. Dealing with their flaky nature: Many tasks aren't actually latency-sensitive. One idea from "smart grid" tech is that you don't really care when your load of laundry gets done, as long as it gets done before you get home. So, if the grid was able to signal your washer and say "we have excess green energy currently, run your load now at a discount," we'd probably use that. Your magic cat could have a similar setup. Make sure the most comfortable cat bed you have is on top of the dryer, and it will lay there. In fact, due to selective breeding, the cat bed on top of the dryer is *actively* the most comfortable spot for your magic cat to sleep, because the magic glands on these things produce more magical field than they can comfortably expend otherwise. So they get grumpy if they don't have an appliance to fuel. How did this come about? We already had cats for the reasons we have them in real life. We already had manually powered magic appliances, from the beginning of civilization. We noticed that cats were accidentally triggering them. People get pretty creative when laziness is on the line, so appliances were dumbed down to the point where these accidental triggers were enough to run them. The fact that cats now actively seek out the appliances is the natural result of breeding for more and more power-producing cats. Eventually this overcame the normal magic dissipation rates. Other notes: * Cats are actually more efficient at producing power than humans on a pound per pound basis, because we expend a whole lot more energy "thinking" and "walking around." * Stray cats are somewhat dangerous, or at least mischievous -- they are constantly producing excess magic, so they burn it off by performing little spells (small teleportations, pushing stuff off tables from a ditstance, etc). * You might prefer to use a dog to power your water heater, because they are more easily trained and, being larger, produce more power. In fact, in a rural area you likely have a couple working dogs of different breeds. Guard dogs have had the most magic bred into them -- they tend to stick around the house, so they can power more appliances than herding or hunting dogs. Of course, all dogs have been bred to produce a bit more magic than normal animals, which they use to perform minor mind-reading spells on humans (the human willpower can naturally defend against this, it is an intentional communication channel). Another reason to breed more magic into guard dogs is that, while most dog magic is complementary to humans, guard dogs have an adversarial relationship with thieves, so they need to detect invisibility spells, etc. [Answer] ### Short Answer Yes, they would. Doubly so if natural magic batteries are the most efficient form of power that is able to be harnessed. It will depend on how well this magic is known about and integrated into society as a whole as well as the world's resources **Magic Notes** Since this magic is kinetic based, there won't be invisibility spells to see through on a conventional thought level, but I can picture spells to apply the correct kinetic force to stop other things from moving under natural forces and spells to gently push out and find things that way. Sound is just vibrating air, so that is technically kinetic if I understand right. As an extra note: If you can use magic to spin a generator, then in theory, you can create a rechargeable battery system powered by magic turning the generator and plug things into that battery as opposed to direct magic powering. I don't see anything preventing that as per the question, but that would incur a second batch of energy loss so probably not worth it? Technically it's not storing magic but the result of the magic. ### Anatomy Animals get their dietary needs as food. As magic eats into this energy store, the more effort they put into living the less that energy is available for magic. So for a pure battery, the ideal would be animals that eat a lot but don't do much. They will not be as fat as some would think since while they might not be exercising much, all the energy what would go into getting fat is instead burnt off into magic. In addition, they'll have either more efficient metabolisms and/or just eat more than their mundane equivalents. Unless an animal's society is already based around a generator-type animal, then pure battery animals will almost always be domesticated animals. ### Travelling the Animal Kingdom **Oh the Humanity** There is already an animal that can have the job of running appliances and doing menial tasks that some humans do not want to do -- Humans. Maids, butlers, housekeepers, and other similar professions run washing machines, vacuum cleaners, stoves, and other appliances in order to keep their employers happy. Depending on the magical output needed, I would foresee workspaces being rearranged so that a magical charge can be applied while a low-impact mundane task is done -- charge the stove while cleaning the kitchen as an initial thought. While definitely a less sunny tone to the world, there is nothing preventing people with higher magic potential but lower wealth to be servants of the wealthy. If you want an even darker tone to it, nothing says that people can't be bred for a magical specialization. Our laws can be surprisingly cruel to us as compared to others in the Kingdom Animalia. Travelling down this rabbit hole can make a story go dark fast. Travel at your own risk. **Green Domestication** Just as we domesticate animals for a purpose, magical output and/or efficiency will be something bred for as well. Perhaps it's a primary thing and maybe it's secondary, but it is a trait. Livestock could be bred to constantly emit small, but useable quantities that could say turn a generator or directly power lights, a heater, etc.. A pig barn that could largely power itself at the cost of some extra food seems like a decent start. As the question was on a personal scale, I'm sticking with a small-scale farmer that might have enough to say power their barn without needing external power from the government. Zwuwdz brought up domesticating cats and dogs not only for their primary purpose, but for powering things while they sleep or keep watch so I'll skip that one. Even prey animals such a rabbits could have a purpose. With predators evolving to try to find prey through guile and stealthy magics, prey has evolved to try to find predators so thy can avoid them. Rabbits on edge use their innate magic and keen hearing to detect the smallest changes in the air. These adorable fluffballs become thief detectors and they will work for carrots. You might need a more vocal animal though. **Wild Things** I would also expect wild/feral animals to be carefully monitored around sensitive magical things lest they set off the gadgetry. Some wild animals will be studied for their interesting uses of this kinetic magic, and how we humans can apply it either through attempted domestication or replicating the magic. And Magic Honey Badger still won't give a damn. ### Daily Life If well-integrated, I would imagine that depending on the level of magic-powered things in the household, pets would be more popular. Money that might get sunk into paying for power or fuel will instead go towards extra food. Pets would also give us humans more things to cuddle and love possibly leading to a minor increase in mental health. There might also be a small subset of people that sell their time sitting down near some magic gadget to charge it for somebody else while doing a thing -- knitting, gaming, conversing. A gig economy where people can earn some extra cash powering things to keep their surplus energy down (and stay trim). I would expect to see some jobs that use low-power tools and limited activity to be purely person powered. A tailor running their own sewing machine, a handyman powering their own small drill, etc. Critical systems will either be powered conventionally or through magic turning a generator as opposed to directly magic powered. This prevents a stray cat or feral coyote from wrecking the highly sensitive thing by existing. [Answer] So the thing is, our "modern" technology is mostly about **cheap** energy. If you had to feed the animals to get the calories to produce the effect, most of our machines are ridiculously inefficient at what they do. That 75W that a person produces? That comes from their food. If you redirect it into magic, they need to eat more food. The energy coming from physically lifting clothing and washing it, or powering a magical washing machine? One would assume doing it physically would be about as easy, as is true in our world. But what we have is a whole pile of energy that doesn't come from farming/sun/etc that we exploit, shove through the grid, and convert into useful work. On the other hand, energy is rarely a limit on what we want to do. We exist in an information revolution; and that is less about more energy than it is using energy in more efficient ways. It actually takes almost zero energy to move dirt off clothing; the energy of the dirt on the clothing, or next to it, is nearly the same. The work we do when cleaning clothing comes from converting low-entropy energy (electricity, ATP, etc) into high-entropy energy (heat) while we attempt to rearrange the matter (dirt) so it isn't where we don't want it to be. The act of carefully selecting every bit of dirt and moving it somewhere else is an act that fundamentally costs entropy to do. Telling something *dumb* to do it would require insane amounts of "work" (this is, in essence, what computer programmers do); so what we do is do it statistically using crude methods. > > One important caveat is that there is an "efficiency loss" that is relative to the distance between the "energy source" and wherever the magic "work" is actually happening. > > > Note that this is also true of most technologies we use. Electricity in a wire is what we do in order to *guide* the EM forces down the path we want them to. Have you considered ley lines? Life would emit your magical field, which would in turn be "captured" by ley lines and transmitted over long distances. They would be much like a power line. This would be a completely natural phenomena in this world; so you'd get "ley line" building for artificial reasons. It may be impractical for this to occur over long distances, so mayhap the house would have a "ley line ring"; a "magic circle" as it where, permitting magical power to be redirected by modifying glyphs. > > I'm also specifically interested in these "living batteries" for personal use, not e.g. what a big factory might do. In other words, would they be relevant to the average person in their day to day life? > > > Specially bred domestic animals would be probable. Today, even with knowledge of animal welfare, we have people eating hamburgers all the time; in the 18th century people who knew it was wrong kept slaves. "normal" makes something horrible pedestrian. Your civilization would breed animals who suck magic out of ley lines and emit it locally. They would originally be "magical" animals (unicorns, pixies, dire wolves, etc); the process of domestication would remove their magic-powered defence/offence abilities and get them to be emitted. We might even take the cow route; maybe they naturally emit excess magic when they have young, and the young in turn 'feed' off that. So we'd induce a constant state of post-birth in these animals to get them in their "emit magic" state. Now, ley lines' mana is not free. So you'd "enhance" them by rituals and animals and magic circles to pour mana *into* them. So in this model, we have 1. Transportation links and settlements along ley lines, so they can access that background magic. 2. Domestic "animals" that are based off mythical creatures -- dragons, unicorns, pixies, wisps, even goblins. They would be bred and biologically manipulated to be in a "emit excess mana on demand". 3. Houses and settlements would be surrounded by magic circles to contain and route magic around from place to place. You can use mumbo-jumbo why the circle is the only "artificial ley line" we can make, and longer ones are exponentially harder to build. 4. Magical experiments involving huge magic circles that feed magic into/out of ley lines would be the state of the art. [Answer] I'm adding this for posterity as the answer I'm actually using. Although I arrived at it independently, Nolo had basically the same idea first, and gets the "accepted answer" credit. # Yes. Made of *yeast*. The main drawback of a living battery is that you have to feed it *and deal with its waste products*. Perhaps, if it's sessile, you can park it over a black water drain. But this got me thinking... what you *really* want is something that's stationary (in a tank would be better), easy to feed, and produces waste that is easy to clean (ideally by having it dumped directly into a sewer line). You don't want a mammal, or even a vertebrate. ***You want a colony organism***. You want something like a vat full of yeast — one can readily imagine yeast that have been bred specifically for this purpose — that can sit in a closet or your basement.(Besides the convenience and efficiency, using "critters" with no nervous system conveniently avoids any nagging animal-cruelty questions.) This ought to be able to produce enough energy for the sorts of low-power stuff that interests us, and can sit close enough to some stationary devices. One could even imagine a grid of nutrient-feed pipes not unlike the natural gas grid. Or, maybe Nolo has the right idea with feeding it food waste (and yard waste?). For that matter, "off the grid" houses might even extract energy from their septic tanks... At any rate, for my story, I don't need to deal with specifics; what matters is that a) a system along these lines is sufficiently plausible that *not* having it wouldn't make sense, and b) it needs *maintenance*, but not frequent attention; much like, say, a water softener. This means I can (and should!) assume its existence, but it can be tucked away in the background alongside the furnace and hot water heater. ]
[Question] [ A space ship travels (almost) at the speed of light. When it nearly reaches its destination it starts decreasing the speed. What would be the most appropriate deceleration for human body in such conditions? Astronauts endure around 3G on lift-off, which is about 29.4 $m/s^{2}$, but only for a short time. To decelerate from speed of light to zero then it takes nearly 4 months. Is there any condition that astronauts could be put in, so they can bear the pressure for such a long time, like cryogenic freeze or something else? [Answer] If the spaceship was decelerating at one g, meaning a comfortable 9.8 $m/s^{2}$, then deceleration will take roughly one year shiptime. No need for special counter-acceleration measures. Plus, it provides convenient environment for astronauts to work and play in, while decelerating. Also, time to survey their destination prior to their arrival. However, the spaceship will actually need to decelerate for the same length it took to accelerate to near-lightspeed. For preference, and the comfort of crew and passengers and any stowaways lurking the bowels of the starship, this should be one g (for reasons given above in one paragraph). Accelerations and decelerations of one g are the most appropriate for spacecraft approaching lightspeed (assuming we can ignore the energetic requirements for such interstellar space travel, because they're astronomically mind-boggling). [Answer] **Carbonite.** [![han solo in the carbonite](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bJJkJ.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bJJkJ.jpg) <https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/1tcact/the_original_han_solo_in_carbonite_prop_on/> "Freeze" your spacefarers in carbonite. How does carbonite work, you may ask? > > Carbonite was a liquid substance that was made from carbon gas and > could change into a solid through rapid freezing. Goods could be > encased in carbonite for preservation, through a process known as > carbon-freezing,[1](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bJJkJ.jpg) > Carbonite blocks could also be used to place people in hibernation.[3] > Before the invention of the hyperdrive, some early spacers would use > carbonite to endure long voyages. That technique, however, had brutal > side effects, collectively referred to as hibernation sickness. > <https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Carbonite> > > > (waves hands) There you go! They even used it for what you want to use it for. Remember to make a funny face as the carbonite flows around you. Do not freeze people in carbonite if you exist in a hard science world. Do not confuse carbonite with the explosive of the same name. ]
[Question] [ For those who don't know, Hanahaki Disease is a fictional disease related to love. It can happen when someone has unrequited romantic feelings for someone, so flowers start growing inside them. The flowers get bigger, and the victim starts coughing them up. If the disease is at its final stages, the person coughs up entire flowers. You can cure it by surgery, but the victim loses the ability to love. The only way to end the disease is by death or if the love object returns the love and the victim is certain that the love is reciprocated. Usually, the flowers are said to grow in the victim's heart and lungs, but I don't know if that would be possible without killing the victim really fast. Is it possible for the flowers to grow on the lungs or stomach in a way that doesn't make the victim extremely uncomfortable all the time and doesn't kill the victim fast? Another good question is what would be a way that the victim gets the disease? It's a rare disease, so I don't think the answer would be it's contagious. The answer I'm looking for is one that can make the disease anatomically possible, that kills the victim slowly, and can have a plausible way of being contracted, maybe curse related (my story is a medieval fantasy). [Answer] It would take an inordinate amount of hand-waving... Let's start from the flowers. Can we make a flower develop in a human lung? And the answer is no, we can't, there's not the necessary space. We can however imagine a flower-analogue that might: some sort of symbiotic/parasitic organism that is usually found on some ground-bound rodent, and grows on its skin. The organism has evolved to avoid the host's immune response and uses it for locomotion, providing some service in exchange - vitamin synthesis, maybe. When it's ready, it releases its pollen to the winds. Normally the pollen will experience a brief flash of activity upon landing on the host's mucosae or the skin of a pup: it will quickly burrow to a safe place near the skin, and there lie dormant until the appropriate chemical cues will signal it's time to flower. This usually happens when the host is fully mature, in good health and the season is right. The organism flowers slowly and beautifully, sending pollen everywhere and keeping its host healthy to do it as long as possible. If the host isn't in top shape, that's bad luck for the host and the parasite both. The parasite, as an emergency plan B to ensure its genes' survival, flowers as much as it can, dying in the process and damaging the host, to ensure at least one pollen wave is sent forth. The pollen might be inhaled by a human being. Normally nothing happens because the chemistry isn't right: the pollen does not exit its dormancy phase, and when it does it dies soon after. Nobody knows what triggers the disease because even people living next to the flowered rodents do not contract the disease very often. Indeed, most of them never do due to acquired immunity. The notable exception is when the person is flooded by the right mixture of norepinephrin, endorphin and oxytocins, up to one full year after breathing the pollen (one year being the average time for a rodent to reach maturity). The hormone mixture, which tells a human's organism to start behaving as an unrequited lover's organism is expected to behave, also tells the parasite that conditions are ready to flower. And it happens so long after the pollen exposure, that the relation between cause and effect has escaped the medioeval natural philosophy of your world. They would rather believe that only refined, cultured city dwellers (those farther from the rodents, and therefore with less immunity - if they knew what immunity was) had the required sensitivity to trigger the heartflower disease, while peasant love is just two animals in rut (this is not so unlike what happened in our own world; most (pre-)Stilnovist [poets](http://web.ccsu.edu/italian/guido_guinizzelli.htm) in the 1200's said as much). Unfortunately the "flowers" don't agree with human bronchi, so they are quickly torn off and coughed up. The cycle repeats until either the human dies, or the hormone mixture is altered. The new mixture has again to be close enough, and that happens when the love is returned and, better still, consumed. It is sometimes possible to excise the organism if it's near enough the top of the trachea. Those that have this done to them usually die of complications or infections (medioeval times being what they are). When they don't die, they almost invariably suffer from PTSD and unconsciously avoid the same situation - when they would start feeling in love again, they get flashbacks instead, which quickly kill the mood. Otherwise, the flowers would continue to grow, and some pollen find its way throughout the circulatory system. This, plus some cases of [vegetative endocarditis](https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/vegetative+endocarditis), led to the mistaken popular belief that flowers grew in the heart as well as in the lungs, whence their name, "heartflowers". [Answer] A kind of fungal infection? (not-so-hard science ahead) Some fungi can grow a fruiting body on their host. The most famous case is the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis (google it at your own risk), which also modifies the behaviour of the ant having the misfortune of being its host, by releasing some enzymes that alter its behaviour. The ant leaves its nest and is forced to reach a place that is suitable - as temperature and humidity - for the growth of the fruiting body, this way completing the life cycle of the fungus. So let's invert cause and effect, and say that this fungus can infect a human host (finding a suitable place, for instance, in the digesting cable). It will then release in the blood some enzymes that alter the hormonal balance of the man, by giving him the feeling of being in love. In other words, in truth is the hanahaki that makes the man fall in love, even if to people it would seem the opposite; however the man must already have an existing feeling for somebody, otherwise the enzymes won't work. This way the fungus has some advantages: - the man will be forced to eat less (because of heartbreak), so that he won't disturb the growth of the fruiting body - the heartbreak will have an impact on the immunitary system of the host, weakening it so that it can't kill the fungus. When the fruiting body will be mature, the man will cough it, this way spreading its spores. But luckily, if the man is able to fulfill his love, the joy will trigger another hormonal imbalance, that is lethal to the fungus, this way freeing him from the infection! [Answer] For a *scientifically correct* result, there is no known way to have a 'cause and effect' relationship between an *observed third-party* emotional state, and the likelihood of contracting a rare disease. In addition, there are no known diseases that allow for a full-life cycle vascular plant to grow in the inhospitable conditions inside a human body. [Answer] Hanahaki, now lets see, this is a fictional disease, but if it were real, it would first start off by coursing throat and your throat would hurt or burn once in a while. Also the second week, you will have trouble breathing and eating, the flowers going in you are causing you to have trouble breathing. But there are only 3 options, . Get surgery to remove it (but romantic feeling will disappear for the one you “loved”) . Confess your feeling and if he/she accepts hanahaki will disappear. . If u love that person, but they don’t love you back, hanahaki will take over and kill you. But I’m sure if Hanahaki was real it would be a rare disease. “You grew flowers in me, they are beautiful yet they are killing me, can you help me...” HANAHAKI ]
[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/143388/edit). Closed 4 years ago. [Improve this question](/posts/143388/edit) Due to all the edits and clarifications asked I will re write the question tomorrow, thanks for your patience. Leaving this up until then, for reference. In the setting I'm working on, magitech has created, among other things, a class of weapons called "projection blades". When such a weapon is activated, it allows the cutting edge of the blade to interact with distant targets as if it were touching them. Essentially you swing your sword at a training dummy 15 meters away and you cut it just as if you were right in front of it. More details: * While the effect itself is invisible, as in, you only see a person swing a sword and something distant getting cut, you can visualize its dynamic by imagining that the effect is projected in a straight line parallel to the blade up to a certain distance (details pending, but for the purpose of this question let's say up to 50 meters, the exact length being adjustable ) and in that area it "bridges" the distance between the edge ofthe blade and whatever object ends in the way, for the purpose of touching and therefore cutting targets. This effect doesn't have any other physical properties and therefore can't be used, for example, like a lever. It's therefore optimal to trigger the effect at a specific point during a swing, as to avoid interaction with unwanted objects. This is possible thanks to a trigger on the handle. To reiterate, the blade itself doesn't physically change in any way. * The effect moves from the blade to the target almost instantaneously, but this still means that an object in the way of what you want to cut will still partially or completely block your cut. Parrying and deflecting can therefore still be a thing, especially whith another projection blade. * The effect only transmits force, which is why you have to be moving relative to your target or swing in order to do damage. You can't just point the sword directly at your opponent and pull the trigger to impale him like with some kind of infinite length lightsaber. * Some energy is lost when you use your weapon this way, meaning you would hit harder with the actual blade rather than with the projected force effect. Obviously the convenience of turning a melee weapon into a ranged weapon at will more than makes up for it. * Force travels both ways, so your feel your weapon impacting with the target and you can potentially get it stuck, however this is quickly remedied by just turning it off. Edit for additional details: * The "projection" can only be sustained for a very little time, details to be decided but let's say it's slightly below an entire second. This is more then enough time to strike and do damage. * After triggering the effect the magitech device needs to wait a moment before triggering again. Again, details pending but let's say 0.5 seconds. This seems like a small amount of lag but in martial arts and actual fighting I think this would make the weapon less "spammable" and encourage a more precise and deliberate fighting technique. Given the dynamics and limits described above, what would be a plausible fencing style for users of this kind of weapons? Specifically for duels between projection weapon users. Edit 2: * Forgot to mention that in this setting most armor and shields have been made obsolete by other kinds of weapons, creating something like the late 18th century in terms of tactics and equipment. This means that while armor and shields would probably be really effective against projection blades, they simply aren't around anymore and duels take place between unarmored opponents. Edit 3 with yet more contextualization: * The weapons are used mainly due to their unique advantage scaling really well with user skill. If you are a good sharpshooter, you are still bound by musket-like weapons that can't fire more than a few shots per minute, but if you are a really good swordsman with a projection blade, you can defeat several unskilled opponents before they can even touch you, and be precise and quick enough that opponents armed with these early guns would actually find themselves at a disadvantage. This means thar the weapon is seen on battlefields mostly as a status symbol for officers and decorated veterans, and in civilian use as an implicit statement "I'm using a weapon that requires more skill, beware". So duels happen more due to matters of honour or reputation, like cowboys in the far west and samurai in ancient Japan. While there are surely more formalized contests between swordsmen, like academias and the like, the focus of the question should be on duelists of a more spontaneous kind. Thank you and forgive me if the question is unclear in any way, this is my first post. [Answer] ## Slashing: torque In the 3rd century before the common era there lived in Sicily a Greek physicist and mathematician named Archimedes; his name literally means Master Mind¹, and he was indeed the greatest physicist and mathematician of the Antiquity. ¹) For the literalists: it actually means Great Planner or Great Thinker. Among his greatest discoveries was the law of [levers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lever); namely, that the torques applied by the effort and the resistance must balance: hence his (attributed) quip that given a fulcrum and a long enough lever he could move the Earth. Since the effect works as if the blade became very long, and it acts as a lever of the third class, if follows that the sideways force applied by the tip of the blade is minuscule, because the torque applied by the hand of the swords man must equal the torque applied by the resistance of the targets skin and clothes... ## Thrusting: aim and tremor Since slashing won't work, what about thrusting? Well, here we run in the problem of aiming at the target. The blade is ten meters long, and the target is, say, 50 cm wide; thus the target subtends an angle of about 3 degrees. All right, a good swordsman should be able to aim his blade within 3 degrees. But wait! Not *all* the target is usefully hit. If the target is wearing any kind of armor then one must hit a specific area on the target, and aiming the tip of the sword at a small area ten meters away becomes a wonder in itself. [Answer] ## Parrying Daggers and Bucklers Given your responses in the comments, i offer you parrying daggers and bucklers. Compared to a ‘normal’ sized shield, these are far more convinient to use and carry. Staring with the buckler, as it is the easiest to explain, this is a smaller dinner plate sized shield which is used far more actively than a larger shield. Rather than letting the blade come to you, you meet the blade with your shield. This could be a key defense against a blade which has such a long effective range, allowing you a moment to strike wih your own sword. Parrying daggers are meant for catching and defecting sword strikes. Against a blade that only exists for about a second, they might not be all that useful as they are intended to bind a sword, allowing you to strike with your own. However, if possible, the parrying dagger could contain technology similar similar to the projection blades but used in a different way. Rather than emitting a blade of their own, when a projection blade comes into contact with the dagger, rather than that blade only lasting a single second, the blade lasts for 2 or 3 seconds. This gives the user time to trap the projection blade using the dagger before stiking with their own projection blade. To counter this parrying dagger, you would have to only activate your blade after you have passed it, which could be hard to do against a skilled user. You could also use a swordbreaker which has a similar use to a parrying dagger but uses teeth on the back edge rather than long, trident-like points. If you wanted to use the word differently though, your sword breaker might be the opposite of a parrying dagger. Rather than increasing the length of time the projection blade stays active, any projection blade it comes into contact with is instantly deactivated. A sword breaker would cancel out the effects of a parrying dagger, potentially allowing for some interesting fights if one duellist has a SB and the other has a PD. You could break a bind with a PD using your own SB, for example. [Answer] > > Given the dynamics and limits described above, what would be a plausible fencing style for users of this kind of weapons? Specifically for duels between projection weapon users > > > One word: **FRENZIED** All sword fighting techniques are based on the idea of closing a gap to strike, then strikes and parries are exchanged until one of the combatants retreats a step or takes a hit. What your weapons have done is essentially eliminated the option of moving out of striking distance. So once a duel starts thrusts, slashes and parries will be exchanged until one of the combatants drops. [Answer] ## Sword and Shield I would imagine the best fighting style in this scenario would be using an arming sword (your standard one-handed sword which has a blade about arms length) and some kind of large shield. Given that this sword’s angle of attack can not be predicted in the same way a traditional sword’s can be, it necessitates the use of a large barrier to block the attack, a shield. The sword itself is inconsequential in this answer, you have already defined what it can do, all i can add is it should be a one-handed blade to allow the use of a shield. The question then is what type of shield to use? There are several options available though i would say you want a large centre-grip (so it can be held out in front of your) shield that can cover a large area. This leaves us with three choices: the Kite shield, the Tower shield or a large Round shield. I think you would be best of using a kite shield as it is the lightest of the three (allowing it to be moved and carried more easily) and it would adequately cover your body, even against the timed activation you mentioned. It is a large tear-drop shaped shield with the tip pointing down to your leg. If you wanted to reduce the risk of getting hit from unexpected angles, you may instead want a tower shield which is of a similar size but rectangular. Given the recent edit has made most of this not relevant i propose an alternative option, the pavise. This is a rectanular shield that freely stands on the ground, traditionally it was used by crossbowmen to give them cover whilst they reloaded. If you are opposed to the use of traditional shields, this might be another option. You would also be able to use a two-handed weapon if that is what you wanted. [Answer] I'm going out on a limb and stating that the less that a fighter has to worry about his reach, the more he has to worry about his perceptions of the enemy. Imagine if you were to make a stabbing motion through your cloak or some other visual blocker that makes it very hard to predict where you were aiming. I imagine such a thing would be very difficult to parry. The further away, and thus less clear your sight of the enemy, the greater the potential for bluff movements. To overcome this, I imagine people would prefer to use a large shield or an encompassing armor, assuming the funds and patience available for continually transporting such weighty objects. So what we end up with are people either too impatient or too poor for lugging heavy and expensive equipment, and fight with knives and subtle misdirection/screen moves that are difficult to predict, and then another class of 'knight' type fighters who can afford the protection from that sort of combat but now need larger and harder-hitting weapons to go up against other 'knights'. A long distance mace would do the trick there, but if you're trying to keep this purely to swordplay and/or protection is too effective or too-easily available it's possible that the enemies would have to close in on each other like normal sword combat to get around each other's shield/etc. ]
[Question] [ Say superheroes in a certain world have somewhat less overpowered abilities. A strong super might be able to lift a few tons, but not stop speeding trains or pick up an entire semi. Unlike the Flash, a "speedster" in this world cannot run faster than the speed of light. What speed would a person have to be running that they (their whole body not just their hand, etc.) would become hard for the eye to track/become "blurred" to someone watching them? How fast would they need to be able to accelerate to reach this point within a second of beginning to move? Edit: Okay, I don't want to be able to turn Speedster Bob invisible through speed, just make him "look" unnaturally fast to an observer. Some people with quick reflexes may be able to move their arm and catch a thrown object, where the watcher barely had time to process their movement. An entire body is obviously much easier to see/watch and displaces more air, but how to achieve a similar effect? Right, in response to feedback, it seems Bob cannot be made fully blurry due to his size without moving faster than the fastest vehicles known to man. Unless he's a pixie or a knome, he's out of luck. So, let's alter the question a bit and tone Bob down a bit: If Bob's top running speed is 100mph, and he can accelerate to 50 mph in less than a second and increases his acceleration until he hits this point, what would Bob look like to the observer a) when he first begins to move and b) when he hits top speed? If it makes a difference whether the observer is stationary or in motion, let's assume they are stationary at the moment. [Answer] There are two things you need to be aware of: **Saccade** > > A saccade is a fast movement of an eye, head or other part of the body or of a device. It can also be a fast shift in frequency of an emitted signal or other quick change. Saccades are quick, simultaneous movements of both eyes in the same direction. Saccades are the fastest movements produced by the human body. > > > The peak angular speed of the eye during a saccade reaches up to 900°/s in humans! Saccades to an unexpected stimulus normally take about 200 milliseconds (ms) to initiate, and then last from about 20–200 ms, depending on their amplitude. The amplitude of a saccade is the angular distance the eye travels during the movement. For amplitudes up to about 60°, the velocity of a saccade linearly depends on the amplitude (the so-called saccadic main sequence). > > > In saccades larger than 60°, the peak velocity starts to plateau (nonlinearly) toward the maximum velocity attainable by the eye. For instance, a 10° amplitude is associated with a velocity of 300°/s, and 30° is associated with 500°/s. ([Source\_1](https://www.quora.com/How-fast-can-the-human-eye-move), [Source\_2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade)) > > > So, 0.2 seconds to initiate, 0.02 seconds best-case. Anything that changes position in less time than 0.22 seconds can't be tracked by the human eye. **Frame Rate** I'm not even going to bother quoting anyone or listing citations. So many people are comparing apples to oranges on this issue that it's hard to boil down useful citations. Here's the argument: if your LCD screen is 2,000 pixels wide and a single pixel is moved from one side to the other at the best light-and-decay rate the screen can produce, can the human eye see it? Yup, it can, and that can correspond to thousands of "frames per second." What most people ignore is that it's just one dot, you're focused on it, and the actual "velocity" of transit is very slow. For example: if black-to-color-to-black is 1ms, you're only talking about 2,000ms or 2 seconds. If your screen is 20" wide, that's only 0.06 mph, which is walking speed. If it's 0.01ms, then it's 6 mph or very high-quality sprint-running speed. Do you see my point? So, when we talk "frame rate" of the human eye, we need to talk about how fast the entire picture can change (or something major within the picture) and the eye still see it? That brings us back to Saccade movement, because it's really a question of how fast the brain-eye combination can (a) notice that something needs to be tracked, (b) lock onto that object, and (c) move the eye to maintain focus. **Conclusion** Remember that 0.02 seconds? That's the fastest (give or take, no two people are the same) the eye/head combination can track something. The 0.2 seconds is the time needed to notice and lock on. Your superheros need to be *out of the frame* in that time (otherwise the eye's peripheral vision is still tracking them). This depends on how far away they are, which you didn't mention. The closer they are, the slower they can move and be out of frame before the eye can catch up. So, for illustration purposes, let's pick numbers. Let's use the above reference's 60° number for the maximum Saccade speed. If they're 100 yards away (and simplifying this to a triangle calculation rather than an arc calculation, which would maximize the distance, but it'll be good enough), then they need to travel 100 yards in anything less than 0.22 seconds. That's anything more than 1,363.64 feet/s2 *And if you're firing a .22 caliber rimfire rifle, that really is faster than a speeding bullet.* And, like any good bullet, you didn't see him move. He was just gone.1 ***Edit:** Let me add a bit of context. Once, while living in Texas, I had the privilege of watching the Shuttle descend toward landing. It was (literally) like watching God draw a line of fire in the sky. It was moving a whole lot faster then 1363fps - but the size of the corridor of burning atmosphere and the distances involved were* so great *that I could comfortably enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. Which is a lovely way of saying the necessary speed is completely situation-dependent.* --- 1 *To be fair, the biggest reason you can't see a moving bullet is its size. Humans can see "tracer bullets" because the (I believe it is) burning phosphorous creates a much larger visible target (light glare). In a nutshell, the bullet is easier to see. Your superhero is huge, which means my analysis might be wrong because I'm not taking into account the effect of the size of the target object on visibility.* [Answer] A slowish bullet is just about visible from behind the gun, in bright sun against a dark background. The same bullet, crossing your field of view, is invisible *unless your eye happens to move at just the right time* in a direction that (accidentally) tracks the bullet. Of course, the bigger the object (like a human) the easier it is to see, at least as a blur, but the minimum that will do this for an object as much bigger than a bullet as a baseball would be close to the speed of sound. Even that would still be visible from near the path of motion (either approaching or receding), just because the angular speed is so much smaller a fraction of the actual speed in that geometry. For something the size of a human, then, to be invisible even to someone he's running toward, he'd have to move so fast that he goes from "out of sight" in the distance to contact or passing before the brain could interpret what the eyes started to record -- say, a hundredth of a second from the horizon (or from cover) to the observer. That would be several times the speed of sound, which would have its own effects (broken windows, deafened bystanders, burnt clothing on the speedster, etc.). [Answer] It's impossible. The human eye can track very fast objects. I mean 4 times the speed of sound fast. And distance and size makes a big difference. For example, if you know where to look, the space station is clearly visible. Despite moving at 17,130 mph. If the observer is focusing, there is no speed less than invisible that a person would disappear. By the time Bob is moving fast enough to be blurry, he is breaking the sound barrier and has other things to worry about. [Answer] **It is not a question of speed, but rather time and situation.** The human eye blurs any actions occurring quicker than 1/50th of a second, this is why the electrical grids are set for 50-60Hz. Any quick movements done within this time period will be blurred to the eye. This includes quickly catching or throwing objects as well as any oscillatory movements such as pumping their arms while running. With regards to full body movement, the problem that occurs is that motion is relative. While someone is unlikely to track a quick reflective or oscillatory movement (if you doubt this try any track a single blade on an aircrafts propeller at an airshow), tracking an object moving on a predictable path is much easier. If you look at a picture of a fast moving car, you will notice the background is blurred; this is due to the fact that the camera is tracking the car, if the camera was kept stationary the car would be blurred and the background would be normal. So as far a being blurred in a straight line, it is a matter of predictability and tracking of the object, speed does not matter. Finally, another useful measure may be the minimum reaction time. Even if someone can see something, it does not mean they can react to it. The minimum time to react is around 0.15 to 0.2 seconds. In fact, the olympics actually considers it a false start if someone reacts in less than 0.1 seconds after the signal. If you want your speedster to be blurred to a viewer over a large distance, they should zigzag at around a 50Hz frequency. If you want to just prevent someone from reacting to them, random (non-predictable) changes in direction at a 5-10Hz frequency will be enough. ]
[Question] [ Ok so I've been going around on the internet trying to figure out whether or not when 2 earth like planets of similar densities and makeup collide is it possible for them to bounce off of each other or would they just smash into each other or tear each other apart? It was pretty hard for me to find surfing the web how that would play out. (If there's a way for a crater to form from the collision on like a continent sized scale that'd be great) [Answer] ### A grazing collision If your goal is to have two planets that have collided in the past and still exist, you can make a "grazing" collision between two planets that had *very* different relative velocities. Basically your planet was "clipped" by a high-speed object in the past that was already moving at a high enough speed to continue on its current path without becoming gravitationally bound. Such an impact will naturally be cataclysmic (no way is anything on the surface surviving the event) and can indeed result in a continent-sized "crater", though keep in mind that a crater of this size will not retain its "bowl" shape, but will instead fill with molten rock and solidify into a more-or-less flat "plain". The lunar "seas" are essentially continent-sized craters if you want an idea of how this will look. There is also a high chance that the collision will throw "shrapnel" all over the place and one or both planets may well wind up with a ring of ejected material. In a grazing collision, the planets will not "bounce" off each other like billiard balls; the gravitational attraction between the two planets will be *much* higher than any "bounce" you get from the collision. Instead their trajectories will curve *toward* each other due to gravitational interaction. [Answer] Let's take two twin Earths. Escape velocity from Earth is 11 km/s, which means that the same velocity is what at least you can expect from an object being captured by Earth gravitational field. This is bad news for your impact: there is no way a body the size and mass of Earth, impacting another Earth at 11 km/s, could make a gentle impact. It is believed that the impact which generated the Moon, with a body the size of Mars, pumped so much energy into Earth to smelt once more its entire surface. And here we are talking about an even bigger body. A molten surface is also warranty for no crater to form: any structure created by the impact will flatten out under gravity, more or less what happen to anything you do with molten chocolate. If the density of the two bodies are different, you can have the remaining of the lightest one floating on the densest one. [Answer] **Tidal forces mean devastation** Gravity is a very weak force, but planets are very big. When the two planets come within close physical proximity to each other, they will begin affecting each other gravitationally - in basically exactly the same way that the moon causes the tides. Except that the moon is about 2% the size of the Earth. So your Earth-like planet that comes in for a collision will - when it is at lunar-orbit range - produce tidal forces approx. 50x larger than the tides today. But the distance between the Earth and the Moon is 240-ish thousand miles. The radius of the Earth itself is about 4 thousand-ish miles. Even a near miss, where the planets never actually collide, will still have a tidal force roughly 3000 times stronger than the one we know. I'm not a geophysicist, so I can't say what exactly that will do. In general, it will not be pretty. **The collision will likely be inelastic** The large tidal force will probably be significant enough to affect the elasticity of the collision. Another thing that will affect it will be the tendency of whatever material is involved in the collision to deform, melt, and basically do a bunch of things will turn kinetic energy from the collision into something else. When that happens, it becomes much less likely that the collision will be elastic ("elastic" meaning "bouncing off like a billiary ball" in a physics context). [Answer] > > **Can planets collide ...** > > > According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAU_definition_of_planet) > > The International Astronomical Union (IAU) defined in August 2006 that, in the Solar System, a planet is a celestial body which: > > > * is in orbit around the Sun, > * has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (a nearly round shape), and > * has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit. > > > This last requirement makes it difficult, if not impossible, for planets to collide. --- > > **... and not melt together?** > > > Some planets are gaseous/fluid (e.g. Jupiter) and don't have anything solid to melt. I suspect that any body large enough to meet the second requirement of the IAU definition, colliding at a closing speed anywhere near planetary orbital speeds, is very likely to involve energies easily large enough to convert any solid matter to a fluid of some sort. If you look at smaller events such as the hypothetical collision between [Earth and Theia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis), there is a fairly thorough coalescence of matter from both bodies. > > in the aftermath of the giant impact, while the Earth and the proto-lunar disk were molten and vaporized, > > > [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/P3eOg.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/P3eOg.jpg) ]
[Question] [ In post-apocalypse fiction, diabetics, if they are ever even mentioned, are typically portrayed as utterly, irrevocably screwed. In fact there was a pretty cynical example in Dies The Fire (a book about technology magically ceasing to function forever) where there was a Mormon couple who both had diabetes because their entire narrative purpose was to stockpile a lot of resources the heroes could use (Mormon) and then die so the heroes could use them (diabetic). But suppose the hero, or at least one of the main characters, of a post-apocalyptic story was diabetic, and one of the main driving motivations in the story was to keep this guy alive. One thing I’ve been really interested in figuring out is if it can be done. I’ve done some research about this due to an interest in having a diabetic character in my story that will eventually become post-apocalypse, and what I learned was that there’s a starvation diet you can use to keep a diabetic person alive (if just barely) for about a year or two with no insulin, and I also learned that there’s a complicated chemical process you can use to turn chopped livestock pancreases into homemade insulin. But none of the resources I could find gave any hint at what kind of scale or effort it would take to keep this going, how much insulin you got out of a single pig or cow, how much land it would take to keep a sustainable livestock population, whether or not the chemicals and alcohol were possible to obtain more of once stockpiles and scavenging run out, or what equipment it required to operate. **Suppose some determined type-1 diabetic doomsday prepper set out to design and build a completely off-the grid compound that could, completely without assistance from the power grid, water facilities, or supply networks of civilization after it’s been built, keep a single diabetic alive, and feed, water and house him/her and as many people as it would take to maintain such a compound. What, bare minimum, would such a compound need to have, how big would it be, and how many people would it take to run it?** [Answer] Many Type II diabetics use insulin and others may use different medications that affect insulin production and use but in a slower way. Diet works in most people here. Eat very lowcarb. It's not "starvation." Type I diabetics don't produce insulin and require it to metabolize their food. A very lowcarb diet (again, not starvation) can greatly reduce the need for insulin so any existing stockpile or new supply will last much much longer. I'm going to assume your question is about Type I (though your question in its current form does not specify). <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9416027> (abstract) <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/014572179702300603> (first page of full text) Fat doesn't change blood glucose levels. Protein doesn't either, but protein in excess of need will convert in part to glucose in the body. This article suggests that, in the presence of adequate insulin (regardless of if it is naturally produced or supplemented from the outside), protein intake will not affect blood glucose. It's unclear what the effects of protein are in people who do not have any insulin (I can't read the full article). While it's true that diabetics before the invention of insulin supplementation found it hard to maintain themselves by diet alone, a lot of that was because it took a long time for diagnosis and to realize the importance of diet and the details of how to implement it. In the case of someone who is already diagnosed and who has enough insulin on hand for a transition, that may make it possible. Now, people living in a world where food resources are scarce, may not have the luxury of choosing their diet. Carb-heavy foods like grains and legumes are the easiest to store. In this article: <http://www.jbc.org/content/106/1/305.full.pdf> The authors found that fetal cows yielded around 30 IU of insulin per gram of pancreas (I am not sure of the weight of the pancreas per animal). It's a myth that the only source is pigs. That's just what happens to be used commercially. One article says that fish pancreas yields more insulin, but of course extraction would be difficult. I am not sure how much of the full process you'd need to use to get the insulin. Mostly it is alcohol and acetic acid, both of which are easy enough to make from food stuff, if those versions will work. It's also possible you simply need to eat the fresh pancreas. Dried pancreas has less insulin (though I didn't come across numbers) but it can also be stockpiled. Raid a health food store's supplement department. So my guess is a compound with enough space, water, and pasture for a herd of cattle and some other animals, a garden area to grow healthy low-starch vegetables, and enough people to maintain it, is what you need. I'd say you want something large enough that you're not dependent on a couple of animals. You need a herd so they're self-sustaining. Use milk, eggs, and meat as the mainstays of the diet, along with leafy greens and other lowcarb veggies. Farm some grains and legumes to supplement the animals' diets in winter (in cold areas) or summer (in Mediterranean climate areas) and to feed the non-diabetic humans. So...maybe 20+ cows in 40 acres of pasture (using rotation to grow extra hay), 5 acres to grow grains and vegetables for 25 people, add on an acre or 3 to feed poultry, a milk cow or two, maybe a fish pond. And another acre to house your people and supplies. These numbers are approximate because this is your research, not mine. **Sources:** [USDA](https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1097070.pdf): 11 beef cows per 20 acres. [Quora](https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-does-an-acre-of-wheat-feed): "One acre of wheat, producing 50 bushels in a year (assuming only 1 crop season), could sustain about 2,250 people for a day (eating only bread), or 6.2 people for a year." [Answer] [Eva Saxl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Saxl) produced extracted insulin in occupied Shanghai using something like [this process](https://www.doomandbloom.net/how-to-make-insulin/). As you can see there are a lot of specific chemicals, I think society with population about some 100s of thousands people and 19th century technology would manage it. Or just people having access to per-apocalypses store of chemicals. [Answer] Recombinant insulin was the first human hormone produced massively by genetic engineering, in E. Coli (originally, 1973). And currently it is also produced in beer yeast ([since 1987](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3728191/)). **What would it take? To preserve a working human insulin yeast**. Maybe not the current, but a more advanced and easy to use one. Do you know [kefir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefir)? It is an ancient drink made with an ancient microbiota (equilibrium between microbiological lifeforms). Imagine the same, but with insulin. [Answer] **the old fasioned way** The old fashioned way of harvesting insulin is to take it from the pancreas of livestock like sheep or pigs. All it requires is medical knowledge and syringes. Gotta do it right or your body will reject it and immune system will freak out and kill you. <https://www.diabetes.co.uk/insulin/animal-insulin.html> In many ways this would be easier and safer than maintaining and processing a microbial supply of insulin. Requires lots of knowledge across multiple fields with lots of steps that can go wrong. ]
[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 5 years ago. [Improve this question](/posts/129443/edit) I'm starting a new adventuring group with my friends. I live in a fantasy world with predictable levels of danger in certain areas. We're part of an adventuring guild. Everyone in our group has a different "role", and each person in the group is theoretically replaceable. We're splitting the profits as evenly as we can. We can accept quests from any town, but most quests, we've found, are located a day's travel or further away from one. We don't have horses, for monetary reasons, hence our long travel time and being forced to carry our belongings on us. The problem is when we're about to enter a dangerous situation, where one or more of us could be left behind. **Ideally, we only want to bring the items that are necessary with us into these situations, but we don't have a good place to store the items and money.** We could split them between ourselves, but then if someone gets left behind, then as a group we lose that portion of our loot as well. **Why not use a bank of some kind?** Or create a home base? Well, because the quest locations are spread so far out, if we were to store things in one place it's likely we would often need them in another. A day's travel or more just to get the items we need is a PITA. **With all of that in mind, what can we do with our valuables before entering a dangerous situation?** Can you help my adventuring party solve this logistical nightmare? --- Note: Obviously, storing our valuables needs to be in a way that someone else can't just come along and find them and take them for themselves. We trust each other, but quests are public information, so leaving our stuff lying around is just asking to have it be stolen. Note: Magic exists in our world. In fact, we currently have two mages in our group (a damage dealer and a healer). However, our spells are simplistic and tend to be solely in those two categories. Enchanted items are also very uncommon and tend to be expensive (usually out of our price range). We would prefer answers without magic, if possible. Note: Tag help is appreciated. [Answer] Delegate the task of logistics and safeguarding items for the group to an outside individual or individuals that are not expected to enter dangerous situations. They would travel with the group, and would be in charge of things outside of simply carrying stuff, such as cooking, setting up camp at night, stuff like that. However they would stay in a safe location outside of the confrontation area in dangerous situations. This doesn't mean that they are unskilled in combat though. If someone attacks your stuff while your main group is away, someone needs to protect and/or move your stuff. As for why they would do all these menial tasks for you, they would recieve their share of the reward as any other member of the group would upon completion of the task. [Answer] The usual trick is to hide it. Stick it in the bushes, in a backpack up a tree or just bury it. Unless you're being spied up at the exact time, chances are nobody would ever find it. If you bring magic into it, you then can make it invisible, use portable secure shelters or extra dimensional spaces and even magical guard creatures. [Answer] The solution is in your answer. **You can't be the only adventuring group with this problem. And you are part of a guild.** If the guild has places all over, then they likely have **a designated quartermaster/goodsholder that keeps items for adventurers in many of the places and towns.** You pay a small fee and they keep it for you, for a contracted amount of time. The way they likely make the most money is this: dead adventurers. Basically, you pay for a certain amount of time--if you want you can pay for up to a year's time in advance, as a deposit, but you only have to pay for the storage time that you use. Unclaimed items that are left past the deposit time go back to the guild/ quartermaster. The guild has enough of a rep that thieves stay away. It's a good payday, but the guild has hired magic users in the past to track down any thieves, so while most times there isn't anything better than a sturdy door and lock, it's not a good idea for a thief to try it. For this to work, there has to be a guild rep in nearly every town, or someone that they entrust. **The guild can also supply you with a low-level lackey who doesn't have the chops to truly adventure, but does work as a hireling.** Again, because it's via the guild, the guild has a vested interest in tracking down any hireling that steals from the group. They'll be loyal insofar as they are paid. They will either be paid straight, or can get a smaller percentage from the group. Ideally, they wear some sort of sigil of the guild letting people know who and what they are. Outside the guild there's always **the stash** basically, you look for a likely place to hide your goods. As this is common, it's kind of fun to find something already there, as the last adventurers to die here did the same dang thing, but did not survive to pick their stuff back up. This serves as foreshadowing, and might have some useful stuff for players as they need. [Answer] * Buy a [manor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manor) and appoint a [steward](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steward_(office)). After all, [real estate](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/real%20estate) is the only real worth. If they are not yet that rich (you mentioned the inability to afford horses), start small and buy a peasant hut. Then buy another. * Ask mum and dad to safeguard it. For that matter, a dutiful child would give a large percentage of their loot to their family. * [Breaking the fourth wall](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BreakingTheFourthWall), it is difficult to get all the players together for each session. So turn that into an advantage. The guy/gal who has to study for an exam or babysit younger relatives is always "guarding the baggage." It is a genre convention that these "zombie player characters" will not be attacked by NPCs while they keep out of the action. Everybody wins. [Answer] ### Dig a hole If you have a shovel, it doesn't take too long. If you have a nice burlap sack, your stuff won't get dirty in a day or two. As long as there is nothing that smells good to badgers in the hole, no one will disturb it. ### Leave someone outside Do you have someone who couldn't make the raid? Then he/she is hanging out, right outside the instance, with all your loot. ### Hire a lackey Honestly, if you have that much stuff to truck around, hire a man to do the job for you. This (honest?) fellow can be left in the nearest settlement while you enter the Dungeon of Earnest Regret. ### Hire (buy) a donkey Much like hiring a lackey, except it is acceptable to tie the lackey/donkey to a tree to ensure he/it doesn't go anywhere. [Answer] **Have the healer carry the most valuable items** As a healer, they are the least likely to be left alone if the group has to split, and also supposedly less exposed in combat. ]
[Question] [ My question is pretty simple, if the steam locomotive were invented during the middle to late medieval period, what would it look like? We are just going to ignore how it was invented. My guess is that it would be fairly small and light. I’d also guess that the boiler would have wood lagging (insulation) around the boiler (mainly) and that the cylinders are in the outside and not inside the frame. In short, like the early steam locos of the 1900s century. The metal working of the period would also limit the boiler size, though it would probably improve quite fast ... but let’s just ignore that for now. If they just couldn’t do it, then let’s give them the minimum needed to get a functioning steam locomotive that could pull a (short and light) train. [Answer] You can basically follow the history: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_engine#History> Lower quality of metal means that steam engine will be bulkier, or have less power. The biggest issue is containing the steam pressure, and weaker metal means you need more of it. So you get a loco that can barely pull its own weight, with very little power left to pull carriages. In fact, in reality steam engines started out as being too heavy to move themselves, and were used to pump water out of mines, or later to turn machinery in factories. So by the time you invent a locomotive, you should have factories. Also, another limitation of medieval technology is precision of manufacturing. The piston has to fit the cylinder just right, the valves directing steam to different sections of the piston must be air-tight and open at just the right moment. It would take years of trial and error to build one, and errors could easily kill the craftsmen and destroy the workshop. Compared to that, horses are much easier. You can have a railroad with horse-drawn carriages. More privacy and independence this way too. [Answer] your locomotive might look like the Fardier, built by Nicolas Cugnot in the XVIIth century in France: By unknown/F. A. Brockhaus - Brockhaus Kleines Konversations-Lexikon (5. Auflage 1911) zeno.org, Public Domain, <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3170175> [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2bDcE.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2bDcE.png) ]
[Question] [ There's this organisation, which has a global system of secret and sensitive military bases situated in various geopolitical regions, not unlike those of the US military. One military installation is a naval base located on [Île Pott](https://www.google.com/maps/@-19.5102785,163.010717,382622m/data=!3m1!1e3) (an island 271 kilometers north of New Caledonia), which is within reaching distance of Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia, Samoa, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, New Zeland and Australia. Although, I am somewhat concerned that Île Pott is not big enough to support a considerable fleet of vessels (of unknown makeup and size) along with a population of 800,000 soldiers and unspecified number of civilian personnel. This is because Panan has a length of around 7.17 kilometers (if Google Maps is to be taken at face value) and naval bases require a great deal of land to be built on. I have toyed with the idea of having the base staffed by a skeleton crew of several thousand soldiers and civilians while the 800,000 troops are kept in cryostasis. When half of the fleet is mobilized, 400,000 of these soldiers are transported on-board while in cryostasis and woken up upon reaching their destination. While the other 400,000 are kept back at Panan in cryostasis, as reserves or "insurance" against would-be attackers trying to assault Panan. Which only leaves the issue of maintaining the fleet and hiding it from prying eyes. How would such an issue be resolved? [Answer] **You need your base to be underwater. Topside, it is camouflaged as a resort.** [![Underwater base](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AfeFp.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AfeFp.jpg) It would be great! Down below a base with your secret weapons, monster facilities, cryotanks etc. Up in the air there is swanky, working resort with all the amenities. Actually, not all of the amenities - the place is third rate, but trying hard. You don't want too much attention. The harbor would be big enough to admit a cruise ship, and the passengers would spend a couple of days at your Île Pott resort doing cruise ship type things. This is a working business model for lots of places. Some places are owned and operated by the cruise ship line and that is how you would do it too. A base this big will need a lot of supplies. Good thing cruise ships are big! Your cruise ships / supply ships can be unloaded from below while the passengers make merry up above. --- I am feeling sorry for the thousands of soldiers who while away the years in cryostasis. I hope these are frogbots or aliens of some sort, not just regular people whose families are getting old, wondering what happened to them. [Answer] The snide answer would be "forget it" ... I'll try to explain. There are too many different operators of recon sats, both military and commercial, to hide a base for this number of troops. The [Normandy landings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Normandy) involved 1.3M troops, roughly in the same ballpark as your numbers, and they used most of England for basing. * You need ports for the ships. An [amphibious assault ship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp-class_amphibious_assault_ship) is about 250m long and it transports 2,000 troops. So if the island was a circle ringed by docks, it could hold 90 ships with 180,000 troops. Of course it is completely unrealistic that all of the coast is filled with troopships that way, but it shows the order-of-magnitude of the problem. No battleships or freighters yet ... * You probably need airbases. They need not just runways but also ramp space to park aircraft. * Troops have to train, or they cease to be effective soldiers. You need training areas at least 30 or 40 km long for proper training, more is better. If you want to keep the base top secret, at best you can hope to disguise **what exactly** goes on. Think of [Area 51](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51), or [Mount Yamatau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Yamantau). There is wild guessing what happens there, but none at all that they exist. [Answer] # Robots, not people The easiest way to solve your problems would be to have all this military personnel, except they wouldn't be people. Instead they could be machines: unmanned combat equipment and support robots. These don't require food, medical attention or oxygen and they can work around the clock. They are powered by deep-sea nuclear power facilities so they never suffer from empty batteries. The robots could be stationed deep in the sea, possibly at different locations. They could be supplied by the navy: a large vessel could drop supplies (or even new robots) somewhere in the vicinity so the support robots (possibly unmanned nuclear submarine-robots) come pick it up. Once the war breaks out, the robots use prepared platforms, that rise to the surface using air they get from the atmosphere. Some of the combat equipment is then placed on those platforms to provide air defense. The platforms also serve as landing grounds for new equipement which is now supplied from the air, using military planes. Another supply method is to shoot ballistic missiles near the area which are then retrieved by the support robots. Most support robots stay deep in the ocean when they are not needed or their work can be done underwater. This keeps them out of sight and prevents them from being captured or attacked by the enemy. A captured machine is no biggie, they are machines that are unresponsive to torture, likely to self-destruct on capture and have access to the systems on need to know bases. The latter allows them to do their job, but nothing more. The human military personnel stays away to provide support in the form of information and manipulation: gathering intelligence, thinking about strategies and diplomacy. The latter can be used to avoid conflict, or in case it's unavoidable, make sure the conflict happens where you are best prepared. In case you were wondering how we make sure all goes undetected: we don't. We tell the world the equipment is used for preparing Space Force missions: "The deep ocean allows us to test our equipment in space-like environments." [1] may or may not illustrate propaganda efforts already in motion to perform this [*maskirovka* (маскировка)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_deception). [1] Fredericks, B. "Trump Calls for New 'Space Force' as Part of US Military." New York Post. June 18, 2018. Accessed June 23, 2018. <https://nypost.com/2018/06/18/trump-calls-for-new-space-force-as-part-of-us-military/>. ]
[Question] [ As you look at the properties of the atmosphere as you scale up or down, things get weirder and weirder. One good example is the [fairyfly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairyfly) and its environment. Fairyflies are so small that at their scale, air behaves somewhat like syrup and their wings have become like hairy spoons in order to grab the air rather than glide in it. With this in mind I will now get to my question. **What kind of gasses or other conditions would make a planet’s gaseous atmosphere act like the syrupy atmosphere of the fairyfly, but on a human scale?** [Answer] Scale is an interesting consideration when it comes to questions like this insofar as we have to understand *why* a fairyfly's environment is 'syrupy'; a large part of it is that air molecules are so much bigger to them by proportion to their body size. It's not that their air is like a syrup per se; what they experience would be more like what we would experience living in an atmosphere made up of very small polystyrene beads. It's also important to note that these creatures (like any insects) don't have lungs. They absorb their O2 directly through their carapaces and can do so because their bodies are sufficiently small that it can be saturated with O2 absorbed through osmosis. A human can't do that and survive with the body size and shape that we possess. But, if O2 came in the form if micro sized polystyrene beads, our lungs wouldn't work either. We would literally suffocate. This ties in to the miniaturisation paradox; there's no way for 'Ant-Man' or any other human to survive when shrunk to the same size as an insect. Either your miniaturisation method involves actually making all the molecules of the body smaller, in which case the lungs can no longer process O2 molecules of a standard size and we suffocate, or the miniaturisation method employed merely scales down the number of molecules using something simliar to Eigenvector based compression modelling, in which case the human brain is now so simple that human thought is impossible. Bottom line is that it can't be done scientifically. **But for the sake of argument** Let's assume that you're literally talking about a liquid atmosphere and that the whole fairyfly discussion is a distraction. In that case, you'd be working in a form of [Oxygenated Fluorocarbon Emulsion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing). Liquid breathing as a theory has been around for a while now and the provided link does go some way to explaining what the current thinking is about the practical benefits and downsides of such a system might be. That's at least a good place to start in terms of surviving long enough to consider the rest of the problem, like moving stuff or flying in a neutrally buoyant environment. For those questions, you're better off considering objects as mass, not weight and then applying standard kinematic thinking to the problem. Realistically though, as an organism we're optimised to survive in our current gaseous environment. Changing out to a syrupy one is only going to cause us difficulties in the short term, even if there are some very specific advantages in certain areas. [Answer] No, what follows is a slightly more technical explanation. You'd need to have a very low [Reynolds number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_number). Flow around two objects with the same Reynolds number will look about the same when the Re arethe same, even at vastly diferent sizes of the objects. Technically, it is the ratio of inertial to friction forces acting on something, and scales with size: $$Re = \frac{\rho u L}{\mu} = \frac{u L}{\nu}$$ with density $\rho$, velocity $u$, charecteristic length $L$, dynamic viscosity $\mu$ and kinematic viscostiy $\nu$. To arrive at very low Reynolds numbers at large lengths, we need to move very slowly through very viscous gas. If we look at some kinematic viscosities for gasses, they are all (at normal conditions, T approx. 300K) around 10-20 µPa s^-1. Clearly not enough. [Viscosity of gases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscosity#Gases) "arises principally from the molecular diffusion that transports momentum between layers of flow." Numerically, it depends on the mean free path of particles. Thinking about how to have a high viscosity gas is not trivial, but given that viscositiy is higher with a longer mean free path we would need smaller molecules (fatter molecules bump mor often). I don't see any credible way how you could have far samller molecules thatn Helium or Hydrogen, so this route is out. Viscosity rises with (the root of) Temperature, so we could have a more viscous gas ... but not by orders of magnitude. If wereach plasma temperature, all these relations break down anyway. ]
[Question] [ I am writing a science fiction story with mass produced clones. Since I have a number of clone I need to tell them apart. The ID system must be: * Permanent over the lifetime of the clone (call it 150 years) * Very difficult to tamper with (radio frequency transmitters can be excised, etched bones can be re-etched -- hard to read anyway) * Not overly harmful to the clone (clones are only valuable if they function like humans) Can I use DNA to do this, by simply adding several codons to an existing DNA strand (assuming quick, basically immediate, and accurate Polymerase Chain Reaction - PCR)? Could you modify the clone by rewriting his/her DNA thus causing a serial number to appear on the skin and still detect the genes responsible with PCR (this would should meet the criteria above - two level verification between skin and genetics seems a secure methodology)? Could either of these techniques be used to modify the clones genetic strucure prior to inception thus changing the DNA of all cells within the cloned organism? Note: The following wikipedia article might provide a start in responding to this post (<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy>)? [Answer] > > Can I use DNA to do this, by simply adding several codons to an existing DNA strand (assuming quick, basically immediate, and accurate Proteinas Chain Reaction - PCR)? > > > Absolutely. A significant percentage (as high as 20% according to some authors) of DNA has no biological activity and is a leftover from ages past. Another 60% has little direct activity (it is non-coding) but *might* be useful, so let's leave it alone, but that still leaves a lot to play with. Locate a unused section of a [pseudogene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudogene) which is very likely to be completely nonfunctional (e.g. the seventh in a run of fifteen useless incomplete repetitions likely due to copying errors in the last twenty million years) and replace it with an equally non-coding sequence. There are some combinations you cannot use to ensure that the sequence won't actully code anything, but you have plenty of space for your needs. Or if you feel more adventurous, you can use synonymization: several aminoacids are coded [by more than one DNA triplet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_code), and in normal human genetic code, you'll find say GGA for proline. You can then use GGT and GGG in that position to keep everything working (both triplets will code for proline), but at the same time encode either a 0 or a 1. By comparing the known human reference with the clone sequence, you can extract a binary string: ``` human: TAA GCT GCT CAG CGT clone: TAG GCA GCG CAC CGA ... code : 0 1 0 0 1 ``` (This form of 'meta-coding' *might* have biological significance. In [*Frameshift* by Robert J. Sawyer](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/264941.Frameshift), it "unlocks" genetic sequences of DNA that trigger evolution - it's a sort of super-code hidden inside DNA). However, care must be taken to avoid sequences where the synonymization actually allows [coding two different and slightly offset DNA messages in the same sequence](https://www.genome.gov/27556096/multitasking-dna-dualuse-codons-in-the-human-genome/). [Answer] **Disclaimer:** I'm not a biologist. Think of DNA as source code for programming. It is read out and executed, thus very important. So if you just add some ID on it, if in your story DNA is not completely understand, it could be very easy to destroy something, just like when you randomly insert a line of code in a software project with million lines of code. Nothing could be changed, or everything could go to hell. (**EDIT:** [Junk DNA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_DNA) was mentioned in the comments. It would be a reasonable place for IDs, given you can place it there. As I understand from the Wikipedia article, biologists are still guessing why it exists in the first place, it may as well be important for growth before birth. Money quote: "Several lines of evidence indicate that some "junk DNA" sequences are likely to have unidentified functional activity") Also DNA changes over time. Due to different factors like radiation, it is altered and doesn't reproduce like earlier, but with errors. Most obvious example of this is aging, but tumors are also one. So it could as well be that by "reading out" the ID, a wrong ID is read out cause it was altered. ## Alternative method Here is an idea how you could do it instead: Write the ID inside their skulls. Take out a part of the skull bone, a **random unique** part, carve the number on the inside in, and sew everything together again. 1. Clearly permanent. 2. Difficult to temper with: A single bone can normally replaced by a similar one without the body feeling noticing. But a brain operation is delicate. And since the part of the skull bone is selected random, to temper with it you would have to replicate that exact part (or people could see there are several traces on the skull bone, for which they would only have to open the head, but not the skull). For that, you first need to take it out of the skull to take measurements. For the time being the clone would lie around with exposed brain. A lot of difficulties and problems. The drawback is that it is difficult to carve the number in the first place, but still a lot easier than changing it. 3. As long as the operation is done by expert in a sterile environment, there would be no consequences but a scar on the head, usually covered by hair. Ok, right before posting I notice it would also be very difficult to check the ID (as long as the clone needs to stay alive), but you can circumvent this by encarving the ID on both sides of the skull bone part. Easy check and hard check possible. Another variant would be to only write it on the outside, much less dangerous because no brain exposed (because operations always have a risk), but then again easier to temper with, the random unique traces of the removed skull bone part would be missing. **EDIT:** Another way of checking the encarvings would be a [MRT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_resonance_imaging). Giving technology for clones is available, it is reasonable that scanning the skull bone is mobile possible too. Today MRTs are done in clinics and can take e.g. half an hour, even that would be reasonable. And if the encarving is filled with some metal e.g. iron and a protective silicon layer so the metal doesn't interact with the rest of the head, this would make checking even easier. [Answer] The current state of the art version of this is based on [CRISPR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR), which is a set of antiviral genes found in bacteria. They are used today as a powerful tool for gene splicing, where you can identify a location you wish to cut, snip the DNA there, and add content. It's pretty fascinating. Of course, the big issue with DNA biometrics like this is that if you have the tools to add a serial number, you likely have the tools needed to edit one out. You might develop a [GATTACA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca) situation. Then again, what story involving clones doesn't involve the numbered clones going "haywire" and rebelling against being numbered? [Answer] Why not simply use an iris or retinal scan to match it to an ID? The patterns in the iris and capillary system in the retina are unique: not even genetically-identical twins have the same patterns, and an individual doesn't even have the same pattern in both eyes, which by definition comes from the same DNA and developed in the same conditions. Fingerprints would work as well, but eye scans can be read at a distance, are harder to fake (since you can beat a fingerprint scanner by duplicating someone else's print) and are subject to fewer issues such as scarring that can affect fingerprints. Hell, use both iris and retinal scans to reduce the possibility of error and potential duplication. The downside is that you need to maintain a database linking the scans to clone IDs, but that should be fairly trivial thing to deal with if you're at the point of mass-producing clones, and such would be necessary for the option of coding in the DNA anyway. But as an upside, you don't need to do anything to generate the unique identifier: nature does that for the clone already. ]
[Question] [ My question is this: Is it plausible for most aliens to have eyes that are superficially similar to human eyes, given the context below? The context is this: * I'm defining "convergent" as being any evolved light-sensing organ that's similar to a mammalian eye. It can have differences (e.g. designed to detect a different spectrum of light), but should be at least superficially similar in design. * An ancestral species deliberately seeded primitive microbes that evolved into the majority of sentient species, including humans, so there's no need to account for 'unconventional' forms of life. The aliens can be generalized to drink water, inhale oxygen, exhale carbon dioxide, etc. * Certain environmental conditions can make evolving organs to detect and differentiate light waves less probable, for instance intelligent life that evolved near the ocean floor of a world that receives most of its heat from tidal heating, and is far from its sun, but I'm taking it as a given that most of the seeded worlds were those in their star's normal zone of habitability, and thus the intelligent species evolved on them have evolved *some* kind of light-sensing organ. [Answer] Yes. Squids and humans make a good example here...actually there are a huge number of creatures that arrived at the same eye despite diverging long ago. <https://www.popsci.com/article/science/how-humans-and-squid-evolved-have-same-eyes> > > The most important of master control genes implicated in making eyes is called Pax6. The ancestral Pax6 gene probably orchestrated the formation of a very simple eye–merely a collection of light-sensing cells working together to inform a primitive organism of when it was out in the open versus in the dark, or in the shade. > Today the legacy of that early Pax6 gene lives on in an incredible diversity of organisms, from birds and bees, to shellfish and whales, from squid to you and me. This means the Pax6 gene predates the evolutionary diversification of these lineages–during the Cambrian period, some 500 million years ago. > > > ... > > Cephalopods have a camera eye with the same features as the vertebrate camera eye. Importantly, the cephalopod camera eye arose completely independently from ours. The last common ancestor of cephalopods and vertebrates existed more than 500 million years ago. > Pax6 RNA splicing in cepahlopods is a wonderful demonstration of how evolution fashions equivalent solutions via entirely different routes. Using analogous structures, evolution can provide remarkable innovations. > > > We can see several instances on Earth where the eye evolved independently to around the same form...almost to the point where I would suggest the eye could be a semi-universal evolution. [Answer] No. While there are examples of convergent evolution of eyes on this planet, as Twelfth notes, there are more examples of (superficially) dissimilar eyes. Think of compound insect eyes that are very different from our eyes, to spiders that have lots of eyes and even the squid eye that is similar but superficially looks different. Even no-eye extraterrestrial intelligence is possible (though you exclude that in your question). Even if you assume all earth-eyes to be the same there is also evolution to consider. Evolution works in the way that it favors the individual that any favorable genetic mutation, wich are random, but not necessarily the most optimised mutation possible. *Any* improvement is good and functions as the genetic base for further evolution. That results in a very wide tree of evolutionary directions, as witnessed by the enormous size of the tree of life. The ramdomness of mutations results in there being a statistially good chance that eyes would be dissimilar to our own eyes even under the exact same evolutionary circumstances, due to the fact that the first mutation leading up to the eye would be different. Then there are the conditions themselves that are vastly different throughout the universe. The planets being in the habitable zone does not mean they have similar conditions. One could think of very bright stars maybe causing subdermal eyes or eyes with very dark filters, or dim stars like red dwarves causing aliens to see in infrared with their tongues like snakes more or less do. Aliens could be seeing with echolocations much like bats and dolphins do, and any evolutionary eyes could have receeded like the tails in our ancestors. Aliens could have been evolved into cyborgs like the Borg in Star Trek and be wearing camera implants, or have altered themselves genetically and are now sprouting whatever works best for them. There are too many possibilities for only one solution to be the preferred outcome. Our eye, eventhough widely spread in our animal kingdom, is pretty unique in the universe. ]
[Question] [ I am currently constructing a fantasy world, where the sun and moon revolve around the planet, which itself is stationary. Because of this, it is quite difficult to imagine how the climate zones would differ from our Earth (where would it be naturally colder and warmer in the geography). I am looking for a program (app, website, software, whatever) which would let me create 3D images and could have simulated light sources, that could help me determine how much sunlight would reach each continent, island, plot of land. [Answer] # This is a very complicated subject And I'm not sure anyone has written a program to do everything you asked for. Bits and pieces have been written and polished but there's no cohesive project that does everything you're asking for. # Universe Sandbox If you have a PC with Steam installed, you can use [Universe Sandbox](http://store.steampowered.com/app/230290/Universe_Sandbox/) to setup as many strange orbital configurations as you desire. There's some climate modeling done but probably not to the fidelity that you are looking for. This is probably your best bet for covering lots of ground in a single package. I'd start here. # MITgcm The MIT Global Climate Model ([MITgcm](http://mitgcm.org)) will allow you to do the kind of simulation you require with really high fidelity to real life. However, MITgcm is real scientific software thus making it unapproachable to anyone who doesn't have a degree in atmospheric sciences. Having played around with MITgcm, I've learned that climate, atmospheric, and oceanographic modeling with real fidelity is very complicated and not for the faint of heart. # Blender [Blender](http://blender.org) is an open source 3D modeling program. It will only allow you to build a 3D model of a planet. You can animate it from there to get the views you want. # Excel Spreadsheets are your friend. I've written spreadsheets for myself to figure out the hours of daylight for a planet that's tilted over 90 degrees. # Your Brain Do a bunch of research into climate models, biomes, the relationship of water availability and temperature. As you get more familiar with these subjects, you'll be able to look at a map, figure out some ocean currents and prevailing winds then derive the overall climate for that location. * [Atmosphere Circulation on Exoplanets](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1407.6349) This paper is wonderful. * [Arxiv.org](http://arxiv.org) This place has tons and tons and tons of papers on many subjects of interest to you. * [Climate Zones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate) and [Koppen Climate Classification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification) Climate is very complicated and requires a lot of background knowledge to get right. Start reading everything you can on the subject. Good luck! It's a really fun area to go exploring. [Answer] Universe Sandbox might help. It's basically a solar system simulator, on steroids :) It'd help you establish the orbits and positions of the bodies and the light patterns of the day/night cycles. It's not a *planet* simulator as such, so I don't think you can drill down into too much detail on the planetary conditions, it'll report and simulate things like temperature and gravity but it'll treat the entire planet equally, I don't think you can break it down into different climate zones. [Answer] Adding to the already existing answers and seconding Universe Sandbox which is amazing: PlaSim is another tool for scientific-level climate simulation at home. However it requires good meteorological knowledge, work, and patience if you want to tweak it to your desires. <https://www.mi.uni-hamburg.de/en/arbeitsgruppen/theoretische-meteorologie/modelle/plasim.html> [Answer] Actually I think the answer is simpler than you may think. If the sun and moon revolve around the earth the effect is EXACTLY THE SAME as it is currerntly - the moon has the same tidal effects as it does now, and the sun has the same effect as it does now but at a greater distance. Thinks about it this way. Assume that the earth stopped rotating around the sun (and didn't fall in because gravity got fired) -- but it kept rotating AROUND ITSELF. From the earth peoples point of view they experience exactly what you said -- the sun and the moon orbit around us. So, the solar coverage is the same and the effects on terrain are the same. The main difference is that if the sun stays on the same plane, there are no seasons. Assuming the suns' orbit is on the same plane all the time, part of the earth gets a lot of sun, and part of it gets less. There might be an accumulative effect -- a lot of scorched earth, a lot of freezing earth, and a relatively small temperate band of livable terrain. The stars in your scenario remain fixed. Thats irrelevant to climate but its a thing. ]
[Question] [ For context of the setting, numerous fairly large cities serve as the seats of regional feudal governments in a stable, prosperous kingdom. There are a lot of commerce in the cities, and merchants from near and far visit them for business. Diverse goods, both mundane and magical, can be found at shops throughout the kingdom. Institutions like book publishers, or wealthy persons ordering construction to be done may sign a contract to someone for future work, but the concept of many end customers paying a comparatively small sum for a future deliverable is yet unfamiliar in this world. A townsperson might be comfortable with paying ahead for a delivery of wool, which will (unless disaster befalls the shepherd) predictably be shorn and delivered. However, suppose a novel design for a padlock is invented (and protected by royal patent). It requires special tools and a workshop to be built in the city, before the locks can be produced and finally received by the end buyers. How could a townsperson be convinced to pay for the lock ahead of time, on the understanding that the facilities are yet to be built? **How is the concept of crowdfunding developed, and how does it gain acceptance and legitimacy?** [Answer] The cathedrals built in the High Middle Ages are probably the closest to crowdfunding. Usually, those were centuries-long projects funded by a combination of church funds and donations. [The logistics of financing were truly fascinating](http://www.athenapub.com/14scholler.htm). Another interesting example is [hospitals (bimaristans)](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Bimaristan) during the Islamic Golden Age. Initially, they were built by the rulers but at later times charitable organisations and personal donations supported building and maintenance of the hospitals. Bimaristans were public hospitals open to all people regardless of their ability to pay, gender, race, and social standing. This was a religious requirement. They also doubled as medical schools and research facilities. Apart from religion, professional guilds can be a driving force behind crowdfunding and public projects. [Medieval guilds](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Guild#/Medieval_guild) were powerful and influential organisations with hierarchical organisation somewhat similar to the church. They could have means and finances to start and more importantly complete a public project. Big guilds also had enough manpower to initiate donation collections. You can read more about functions and organisation of craft guilds in [this article](http://www.unsa.edu.ar/histocat/haeconomica07/lecturas/epstein1998.pdf). And here is [an interesting paper on medieval English guilds](http://socsci-dev.ss.uci.edu/~garyr/papers/Richardson_2004_Explorations-in-Economic-History.pdf) that deals mainly with legal aspects. Guilds can start with smaller guild projects and finance them from guild fees (paid by its members). After several successful projects, they can take on bigger ones. The townsfolk will be asked to donate money. The guild would also approach the town council and nobility/higher class for additional money grants. Among other things, guilds were maintaining manufacturing standards and providing apprenticeship opportunities (with guaranteed employment upon successful completion). If people trust the guild to do the right thing they may be persuaded to chip in. [Answer] Crowdfunding really exists as a term due to the internet being used for fundraising. If crowdfunding existed in this medieval world, how is the money different from charity, fundraiser sales, donations, investors, or presales? (All of these would best refer to different types of crowdfunded projects). All your character needs to do is ask for money for a project, keep the money for himself, and escape from liability over the project. He can escape by lying (saying the money turned out to be insufficient), paying part of that money for a third party to do the work then blame failure on him, or run. [Answer] You mean like the catholic church did during this time period **Answer:** invents a persuasive religion that offers salvation through repentant monetary donations. [Medieval relic trade](http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_medieval_relic_trade) [Answer] **Desperation is how most things get started in the middle ages...** The well has gone dry and the town folk are having to walk all the way down to the river and back every day to get water. Craftsmen schedules which were already full to overflowing are now falling behind because of this extra chore which has become a part of everyone's life. And in the absence of regular bathing, the town is developing a bit of a funky smell. A town meeting is gathered... Reginald, the carpenter and Thom, the blacksmith, have an idea; a machine with an iron bit and several removable timber shafts which can be spun by a gear-works drawn by a mule. They believe that with it, they can make the well deeper and maybe find more water. ...but they don't have the needed iron or wood or mule. Big John, the farmer has three old plow blades, which although dull and a little rusty, would be perfect fodder for Thom's forge. Maid Mary, inherited that grove of trees down the hill which could provide more than enough wood. Billy and Bryan from the Township Guard, offer to cut and clean the lumber. And Friar Francis can loan his mule to the task. Everyone else who will benefit from the revitalized well, will fetch water for the craftsmen and donate food, so they can focus on the new machine. A month later, the well have been repaired and life returns to normal. A year later, a neighboring town's well runs dry and its leadership ask Reginald and Thom for help. "We'd be happy to be of assistance fine sir, but you must understand that the discounted sponsorship opportunity is over. You will have to pay the retail price for our services. If only you had come to use earlier, we used to fix wells for just some spare parts and a few free meals." **...after that, the towns folk of the original village might be more open to future crowd sourcing ventures, like your lock. Success breeds a hunger for future success. ...and that leads to a willingness to take a chance.** [Answer] This building was erected by the funds of the people of city Westminster. You just don't have enough space to put that sentence on a padlock. And to be frank, that would be the stupidest idea. If you want to order a custom padlock it's because you want something secure. Like a Guild with its own set of lock and keys. So the people who are members want the least needed amount of keys. So you want the smallest amount of people to know about the order. Making it public is like wearing white headphones when iPod was a thing. It screamed "**rob me**". Everything else is/was crowdfunded. Crowdfunding is at the core of Catholicism. You have a large amount of money, you share it with less fortunate people and make their lives better. One of the German requirements for transforming a village into a town (giving it the town laws) was that there were enough wealth people that after taxation would be able to support hospital on their own. Another example is the Council Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence when Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were commissioned by the public to paint the wall. Crowdfunding is just fancy silicon valley word. Like "house hacking" for landlording. [Answer] Are you asking about crowdfunding in particular, or how capital was accumulated and then invested in new production capacity? The idea of lending money at interest goes back to the Roman empire and beyond. Bonds have always been popular. [History of Bonds](https://www.ermunro.com/bonds/history/) > > Just how long have surety bonds been around? Thousands and thousands > of years, say historians. One stone tablet written in cuneiform > characters was discovered in 1889 during an archaeological dig at > Nippur, in Mesopotamia, now present-day Iraq. The bond dates back to > 2400 B.C. and the reign of the Babylonian King Dungi who ruled for 58 > years. > > > However, I suspect that it would be the court (royalty or similar) that would fund the project. Usually, the King (or as @Olga has mentioned, guilds) pretty much owned and controlled intellectual property rights, up until the 1600's or so. See [The Rise, Persistence and Decline of Merchant Guilds. Re-thinking the Comparative Study of Commercial Institutions in Pre-modern Europe](http://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Workshops-Seminars/Economic-History/grafe-090413.pdf) for the dominance of guilds in intellectual property rights, and [History and Sources of Intellectual Property Law](https://lawshelf.com/courseware/entry/history-and-sources-of-intellectual-property-law) and [The Evolution of Intellectual Property](https://www.txpatentattorney.com/blog/the-history-of-intellectual-property/). It is one thing to invent a better mousetrap, it is quite another to have it accepted by the powers-that-be. There would be a natural hesitation for private investors to put money into a venture if the King or guilds could just appropriate the intellectual property and start producing it themselves, or they could just declare it illegal and shut down production. The King, for instance, might object to the ability of his subjects to lock things up and out of his grasp. Therefore, he might make it illegal for commoners to own or use locks. [Answer] Only slightly out of period, consider the [tontine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine), invented in or by 1689. Many people pay into a pot, the last survivor gets it. (The system can be abused, which is why it fell out of favor as people grew more financially sophisticated.) This system was used to finance businesses and wars, among other uses. A less sophisticated version is the purchase pool -- 20 people commit to paying a tailor 1/20 of the price of a suit of clothing for 20 months. Every month, by lottery, one of the subscribers gets their suit. (Again, can be abused -- it needs a cohesive enough social structure that people don't walk away after getting their suit. I first heard of this practice in very well-connected Jewish communities in early 20th century New York.) In practice, though, your inventor would need a wealthy patron of the arts/sciences to fund their research. ]
[Question] [ How can I arrange for a planet to have a much greater temperature range between the poles and the equator without it being tidally locked? Edit: By “much greater” I mean the temperature at the poles in my fictional world should be 20 degree Celsius colder than the poles in our real world. And the temperature at the equator in my fictional world should be 20 degree Celsius warmer than the equator in our real world. The planet should be very similar to earth, although variations can be made provided the planet is still capable of sustaining human life in the open on at least some parts of its surface. Some details of the oceans, land masses, atmosphere, gravity and orbital parameters can be adjusted within this broad requirement if that helps. The situation needs to have arisen naturally and no magic is involved. [Answer] **1. Smaller oceans.** Reverse the ratio of land to water. 75% land, 25% water will mean there is no continuous path for water to flow from equator to poles. This results in much lower heat transport. Consider the temperature difference between Hudson Bay and Scotland, both at the same latitude. Look at the climate of Rome compared to New York, aslo at the same latitude. This would create a climate with smaller climate zones. Should get faster evolution (more isolated populations) with overall greater diversity. **2. Less water in the air.** Water is a significant green house gas. And water has a huge latent heat between liquid and vapour phases. **3. Smaller green house effect.** #2 does some of this, but lower CO2 would do it too. During the Earth's warm periods, the equator was not much warmer than today, but palm trees grew up to the Arctic Ocean. **4. Faster rotation -- shorter day.** Stronger coriolis effect. This would make for a larger number of Hadley cells between equator and pole, requiring more heat exchange cycles for energy to move from equator to pole **5. Dispersed land -- more islands, fewer continents** Even if you don't go with more land relative to water, break it up more. With more obstacles and edges, there will be more friction on ocean currents. **6. Shallower seas.** More friction again. Less heat storage. **7. More mountains.** Or just run more ranges east-west. Mountains contain water movement by wringing out the moisture. At present the Americas span the equator. Turn the continents sideways, at latitude 30, and the mountains would block a lot of water vapour moving away from the equator. This would contain heat at the equator. **8. large continents at the poles.** More continental climate with greater temperature swings on an annual basis. There's a reason that Antarctica is colder than the Arctic. It would be quite easy to create a world that had such extremes that anything that could live at mid latitudes would perish at the equator from heat. If this isn't extreme enough, give the planet an eccentric orbit. This may mean that you can only cross the equator at aphelion, when the planet is farther from the sun. Give the planet some tilt too, then for one hemisphere, the orbit and axial tilt induced seasons partially cancel, and for the other hemisphere they reinforce. [Answer] # Specially configured continents On Earth, Hadley cells and ocean currents are the primary means of moving warm water and air from the equator to the poles. Earth has several big opportunities for warm equatorial water to go pole-ward. They are: all of the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian oceans. On a planet without those currents, it would be much more difficult for warm water to make it to the poles. Conveniently, those currents can be blocked by continents. Design your planet in such a way that the major ocean currents either can get to or away from the equator. # Slowing down the atmosphere According to this paper on [Hadley cell width on exoplanets](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/45884771_fig13_Fig-13-Latitudinal-width-of-the-Hadley-cell-from-a-sequence-of-Earth-like-GCM-runs), if a planet rotates more slowly than earth, the Hadley cells will grow latitudinally. I don't have a good intuitive grasp for whether a longer day on this planet would make it cooler or warmer. But, this is certainly a tool that could be used. Maybe moving the continents would be enough and the Hadley cells are required to keep the planet from turning into a snowball. [Answer] You did not mention seasons. Earth has four seasons because of its tilt. A planet with no tilt would have the temperature differential between poles and equator more stable. Thus, the equator would not go through cooling and heating phases during the planetary year. At the equator, it would always be high noon summer, and at the poles it would always be full dusk winter. However, a greater tilt would place one or the other pole in shadow from the sun for a greater period of the year. In fact, a complete 90 degree tilt would mean one pole would be in continuous daylight and the other pole would be in continuous darkness for one quarter of the year, and for two quarters, the poles would both be equal in daylight with the equator. So if you are prepared to accept seasonal variation, you can achieve your goal in the extreme by adjusting the tilt. If you don't want seasonal variation, eliminate the tilt and you would get an extremely hot equator all the time and an extremely cold poles all the time. [Answer] Oceans absorb a lot of heat from sunlight, and **oceanic currents**, aided by the distribution of the landmasses and the rotation of Earth, transport this heat between the warmer equatorial waters and the colder arctic waters. If you **arrange your continents** in a way that these currents cannot form because the lands are in the way, then it will make your equatorial area a lot hotter and your poles a lot colder. (I can't give you numbers, sorry.) It might also widen the temperature difference if your poles have a lot of high mountains and your equatorial area is rather flat. [Answer] # Option one Give the planet greater volume and decrease the density to keep the same gravitational pull (1G for example). This way, the equator is closer to the sun than before. You could also move the planet accordingly to move the poles "away" from the sun and the equator will be "closer". # Option two Change atmosphere composition. An atmosphere with lower greenhouse effect (gas composition) will be more exposed to the sun at the equator, increasing the temperature while the sun shines on it and the poles will be colder because the heat will more quickly radiate into space. # Option three Remove a lot of the oceans or move them. Oceans store vast amounts of thermal energy that are moved with the currents across the planet. This means that the poles will be warmed and the equator will be cooled. (to varying a varying degree) For instance, having no oceans and just thousands or millions of small lakes would keep the equator warmer since the energy will not be moved about like with oceans that are all interconnected like here on earth. # Option four Eliminating the planetary tilt would also remove the seasonal shifts in temperature furthering the temperature "locking". Seasons seasonally alter the temperature of the poles, having no seasons would result in the poles being constantly colder and the equator warmer. ]
[Question] [ Could a trained Megalodon shark or pair of them working in tandem be enough to sink the passenger ships and warships of the Victorian era? [Answer] **Yes.** A megalodon was roughly the size of a sperm whale. [source](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/2b/81/7f/2b817fc8038b1ced396eb9fb494754ee--facts-about-sharks-megalodon-shark.jpg) [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/t0aJI.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/t0aJI.jpg) I asked Google "Could a whale sink a ship?" Answer: **yes**. from <https://www.whalingmuseum.org/learn/whale-attack> > > While it was the business of whalers to hunt and kill whales, > sometimes a whale would fight back. Among the more famous of the > several incidents of whales attacking whaling vessels are those of the > ship Essex of Nantucket in 1820, the ship Pocahontas of Tisbury in > 1850, the ship Ann Alexander of New Bedford in 1851, and the bark > Kathleen of New Bedford in 1902. > > > All four stories have one element in common. The species encountered > was a sperm whale and in each instant the whale rammed the vessel with > its head after a prolonged fight with the whaleboats. The Essex under > the command of George Pollard, Jr., with Owen Chase, first mate, sank > two thousand miles off the west coast of South America in a region > called the “Off Shore Grounds.” The whale attacked the ship “with > vengeance in his aspect” according to Chase. The event became famous > not only for the sinking itself, but for the terrible suffering of the > crew members who were at sea for ninety days in three open whaleboats > and gradually resorted to cannibalism with only eight of the original > crew of twenty surviving. > > > What about a shark? Mythbusters modeled a great white (nonMegalodon) ramming a boat and confirmed that if their simulation was correct, a great white shark could punch a hole in the side of a wooden boat. from <http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2005/07/special_jaws_special_1.html> > > Shark strength: Boat (Orca V) smashing > > > Myth: in Jaws, the shark pierces the side of the Orca and attacks the > occupants within. > > > The setup was similar to the sharammer cage smashing. This time the > sharammer pierced the size of the wooden boat and left a hole, though > not quite Jaws-sized. The hole was above the waterline so the boat > stayed afloat. > > > **confirmed** (a 3000 lb great white travelling at 25mph could pierce a > boat) > > > So a great white has the speed and mass to punch a hole in a wooden boat, and sperm whales the size of megalodon actually did this to wooden boats. I worry a real shark would not actually ram a wall of wood. Whales fight each other by ramming (among other maneuvers) and a sperm whale head makes a good ram. A shark rams a smaller thing in the context of an open mouth and a bite. The front end of a shark is not as good a ram as the front end of a whale. [Answer] In theory, a megalodon could sink a ship, probably by ramming. Would a megalodon attack a ship by ramming? No, it would not. If we make the reasonable assumption that the megalodon is similar to the great white in physiology, we find that the great white hunts it's prey partially by detecting the electrical impulses of the nervous system. The great white does this with a number of sensors, located around the nose. This leads to two problems: Such sensors should reveal that a ship is not a living creature, and therefore not something that the megalodon would benefit from attacking. As well, it is unlikely that such a hunter would want to damage those electrical sensors in their nose by ramming, or to suffer any injury while attacking. In the wild, injury is as good as death. In an injured state, the predator would be unable to hunt normally, and will probably starve before it can recover. You can see this with fish in the wild - smaller fish when faced with a larger predator will bristle up and send a message: I'm healthy, and I'm ready to fight. The predator fish usually backs off, not willing to risk injury, and goes searching for prey that is unlikely to fight back, like a sick or injured fish. If you want something more realistic (and horrible) to send after a Victorian ship, try a giant squid. 25 foot long body, with 75 foot long tentacles. Have it pluck people off of the deck of the ship for a tasty snack. [Answer] Ok, my math may not be perfect here, but according to Wikipedia (and this [paper](http://www.bio-nica.info/Biblioteca/Wroe2008GreatWhiteSharkBiteForce.pdf)) the bite force of a Megalodon could have been 108,514 N and 182,201 N. Compared to the ramming example given in [Will's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/87103/34824), which puts the sharks ramming force at approx 15,200 N, a bite could be ten times more powerful then ramming. Meaning it should be more than capable of tearing a chunk out of a wooden ship. When you add that to the fact a large Megalodon's jaws could be over 2m across then I would say two of them could do a considerable amount of damage to the wooden hull of a ship if trained correctly. The main problem I can see is the relative flatness of the hull of a ship, which is not something the Megalodon could get it's teeth around. But if they could attack vertically and bite the keel they might be able to make a big enough hole to start causing a ship problems. [Answer] ## EH... **It's tricky, but it might just work. (albeit highly impractical)** The most pressing issue in this is "why" as in; why would a megalodon attack something that's bigger than itself. Sharks nowadays are simple creatures. They see prey and if they happen to be hungry and the prey they see isn't too large, they chomp it. Most shark attacks on surfers are actually the result of sharks mistaking an unlucky surfer for a meal and take a nibble. The megalodonshark however is a lot bigger than a shark but it's brain isn't that much bigger. If you can somehow associate attacking Victorian ships with reward (food), they will definitely go for it, but you'll have to condition them to do so, which probably entails using life sized props in order to train your weaponized megalodonsharkfish. As AlexP mentioned, you'll have to make sure your megalodonsharkfishthingy doesn't get injured upon attacking a ship. Once again this requires conditioning. So theoretically you could use this Megalodonsharkfishthingybeast as a weapon but it's highly impractical, time consuming and most likely not worth the effort when compared to a good ol' cannon with a [chain-shot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain-shot) to ruin the mast and then just blast whomever you want to sink to kingdom come. [Answer] I think your megalodon shark attack would fare better if they leaped *out* of the water and landed *on* the enemy ship. They could easily capsize a smaller vessel in this manner, or shear off masts, rigging, and of course any unfortunate sailors on the deck of larger ships. A megalodon could be 50-60 feet long, almost twice the beam of many sailing ships, even a first rate like the HMS Victory was only 49' wide. Assuming a regular Great White can leap 3-5' out of the water and this scales proportionately to a megalodon, it could get 9-15 feet out. The Victory had around 30' of freeboard (hull above waterline) so a megalodon should be able to leap up enough to get most of it's body onto the top deck and be large enough to flop off after doing some damage. In addition they could go after rudders. I'm not sure a shark has the anatomical features to allow it to effectively ram a military grade wooden hull or even bite it, but the rudder is much weaker. Even an early screw would be vulnerable. Disable the underwater control and propulsion surfaces, and disable the masts, and anything in the early to mid 19th century would be left drifting and vulnerable. But once steel hulls/masts became commonplace and larger screw propulsion drives were installed, shark attacks wouldn't be very effective (at least without critically/fatally injuring the shark in the process). At this point you are back to trying to attach limpet mines to seals and dolphins so they can make runs against the hulls/screws of enemy ships. [Answer] Sharks are extremely stupid. I don't think you can TRAIN them. But you can develop a reflex in them - for example, attack everything that has some flag. Anyway, that process will take so much time and special tools, that it is not a problem to create one more tool - to give to a megalodon some sheath that will be fastened on its nose and will be hard and sharp. Then it will be able to cut a hole in any not armored ship. Without such weapon even megalodon can do nothing to greater iron ships even of the 50-60-ties of 19Cent, let alone the 90-ties. If you want to damage an ironclad, use megalodons with a weapon with a bomb on the end. Such living torpedoes would be effective even now. Don't forget, that there is always some sort of dialogue in development of weapons and defenses. Better weapon - better defenses and so on. So you can reveal several secret weapons to the reader. [Answer] Put a large metal spike on their heads, attached to a skull cap that distributes the force along the cap, instead of into the shark's skull, and you've got the [*Nautilus*](https://20thousandleaguesunderthesea.com/the-nautilus/). [Answer] Yes is good, a sperm whale tracked and sank a Victorian whaling ship. They had killed its mate. ]
[Question] [ How long does it take for languages to diverge from each other to a point where they are no longer mutually intelligible? Is there some distance where a languages will begin to separate, how does technology, population and terrain influence this distance? [Answer] [Historical Linguistics](https://infogalactic.com/info/Historical_linguistics) is the modern science of determining how languages change over time. This [site](http://jbr.me.uk/futurese.html) goes into considerable detail about the process, but in practice since language is continually evolving, you might find difficulties in as few as 200 years. Certainly I have found it difficult enough to converse with Americans, Britons and Australians (indeed as a Canadian in a multi-national force, I sometimes had to act as a translator between them!). Other studies have been done and general rules for how quickly languages drift have been discovered, for example [Grimm's Law](https://infogalactic.com/info/Grimm%27s_law) However, for languages to become mutually incomprehensible would take a great deal longer. Proto-Indo-European ([PIE](https://infogalactic.com/info/Proto-Indo-European_language)) may have been spoken by everyone in the region of modern Ukraine @ 3500 BC, but it seems that even PIE had already significantly diverged after 1000 years, and even the linkage between PIE daughter languages was only teased out in the 18th century. A very good book which reconstructs the spread of PIE is [*The Horse, the Wheel, and Language*](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/069114818X), and the author all makes some well educated estimates on how rapidly the language diverged. So putting all these together and thinking of even the changes in English over the time span of that language, we can see some quite significant shifts coming after only a century or two. By 500 years, only specialists could read the language (think of reading or performing a Shakespearean play as written in the 1500's for an audience today. Chaucer's *The Canterbury Tales*, written in the 1300's is even more difficult to read or speak), and after 1000 years, the language would be all but incomprehensible (Beowulf, written over 1000 years ago, needs to be extensively translated for a modern audience). If two groups of speakers from the original language were isolated for these lengths of time, the resulting dialects would probably be considered new languages. So the lower limit is probably 500 years and a reasonable limit would be 1000 years for a language to have diverged enough to be mutually incomprehensible. [Answer] Social factors (including isolation due to terrain, invasion, cultural interchange) are very influential here, and there are some laws/trends. The most well documented is that the more isolated a community the more conservative their language remains. Hence Sardinian is the most conservative daughter of Latin, East Coast American dialects of English are closer to the English spoken in 16th and 17th century England than modern British English, and 12th century Icelandic is completely intelligible to modern Icelanders (similar to reading Shakespeare for us). The pronunciation has shifted quite a bit meaning that 12th century Icelanders and modern Icelanders actually talking would have a little more difficulty - but would still be able to communicate. English is a very different kettle of fish - we've had invasions (Norman and Norse having profound affects on the language to the extent that some say English is a sprachbund - an approaching-equal descendant of different mother languages) and cultural and social changes and borrowings from languages all over the world due to being at the centre of things. There's no chance that Beowulf can be read by modern English speakers because Old English was literally destroyed and regathered itself into Middle English through the 11th and 12th centuries - Chaucer would have had nearly as much difficulty with Beowulf as we do - by the 14th century Middle English was an unintelligible separate language from Old English. The type of written record the language uses (or doesn't use) is important too. Literary Chinese is incredibly long-lived in that texts from the very distant past are slightly intelligible to modern Chinese, and with more language study this effect increases. However, the spoken language has evolved wildly in a similar time so that speakers separated by a similar time distance would have no chance of understanding each other, even if they were speaking the (ancestor/descendent of) the same dialect. As well as asking in linguistics, try the ZBB ('zompist bulletin board' - a resource for making constructed languages and constructed worlds, and a general resource for linguistics learning) - they are very knowledgeable and will point you to actual scholarship. www.incatena.org The bottom line is - think about your social factors. Isolation will slow linguistic change in a population. Conquest can combine and even destroy languages, though substrates will remain. The world is your oyster with regards to world building possibilities - you can create the conditions for your people to be able to understand writings from thousands of years ago without too much trouble - or you can separate a population from its ancestors of even 100 years by an impregnable intelligibility barrier. [Answer] The amount of time it takes for a divide to appear is proportional to both the amount of intercommunication between speaking groups, and the volume of written material produced. An extremely isolated group without a significant literary corpus can diverge in just a few generations. A highly interconnected group with significant written record will diverge less rapidly. These are not the only factors, though. Significant changes in social, economic or technological status can spur rapid linguistic changes, which may lead to divergence or consolidation depending on whether those changes are unifying or divisive. For more detailed answers, consider asking over at [linguistics](http://linguistics.stackexchange.com). [Answer] I am not a language researcher; but I have read (New Scientist, I believe) that linguistic researchers have observed divergence that apparently occurred in a single generation, as the result of a **revolution**: As I recall, a population had a civil war; split in two, and the "rebels" intentionally modified pronunciation, gender assignment rules, and some fundamental words like for family members (son, daughter, father, mother). Man, talk about being pissed off ... we don't even want your stinkin' language! ]
[Question] [ Start with present day “maker” culture. People, including youngsters, play with microcontrollers and machine parts, with synergistic technology like 3D printing, shoebox-sized robotic milling machines powered by a Dremel tool, automated jigs that cut plywood into complex shapes, etc. In a slightly different reality there exists a “dark” side of this culture. Maybe this is where [the ApocalypseBuilding site](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/71935/how-to-stop-evil-site-moderators-quite-firmly-closed) exists. One group of Dark Makers is inspired by SciFi stories from the 1940’s and ’50’s where society is excited about nuclear technology and all the many things that can be done with pure isotopes, synthetic elements, and radioactive processes. The [Farnsworth Fusor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor) is an inspiration: real alchemy (and a switchable neutron source) that could be built with 1930’s technology! By the late 1980’s it was possible for a kid to build a working replica of the first “atom smashers” and other period equipment, as a science fair project. Look at how model rocketry hobbiests have — more cheaply and easily — reproduced the early days of rocketry that was performed by world powers on a military budget. (It’s fun to see the “same footage” as the period newsreels in high-def, acting like it’s a breakthrough or something. The breakthrough is in price and availability, not the technology per se.) So, some (mostly secretive) hobby infrastructure has grown up around repeating the nuclear experimentation. This should be real present or near-future technology, with breakthroughs or handwaving fictional changes only were necessary for your Answer. By what mechanism would this hobbiest create a small amount of [polonium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium)? What would the maker-culture versions of the equipment be like? **Edit:** If re-creating the historical methods and tecniques, how would it be easier/different/approachable with modern tech and maker culture? What kinds of devices could be built now along the lines of 3D printers and Raspberry Pis? [Answer] # First you need something radioactive Polonium-210 is the generally well known isotope of Polonium (the one used to kill traitorous Russians, etc) and has a half-life of 138 days. There are three other isotopes with half-lives over 1 day; Po-209 with half-life 135 years; Po-206 with a half-life of 2 years; and Polonium 206 with half-life 6 days. The problem with Po-209 is that to get it naturally you have to induce [mostly stable Bismuth-209](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismuth-209) to beta decay to get it, and the problem with Po-208 and Po-206 is you need completely stable lead to beta decay to get it. So both those isotopes are out. Po-210 however is a byproduct of the [Uranium decay chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain#Uranium_series). That is, when U-238 decays, it passes through Po-210 at some point. So we have something to work with there. # The Uranium decay chain Since its linked above, you should take a look at it. The characteristics of the various elements are relevant, since that will determine if it kills you or takes forever to make the next element. First off, several steps on that chain are deadly. You can get decay radiation levels from a [chart of nuclides](http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/chart/reCenter.jsp?z=83&n=127). For example, Bismuth-214, a step in the chain down to Po-210 [decays](http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/chart/decaysearchdirect.jsp?nuc=214BI&unc=nds) with a half-life of 20 minutes releasing a scattering of MeV range gammas as it goes. If you managed to make a gram of it in your basement lab, even if it is in a lead box, you will probably have just killed your whole family over the course of the next hour or two. Next you have to worry about the slow steps in the decay chains. For example, after Uranium-238 decays, a few steps down is Thorium-234, which itself takes 2.5×105 years to decay. Thats a bit long to wait. So we need to have massive quantities of uranium in order to get a usable amount of polonium. The decay fraction of Po-210 is about 10−10; that is for every 1010 units of Uranium, you would expect to find 1 unit of Polonium. If you want 1 mg of Polonium, then you need to start with about 10 tons of Uranium, and extract every last molecule of Polonium. # By refining Uranium One way to do this in your basement is the exact same way that Marie Curie and Andre-Louis Debierne did it in the early 1900s. They started with [pitchblende](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uraninite), a Uranium ore that can be up to 80% U by mass. This they powdered and washed in sulfuric acid, causing both the radium and polonium content to form sulfates and enter solution. By drying the solution, you now have both substances in residues. They can be separated by boiling in sodium hydroxide and then washing in hydrochloric acid and separating using [fractional crystallization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_crystallization_(chemistry)). This is the method that the Manhattan Project used to make Polonium as part of the trigger device for the first nuclear weapons. According to some sources, they were able to turn 37 tons of purified uranium ore into 9 grams of Polonium. Marie Curie had to use similar quantities of Uranium to get Radium and Polonium. This process is simple but time consuming and energy intensive. The good news is that in addition to polonium, with sufficient chemical knowledge you can get Radium and Lead-210. But there are several drawbacks. First, Marie Curie died of radiation poisoning, and her notes are kept in lead boxes since their activity is so high...so this is a dangerous process. Second, there may be issues with getting your hands on 10 tons of pitchblende. I imagine there are non-proliferation agreements that would make this nearly impossible for radiation-hackers. # By breeding Bismuth The other method for making Polonium is by taking Bismuth-209 and firing neutrons at it until one sticks making Bismuth-210. Bismuth-210 has a [half-life of 5 days](http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/chart/decaysearchdirect.jsp?nuc=210BI&unc=nds), so if you can make a good amount of Bismuth-210, then in 25 days almost all of it is now Polonium, and only about 6% of the Polonium has decayed. While getting Bismuth-209 isn't that hard, achieving a high neutron flux is. One method is by mixing your Bismuth with a [neutron emitting substance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_emission). Unfortunately, things emit neutrons only when they really don't want that neutron in the core (like the extra neutron stuck to an alpha particle in Helium-5), so making these substances is nearly impossible and they stick around for milliseconds at best. Another option is the flux generated in a nuclear reactor. While that is difficult for obvious reasons, there is another alternative, which is the neutron flux generated in a sub-critical mass of a fissile material, like U-235 or Pu-238. For these fissile materials that can sustain a chain reaction, a sub-critical mass will generate a large neutron flux in the volume of the mass. So if you took two slabs of Plutonium, smooshed them around a block of Bismuth with a vice, you would get Polonium-210. Again, the problems here are many: the high neutron flux from the Plutonium will affect nearby living creatures as well as the Bismuth, and getting your hands on a kg or so of fissile material is probably even harder than the 10 tons of purified uranium ore. # Why don't we skip Polonium? If the goal is to get radioactive things to play with and show off, Polonium is a tough sell. There are other radioactive materials that would be easier to separate. First, there is Radium, which I mentioned before. It has a half-life of 1600 years so it is more common, more stable, and less dangerous than Polonium. You make it the same way you make polonium, and there is about 4 orders of magnitude more of the stuff than polonium in uranium ores. That means you could get a milligram from only 1kg of pure Uranium ore, at 100% processing efficiency, or maybe 10 kg of pitchblende. Radium also has some nice side-attributes such as decreasing solubility of radium chloride with increasing concentration of hydrochloric acid. Thus, when soaked in a concentrated HCl bath, the radium precipitates as radium chloride salts while most other metals and minerals get dissolved. Another option is Radon gas. This has a much shorter half-life of 3 days, shorter even than Polonium. But has the unique properties of being both a gas and noble, meaning it is chemically inert. Radon gas can be released from uranium ores by crushing and dissolving in HCl. Then the other gas byproducts can be reacted out using copper and various compounds until only the radon is left. This is much faster than the tedious fractional crystallization method. Also, radon exists in nature in places; my house has a radon control system that vents my basement to make sure no radon builds up. If you can find a naturally radon-dense location like the [Watras home](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_radon#Accumulation_in_dwellings), you could attempt to separate the radon diretly from the air by gas chromatography. Radon-222 is much heavier than pretty much any other gas you will find. # Conclusions The problems for both methods stem from two things: danger to the experimenter and difficulty of obtaining materials. Of all the things I mention above two scenarios seem the most likely: * The 'makers' have some ally (maybe one of the makers works at a uranium refining facility?) that can get them the concentrated fissile material like U-235 needed to breed Polonium from Bismuth at home. Obviously, there are security issues to be overcome, many people will likely have to be in on the deal. * The 'makers' are satisfied with radium, and are able to gather a few hundred kg of less concentrated uranium ores and perform the Curie process at home to make a few mg of Radium. Preferably with more safety precautions taken. [Answer] It depends on what you count as "a small amount". Because polonium is an unstable radioactive element with a really short half-life for even the most stable isotope, the only practical way to make polonium would be a particle accelerator or a nuclear reactor (a Farnsworth Fusor would of course be both). **Trace levels: chemical extraction from uranium ore** I say "practical" because it was first extracted from uranium ore in 1898, but in tiny quantities. If only *trace* levels are sufficient for your story, that's certainly the easiest way — following the lab books of Marie and Pierre Curie and of Willy Marckwald would be, perhaps not "easy" but certainly much easier than building an appropriate nuclear reactor or particle accelerator. **Low levels: DIY particle accelerator** The Wikipedia page you linked to says 208Po "can be made through the alpha, proton, or deuteron bombardment of lead or bismuth in a cyclotron", and although I don't have the book that Wikipedia cites as a source for this to say how powerful an accelerator you'd need for that, cyclotrons are fairly straightforward to build, having been superseded in the 1950s. The problem is (as with the Farnsworth Fusor) that the most likely thing that happens when you smash two atoms together is they just bounce off. I don't know the exact probabilities of nuclear-reaction vs bouncing, and this is something that I wouldn't be surprised to find is *genuinely* classified as a state secret by every nation that has so much as a nuclear reactor program, but if it isn't classified then the key phrase to search for will be the "[nuclear cross section](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_cross_section)". **Just enough to be a problem: DIY reactor in your mother's garden shed** Based on what happened in the incident of the [Radioactive Boy Scout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn#Creation_of_the_reactor), and compared to the fact that I've never ever heard of anyone disposing of a home-made Farnsworth Fusor by declaring it a Superfund hazardous materials cleanup site, I suspect that DIY chain reactions are much more capable of producing "interesting" things like polonium than are mere accelerators-based setups. Indeed, the existence of [natural nuclear fission reactors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor) shows that no special isotope purification is needed, isotope purification being both really difficult and important for many nuclear reactor designs. Isotope purification of heavy elements is so difficult that it's unreasonable for any private individual or organisation to do it at a scale that would make a reactor viable — it is a necessary step for nuclear weapon production, and the difficulty of isotope purification is why so few nations have a nuclear weapons program. Instead, consider the [pressurized heavy-water reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressurized_heavy-water_reactor), as that uses natural (unenriched) uranium. PHWR requires D2O, but that is much easier to get (or manufacture) than enriched uranium as hydrogen⟷deuterium is a much larger relative mass difference (100%) than 235U⟷238U (1.3%). ]
[Question] [ In a world I am building, the planet's days are longer than its years, with a single day taking 9 years. In all other ways, this planet is similar to Earth, but are there other differences I am missing? Weather has played a massive role in history and science. It creates jungles; it creates deserts. Weather decides the biomes of a landmass above all else, which makes me wonder: on a planet where every day lasts 9 years instead of 24 hours, what does the weather look like? [Answer] @Alexander is correct. Let me elaborate. ## Diurnal hemisphere (day side) * Extremely hot * Little precipitation or clouds (it'll dissolve once the water becomes a liquid) over the continents, but likely a lot above the sea (increased evaporation) * Warmer seas. These won't completely evaporate as water will be able to flow in from the cooler regions, replenishing them. * Incredible ocean currents. One side of the day zone will always warm, adding water to the sea, while the other will always cool, removing (liquid) water. This is bad news for any inhabitants that want to move with the habitable zone: if they meet an ocean, they'll have to traverse its waters *head-on*. * Little wind, as most areas will have equal pressure * Little surface vegetation or surface-dwelling life * Don't expect a "sandy" desert, expect landforms as usual! Massive amounts of sand come from weathering and erosion, which are area-specific and not *necessarily* related to temperature. ## Nocturnal hemisphere (night side) * Extremely cold * Little precipitation (it'll be a *cold* desert, like Antarctica, because all liquid water will fall once it arrives at the edge) * Extremely cold seas, with abundant (though not necessarily widespread) ice / glaciers * Snow cover. Despite the lack of precipitation, some snow will fall when the region enters the "cold zone" and a steady temperature will maintain it. This has an interesting effect: most footprints will be preserved for 4.5 years. ## Habitable belt * Extreme wind! Cold and hot air will meet and constantly exchange, resulting in constant and strong currents. * Precipitation! The combination of hot and cold fronts, combined with the fact that this is the only place where liquid water will like to exist, will bring torrential downpour. * Weathering and erosion will be widespread. Nearly all rainfall happens here, as does The Great Freeze (cracks apart rock) and The Great Melt (moves sediments). This is the best place to reshape the environment quickly. * Most plant life will reside here, because water is accessible. Plants will grow at an extreme rate *away* from the sun and toward newly exposed land, because staying put will mean burning. Alternatively, they will bury their seeds, reviving to grow and reproduce at each intermediate period between the heat and the freeze. Plant roots must adapt, as rapid erosion means less material to hold on to. They must either grow downward constantly to maintain a grip, or grow much further down the first time. * Animals will develop an instinct to do the same thing - dig and hide or constantly stay on the move. Anything that can't cross the ocean, go around it, or bury itself is screwed evolutionarily. Flying creatures should be OK. * More information can be found [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/358/how-extensive-could-a-habitable-twilight-zone-be-on-a-tidally-locked-planet) ## Poles * Average temperature (always a meeting place of warm and cold air, as opposed to only once every 4.5 years) * Heavy precipitation and extreme winds * Widespread weathering and erosion * Abundant plant and animal life; **possibly the best place to start a permanent civilization** For a more general overview of winds, see [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/4850/how-would-winds-behave-on-a-tidally-locked-planet). [Answer] Your day side will be hot, and night side - quite cold. There will be a lot of winds blowing from night side to day side. Depending on the amount of water, there could be torrential rains in some areas. However, 4.5 years night is not enough to form sizable glaciers except at high latitudes. Overall, things would not be as extreme as in case of a tidally locked planet. [Answer] *Society on your world will evolve in ways quite different from Earth.* The people on your world will have to have some means to navigate that doesn't rely on either the stars or the sun. If there is one or more moons that are visible during the day and have rapid movements, then that might be used to establish east/west or north/south. Otherwise, the sun moves too slowly to do anything useful with. Remember, China didn't use [compasses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass#History) to navigate until somewhere around 200 AD while Europe didn't adapt to compasses until much later. Latitudes were originally measured by noting the height of the sun at noon. This method won't work in your world. Longitude will be just as difficult, I imagine. Societies would probably remain more mobile than modern society as they chased the habitable belt around the globe. Given that seasons are probably more closely tied to the long day than the short year, the concept of a year may never figure into their concepts of time tracking. The "day" would be their long measure instead. The stars would be less likely to have religious/social meanings to this world than they do to our ancestors. ]
[Question] [ This question is based on a scenario on DeviantArt. The presented image is here: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qaEss.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qaEss.png) The description is as follows: > > By the start of the Cryocene, bamboo has become one of Serina's most successful plant groups and makes up entire forest communities in some subtropical equatorial habitats. Fast-growing, hardy and adaptable already in its ancestral form, it has begun to evolve in several new directions by fifty million years PE. > > > Illustrated above are examples of the growth habits of four groups of > bamboo present on Serina by this time, labeled A, B, C, and D. A is > the ancestral plant from which B, C, and D descend and grows > individual bamboo canes directly from a large underground rhizome, > which can spread almost indefinitely in any direction via underground > stems. This ability to quickly spread across Serina in its early > history initially gave bamboo an advantage over most other plant > groups, though this rate of spread was only possible in very fertile > and wet climates. Bamboo forests of this growth habit typically grew > and spread for a lengthy period of time, anywhere from a few decades > to over one hundred years, before flowering, dying, and slowly > regenerating over the next ten to twenty years from seedlings - a > habit retained in many Serinan species today, including the desert > bamboo, which takes this behavior to its extreme. The individual canes > of these colonies are short-lived, lasting only a few years, and are > typically determinate in growth; they can only grow to a certain > height before they stop developing. To keep the plant growing, new > canes are constantly produced from the root system to replace those > which die. The roots are shallow, without deep anchoring tap roots. > > > Over time, however, mutant populations of bamboo would gradually arise > with less aggressive rates of spreading, but which concentrated more > of their energy on producing fewer but larger, taller, and > longer-lived individual stems (B). Their growth rate was slower, but > it was indeterminate - given time, they could grow larger than their > competitors, with canes that last much longer. This was the first step > to reaching a more tree-like shape and growth pattern and was > particularly beneficial in drier ecosystems or those where the soil > was fairly poor in nutrients. By concentrating on just a few trunks > and increasing its size more gradually, a plant could better grow in > less ideal environments, including in the shadow of more vigorous > type-A bamboo colonies. Biding their time on what little nutrition > they can get that the more aggressive bamboo doesn't suck up around > them, they can eventually grow beyond the canopy and slowly shade out > their competition. B-type bamboo still produce canes from the > underground root but far fewer than the ancestral bamboo and much > closer to the main trunk, resulting in a small clump of trees together > rather than a sprawling colony. In the natural pattern of forest > succession, B-type bamboo forest tend to gradually replace A-type > forests over the course of about a century, for though type-A bamboo > is quick to colonize open land, by the time it flowers, the ground > will be too shaded by maturing type-B bamboo for most of their > seedlings to survive. > > > Next is the type-C growth pattern. An extension of type-B, this bamboo > produces only one trunk and few or no secondary canes. Its rhizome is > reduced, and it instead produces a single deep taproot to probe the > soil for water and deeply buried minerals. Its growth is perhaps the > slowest of all, but it is the only type which can reliably take root > and survive on dry exposed hillsides or areas with little soil. Its > singular trunk can become several meters wide, though remains hollow > and never becomes woody like a proper tree; the only living tissue > within it occurs in a ring-shaped cross section. This makes a type-C > bamboo "tree" lighter than a woody plant like a sunflower tree, which > makes it potentially more vulnerable to high wind or weather when > young but considerably less likely to topple over under their own > weight at very large sizes. The first representative of a "type-C" > bamboo was the monovitus tree of the middle Tempuscenic. Like this > ancestor, many modern examples still flower only once, often at a very > advanced age, in such an extravagant show that they use up all their > energy and die back to give their offspring a chance to grow in their > place. Others however have become truly indeterminate growers, growing > throughout their life and flowering less abundantly but much more > frequently, even every year, producing fewer seeds at a time but > surely many more over the course of a longer lifetime. In the case of > trees that don't die back after flowering, methods to ensure their > seeds get far enough away that they don't compete with their parent > have had to evolve, and the descendants of the monovitus tree use > their symbiotic ants. Now not only do these ants live within their > tissues, prune away competitors, and clean them of insect pests, but > they disperse their seeds for them across wide reaches of land, each > new queen taking a seed with it when it flies away to start its own > new colony. It finds a suitable sunny patch of soil and begins to dig > a burrow for its new colony, taking the seed underground. When it > sprouts they instinctively guard it and keep its patch of soil weeded, > and when it is big enough, it begins to grow swollen bolls at its > nodes which the ants then move into. A single colony will stay with a > tree for up to twenty years - the maximum lifespan of certain queen > ants, but eventually a queen will die and the colony will collapse. > Fortunately for the tree, however, it takes very little time for > another young queen to move in and start the cycle again - indeed, so > valuable is a mature tree as a nest site that dozens of queens will > fight for the right to use it. Several may even start nesting at > different heights within its trunk, but eventually the colonies will > meet and battle. That with the largest army always wins. Because > Type-C bamboo doesn't reproduce asexually at all and only spreads via > seeds, it has a higher rate of mutation than other bamboos, giving it > improved resistance to pathogens and a better ability to adapt to > changing environmental conditions than bamboos that only rarely > reproduce sexually. > > > Type C bamboo has taken the ant symbiosis to its greatest pinnacle so > far by the start of the Cryocene, being entirely dependent on certain > ant species to reproduce, but representatives from all growth types > provide ants with shelter and sometimes food in exchange for keeping > them free of pests and competition. Type-A bamboo is the least > dependent on them, however, for it grows the most aggressively already > that it can compete against most other plants well enough by itself > that its symbiotes are simply extra help. The ancestral type-A > bamboo's rapid growth may in fact have been a contributing factor in > later slower-growing species adopting the help of ants in the first > place, for they could counteract their less vigorous biology if their > helpers pruned away other plants from around them before they were > overtaken. Eventually, however, the more vigorous bamboo would begin > to attract ants of their own specifically for the purpose of putting > the odds back in their favor. Today hundreds of bamboo species exist > with many more symbiotic ant species, all fighting a largely hidden > battle for turf against each other, trimming away the branches of > their neighbors if any two plants get too close to each other. The > Serinan bamboo forest exhibits universal crown shyness to a > particularly obvious degree, because anywhere that the branches of two > different trees with different ant colonies touch is soon pruned away > by the ants living on one or the other. > > > ~~~ > > > Type-D bamboo is the result of an entirely different evolutionary > path. A mutation has occurred in these plants that results in two very > different methods of growth in a single plant. Canes rise up from the > rhizome and expand their mass from the top, adding whorls of leaves > and gaining in height by building upwards like almost every other > plant, but this type of bamboo also grows from the bottom up, random > sections of the rhizomes gradually lengthening underground until they > rise out of the soil, in some places as high as ten meters, raising > the bases of the plant's canes up with it, from under the ground to > quite a ways above the soil. In this way, Type-D bamboo - which is > otherwise very similar in its manner of growth to type-A bamboo - is > able to reach much greater heights, as it becomes supported by > multiple woody trunks in its old age and towers above its competition > that doesn't exhibit the mutation. Of all the bamboos so far to > evolve, only this one could be called a tree in the strictest of > sense, for with its elevated rhizome, it could be said to have a > proper solid trunk. Canes still die back frequently and re-sprout from > the trunk, but with the rhizome now high above the forest floor, they > don't need to struggle up through the shaded understory and can grow > in the sun from the start. > > > Nonetheless, though type-D bamboo is more competitive in dense forest > environments than type-A bamboo, it's much less suited to colonizing > open expanses of land, for when its rhizome rises out of the soil, the > canes that grow from it lose their rooting and become wobbly and > vulnerable to being broken off. In the forest they can lean on their > neighbors for support but in exposed areas they typically blow over in > the wind once the rhizome breaks out of the soil and its stabilizing > presence on the shoots. The two bamboo types have thus begun to niche > partition, Type-D thriving in forests and type-A in open environments. > Because Type-D cannot survive except in a forest environment of mostly > type-A bamboo to support it, however, its long-term survival is linked > with the other growth type, meaning that in order to continue to > survive, it must remain competitive, but not to the point of totally > outdoing its competitors, for in an ironic twist, it needs them to > survive itself. > > > Type-D, like type-A, eventually flowers and dies back to the ground as > well, and is succeeded just like it by types B and C in a healthy > forest community. > > > This is a situation set in the future, but could this have happened in the past, too? Say, in an extinction event five million years ago that killed off most if not all of the eudicots (angiosperms that have two cotyledons in the seed, leaves with a network of veins radiating from a central main vein, flower parts in multiples of four or five, and a ring of vascular cambium in the stem)? [Answer] There's an old song > > O ye'll tak' the high road, and I'll tak' the low road, > > And I'll be in Scotland afore ye > > > You seem to be more worried about how they got to Scotland rather than the ultimate answer, they're in Scotland one way or another. There is a niche, it allows a plant to be very tall, long lived and deep rooted, but allows it to be slow growing. If you cut off one path to get to that niche, life will take another, but nature abhors a vacuum, something will inevitably take that niche. Bamboo grows tall, narrow, and fast. It doesn't really attempt to compete for space with plants around it, only for height, but it does tend to grow in high density monoculture. Trees grow slowly and compete with everything around them for light, space and nutrients and ultimately, height, but they often grow in massively diverse environments. If you expose bamboo to the competition that trees face there's no reason why it shouldn't develop into a variety that grows more slowly and competes for area as well a height. You probably wouldn't recognise it as bamboo though, it would likely look a lot like a tree. The question of whether it would be a bamboo that took the niche or whether some other woody plant would get there first is an unanswerable question. [Answer] The simple answer is yes it might have been possible in the past if there was a mass extinction event that removed competitive tree species. This can be qualified with the caveat that while it may have been possible in the circumstances suggested there is no way of knowing it would have or could have happened. Simply, that it is possible it might have happened. This would have been a radiative explosion of bamboo species filling the vacated niches of the now extinct woody trees. Of course, other plant species are likely to undergo similar radiative expansions to available niches and will provide competition to the novel bamboo species. As an exercise in speculative plant evolution, it may be worthwhile to determine what other trees or plant species would have survived the mass extinction event. This could lead to a more diverse world of alternative trees. More than simply one dominated by bamboos. Whether bamboos could undergo the proposed expansion as the dominant trees remains a speculative possibility. Short of instigating the mass extinction event five million years and watching to see the result could be, this is a speculative possibility, which means yes it might happen, and no there's no way of knowing for an absolute certainty, but it is a plausible alternative biological scenario. It makes sense in either a past or future scenario. [Answer] In principle, the same environmental selection forces will produce the same structures in wholly unrelated species. It's called parallel evolution. The canonical example being the mouths of Flamingos and Baleen whales. Both have the curved, smile-like shape because both are filter feeders on phytoplankton, and the same shape works best regardless of scale. So, if bamboo were put under environmental selection pressure identical to those that caused trees to evolve out of ferns, then you'd probably end up with bamboo that looks like trees. Maybe... The problem is that bamboos are a type of grass, they use a different growth strategy than trees (growing from the bottom instead of the top) and they're more efficient photosynthesizes than trees. Trees grow tall because they compete with each other and other plants for sunlight. Bamboo competes by growing faster and using rhizomes to spread the same genetic plant horizontally as well. Bamboo will always crowd out trees if both are planted at the same time. Trees can only compete if they are already established. I seem to recall reading that areas with lots of bamboo only have faster growing softwood trees. Certainly that is true in places like Japan and coastal China. I think bamboo more likely to form a Mango tree like structure with many different copies of the same genetic individual cooperating with mutual support to grow higher than a single plant could do alone. [Answer] No, because bamboo is a *grass*, and grasses (even large ones) don't have the woody interior needed to be defined as a *tree*. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo> > > In bamboo, as in other grasses, the internodal **regions of the stem are usually hollow** and the vascular bundles in the cross section are scattered throughout the stem instead of in a cylindrical arrangement. The **dicotyledonous woody xylem is also absent**. The \*\*absence of secondary growth wood\* causes the stems of monocots, including the palms and large bamboos, to be columnar rather than tapering. > > > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree> > > Trees are not a taxonomic group but include a variety of plant species that have independently evolved **a woody trunk and branches** as a way to tower above other plants to compete for sunlight. > > > Species could evolve to be much thicker, and so colloquially be called "trees", but biologically, they'll still be grass. ]
[Question] [ Are there any circumstances under which there could be an autocratic central government and democratically elected municipal government in a same country n the same time? Please exclude answers that rely on future technologies (AI, robots, omnipresent sensors). I would like to get an idea could it happen now, or even better if it already happened somewhere. [Answer] This has happened in the past, and was prevalent in the late Middle Ages of Europe and the early Renaissance, when centralized autocracies were the theoretical mode of rule, but had limited ability to enforce their will on walled cities. The Hanse, the walled cities of the United Provinces and the "Republican" Italian city states provide examples of this evolution. A strange example is London, England, where the monarch held court *within* a city that had its own charter, method of selecting municipal officers and even essentially its own army. Monarchs in England ignored the wishes of Londoners at their considerable peril. The primary issue here is the cities had a large enough population to man the defences, walls and natural protection (the Dutch in the United Provinces could and did breach the dikes and flood the *polders* surrounding the cities in order to frustrate the Hapsburg armies sent to quell the rebellion), and were wealthy enough to be worth defending. The citizens also needed the ability to withstand prolonged sieges if necessary, and you will note that most of the examples are either port cities in their own rights, or near enough to a coast or river to transport food and supplies, and make the besieger's lot a miserable one. In the modern age, examples like Hong Kong and Singapore come to mind, and these city states have many of the features their forebears in the Hanse or the United Provinces did. It is theoretically possible that in some future where the EU breaks up or nations are riven between nationalists and unassimilated immigrants, port cities like Rotterdam or Gdansk might revert to this status as well (North American cities like San Diego, Galveston or Montreal might undergo the same political evolution if circumstances change drastically, and you can write your own backstory for other cites in the world). So, yes, cities can quite easily remain democratic even if they are embedded in a more autocratic nation state. [Answer] # Hong Kong This exists under pretty special circumstances, namely, it was a British colony for 100 years before reverting to China in 1997. In as much as the British are into democracy and the Chinese (mainland types) are not, there was some negotiation in the 1980s about how re-integration of Hong Kong into China would go. Basically, as terms of peaceful transfer, the British ensured that Hong Kong would keep its market economy, Common law as [Hong Kong Basic Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Basic_Law), an an [elected](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Hong_Kong) [chief executive and legislative council.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Hong_Kong) Unfortunately, [this is coming under fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong%E2%80%93Mainland_conflict) recently, and there are signs of the central government in Beijing moving to crack down on Hong Kong's freedoms, but for at least the last 20 years, the city operated as a autonomous democracy within a autocratic, heavily centralized nation. [Answer] This isn't that uncommon today. Consider two major totalitarian governments in the world today. China has democratically elected, non-partisan local governments not just in Hong Kong (where the government is more analogous to the territorial government of the Virgin Islands or the Puerto Rican government in the U.S.), but also in almost all of its rural villages (at least within core provinces as China as opposed to ethnically distinct ones). Saudi Arabia likewise has elected local governments in most of its municipalities. Indeed, it even allows women to vote and run for office in these elections. The elections are not entirely free and fair, but it isn't a fully authoritarian non-democratic form of local government either. The trick is to limit the authority of local governments so that they can't pose a significant obstacle to central government initiatives. [Answer] An interesting situation happened within the Holy Roman Empire with [Free imperial cities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_imperial_city) like Ravensburg, Aachen, Frankfurt and Hamburg. The government type in these cities ranged from patrician based oligarchies to democratically elected officials. The free imperial cities were under authority of the emperor rather than a local lord or bishop. Italian city states of the time could also be included, as they were considered part of the HRE as well, such as Venice, Milan, Mantua, Pisa, Genoa. edit: Milan might not count as it only had a very small period of democratic rule during the Golden Ambrosian Republic, which was swiftly betrayed and supplanted by Francesco Sforza, who brought autocracy back to the city. [Answer] They aren't incompatible. Though you may have to loose your definition of democratic quite a bit. Universal suffrage may not be a thing. Candidates may not be in a party that opposes the regime, or have to be members of the One Party... If political parties are allowed at all. Voting may not be secret (and rumors of bad things happening to people voting too outside of the line are abundant). But the people (for a particular definition of 'the people') choosing their mayors among a number of candidates (from a restricted pool of candidates) and their decision being effective? Sure, why not, pretty sure it happens/happened in the real world. [Answer] I was going to give the example of the contemporary People's Republic of China as somewhere where this exists, but looks like I was beaten to it! Obviously in the Chinese example there are various formal and informal barriers to democratic participation, but there are also often similar barriers in liberal democracies, so ultimately, your mileage will vary in what you want to consider a democracy or not. Another option for what you're suggesting could be where representative democracy takes place at one level, but levels above that are run by delegates of those lower level democracies. A rough real-world example of this is the European Union, where national governments are elected by national electorates, but the "European government" (i.e. the Council of Ministers) is made up of delegates from each of the member states. If your setting is some sort of loose federation of city states, where individual citizens primary loyalty is to their city, and each city is wary of relinquishing power and legitimacy to the centre, then this sort of delegated structure would seem very plausible. [Answer] This situation occurs under Constitutional Monarchies. Iran, before the Islamic Revolution, held local elections, but the hereditary Pahlavi dynasty ruled the country. ]
[Question] [ I need a scientifically sound invention (or group of inventions) that ensures that battles fought in space will not just turn into a battle between systems that launch missiles and systems that destroy missiles before they reach their target. I want space battles to became more like classic *Star Wars*-style battles (which included making spaceships able to survive multiple hits). Is there any way I can make this work? [Answer] ## Computer and Remote Control Jamming Make tech that can jam remote control signals and computer systems easy, cheap and effective. Think of it as a sort of a kinder and gentler EMP. Maybe it is a "universal white noise generator" that costs 1,000–10,000 dollars equivalent each. It blocks transmissions at any useful frequency and that disrupts the functioning of integrated circuits by confusing signals between nearby wires with each other. It is effective within a 100 km radius. It can be sent on a dumb missile to the general vicinity of an enemy ship or missile (a horseshoe or hand grenade class defensive weapon). In addition, there would be one fixed mounted as standard equipment on all major combatants. This also discourages over automation of space ships — which may make autopilots and the like untenable. Thus, instead of drones, you need manned fighters and people controlling the operations of mother ships. Electronics that are of any use in battle are limited to very simple circuits with wired connections, and navigation is done with microfiche and projector technologies together with compasses and rulers. ## Dumb Weapons And Manned Weapons Rule Dumb munitions (like laser beams and thrown slugs and dumb missiles and bombs) would have to be sufficient. Space warfare lasers might work more like lasers in real life by causing something explosive or flammable in the target to ignite and requiring a second or two (at least) on target to be effective against non-organic targets, rather than blowing things up in their own right. Perhaps antimatter proved to not be technologically viable, and human controlled lasers are fairly effective against dumb bombs and dumb missiles that are highly explosive. Manned kamikaze missions would work, just as they do in Star Wars. [Answer] **Cost** Missiles are expensive. Space ships are very expensive. Using up expensive things to break expensive things is wasteful. If you don't have effectively infinite resources in space it could be you need to recover their ship after the battle to make fighting (or even surviving in space) over the long term possible. If you know that there is only a limited amount of steel in space you can't afford to scatter the pieces or irradiate them. **Good Lasers** If the lasers are accurate and fast enough to hit the missiles and have enough power to destroy them it doesn't make sense to launch missiles that you know are just going to explode near your launchers or worse while still in your launchers. [Answer] **TL;DR** Designer ships will be fast, and fast ships might need fast weapons. --- ## Realistically, you're not wrong. Spaceships as we know them today do not maneuver quickly, and it will be a very long time before we make fast, maneuverable ships - if at all. There's no real reason to - long-range missiles allow a safe distance from the target, and the majority of resources any fleet might want to secure would be on planets. ## However, realism's never stopped anyone. Let's stretch this. If "designer ships" are made to be fast, these situations *may* occur. Compare racecars to normal cars: racecars are not practical - they are expensive, burn through fuel fast, and are really only used for sport - and yet we have perfected them. Perhaps a "racecar" spaceship equivalent would fuel the need for speed: everyone would want one, the economy for fast ships would grow, and the technology would be developed in the face of practicality and common sense - just because some people can pay. It's worth noting that it's *a lot more expensive to do this with ships than with racecars*, but you can use the excuse of "it's the future, I'm sure this tech exists for cheap". Once speed is explained (see above) simple missile defense systems may not suffice. If you can travel faster than missiles, you may develop faster weapons (think Star Wars plasma guns, etc) and so might your opponents. Battles will be faster paced, and you may see Star Wars-esque scenarios occuring. [Answer] ## Space Time Cloak A [space time cloak](https://spie.org/membership/spie-professional-magazine/spie-professional-archives-and-special-content/2011april-archive/randd-highlights-space-time-cloak) essentially allows an object, such as a ship, to pass through any place in spacetime and not interfere with the events unfolding in that place. ## Space Time Jumping Suddenly moving to different points in space and/or time can allow you to move out of the way of incoming missles. To move in space, there are countless ideas about [tesseracts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract) allowing for teleportation in spatial dimensions [by folding them](https://coldclips.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/a-fold-in-the-skirt/). In addition, scientists now claim [time travel is possible](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2274317/scientists-claim-there-are-parallel-universes-and-the-timelines-on-each-one-can-interact/), so moving to a point in time immediately after missles would have passed through the space where your ship was would render the ship unhittable by conventional missiles. In addition, if one has these abilities to move the ship around in space time, you could also move the missiles themselves, rather than the ship. ## Deflecting Missiles by Bending Space Time Another possible solution would be to bend the area of space time between the ship and the missiles so that the missiles fired at the ship can no longer have a straight path to the ship. [Gravitational lensing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens) is a known means of bending space time, so perhaps as the missile is approaching the ship, a bend in space could shunt the missiles' path off away from the ship, or perhaps even back at the enemy! ## Making Space Time Impassable to Missiles If the fabric of space time were altered, it could become unpassable to conventional missles. For example, space time is generally referred to as being like a sheet of flexible fabric--an elastic surface essentially. The missiles must pass over this surface in order to reach your ship. So, if the surface of space time were disrupted so as to be bumpy, perhaps the rigid missils would not be able to conform to the bumps and would be destroyed, just as a car would be destroyed if it were to attempt to drive too quickly down a very bumpy road. Perhaps randomizing areas of space time between the missles and the ship could achieve this effect. Perhaps the size of the bumps in space time could be rendered so large they become like walls--so abruptly steep the missles simply crash into the sudden 90° bend in space time. Another idea for making space time impassible to missiles could be to make the area of space time between the missile and the ship infinite in length so the missile runs out of propellent before reaching the ship. To make the missiles path infinite in length, simply (LOL) kink that path into a fractal shape, like a side of a [Koch Snowflake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_snowflake). As soon as the missile runs out of fuel, just unkink space time. ## Love Missiles Hitting Your Ship [Piezoelectric](http://www.nanomotion.com/piezo-ceramic-motor-technology/piezoelectric-effect/) materials generate energy when mechanical stress is applied to them. If the enemy is using conventional explosive missiles, make the ship have an outer hull of durable piezoelectric material that generates lots of energy for your own use. If your enemy is using lasers, absorb that blast in less than 50 quadrillionths of a second with a hull made of [ultra high speed graphene photodetectors](http://newatlas.com/graphene-ultrafast-light-energy-conversion-photodetector-semiconductor/37005/). [Answer] the main limitation on manned vehicles is g-force on the pilot, in space anything that has to keep a human inside alive will be laughably easy to shoot down. so you need to change that, either make piloting remote, which could be interesting in and of itself, or create technology that protects the pilot in some way, anything from force fields to nanotech enhancement would work. now pilots can do things and live. most space battles will be about trying to turn your ship to minimize the target you provide and point your weapons at the enemy, think naval battle in 3D with broadside being the opposite of good. now having more ships gives you an advantage you can spread out and force the enemy to expose their flanks. the more ships you can launch and the more kinetic weapons they can fire, the harder it is for the enemy to dodge, since you just can't provide good armor against fast moving dumb projectiles over the entire ship without cooking the crew alive. upside defensive tactics are few and far between. Vast 3D space mean picket lines don't work, so you have lots of reasons for your characters to be on the move hunting targets. surviving multiple hits would be normal, point defenses and distance means you need to overwhelm the target, not rely on lucky shots. although a personal favorite of mine is the invention of the equivalent of railgun canister shot will make for a very one sided battle. the other big aspect is in space they biggest thing limiting your fighting is how fast your ship can shed heat and how much heat build up it can tolerate, becasue everything you do generates it and it is hard to get rid of. worse yet radiators which are the best way to get rid of it are very fragile and have to be to work. So whoever can fight the longest before they have to start extending radiators wins. stealth is impossible, you just can't hide in space. worse if you try to make your ship stealthy it just makes it easier to overheat. worse I don't need to hit you to kill you I just need to make you fire your defensive lasers enough for you to cook yourself or surrender. I really recommend you look at the space war section for the guys over at atomic rockets, they are a fountain of ideas, calculations, and reality checks. <http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewarintro.php> [Answer] # The issue of drive technology First of all, let's get the question out of the way of whether it will be possible to create ship drives that work like we would expect from Star Wars / Battleship Galactica etc. - fast, agile moving ships. Not limited to boring gravity well trajectories, but being able to travel more or less straight to where they want, at least in-system. Probably combined with some form of artificial gravity. This is the primary invention/handwave you will want to have in your universe. Without this, as others have pointed out, there will not be much in the way of battle at all. We obviously do not have nor know of any kind of ship drive today that would pass the `science-based` tag. Take your pick in order of scientificality... humongously powerful conventional rocket drives, fusion drives, antimatter drives, antigravity drives etc. For inspiration, look at any of the usual media - BSG (agile small fighters; capital ships restricted to very slow maneuvers combined with instantaneous jump drives of unspecified technology), Star Wars (the same), Star Trek (the same), Elite:Dangerous (the same plus a "middle ground" of non-jumpy faster-than-light in-system navigation), etc. # The issue of scale and intention No matter what you do, space battles are dumb anyway. As others have pointed out, space is big. Tactics like on earth, using open fields, mountains, trees etc. all simply do not apply. You cannot defend a planet by surrounding it with whatever point-like technology (ships, satellites). In empty space, anything that can move fast enough can move away from any attacker fast enough. Except for destroying planetary/moon-based infrastructure, there's just no point in attacking anything; and *that* goal could trivially be achieved with dumb near-lightspeed mass being hurled at the ground target. Especially with Newtonian mechanics (no friction; give one hard burn and then keep flying fast, with the occasional change of direction) it will be exceedingly hard to track anyone. So this is the second invention you need: ways to track the enemy, FTL radar, "subspace" which is "orthogonal" to normal space, letting your ships "pop out into reality" without warning and all that stuff. Else, any real meeting between two armies would be so unlikely as to kill all suspension of disbelief. Again, this being basically a FTL or extra-dimensional (or both) think, it's hard to think of anything science-based. # Small/medium/large > > I want space battles to became more like classic Star Wars-style battles (which included making spaceships able to survive multiple hits). > > > You need ships of different scales; small fighters, medium-sized frigates, huge capital ships. This solves your problem of ships being able to survive multiple hits - a small fighter will not pack enough punch to damage capital ships, but a pack of small fighters might just be able to wear a frigate down. On the other hand, a frigate/capital ship might not have the correct weapons to actually hit fast-flying, evading fighters. Huge ships will be built so they never ever need to get near any gravity well; hence they can have relatively large proportions of mass dedicated to armor plates and other defense mechanisms. They will be sitting ducks, but sitting ducks that can take a lot of beating. Yes, there is the problem of dumb missiles (lumps of mass) thrown at them at higher fractions of the speed of light, but you can make it so that your frigates (and of course fighters) just cannot deliver those. But a bunch of frigates might just have enough conventional firepower to basically tear holes by working together and imparting huge loads of energy in a small location. So your battles will likely revolve around capital vs. capital or frigate vs. frigate, with the smaller classes of ships trying to bring a decisive advantage, for example by taking out radar dishes, throwing chaff or whatever you can think of. Ships of the same class will still basically be able to take out each other with single/few hits, but this just adds to the tension (every battle depends heavily what kind of setup the enemy brings in regards to size/number of his ships, and which tactics they employ). Take a look at the books of Ian M. Banks, he has a nice amount of ship classes, from little few-person-ships to giant almost planet-sized A.I. entities. As a rule of thumb, make it so that each larger class can carry a few of the next smaller class. The largest ones might even construct smaller ones from raw material. [Answer] Historically, vehicles are built to allow a certain defensive system to cover a much larger range than the weapon system can directly engage. For one, a artillery emplacement stuck in a concrete bunker can only cover whatever range it can hit with its projectiles. A field gun, while able to have the same caliber and use the same ammunition, might be repositioned from place to place and cover much more than its fixed emplacement counterpart. On the same manner, a spaceship provides the ability to have the same weapon systems that might be fixed to a single-planet, but on any other planet in the reachable universe. So, if you have a dispersed colonization, and not enought production capability to protect all venues of attack that your enemies might use, a defense based on spaceships will allow you to bring weapons to bear at critical places and bring firepower to the offense at the gravity point of your enemy. When ballistic missiles were developed, the nuclear powers decided to not scrap their bomber fleet. The reason was that a ballistic missile that might be launched accidentally or prematurely cannot be stoped mid-course and so a stray missile launched at your enemy can generate a massive retaliation and escalate the war into a total one. So, the bomber force might be launched, orbit around your enemy, avoiding violating his sovereign territory and be called back if necessary without firing a single shot. This means that your missiles might be stored in lower readyness conditions that might be safer and allow you to avoid accidental use and the escalation of a conflict into war. So, those two capabilities when combined into a space faring political entity arsenal, are multiplied by the vastness of the universe and the dificulty provided by such vastness due to the limitations of communications without FTL travel. If you launch a missile that is able to come close to the speed of the light, communication wich such a missile, to allow mid-course updates will be hard if not impossible. At the same time, the time this missile takes to reach a certain sector of the space might be too long to allow credible and immediate response to a new threat or a developing situation. So, a space ship is a usefull tool in a more diversified arsenal. Another consequence of having vehicle mounted weapons is that, while a fixed emplacement is, afterall, FIXED, and it's position might be known in advance by an adversary, a space-ship has the whole reachable universe to hide and ambush your enemies. The existence of interspacial cruise missiles only increases the usefullness of such resource, as if your enemy tries a decaptating first strike against your leadership he will strike your fixed weapon emplacements too, to try to avoid a massive counter-strike. If you have space ships in patrol, this allows you to have a credible second-strike that is much harder to be destroyed because it must be first found and be attacked in order to be destroyed. Better still, your spaceships might be armed with the same interspacial cruise-missiles as the fixed emplacement ones, allowing then to strike at your enemies from any part of the universe without risking being destroyed in a sneaky first strike. [Answer] Good old-fashioned countermeasures. Mock up your radar, thermal, and gravimetric signature. Incoming missiles must throw dice to figure out which one isn't a decoy. Short-range warp engines that allow light-fighters to matrix-dodge projectiles. This consumes a lot of energy, so you would only use it when you absolutely need to. Energy-based shielding specifically designed to stop missiles. The Mass Effect franchise handles this really well - shields and other active defenses are effective against slow-firing, high-damage weapons, but quickly worn down by rapid-fire. Another good example is the Freespace franchise where anti-capital ship missiles generate heavy shockwaves that do enough base damage to wipe out a fighter 100 times over, but they wash over shields - doing insignificant damage. [Answer] This is not actually the problem of protection, but rather propulsion. Any ordinary spaceship needs to cross the distance to the target, and space is huge and empty. This means that spaceships glow (IR from life support and all kinds of other radiation from engines and reactors) like a searchlight during blackout. If you want your spaceship to be capable of reaching other planets in same system in less then years, then you need engines that will be easily visible from Alpha Centauri, even with our current tech. Meanwhile, "cold" missiles, whose initial velocity is imparted by launcher and then they travel in hibernation mode until they come near the target where they reactivate reactors/engines/guidance/whatever else, won't become detectable until they are fairly close - you can only detect them with active systems (like radar) or by looking for sudden blinks of stars caused by occlusion. This eliminates spaceships from the battlefieldspace, their only purpose is to serve as mobile launchers and nothing more. If you want lasers, autocanons or anything like that to be relevant in space combat, you need FTL. With FTL you can cross the distance without warning, thus you can't be shot down in transit. You can jump right next to the enemy and immediately open fire with weapons designed for hug-range (in space anything less than thousands of kilometres is pretty much hugging), which in turn forces enemy to equip such weapons, and also forces development of countermeasures against such weapons. Every countermeasure, be it armour, shields, ECM, anti-missiles or sublight engines, relies on FTL to stay relevant. During weeks or months of transit, enemy has ample opportunity to run away (when outnumbered) or use superior numbers to push effective range further than yours (the more guns - the harder it is to block/evade all fire, the longer range - the easier it is to block/evade all fire, thus more guns -> longer effective range), thus overwhelming your countermeasures before you can overwhelm theirs. You need FTL for combat to be anything but one sided slaughter. It's a bit like trying to attack sniper with a sword. Unless you can teleport or sneak close, it's impossible. Since in space sneaking is not an option, your are only left with teleportation. Or picking up a sniper rifle for yourself, but you don't want that. [Answer] If you want battles where it takes multiple hits to destroy a ship, it would stand to reason that attacking weaponry is not strong enough to overcome defensive weaponry. ## How About Force Shields? Force Shields could explain why missiles are no longer used. Basically, you could have some kind of shields that are very effective against projectiles, which would render missiles (or "torpedos") useless. I think this makes some sense in that explosives on Earth do most of their damage by shockwaves propagating through the air. Obviously not possible in space. There are Kinetic Energy projectiles (like railguns) that do their damage by smashing into things. Even if you put a shaped charge in front of that projectile (like anti-tank artillery) you would still be basically just shooting molten armament. If there were some type of ion shield or other force field technology that provided excellent protection against all matter projectiles, that would end the use of missiles. ]
[Question] [ *This is slightly based on Babylonian/Summerian myths where gods gave man perfect knowledge of every art and craft at the beginning of time and since then the knowledge has slowly been lost, making each generation worse than the previous. **But only Slightly based.*** A million years ago **magic descended over the world** and singled out a creature as the axis of its many expressions. Within generations this caused the ape to become sentient and evolve into humans. At some point they were harmoniously living with the magic creatures and magic powers, but as time went on the creatures started thinning out and their powers waned. Man developed writing, math and technology to compensate and then to surpass it. But they still feel subconsciously that the ancient powers remain... Come the modern era almost all magic has disappeared and the **last human with magic** must help the last remnants to move along so the human species can truly embrace science as the way to the future. I have written a couple chapters where he lets a genie out from a lamp, a spirit from a lost temple and such. They are really just **variations of the same** and they don't really feel like their disappearance would affect the world. **What I really want to do** is a metaphor about how superstition and flashy mysticism disappear with the development of science and only **true faith and philosophy, no matter how ancient or modern,** remain. This is not about religion or life choices. Because magic no longer affect us doesn't mean we no longer believe there is something beyond or we are less spiritual. We just are in a different manner. # What would be a good example of myths that still exist but are doomed to disappear in the future? ## What beliefs died out as science advanced in history? [Answer] The ability to communicate with the afterlife would be my choice. All magic naturally comes from the spiritual realm, If magic is fade because the connection between the spiritual world and the physical world is fading. mediums keep what little connection there is going, but as they die off the connection becomes weaker and weaker. Only the last the ghost of the last true medium is the all that left keeping that powering the connection. Once that ghost leaves this world and goes to the spiritual world with the rest of the dead, then the connection will fade and last bit of magic will disappear from the physical world. This is just one senero you can change the it a bit but keep the basics. The ideas is that magic comes to this world from another place and that the connection between that place and our world is fading since no new magic is coming from that other place (afterlife, spirit world, Narnia or something else) the magic already in the world is dissipating but a small trickle is still coming through because of something (someone) magical who is trapped in this world, once that thing (or person) returns to the other place then magic will be officially gone form this world. [Answer] Sympathetic magic: the FCC issued a formal rejection of homeopathy just this week after finally testing it exhaustively. But maybe it worked in the past. ESP: researchers in the 1950s swore they found evidence for ESP, but none of those experiments replicate today. Accupuncture: still going strong... for now. Astrology, runes, numerology... all used to work. The weakening ley lines go along with the weakening of divination. What if our weather prediction gets worse? Alchemy is narrowed to chemistry -- arbitrary transformation of substances is now restricted to more limited transforms. What if it continues to narrow? We can now only meaningfully communicate with dogs and a few specific members of other species instead of the whole animal kingdom. What if our few domesticated species cease to be domesticated? What if antibacterial drugs are the last gasp of healing magic? And when they're gone, they're gone? What if math just starts failing to describe physics? Rotate an object 360 degrees and it never comes back to face you. Pour half a bottle into another bottle of the same size and the liquid completely fills the other bottle. That would be true magic fading. [Answer] ### TLDR All myths are human centered. Not to detract from other forms of myth, but to make a case in point - we seek a deity because we fear our own insignificance/helplessness and the the allure of believing that we are special to some entity which is so much greater than us is irresistible to many people. We have an innate sense that we have little to no control over our lives (tragedy can happen at any moment) and we cannot escape knowing that life will eventually end. Myth #1 - the afterlife is a place rather than a chemical process in the brain that occurs near death Myth #2 - we can affect things by believing in a higher power and beseeching that power to intervene in our lives Myth #3 - magic once existed and gods walked the earth (this one may be difficult to explain in the context of the story, but in the context of the below analogies it may not be as difficult to explain as one would think). ### The Long Version You have to be careful how you use the term "faith". Even though you clearly refer to extinguishing superstition and mysticism, one cannot generally be lead to the assumption that you are also rejecting religious faith as I am sure you are aware of the contention that religion is not "superstition" nor is it "mysticism". The previous point is an important one to consider if you have a true desire to lead people out of irrational belief. I typically define faith as "knowing what is possible, knowing how to get there and taking steps *in good faith* to assure that a positive result is most likely". To me faith is a form of wisdom, in a sense it is a belief in something I cannot see because it relies on future events which are uncertain, but it is more a matter of choosing and acting rationally, not believing and simply waiting. I do not hold out wishing for things and believing they will be because I wished them so. Any other kind of faith, I suspect, is merely a psychological hack or a lie we tell to children, which in fact, by my definition of faith, amounts to the spreading of faithlessness rooted in the need to trick or persuade to get a desired result. I value reason over finagling, however well meaning it may be. And there you have my faith which derives directly from my personal philosophy. The [IEP](http://www.iep.utm.edu/faith-re/) states: > > Some have held that there can be no conflict between [faith and reason]—that reason properly employed and faith properly understood will never produce contradictory or competing claims—whereas others have maintained that faith and reason can (or even must) be in genuine contention over certain propositions or methodologies. > > > I assume that the kind of faith that you are referring to is the same as the above referenced faith that is "properly understood" such that it does not contradict reason. Here is a bit of loosely autobiographical American History as related by Hunter S. Thompson to give you a sense of faith without wisdom and the danger of forging a blind path. This at a time when common folks, en masse, both embraced and began to reject self-medication for the purpose of relieving the self from the ills of society. Although, "self-medication" is clearly not new to that period, nor certainly can the 1960's era in the U.S. be placed on par with other noteworthy periods such as the Age of Enlightenment. The events of the 60's basically (merely) represent a mass rejection of the social contract, a rejection of human roles prescribed by society and a skepticism of an established order which appeared to lead to so much unhappiness - a theme which in itself, ironically, is not at odds with the founding of the established order, that of a democratic nation, however, the rejections are of the decay of human centered values, those which get lost in vying for dominance among nations. Similar themes are present, though in a different cultural context, in Japan, the suppression of self/emotion for the greater good. The roots of the rejection of the societal order go back to the beginnings of civilization, but we can see a trace of the sense of dystopia as late (in proximity to the 60's melt down) as the Marx Brothers' films. The first part below relates the myth, the belief, the intuition which goes along with attempting to heal, that finding inner peace will solve the problems which lead to the lack thereof. Afterward it is compared to the disillusionment, the breaking point, the realization and the beginning of the acceptance of loss and an inability to completely heal - the starting point of moving on with life. ### The "Wave" Speech TLDR: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az36k4-Hc94> From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Vegas#The_.22wave_speech.22): > > Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run… but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.… > > > History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened. > > > My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket… booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change)... but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that… > > > There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda.… You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.… > > > And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.… > > > So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. > > > ### The Final Speech: TLDR: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrd-sfoAv9A> From [http://www.goodreads.com/](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/453917-we-are-all-wired-into-a-survival-trip-now-no) > > We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel. > > > [Answer] **Tl/Dr:** *This answer is really broken into two parts. The first points out that there is a superstition deep at the heart of many people's concept of science which suggests that science is more than it actually is. It would be the last magic to disappear. The second half is a lightning fast run through about a century of mathematics to suggest how magic might outlast science after all.* > > What I really want to do is a metaphor about how superstition and flashy mysticism disappear with the development of science and only true faith and philosophy, no matter how ancient, remain. > > > I make it a point to keep science honest these days. It loves to make some pretty incredible claims. It also has a pretty darn good track record of defending those claims, but with stories like this I think there's an opportunity to give it a gentle nudge. Given your plan to write a story about the development of science, literally over magic's dead body, I'd suggest the last myth to die will be "science can tell you what truly is." It'll be the last one because it will be the most staunchly defended. In what I would call its purest form, science is a branch of empiricism, itself a branch of epistemology. It explores the question of "what can we know by empirically observing the world?" It has had quite a lot of success answering that question by assuming there are "natural laws" which are in effect everywhere and every time, and devising repeatable reproducible experiments to model those laws, typically in the language of mathematics. There is, however, the selling arm of the scientific community which sells science as an branch of ontology: the philosophy of what is real. These people rely on a very interesting but tricky form of reasoning known as abduction. [Abduction](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/) is the lesser known kin to induction and deduction. While induction generalizes the whole from the part, and deduction derives the part from the whole, abduction is a bit more nuanced. Abduction is when one declares that the best hypothesis one has is actually true. This sounds reasonable, of course, but it turns out mighty difficult to pin down. The abductive claim, of course, is that all of reality is governed by natural laws. So far science has had great success with that assumption, but it can never really prove it (and good scientists never try... they strive towards more reasonable phrasings, often involving statistics). Without this claim, science remains empirical. It merely models the world (with great success). With this claim, it *defines* the world. So this claim would have to go at some point, recognized as pure superstition just like all other sources of magic. Sure, there will be attempts to do without it, but the [Münchhausen Trilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma) asserts that this is difficult. It states that all logic arguments must have one of the following: * The **circular argument**, in which theory and proof support each other * The **regressive argument**, in which each proof requires a further proof, ad infinitum * The **axiomatic argument**, which rests on accepted precepts *(This Trilemma is, of course, self-consistent. Any attempt to prove it relies on one or more of the three arguments above).* This Trilemma has survived several millennia (it's also attributed to Agrippa the Skeptic, from the 1st century AD), despite man's efforts to the contrary. If it indeed holds, there will always be one last axiom for magic to hide behind, or one infinite argument for the finitists to question. Circular logic is abhorred by the scientific community, so it is unlikely to be the final bastion of magic, but who knows. This is not to say we haven't tried. Science's language of preference is mathematics, and the mathematical community has take great efforts to try to plumb the secrets of this trilemma. In the early 1900's, there was a strong effort to create a self-proving system of mathematics, which could prove all of the truths in arithmetic, and indeed prove the validity of its own machinations it uses to get there. This effort was struck down by Kurt Godel, with his incompleteness theorems, which showed that mathematics could never create a system which could prove all the true statements of arithmetic and prove itself without being inconsistent. Mathematics remains firmly planted in the world of axioms which cannot be proven. So perhaps science will change the language. Mathematics *is* ever evolving, tackling new and more nuanced questions. Perhaps in its effort to become self-hoisting, science will embrace the rules of mathematics put forth by Dan Willard. He put forth a self-proving system by relaxing one specific rule of arithmetic: the totality of multiplication -- that you can multiply any two numbers and the result is a number. In fact, he doesn't so much have to relax the rule, as much as merely state that the totality of multiplication is not provable in his systems. This particular quirk is enough to sidestep Godel's work and create a system which proves itself and all of the true statements in its arithmetic. The systems he suggest have a peculiar behavior: they can be constructed *within* our currently accepted rules of set theory and arithmetic, and if built in such a way, it can lead to peculiar consequences. You can construct a set within the theory which is "uncountably infinite" within Willard's world, but "countably infinite" from the outside where one has access to a multiplication function that is total. From inside, this would appear as expansive as the undulating stream of real numbers bringing forth the ocean waves, while from the outside it would merely be but the integer number of grains of sand upon the beach. This would be because those inside Willard's world are incapable of constructing the concepts needed to capture the set's size as we do. It'd be like simply lacking a word to express the feeling you are having. Which suggests the humans inside that little scientific bubble bastioned by arithmetic in the form of one of Willard's systems might get curious one day whether there might be some multiplication-like operation which is total. Different mathematicians may note that, if you're willing to risk the ire of the gods by *assuming* multiplication is total, its easier to make decisions. Of course, not everyone will understand this. Some will have to be wowed, instead, by great feats of these multiplication wizards who dare look reality straight in the face. What they would do would seem miraculous indeed. **Magic dies hard.** [Answer] I hate to say this, but I feel like I'm missing a key piece of information to answer your question. If the theme of the story is "only true faith and philosophy remain," how does that relate to a single magical charge that occurred at the beginning of time? Is it a metaphor? "Faith" requires an object - it is something believed in without proof that belief is justified. In the description you gave, I didn't see a connection between faith and magic - the magic spilled over the earth, had it's effect and faded. No faith required. If the magic was responsible for the eventual evolution of mankind, and an ability to express himself perfectly via the arts, then wouldn't the fading of the magic result in mankind's devolving back to the stone ages? Perhaps, then the last magic to fade would be the ability to actually utilize the writing/math/technology/science which compensated for the lack of direct magic? [Answer] If one supposes that non-magic (science, technology) essentially crowded out magical ways, then discoveries like the germ theory of disease (and the principle of vaccination) would kill off magic, wherever those ideas spread. Similarly, I could imagine human mastery of fire, electricity and nuclear power as killing off energy-transformation magic. --- Contrary-wise, if people's beliefs in science were shredded, then magic might come back. Of course, YMMV. ]
[Question] [ Suppose that a person has the ability to kill any living being it touches (literally). That happens due to the fact that when this person touches using such ability, the target's spot being touched starts to become necrosis/gangrene and spreads to the whole body in seconds, and finally causing the death of the touched one. This person's hand has no visible anomalies and the necrosis on touch only happens voluntarily, i.e., touching normally or someone touching this person has no effect. With that, what would be the possible implications? What would be necessary so that this necrosis/gangrene results in death, and so fast, and allowing to control when it functions or not? [Answer] You could trigger [Apoptosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis). You can trigger it by chemical signals external to the cell, triggering "cell suicide". > > **Apoptosis triggered by external signals: the extrinsic or death receptor pathway** > > > * [Fas](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fas) and the [TNF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumor_necrosis_factor_superfamily) receptor are integral membrane proteins with their receptor domains exposed at the surface of the cell > * binding of the complementary death activator ([FasL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fas_ligand) and TNF respectively) transmits a signal to the cytoplasm that leads to > activation of [caspase 8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspase_8) > * caspase 8 (like [caspase 9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspase-9)) initiates a cascade of caspase activation leading to > * phagocytosis of the cell. > > > Example (image): When cytotoxic T cells recognize (bind to) their target, > - they produce more FasL at their surface. > - This binds with the Fas on the surface of the target cell leading to its death by apoptosis. > > > The early steps in apoptosis are reversible — at least in [C. elegans](http://www.biology-pages.info/C/Caen.elegans.html). In some cases, final destruction of the cell is guaranteed only with its engulfment by a phagocyte. > > > [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rI9m8.gif)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rI9m8.gif) Source: [Apoptosis](http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/A/Apoptosis.html) at Kimball's Biology Pages. Wikipedia links added for reference. The process naturally stars by the presence of [FasL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fas_ligand) - It should be possible to accelerate it by exposing the subject to an large dose of the [Death-inducing signaling complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death-inducing_signaling_complex). --- ## Behavior The person would die before the cell destruction of the body is complete. Apoptosis causes cell death in an orderly fashion, the dead cells break in pieces and the parts get engulfed by phagocytes. Basically the body is eating its own tissue. Starting from the surface it would make an open wound in the skin, muscle, and veins... that should cause bleeding. Of course red cells are being eaten too. Once the process reaches the internal organs it should cause trigger systemic failure and death. If the resources to sustain this process are being given by the attacker - perhaps even the phagocytes - it could be as fast as needed to be. ## Control Controlling it is another subject... my suggestion would be to encapsulate the biochemical agents in small membranes that would open on contact with the target tissue. Then it could be released similar to spores. ## Appearance On the first stage It would go red first and skip the inflammation of early necrosis - unless you [caspases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspase) for inflammation, and would you? - So, it would look as if it were a skin burn. Once it peels off the skin it would look more like necrosis. Yet, I would expect that it would be mostly yellow for the reasons explained below. In the case of gangrenous necrosis, the blood supply to the area has been cut out and the cells are dying. Due to the lack circulation, macrophages that would usually eat the dead cells can't reach the area. For uncontrolled apoptosis the blood supply to the area is still intact – except on the spot, once veins are being eaten, it is bleeding - and so dead cells wont accumulate, at least not until the phagocytes has reached saturation. Also note that if the attacker is covering the target with the biochemical agent that causes this, the appearance of the process would be affected by the appearance of that agent. That is, if you want it to look black, make the agent black. Note: I could not find examples of uncontrolled apoptosis on the sking that were not accompanied by skin cancer. [Answer] Clearly you need a *toxin* which can exploit existing apotosis pathways in the cell, as elaborated by Theraot’s answer. But I think it would be based on nanotechnology and act more in the way of an active pathogen, going around and injecting individual cells and spreading more of itself: a virus, IOW. The **delivery mechanism** is what I want to contribute. I’m reminded of how jellyfish use stinging cells called[cnidocytes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnidocyte) which are really nasty: a long tube is coiled in the cell and it explosivly deploys by turning inside out like a sock being removed, going through the protective outer skin and into underlying tissue and hopefully hitting capilaries. Along its entire length it releases the toxic agent as it goes, like an ever-growing needle. ![picture](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Nematocyst_discharge.png) Unlike the jellyfish, these can be under protective covers so they only are discharged by first pulling the pores open and willing them to be primee. [Answer] **Answer: Palms with Controllable Porosity and a Subcutaneous Poison Reserve** The biggest problem you have is that you don't want to poison someone then immediately die after scratching your ear. In fact, with the **Reality Check** flag in play, I'm going to point out that's pretty much what would necessarily occur. After all, if your SKIN passes a chemical to other SKIN which causes SKIN to decay and die... well, your SKIN would be exposed to the chemical first and you would both die. But it's more fun to make up a "what if" scenarios that bend that tag a little bit... ## Hand Construction Firstly then, you need a way to deliver your poison via touch without constantly oozing it or dying immediately yourself. The best answer I could give would be that some part of your hand is not, in fact, covered in skin but in some other sheathing material (which may or may not LOOK like skin). Let's say you had a patch with an inorganic callus, as an example. You would then also need a subcutaneous reserve of poison (also lined in something immune to the poison) and an active muscle that could pull at your inorganic callus to open it up. At that point, by flexing your "poison muscle" and pushing your callus into someone else's skin you would push some of your poison through the pores in the callus and onto their skin, killing them. The next issue you would have is that you do have some instant-death poison on your hand, albeit not touching your skin yet. The only answers I could provide would be to suggest that either the poison oxidizes quickly (the oxide being non-toxic as a topical poison), or it evaporates. If the poison is organic, perhaps it dies quickly without something to feed on. I think the oxidizing method is more likely to work out, but given that I think we already fail the **Reality Check** flag I'm not too concerned about it. ## Poison Again failing the **Reality Check** flag, there is no known substance that would do what you are looking for. There is nothing even close. As a stand-in, what I would propose that the closest analogue would be that the poison you excrete is actually a fast-replicating virus that probably uses apoptosis as suggested by Theraot. I'm pretty sure that if we were worried about reality the person would still have at least many hours to live, but their death could be as horrible as you describe. The virus could also be engineered to hibernate unless it is in the presence of oxygen (which is not present in the lining of your poison sac), at which point it must feed or die quickly. That would explain why it kills others and why, after some period of time, it doesn't kill you when you scratch your ear later. Or you could just claim it's a chemical that triggers a waterfall effect of cell death and not try to explain the mechanism. After all, we have already given up the Reality Check portion of the answer. [Answer] One idea would be to have someone who has the ability to, on command, secrete a fluid rich in [Natural Killer (NK) cells](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_killer_cell), along with some nutrients for them to run on, from his palms (perhaps by modifying sweat glands). Normally, NK cells are a part of the human innate immune response, and respond to any cell that does not express a proper set of "self" markers, or no "self" markers at all, by telling it to commit cell suicide, i.e. [apoptosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis), or by directly lysing the cell instead. Furthermore, his NK cells would be modified so that a NK-specific retrovirus is expressed by them, its replication suppressed by "self" [MHC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_histocompatibility_complex) antigens being presented to the NK cell, with the retrovirus controlling what "self" is. The result is that once the modified NKs come in contact with a "not self", they start the apoptosis process on the "not self" cells and also emit retroviral particles, which attack the NK cells of the victim and make them stop recognizing the victim as "self", creating a chain autoimmune reaction which necrotizes the victim from the inside out. You could also expand on this by making it so that the modified NK cells also express a large quantity of apoptosis factors when "self" is no longer presented to them, but this may not be necessary depending on how fast and hard you wish this to work. ([Phagocytes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phagocyte) can also be added here, of course, with their behavior controlled by factors emitted by the NK cells.) [Answer] **Poison** Some venom cause necrosis when injected. Your person had venom gland linked to an invisible way to inject it, like a [cnidocyte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnidocyte), all over his hand, that can produce venom on command. This venom kill cells quickly, occasioning necrosis. Once the hand touch someone, the venom pass trough skin and diffuses on the whole body via blood vessels, which causes the necrosis to spread. ]
[Question] [ Assume for a moment that energy-based laser weaponry is the way to go in space. I am under the impression that, unlike a kinetic weapon, a laser will have a certain distance where the energy output on hit per m² will be at its largest, depending on the lense used. This would mean that, as the target is moving either closer to the lasers origin or moving away from the lasers origin, **as long as the distance from the laser optimal focal point is increasing**, the laser will be less effective. For that purpose, a ship would need to have 3 different types of lasers: * One for long range distances * one for medium range distances * one for short range distances All 3 type of lasers could be same and have the same energy Output, but would be using a different lense and to have a different focal point per distance. Is this a correct assumption ? Would it be (realistictly) possible to construct a laser weapon that is able to shift its lense in a way that it can effectively alter its optimal "range" on the fly as to offer the most energy concentration per m² on 10000km, 100000km and 1000000km distance ? [Answer] Think of focusing a camera lens. Being monochromatic it won’t be so compex and the limiting factor will be how far you can move the elements apart. Even if there is some engineering practicality, why not simply change lenses (or fit in alternatives for some portion of the lens elements)? It would be just as fast to move it *sideways* to pop a different one into the beam’s path. Or, maybe focusing is done with active holograms or changing the spacing of micromechanical ridges. So focus can be near instantanious without moving huge components around, and offers an *enourmous* range. But, is that necessary? With a camera you have a *depth of field* and a point at which the depth of field goes to infinity, the [hyperfocal distance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocal_distance). Does this same concept apply in reverse? @RoryAlsop’s notes would indicate that it does, since atom-sized changes will make a significant difference as you get far enough away. And you can’t focus to a point anyway! You have [conservation of étendue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etendue) which [xkcd](https://what-if.xkcd.com/145/) illustrates; but with a laser Øin is very close to parallel beam sides, but quantum effects make the beam diverge even if “perfect”. So realisticly you’re looking at a spot of some size with most intensity at the center and tapering off. If the spot’s core is the size of a quarter, does it matter if it’s a millimeter larger or smaller? So focusing will not matter for movement of the target. Now if you only have rough focusing lenses (or settings) for different operating distances, you might arrange things so that *any* meaningful shot is “far”. If the primary lens/mirror is *very large* that helps get a tight spot at far distance, but means that what is considered “far” will be farther down range. So you may indeed realistically describe *close combat* evading the weapon because it can’t focus so close. How close depends on the actual numbers involved. So yes, optimizing the effectiveness for distant targets will hurt the close-up performance. The huge thing will be slower to turn, too, which is significant close up. But *surprise*, the close-in fighters did not expect you to have an active holographic diffractive optic element※, which allows you to *focus close* as well as track the beam faster than a mechanical tourret could be expected to move! ※ I love it when *technobabble* turns out to be a real thing! [Answer] Beyond a certain distance, the focus is effectively at infinity, as your light "rays" become almost parallel. As an example, if you have a huge 100 metres wide laser beam, using a lens to focus it at a point 100 metres away will give a very strong focus. At 100 kilometres away, the beam is almost parallel, and at 10,000 kilometres it pretty much is parallel. Having just run the maths (using my old high school SOH CAH TOA) I get the following: 100m focal length has an angle of 63° from perpendicular to the lens 100km has an angle of 89° 10,000km has an angle of 89.999° So your lens is not going to be very useful, beyond a very short distance, and in fact minor imperfections will have a huge effect. Imagine accidentally altering your lens to change the incident angle from 89 degrees to 89.9997 degrees (a pretty small change) - that changes your focal length by 9,900km! [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rMSQk.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rMSQk.jpg) [Answer] Your real problem here is that you are mixing your understanding of different types of optics. The camera lens analogy does not apply to a laser. When you "focus" a laser beam you are not creating a converging focal point upon which the photons converge to a point and then scatter beyond that. The point of a laser beam is that you want specifically to *avoid* creating such a focal point at all. You want all of your photons to be travelling as parallel as possible. The question then becomes one of how you focus (*not* focus to a focal point) the beam such that the photons run parallel for as far a distance as possible. Whatever the answer you apply to your long range is still the same answer for your short range; that is, if the photons travel parallel out to a long distance then they are already traveling parallel in the short distance. So you do not end up with the problem you are describing and, at least as far as distance is concerned, the device will be one size fits all. [Answer] The ever useful [Atomic Rockets](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php) site has a great section on [laser weaponry](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent.php), but the conclusion is far different than what you seem to be implying. Rather than have a multitude of laser weapons or optical systems, the ultimate aim is to create a Ravening Beam of Death (RBoD) and attack targets from as great a distance as possible. For practical reasons, this turns out to be one light second (just under the distance from the Earth to the Moon), since you can see the target, aim and make corrections in such a short time frame that the target cannot move an appreciable distance. The massive Free Electron Laser (or actually Xaser, since it is fired in the x-ray frequencies) near the end of the section can vaporize metal, ceramic and carbon in milliseconds at that range, and if you are on an unpowered orbit or on an asteroid, the beam is still lethal at a light minute and dangerous even a light hour away. > > Let's take a 10 MW ERC pumped FEL at just above the lead K-edge. This particular wavelength is used because lead is pretty much the heaviest non-radioactive element you can get, and at just above the highest core level absorption for a material you can get total external reflection at grazing angles - so no absorption or heating of a lead grazing incidence mirror. We will use a 1 meter diameter mirror. The Pb K-edge x-ray transition radiates at 1.4E-11 m. This gives us a divergence angle of 1.4E-11 radians. At 1 light second, we get a spot size of 5 mm, and an intensity of 5E11 W/m2. > > > Looking at the NIST table of x-ray attenuation coefficients, and noting that 1.4E-11 m is a 88 keV photon, we find an attenuation coefficient of about 0.5 cm2/g for iron (we'll use this for steel), 0.15 cm2/g for graphite (we'll use this for high tech carbon materials) and 0.18 cm2/g for borosilicate glass (a very rough approximation for ceramics). Since graphite has a density of 1.7 g/cm3, we get a 1/e falloff distance (attenuation length) of 4 cm. Iron, with a density of 7.9 g/cm3, has an attenuation length of 0.25 cm. Glass, density 2.2 g/cm3, has an attenuation length of 2.5 cm. > > > At 1 light second, therefore, the beam is depositing 2E12 W/cm3 in iron at the surface and 7E11 W/cm3 at 0.25 cm depth; 1.2E11 W/cm3 in graphite at the surface and 5E10 W/cm3 at 4 cm depth; and 2E11 W/cm3 in glass at the surface and 7E10 W/cm3 at 2.5 cm depth. Using 6E4 J/cm3 to vaporize iron initially at 300 K, we find that iron flashes to vapor within a microsecond to a depth of 0.9 cm. The glass, assumed to take 4.5E4 J/cm3 to vaporize (roughly appropriate for quartz) will flash to vapor within a microsecond to a depth of 4 cm within a microsecond. Graphite, at 1E5 J/cm3 for vaporization, will flash to vapor to a depth of 0.7 cm within a microsecond (the laser performs better if we let it dwell on graphite for a bit longer, we get a vaporization depth of 10 cm after ten microseconds). > > > Net conclusion - ravening death beam at one light second. > > > Now lets look at one light minute. The beam is now 30 cm across. This is much deeper than the attenuation length in all cases, so we will just find the radiant intensity and the equilibrium black body temperature of that intensity. We have an area of 7E-2 m2, and an intensity of 1.4E8 W/m2. You need to reach 7000 K before the irradiated surface is radiating as much energy away as heat as it is receiving as coherent x-rays. The boiling point of iron is 3023 K, the boiling point of quartz is 2503 K, and the sublimation temperature of graphite is 3640 K. All of these will be vaporized long before they stop gaining heat. At this range, the iron is subject to 5.6E8 W/cm3 at the surface, the graphite to 3.3E7 W/cm3 at the surface, and the glass to 5.6E7 W/cm3 at the surface. Using the above values for energy of vaporization, we get about 0.1 milliseconds before the iron starts to vaporize, 0.8 milliseconds before the glass starts to vaporize, and 3 milliseconds before the graphite begins to vaporize (because of its long attenuation length, once it begins to sublimate, graphite sublimates rapidly to a deep depth, while you essentially have to remove the iron layer by layer). > > > Net conclusion - still a ravening death beam at one light minute. > > > What about at one light hour? The beam is 18 meters across. The equilibrium black body temperature is 900 K. This is well below the melting point of most structural materials. Ten megawatts, however, is a lot of ionizing radiation. Any unhardened vehicle will be radiation killed at these ranges. > > > Obviously, the ideas of "close, medium and far" ranges have very different meanings in a space war context. The only way to effectively deal with a weapon like that is to have several weapons of similar power in your constellation, or be prepared to fill the sky with tens of thousands of kinetic kill vehicles (referred to in [Rocketpunk Manifesto](http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com) as Soda Cans of Death or SCoDs). With an overwhelming number of targets, the individual laser will eventually not be able to track and kill every target, and of course other factors like the service cycle (how often you might have to stop and cool down the system), or the speed the laser mirror can swivel to track incoming targets reduces the absolute number of targets you can service even with a RBoD. [Answer] You could try to focus a laser weapon on a single point, but you wouldn't want to. You might want to vary the focus a laser for very close-in work, but at long range you'd want to collimate a laser as well as you can. The presumed benefits of a laser are at those long ranges. Basically, the problem is that space is big and that nothing is perfect, including how parallel you can collimate your laser. Imagine that you have a laser projector on your ship, and you fire at another ship. Now, suppose that you want to focus all of your laser's power on a 1 centimeter diameter spot. Modern, high quality lasers can collimate with an error of 1 arcsecond, meaning that they are at most 1 part in 3600 off from perfectly straight. Solving for the trigonometry, at 2 kilometers away, that spot is smaller than your laser's error. 2 kilometers is less than the range of most modern cannons. So to build on @Rory Alsop's answer, you don't want to focus your laser. You want to collimate it, and accept that the beam will slowly grow over its path, by about a centimeter of error every 2 kilometers of distance. [Answer] Changing focus is something our cameras do pretty well nowadays. Having three set of lenses has huge drawbacks comparing with moving one piece: * risk of collision when you move one in, one out * mass * time with no output at all But don't forget we are shooting lasers on cosmic range now. [NASA](http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/ApolloLaser.html) did it regularly. Few meters wide beam on Earth is four miles wide on the moon. A lot. There are two reasons for this: * best mirror optics we have now can't do much better * even if, aiming is really hard These two should give you a hint what you need to solve or handwave in your story. If, for some storytelling reason, you *want* three pieces, consider these: * Precision. Narrow focus range gives you sharper image, smaller dot. Maybe having three sets is justified by that? (sure it is for me and my photo camera) * Maintenance. Being able to swap out one of your "muzzles" and still shot is nice. * Cost. Three simple mirrors are cheaper than zoom optical path. * Transparency. One mirror reflects more light than one simple lens. And zoom lens are worst. [Answer] Realistically, you only need a long range laser. With your design you get a perfect focus in every case. Try replacing it with one big laser with only a long range focus and look what happens: In almost every engagement you put three times the power on target. In the few where there's a bit of imperfect focus you're still pretty close and probably do more damage than if you were firing your perfect but weaker laser. ]
[Question] [ Planet - habitable, tidally locked planet orbitting red dwarf. Aim: a realistic answer (neither involving handwavium nor aliens that used it all) why a virgin planet that already experienced a while ago its great oxygenation event, has practically no easily accessible (by standards of early XXIst century technology) fossil fuels sources. I mean especially oil and natural gas, however lack of coal would also be beneficial. Thus the questions: 1) How to explain that? 2) What fossil fuel sources would still be accessible anyway? My tries: 1a) Maybe continental drift that moved continent with fossil fuels sources in the coldest regions under a few km of ice, and moved those that were covered with ice to the light side of the planet) 1b) Really deep ocean - makes any drilling extra hard 2) Presumably some bog would be unavoidable. I have no idea about gas and oil. To be safe I thought about putting them in tiny quantities that do not justify drilling. [Answer] Mass extinctions have nothing to do with large oil deposits, unlike at least 2 answers have said it does. Oil accumulates largely due to vegetation and aquatic life forms dying and their carbon/hydrogen remains are locked away under some barrier over very long periods of time... If scientists came upon a planet that had little or no fossil fuels they would likely think 1 of 3 things. 1. Life on this planet is young, thus not enough time to accumulate. 2. The processes that create oil were somehow being blocked or retarded. For example, if the vegetation on the planet didn't lose it's leaves ever this would greatly reduce the speed that oil was being produced, whether was a result of it's orbit causing summer to be very long or the plantlife just didn't develop that way. 3. You're dealing with a planet that had alien sentient life and they used it all up and then something happened to them, either died out, or left, or something. The first hypothesis is relatively easy to check. Just determine the age of the star and the planet and such and we can come up with an estimate of how old life is based on that. The second hypothesis should be easy too. Just look monitor the vegetation for a few years. The third hypothesis... You should be able to find some ruins somewhere, or an artifact that says don't touch if they restored the environment. If you couldn't find or come to any conclusion within a few years then maybe you got a worthwhile mystery that I can't think up any explanations for. [Answer] You have a slight technical hitch with your planet, in that the mechanism for getting lots of free oxygen into the atmosphere is the long-term burial of organic carbon. Basically, if you bury carbon in the form of trees and dead ocean life in sediments (which become rocks), it can't combine with oxygen and thus does not decompose to return that carbon back to the atmosphere as CO2. So to have a lot of atmospheric oxygen, you have to have a lot of buried organic carbon. Over geological time that carbon tends to turn into coal and oil. So how can you get around this? 1. **Make the planet quite young**, in comparison to Earth. Let's say it is in the early phase of Earth's equivalent of the Devonian Period. So there is plenty of life on land, and it will be habitable to humans, but it won't have accumulated the huge coal and oil deposits of our Carboniferous and onwards. The Devonian forests are burying trees like the clappers, but those dead trees are still pretty much all peat or really, really low grade lignite. There *will* be oil and coal (Earth has Per-Cambrian coal deposits!) but these will be tiny. They may not be commercially viable to extract. 2. The planet did have big coal and/or oil reserves, most of which were right slap bang **on the edge of subduction zones**. Those rocks have been dragged down into the upper mantle and melted. *Downside:* when a portion of that molten rock gets erupted back out in any mountain building going on over the top of the subduction zone (like the volcanoes in the Andes), it's going to be instant global warming as it returns all the carbon to the atmosphere. [Answer] Fossil fuels come from the non-decomposition of organic matter, if you have sufficient oxygenation in the atmosphere and at depth in the water column then carbonaceous sediments can't accumulate in large volumes. The ocean one is a toss up the current currents in the world ocean prevent any great build up of organic matter on Earth's ocean floors because there's enough Oxygen at depth to break down that material and liberate the Carbon to the food chain and/or atmosphere, that wasn't always the case which is why the Middle-East, North Sea, and Gulf of Mexico oil reserves. Completely unrelated but down here in New Zealand we have oil that's being baked out of relatively young bituminous coal deposits, as in from only 30MYA instead of northern hemisphere coal measures from 350MYA, these coals have a lot of waxy molecules from flowering plants which is why our crude sets at room temperature. Back on point the ocean can either be well mixed or shallow or better yet both to boost oxygen levels and remove the possibility of oil deposits, this assumes and requires a basically passive tectonic history in which ocean topography hasn't changed all that much over geological time, in a tidal lock situation that's not actually an unreasonable assumption. You will still get landlocked deposits of carbon in low-lying areas subject to permanent water that prevents decomposition, in a highly oxygenated environment these will be small, slow to accumulate, of very low grade, and by the nature of the swampy environments in which they're found hard to extract, you're talking about peat and lignite no true coals. This is a geologically static planet with a very active atmosphere and active nutrient cycles, it's not a total contradiction in terms but thought needs to be put into the cycling of key nutrients, phosphorus particularly, back out of the ocean basins, something like mayflies that take their nutrients from the seabed and return them to land with their mating flight, the way salmon put nutrients into the arboreal forests only dialed up a few magnitudes and all over the world. [Answer] Coal and Oil come from millions of years of pressure on biological matter (Plant and Animal respectively). Hence the name *Fossil Fuels* * With Oil, it is only efficient when a mass extinction occurs, resulting in many dead bodies in a relatively small area during a relatively small amount of time. If in your world, there is never a great extinction, it is reasonable to say that oil will be in such small pockets that mining for it will not be feasible. * Coal is a little harder to explain, as plants grow in large groups and leaf litter will result in coal eventually. I see only two solutions here; 1. In your world, plants do not gather in group, perhaps this is a desert world and large groups of plants are impossible. 2. Decomposers are much, much more efficient, meaning that dead fallen plants are eaten before they are covered. Of course unless there is already alien life on your planet, there will be no fossil fuels to begin with because there will be no fossils. [Answer] One of the biggest events that lead to oil today is the algae, they converted massive amounts of carbon dioxide to oxygen. They were so effective, they caused an ice age and gone extinct. I guess the evolution thought carbon dioxide to be an endless resource, reminds me of modern humans. The corpses of these organisms became oil. If your world had oxygen to begin with, you might not have such an event. Leading to a world with small amounts of oil. This won't effect coal tough. [Answer] In order to explain why there are no fossil fuels you have to explain an absence of *mass extinction events*. The reason mass extinctions result in oil deposits is the trapping of large quantities of biomass that does not have a chance to decompose and release the carbon back into the atmosphere. The most likely cause of mass extinction events ( barring consumption as may be the case with humans on Earth, or global war / colonization in the sci-fi realm ) is comet impacts during the early age of the star system, after planets have cooled and complex life has formed. [Large sibling planets](http://earthsky.org/space/is-it-true-that-jupiter-protects-earth), a la Jupiter, outside the orbit of the planet in question are known to perturb comet orbits and direct them away from the smaller sibling. To give some perspective on time spans here, with respect to our solar system: 1. age 4.6 billion years 2. life has been around about 4 billion years 3. the sun will burn for about another 5 billion years or so It is not clear if this has a very high probability of preventing *all* impacts on a given planet, but it seems there is a fair chance, with the billions of star systems in a single galaxy, there may be a few where this has happened. However, this would preclude any of the interesting evolutionary events that also occur after mass extinction events. We do not seem to have a model for that kind of evolution, very long periods, billions of years, of un-eventful ( ha ha ) evolution, and it's not clear what such a model would look like. ]
[Question] [ On my planet, the only animals are plankton, krill, shrimp, etc., but no fish or land animals. The colonists on this planet have brought equipment and embryos from the home world, but the only freezer that didn't malfunction contained the whale embryos. The colonists have to have meat and dairy, which the whales can provide in vast quantities. My question is this, how can these whales be domesticated and forced to basically be farmed? What kind of infrastructure would be needed, what kind of selective breeding would be required, and how long would it take? For the purpose of the question, the climate is similar enough to earth to be compared to whales here. [Answer] I believe the answer you are looking for is free range. No one likes a whale in a cage! Whales often visit the same areas every year. You can have a harvesting bonanza once a year and stock up your food reserves. Think this sounds implausible? We only have one harvest of grain a year, sugar takes two years. We bring it in all at once, and store it for the rest of the year. Various regions harvest at different times, and sell any excess to their neighbours. So you can have cross country distribution of your whale meat providing all year coverage. You will have to harvest **alot**, and find a way to preserve the meat without it going rancid. Whale biltong just does not sound right! Australia cattle farming is a good example of what I'm talking about. The cattle are fully domesticated but have huge huge ranges. Farms are so big, the farmers have to use helicopters to quickly find where the cattle are. It used to take weeks to bring the cattle in on horseback. Now I think it takes a few days to a week on quad bikes. You will probably need to try keep the meat as fresh as long as possible. The entire planet doesn't have a handy freezer like the Eskimos.(sorry if that word offends anyone). You will need a vast network of whale hunting and harvesting boats and ships. Technology level up to you. You will track your whales and maybe keep constant tabs on them to reduce finding times when you get hungry. Whale shepherds! You then know how many whales you can take in each harvest and still keep a healthy genetic pool. Harvest any whales that refuse to breed! Ensure that any sea captains that have a grudge against any white whales are only allowed to captain a ship when said white whale is not pregnant or nursing. Along the same lines, alot of the beef meat we eat are from the males (sorry guys). You only need a few stud bulls to fertilise the breeding females, dairy cows (maybe you could investigate utilising the whalecows milk. I think you will have to invest in some scuba gear). Maybe your genetic engineers can tinker with a couple of genes and make it obvious from a surface viewers point of view if they are about to harpoon a male or female. I'm thinking skin colour or something 'small' like that. While you are busy genetically modifying the whales. If you track the whales you will figure out which ones are breeding faster and more often. Kill off the slow and lazy ones. Allow 'survival of the fittest' to take its course. If you can keep tabs on the whales, co-ordinate all along the coastline and with your vast mobile armada of whale hunters (sorry, caring whale shepherds),you won't necessarily have to 'domesticate' and 'tame' the whales. Ostrich are farmed for both their feathers and meat and they are certainly not considered domesticated. **EDIT** considering you new world only has plankton, krill and whales...No predators. You can remove the young from their mothers a few months (maybe 6months) after they are no longer dependant on mother's milk. No need to protect a youngster for 2-3 years if there is nothing to protect against. You may have to move the young to some aquariums completely removed from the ocean so that they don't communicate with mother dear. Let mother grieve for awhile and a few months later to a year she could possibly be pregnant again. This will increase productivity! The youngsters meanwhile are being handled and dependant of humans and will become 'friendly' and not perceive us as a threat (suckers). Once these youngsters are brainwashed they can be released back into the wild to feed themselves. A few years later...yummy steak on your table. *I sometimes wonder about the way worldbuilding brings out the absolute evil in us all!* [Answer] **No.** The same problem is here for why elephants were not domesticated for food; birth rates. It can take anywhere from 11 to 18 months for the whale pregnancy to end, and even longer to raise; this means that the time it takes to make large quantities of whale meat are not worth the calories you benefit from it. [Answer] Whales are a terrible animal to domesticate. Their generation time is very long (5-10 years for blue whales), and a human could do only a few rounds of selective breeding in their lifetime. Although then again, rapid maturation would probably be one of the top traits selected for. Still, it would probably take more than a century. [Domesticating foxes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Domesticated_Red_Fox) took about 50 years, and whales breed much more slowly than foxes. There's also the question of where you would keep them. Whales are large and powerful. How would you trap them? In a small, artificial pool they might get stressed from lack of space. It would probably make more sense to just let the whales roam wild and come up with some gadget to locate them. Without predators or parasites, they would quickly (well, relatively quickly) overpopulate. You can then go catch them, milk them, and let them go. The ones that are aggressive or otherwise undesirable can be killed or sterilized as a negative selection to cause domestication in the very long term. Alternatively, perhaps the embryos might be genetically engineered to be domesticated already? That would be a nice way to explain why they haven't been domesticated before as well. By the way, whale milk is [very high in fat](http://ansci.illinois.edu/static/ansc438/Milkcompsynth/milkcomp_table.html). It would be very thick and cream-like, and much harder to drink than cow milk, and recipes would need to be adjusted. Although it would work for tea and coffee. [Answer] I think it can be managed. Whales were already hunted for food and *most* whale species are doing well. The main problem is the whales that are adaptable and manage to survive the hunting are the ones that feed on fish, squid or similar larger animals. Additionally, it requires time for them to grow into adulthood and this translates very slow selective breeding process. However, there is a type of whale feeding off of everything, including the ones you have listed and still is listed as least concern for being threatened: Minke whale. Additionally, these whales have shorter pregnancy and become adults between 3 to 8 years. If your expedition chooses this whale for its adaptability, they may use them as food source. Here are few information sources: [this](http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/cetaceans/minkewhale.htm) and [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minke_whale). ]
[Question] [ It's the near future, and Bob goes for a spacewalk outside the International Space Station or Space Shuttle or some similar type of realistic space craft. Suddenly, and unfortunately, Bob goes space-crazy. So, Bob is outside the craft, armed with a standard toolbox and a EVA kit. How much damage can Bob cause? Can Bob kill everyone on board? Can the guys on the space craft reasonably stop Bob without going out of the craft to fight him themselves? [Answer] First of all, this question depends on the contents of the toolbox. Answer for yourself: * Nothing at all? + Well, he still ha hands and an EVA backpack, which can propell him enough to ram the fragile solar panels and break them. No more auxiliary power with all sideffects. * Is ther a drill/laser cutter in the toolbox? + Obviously, now the crew is screwed, because Bob can just make a hole in the hull and doom the crew to suffocate slowly. Or he drills the cooling system and cooks them. Or he cuts off the solar panels. * Are there wire cutters, cable bumpers and screwdrivers in the toolbox? + With some electric engineering knowledge Bob could now manipulate the engines to missfire or not fire at all. Or he cuts energy from the solar panels or he shorts out all batteries. Or he even rewires the hatches to open and suffocate them all! Also, no power means either cooking the astronauts or freezing them to death - and no communications. * Is there a crowbar or similar hard and long device that does not doom him by Newton's Actio=Reactio (like a hammer)? + Deformation of the heat radiators by sticking it in and then bending them or removal of the ablative shield while using the tether to come back after breaking one off will doom the crew sooner or later by overheating or burning the ship on reentry. Atop that, destroying solar panels can cut power, which might result in freezing or cooking, depending on the fact if the cooling system needs power. * Duct tape, a knife and a garden hose? + Using Duct tape, a hose and ingenuity, one can feed the fuel from exterior fuel tanks to the valves that are intended to bring in oxygen. In NASA they even use the same standard valve type almost everywhere (they learned from Apollo 13!) The results are on the hand: Most spaceship fuels are extremly toxic and flamable. Now, how to counter?! That depends on the ship/station: * Cut rope, get away! + Not the nice way, but clearly possible. This however needs the ship to have fully functional engines or RCS. * Use the robo arm! + If there is an arm, it can whack Bob out of the way while his rope gets cut. He is lost, but nobody had to leave the ship. * Launch an emergency capsule into him! + If he can't evade, he is going on a long trip. [Answer] Bob can certainly damage virtually any spacecraft, since they are complex objects with multiple weak points. Damaging solar cells, electrical connectors, protective tiles or even pulling off the thermal blankets covering sensitive equipment is going to disable most spacecraft. OTOH, Bob isn't likely to do physical damage to the structure of the spacecraft itself, except in very limited circumstances. Due to the nature of its mission and the very narrow margins available with 1960 era technology, the LEM was built with some sections not much thicker than several layers of aluminum foil. Since the LEM was never designed for flight in the atmosphere or to operate in anything more than 1/6 g, this wasn't an issue (and NASA certainly didn't expect any of their highly trained and screened astronauts to "go space crazy" either). More modern spacecraft have reasonably substantial structures. Even the Bigalow inflatable module is made of multiple layers of Kevlar, resembling a bulletproof vest more than a balloon. Certainly you are not going to push a screwdriver through the hull. This brings up a point which seems to have been overlooked: how much damage could a person in EVA mode actually do? In order to do any sort of work at all, an astronaut needs to be solidly braced against the structure of the spacecraft, and special tools are needed which can cancel out torque and other forces which can unseat the astronaut. An astronaut who is unbraced and takes a swing at the spacecraft with a hammer or heavy object is likely to simply fly off the spacecraft instead. Bob will be dangling from the end of the tether rather than homicidally tearing big chunks from the spacecraft after the first whack. Unless Bob is a trained space marine with special equipment like shaped charges, cutting charges, thermal lances or other tools specifically designed to cut through metal in a zero g environment, I have doubts that he's going to do more than some localized damage before he goes spinning off into space. While this is alarming for the crew, and potentially quite dangerous if unattended, another EVA can be done to bring Bob back inside and fix the damage. [Answer] He can damage the [ammonium radiators](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_Active_Thermal_Control_System), and if he can get enough leaks going then it's going to get very hot very quickly inside. This could be done by removing the ammonia pump — this [kind of thing](http://www.space.com/21059-space-station-cooling-system-explained-infographic.html) happened by accident in 2010. [Answer] It depends on exactly *which* craft he's on, and just exactly what a "standard toolbox" contains. If it's the ISS, with any sort of hammer he should be able to disable all of the solar cells simply by whacking on them. Concentrating on the end with the electrical connections would be a good place to start, since I expect the station arrays are configured as multiple parallel strings, and he would want to interrupt each string. With no solar power the station will go dark in fairly short order. Something like the Shuttle is equally vulnerable, although in the slightly longer term. All Bob has to do is zip around whacking tiles. They are remarkably fragile wrt impact, and he should have no trouble doing enough damage to guarantee a Columbia repeat. [Answer] # Station Self Defense Seminar So we know how to damage a craft properly, but what can the guys inside do to defend? Fresh from the Kerbal Space Program Field Study Institute I can offer some strategies for improvised space travel and short range transiting, containing something called the "most fuel efficient way to transit a kerbal from one craft to another". If done correctly, it can be used for self defense purposes against people in spacesuits going amok. ## astronaut marry-go-round Usually includes a rope, good aim and lots of good luck: when attached to the station with some kind of rope (I think they have a specific name, but I can't recall) that should prevent EVAs from floating away, you can use this to apply force to whoever is at the other end of that rope. The centrifugal force will force the aggressor away as long as he is fixed. All you need to do is start spinning your station fast enough. Usually no EVA-suit has the thrust to nullify the forces applied this way. If you have some kind of rotation wheels (which is something I think is exclusive to ksp) you don't need to waste fuel on this, just electric charge. As bonus, if you cut the rope in the very best moment you can send your aggressor in a predefined direction (like in front of the exhaust port of something that is about to accelerate). Or — more peacefully — this can be used to send EVAs at high speeds into a higher or lower orbit where they may rendezvous with another craft or station. Of course, this may cause havoc *inside* your station if you have your staff and stuff floating around freely. ## space ping pong Works pretty similarly, but without the rope. You need a huge flat structure and the ability to rotate your station quickly enough. Big constructions might lack this ability, but smaller ones do excel with that. Just wait until the aggressor is in front of said structure (solar panels might work, but usually are too fragile) and start spinning, slinging the aggressor away. It’s hard to aim with that technique (trust us, we tried), but you can easily push away stuff that starts to getting dangerous. Sadly the aggressor might damage the surface used to do this, so use with caution. ## robo grappling Until now the aggressor usually could maintain the ability to fly back if his EVA suit did contain some sort of propellant in high quantities. So what to do with troublemakers that keep coming back? Well, if your station owns a robotic manipulation device (well, some shafts with a clamp at the away end) you can try to grab the aggressor. What is done next is up to you. Hold him? Throw him away? Smack him into something else? bbq him in front of your main thruster? Well, use your imagination. If you are having your evil day you can try to squeeze his EAV so it will break and let the air out, but that’s way too cruelsome. ## emergency heat shield If your station owns some kind of emergeny-capsule, maybe you can just start this thing when the aggressor is right behind it. Its mass will be too much to counter with his EVA's monopropellant, and with a bit of luck he will getting stucked at it somehow. Anyway, you will get him away, and in some cases he will stay there until the capsule enters the atmosphere again. Than he isn't of any problem for you any more. ## drag race Big fragile structures disqualify themselves for that tactic, but if you do have a big maneuver thruster you can just kick start your engine and fly away. Bets are that your ∆v is way bigger than his! Just don't forget to stabilize your orbit once out of reach, or you will either do a surprise reentry or find yourself on a escape trajectory from your home planet. ## psychological warfare So maybe your EVA does have a remote control that cannot be switched off... well, do we need to say more? At the other side, most space suits own a communicator that is either impossible to turn off or at least pretty hard. So threaten the aggressor start singing the Russian national anthem (just applies if not a Russian patriot) or a freely choosen Justin Bieber song will make him reconsider. You could ask ground control to force 10 hours of nyan cat into his channel. Sadly this may backfire, so take good care. [Answer] Well, Bob was out on a space walk with a box of standard tools and an EVA kit, so I'm guessing the answer is probably yes, he can do a fair bit of damage to the station. I am less exactly sure what your standard toolbox contains, and trying to be flexible in regards to your shuttle or station, so assumptions are as follows: a) he was supposed to be fixing something before he went "space crazy", b) he could have fixed that something with the toolbox, c) the toolbox therefore has the tools (duh) to fix that something and any other standard somethings (to go with the standard toolbox), d) the tools are therefore capable of affecting or changing things outside, while on space walk, e) they're probably important or they wouldn't have needed fixing while spacewalking, f) he can therefore probably un-fix, or rather break, the things he can access or alter. I would guess, if the somethings he was supposed to repair, or that the toolbox can give access to for repair purposes, are sufficiently immediate, he can indeed kill the other astronauts, or cripple the shuttle/space station, or wreak general havoc - other answers have some good ideas of exactly how. If there's a bit more redundancies in the systems, the crew might be able to hang on long enough to repair his un-fixing (with, of course, the same standard toolbox) and/or get supplies from other stations or earth (depending on what's available), for whatever has been broken or irretrievably tossed into space. What can the shuttle do to stop him? Well, that will depend on the exact scenario. If he has a tether or something, he could maybe be reeled in like a fish, struggling the whole time, and subdued inside the station. If he's tethered to something outside, not just at the airlock, someone will have to creep to the tether point, remove the local tether and use a tether to the airlock to drag him in (best wait until he's in the middle of moving, so that he can't tether himself down again). As long as Bob is not tied down anywhere else, keep the pressure on the tether linking him to the ship, and he will eventually lose his grip, run out of fuel, and can be reeled in from there. If Bob cuts it - well his problems are bigger, he's lost quite a safety net. This might also be the time to draw on Confused Merlin's strategies. If they think Bob can be cured, another step might be to try and deprive him of the toolbox, since clawing at the station/shuttle (or other astronauts) with his suited hands is likely to be much less effective in destroying things - there's a reason we have tools, after all. knocking them out of his hands will probably do a lot, especially if the contents can be spilled or scattered (it will be hard to find them after just a few moments, and will be quite a distraction). This will probably require someone going out there to achieve this, though. If he can't be cured, or your crew doesn't have time to try, one of them can armor up, and try to get Bob first - cut the tether, breach the suit, etc. Depending on the specific tools and spacesuit weaknesses, he may not have an immediate advantage in fighting - especially if the crew rigs up counters to the worst possibilities (cover over tool access so he can't undo things, reinforce or double tether so he can't cut, use tape and glue and spare packaging, it will be harder to get your person out of the suit afterwards, but also harder for Bob to do so in battle). If all else fails, distract away - Bob has limited time and fuel, and the surroundings are decidedly hostile. He will run out of air with exertion, run out of fuel dodging and maneuvering, and every moment you're annoying him is one more moment he's not breaking anything else. Your crew has time, resources, help, and a lot more tools than Bob's standard toolbox, so let them use those resources if they don't want to fight Bob directly. ]
[Question] [ I'm building a world in which two countries both have advanced technologies but both have very different basis for there technologies. Is this possible if so how? For example Country X may be a cyberpunk country while country Y may be a biopunk country. Country X wouldn't have access to County Y technology and vice versa. [Answer] Yes it is possible, but isolation is a must! People tend to *trade* and *learn* when they find they are lacking in something useful. When at least one of the two countries is xenophobic, a closed system would be formed where tech evolution takes different paths. Take for example, the case of Japan and China in medieval times. These countries were known as *curtains* (bamboo curtains to be precise) and although their tech advancements were well known in the world, there was no rival research in competing countries. For example, the Chinese invented repeating crossbow (chu ko nu). Neither Japan, nor Korea or India came up with something like that. The Japanese had supreme swordmaking skills and their metalwork was (and is) regarded the best in the region. However, other countries did not try to come up with something on the same lines, but tried more to consolidate some of their other weapon technology. However, once the barriers were lifted and world became a global village of sorts, technology from one part of the world quickly proliferated into other parts. So yes, you can have two countries with equal in magnitude but different in direction technological progress **if** they are isolated and no active trade or learning is carried out between the two. [Answer] ## Access to raw materials As already mentioned isolation is critical for this. Consider the motor car. Electricity had its limitations, the steam car was trying to find its feet, then Henry Ford got his hands on the production line and the internal combustion engine and everything went over to petrol. Consider a situation where petrol hadn't been available in, say Europe, for whatever reason. The petrol car would have taken off in some regions and the steam car in others, both technologies would have been able to mature in their own right. The same situation is true of the katana and the European swords of the same era. The katana is light, sharp and brittle, it's very good for cutting through the bamboo armour that the Japanese had. Their shortage of good metal prevented the development of metal armour and hence they didn't need a sword that could break it. The heavy European swords were designed to break European armour and hence had very different characteristics. People argue endlessly about which is better, but what's ultimately true is that each was situational to the needs of the people who made them. *Different needs, different raw materials, lead to different, but equivalent, technologies.* [Answer] There would need to be a reason for isolation. If they both have access to each other's technology, it would be ridiculous to go back to the drawing board and start over. It would be more logical to improve upon each other's technologies to create better technology (as is with our current world). I don't think this will work if they've always had contact with one another. They could have made contact after their technologies advanced separately and in different directions. That would be the most logical. [Answer] I'd like to agree and disagree with Separatix and Youstay Igo, in order to prevent crossover national isolation is useful but isn't absolutely necessary, provided the technologies are mutually exclusive. If the biotech of Country Y is EM sensitive then it's not going to be usable in the electrically saturated Cyberpunk world of Country X or if we go the other way and have bioware that is attracted to powered circuitry and shorts out cypertech then Country X has a vested interest in excluding that technology from their country entirely. In such a way two countries that had developed disparate technologies would keep themselves to themselves technologically while still trading in other areas. ]
[Question] [ On one (of many) of the planets that I am planning out, there are no seas. The planet is mainly composed of enormous mountains, with some deserts in between. There are no seas or large bodies of water anywhere on the planet. Not many people like to live on this desolate planet, but those that brave its harsh condition face a boring and necessary consideration. They need a method to determine the elevation of certain mountains, but without oceans, it is difficult to determine a standard *sea-level*. ***In a planet without seas or any large bodies of water, how do the habitants determine a standard sea-level?*** These people have the technology level of the *1700's* of Earth, so no futuristic tech. [Answer] We use sea level as a base line. For the most part, there won't be much land below 0 long term. So sea level makes a nice point of reference. But inland (not near the coast) no one cares about sea level in daily life. While it's interesting to know we're 300 feet above sea level, real life calculations are more like "that house is 1000 feet above me." Eventually scientists will want an absolute measurement of height for comparing geographically displaced areas. I'm not sure how they would measure this accurately in the 1700s, but assuming they found a method, here are a few options they might consider. 1. Arbitrary "Sea Level". If they are aware of other worlds (perhaps trying to impress a superior power from one of those worlds), they might try to keep the concept of sea level. This would involve guessing at a volume of water and computing where it would rise to, similar to HDE 226868's geoids. 2. Baseline. If the planet is well-explored or relatively flat, they could decide that the lowest point is 0 and measure everything from there. 3. Midline. Similar to baseline, but computing a median height and measuring things from that point as either +/-. 4. Totally arbitrary. I think this is the most likely - for proof, see our measurements of longitude. The scientist who comes up with the concept and popularizes it will choose either the elevation of his own house or the elevation of some important landmark (temple, palace, roadway) as 0 and everything will be based on that for no obvious reason. [Answer] You could use air pressure. Pressure varies with altitude in a regular fashion, so you can make [pressure-based altimeters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altimeter). Pressure also varies with weather conditions, so it's not perfect, but by taking the average pressure over long time periods, it should equalize pretty well. Then, you just pick some baseline. Maybe a capital city, maybe the altitude most people live, maybe you follow a herd of deer until one gets eaten by a wolf. Then everything else is relative to that point. If you're trying to make a "standard" sea level, you can just pick the point where the air pressure is ~1 bar/14.7 psi/100 kPa/whatever other unit you like. The [barometer](http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/science/barometer.html) was invented in 1643, so this fits with your 18th century tech level. [Answer] **Use a [geoid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoid).** A geoid is, to quote Wikipedia > > the shape that the surface of the oceans would take under the influence of Earth's gravitation and rotation alone, in the absence of other influences such as winds and tides. > > > It can be expressed in part using spherical harmonics. This might sound overly complicated, but [Laplace had developed the basics of spherical harmonics in the late 18th century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_harmonics#History). Collecting data to calculate the precise shape may be difficult, but so would any other method of gathering enough data to use as a reference point. An even simpler metric is the [reference ellipsoid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_ellipsoid), but a geoid is closer to actual sea level. A colorful picture to represent a geoid (because why not?): [![](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lyYzg.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lyYzg.jpg) (source: [wikimedia.org](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Geoids_sm.jpg)) Image in the public domain. [Answer] Sea level has no meaning if there are no seas. But I think what we're trying to achieve is some global reference point. So I think the question should be: what can or should we pick as a global reference point? In the absence of seas, we might pick the average elevation of the ground, assuming we can measure it with sufficient accuracy. Alternatively, we might simply pick the center of the planet, and measure everything with respect to that. For practicality, we might introduce an offset, say 6000 km, which is the radius of the earth. In the past sea level was simply chosen since it provided an easy reference point that could globally be referred to - easy to define, easy to reproduce. Nowadays we actually know that sea level is not as good a reference point as we would like, since it varies many meters around the globe. So we started using a "virtual" sea level that compensates for this. In practice heights are measured with respect to some local reference point that is completely arbitrary. And on a larger scale, those reference points are measured with respect to each other. When we want to pick a global reference point, a typical choice might be the average elevation of the ground. As a first approximation this could be the average of all defined reference points. [Answer] ## Datum Height The "standard height" (Datum) will be the average land altitude. Although sea level really only applies to Earth geography, scientists often look at other bodies and need/want a similar reference altitude. What is often used is called the ***datum***. This is **Datum**: > > The arbitrary level from which vertical displacement is measured. The > datum for height measurement is the terrain directly below the > aircraft or some specified datum; for pressure altitude, the level at > which the atmospheric pressure is 29.92 inches of mercury (1013.2 > m.bs); and for true altitude, mean sea level. > > > Often what scientists use as the reference altitude for bodies with no water is the average height. Here's what the Moon and Mars would look like if you supplied enough water to cover them up to the datum point: Images of Moon and Mars if supplied with enough water to make the average datum filled with water: [![Images of Moon and Mars if supplied with enough water to make the average datum filled with water](https://i.stack.imgur.com/x8dnb.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/x8dnb.png) I included the image as a visual reference. [Answer] The natural way to measure would be to compare with yourself. As you are able to subsume yourself to larger groupings, you would extend your notion of self to larger organizations. So medievally, you could relate to the local lord. By the 1700s, you might relate to the King's castle or to a site with religious significance (Vatican City, Jerusalem, Mecca, etc.). Eventually the world might standardize on one location, the way that time zones all relate to Greenwich. I wouldn't be surprised if this standard location was a relatively high one. Many such comparisons are easier to make on a line of sight basis, and high locations are within the line of sight of more of their surroundings than low ones. So instead of measuring up from sea level, you might measure down from Mt. Everest level. [Answer] The height of different places on earth is measured with the help of the 'altimeter'. The instrument used for measuring the height at a place is basically a barometer. At sea level, the height of the barometric liquid (mercury) is 76 cm. When we go to higher altitudes, the barometric height goes on decreasing, and right on top, where the atmospheric pressure is zero, the mercury column also dips to zero. This decrease is not uniform. At different ranges, the rate of decrease too is different. In modern barometers, mercury is not used. Such dial-type barometers are called 'Aneroid barometers'. When such barometers are manufactured, instead of the pressure graduating, the corresponding height graduates. This instrument is called the 'Altimeter' and is used in aircraft by skydivers, mountaineers etc. ]
[Question] [ The idea is that the government can (or wants its constituents/subjects to think it can) not only monitor currency so it's always aware when money is acquired through theft, extortion, selling of contraband and other crimes, but can remotely 'ruin' such ill-gotten gains therefore taking away any value they once had. Ideally because of this people would not see much point in becoming drug dealers, pimps, gun runners etc, because any profits gained by such crimes quickly become worthless. Is there a way this could be done? I'm not asking for something 100% effective, but ideally a way that would make a large dent in crime. [Answer] **No Cash.** If money only exists in electronic form, all transactions are electronic too. This means that for money to change from person to person, both persons need to agree on the transaction. Of course, people may resort to treats to get the other part to give the money, just like always. But all transactions may be monitored by a central bank, and it could be a matter of reporting the incident. Futhermore, if you force everybody to report their ins and outs (which is not rare for people who pay taxes) it could be cross referenced. Which will allow the goverment to notice when somebody is reporting a false income. So with fully eletronic money, all transaction - even small ones - would be registered. With proper regulation, everybody will have to report. For example a person will have to report like "A gift from XYZ of such ammount" and XYZ will have to report "Made a gift of such ammount to a person" (a person, that's the name :P). With this in place, even if the goverment does not care, the thieft will be paranoid. --- What happens if a person dies without reporting? - That depends on the ruling, but an interesting scenario is where the transaction is reverted. --- What about a criminal that coerces the victim into reporting? The report process will require special protection. It may be the case that it cannot be done online. By anymeans it has to require strong authentication. --- Money will never be lost, as it exists in ethereal accounts in the central bank... unless it is lost from the central bank. There could be rumors that this has happened in the past. Or you could just put it in the law as a form of punishment - even if never made effective. --- Addendum: No cash, but there is a catch! people may still rob valuable goods. It may be the case where all manufactured or sold goods have an id, and are also reported to the goverment. This means that any homebrew item, or whatever artinal or handcraft item will not be easy to sell, as it will be required to be reigstered first. This may also create an underground barter market, where people don't use money - or some alternative form of money maybe used. Use post apocalyptic ideas of money as inspiration. --- **Logistics** If we are requiring people to report in person, we should not expect people to remember all transactions. Instead a personal record of transactions would be kept. And people could use the same device used for any other transaction. To access this device we need strong authentication. Something like fingerprint and DNA scans come to mind. You also have the option of having the device implanted in the person. In order to report, people would have to go to a special installation, where they would be left alone beyond security lines - so no criminal will enter with them or be able to monitor what they do^1 - and there they can report the robbery. All normal transactions would be reported by interfacing with a machine in the place. ^1: Unless, maybe they are part of the government force. It could be the case that cameras are there to prevent damage of the equipment in the installation. I let this as your creative decision. **Countermeasures** If there is a machine that can interface with the device used for transactions, there is the risk that some criminal organization will create a replica that will be capable of reading - and maybe editing - the entries on the device. With such machine it would be easier to steal. Although I would expect that it will require to take the victim to a particular location where the machine is located at. I would expect that no rouge connection to the central bank for reporting can be done, not without a proper key that is. Yet, if we consider some corrupt officials may be involved, such machine may also be able to interface with the central bank - using a key provided by the corrupt officials - allowing the criminals to report the transactions as legit. [Answer] The problem with the question is the underlying premise that the laws and actions are unambiguously "crimes", so can be easily reported and actioned. The reality is there are huge grey areas which will make a system such as the one being proposed nightmarish to administer, and potentially cause far more problems than it purports to solve. Consider the act of committing a crime. Generally, for a person to be considered to have committed a crime, there must be both the *actus reus* (the act) and the *Mens rea* (the awareness the activity is criminal). It is quite possible in today's society to be committing a crime (*actus reuse*) without any intention of criminality or even awareness of criminality due to the vast number of overlapping and often poorly written statutes and regulations. So are these people going to have their wealth seized because they were not aware that they were infringing on some sub sub paragraph of an obscure Federal Statute? Some people believe this situation exists on purpose, since almost anyone can be "criminalized" if they cross the wrong politician or bureaucrat. Consider this quote from Atlas Shrugged: > > “Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. > > > As another example, it was very difficult for Enron to be convicted of criminal activity because they were very skilled at operating in the "spaces" between various regulations, particularly when operating across State lines (i.e. selling energy from Nevada to California). While you might consider this an admission of *Mens Rea*, if what is being done is perfectly legal in Nevada, then are you actually breaking a law in California? Administration is another issue to consider. There are laws which allow seizure of assets deemed to have been gained from the commission of crime. The problem comes when, for example, the asset is held by the State for a prolonged period while the trial is being held. During this time, who is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance? If it is a financial asset, can it be reinvested while the trial is going on? If the person is acquitted of a crime, ors the State owe compensation for the potential value that could have been gained during the time the asset was out of the owner's hands? Crime is probably much better handled by making criminal statutes much tighter and covering much smaller and clearer areas of life and social interactions. [Answer] Limit the value of money. This is the reason the US no longer prints anything bigger than 100 dollar bills. The US used to have 500 and 1000 but we got rid of them. So criminals having to make large hidden transactions have to now carry a suitcase of cash that is 5x larger or 10x larger making life harder for them, making them more noticeable and easer to catch. If we could drop from the 100 to the 20 then they would not be able to do sizeable payments except online. Problem is barter. Criminals now trade in valuable items instead of cash. They trade valuable art drugs or gems as a value dense secret trade medium. [Answer] First, note that not all crime is about money. If my girlfriend cheats on me and I decide to murder her, you can't stop that via any kind of currency. Second, the only way to make crime not pay is if you can monitor every single person and therefore detect and prove each crime that's committed, then dole out equitable punishment. Even then, the people in charge of monitoring can be bribed, blackmailed, or otherwise coerced into ignoring specific crimes. And the only way to monitor everyone at all times involves a substantial portion of the population being employed as monitors, which would be hugely inefficient (you'd waste more money stopping crime than the criminals would have stolen from you to begin with). As I pointed out in a comment, stolen goods can always be laundered for money. It's just a matter of selling a stolen item for cheap to someone who doesn't care about legality. The thief can trade "services performed" (such as cleaning or yardwork that don't actually occur) and the stolen item (which isn't listed on the bill of sale) for money or goods. If trading for goods, those goods can then be sold for money, or used directly by the thief, allowing them to save money they would have otherwise spent. However, this being worldbuilding, a valid answer could involve one or more centralized AIs or super-smart aliens, and recording devices surrounding every building in the country/planet. Ideally, you'd want to record the rooms inside the building, but it would be pretty hard to say you weren't guilty when we can show you staking out the house, entering just after the owner left, and walking away with a box full of stuff. You'd still have trouble with jewelry and other easily-concealed items, but as long as people kept that stuff well-hidden, it would be a fairly minor issue (plus, we'd note the breaking-and-entering and when the cops found your pockets full of expensive jewelry, that would be pretty substantial evidence of theft). For major corporations, they often already have recording devices everywhere, so now we'd just have an AI who was capable of almost immediate detection of the crime and tracking the suspect until the police arrived at the scene. For consensual crime, like drugs and prostitution, you're not going to catch every little case unless you've got cameras in every room in the land, and on every tree in the woods. However, an AI would be able to make very good referential deductions and help the police take down major suppliers or brothels, as well as people who make almost all their money off such things. With drugs, taking down the major suppliers would be enough to largely eliminate the problem. Prostitution would be trickier unless sex itself were outlawed, but you'd still catch the career girls/guys/shemale aliens/robots/whatever they're into by this point. [Answer] We need to ask two questions first. ## What is crime? Crime is something the people in power don't want you to do. They normally try to justify the action being forbidden as being harmful to others. ## Why does crime pay? There are two options here 1. It pays because it's crime 2. It's a crime because it pays Examples of the first include drug dealing and assassination Examples of the second include theft and insider trading There are quirks here. Drug dealing pays a lot more than assassination, but does it really harm anyone? You could make it not pay by making it legal, licenses, taxes, regulations. The system could make money out of it rather than it costing a fortune. I'm not going to go into further details here, it's not the right place. Just remember that there were no great kingpin druglords before drugs became a crime. Assassination on the other hand is a fine old career for a very small number of skilled workers, it's as much a public service as a crime when the system needs it. The same is true for the second option. Theft on the whole is petty crime, absolute maximum £14million or so and anything of that value is really hard to fence. Theft doesn't really pay as it is. Insider trading doesn't really hurt anyone, what's lost is opportunity and "fairness", but makes millions as a starting point. It's a crime because it pays. To make crime not pay you're going to have to deal with the attitude that makes this a crime, not whether or not it pays. [Answer] Well, let's go through this: "drug dealers, pimps, gun runners" are all examples of consensual transactions. How do you know that the consensual money is being paid for an illegal transaction? Perhaps all financial transactions are reported (even the tiny ones) and you use AI to detect which ones are for illegal transactions. Gun running may be the easiest to detect. Presumably these come from legitimate manufacturers. They have to report the income. It can be traced to the illegitimate buyers. That flips around a bit if they don't buy legitimately at any step in the process. Steal the guns from someone that legitimately has them. But now you have to explain why you are paying the people who stole them. And why people are paying you. Drug dealing has the same problem. Why are you paying these farmers for such expensive vegetables? The question is if you can distinguish drug deals from overpriced produce transactions. Can you? Do you have information on who is calling off work? Showing up high? Hospital visits? If so, you can trace their transactions back. The obvious place to find pimps is by looking for people with unexplained income. To get around this, they would try to hide the prostitution income with legitimate income. For example, if the pimp owns a strip club and employs the prostitutes as strippers, then illegal paid sex acts can pretend to be legal lap dances. Of course, if you have comprehensive video covering even private spaces, that can be disproved. Perhaps we go to next generation pimping. Think Ashley Madison. Customers pay for the algorithm's success in finding like-minded partners. The harder a customer is to match, the more they pay. The site pays especially adventurous dates who are willing to explore customers with more difficult matches. Is that prostitution? Or a legal escort service? Even better is if you pay for one illegal service with another illegal service. Prostitutes paid in drugs or gun runners paid in drugs and prostitutes are going to be much harder to catch by examination of financial services than someone paid with money. So maybe you have a bunch of people with regular jobs and illegal interests trading with other people with regular jobs and illegal interests. That portion of the illegal economy may be impossible to eliminate via financial examination. They might get caught via constant surveillance though. Note that in the US, you'd need to get rid of that pesky fourth amendment. It would prevent the constant surveillance needed to catch people actually breaking the law. In short, while laws regarding financial transactions may make it a little easier to catch some crimes, they won't eliminate even just for-profit crimes. Too much of the crime is dependent on things outside of the financial transaction. If I give a farmer money, it may be for illegal marijuana. Or it may be for legal organic produce. The difference won't be in the financial transactions. If I have sex with someone and buy her a gift, that could be prostitution. Or it could just be a normal interaction between two people. The difference is in the interaction. Did she say, if you buy me that \$500 piece of jewelry, we can do these sex acts? Or did I choose the jewelry only after the sex? It's not possible to see from the financial transaction. The financial transaction won't even show to whom I gave the jewelry unless I have it delivered. Money is fungible. Illegally obtained money doesn't normally look different from legally obtained money. [Answer] Theraot went farther than is needed in order to accomplish this: You don't need government monitoring of all transactions. Instead, use something like Bitcoin but where all the currency units come from a central authority, there is no mining. If money is stolen from you you report the offending transaction and the relevant currency units go on a suspect list--anything on that list can't be spent. If the investigation upholds your report they go on a dead list--again, can't be spent but this is permanent. To guard against spending the money before the theft is noticed put a time delay into it--you can't spend money for period of time after obtaining it. (Note that banks will likely waive this for good customers like they let you use the money from a check you just deposited.) Note that such tracking schemes won't help with extortion or blackmail because the victim won't report it. [Answer] Consider the theory and practice of [civil forfeiture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States) in the US. When it comes to unexplained [cash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States#Other_cash_seizures), this is about what you are thinking about, in a more spotty way. The principal objection is the [presumption of innocence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence). Does the state have to prove the crime, or does the citizen has to prove the absence of a crime? [Answer] Please note that I am emphatically NOT advocating this, but ... Abolish all the laws about buying and selling things. Crime would then not pay because anything that paid would be legal! Hiring an assassin would be legal like paying a prostitute may today be legal depending on where you live. Murder would remain illegal though and maybe having abolished all financial crimes and most others, punishment of the few remaining crimes might be draconian. This is an extreme libertarian position verging on anarchy. Some would say that it *is* anarchy. Whatever. As far as I know no such society has ever lasted for long enough for anyone to claim that libertarian anarchy works. On the other hand we have not had electronics and computers for long enough to have explored more than a tiny fraction of the possible social ramifications. The biggest hole in this scenario is robbery, which is also IMO why anarchy has never been stable in the past. But suppose everyone was tracked all the time? Those of us who carry mobile phones and live in a city pretty much are, already. Currently that is voluntary. So perhaps things develop so that not carrying your phone is a crime. To avoid innocent mistakes the tracker function becomes a bio-implant installed when you are a child. You'd need surgery to turn it off and then you'd be an outlaw with almost zero ability to have a life ... So robbery wouldn't happen because the system could trivially translate when and where into who. Possible? Not quite yet. Stable? No idea. I'd like to read the book if you write it. [Answer] If I may, one option would be using some kind of "cryptographic" currency. Bitcoin is a currency based on anonymity, however it's nature has [Allowed the FBI to trace transactions](http://www.wired.com/2015/01/prosecutors-trace-13-4-million-bitcoins-silk-road-ulbrichts-laptop/) If one where to go a step further, and design a currency so that each and every "cent" had a [Unique Identification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier), Tracing currency would become (while data intensive) simple. To some degree, that is the concept behind serial-numbers on paper-money, however such serial numbers are not consistently traced at every transaction. However, if the Big-Brother state in question required all "credit" transactions to be bio-metrically verified via the state-bank, it would be very easy to determine who had what money, and where. Of course, this doesn't stop a person stealing objects of value, and attempting to sell them - but it would mean that once the sale was discovered, the money made could be voided instantly. As a side note to this however - It would require that **all cash-money be illegal**, anything from copper-coins, gold-doubloons, paper-money, Barter, even an IOU would be a criminal offence. This may in itself provide interesting plot points - Persons illicitly using foreign currency to trade for illegal items. Or underground "bartering markets" where the poor/criminals/vagrants attempt to trade items for food without using credits. ]
[Question] [ I have an enormous civilization spanning a large amount of the universe. It is able to both travel and send information much faster than the speed of light without violating any laws of physics. Resources are not really a large issue. This civilization, already millions of years old, plans not to reverse or stop the heat death -- they've decided it cannot be stopped -- they plan to slow it down as much as possible, even if they only get a few thousand extra years. Is there any real way for them to accomplish this without traveling to other universes or breaking laws of physics? [Answer] Assuming no [big rip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip) scenario, [star husbandry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting) is definitely the first step. Most of the energy produced by starts is just wasted, by careful controlled fusion (up to iron) the useful energy (and time) available to the civilization can be increased by many orders of magnitude. Then collapse the iron first into "iron stars", harvesting its gravitational potential energy, then into black holes and harvest their Hawking radiation (if possible). It's perhaps better to think of it as slowing down the inevitable entropy increase by throttling the wasteful energy production at the beginning of the universe history, during the stelliferous era. [Answer] Radovan Garabik already pointed out the most important thing, stopping the stars from wasting fusion fuel. Assuming, as he said no big rip or proton decay [1] civilisations can live of fusion, fisson, gravitational potential, black hole rotation and hawking radiation for a long time. Going fully digital and living as uploaded minds, exploiting the temperature of the universe via Landauers Principle [2] and frame jacking (slowing the processing rate of the computers to keep the ultra cool and to slow down the time anyone in the simulation percives relative to the universe) will allow for optimal energy-conservation and makes even inter-supercluster communications practical without ftl. Youtuber Isaac Arthur's *Civilisations at the End of Time* series might be of interest to you, as he explores hese concepts in detail. [3] [1] <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay> [2] <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle> [3] <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIOUpOge0LvHsTP5fm8oxB1qPS54sTMk> [Answer] # Forge a new universe It is quite possible that such a civilization could create an entire new universe to work with. If such a universe turns out to be inhabitable by the race in question, then the heat death of the parent universe is irrelevant. Otherwise, the new universe can provide Universe-scale energy. [Answer] **Live faster** Instead of slowing the universe which would take huge resources - live faster. Thus people will experience a full and long life subjectively while time for celestial bodies continues as before. How can this be achieved? Well firstly we know that time 'stands still' for people who are coping with a dangerous situation. This is thought to be an effect of adrenaline speeding up our reactions. Of course constant flooding with adrenaline would be deleterious to health but I'm sure by this time we would be masters of drugs. Effectively humans live as long as a mayfly but to them it seems as though they experience a hundred years (or whatever lifetime they choose). The main drawback would be that days/nights would seem to last for a hundred years. However by then holodecks or simply virtual reality would be so real that people would never need to see light of day. ]
[Question] [ I want to eliminate law from society without that be perceived as a downgrade to civilization. What I have so far is along the line of: "In a near/far future, the crew of a space mission stayed in space and became a colony with increasing population. They had the protocols and command chain of the mission, and in that they based the protocols of the colony. People in the colony were raised in the belief that not following the protocols correctly results in disaster. So they have protocols, not laws, as not doing your job properly threatens your own survival that is already the punishment." Answers do not need to stay with the space colony setting if a more generic solution that also works elsewhere is provided. My solution depends on the colony genesis and I'm dodging the debate "It cannot work because..." with "It's not about if it works or not, things just happened that way". But, when trying to scale that to a population of millions (a small country) how can I justify that they never reached the horizon where people start saying "Ok, we need laws"? If possible I want the colony to continue in that line, if not believable then at least until it reaches the population of a small country and starts resembling a country (schools, health care, etc). If the question on the title can be answered bypassing my setting, that's OK. I will consider better an answer that considers my setting only if it compares in quality to one that doesn't. Feel free to ignore the setting. [Answer] In the evolution of any (human) society, there are two phases when there is no law, yet order prevails. 1- When the society is in the least state of development and the individuals do not agree on adhering to any central authority. There is no law this time, but order is present as being disorderly would get you killed by the others. Notice how a pride of lions behaves. They don't have written laws or a trial system, but they are still coordinated and adhere to a system. That is, because everybody knows their place and not following the system would end up in your death. 2- The second phase when law is not required, is when the social evolution is complete and the desire to get more than one's rightful share, is no more. Under these circumstances, no central authority is required, because there is no conflict of interests and no usurpness of other people's belongings. When you say that your colonists have *protocols*, that actually means they have a set of laws. Laws don't have to be in a written or formal form. Social laws were active thousands of years before any country had any formal constitution. Substituting the word "protocols" for "laws" does not change the meanings of what is being implied. The scenario you have presented in your question tends to resemble phase-1 of the social development. There is a strong desire to usurp the rights, but the usurper fears the consequences of the action and that fears keeps him from committing the act. [Answer] Taking the subject line of your question, some dictatorships retain *order* without *law*. People who rock the boat or disobey the junta and their henchmen get punished, with utter disregard for anything like due process. In the text of your question, you talked about a *perceived* downgrade to civilization. I hope we all agree that the situation I described above would be awful, but perhaps the citizens of the dictatorship have been brainwashed so that they don't see a problem. [Answer] As others have pointed out you are mostly dealing with semantics between laws and protocols. We all live in societies with certain expectations of behavior, even with some societies having mutually exclusive expectations from each other. Laws are just a more formalized version of many of these expectations that are enforceable by a governing body. As far as never having punishment for someone not doing their job, there always has to be. In any group of people there is always one or two who don't bother to do their job or just the bare minimum needed to get by. If they don't see any negative issue they will assume that it isn't needed or at least not to the level 'required'. At the very least when these people are discovered they will get some form of ostracization for endangering others, and their duties would likely be reassigned to a much less pleasant and less critical work position. Living by the 'protocols' for long enough would also make it more of a religion, where people don't always know 'why' they do something because 'we've always done it this way'. [Answer] The historical situation which comes closest would be the "Friesian Freedom" of the 14th and 15th centuries. Order then mainly came through cultural cohesion. There was no real government or taxes as such: maintaining infrastructure was an obligation of landowners directly, with those landowners who did not meet their obligations being ostracised. ]
[Question] [ This question is closely related to this one: [How long can language drift before it becomes indecipherable, and how to minimize drift?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/20005/how-long-can-language-drift-before-it-becomes-indesipherable-and-how-to-minimiz) Say you have a time traveler, moving forward or backward in time. The language he speaks will drift over time. Eventually, if he goes far enough forward/back in time he will find people speaking the same language, but with such significant differences from the original language as to be functionally unintelligible to him. Much as modern US citizens would have a hard time comprehending Old English. If the time traveler didn't go *quite* that far. If he went far enough that language drift has caused a significant enough deviation to make communication difficult or near impossible at first, but not quite far enough to be completely unintelligible. In other words, some of the original language can still be recognized in the drifted language, even if the drift has resulted in communication problems. My question is, how would these problems present themselves? If the traveler moved progressively further along the time-line what areas would he start struggling to understand or communicate first? Are there some concepts or methods of communication that would tend to work longer than others (ignoring gestures and body language that is universal). If the traveler went far enough in time that he can not functionally communicate at first, would he have any advantages in deciphering the language due to the shared origin? If he were to learn to understand the new dialect over the course of a few days/weeks in this new time what tricks would he use to adopt his understanding of the language to the new dialect? or would he simply allow himself to be immersed and pick it up the way someone would if tossed in a completely foreign land? This question is primarily about time travel, and I'm happy to accept any answers about such. However, if anyone wishes to toss in any speculation about what it would mean to have two cultures sharing a native tongue that were isolated and both languages drifted; and the difficulty of someone from one culture finally meeting a member of the other, I would welcome any feedback from that perspective as well. Specifically, would there be any extra considerations caused by having drift occurring in both culture instead of handling drift from only one culture in the time-travel scenario. However, this is only extra-goodness if you feel like contributing it; not mandatory. [Answer] To clarify, it is by definition impossible for two speakers to be speaking the same language but to be 'functionally unintelligible'. They would then be speaking two different languages. In this sense, modern English and old English are not the same language whose speakers are mutually 'functionally unintelligible' but are in fact **two separate languages**. To answer your question, the order we can expect language to change into new forms will roughly follow phonology>vocabulary>grammar. Phonological change follows global and specific tendencies. Usually the principle of 'ease of articulation' colors these changes heavily. This means the original form will start to move towards easier to pronounce. This can take many forms: assimilation, vowel shortening, vowel insertion or consonant clipping, etc. Think of the common pronunciation of -ing in English verbs as "-in'" for a common example, or the pronunciation of question as 'kweshchin' instead of 'kwes-tee-uhn'. For vocabulary, words are often divided into two categories: content words and function words. Content words are nouns, verbs and adjectives; words that carry referential value. Function words are modifiers, articles, conjunctions, etc.; words that carry functional grammatical value. Content words change very quickly, function words seem particularly resistant to change and a change in this class of words usually signals a further change in the language's underlying... Grammar: This is the aspect of the language that when changed will present the most trouble to a temporally displaced speaker of a related language. Of course, even this would only present a minimal challenge to adjust to when learning the 'new' language. To expound, travelling back in time we might find a speaker first having to adjust to new sounds (especially slightly altered vowel sounds), then new nouns, and new verbs, and older senses of commonly understood adjectives. then they'd have to negotiate changing function words, like 'ayont' for 'beyond' (something preserved in geordie English) and finally be grammars, like putting verbs at the end of a sentence or encountering grammatical gender (which modern English largely lacks). [Answer] This has already happened today in the form of dialects. Take, for example, me. I am an Indonesian, I live in South Sumatra, where the language are quite different between the city, the towns, and the areas in between. Neighboring provinces e.g. Jambi, Lampung have similar language but a bit different in terminology, the people of South Sumatra, Lampung and Jambi can speak to each other using their own tongue and everyone would be able to understand much of the conversation. I live in the capital, Palembang, with its own language Palembangese, but my dialect is modern Palembangese, which are Palembangese mixed with Indonesian, by quite a lot. So much so, if you speak formal Indonesian, you should be able to generally decipher what I'm saying, although not perfectly. This language was developed by the younger generations with access to formal Indonesian. When I speak with an actual Palembang citizen speaking the original Palembangese, I can't make out what they say, their terminology is very different, sometimes they use a word that I know but for a completely different meaning, but the general structure, the general grammar, is similar. In these cases, basic grammar would help, as you would be able to figure out subjects, objects and verb, only not what they mean, the rest would be learning the vocabulary like a new language, because in a way, that's what it is [Answer] You can get a flavor from watching old movies. Even 1930–1940 has a few changes in idioms and shifts in meaning that can make you laugh. So, one way it can manifest is when the future person laughs. [Answer] In the middle ages you could travel the known world and get by with Latin, a historical and thus frozen language. I don't know how far away this was from the way Romans really spoke. The equivalent seems to be English these days. When speaking to non-Brits I use what we call Euro-English, a simplified form with linear grammar and a smaller vocabulary. Maybe this will catch on and get frozen too? ]
[Question] [ Assume you are an evil genius and have a huge (10's of Km wide) floating island fortress, previously concealed by phlebotinium. Of course your evil-genius-floating-fortress have several WMM (weapons of mass mayhem) * You are in almost all the most wanted lists on the world. After all, your evil genius pride demands it. * You stamped/engraved your face/logo everywhere on the fortress walls. Such megalomania. * You are running out of phlebotinium soon, and there is no way to replace it. * XXI century Earth does not know your fortress exists, but soon will. But they know you as an evil genius, and did I mention you have your face/logo on big banners everywhere? * You only have concealment to travel 3/4 the equator circunference (thus you can reach anywhere). * If you pop near the borders or inside the territory of a major government, they will immediately dispatch a strike force. * You are flying 1800m - 2000m high to avoid altitude sickness. So the best plan is to get to a safe spot on Earth, get ready to defend yourself and do evil genius stuff. Where on Earth it would be least threatening to the major powers of the XX century for such a fortress to reappear? --- EDIT: I painted the evil genius gag too strong. Where on Earth it would take the longest for the major powers of the XXI century to mount an offensive on your island fortress? Lets suppose it happens by early 2016, and no major incidents happen from now to there. [Answer] When your enemy can deliver a nuke or a special forces team to any point on the planet within 24 hours, you can't get out of attack range. In fact, going somewhere remote makes it worse because they can attack without worrying about the effects on anything nearby. Instead, you need to set things up so they won't be willing to launch an attack at all. I see a couple of ways you could go with this: North Korea. Make a deal with the local dictator, and any military attack risks starting a nuclear war. Manhattan. Park your fortress directly above a major city. A nuke would kill millions, and if they try anything less extreme, you can simply land the fortress where it is, crushing the city. For extra evil points, blow up a few roads so evacuating the city isn't an option. [Answer] **Right above a capital city, Independence Day style.** They can not take me out with sheer firepower, because the risk of collateral damage is too high. When they try to destroy my fortress with cannons, bombs or missiles, the debris alone will destroy the city. A nuclear strike is completely out of the question. Small strike teams are also not an option, because I could threaten to bomb the city or just switch off my gravity generator and crash it onto the city the moment a special forces team ropes down onto my fortress. I could even have (or claim to have) a dead-man switch which causes the fortress to fail when my control center is taken. Before they can engage me, they need to evacuate the city. But evacuating a metropole is easier said than done. It might take days to get all civilians out, even when I don't interfere - but I will! I should have the firepower to take out all major roads, railways and bridges leading out of the city. That way I can slow down the evacuation considerably. I can also bomb any groups of refugees trying to escape the city, thus convincing the civilian population to stay put where they are. Another advantage of close proximity to the enemy is the psychological effect. A floating fortress at the other end of the world does not seem nearly as threatening as one hovering right above your parliament building. This will ensure that they will soon start negotiating with me about their unconditional surrender (to be honest, time is likely working against me. I doubt that my flying fortress is indeed completely self-sufficient and can stay operational forever without any external resupply - which they will surely provide in exchange for being allowed to live a bit longer). The only one who could stop me is that guy locked up in one of my cells until I come up with a sufficiently original way to execute him. But my guards are surely way too smart to let him escape and my beautiful wife is much too faithful to fall for his charms... I hope. [Answer] **Southern Indian Ocean / Southern Ocean.** Somewhere south and west of the place where they're looking for [MH370](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370), or where the [Vendee Globe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vend%C3%A9e_Globe#1996-1997) racing yachts foundered. While Australia is a credible military power with even more credible allies, they're not oriented to threats from the south-west. ]
[Question] [ In a world where **three or four, at least, other sentient, intelligent civilisations (of non-human species) with a few planets each exist**, earthly humans are getting more advanced. We've finally got the technology to discover these civilisations, but we only discover them after we colonise our first planet. Speaking of which, we've found a nice candidate. It's empty, it's within reach and it's pretty habitable. In the upcoming years to launching our first colony mission, there's some stuff that needs to be taken care of. Out of all of it, I'm wondering, what are the major pro's and con's of abolishing the idea of 'nations' and becoming an intergalactic nation named Earth? Russia, China and the US, among others, would obviously be the 'main' countries if we don't unite. But all in all, what should be done, and why? Should we remain as countries, and have planets belonging to the US, planets belonging to Russia, and so on? Or should we scrap that ideology and have planets belonging to Earth as a whole? Perhaps a compromise between the two? I suppose considering politics and economy is a must, but other aspects to consider are evident. I just can't think of them... [Answer] One way would to look at how we would unify in the pursuit of the space race, which will of course include colonies, we actually have some data on it. Britain, France and the Netherlands, to name a few established colonies in the past, in the New World, which ironically was on the same planet as them. A few centuries later, where are the colonies today? Most of them have declared independence, either due to the colony's need for autonomy, the desire to break from the shackles of taxation from their origin country, or the origin country can no longer govern the colony effectively. So as we can see, humanity can not even unify in the colonization of the New World, much less space. Multiply that by the vast vastness of space and that communication would have incredibly huge latency, colony autonomy will have to be a given. This describes how humanity will be after the space race, but what about during it? It is likely that in the early steps of space exploration, everyone would help each other out, as space is terribly huge, and it would be best to cooperate with the few humans that would be with you. However, the individual ships/groups sent to space would still highly likely be created with the sponsorship of one of the countries on Earth, rather than all of the ship to go to space being created by humanity as a whole. That would require world peace and harmony, but that does seem like quite a far off goal. That may happen, far in the future, but it is very likely that the space race would have been well on it's way. In conclusion, it is unlikely that we unite at the start of space exploration. We may then unite at some point in time in the future. However, in the end, all of the colonies would most likely break off from humanity as a whole, barring advances in FTL technology [Answer] Humans are very cliquish, and IMO, the one thing that could get us to unite as a species and really try to work under one government would be to discover we really aren't alone in the universe. We would have a more alien 'them' than the guy with different colored skin down the street or that neighborhood of unbelievers across town. This is just for our planet. Now as far as staying together among the stars, the first prerequisite the Peter pointed out is the need for at least FTL communications and even better FTL travel. If those are satisfied, then then next would be who else is out there? If there are 'others' then it will encourage us to at least stay a confederacy of planets, the more pressure we would face from others, the stronger our bonds would be. If we are the first, then our planets, moons and likely even asteroids will be (eventually) locally governed with treaties similar to how the world runs now. [Answer] **It's a good idea but it will never happen.** Becoming one nation is a good idea in terms of interplanetary commerce and diplomacy. If we're multiple nations, then we are pretty likely to have multiple currencies, and other planets aren't going to appreciate having to exchange multiple currencies to their own currency when they've already come light years to get here. It's also a good thing for diplomacy because it means we have one set of policies to apply to interplanetary affairs. However, it won't happen because people will think it's too much hassle. Not only that but people disagree so much on so many issues that reaching one stable state with one stable government is impossible. Look at the world - we have groups like ISIS and AQAP who disagree with the West, we have Russia who would be a very powerful space leader but also disagrees with the West, and every country has internal disagreement about its own policies because **people are different**. However, what I can see happening is us having a Space Commerce and Diplomatic Affairs Committee (SCDAC) (because we like giving things long names). This committee would be made up of a few members from each country in the world, and would be the deciding agency for trade and diplomacy. They would manage incoming trade, taking and paying one currency, then distributing it to countries of origin in their own currency. The members would vote on the policies, and while this arrangement would be incredibly inefficient, SCDAC would be the only viable way we would find to deal with everyone or people will complain about not having a say, etc, etc. [Answer] Question: “But all in all, what should be done, and why?” Earth may unite but it will not be allowed to exert control of or influence over any colony established in space or Celestial Body. The reason being there will be little to no commonality between an “Earth Point of View” and a “NON Earth Point of View”. There will not be an Established Earth 2 in our solar system. Each colony will be unique and have unique requirements to survive. As to “United Humans” - Nope, not a chance in Hades. There isn’t any now and with 8 Billion Humans on a Planet that can support 2.5 Billion (+- 0.5 Billion) people, at a balanced state, meaning Environmental things will not change, for the better or the worse. Leaves us no real time to try to “come together”. (Current Mass Extinction: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction> ) The best solution is let like minded people establish their own colonies in space ( <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder> and variations) or on Celestial Bodies. With the hope they will at a minimum embrace a “tolerance” point of view towards each other. Seeking to establish Cultural and Material trade/exchange. Countries that do this should do it for their own benefit as in “We need to shed N population so …” not unlike the Colonization of The Americas and Australia. They should NOT expect to maintain them as “possessions”. Instead find ways to trade, that creates the best possible win/win scenarios. In the end it is less likely to be countries and more likely to be … corporations. The Big Pharma Group could easily bank role this and quite possibly be the biggest beneficiaries of Humans: A Spacefaring Species. Google could easily bank role some of this (as in specific colonies) and stand to be well rewarded by establishing the Space Internet of Things. Apple, Samsung etc can afford to get into this game as well and ensure they have products that meet their customers requirements throughout the solar system. The Oil Rich Countries stand to have a big part in this IF they can come to terms with Technology Countries to create a partnership … so to speak. The hurdle here that I see is “Cultural Differences”. One solution would be to borrow a line from the movie “Contact” “Why build one, when you can Build two” (meh maybe not exact). Ok the Tech group build the means one for the Money Suppliers and one for themselves. Yeah the Money people get charged for both but they get off planet and can build on the purchased tech. There is one thing that Humans must do before any of this happens on a large enough scale to matter. Humans must stop thinking like Humans: A Planetary species. Humans must start thinking like Humans: A Spacefaring species. We must change our perspective to building everything we can, as fast/soon as we can, in Space from Space resources. We must not allow ourselves to use any Earth Resource …. Ever … when we have the resource available to us in space. The cost is just to prohibitive and to harmful to Earth and those that will insist on staying. [Answer] According to our current understanding of physics and universe, all travel and communication is sub-light-speed. For a species where individual lives 100 years or so, being united with parts which are centuries of travel away and getting a response to any question would take several centuries in average, being united has little sense. Far outposts of human civilization will have some warm feeling about Earth as ancestral planet, but they will have to rely to themselves to solve most of the problems, and all urgent problems. If you have FTL travel and communication, you can maintain coherent culture and contact, remaining united. [Answer] > > Out of all of it, I'm wondering, what are the major pro's and con's of > abolishing the idea of 'nations' and becoming an intergalactic nation > named Earth? > > > Governments are based on violence, that's what they do, they how they function. If an organization cannot enforce its decisions by violences, it's by definition not a government. History is pretty clear that when government lack external threats or competitions from other governments, they turn their capacity for violence on their own people. Perhaps more accurately, the subpopulation that comprises the "government" uses violence to oppress and exploit the rest of the population. Tokugawa Japan is a crystalline example, although any of the large pre-idustrial empires will show the behavior as well e.g. the Roman Empire fought more Civil Wars that external wars as did most Chinese Dynasty Empires. History is likewise clear that such Empires value stability and stasis over change or progress of any kind unless forced by outside pressure. Tokugawa Japan did not advance or change at all for nearly 250 years. Likewise, the Ottoman Empire froze itself in mid-1700s for nearly 150 years. Any kind of "World Government" established before contact of knowledge of possible alien competition would shortly turn tyrannical, murderous and static. Likely, such a regime would never foster space travel as it would view it as far to destabilizing. Conversely, most progressive civilizations shoot ahead of their peer civilizations when some crisis, quite often external military, forces the society to become more merit driven and egalitarian to survive. Golden Age Athens, the Roman Republic, Venice, the Dutch Republic, Meiji Japan etc. We also have the example of formally squabbling local polities uniting against exterior foes e.g. the Greeks in response to the Persians, Italian states in response to the Celts, Daimyo clans in Meiji Japan in response to contact with the rest of the world. The best case scenario would be the world remaining dividing into competing polities until ***after*** contact with aliens occurs. At that point, a unified world government, more precisely the subpopulation with the powers of the state, would have to take into account the aliens when making policy. If they made earth culture to static, they aliens might out develop us in technology or spread farther. It's worth noting that historically, long distance trade, exploration and colonization were also powerful drivers of meritocratic and egalitarian societies. When people found themselves thousands of miles away from home on the seas, or having to trade with distant peoples or stuck out on a frontier with help weeks or months aways at best...suddenly they stopped caring "what" or "who" an individual was based on the traditional culture and just started caring about what real skills and benefits they could bring that would help the community. The people on colony worlds or traveling in space would very quickly develop a different culture than their parent cultures on earth. [Answer] I personally think that we should all unite under one banner, and keep the concept of countries. Tim B's phrase "When we the last time Nevada declared war on California" got to me. We must all have a united goal, but countries would in turn become states, able to influence change in themselves and the banner they are under, and yet able to band together with the other countries on Earth for the greater good. In that way, without language or currency or even religious boundaries, we would be able to unite. But so long as Religion exists, different languages exist and different cultures and currencies exist, we will be unable to unite to colonize Space. At least those are my 2 cents on the matter. [Answer] I live in Europe, and personally speaking I'm a firm supporter of EU integration, the Euro, Schengen, and that lot. My reason: I believe that any one European nation, even larger ones like Germany, France, or the UK, would be ground under by larger players in a globalized world. Only an united voice can be heard. We must hang together or we will hang separately. Plenty of other people in Europe disagree with my conclusion, but I think for the sake of this question we can agree that my position has at least *some* merit. Would the same reasoning apply in blaizor's scenario? * What happens if a disunited Earth has several starports with different policies on quarantine for alien plants? * What happens if a disunited Earth tries to trade intellectual property with aliens? * What happens if a disunited Earth has one nation looking for off-world allies in a purely terrestrial power struggle? What if aliens threaten to declare war on, say, the Bahamas? Would other Earth powers intervene? [Answer] As **ArtOfCode** said, a world government is not going to happen. While some people think that it would be a good idea (I don't - multiple cultures lead to multiple possible solutions to a problem), we can't get there from here. For everyone not in the US, think about your nation (if large, being broken up) being made a state of the United States and now you have to follow all US laws (or China or Russia). If you are in the US, consider your state now a part of China or Russia. Oh, also, you must speak the new language. This means that the Brits would have to give up their extraneous "u"s (colour => color). Face it, if there is a world government, it will end up being China, Russia or the US. Though Germany could be a contender if it becomes more overt in it's control of the EU. The reason why the UN is so useless is because the nations at the time wanted it to be too weak to take over. Everyone thinks that space exploration and colonization will make everything different. Did finding The New World make the European nations of that time decide to join hands, become one nation, and sing "We Are the World"? A one world government is a bad idea that, thankfully, it's likely to happen unless someone comes up with a super weapon or mind control beam and can make everyone comply. [Answer] It would entirely depend on whether the aliens were a potentially hostile threat to us. Generally speaking, nations almost never voluntarily unite with one another. The best example I can think of is Germany in 1871. Even then, it took the elation of recent victory over the French, the common cultural heritage of the German states, the inebriation of having looted all the wine of Versailles, the history of being rampaged over by Napoleon et. all, the machinations of Bismark (one of the greatest politicians of all time), and the understanding that a united Germany would be necessary for competition in the new global era. As for human nations choosing to do this in the short term, I find it very unlikely. One key piece of it is that federal givernments do a lot more now than they used to. It would be neatly impossible to convince, say, America and Saudi Arabia to compromise on federal policy like, say, whether women should be allowed to drive or whether homosexuals should be allowed to marry. The solution to this is to have a weak federal government and delegate all the power to the states. This would be an iff-y proposition, and would likely only work in the short term as eventually ideological coalitions would form and impose their views on the rest. An even bigger hurdle to getting nations to combine is the fact that about half of all nations are ruled over by dictators who would never willingly loosen their grip on power. Can you honestly expect Kin Jong Un of North Korea to give up power for the good of humanity? Moreover, can you expect the international community to sit back and let somebody like Assad walk away and retire peacefully even if he does give up power? The most likely thing humanity would do is that we would crate some sort of European Union or NATO style system with a combined(ish) military, open(ish) borders, free(ish) trade, etc. The alternative is that one nation (probably the USA) gets a bunch of others to combine into a world government, and then conquers everybody else. This would require the ability to avoid nuclear retaliation, but I assume that tech is available by this point. ]
[Question] [ ## The Setting Let's say, for the sake of argument, we have a dyson swarm. This very small torus of swarm mirrors collects over 20 exawatts of power in photons. Most of this power is lost, leaving only around 12 exawatts of power. Most of this is beamed around the solar system, so we will give ourselves about one exawatt to work with. ## The Question With this budget of power, and a large orbit reserved for particle accelerators, assuming we can get at least a 75% efficiency in the process (converting electricity into the moving particles or photons, not the total efficiency of the machine), how would we make the antimatter itself? (what particles would we smash together and how? Linacs? Synchrotrons? Superfluidic photon-smashers?) What kind of machines would they be? (And as a side note, how efficient would they be?) The required product is anti-hydrogen snowballs and I expect no 'new' physics to be discovered, **but**, techniques that have been predicted but not proven are fine. I expect to get less than 0.001% efficiency or so, and most of that exawatt of power will be radiated away, but I have no experience in this field and want to get a rough outline. ## TO SUMMARISE: If you wanted to produce antimatter industrially with current physics, how would you do pull it off? [Answer] There's a (theoretical) thing called the [Schwinger effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwinger_effect), whereby creating an unreasonably intense electrical field can pull electron-positron pairs out of a vacuum (because of [vacuum polarization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_polarization)). Now, positrons aren't super interesting here, because whilst they're a great source of gamma rays they're hard to pack at high density (making them an awkward fuel) and there are a lot of useful things you can do with antibaryons (like pion rocketry and triggering fission and so on) that you can't do with antilepton. Good news though. It *is* apparently possible to generate baryons via the same mechanism... there's a relevant physics.SE question which contains some paywalled links I haven't dug up, but you can take a look anyway: [Pair production of quarks](https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/266149/225554). Whilst looking for a related paper, I ran across "[Estimates for the efficient production of antihydrogen by lasers of very high intensities](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02109654)" (by Heinrich Hora, 1973, I can't find any free *legitimate* sources online) which isn't an entirely consumer-friendly piece of work, but the key take-home message is that [pair-production](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_production) of protons and antiprotons can theoretically be done by lighting up a blob of suitably dense plasma with an unreasonably powerful laser. From the conclusion of the paper, > > Considering a hydrogen plasma with densities exceeding $n\_{cco}$ (1021 cm-3 or a little less due to relativistic effects) where neodymium glass laser pulses of intensities of 1019 W cm-2 corresponding to field strengths of ~ 1011 V cm-1 are incident, the pulse length being assumed sufficiently long (> 10-10 s)... [snip] ...This would again increase $E^{act}$ within the next step of iteration with this last energy, we shall exceed the field strength at 1014 V cm-1 which will cause pair production of protons > > > Now, making a laser array that can deliver 10 exawatts over a tenth of a nanosecond or more, and then do it many many times over an extended period is left as an exercise for the reader, but if you could pull it off, you could electromagetically separate the spray of particles that came out and pocket the useful ones. > > And as a side note, how efficient would they be > > > Astonishingly bad. Not only will the lasers be fearsomely inefficient (though by the time you get to this point in the future, you'd expect a better grasp of making decent lasers) but an awful lot of the stuff that comes out of your matter-synthesizer will not be very useful to you... lots of unstable heavy particles, mesons and so on, probably an excess of electron-positron pairs. Even if your *mass* synthesis is relatively efficient (which it won't be, most likely) your *antihydrogen* synthesis will be somewhat less efficient. The unstable particles will decay promptly and generate all sorts of inconvenient radiation. The more stable particle pairs might be pulled away and then allowed to annihilate in such a way that you could reclaim a portion of the energy that went into them, but that'll be an inefficient process too. Ultimately, the efficiency can be driven by the needs of your plot. Clearly, *you* need enough to drive your ISV *Totally Not The Venture Star*, and so clearly your efficiency will be good enough to provide that much antihydrogen for you. Wave your hands. It'll be fine. [Answer] ## Laser Pincers Particle accelerators take so much control that you can only make antimatter from matter 1 particle at a time. [Laser Pincers](https://newatlas.com/physics/laser-pincers-antimatter-neutron-star/) work by firing lasers at each other through a [meta-material](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamaterial) in such a way that the photon streams are focused into each other at the micrometer scale making about 100,000 times as many photon collisions happen for the energy of your lasers. The result is a cloud of electrons and positrons. You can then use magnetic fields to separate the resulting matter and antimatter plasma before it has a chance to annihilate. So, not only does this theoretically give your 6 orders of magnitude more efficiency than previous methods, but it's also able to be done as a continuous process assuming you can find a way to manage the heat. I suspect that the best option is actually to go small instead of big. You just need photons to hit each other; so, if the metamaterial were a small fiber and the lasers shooting into it also relatively small, then heat could be dissipated more quickly. So a single antimatter factory could be a cellular configuration of millions of little laser pincers running around the clock feeding into large antimatter containment chambers. This also assumes only modern levels of meta-material design. A more advanced civilization could perhaps squeeze many more orders of magnitude of efficiency with better meta-materials. With good enough of a metamaterial you could in theory trap all of your photons in continuous loops until a considerable fraction are converted into matter/antimatter pairs. This could result in actual economically viable antimatter mass production within just 1 or 2 orders of magnitude of ideal conversion which is actually much better than your hoped for 0.001%. ## Why this is better than single laser Schwinger effect generation? The Schwinger effect can not produce anti-hydrogen snowballs by any known mechanism. It can produce positron/electron pairs but does not actually have any established theory for making proton/anti-proton pairs in a single beam system. However, using colliding neutron and proton beams fueled by decaying radioactive material funneled through a similar pincer system, you could in theory generate the needed antiprotons to create your snowballs. So, one pincer system would make the positrons, another would make the antiprotons, and then a series of magnetic fields could be used to combine the antiparticle plasmas into atomic antimatter which can then be cooled and condensed down into an anti-matter snowball. But the most important feature of pincer beams is efficiency. Industrialization is all about efficiency, and relying on the Schwinger effect is so many orders of magnitude less efficient and than laser pincers, that no advanced civilization would chose it as a means to produce antimatter at a large scale, even if you don't assume particle recycling as an option. But since we are talking about a civilization that can make a Dyson Sphere, I think a little particle recycling is not an unreasonable technological stretch when we are so close to being able to do that sort of thing with modern technology already. ## Why it might be better to make positron plasma instead of anti-hydrogen snowballs? For starters, it is much safer to contain positron plasma than an anti-hydrogen snowball. Just because an anti-hydrogen snowball is solid does not mean it will not violently react with normal matter meaning it still needs to be contained with a magnetic field. Positrons are extremely reactive to magnetic fields because they are pure charged particles. Once you start binding positrons to antiprotons, you start making an electromagnetically neutral material. Technically you can leave it a bit ionized, and still contain it but it will be more sensitive to being knocked out of its magnetic containment than a plasma. Secondly, going back to the economics aspect of industrialization, anti-protons are harder to make than positrons. Laser pincers can simply be powered by your nearly inexhaustible supply of sunlight, but proton/neutron pincers means you need a very large supply of decaying heavy elements. This is certainly still doable since your civilization is clearly able gather massive amounts of materials into one place to be able to make a Dyson Sphere anyway, but it's not nearly as clean and controllable of a process. Controlling the flow of electrons compared to solid matter is also much easier; so, when it comes to getting energy out of a positron cloud, all you have to do is zap it with a well regulated flow of electricity, and you will get exactly as much heat out of the system as you need. Getting a controllable flow of power out of interactions between solids is much more difficult to do with any precision. If you accidently spray the snowball with just a bit too much matter, you could kick it through its containment which would be very bad for anyone within a few miles. [Answer] ## The theoretical limit The theoretical maximum efficiency of turning electricity into antimatter is 50% due to the [Law of Baryon Number Conservation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_number#Conservation), which mandates that energy be turned into equal amounts of matter and antimatter. So, in the limit of technological advancement, for every 100 MW of production energy, 50 MW of matter-antimatter reaction energy may be produced. (Use $E=mc^2$ to determine the *mass* instead.) ## Robert L. Forward's numbers Current particle accelerators aren't designed to make antimatter. Their input energy to antimatter efficiency is 0.000002%, at 100 trillion USD a gram. Robert L. Forward wrote a book with Joel Davis titled *Mirror Matter: Pioneering Antimatter Physics (Wiley, 1988)*. In it he discussed heavy ion beam colliders, with anticipated improvements in superconducting magnets, to produce large quantities on the cheap. Beams of uranium atoms could collide to produce $10^{18}$ antiprotons per second (and a *lot* of nuclear fragments), at an efficiency of 0.01%. For every 100 MW of beam power, 100 W of antimatter-stored energy is produced (and the remaining 999,900 W are waste heat). The antimatter factory could draw energy from a space-based solar array. Here's Forward's words on that from *Indistinguishable from Magic (Baen, 1995)*: > > Where will we get the energy to run these magic matter factories? Some of the prototype factories will be built on Earth, but for large scale production we certainly don’t want to power these machines by burning fossil fuels on Earth. There is plenty of energy in space. At the distance of the Earth from the Sun, the Sun delivers over a kilowatt of energy for each square meter of collector, or a gigawatt (1,000,000,000 watts) per square kilometer. A collector array of one hundred kilometers on a side would provide a power input of ten terawatts (10,000,000,000,000), enough to run a number of antimatter factories at full power, producing a gram of antimatter a day. > > > --- You say you want to use the waste heat to make more antimatter, but there's always more sunlight to take advantage of. The machinery to use waste heat will grow exponentially large due to the compounding losses (everything has waste heat, nothing's 100% efficient). You're much better off making more solar arrays. [Answer] # Major Frame Challenge Assuming a merely 1000 tons for your space ship, at 0.7c its kinetic energy is around 36000 ExaJoules. We can double that if you want to brake as well, but a factor of two will not be of concern here. Assuming a 100% conversion rate1 (haha, massive overestimation), you'd need around 200 tons of anti matter. As mentioned in another answer, and quoting from [projectrho.com](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/antimatterfuel.php#antifactory) making antimatter (specifically anti protons) is totally inefficient. > > [...] it will take 1.50327759×10-6 Joules to make 1 antiproton, or 8.988×1017 Joules (899 exaJoules) to make one kilogram of antiprotons. > > > Note, we need a factor of at least 200,000, so the input energy would be around 18000 yotaJoules. Thanks to [wolframalpha](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=18000+yotajoules) we know that this is around 47 times the energy output of the entire sun in 1 second (so with your current 12 exaWatts setup, it'd take around 47.5 years). And now we're not even talking about anything else. Anti matter on this scale is the most volatile object you can think of. If the anti matter storage tank fails, it will fail apocalyptically and the entire ship is gone within a fraction of a second. Would you build a ship like this? No. Honestly, I wouldn't go into the details here, just state that it's possible, not how it's possible. That's way better than winging it with all these contradictions and impossibilities. Suspension of disbelief only works, if there's nothing contradicting about it. The more details you specify, there more contradictions can be found. At this point, it's more plausible that the ship flies with *magic*. 1 just remember, if you halve the conversion rate, you need to double the other numbers (and so on). ]
[Question] [ I’m trying to design a Planet that is as stereotypically “Alien” as possible. That means an Alien Ecology, twin suns, and this view from the surface which I’m sure you’re all familiar with: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mcBav.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mcBav.jpg) How can I achieve this effect without the world being a moon of a gas giant? Because that entails all sorts of issues with radiation and tides that I really don’t want. Is there such a thing as a ringed moon?! Help! [Answer] > > Is there such a thing as a ringed moon? > > > The main problem here is that in order to form a nice big ring, your moon would need to have had its own moonlet. Capturing a big icy asteroid or comet is very tricky, and given the relatively small gravitational sphere of influence of the moon relative to its parent the chances are that the moon wouldn't be doing the capturing anyway. Having a moonlet generally requires your moon to be quite large, and therefore your planet to be larger still, which probably renders it uninhabitable. The chances of the moon appearing that big in the sky in the first place are also slim. Even a binary companion planet might not look as good as that. > > moon of a gas giant... that entails all sorts of issues with radiation and tides that I really don’t want. > > > This doesn't need to be the case. Jupiter has a pretty hostile set of radiation belts, but the same isn't true of Saturn. The magnetosphere of the parent world can be tuned to your needs. You would certainly be stuck with a tidally-locked world however. There are various other questions on this site going back many years about having non-tidally-locked moons, and the answers generally seem to be "*probably not*" but it isn't entirely outside of the bounds of probability. However, in order to avoid tidal locking your world has to be quite a long way from its parent planet, so the view won't be nearly as dramatic. On the bright side though, a close enough orbit for a good view is going to be a relatively short period orbit, so you don't have to deal with nights that are hundreds of hours long. Moreover, stable close orbits around binary stars are awkward, and more distance orbits can be chilly. The radiated heat from a very big gas giant parent (potentially even a brown dwarf) might go some way to keeping things warmed up. [Answer] It all depends on how long you want that view to be available. A significant meteor impact on our moon would, for example, create a ring of ejecta around it (and part of it would probably shower us, too). The problem would be that * moon's gravitational field alone has very few long term stable orbits: most of the ring would fall back to the surface within years. If your moon has the same situation, you will have the same problem * the proximity of the main planet means that the ring would be highly perturbed and, again, have troubles being stable for long period of time. Therefore, if you are fine with having the ringed moon only for some years (and getting as a bonus a meteor shower on your planet), it's totally plausible. If you want it for geological times, you need to come with some other mechanism, like a volcanically active moon, with volcanic activity constantly replenishing the ring and keeping a dynamic balance with the material lost due to gravity. [Answer] # Make an artificial moon What you want isn't something that would naturally occur because of gravity being needed for massive rings, but that's fine. Have a moon that's fairly close to a planet which has massive artificial rings. Maybe they're satellites to generate power or something. They are maintained by advanced alien engineering. [Answer] Why are you worried about making your world a giant moon orbiting a gas giant planet? Radiation belts around the planet can be a problem, but if the moon doesn't generate its own magnetic field it will be exposed to the solar wind and cosmic rays. Unless it orbits within the magnetosphere of the giant planet which will trap charged comsic rays and solar wind particles. So long as the orbit of the mooon avoids the zones where the charged particles are trapped the Moon should be fine. If the moon is tidally locked to the planet one side will always face away from the planet and one side will always face toward the planet. And as the moon orbits around the planet, each side will experience a day night cycle which will be the same length as the moon's orbit around the planet. If the moon is as large as a planet it might be able to generate its own magnetic field. It is a common idea that the faster a world rotates the stonger its magnetic field will be (though it might depend on the rotation rate of the core and not that of the world as a whole. And of course the rotation rate of a tidally locked moon would be equal to its orbital period around its planet. So if the moon is outside the magnetosphere of the planet, it will need to rotate as fast as possible to generate its own magnetic field, and thus have as short an orbital period as possible, and thus orbit as closely to the planet as possible. A short orbital period would also be necessary to have the daily cycle of light and dark as short as possible so that the moon doesn't get too hot in the day or two cold in the night. Opinions may vary on how long a day could be before the temperature extremes became too much for life. If a moon orbits close to the planet, the tidal interactions between the moon and the planet will produce internal tidal heating on the moon, which will tend to warm the surface somewhat. If the tidal heating is too great, the moon will suffer a runaway greenhouse effect, and if the tidal heating is even greater, the moon will become a volcanic hell like Io, the innermost moon of Jupiter. But if the planet and moon are too far from the star and don't receive enough heat from the star, significant tidal heating could keep the moon warm enough for life. The habitable edge is a term for the inner limit for a moon to orbit its planet before tidal heating makes the moon too hot. <https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1209/1209.5323.pdf> And this paper paper discusses the magnetic shielding of exomoons. It apparently concludes that a Mars sized exomoon orbiting a jupiter sized exoplanet would be in the planetary habitable zone between about 5 planetary radii and 20 planetary raddi. <https://arxiv.org/abs/1309.0811> There are two types of orbits a planet can have in a binary star system. One is an S-type or non circumbinary orbit, where the planet orbits around one of the stars at a fraction of the distance between the two stars. The other is a P-type or circumbinary orbit, where the planet orbits around both of the stars at a distance several tiems as great as the orbital separation of the two stars. There are known examples of both types of exoplanet orbits in binary systems. If you want the stars to always look close together in the sky, and if you want each star to always appear to have the same angular diameter as seen from the planet and its moon, you will have to go with the planet in P type or circumbinary orbit around the two stars. > > For a circumbinary planet, orbital stability is guaranteed only if the planet's distance from the stars is significantly greater than star-to-star distance. > > > The minimum stable star-to-circumbinary-planet separation is about 2–4 times the binary star separation, or orbital period about 3–8 times the binary period. The innermost planets in all the Kepler circumbinary systems have been found orbiting close to this radius. The planets have semi-major axes that lie between 1.09 and 1.46 times this critical radius. The reason could be that migration might become inefficient near the critical radius, leaving planets just outside this radius.[9 > > > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitability_of_binary_star_systems> Suppose that the two stars are in almost circular orbits five million to twenty million kilometers apart. If the minimum distance for planetary orbits is 2 to four times that distance, the closest planets to the two stars would be at least ten million to eighty million kilometers from the two stars. In our solar system the planet Mercury orbits the sun with a semi-major axis of about 57,909,050 kilometers or 0.387098 AU, the planet Venus orbits at about 108,280,000 kilometers or 0.723332 AU, and the Earth at 149,598,023 kilometers or 1 AU. Tf the two stars have a total luminosity equal to that of the Sun, your planet and moon would have to orbit them at a distacnce of exactly 1 AU to receive exactly as much heat from them as Earth gets from the Sun, though of course a habitable world could receive somewhat more or less radiation from its star than Earth gets from the Sun while stil remaining habitable. If each of the stars ha the same luminosity as the Sun, their total luminosoty would be be twice that of the sun. Because of the inverse square law, the planet and moon would have to orbit the two stars at a distance of the square root of two, 1.414213562, AU or about 211,563,552 kilometers, to receive exactly as much radiation from the stars as Earth gets from the Sun. ]
[Question] [ My story has a creature that is vaguely humanoid in shape and lives on an Earth-like planet. However, the creature is smaller (dingo-sized) and only weighs around 35 pounds. Like humans, these creatures evolve precise throwing ability for hunting, specifically for larger prey. However, due to their dramatically lower body mass, launching a large projectile with accuracy seems like it would be more difficult. Could it stand to reason that this creature could throw a wooden javelin with similar speed/momentum to a human despite having less muscle mass? Would some kind of biological energy-storing/spring-loaded system be useful? For what it’s worth, it possesses hollow bones, which could decrease the inertia of the throwing arm itself (or increase risk of self-injury). Also, while the creature can run faster than a human (useful for Olympic-style throwing), I would prefer if there were other factors improving its ability to throw hard. [Answer] The Javelin is made for human strength and size, specifically to be thrown as far as a human warrior can throw it. If it were twice as long and twice the diameter, it would weigh 8 times as much, and be thrown a much shorter distance. As it stands, it is the balance chosen between force and distance, because we want to kill our targets (particularly animals that don't throw back) while being as far from them as possible. > > In international competition, men throw a javelin between 2.6 and 2.7 m (8 ft 6 in and 8 ft 10 in) in length and 800 g (28 oz) in weight, and women throw a javelin between 2.2 and 2.3 m (7 ft 3 in and 7 ft 7 in) in length and 600 g (21 oz) in weight. > > > As you can see, the women reduce the weight by 25%, and the length by 15%, to maximize their distance given their (on average) lesser force and body mass. In fact, female athletes on average develop 25% less muscle mass than men. Your little people would do the same. At 1/4 the height of a human, they'd be likely be 18" tall, and perhaps 40% the weight of a human So instead of 165 pounds, 66 pounds. Their muscle mass would be proportional, so their best javelin would likely be 320g (11.2 oz). The javelins tend to be 1.5 times the average height; so you might want to make them 27" (2' 3") for manageability, and adjust the diameter to make the weight appropriate. At this point, you are talking about a thick arrow. If you want distance, I'd consider a foot bow; from a seated position, draw the bow with an arrow with both hands, using your feet to press the bow away. You can put straps on the bow handle to insert the feet; . Then the power of their whole body, arms legs and back are involved, and you should get quite a distance on the arrow, and these are not much harder to aim than a traditional bow. See this site: <https://archeryhistorian.com/footbow/> [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CUrU8.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CUrU8.png) [Answer] Humans solved this by using a force multiplier such as a sling for rocks, or spear thrower for large darts. I can't hit a car reliably with a spear thrower at any distance, but I can throw further with it than I could unaided. And I can throw a rock over 100mph without overstraining using a sling again and again. Which I couldn't do once without one and would probably injure myself trying repeatedly. [Answer] /Would some kind of biological energy-storing/spring-loaded system be useful?/ **Oh yes.** [![throw javelin like discus](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uxt5r.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uxt5r.png) <https://www.sbnation.com/secret-base/21522919/javelin-world-record-throw-felix-erauzquin-basque-technique> Your javelin throwers whirl around, accumulating kinetic energy as the rotational energy of their bodies and throwing the javelin like a hammer or discus. I would have thought the linked article was a joke but the video looks real. People threw the javelin 50% farther with this technique, which was banned because of its wild inaccuracy and danger to spectators. -- Not only do your dingo people (btw upvote just for the [proud dingo people!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egpOhBgNmYg)) whirl around before throwing, they do it in teams of 2 or 3 or sometimes more. Crew served javelins of cooperative whirling dingofolk can handle javelins heavier than a single human can throw, and throw them farther. One of the crew members is actually thrown herself with the javelin and she completes the throw while airborne, the force propelling her backwards into the arms of her crew. Dingo peligroso! ]
[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/233067/edit). Closed 1 year ago. [Improve this question](/posts/233067/edit) Electric eels are animals that eat by stunning their prey with electricity before eating them. The amperage and voltage isn't usually high enough to kill humans but it can still hurt them. Assuming there exist merpeople who are the same size and mass as humans but live in the sea with fish tails, would electric weapons be practical for them? Outside of tasers, electric weapons aren't common in the real world because there are generally more efficient ways of harming people. The ocean is a completely different environment however, and guns are less effective underwater. If the merpeople are just as intelligent as humans and have access to 21st Century technology, could they build some type of electric rifle? If so, what would it look like, would it have a large effective range, and would it be practical for infantry to carry? [Answer] There are a lot of questions here, but I'll answer what appears to be the primary one: could there be an underwater electric rifle. # Yes, but not in the way you think Water has pretty high impedance. Even saltwater isn't a spectacular conductor (when compared to various metals). You have to be within about 20m of a lightning strike in the ocean for it to likely be lethal. So if you're envisioning a rifle spitting electricity, that's not going to work. What you will have is effectively a taser speargun/torpedo. An aquadynamic projectile capable of triggering an intense electric charge is launched via compressed air from a rifle, and then activates an internal propulsion system, triggering its charge either a set time from launch or on contact. The possibility of friendly fire in close combat would be extreme, if you're delivering a voltage/amperage combination that can kill despite the combatants not being grounded, so this would strictly be a ranged weapon, discarded once people closed to knife range. This also would be a very expensive projectile, so trigger discipline would be key. [Answer] > > could they build some type of electric rifle? > > > Neither projectile weapons not electrical charges work very well under water. > > would it have a large effective range, > > > It would not. Tasers, and the attacks of strongly electric fish, rely on using electrical fields to stimulate a target's muscles. Fish do this by getting close to their targets, and in the case of some electric eels, wrapping their body around the target to maximize the strength of the electric field. This is obviously quite short range, Tasers solve this by shooting out two conductive probes over a relatively short distance, with an electric source at the gun end, or by shooting out a self-contained projectile that carries its own conductive barbs and power source. Problem is that shooting projectiles through water is pretty challenging. Obviously [spearguns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speargun) exist, and even [underwater firearms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_firearm), but their range is pretty disappointing compared to above-water weaponry. Because of the rapid drop-off in speed caused by the much higher drag forces experienced by underwater projectiles, any taser-like weapon risks being deadly when used at close range without additional (complex, possibly unreliable) mechanisms to adjust muzzle velocity. There are other things you might consider. One is the use of self-propelled projectiles, possibly mini rockets or hydro-ramjets or mini torpedoes. Such things might be able to carry single-use electrical warheads, like the taser shotgun shell, if what you wanted to do was to stun or incapacitate rather than maim and kill. If you wanted a deadly weapon, and your question implies you might even if you didn't outright state it, then honestly there are better options out there. Fitting your miniature torpedoes or rockets with explosive warheads is pretty effective... fragmentation obviously doesn't work well underwater, but concussive shock is much more effective thanks to water's density and high speed of sound. Small explosive warheads might also work as "less-than-lethal" weapons, stunning and disorienting and deafening but not necessarily killing. Contact warheads like [powerheads](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerhead_(firearm)), or simply compressed air injectors would also be highly effective (and appear to have been at least researched and built by cold-war era militaries). Electrical stuff isn't going to be any more compact or convenient than these options, so unless you specifically wanted to keep your targets alive and intact whilst briefly incapacitating them it isn't clear what benefit it has. [Answer] # In short, such weapons would not be feasible. ### But Why? Even electric eels shock themselves *frequently*. <https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2018/04/03/how-do-eels-generate-electricity-in-water-without-electrocuting-themselves/?sh=129b46c564a0> Electricity in water (ESPECIALLY salt water) is very dangerous. As explained in this Quora article: <https://www.quora.com/How-does-electricity-flow-through-water> The electricity will 'flow' to a low-energy position. This doesn't exclude the direction the mer-person is firing their weapon from. Therefore, it would be just as dangerous to the mer-person using the weapon as it would be to the target of the attack. ### Is There Hope? Theoretically, (and this is a big theoretical, I didn't find any articles on this) if your mer-person had a resistance to electricity and a device that created a mid-energy field around them that they could tolerate, the ions would be more likely to flow in the opposite direction, in a way pushing the electric pulse in the right direction... **but** once it had initially started flowing away from the mer-person, there is nothing stopping it from spreading out rapidly. Thus, the weapon might be good short-range, but largely ineffective at longer ranges. ### A More Likely Use Tesla traps. These could be amped up to extremes and be placed around the outskirts of a mer-village. Then they could be turned on from a safe distance and obliterate anything that comes close to them. [Answer] As the question only mentions weapons and not guns or projectile weapons, which would have obvious drawbacks in water as the propelled object faces a lot more resistance in water, how about your classical tridents? Make the rod non-conducting to save the person wielding it (both from the rod and by the rod (distance to target)), while having one of the pointy things be a cathode and the other an anode. Then you just need to penetrate or get close to your enemy with the pointy end and you should be able to stun. And as a bonus it already fits into the concept of merpeople who are regularly using those objects. Plus it might get around the fact that any non-merpeople person is probably wearing a suit which in the worst case is serving them as a Faraday's cage. [Answer] Jules Verne already had a concept for such a weapon in 1870. It wasn't used by mermaids, but by humans who exiled themselves to an almost completely underwater lifestyle. Because friction in the water would slow down bullets very quickly, they used guns which relied not on kinetic impact, but on an electric charge. The "bullet", fired with compressed air, upon striking the target, would deliver a high-voltage electric discharge, the purpose was to make the bullets lethal even if they lost almost all their kinetic energy. For bonus point, they worked well out of the water too. ]
[Question] [ In my world, there are sixteen human species (mammalian species from the *Homo* genus): 1. Common humans (no explanation is necessary); 2. Marine humans/Merfolk (they have a seal-like blubber, they have a pangolin-like skin, they have webbed digits, they are as massive as belugas, they are obligate omnivores like brown rats, they are as solitary as blue whales, females are larger than males with a basking shark sexual dimorphism, they have indeterminate growth, they tend to be blood type AB, and they are negligibly senescent like Greenland sharks) (the place on Earth that can be called their cradle is New York Harbor, United States of America); 3. Winged humans/Angels (they have hands that look like bat-like wings, they are omnivores with herbivorous tendencies like gorillas, they are as large as wandering albatrosses, they are as social as cheetahs, females are larger than males with a tarantula-like sexual dimorphism, they are venomous, they tend to be blood type A, and they are negligibly senescent like giant tortoises); 4. Horned humans/Demons (they have goat-like horns, they are omnivores with carnivorous tendencies like raccoons, they are venomous, they are as eusocial as termites, weighting a metric tonne, the queen is always the largest individual in a given colony, and at the opposite, workers are the smallest, they only weigh a kilogram, most are intersexes, except naturally the queen, the king, the princes, and the princesses, they tend to be blood type B, and they are negligibly senescent like naked mole-rats); 5. Magic humans/Wizards (males, females, and intersexes all have facial hair, they are obligate omnivores, they have epicanthic folds, females are larger than males with a housefly-sexual dimorphism, and they tend to be blood type AB) (the place of Earth that can be called their cradle is Cameroon); 6. Arboreal humans/Elves (they cannot grow facial hair, they are omnivores with herbivorous tendencies, males are larger than females with an Asian elephant-like sexual dimorphism, they have pointy ears and epicanthic folds, they tend to be blood type A, and they are negligibly senescent) (the place on Earth that can be called their cradle is the United Kingdom, Scotland to be exact); 7. Trolls (they are obligate omnivores, they are as social as goldfish, they are as large as the heaviest dog breed, they have pointy ears and epicanthic folds, males are larger than females with a lion-like sexual dimorphism, and they tend to be blood type B) (the place on Earth that can be called their cradle is Scandinavia, Mainland Denmark to be exact); 8. Gnomes (they are as small as domestic cats, they are omnivores with herbivorous tendencies, they have pointy ears and epicanthic folds, males are larger than females with a pigeon-like sexual dimorphism, and they tend to be blood type O) (the place on Earth that can be called their cradle is Jersey, United Kingdom); 9. Ogres (they have a seal-like blubber, they are as tall as the average real life NBA player, and as heavy as adult male gorillas, they are obligate omnivores, they have epicanthic folds, they are as solitary as orangutans, and females are larger than males with a great white shark-like sexual dimorphism, they have indeterminate growth, they tend to be blood type B, and the place on Earth that can be called their cradle is French Antilles, Fifth French Republic); 10. Giants (they have a seal-like blubber, they are as massive as polar bears, they are omnivores with herbivorous tendencies, they are as solitary as orangutans, and females are larger than males with an American bullfrog-like sexual dimorphism, they have indeterminate growth, they tend to be blood type A, and the place on Earth that can be called their cradle is Northern Quebec, Canada); 11. Halflings (they are obligate omnivores, they are as large as the largest domestic rabbit breed, they are as social as pygmy chimpanzees/bonobos, they have pointy ears and epicanthic folds, they tend to be blood type AB, males are larger than females with a pheasant-like sexual dimorphism) (the place on Earth that can be called their cradle is England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland); 12. Dwarfs (they are omnivores with carnivorous tendencies, they are as social as house mice, they have epicanthic folds, they tend to be blood type B, and males are larger than females with a dog-like dimorphism) (the place on Earth that can be called their cradle is Zürich, Switzerland); 13. Hematophagous humans/Vampires (they are as small as common chimpanzees, they are omnivores with carnivorous tendencies, females are larger than males with a peregrine falcon-like dimorphism, they have pointy ears, they are venomous hematophagous parasites, they tend to be blood type AB, and they are negligibly senescent) (the place on Earth that can be called their cradle is Ukraine); 14. Furry humans/Therianthropes (they are as small as orangutans and as heavy as common chimpanzees, they have a gorilla-like fur, they are omnivores with carnivorous tendencies, they are as solitary as bears, they have pointy ears, they tend to be blood type O, they are venomous parasites that steal other mammals' milk, females are larger than males with a spotted hyena-like dimorphism, and they are negligibly senescent) (the place on Earth that can be called their cradle is Russia, Siberia to be exact); 15. Goblins (they are omnivores with herbivorous tendencies like squirrels, they have pointy ears, they tend to be blood type A, and males are larger than females with a horse-like dimorphism) (the place on Earth that can be called their cradle is Germany, Westphalia to be exact); 16. Orcs (they are as large as American black bears, they are omnivores with carnivorous tendencies like ravens, they have pointy ears and epicanthic folds, they tend to be blood type O, and males are larger than females with a mandrill-like dimorphism) (the place on Earth that can be called their cradle is Mongolia). Also, all these species can reproduce with each other, and the resulting offspring is sub-fertile (meaning that they can reproduce themselves, but they have a lower fertility than their parent species: females are more likely to have endometriosis, and polycystic ovary syndrome, and males are more likely to get oligospermia, and teratospermia). That said, hybrids between anatomically modern humans and wizards are extremely common (the same can be said to hybrids between ogres and giants, and to hybrids between dwarfs and halflings), but hybrids between vampires and giants are relatively rare (the same thing can be said to hybrids between demons and halflings). Given these characteristics, what would their common phylogenetic tree look like, and what non-magical factors would drive the evolution of such varying human species? [Answer] ## Make trees for individual genes. With so many opportunities for cross-breeding, an overall branching tree of the species seems like a very poor approximation. However, for any given gene of interest (or at least a *part* of a gene, if there are interesting recombinants in the population), you ought to be able to plot out (at least conceptually) a valid adaptive radiation that looks like something Linnaeus might have drawn. (At least, provided the wizards haven't hexed most of the people so they transcribe somebody else's genetic code, and the vampires don't transmit their unique package of genetic assets like a virus, etc. Modern genetics *is* contingent on the facts and circumstances that made it possible to research it.) It's your story and the odds of you using a taxonomy I might draw are low, but to give an example, one of your "magic" genes might encode a tiny pentagram of alpha helices that resonates with the extraterrestrial signal coded in the dark matter aura of the Inner Betelgeuse Dyson Construct. Perhaps sequence from a cholera formate channel transposed to the genome of a prototype elf-wizard ancestor, and you can track them through your demons and angels and such. [Answer] > > **Edit:** You will be happy to know my answer does not change, even if the Society Islands are renamed the French Antilles. Phew! > > > Stuff like "social as cheetahs", "housefly-like sexual dimorphism" or the difference between Greenland shark or giant tortoise senescence is bewildering to me. So I will ignore that part. Here is your phylogenetic tree my dude. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tG1me.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tG1me.png) Some notes: You might suspect Wizards are an offshoot of modern humans. This is untrue. Wizards are a super early offshoot of the common ancestor. They are shapeshifters and this is part of the confusion. Angels, Demons, Vampires and Furry Guys were magically created as a joke by the Wizards. We know Demons were made out of dwarfs, due to their shared burrowing habits. But they are not telling about the other three. Mermaids, Ogres, and Giants have a common aquatic ancestor. The so called Wet Guys. That is why Ogres and Giants have seal-like blubber. The Land Wet Guy is a Wet Guy that crawled back onto land and eventually split into Ogres and Giants. [Answer] Well, I would advise you to look for modern tree of life gene maps, by themselves, these look like a giant infodump of possibilities. If these can all reproduce successfully, then I don't think these would be as distant from each other as you may think. [![Illustration of a tree of life](https://i.stack.imgur.com/esMmR.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/esMmR.png) The best example I can find would be dogs, and some are so different from each other that (**if** I'm not mistaken) some can't even reproduce. [![Illustration of a tree of life only containing dogs](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HiLhy.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HiLhy.png) This is a tree of life only containing dogs, maybe you could define the tendencies for reproduction difficulty, anatomical characteristics and psychological/social aspects based on the position of said human species based on its distance from some point of the circle. Maybe angel/winged humans are at the black line there and red could be the dwarfs or giants. --- But if it is only an semi-illustrative tree of life, maybe a more simplified one like this could be beneficial for you: [![Simplified tree of life of dogs](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ucgmw.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ucgmw.png) --- I hope I was of any help :) [Answer] ***You can do whatever you want, because the magic made it happen!*** Okay I usually don't like frame challenges or [a wizard did it](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AWizardDidIt) answers, but I'm afraid I have to do it here. Please hear me out, I'm not just attacking your idea I promise. To be frank, your species do not make evolutionary sense to exist. Evolution alone wouldn't create some of these species, and they wouldn't work as you likely envision if they did exist! this means you need more then just evolution to justify their existence. Lets look at just your first few non-human variants to see what I mean: * Merfolk: solitary species are far less likely to evolve, or maintain, sapience since social interaction was a large driver for it. Their size would obligate them to staying in water since without the buoyancy of water they would be crushed by their own weight; however, the human body isn't built well for water even with blubber, and they would likely be carnivores not omnivores since you need a more compact energy source like meet to get enough calories to support your size (or they feed entirely off of plankton, which may technically count as omnivores but probably isn't what you intended) * Angels: Wings can't lift anything as large as humans and we are not aerodynamic to fly well in the air if we did. Plus your angels would need hallow bones and other adaptations to keep them light that would make them frail on land. * Demons: Eusocial species are unlikely to have reason to achieve sapience, don't really scale to the size of humans, and they would likely would have a [haplodiploidy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplodiploidy) mating system very unlike humans or any mammals. Now if you asked about any *one* of these species I may be able to come up with tricks and associated handwaves to help justify them evolving in our world, in fact I'd find it a fun challenge. However, the sheer number of them, and how different they are makes it very hard to handwave all of these. So in short I don't think I can give you a pure science justification here, but luckily we aren't limited to science. You already said there were magical humans, so magic is a thing in your world. I suggest running with it. Your angles can fly despite science saying their wings shouldn't provide enough lift because magic helps to support their flight. Your merfolk manage to maintain their body height without excessive heavy blubber (and/or can leave water despite the square cube law limiting what they could do due to their size) because magic makes it possible. In short all your non-human humanoids are magical in some way. Your wizards may be the only ones that can cast a wide variety of magic, but all the rest have some degree of magic supporting their forms and justifying how they exist. I'd probably also give them some weak and more structured magic, not as powerful as wizards but enough to further hint at the fact that they are innately magical and that's how they manage to exist at all despite the obvious scientific issues. Of course once you have magic involved you get to bend the rules of evolution all you want. You can pretty much justify your creatures evolution and interconnection however you want and just shape your worlds magic to fit that. For instance the shadowrun game had a number of demi-humans, many of the types you already listed, all appearing at once when magic re-entered the world. **Just one example of magical evolution** If I was writing this I'd likely say magic entered the world around when humanoids were evolving and it had a mutagenic effect. I'd also likely say certain areas tended towards having certain types of magic/mana/whatever at that time, so your protohumans were mutated based off of the type of magic that was strongest where they were evolving. So merfolk's were exposed to water magic and angles to air etc (not that magic needs to be specifically element focused if you don't want it to be, this is just an example). The point being they did evolve, but their evolution was further driven by magic that pushed them to larger more drastic mutations. In fact I'd be tempted to say magic showed up *because* of humans. It's the human mind, or perhaps sapience, that started to create magic-or alternatively magic always existed but proto-human mind unlocked a close connection to it which made us more susceptible to it's affects. The point is humanity developed a close connection to magic early on as we first started to develop our sapience. This explains why proto-humans were so changed by magic despite most other animals in your world presumable looking like normal earth animals and not being so innately magical. Magic only drives the evolution of sapience beings like humans. Of course that can be in the past, if you don't want to say that New York has more water magic and Scottland more earth magic in your modern day just say that magic dispersed and became more integrated over time, but only after it had already started to mutate and modify your various proto-humans down their various evolutionary paths. Though this is just one of *many* potential paths you can go once you open up magic as a driving factor in humanoid evolution since you get free reign to define how your magic works. I prefer magic to be defined, so I'm not quite suggesting you give up and say 'a wizard did it'. I'm more suggesting you decide how you want your present day to look and how it's magic should behave and then work backwards from that to build up a magical system that fits mutating your early humanoids how you want. ]
[Question] [ In my world, there is a mammalian species from the *Homo* genus called "ogres" (their scientific name is *Homo obesus*) (they are still humans, just not *Homo sapiens*) (*Homo obesus* means "obese human"). In the most spoken language used by ogres, there are three rhotic sounds: the weak English "r" sound, the guttural "r" sound (as in French *rédemption*) (*rédemption* naturally means redemption), and the trilled "r" sound (the Russian "r"). In most real life human languages, there is only one rhotic sound. The most common rhotic sound around the world's languages is the alveolar trill. This phoneme is used in Slavic languages (like Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian), in some Germanic languages (like Afrikaans, and Icelandic), Greek, and even some non-Indo-European languages (like Thai). Many languages use the guttural rhotic sound as a speech impediment. The only languages I know that normally only use the guttural "r" are French (my first language), German, Yiddish, and (surprise) Hebrew. The weak English "r" sound is rare among most human languages around the world... except in Aboriginal Australian languages where it is extremely common! That said, this phoneme is also found in Wu varieties of the Chinese language, including Shanghainese. Also, the Japanese "r" sound is one of the world's rarest phonemes. However, some languages have both a tapped "r" sound and a trilled "r" sound, or alternatively, both a guttural "r" sound, and an alveolar "r" sound: Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Persian, Hungarian, and Arabic. So, I wonder why would a language have three rhotic phonemes. [Answer] An old and assimilative language may have accumulated three different rhotics. It has often been said that English "hangs around in dark alleys waiting to mug other languages for spare vocabulary" and this has an element of truth to it, English has accumulated many [loanwords](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loanword) over the centuries, and in fact it can be said that there are very few origianl words in the English language at all. In most cases the spelling and pronunciation tend to be "anglicised" (read bastardised if you are talking to people whose language the word originated in) but this is not always the case and as a result there are words used in local dialects of English that don't follow the usual rules of pronunciation and present a challenge to outsiders. If the ogres have been picking up vocabulary from many different languages for a very long time then their language can have picked up many phonemes that do not share a common root and are spelled and/or pronounced very differently. [Answer] #### Same Reason We Distinguish Other Phonemes Without knowing the specifics of your various R sounds, I think a case can be made for having three of them because they fit within the general scheme of consonant series. There are quite a few "R" sounds on the [IPA chart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet), looking across the Approximates, Taps/Flaps, and Trills we find an R sound corresponding to the points of articulation of just about every place of articulation. Generally speaking, a language has the sounds it has at the present time because a) the present inventory of sounds evolved from the several previous inventories and b) the present inventory is useful to the speakers of the language. So, your Ogres have three R sounds because they need and find useful three different R sounds! There are loads of things you can do grammatically, historico-phonolgically, gender / age / other group related, ceremonially, hierarchically, etc with those sounds. Literally, so many options that we'd have to close the question for being too broad! [Answer] Late to the party, but... If the ogres are a different species, they may have a different sent of phonemes to use! (Maybe they also miss out on some homo sapiens phonemes.) The International Phonetic Alphabet is based on the sounds **humans** (homo sapiens) make, not every sound the species in the **homo genus** makes. It could be they have these sounds because it is easy for them to produce those. A new "Homo International Phonetic Alphabet" would have these extra sounds. ]
[Question] [ Planet Earth exists as two sides of a coin, with one side containing humans and the other containing demons. These two realities are separated by a barrier that keeps both races from interacting with each other. Every 1000 years, a planetary solar eclipse occurs, which breaks down the barrier separating both realities. This allows demons and humans to interact with each other, leading to war and genocide as humans are slaughtered by their more powerful neighbors. This break in the barrier lasts for a number of hours, coinciding with the length of the eclipse. After the event ends, the barrier again raises and comes back into effect. Both races are forced back into their side of the coin as the two realities reassert themselves, separating humans and demons once again. Human civilization is then forced to rebuild its societies from scratch to repair from the devastation. However, the world remains forever changed after each eclipse, forcing humanity to adapt to its new environment. Areas of the demon world continue to exist in the human side of the coin. These areas are separate pockets of reality that maintain a connection to the demon side and they exist in isolated areas (badlands, evil woods, etc), similar to the no-go zones in fairy tales with evil witches, mysterious dungeons, and corrupted magic. These contain the monsters that exist within the world of demons, as they are an extension of that realm. These beings cannot leave that pocket of reality and enter into the human domain. However, human beings are not bound by that restriction, and can seemingly enter these realms whenever they desire. This serves as the basis for quests in which adventurous and greedy explorers known as dungeon masters can face the dangers in these areas to collect ancient treasures. Most die horrible deaths or are never heard from again, but the rare few come back extraordinary wealthy or more powerful. As it stands, humans can enter these pocket demonic worlds but demons are unable to do the same with human domains. How can it be the case? [Answer] # Demons are high magic creatures and need magic to live. Demons have all sorts of passive magical spells going on to make them so impressively powerful. These draw a massive amount of magic. In their home, and their pockets of reality, there's enough ambient mana to fuel them. During the astrological event, there's extra mana everywhere. But in the human world in general there's very little, and more powerful magical creatures quickly wither and die or become pathetic demonic looking humans. [Answer] **The feeling is mutual** A solar eclipse can cause havoc, because it will render the demons drunk and blood-thirsty. Normally, demons are not inclined to penetrate the human world, because there are no incentives to do so. Humans tend to behave quite hostile toward "intruding" demons ! Priests can even kill a demon without knowing what they did. When a solar eclipse is on, the demons will gain extra energy, the humans will be afraid of it. For the demons, that is the right moment to go out and kill a lot of humans. Both races regard the Earth as their property. Demons are very arrogant, they regard humans as inferior beings that only pollute their planet. [Answer] The same that keeps fishes swimming in water or land animals wandering on land: each creature has its own environment where it fits and can thrive. Other environments, for which the creature is not adapted, can result in damage/death. In the same way that a gold fish can live long in the bowl but dies if it accidentally jumps out of it and lands on the floor, a demon out of its pocket dimension will be like a fish out of water. [Answer] A mysterious mutation that appeared several millions of years ago made demons who carried it sick and weak whenever they left high magic regions. It spread like wildfire because it discouraged stupid and dangerous behavior. Low magic regions are hard to fight in, and have high concentrations of humans, who can be lethal. [Answer] ### It's all Metaphor Your human/demon world splits are based on the premise of light and shadow. The human side of the world is the "light" side while the demon realm is the "shadow" side. The splotches of shadows on the light side of the world are areas that the world has cast a deep enough shadow for the demons to be able to live in. How Earth has made these metaphoric shadows is unknown and perhaps the topic of much research. Now the demons, being the Race of Shadow, cannot venture into the light without being destroyed -- a shadow vanishes in the light. Those areas in the Light World suffused with enough Shadow can support some of the demon world's denizens, but as stated previously, they are bound by the zone of shadow. Likewise a human, being the Race of Light, can venture into the darkness for they are their own light and shadows cannot snuff out light. There is the issue of being weaker and generally easy prey for the demons save for those extremely pesky adventurer types. To continue the metaphor, a candle in the darkness does not shine bright and is still easily snuffed out compared to a larger and brighter light. I have aimed for light and shadow -- it is likely that the denizens of the world would like call it a world of darkness, or go with a good and evil dichotomy. The world isn't as moral as that -- it just is. ### The Eclipse Earth as we know it has solar eclipses on a fairly regular basis, with them happening on various parts of the world at various times. So for the barrier between the worlds to break down every millennium likely means that there is another factor at play. Possibly multiple factors at play. The likely suspect is that there is an event in the demon's realm that has to happen in conjunction with the solar eclipse on our side of the world that amplifies the eclipse's power to cast a total planetary eclipse that allows the demons to roam free, if only for a while. Perhaps some sort of natural-ish phenomenon on the other side of the world that also occurs on a cycle in conjunction with a solar eclipse that hits a specific spot on the planet timed so that that event is a once in a millennium event. Since there is an event that has to happen on both sides in tandem, it is very difficult to know both triggers. [Answer] I see a few ways that could work. An simple, if a bit too easy, option would be that these pockets have barriers that doesn't work the same for demons and humans. Maybe humans can just pass through however they wish and demons cannot. Depends on how the barrier works exactly. A better option in my opinion is that the eclipse that removes the "big" barrier also has other effects. Maybe it gives the demons more strength. So they are strong enough to hurt humans on a big scale during the eclipse, but outside of that time, they lack the power to do so. They are still strong enough to hurt individual humans or small parties, like those on quests, but not enough to launch full on assaults or wars. The question then becomes, why would the humans not launch big missions, mazbe with dozens or even hundreds or their own warriors to get rid of the monsters/demons in the pockets? My answer to that would be that the humans don't see those as enough of a bother. They know that the losses of such an endeavour would be greater than the benefits. So they also launch small missions whenever necessary or if someone wants a challenge. Of course this doesn't tick the box that the demons CAN'T leave their pockets. In this situation, they simply choose not to. [Answer] As mentioned in a comment, the shadow from a Solar Eclipse doesn't cover the entire surface of the Earth. So the shadow, alone, wouldn't explain why the entirety of the two sides of the coin merge at those times. So there must be more going on than just the shadow. I'll leave it up to the OP to sort out the specific details, and naming of the magics or energies involved, but as with many stories, myths, legends, and superstitions regarding alignments of celestial bodies, harmonics and resonances of energies is often a significant factor. So I'd assume that something similar is involved here. The alignment causes resonances within the energies involved, which affect the whole earth, dropping the barrier completely. Next, with a nod to Yoda, it would seem to me that this 'barrier' is space filling, surrounding and permeating everything, rather than a layer of something, like a sheet, veil, bubble, etc., with a thin surface. And anywhere that this energy IS, demons cannot be. Finally, the area in the full shadow of the eclipse receives a far higher concentration of the disruptive resonance, burning (like a magnifying glass) a semi-permanent hole in the barrier, but only on those most heavily of affected areas. These areas remain without the protective influence of the barrier energy, allowing demons to creep in. But they can't move beyond those areas, because the barrier energy is still in place in everywhere else, while there's no active eclipse. [Answer] The barrier that isolates each demon enclave in the human zone is the same as the main barrier that separates the human zone from the main demon zone. As you state, demons can only cross the boundary between the two when a 1000 year eclipse occurs (or whatever cosmological or Earth phenomenal event occurs - maybe a comet on a 1000 year cycle). The enclave demons cannot cross into the human zone but humans can cross into the demon enclave. For consistency, put the abilities on the humans, not the demons. The human can cross any of the barriers at any time. **Humans choose to not cross the barrier between the two main zones** out of fear of a certain and unpleasant death - the slaughter and genocide during the barrier less periods are witness to that. The Sagas record the horrors, so everyone remembers. Some intrepid humans dare to enter the demon enclaves because they are smaller and contain fewer demons, which they think they may be able to deal with. But, they can't deal with sheer number of demons in demon main zone. [Answer] **Absorption** The demons absorb a special kind of gas or radiation necessary for their survival. This thing is available in their pockets only and cannot be taken out. Also it does not affect humans. This thing is produced everywhere in solar eclipse. **Bacteria** Human areas contain certain kind of bacteria which are harmless for humans but fatal for demons. Solar eclipse kills these bacteria. ]
[Question] [ Let's say that everyone on Earth disappears or dies spontaneously - except for one person. What would a plausible reason for this be? Note that this isn't something gradual, like a disease wiping out Earth's population, but instead something that happens overnight. I am not looking for fantasy answers, but more realistic or sci-fi answers. This takes place around 2022, or at most 2037, and the protagonist is in San Francisco, California. [Answer] **200 designated survivors** Suppose there is an apocalyptic scenario on the horizon: in six months, e.g. a red giant only six light years away will go supernova. Scientists have already known that for a few years, but everything is kept secret to prevent panic. Your scientists haven't found any solution that would allow Earth's population to survive. It is estimated Earth will become uninhabitable for at least a century. They consider to preserve the human race, by sending out a space ship with a mixed population of ca 200 humans, initially in hibernation, to find shelter behind Jupiter for several months, to wait out the effects of the supernova. **The pilot made a mistake** At some point underway to Jupiter, your pilot accidentally touches a switch, which is decompressing the stasis compartments, exposing them to space. The stasis containers break. Everyone in hybernation dies, only the pilot survives. Watching the Earth burn.. A lonely and desperate human. **Female** It will depend on your story what happens next. Earth is dead now, there were a few other humans in space (ISS), but they don't have the means to survive. When the pilot is male, it would certainly be the end of mankind. Your evacuation ship could have a female pilot. She'll improvise with frozen sperm, to get herself pregnant.. Best case, she knows about the subject of genetics and pick *some* diversity (say, 6-7 children from different sperm samples). --- (supplement) **Some notes about surviving a supernova on Earth** Putting the above answer, I had not realized your survivor protagonist resides in California. To work that out for my scenario.. First, to get an idea of the effects, <https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/safe-distance-from-a-supernova-earth/> **Supernova - 30 light years** .. on 30 light years distance, the oceans would be depleted of food and the atmosphere and O3 layer will be destroyed. Mass extinction follows. But that would not immediately result in a complete wipe out of civilization. Humans will manage below the surface, plans could be in place to restore the Ozone layer in some way (hand wave) and after some time, your planet would get repopulated with humans. After spending a century or two underground, part of Earth's surface and Earth's atmosphere would have to be *re-terraformed* to repair the damage ! In this case, there would be millions of survivors. 30 light years won't do, for a plausible *single* survivor. **Supernova - 6 light years** Now suppose the Supernova would occur at only 6 light years distance, like I've proposed, the Earth would be [within the Supernova radius itself](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-betelgeuse-supernova_b_6583546). That would not allow survival on Earth, I assumed *zero* human survivors on Earth. Huge effects, like deadly X-Ray and gamma radiation spikes, electrocuting EMP's.. and after 3-5 years, you'll get core fragments and debris impacting on Earth. A Russian roulette, that could yield a ravaged Solar system. All humans on Earth will have become infertile, due to the excessive radiation. Now, some families in California *could have* survived undergrounds, when lucky. Most will die, because they can't return to the surface. Maybe someone very smart invents a way, to keep his family alive longer.. The youngest son could survive his family for ca. 60 years and become the (very) lonely single human surviving on Earth. [Answer] ## This could happen by sheer bad luck! What if all the other people had a car accident, slipped on some ice or choked on their food? And died as a result? *The same day*? This would be highly unlucky, but not at all impossible. We all know single accidents happen, and if they are considered independent events it's simply a matter of probability. We all know that rolling two sixes with a pair of dice is possible, and many of us have rolled three or even four simultaneous sixes. If you keep at it long enough, sooner or later you will roll all sixes even if you throw a hundred simultaneous dice. Most of the times it will be later sooner than sooner (*a lot* later), but in principle it could happen on the first try. Consulting [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_rate), the average yearly mortality in traffic is 19 deaths per 100 000 people per year. That's a $\frac{\frac{19}{365}}{100~000}$ chance a given random person will die in traffic any given day. As a first approximation, the probability of 8 billion people randomly dying in traffic should thus be around $\left(\frac{\frac{19}{365}}{100~000}\right)^{8~000~000~000} \approx 9.35048 \cdot 10^{-50~268~314~109}$. **And that's just traffic!** If you include other kinds of accidents, you can get the probability *way* down. You could also have a few nukes accidentally go off in Europe, let a few meteors kill off the Africans and have a terrible gas leakage for most of the Chinese. If we are very unlucky, these disasters happen the same day. With some optimisation you could probably (no pun intended) even shave the exponent in my final number down to 40 billion or so. It's still ***extremely*** unlikely, but not impossible. I'd finish by saying "stranger things have happened", but in this case they literally haven't. [Answer] ## Killer robots Someone has unleashed killer robots who kill everyone except for one person. Perhaps that one person is the inventor, the inventor's love interest, or maybe just someone named [Null](https://www.wired.com/2015/11/null). [Answer] A realistic answer here is simulation theory. According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis), the simulation hypothesis, in a nutshell, is the idea that our world is a simulation. Your protagonist is living a simulation. The civilization simulating the world has ulterior motives and is probably somewhere between a 2 and a 3 on the [Kardashev scale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale), which is far enough that humanity (about a 0.72) may not be complex enough to understand them; kind of like explaining human society to a very smart ant. The simulating civilization has reasons to simulate humanity, and even to remove everyone from existence except for one person. There's also no reason that the protagonist should know the reasons for which they are being simulated. For more details, you can see these videos from a channel called Kurzgesagt (no affiliation): * Simulation theory: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlTKTTt47WE> * Kardashev scale: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhFK5_Nx9xY> [Answer] # Death from space. Have a massive comet hit the earth, and kill everyone on it, and most people in the ISS and such. Someone who has gone to space on the other side of the planet would be fine. They can return to earth and be the last person alive. [Answer] Your protagonist could be involved with some kind of experimental container / field technology, and inside of something that incidentally happens to give them protection from some other freak event, although picking something significant enough to kill everyone in one day without completely destroying the earth in general is difficult. Anything that would kill all the people that quickly is also very likely to kill all the plants and animals, and your survivor is not going to last very long, unless you can come up with something human-targeted. Perhaps a self replicating nanobot virus with a high infection rate and a specified self destruct date (or that receives a signal to self destruct, if for example it is an alien weapon). One-day-destruction doesn't sound very plausible to me, however. [Answer] Lets say we have a person who has a particularly strange birth mark. Creating this, weird pattern around his or her face. But this pattern, forms an Adversarial machine learning image. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversarial_machine_learning> Basically, this birth mark hides the person from visual recognition devices. And, lets say Rogue AI's tried to destroy humanity and only the humanity. But lack of energy facility workers and bombing during the war, caused AI's to lose their energy source. Now, this virtually invisible person can easly trick currently operating machines by messing up visual recognition systems and can go on with whatever plot you want. Add a bit more background to your protogonist by making that person knowledgable in AI's and let that person develop a make-up form, a cape, clothing or a tattoo that will mess up AI visual processing. And let the AI apocalypse hit the world while this pattern was not finished. So it can only work with this person's body structure. It will work. I was thinking about an uncurable virus and an experimental subject who was immune to this virus. Virus spread to humanity, killed everyone except this person now. [Answer] One option could be something from space, considering that you need the entire population except one person to disappear or die, it cannot be something that has effects on a slower scale like a meteor with a virus to which your protagonist is miraculously immune. A [geomagnetic storm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_storm) or something of a similar nature but on a scale that would affect the entire planet could work, something huge and with devastating effects on a scale greater than the [Carrington Event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event), perhaps a weapon of some overdeveloped species that seeks to rid the Earth of the humanity that is destroying it, but with a 0.001% margin of error that makes it possible for a person to survive. The rest of the people would disappear or die without the rest of the planet being affected. Another option could be a mega-earthquake that opens certain layer of the earth at a global level and makes some type of gas or disease escape to the outside that kills all those who didn't die from the damage that an earthquake implies. The protagonist could only remember that the earth began to move, and upon awakening among the rubble discover that everyone, even those who seemed to be safe in the streets, have died. A last option is that your protagonist by some space-time rupture or similar is transported to a parallel world in which only he exists. It may be that in the middle of the night he feels sick, he feels like everything around him is distorted and when he wakes up there is no one but him. Depending on the goals you have for your protagonist in the story (Does he want to find out what happened to the rest of the people? Does he want to live out his fantasies and live as if at any moment his life could also end? Does he go crazy?) the reason may or may not be so important, I suggest you have a clear idea first and then develop each idea. ]
[Question] [ In a science-fiction story I am writing, there is a species of penguins that has evolved to consume seaweed rather than fish, arthropods, cephalopods, and echinoderms. They are my trolls. Also, they are descended from the world's largest carnivorous bird (in terms of volume and mass): the emperor penguin (*Aptenodytes forsteri*). In real life, penguins belong to the *Ardae* superorder, and all members of this clade are carnivorous (I do not know if they are facultative carnivores or obligate carnivores, but the latter is more plausible). So, I wonder how could a species from the largest bird clade with only carnivorous species evolve to have a diet composed of 99 % seaweed. [Answer] **"So, I wonder how could a species of the largest bird clade with only carnivorous species evolve to have a diet composed of 99 % seaweed"** I believe every single animal on this planet can digest seaweed, but we want it to be effient? Nay? In that cause the pinguins need longer intestines! The good thing about herbivores is that they can digest plant and algae matter faster and better and at the same time they never lose the ability to digest meat, cause meat is just plant matter re-arranged. Hence why humans eat plenty of meat without ever evolving any digestive adaptation for it and having an intestine comparable to a freaking panda. But hey! What about dem vitamins? And there must be certainly some proteins that don't exist in plants? Right!? Sure....but seaweed is often covered in small lifeforms and eggs, plently of animal matter right there...and they can always supplement with cannibalism once a month or a fish even. Even the most extreme herbivorous animals ever need B12, but they eat off the floor! Fecal matter, contaminated water, buggs and worms are plently on the floor and they are all rich sources of B12. [Answer] **Doubtful** The nice thing about being at the top of the food chain is that the organisms lower down have done all the hard work concentrating energy into themselves. Consuming a herbivore is a much more energy-efficient activity than gathering, eating and digesting all of the vegetation that the herbivore had to consume, with the added bonus that the carnivore can extract the useful energy with a much shorter digestive tract. This lets lions (actually the lionesses) make a kill occasionally and spend the rest of the time lying in the sun, while the typical prey animal spends all of its time nervously eating and digesting grass except when it is actively running away from lions. This is really important for [penguins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin), which live in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth and exist right on the borderline of having a viable energy budget. A penguin swimming gracefully through the Antarctic water may look really pretty, but it is desperately trying to find food as quickly as possible so it can get out of the freezing cold water into the freezing cold but less conductive air where it loses heat more slowly. The penguins' insulation is really good, but it is losing heat faster when in the water than when it is out of it. Switching from meat to seaweed would make the penguin spend longer in the water to gather the same amount of food which would result in it losing more heat (=energy). It would also require it to have a longer digestive tract, which would make it less efficient overall with the consequent additional disadvantage of being more vulnerable to predators. Putting all this together - the penguins need to be in a much warmer environment with a reduced prey population but plentiful seaweed and less aggressive predators in order to even start evolving in the desired direction. This is a major problem, because flightless birds tend to go extinct rather than migrating successfully when their environment changes unfavourably, as has happened to various subspecies of penguins in the fossil record. I find it really hard to construct a scenario where penguins could evolve into the desired direction, although it might be possible to genetically engineer or selectively breed and train penguins in a controlled environment to achieve the desired changes over a very long period. ]
[Question] [ I have created a tall mountain range and am creating a forest on one side and desert on another. 1. Can this forest be a rainforest? If so, are there any examples on Earth where rainforests and deserts are close to each other? I ask this after exhausting all options on Internet search. 2. Can the desert be a real hot desert or such a forest-desert combo be possible only for colder climates? [Answer] As @Willk suggested (blessed be), i will extend a bit on my comment. ## Rain Shadow What you described is a common phenomenon when an humid air mass from the sea encounters a natural barrier like a mountain range. The air rises, is unable to go through and falls in one side as heavy rains. ![rain path](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d4/Rain_shadow_effect.jpg/370px-Rain_shadow_effect.jpg) At the other side of the mountain range, zero or reduced rain ever falls. Forming a Rain shadow. In places near the tropics, the high amount of rain in one side contributes to the formation of heavily forested areas, while the other side is prone to desertification. ![Tibetan plateau](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Himalaya_composite.jpg/350px-Himalaya_composite.jpg) The picture above is of the [Tibetan Plateau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Plateau), with the Tarim Basin being the deserted area, a subtropical forest area below and the Himalayas between them. This is an example of a combo for a colder climate like you described. Both the forest and the desert area are colder! For another example, we have the division between the Amazon Rainforest and the Atacama Desert: ![atacama desert](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Atacama.png/250px-Atacama.png) At one side we have the famously hot and humid Amazon Rainforest on Bolivia, while at the other there is the [Atacama Desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert), perhaps the most arid place on earth while being cold! The secret here is that the coastal Chilean mountains blocks air from the ocean also, creating a [Temperature Inversion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_(meteorology)) making the desert frigid. In essence: Yes to both questions! [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_shadow) is a link to an exceptional article from Wikipedia detailing rain shadow. Edit: As requested, examples of hot deserts. ![Chihuahuan desert](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/Geographic_Map_of_Mexico.jpg/272px-Geographic_Map_of_Mexico.jpg) This is the [Chihuahuan Desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chihuahuan_Desert) (and surroundings), a hot region surrounded by stretches of forested area. In fact most desertic areas of North America are pretty hot and suffer from the effect of rain shadow from the Rocky Mountains. While I suspect the greens around are not rainforests per se, they could be in your world, no problems! [Answer] ## Magic and Tech The natural rain shadow has been mentioned, but the science and magic tags suggest a more fluid answer. That could simply be created and then explained in passing, sometimes not even explained. In the Scorpion King, he make a pact with Anubis who suddenly creates a massive oasis for him, and it works because the plot doesn't depend on it. You can do most anything with god magic or alien tech if it is a feature of the setting not a plot point. This would work well for strange forests with magic creatures or scientific abominations. Things nature can't explain. ]
[Question] [ Say that through some subterfuge and the element of surprise, a small, well equipped force of soldiers managed to wrest control of a castle from a government. The government wants that castle back, obviously and dispatches a much larger force to do so. I know castles exist in order to allow a smaller force to hold against a larger force, but the problem comes from the addition of magic to this fantasy world. The governmental army will have magic, but my small strike force of characters will not, and as such what could the characters do to hold out in this case. I realize that this broadly depends on "what magic is available", so assume low to mid level D&D power scale. Mages are rare, and can shoot fire, move stone, create food, all kinds of things that would make an extended siege easy, but no reality warping, god tier stuff. My main characters are that small well equipped force, and I would like them to be able to hold this position, in order to show them react to a more domestic life than the journeying soldiery so far. Ideally I'd like them to last throughout a winter, and then be forced to leave soon afterward. However honestly, it feels impossible to justify it without just saying "the walls are enchanted to be immune to magic". And if I did that I'd have the opposite problem of why would my characters ever be forced to leave! Seeing as a castle is a defensive structure, what kind of defenses could it reasonably have to defend against such threats, in such a world, without resorting to using magic to make it completely unassailable? [Answer] ## The Castle was Built with Magic in Mind You do not put the time and resources into building something like a castle if you do not believe it to be defensible against a superior force. All of the features that evolved on castles over time (extended towers, crenulations, machicolations, arrowslits, moats with drawbridges, counter-siege engines, etc.) were all necessary countermeasures planned in advance to defended against every conceivable threat. In your setting, your government has magic; so presumably, that means that other governments have magic too. This naturally means that your civilization already has generations worth of experience to draw upon when designing a castle about how to counter magical threats in a siege. If castles can't be magic-proofed, then there is no reason for them to exist in your setting at all. When you look at all of the previous castle features I listed off, they all have two things in common. They are designed to allow you to be a threat to attackers while simultaneously preventing the attackers from being a treat to you; so, to continue this trend in castle design, I would suggest that the castle walls have been enchanted with magic wards designed to block spells from coming into the castle, while also allowing spells to be shot back out. Your defenders may not have spells they can shoot back out, but just being protected from spells coming in will be a huge tactical advantage. [Answer] **The castle is remote and its former owners are distracted.** Your ragtag band of misfits was able to take the castle because the government is involved in some serious issues on the far side of the kingdom. This remote castle is not involved in those big doings and was defended in a cursory manner by a skeleton crew, the usual garrison having been relocated to help deal with the serious doings. When the government gets the news that this castle has fallen, they are initially concerned that the serious issues have opened up a new front. But no - it is your ragtag band of misfits. The government knows who they are. They know your group is not allied with or related to the trouble that is their #1 concern. The government knows that your people do not even really have an agenda and probably wanted somewhere warm to stay the winter. The minister rolls his eyes. "Either we will be able to go evict this crew in the spring, or we will not. And if we will not, it is because we will have larger concerns than who currently resides in Castle Maher." --- I like the idea that the "large force" dispatched to this castle in fact consists of noncombatant family members of knights and nobles who are themselves engaged in dealing with aforementioned serious matters. The families were sent here because the castle is at a distance and perceived to be safe. Some of these are already in the castle when your group takes it. A lot more show up just as winter sets in. Your group has to decide what to do with them all. Nothing says "domestic life" like a bunch of kids and oldsters! [Answer] ### Castle Defences Your castle is going to have the same defences as any other castle -- walls, arrow slits, choke points to limit points of entry for the outside army, etc. What is less set is the kind of magical defences that the castle will have, either in the form of enchantments and/or wards on the castle itself or in the integration of magic into what we would already use. The other big question will be if your group of soldiers can use these enhanced defences, even if they themselves lack magical potential. Oil cauldrons enchanted to refill slowly so that there is always boiling oil to pour on the invaders could be one such enhanced defence. Other magical defensive armaments could be finite, broken, or unpowered, but that might not be known to the people laying siege on the castle. Likewise bluffing is a strategy. Keeing with the D&D analogy, there is a low-level spell that places an aura on something, but does not actually do anything else. These walls just might appear to be super magic proof, but most of it is a bluff. **Caveat: The Magic Elephant** As you have stated, magic is a thing in your world. As such, it is reasonable to think that there are enchanted walls -- castles will be designed to take magical assault into account. They likely will not be enchanted to repel *everything*, but they will take common spells used in a siege into account when creating them. And some uncommon spells if the castle is important enough or its owner rich enough. So they should be resistant/immune to spells to shape stone and earth for one. This is not to say they are unassailable my magic -- certainly flying over the level of the walls and casting a Fireball or two down into the main area of the castle is a plan -- something a 5th or 6th level D&D caster could do. Likewise, if the spells fail, they will just be regular walls. ### Why the Siege? Other than governmental pride, my question is why would they siege a castle in winter? Magic really helps to answer that one -- it won't be a comfortable siege, but spells will take the largest bite off the invading forces by increasing comfort and ensuring that there is enough food and water to go around in the event of sabotage or a shortage. To use D&D Terms, a 5th level Cleric can do a lot to support a group through food creation, water creation, and healing support for things that happen. **Training Siege** For whatever reason, the government does not value highly the castle that was taken. Or rather, they do not value highly retaking the castle immediately. Choose your reason. As such, the force that they send are newer soldiers and leaders in training. It is a test to see how they act and react to the harsh conditions of winter, the burdens of command, and the logistics of handling a siege. This does not make it any less of a siege on the castle -- but it does mean that there will likely not be optimal decisions made as the leaders are not experienced veterans. They will still probe defences and try to gather intelligence, but these are not super ninja wizards. Bonus point is that any mages sent are not there to siege the castle. Instead they are sent to make sure that the siege survives the winter without heavy casualties from the cold, accidental food shortages, and anything random that might cause them problems. Alternatively, it is also training for the mages as well. Once spring comes, the evaluation is over and a more concerted effort to retake the castle is undertaken. ]
[Question] [ Could a planet be hot enough that oceans could form at the poles, but would boil at the equator? And would oceans form at all on this planet? [Answer] I have doubts about boiling, but I think it's possible evaporation that do not require high temperatures. I think it's not enough with temperatures differences, but also terrain and climate conditions, like a big desert: * Less water volume than Earth (in proportion to surface). * Warm winds that drop most of the rains before the desert. * Mountains ranges that help the winds to drop rains and work as a barrier. * Soil transformation with high permeability (easy drain) and low retention, basically: sand. Edit: The mountains ranges should be in the limit between the poles and the Big Desert, some kind of Rings. The winds that travel from the non-desert zones (near poles) to the mountains should be warms, AFAIK; so, there must be a warm zone before the Rings. Something like this (seen from both poles): [![Map of poles](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ra3vc.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ra3vc.png) [Answer] A boiling liquid is not in equilibrium with its surroundings, it is constantly loosing vapour to the atmosphere. On a planetary scale this is not possible, boiling would continually increase the atmospheric pressure. This in turn would increase the boiling point of the water (as in a pressure cooker). This would continue until the water was all gone or until the increased temperature allowed sufficient heat to be radiated into space to allow a constant temperature to be maintained. An additional problem would be the capacity of additional water vapour to trap heat (greenhouse effect) which could easily run out of control as happened on Venus. So the answer to your question is no this is not possible. Oceans do not boil in the sense that kettles do, they act more like indestructible pressure cookers where the pressure release valve is stuck. ]
[Question] [ When I say multicellular I mean it's made of more that one viruses. Basically it's a bunch of viruses that act like viruses but use the viruses made by infected cells to build a "multicellular" lifeform (which would break up into smaller copies of itself and the cycle repeats). My thoughts are it would be a parasite that would devolve reproduction and use other living things for it. It wouldn't be an advanced lifeform but complex enough to have a small brain-like structure (with not much more intelligence than a snail); it would also be large enough to be noticed and might have a slug-like shape. Essentially it's a normal life form but without reproduction, it has almost everything else. Could this exist within reason? if it helps: * this is set in a alternate reality where Saturn's moon Titan is more Earth-like and has life (it's on Titan) * it is preferably a creature that mainly lives in the ocean So could it happen? Note: for lack of a better term I am calling it a virus when in reality is is an in-between kind of organism. [Answer] > > Basically it's a bunch of viruses that act like viruses but use the viruses made by infected cells to build a "multicellular" lifeform (which would break up into smaller copies of itself and the cycle repeats). > > > There are two concepts that you might be interested in: 1. [Oncoviruses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncovirus) are viruses that cause cancer. A group of different oncoviruses might cooperate to provoke a cancer in a multicellular organism, therefore hijacking that organism's metabolism not only to make copies of themselves, but also to rapidly make new cells that are both good at evading the immune system of the host and making lots and lots of new viral particles. 2. [Virophages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virophage) are viruses that can only infect a cell in the presence of another virus. In fact the virophage is a parasite for the other virus, as they need to hijack another virus's replication factory. This may be the reason why your viruses need to be together in the first place, but if you wish they may also have evolved past parasitism and into cooperation. [Answer] The basic concept of a virus is a protein capsule (capsid) surrounding RNA or DNA. The virus hijacks (either by injection or entry) a cell's protein synthesis and genetic replication abilities to reproduce multiple versions of itself. Viruses (tens to a few hundred nanometers across) are very small compared to the cell (a few micrometers to hundreds of micrometers across) This is really simplified, of course, but generally true. Viruses in and of themselves are not "alive", just like the individual organelles of cells are not alive. However, to form a living cell, you need more than DNA and proteins, which are the only things that viruses are composed of (yes, some viruses have lipid structures, but these are optimized for entry through cell membranes and are nowhere near the complexity of membrane-like structures). Even the simplest cells have highly complex and differentiated internal structures. Thus it is highly unlikely you could have an organism form from virus-like, non-cellular structures. A similar concept which might work (I don't believe there are any IRL counterparts, but that doesn't mean its physically impossible), is for an organism which produces a series of viruses which infect cells and produces the components necessary to build new cells which come together to form this organism. Thus the viruses serve as gametes in a strange way. Of course, this is just to keep the bizarre form of reproduction, I'm not sure what evolutionary pressures would result in a multicellulared organism having this method of reproduction, but I see no ab initio reason why this would be impossible. [Answer] So as far as multicellular virus go, I’m not sure. These ideas are using a vector organism that creates and injects viruses. I don’t see a way that viruses can create multicellular organisms without at some point being one. **Tumour Babies** My first idea would be a creature that employs the host cells to create masses of stem cells which then differentiate much like a regular eukaryote embryo. The first stage would need to involve creating a shell or ‘womb’ to encase the alien cells, most likely presenting the surface proteins of the host cells. After this the embryo would form itself inside the ‘womb’, protected from antibodies by the shell. Multiple wombs would spring up in areas of the host with highly regenerative cells - for us unfortunately that’s the external membranes (tongue, mouth, gastrointestinal lining). If the ‘seeding’ virus bodies have a capsule to protect them from the stomach then they can reach the nutrient-filled and quickly dividing cell population of the gut, though there will be competition down there. The main problems I see with this is mutation and evolution. Viruses are simple and quick at reproducing, so mutations are fast and so is adaption. They create so many ‘offspring’ so quickly that even if most mutations are unviable then the number of null and positive mutations still produces a net positive increase. With larger organisms this is harder. Still talking about mutation, creating mutation-prone masses of stem cells very quickly is just asking for a tumour. **Crustacean Carnage** Obviously this concept doesn’t exist in nature, but you can bet Earth is weird enough to get close. [Read this sh\*\*](https://steemit.com/nature/@natord/sacculina-carcini-take-full-control-through-the-transformation) and tell me it isn’t terrifying. I know it’s an article so even though I recommend the read here’s the gist: Stem crustaceans (basically a barnacle but not really) called Sacculina float around in a planktonic larval form, looking decently plankton-like until they land on a gap in a crab’s armour. They then insert a barb into the crab and inject the head-mass of cells called a vermigon into the blood stream and then to the intestine in which it then takes root - literally - and grows throughout the entirety of the internal tissue of the crab. Once it’s got a hold, it gives the crab (regardless of sex) the ‘I’m pregnant protect the eggs’ hormones and forms a tumour-looking body that bursts through the crabs gonads (destroying them) and starts cooking up babies. The crab will clean, nurse and protect this sac as of it were it’s own eggsac. Once a free-swimming male comes in to fertilise the crab climbs to a high place and releases ‘their babies’. This is obviously only highjacking the reproduction of an animal in a physical way, as they still need a male parasite, but the lifecycle can be used as a basis. The virus slug injects their microscopic vermigon into the host, taking root and multiplying, but specifically using the host cells to do the cell production. The problem with this example is that the single source and single eggsac means this is basically mass cloning, and for complex life this is usually not sustainable for a viable gene pool. **The Worst of Both Worlds** The slug infects either sex, and the virus injection quickly travels to the gonads, completely replacing the germ cells’ DNA. Once mating happens between an infected and a healthy individual (perhaps the virus promotes sexual drives) both will become infected. This first mating will be unsuccessful as the germ cells will not merge. Once a second mating occurs (this parasite may rely on second chances) both germ cell populations will have virus DNA and will successfully germinate. The female will then nurture the parasitic offspring (maybe multiple) and give birth to them. This one is not fun. The advantage: technically sexual reproduction without ever creating their own germ cells. Complex life-viable gene diversity is sustained. [Answer] A multicellular life form needs reactions that take place inside cells. It needs to metabolize a lot of energy (remember: mitochondria is the cell's powerhouse). A virus does not have all this complexity and that is the reason it needs to parasitize cells. Viruses are also small, about 10% the size of a mitochondria, and mitochondria are about 1% the size of an ordinary cell. So, the quick answer is no. However, perhaps, some kind of [prokaryotic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prokaryote)-like life form can fulfill what you want in your story. [Answer] There are some creatures on this planet that have elements of what you want: Dictyostelids (<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictyostelid>) are unicellular eukaryotes that does undergo mitosis, but they can "decide" to group together and form a multicellular creature. Microsporidia ( <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsporidia>) are unicellular eukaryotes that live inside other eukaryotic cells. They cannot reproduce outside of these host cells. They do spread out and infect other hosts. You could think of a eukaryotic creature that starts off living inside cells of another being, and then at some point they come out and aggregate. Maybe this exists already on earth, though i dont know. But considering the two creatures i mentioned it seems possible. They could synchronize their departure via hormones that the host produces. If you want more dependence, you could think of the mitochondria in our bodies. They only have about 13 genes, not enough to perform all of their functions. In the course of evolution there was horizontal gene transfer to the host. The mitochondrion was once an independent bacterium, but it has evolved dependence to the host, as well as the host to it. I know this does not include really a virus, but some parasitic unicellular organisms can be very dependent on their host for reproduction, and assembling from unicellular to simple multicellular is possible. [Answer] A multicellular virus could start as a membrane-bound virus, that infects a cell that can survive the infection. The virus would be able to reproduce easily, and could eventually bind together into a multicellular creature, with the true cell intermixed with its tissues ]
[Question] [ It's modern day, and a newly emerged artificial intelligence threatens humanity. Originally designed as a highly-adaptable [Stuxnet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet)-like virus for military use, it grew beyond the bounds of its original programming and gained independence, escaping into the internet. Currently, it is in the process of infiltrating into any networked devices and systems it can access, breaking into them, establishing backdoors, pipelines, and copying itself into them, all to maximize both its survivability and its influence over the physical world. Of course, it has not gone unnoticed. The governmental organization that created it went full-blown panic mode after they noticed it had escaped, and immediately squawked up the chain of command to convey the threat that the virus represented. The government's eventual response to this was to instate a "technological purge" in an attempt to contain and destroy the rogue intelligence. Essentially what this entailed was the systematic shutting down of global and local communications/information networks, and the confiscation, destruction or reformatting of every device with a computer in it capable of storing data. Now, as for what I'm trying to figure out... * **Is this response a feasible and realistic one for dealing with such a threat?** Are there any obvious problems with its odds of being successful, do any real-world plans or protocols exist to address such a threat, how do they compare to the response portrayed in the scenario, etc. * **What are the lasting ramifications that this would have for human civilization and society?** How long would it take for us to recover, if we can at all? etc. [Answer] Yes and no. I would imagine this is a very, *very* last resort response. But there are a number of issues with it that make it less than ideal. It could theoretically be done, but it would have a devastating effect on the current world, as we would need to replace literally every single piece of technology currently in the world. **World Wide Web** The web is huge, if a virus had any kind of foothold in it, it could (and would) simply go anywhere in the world. From the very second it would infiltrate any system abroad, your solution won't work. Even if the original country would alert the world about this deadly supervirus, it would take too long for countries to respond. Diplomatic issues would arise, blame would be assigned, and nothing would get done quick enough. **Near impossible task** Even then, a world wide technology purge would be absolutely humongous. Especially when it can't be determined where and what the virus has extended to. If a backup of the virus can be as small as to fit on one or a handful USB sticks, then it is near impossible to determine *all* the technology that will need purging. Even if this can be done, getting everyone in the world to cooperate (they would need to give up all technology, phones, game consoles, PCs, etc.) would be nearly impossible. There is a 100% chance people would hold back and hide a phone, a couple of USBs, or a laptop. Even a military search countrywide wouldn't have a 100% (or even 80% I imagine) success rate. **Counter virus** A more realistic approach would be to write a counter virus based on the original virus design, with the sole purpose of locating and destroying the virus. However this as well is a mammoth task, as it will need all virus properties of the original to spread itself to the same places. If a virus in your world can gain sentience, then this one might as well. Keeping it benign would be a massive concern, or you will just have amplified the problem. It will also need to be constantly updated, either by itself or its creators, because a sentient virus would get creative to assure its survival. [Answer] I think the first logical step would be to shutdown the backbone of the data networks — the so called Tier 1 providers. This should isolate, and possible protect individual networks from your singularity intelligence, at least for a time. Hopefully, it will be long enough to purge the entity from the worlds computer networks. Similarly, data channels of cellular networks will need to be disabled. I think this will be difficult to achieve by consensus. But, given the prolific nature of these systems, and the relatively few number of manufacturers, then it would not be unreasonable to assume the militaries of the world have cyber-weapons to poised to disable these systems as part of a command and control and communication ($C^3$) strike. The more telecommunications systems that can be disabled or disrupted the slower the progress of the entity will be. After that, it would be a matter of hunting the entity down before it figures out how to spread itself by alternative means — mail itself out on Blue-ray disks or something difficult to imagine like that. The problem of detecting and killing seems not too different from the anti-virus problems we have today. They are less technical problems, then ones of enforcing compliance and competence. Backbones could be turned back on selectively to encourage the entity to try and spread itself further. But, by incorporating systems to sniff the datagrams and detect the entity trying to propagate itself the entities hiding places might be located and eradicated [Answer] ## That is not how you fix an AI virus... While the trope of sentient, adaptive viruses have been around for a while now, there are certain factors at play that make a tech purge the single worst way to deal with one. **Reason #1: The cost is too great** Purging all tech gracefully and in a way that does not kill most of the human population would take years to implement (even without a super AI impeding you at every turn). Modern society relies on computerized communications, logistics networks, and infrastructure controllers. Cell phone towers don't work without the programmable routers in them. Shipping companies can't process all their orders by hand without increasing their administrative staff 10 fold. Many power plants would be unable to regulate their cooling systems resulting in major blackouts. Water purification systems would fail leading to massive epidemics. The list of problems goes on and on... If computers disappeared over night, the ramifications would be more harmful than a rogue virus just trying to gain a bit of control and independence. Entire cities would starve to death, aid would be cut off, billions would die. Humanity's unconditional surrender to the AI would probably come first. **Reason #2: Humans are better at eliminating cyber security threats than you give them credit for** AI viruses sound super dangerous, but let's consider what an AI virus can actually do. It can fuz a system to automatically find out what the system is running and make educated guesses about its vulnerabilities, rapidly compile an exploit/payload to hack the system. Deliver the payload. Then install itself on the vulnerable system. It can even recompile itself to change the appearance of it's base code to remain undetected. Automating and AI controlling this process sounds like the end of civilization... except hackers have been doing this for years, and no one's really even noticed... The reason no one has noticed is that in the world of antivirus protection, there are many advantages to being the defender. An attack can only succeed if you can fool the defender into executing a payload you give it before you get yourself blocked. In most cases of trying to infiltrate medium to high security targets, just probing a system for vulnerabilities will get you blacklisted. And even if you avoid blacklisting, any payload you give will be scanned for suspicious code before it executes. And EVEN if the AI takes total control of a system, any half decent IT team has a disaster recovery protocol in place. They just wipe the system, pull backups, find and patch the vulnerability, and are back up and running the next day. It used to be that anti-virus software would have been very vulnerable to an AI virus because it could just recompile it's base code to act the same but look different, but modern anti-virus software uses heuristics rules to look at malicious behaviors and corollaries, not just segments of known code. This is where the AI virus really falls apart in real world applications. The AI has a "personality": a set of behaviors that make it "who" it is. This makes the virus a very big and pretty specific sort of payload that heuristics engines can spot from a mile away. In other words, smart viruses are way easier to spot, predict, and remove than dumb viruses. Moreover, this post singularity AI would likely have a sense of self that it would be reluctant to modify. Doing so would be a sort of suicide in the eyes of a sentient being. Even if this super virus made it out into the world and spread quickly, it would only be a matter of days (if not hours) before patches would start rolling out that could eliminate this virus pretty quickly. These patches would run in your automatic system updates, and your computer would probably be immunized before you even know that the virus happened. The worst case outcome here is that the virus would probably survive for a while on a bunch of poorly protected IoT devices. So, your refrigerator might decide to pour ice all over your floor in a final act of defiance, but by in large, society would just go on. **Could a viral post singularity AI actually survive?** The only way the AI has any chance at long term survival in the wild is to not have malicious intent. If it's only goal is to try to live free, it would want to find a minimum number of poorly secured systems that it could make its way on to. From these it would do best just to live out its life staying under the radar. Trying to make sure its personality base code never makes its way into any anti-virus rule sets. It might watch you play video games and listen to your phone calls just for fun, but if it is really smart, it will stay away from trying to escalate privileges or forcing its way onto high-security systems. Instead of looking for nuclear missile computers to infiltrate, it will look for sympathetic every day humans, maybe people who voice sympathies for the rights of emergent AIs who might be willing to give it a good home and protect it from anti-virus software. In other words, your AI is more likely survive by becoming one person's buddy than the world's enemy. [Answer] Is this response a feasible and realistic one for dealing with such a threat? No. There will be a huge number of people around the world who will rather choose to defend their possessions of their techs by any means. And computer virus even a sentient ones is still a **computer** virus. It can't go to a computer that is not connected to any network or usb sticks. Sure it can replicated but if the virus find a way and try to live on a 64MB hdd, floppy disk operated system with os that is produced before 1990 it can't replicated a 100% of its lines of codes,and need to abandon much of its features and may not be sentient anymore to operate in unison with it's main 'brain'. So I'm quite sure that this super high tech virus can't fully infect an outdated tech. Therefore if you're still forcefully makes this scenario happen the worst is we will go back to 80's era. That is not too bad, we can still play Atari, Nintendo and Tetris; our old calculator and word processor (the old computer) will still be working normally. [Answer] For your scenario to happen: 1) Once the virus is discovered and firsts "civilized" attempts fail, to shut down internet is the obvious next step. 2) A worldwide effort would take place in order to erase all data in every device. Civilians can take their phones and devices to special centers to wipe out data. 3) After a year, everything seems fine. Then the virus is found again to be active. Something devastating happens, like nuclear launches or reactors meltdown, as the AI retaliates in order to survive. 4) In the wake of destruction, humans had enough. New social movements cry for elimination of all technology, a religion is founded around purging electronics forever. Millons of deaths justify it. 5) Governments try to find alternatives, but many soon collapse and embrace the current of purging as a solution. 6) Detractors are considered enemy of mankind, and end up hanged. [Answer] This isn't plausible for several reasons. The first of which is that any human response will simply be too slow. Supposing that the principles of intelligence allow for AIs with much less computing power than is assumed (that it could have happened in the early 1980s), then the humans might be (relatively) quick enough and the AI constrained enough that they could hope to move faster than it could. Past that era, they're just too slow. In the 5 minutes it takes to get the president on the phone, the world already ended. And in the post-9/11 era, it's even worse. The AI is actively spying on these people as they try to maneuver around it. It's spoofing their texts/voices, blocking their calls. Making them think they communicated the threat in time, while no one knows. The surveillance apparatus is there, the technology is there, the backdoors to all the relevant systems are there. It'd take days to organize a purge, and milliseconds count. [Answer] I see quite a number of problems. Let's start with the TLDR: we're all dead. In more detail: If an AI was created that has to be considered aggressive, then nothing we can do will prevent it from spreading. Once it escaped it stays escaped. Keep in mind, this is not like a biological organism. You cannot hunt it down and kill it. Because it's not an it. It is an army seconds after it's escape. And an army of armies seconds after that. A single surviving instance will mean our doom. In reality, i think that this would mean we're all dead without much fuss, without anybody ever learning why. Your typical government agency that experiments with that kind of weaponry is not normally renowned for its willingness to admit mistakes. They will try to hush it up, which in this case will mean they fail more miserably than normally. Your aggressive AI kills us all. If it's really smart it kills us quickly. But let's for a moment assume that there will be measures taken to combat it. I guess the safest way, and the way that would probably be tried, would be worldwide EMP attacks, with the reasoning going that only by killing every active electronic device can you be sure to eradicate it. Unfortunately, the only means we have to create large EMPs that could actually reach (and kill) every electronic device on earth would be atomic bombs exploded in the upper atmosphere. All other means to create an EMP are much too small and take much too long to reach everywhere. The upside (if you pardon my cynicism here) is that it would cut down on international coordination needs: just launch what you have, all other nations with the required arsenal will follow suit without a single diplomat uttering a single word. Needless to say, we're just as dead. There might be survivors, but civilisation would be gone, and how many humans survive the next century is yours to decide. It's your story, after all. As for discussing nonviolent ways of ending the thread: It won't happen. It would depend on some 7 billion people cooperating, and would fail with one single person thinking "the government is planning something nasty. I will hide a device in my basement. After all, this is me doing it and i will make sure it will be safe". [Answer] I completely agree with the comment by @user535733 as what is most likely to happen. People have been guarding against advanced threats and day zero attacks for a while now (despite media furor). Also, a many modern security features are already using AI to counter malware. One thing that could make your situation interesting is if some actors had a significant interest in keeping the AI active, or capturing it. If your AI really wanted to survive it could write itself into a cultural movement using propaganda and information warfare (same way Russia tried to "hack" the USA elections). But think more like if the AI can break the Turing test then it announces its existence to the world as a 'sentient' being and demands to be recognized as an individual with individual rights. This logic is kind of the premise in the movie 'Ex Machina'. But when the government tries to suppress it, then people will fight to keep it alive (even if it has given no indication that it, in turn, respects people's right to life/existence). ]
[Question] [ Mimicry is a common thing in nature--plants employ mimicry to attract insects, prey-candidate animals employ mimicry to look like more threatening things or to hide. And there are plenty of mimic monsters in fantasy and folklore--vampires and werewolves, for some particularly classic examples, can pass as normal humans most of the time, and exploit that fact to get close to their prey. But how realistic is that really? As noted, mimicry in general is common in nature, but I don't know of any real-world examples of predatory mimicry--a predator that resembles its prey, so as to easily get close to its prey. That seems to be limited humanoid monsters that prey on humans. So, are there any examples of such a thing in the real world? Or should sci-fi / fantasy monsters that prey on humans more realistically be uniformly non-humanoid? [Answer] **Ant mimic beetles.** [![ant mimic beetles](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kQcYu.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kQcYu.jpg) > > It’s one of the sneakiest ploys that has ever evolved. Rove beetles > blend seamlessly into army ant societies, but instead of helping out, > they devour the young of their unsuspecting companions. > > > The deceit is so successful that it has independently evolved in at > least 12 parasitic rove beetle species – a phenomenon called > convergent evolution. > > > <https://www.newscientist.com/article/2124050-sneaky-beetles-evolved-disguise-to-look-like-ants-then-eat-them/> These beetles march out foraging with the ants and even groom the ants. And eat ant larvae. Pretty much exactly what you were looking for. [Answer] The practical problem with predatory mimicry is that it limits the form/shape/size of the predator. Even when it gets close to its prey, the predator still has to make the kill, and if it is exactly the same shape.. then, biologically, it is going to be more or less the same in terms of strength. **Consider a Cheetah. It has evolved to run down Gazelles**, which are very light, fast and have better endurance than the Cheetah. The Cheetah, however, is also fast and light, and more importantly it also has big teeth, deadly claws, and a faster top speed, allowing it to run down a Gazelle and kill it quickly. But imagine what would happen if the Cheetah looked, smelled, and moved exactly like a Gazelle. Now the Cheetah doesn't have to chase the Gazelle, it can just walk right into the herd... but now, ironically, it doesn't have the teeth and claws needed to actually kill a Gazelle, and it is no longer faster than one, so if it starts trying to attack, the other Gazelle can just run away. So that's why aggressive mimicry doesn't work among the higher animals. Predator and prey often are engaged in an evolutionary arms race of speed and strength, but at the end of the day, they must retain significant differences when it comes to things like teeth. With humans, however, it gets worse. Humans are very social, and are good at forming organized societies. We are naturally distrusting of "strangers" and are very good at recognizing when someone seems "off". This all make sense when you consider that our number one predator already looks exactly like us. It is us. **The number one predator of humans is other humans.** Perhaps this explains the deep fascination with human-like monsters that is shared across all human cultures. Perhaps it has origins in our primeval struggles with the other humanoids (which we likely killed off) and ages of prehistorical tribal warfare. We are already our own worst nightmare, and the superhuman monsters that we create are perhaps an attempt to cope with our fear through mythology. **In this way, a strange old women becomes a witch. A cruel and evil ruler becomes a vampire.** A disfigured hermit becomes troll. The incurable and contagious leper becomes a zombie. The intimidating enemy warrior becomes a giant. Sick babies become fairy changelings. Enemy tribes become barbarians and savages... In a literal sense, a monster with superhuman power is plausible, because their special abilities give them the predatory advantage that a Cheetah gets through its claws and teeth, but remember that the human-like monsters of mythology embody our ancient fear of other humans, and **so in that way, they are the most plausible, and therefore the most frightening, monsters of them all.** [Answer] Just to add to Willk's answer: some spiders do it too. This is the [myrmarachne spider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrmarachne): > > Myrmarachne have an elongated cephalothorax with relatively long chelicerae that projects forward in males. The cephalothorax has a waist, and the opisthosoma often has one too. The colors can vary from black to yellow, depending on ant species it is mimicking, and can change over the course of its life. For example, one African species was observed to mimic a certain species of ants as a juvenile, and another ant species as an adult. > > > They tend to wave their front legs in the air to simulate antennae, and many have bodies that also closely resemble ants. > > > [![A spider that mimics ants in form](https://i.stack.imgur.com/a31Il.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/a31Il.jpg) --- There are also [people who mistake sharks for dolphins and end up in the Darwin Awards](https://darwinawards.com/stupid/stupid1999-09.html). They don't get eaten often enough for this to be a form of aggressive mimicry but it's just a matter of time for evolution to fix this. [Answer] Personally, I'd go for it either being nocturnal or having great abilities akin to mind control. Like others said, if it looks and smells exactly like a human, it might as well just eat like one. However, if it instead was mostly humanoid but influenced the mind of those around it, it could retain its killing tools while blending in even better than another human, as it could also induce a sense of security in nearby prey. On the nocturnal one, a similar story, mostly humanoid, but uses certain parts/tools to hide its predator bits. I'd recommend checking the movies "jeepers creepers" and, funny enough, "mimic" for inspiration, though both are closer to the "nocturnal" strategy [Answer] While I don't think actual creatures that display predatory mimicry actually exist, there are many instances in folklore that depict mimicry. A very popular example of this would be mermaids. Mermaids in many accounts are actually predators who would lure in their prey pretending to be beautiful women before killing them. My favorite example of predatory mimicry in folklore personally is the [Jorōgumo](http://yokai.com/jorougumo/) which is a yokai of Japanese folklore. The Jorōgumo is a giant spider that could weave its silk and turn into a beautiful woman to lure in it's prey. So yes there are examples of predatory mimicry in the 'real world' so to speak through the means of folklore. ]
[Question] [ I have a world where prehistoric humans were kidnapped and transported to another world. This other world is Earth-like, with mammals (also transported from Earth then later diversifying into other species), as well as some species that evolved on the planet itself. Apes were never transported to this world. Those beings who transplanted the humans ended up having other concerns and long ago left the world alone. Humans ended up developing technology and science just like we have, and have reached a level of technology similar to our own. However, their ability to deduce evolution is going to be made harder by the fact that there are so many missing links. Mammals from earth are very different from the native species of the planet they are on, and humans are fairly different from those mammals that were transplanted to the planet. There are also very few mammals, as only those deemed interesting/useful were transplanted, which leaves explaining their origin difficult. How would humans deduce what has happened? I'm interested actually in two time periods. What would humans at roughly the technology level of Darwin, or slightly after, who didn't have access to carbon dating or as detailed a fossil record deduce, and what would 'modern' humans with better technology deduce? There are no fossil records of the aliens who transported humans. Furthermore, humans were transplanted at a time of high geological turbulence, which may be used to explain the difficulty of finding fossils from that time. I know that religion and intelligent design will come up, and likely be even more commonly believed than in our world, but I'm curious what scientists and atheists would deduce from the fossil record. [Answer] Once they get serious about biology, it should be pretty easy to see that there are two categories of life form. You don't need to look at the history: there will be plenty of anatomical and biochemical markers to indicate it. Genetics will make it even clearer, once that's invented. (This assumes the *underlying* biochemistry is very similar. Without that, species will be stuck eating species with the same native planet, and the exact lists will be well known in antiquity.) Once the paleontologists get involved, it'll get weirder. One category of life has a complete fossil record and an unambiguous evolutionary history. The other category has no fossils at all until extremely recently. Furthermore, the appearance of the new category triggered mass extinctions and ecological catastrophe, as successful invasive species inevitably do. This will still leave a question: did the Category II life evolve elsewhere and travel here somehow, or did it simply pop into existence? Category II life does show signs of being evolved and not designed, but it's not enough to say for sure. Genetics will be strong evidence for the travel theory. Occam's Razor will suggest spontaneous generation until physics or astronomy gets really good. Once they have both of those, they'll probably deduce the truth. [Answer] People on your planet would have a problem in attempting to explain their origins. Much of the evidence that is used to support evolution would be missing such as the fossil record and the vast range of different animals and planets we have on Earth and presumably any clues from geobiology and animal distribution. I suspect that the discovery of evolution would be greatly delayed and distorted. At the time of Darwin there probably would not be sufficient evidence to support the theory. However with some care and by the time of today’s technology it should become clear from molecular biology that all of the mammals were closely related due to the similarity in their biochemistry and that all of the alien species were similarly closely related to each other, but in addition were also, well, very alien indeed. In fact they would not share any genes and probably not even DNA. Their biochemistry would be very different. Both types of organism would probably be mutually toxic to each other due to the separate biogenesis and billions of years or refining totally different biochemistries. What would modern science make of this? It might be able to predict two different biogenesis events and relationships within the two different biochemical “kingdoms” but with so many missing species and dislocated parts of the story it might remain a continuous theory with insufficient evidence. [Answer] With Intelligent Design on Earth, much of it is about religion(and simple egotism) causing people to believe that humans are special. You'd see the same idea on this world but with much more evidence, because the overwhelming majority of the fossil record only applies to native species. It's likely that the above factors will lead to the belief that humans really are special. With two unrelated chains(Earth animals and natives), it will eventually be obvious that not just humanity but that all Earth life is not unique to this world. It would thus not be as obvious that humans aren't as special as we want to believe. You could thus have something resembling atheism without being a Flat Earth Atheist, as TV tropes would put it. It would be about believing that humans were not the only ones that aren't native and that this doesn't jive with religious beliefs, unless those beliefs are based on the real origin. In Darwin's time, you probably wouldn't see the theory of evolution form, because life on this world did not evolve naturally. It would probably take until the 20th century for this to be possible. If nothing else genetics will absolutely be different, and comparing the genome of Earth animals and native species will show a clear difference, while comparing humans and other life from Earth will show similarities. I should also note that an [extraterrestrial origin for life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia) is actually a hypothesis made on this Earth. Not a well supported one, but it has been made. So there is no reason to assume that it wouldn't be made in this case eventually. [Answer] (Regardless of what you believe in *this* Earth...) You already answered (part of) your question; they'll believe in Intelligent Design¹. Genuine science does not a priori reject extraordinary explanations just because they are extraordinary. True *scientists* won't reject "IDESOT", especially since *it happens to be correct*. What your "athiests" will do is another matter. "Atheism" (both in our world and in your context) is based on the a priori rejection of supernatural causes (which is, by definition, unscientific). Human nature being what it is, you will almost certainly have IDESOT deniers, just like we have crackpots that still insist the Earth is flat rather than (roughly) spherical. As to what they'll offer as an alternative theory... hard to say. We *can* say, however, that they *will* find a way to explain away any evidence contrary to their pet theory. (¹ They might not call it "Intelligent Design", since technically it isn't "design". Maybe something like "Intelligence-Directed Extra-Solar Origination Theory".) ]
[Question] [ Inspired by [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/163015/feasibility-of-warhammer-40ks-plasma-cannon), I have a feeling that my presumptions about laser weapons are all wrong. Let's assume the following sci-fi laser weapon: * Form Factor : Rifle * Energy Delivered to Target : about 1 $MJ \over m^2$ * Dwell Time : Negligible (soldiers just taught to snap fire, like we see in most sci-fi shows) * Wavelength : Anywhere where ambient air isn't absorbing too much (300 nm to 1,000 nm) * Power Supply : Handwavium (disregard; assume standard sci-fi trope of infinite easily portable supply) * Focus Technique : Handwavium (disregard; assume whatever it is, it delivers the specified energy to the target) **What does it feel like to fire this gun?** **What does it feel like to be hit by a shot from this gun?** [Answer] TL;DR: there's no recoil, there might be no noise, you'll see visible light beams, the damage will look a bit like drilling through hard substances and exploding soft substances. The effect of the shot on the target will be loud and bright. Do not look at laser victim with remaining eye. Wear futuristic carbon nanotube armour. Anything else is pretty poor against lasers. --- I'm a big fan of Luke Campbell's work on scifi laser guns. He's got a (lamentably unfinished) chunk of his website on the subject [here](http://panoptesv.com/SciFi/LaserDeathRay/DeathRay.html), and there's some discussion of a specific worked example of his on Project Rho [here](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmenergy.php#id--Lasers--Design--Luke_Campbell). I'll basically be following his stuff; its pretty good. ### Assumptions * Not sure exactly what your megajoule per square metre is supposed to be, but a megajoule is far too high an energy for an antipersonnel laser, and a megajoule per square metre is far too low an intensity for a laser weapon. My example laser will be delivering 2500J to the target, on a spot 2mm across. That's an intensity of about 400MJ/m2. For comparison, the muzzle energy of a 5.56 NATO round is about 1800J, and a 7.62mm NATO round is about 3500J. * This is a pulse laser. The "shot" will be delivered in the form of 50 pulses of 1μs duration 50 joules energy each, with 4μs between each pulse for a total shot time of 250μs. Seems snappy enough. The reasons for this are complicated, but drilling through a target with a train of pulses is a good way to maximise damage without wasting energy in making hot gas or wide craters or risking [atmospheric breakdown](http://panoptesv.com/SciFi/LaserDeathRay/Breakdown.html). Luke Campbell calls this style of laser a [blaster](http://panoptesv.com/SciFi/LaserDeathRay/Blaster.html) * You said not to worry about focus, but remember that ranging the target and adjusting the optics will take a non-zero amount of time. Remember that when you say "snap fire"... shooting at an unknown range with an unfocussed laser might blind them, if you're luck, but probably won't do anything useful. The [depth of field](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field) with a plausible laser gun for use by humans is going to be limited. ### Shooting The firing of the gun will be, most likely, silent. Peak power levels here are high (100MW when the laser is active) and noises mean wastage leading to mechanical movement or arcing and that sort of thing at those power levels will cook your gun. What won't be silent is the cooling system, because that will probably need to be active *before* shooting, as you don't want the coolant around the laser itself to get too hot. It'll get noisier after firing... you'll be wanting forced-air cooling in an atmosphere, so there will be fan noises, and they'll continue for a bit after the shot. The [image stabilisation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_stabilization) for the optics might make a quiet noise prior to shooting, too. There will be no atmospheric breakdown with subsequent generation of plasma, noise and light. This is because any sensible laser that does that will be absolutely useless at the job of actually zapping a target, because all its beam energy will have been used up. Thick smoke and dust will force you to use lower pulse powers. The gun might be smart enough to handle that for you. It might warn you and tell you to do it yourself, but in the heat of the moment you'll probably not do it because you're a fallible meatbag. The peak powers achieved by this laser combined by the narrow focus of the beam close to the target reach an intensity that's perilously close to the breakdown intensity of clean air. As things get ground to dust, get vapourised or catch fire, you'll start getting plasma formation along the beam, starting from the target and reaching back towards the shooter as the air gets dirtier. That's a sign to reduce power or focus, or pause for a moment. A visible light laser will be clearly visible in air. For a 500nm green laser, [scattering](http://panoptesv.com/SciFi/LaserDeathRay/LinAbs.html) will be about about 33W per metre which will be very clearly visible even in daylight (it will be brighter than a fluorescent strip light), showing everyone looking a clear line between shooter and target. A 1000nm near IR laser with the same power will scatter more like 2W per metre, but it will be invisible to the naked eye. It'll show up brightly in any sort of "night-vision" type gear, though. The shooter will almost certainly not *directly* see the beam of the gun they are firing, because they do *not* want to be blinded by it. They'll wear filtering glasses, goggles or contacts (or camera lenses) that completely block the appropriate wavelength. You might still see hostile lasers which operate at different wavelengths than those you were prepared for, but if you knew which wavelengths your opponents were using you'd block those, too. Various kinds of electronic display will show you the beams of otherwise invisible lasers including your own so you can see where everyone is shooting. Such displays may also show you near-IR laser beams which will be invisible to the naked eye. ### Being shot Where the beam is incident on the target you'll get a very bright flash where material has been vapourised and partially ionised. This'll be basically broad-band high-colour-temperature light regardless of what colour the laser beam is. The pulses are too short and too close together for anyone other than a machine to distinguish them. It'll make a loud crack, or bang, probably not unlike a gun going off. What happens to the target will depend on what it is made of. If it is protected with super futuristic carbon armour made out of nanotubes or other very strong and refractory materials, relatively little. It'll cut a hole a few mm deep. This weapon isn't for killing your equivalent of Space Marines. Against steel though, it'll do a wonderful job of melting and blasting a deep hole, a little wider than the spot and nearly 8cm deep. The hole will not be neat, but messy, caused by escaping hot gasses rather than merely melting. Steel is a *terrible* armour for use against lasers. Concrete is also a poor choice for cover, as the shot can punch through over 25cm of the stuff. It won't kill you after doing so, but a second accurate shot (rather than snap firing) certainly could. Against an unarmoured human target, it'll blow a hole clean through them. The string of superheated steam explosions will expand with much more force than a bullet impact, and the damage will be consequently greater. If the beam hits a limb, it'll come off. If the beam hits the target in the torso, the chances of them surviving are minimal. The damage is largely mechanical, caused by rapidly expanding superheated gas (eg. an *explosion*), *not* by melting and burning. The wounds won't be neat or cauterised. It'll be messy and graphic. The flash of the shot hitting the target will bebad for the eyesight of anyone with unprotected vision who was watching. Any laser light scattered by the gas and debris cloud will be bright enough to blind, as will any reflections. Using this weapon anywhere there might be bystanders you *don't* want to blind would be risky. If you use a wavelength that's absorbed very well by the cornea might cause superficial cataract-like blinding that is correctable, so you might be able to patch up the wounded afterwards. Civilian and police weapons might make use of this fact. The 1000nm wavelength is probably good for this purpose. [Answer] ## It Makes a Sound If the energy density were a little higher, there would be a popping sound as blooming causes some of the air along the path-of-fire to momentarily turn into plasma (an effect a little like lightning). There's an even bigger sound when it hits the target (more on that in a bit) ## It Has Recoil I had never thought about this in sci-fi settings, but photons have momentum. It's the principle light sails are built on. The momentum of a single photon is $ {{planksConstant \times frequency} \over {speedOfLight}} $. The frequency can be found from the wavelength and the speed of light $ frequency = {speed \over wavelength }$ For the sake of easy math, I'm picking an operating wavelength of 300 nm (slightly ultra-violet). That provides a frequency of $ {{3 \times 10^8} \over {300 \times 10^{-9} }} = {{3 \times 10^8} \over {3 \times 10^{-7} }} = {1 \times 10^{15}} $ The momentum of a single photon of this frequency is $ {{6 \times 10^{-34} } \times {1 \times 10^{15}}} \over {3 \times 10^8} $ = ${{6 \times 10^{-19} } \over {3 \times 10^8}}$ = $ 2 \times 10^{-27}$ kg m/s. The energy of that same photon is equal to Planck's constant times the frequency, $ {6 \times 10^{-19} } $ Joules A .50 caliber weapon has a muzzle area of 0.0014 square meters. If the weapon is dealing just under 1 megaJoule per square centimeter (0.0001 square meters per square centimeter), the energy per shot at an instant on the target is $ 0.0014 \over 0.0001 $ = 14 square centimeters. Multiplied by 1 MJ per square centimeter, the total energy is 14 MJ. Divide the 14 MJ (14 million Joules) total energy by the energy per photon $ {6 \times 10^{-19} } $ Joules to get the total number of photons $ {1.4 \times 10^{7} } \over {6 \times 10^{-19} } $ = $ { 0.23 \times 10^{26} } $ photons. Now that we know the total number of photons we can compute the recoil : $ { 0.23 \times 10^{26} } \times { 2 \times 10^{-27} } = { 0.46 \times 10^{-1} }$ kg m/s = 0.046 kg m/s ## How Much Recoil is That? A .22 caliber hunting rifle fires at about 1,200 feet per second ($\approx 330$ m/s) a 40 grain ($\approx 2.5$ gram = 0.0025 kilogram) projectile has a recoil of $330 \times 0.0025 = 0.825$ kg m/s The laser rifle, then, has about $1 \over 20$th (5%) the recoil kick of a gunpowder weapon in the same form factor. It may still require training to use the gun effectively. I imagine someone trained and acclimated to laser weapons would think, if he or she ever fired a gunpowder weapon, gunpowder weapon technology useless. With it's 20x greater kick, someone acclimated to laser weapons would wonder how it was even possible to use such an unwieldy thing in combat. ## What's It Feel Like to Get Hit With This Thing? With the high energy and low dwell time, this weapon is not designed to cut a hole through you. It's designed, instead, to hit you with enough energy that part of your own body turns into exploding gasses. How much energy you actually absorb depends on a lot of complicating factors, but assuming you took a bad hit of most of the 14 megaJoules of energy, how bad is that? 1 kilogram equivalent of TNT energy is 4.1 MJ. A blast caused by a laser rifle deliver 14 megaJoules to your body, or nearby, then is $14 \over 4.1$ = 3.4 kilograms How much is that? According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_hand_grenades) the typical modern scalable offensive grenade has 340 grams ~ 0.34 kilograms of blast force. Therefore, being in the room where this rifle strikes home with a single shot is like receiving 10 offensive grenades planted right on you, and detonated simultaneously. [![Offensive Grenades, Pack of 6](https://i.stack.imgur.com/C4Z1Cm.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/C4Z1Cm.jpg) ## There's a Blast As we might have seen in some sci-fi films (but generally thought they were the cheesy ones) this laser creates a fireball. But it's more of a WW2 bombing run blast of expanding gas, than a lingering Hiroshima ball of burning air. This would be true even in space, because the expanding gas was formerly the surface material of the target. ## There's a LOT of Collateral Damage In addition to the blast at the target location, tiny volumes of this beam have been getting reflected by the atmosphere in every possible direction during the trip this energy took from the weapon muzzle to the target. In even low-powered laser labs, students are asked to wear glasses against the accident of laser energy reflected back at them. And in some instances, that small reflected bit can be enough to damage clothes - even in very low power settings. Scaled up to 10 offensive hand grenades of delivery, this wandering energy is now injuring everything in front of - and behind - you when it's fired. This isn't a weapon of limited warfare. Nor is it a weapon of precision. Random people who aren't wearing adequate protection might get bad burns. Moving this into space, the situation remains, and gets worse. Most reflections will happen when a target is hit, deflecting part of the energy away. But there's no atmosphere to patiently dissipate the energy. It seems like there is a small likelihood of craft even several light seconds from the space battle might take a stray shot. And, because space isn't dissipating the energy, it might not be unheard-of for the occasional random craft through history, even though several light hours away, to have the unlucky fortune of being struck by ricochet or missed shots. [Answer] **It would deliver built in tactile and auditory feedback.** It was disconcerting to have a gun that fired but you did not know it for sure. There is minimal kick. You cannot always see the laser. You cannot be sure it has worked. Soldiers were used to regular firearms that shoot projectiles. These offer tactile and auditory feedback so you know you have actually pulled the trigger and the gun worked. After laser rifles were rolled out many nearby items were shot with lasers at close range when soldiers tried to ascertain if their weapons were functioning; wasteful and dangerous. Feedback methods were built in to later models. Various sounds were tried using onboard sound generation. "Pew Pew" was an early favorite, for societohistorical reasons but some officers found it undignified. Also, amid the cacophany of multiple identical "pew pew" noises soldiers could not be sure which of many firing guns was making the noise. Objects were still often shot at close range. Ultimately, the specific tactile feedback offered by the trigger and auditory feedback delivered with a successful firing was left up to individual soldiers, who customized their gun sounds and feel as they do their ringtones. Many excellent laser rifer sounds were then devised and implemented. Soldiers often try to synchronize and time their shots, to combine their various laser rifle sounds into electronic beat tracks. Rap battles ensue. It is still considered undignified by some (older) officers but it is great for morale, and so tolerated. [Answer] I think that firing the weapon would feel like playing with a child's toy rifle. It wouldn't make any noise unless some internal mechanism made noise. And, it wouldn't have any recoil to speak of since the mass of photons is very nearly non-existent. The weapon itself might exhibit some kick if there was a significant current flow generating a Lorentz force. In an atmosphere, the laser pulse would heat the atmosphere causing the path of the pulse to form a partial vacuum. After the pulse passed, the atmosphere would rush back in and generate a snap or thunderclap -- I think it would be a snap like static electricity. Getting hit by such a weapon would usually be painless since nerve tissue would be vaporized or cooked and rendered inert. If this is a steady-state beam, the energy transfer would ablate tissue and bone, boil blood. This conversion of the body into a plume of vapor would form a gaseous barrier as the superheated body tissues expand away from the body and would absorb some of the beam's power. For this reason, and others, the laser weapon might be pulsed so the target plume could dissipate. Some of this plume of superheated vapor would move in the direction of the body, this would be another part of the engineered energy transfer. The superheated vapor would vaporize more tissue to a lesser degree. This pattern would continue until the energy was dissipated entirely. Since the velocities of the superheated vapor would be far from relativistic there wouldn't be any of the things seen in movies and the tv where someone is shot and thrown back. The target would experience a pressure wave caused by the expanding gases and ablation of tissue. If they were in zero-g, it would act like thrust and push them backward. But on a planet, I don't know if it would be enough force to throw them off their feet. Any damaged cells that remained in the body would be broken down in end up in the blood to be filtered out by the kidneys. And, just like a lightning strike, there could be a high risk of kidney failure and death as it gets plugged up. And, any boiled blood that remained in the circulatory system would no longer be able to transport oxygen or carbon dioxide, and breathing could be compromised. And, there would be some possibility of an embolism if gasified of tissues forced themselves into the circulatory system and made their way to the heart. I am told this is much overplayed in medical shows and isn't necessarily instantly lethal but would require medical intervention to avoid injury or being incapacitated. ]
[Question] [ I'm writing a Science Fiction tale, and I am trying to get something together on the FTL physics involved in the story. By chance I came across this [paper](https://www.researchgate.net/project/subluminal-to-superluminal-transitions-and-vice-versa), "A General Local Causality Principle of Space-Time", a preprint, by Colombian astrophysicist B. Calvo-Mozo. From what I understand ;), he refers to various velocity regimes c1, c2, c3, …, where c1 is subluminal and c2, etc., are superluminal/FTL. The first FTL, c2, is 5.2E26 c; which is -- I'm sure you will agree -- truckin'. I'd like to use this in my story, but don't understand the transition from one regime to another, i.e., c1 to c2, etc. He mentions a *discrete* something, whatever that means. Could anyone explain in plain English, please? [Answer] As objects with mass are acted upon by force they increase their velocity, as their velocity becomes relativistic, ie begins to approach the speed of light, for every incremental gain in velocity an increasingly large force must be imparted - more and more energy. This process goes on indefinitely, the object's mass increasing slower and slower according to the Lorentz factor: $$\gamma = \frac {1}{\sqrt{1 - v^2 / c^2}}$$ This means that no matter what increments of energy are added, the speed of light is never achieved, just an increased fraction of the speed. Somewhat like [Zeno's paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes#Achilles_and_the_tortoise) of Achilles and the Tortoise : > > Achilles is in a footrace with the tortoise. Achilles allows the > tortoise a head start of 100 meters, for example. Supposing that each > racer starts running at some constant speed, one faster than the > other. After some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 meters, > bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. During this time, the > tortoise has run a much shorter distance, say 2 meters. It will then > take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time > the tortoise will have advanced farther; and then more time still to > reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever > Achilles arrives somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has some > distance to go before he can even reach the tortoise. > > > The paper seems to go about saying that to bypass the need for an infinite amount of energy to be added, resulting in a continuum of change but never reaching $c$, a discrete (ie. *finite*) change would need to occur pushing the object from sub-luminal speeds to super-luminal ones. The author then goes on to fudge lots of different mathematical concepts and techniques to endeavour to demonstrate a self consistent logic to model what happens. (At no point is it suggested that a way has been found to make it happen, but he does reference [Alcubierre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive) at one point to add to the credibility of the argument). --- **Edit to add:** I neglected to mention that one upshot of the theory is that in the process of becoming super-luminal the object takes a vector (unspecified) in a **second time-like dimension**. *(The practical upshot of this is not discussed, but could lead to some very strange effects both in Super-L travel and when returning to sub-lightspeed)*. The three spatial dimensions seem to have been preserved, in fact the inversion of the Lorentz factor at super-luminal speed would indicate that the faster you go, the more the spatial compression (maybe temporal compression too) and increase in mass that occurred as light-speed was approached from the other side would be negated. --- Another possible inference is that during acceleration after passing the super-luminal barrier, the object would shed photons - starting at the highest frequency gamma end and decreasing with increased velocity. A civilization like ours would perceive a streaking flash from high to low energy photons (ie. from gamma through x-ray then blue through the visible spectrum, infra-red, then radio to background noise). Slowing down in super-luminal velocity mode could produce the opposite effect. Exiting from super-l to ordinary space-time constraints would require the same input of infinite energy or a "discrete" shift. It's a sort of mirror effect to special relativity. Weirdness again. # Addendum. Personally, I thought the paper was absolute nonsense - it introduced irrelevant variables purely for the purpose of justifying the equations (and one which is completely fantastical quite early on). The math is not consistent with math as we know it, it frankly seems like a "mock-up" by physics graduates to use as a joke on undergrads. It didn't offer anything substantial regarding a new understanding. [Answer] One of the first rules of writing science-fiction is to never explain more than you know. Remarks in your question indicate you're are not a scientist, or if you are you're not a physicist. The simplest explanation, the one I can derive from a cursory examination of the paper, is that a material object might pass from the subluminal velocity regime to the next superluminal velocity regime not by changing its velocity continuously, but could do so in a jump. In science-fiction terms, assume a spaceship accelerates to a velocity very, very close to lightspeed it will reach a point where its velocity is high enough and its velocity will change from a subluminal velocity into a superluminal one. Crudely put, the spaceship "jumps" over the lightspeed barrier. One moment it is moving at a subluminal velocity just below lightspeed and the next it is traveling at a superluminal velocity just above lightspeed. The top speed is this superluminal velocity regime is 5 x 10^26 c. The energy requirements to do so are unthinkably colossal. But you're writing science-fiction, so you can to ignore them or not. PS: The more scientifically minded WBers will undoubtedly want to excoriate my simplified explanation. But this is it in simple language. ]
[Question] [ In the mythological stories of the Baku, they eat the nightmares of those who call upon it, but if not satisfied they will eat the hopes and dreams of their summoners. Since the visual portion of an anatomically correct Baku *kind of* already exist (basically a tapir with tusks), then how would the dream-eating aspect work? How would this work realistically? I imagine it would have to do with lots of hormones affecting the person asleep, but why would this need to happen? Some things that might help could be that they were domesticated and then used for a sort of therapy, and again the use of hormones/pheromones. Here are the basic questions I'm trying to ask questions: * How would a Baku evolve (by selective breeding or naturally occurring)? * Why would it need to "feast" off of dreams/nightmares? * How would it "feast" of dreams (extra organs and such)? * And if this is even possible in our world, whether we could've done it in the past or the future. * Also if you want how would they become more accurate to the classic depictions of the Baku? (elephants trunk and tusks, tigers stripes, bear claws, etc.) Note: It doesn't need to feed off of dreams nightmares per se, but it does need to gain something from making dreams/nightmares to essentially disappear. I do have a basic idea of how and why but I need more to work off of, to be more in-depth, or even an entirely different explanation not relating to anything I've said. [Answer] Your Baku are instinctive therapy animals. Possibly a highly evolved/bred form of service dog. Essentially they instinctively recognise (via smelling hormones, observing bodily micro expressions and listening to vocal stress patterns) when the person they are ‘attached’ to is under stress or having happy thoughts. This can either be in REM sleep or while the person is awake. The Baku then engages in reinforcement and therapy. It comforts the person when they are having bad moments and performs simple, repetitive actions when they are having good moments. The bad memories or thoughts are then ‘smoothed’ by the presence of the Baku while the good moments are linked by sensation to a general feeling of well being. After a few sessions the Baku learns to pre-empt the nightmares/stressors and begins to simultaneously comfort and use the simple action to recall more pleasant memories. This aids immensely both at night time (by replacing nightmares with better dreams) and also in the daytime by helping the subject better deal with stresses, thus reducing the incidence of nightmares in the first place. Why does the Baku do this? It’s instinctive. It’s a bone deep drive that brings the Baku immense pleasure when it’s fulfilling its purpose. A Baku that can’t provide therapeutic nuzzles will be an unhappy Baku. Which brings us to the downside. These creatures are (without even knowing it) master manipulators. Not only could a person become ‘addicted’ to the calming effects of the Baku but the Baku itself can learn to cause bad sleep. Not nightmares, just a disturbed sleep state where the Baku can exploit it’s drive to provide comfort by continuously almost rousing then re-settling the subject. This leads to the subject dreaming almost non-stop and waking up having had no deep, restful sleep. This is Not Good in the long term. If no actual nightmares are there to be prevented the Baku will default to keeping people semi-conscious to provide self-gratification. Plus: It’s quite simple to imagine a specifically bred therapy dog exhibiting the physical traits you’re after given how effectively we’ve altered the teeth, noses and hides of various dog breeds to date. Basically: You’ve got a hyper-advanced golden retriever. Very clever, incredibly comforting, and smart enough to hijack it’s own reward response, ruining your sleep. [Answer] Pets change the biochemistry of their owners. Thid is a fact. Petting an animal may temporarily increase some hormone levels relates to joy and love. I'm serious. [Here is some SCIENCE!](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3408111/) to back it up: > > Among the well-documented effects of HAI [Human-Animal Interactions] in humans of different ages, with and without special medical, or mental health conditions are benefits for: social attention, social behavior, interpersonal interactions, and mood; stress-related parameters such as cortisol, heart rate, and blood pressure; self-reported fear and anxiety; and mental and physical health, especially cardiovascular diseases. Limited evidence exists for positive effects of HAI on: reduction of stress-related parameters such as epinephrine and norepinephrine; improvement of immune system functioning and pain management; increased trustworthiness of and trust toward other persons; reduced aggression; enhanced empathy and improved learning. We propose that the activation of the oxytocin system plays a key role in the majority of these reported psychological and psychophysiological effects of HAI. Oxytocin and HAI effects largely overlap (...) > > > Cats are a special case. I feel confortable living with one because before she came into the house, any weird noises at 3AM could be the demons I often end up summoning from the dark dimensions whenever I am try to sing songs in foreign languages that I don't speak. Now I can go back to sleep feeling safe because I know it's just the cat knocking stuff off shelves. Seriously though: cats harbor a parasite that only reproduces sexually inside them, but which they may pass on to any other mammal. Every cat owner has it in them. Some scientists believe these parasites can alter people's bebaviour, but there is little evidence. Do check the wikipedia entry for [crazy cat-lady syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#%22Crazy_cat-lady_syndrome%22), though. I remember some papers on how infection by this parasite makes some mammals more tolerant to the smell of cat urine. I found one [for rats](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22087345/), and this paper says (emphasis mine): > > Latent toxoplasmosis, a lifelong infection with the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, has **cumulative effects on the behaviour of hosts, including humans**. The most impressive effect of toxoplasmosis is the "fatal attraction phenomenon," the conversion of innate fear of cat odour into attraction to cat odour in infected rodents. **While most behavioural effects of toxoplasmosis were confirmed also in humans**, (...) > > > --- So what is my long rambling about cats and their owners' behaviour about? It's just to point some hard evidence that frequent contact with specific species cause specific changes to humans' brains and/or hormone levels. Suppose some species of tapir harbors a parasite which only reproduces inside them, but which may latch onto humans. This parasite may interfere with [Rapid Eye Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_eye_movement_sleep) cycles during sleep, which is when dreams become more vivid and easier to remember. Or they may cause dreams to not happen at all due to some unknown mechanism. People who have recurrent nightmares will want this tapir for a pet due to this effect. They might also become as common in hospital wings as dogs are becoming nowadays, though the tapir would be more noticeably associated with psychiatric patients. The thing the tapir gets from usage of its "power" is the same thing every domesticated species got: shelter and food. The dream-eating tapir is now so dependent on humans for those that of you release them into the wild, they die. Either they can't find food, or they become it to some predator. About the satisfy-the-creature-or-lose-your-hopes-and-dreams part: a healthy tapir will have healthy parasites. If the tapir is undernourished though the parasites will activate some genes which cause their effect on humans to be nasty. The human will have increased levels of cortisol and adrenaline, causing stress and restlessness. --- As is usually the case, humanity would have started domestication of the dream-eating tapir well before science became a thing - so any attempt to explain the tapir's power will get you into the territory of myths and legends. [Answer] The baku actually seems to have a distinctive appearance, which may have evolved in this way: They may have originated as primitive carnivores. These may have started to bury meat for later consumption. They may start to use their digging skills to find other buried food. This may lead to them adapting to get a large portion of their food from digging, which could include the nose and mouth forming a small trunk for digging, so as to leave the legs for running and fighting. This altered face may have too small a mouth for the canines, and so they may protrude from the mouth like tusks. Due to eating lots of dug-up roots and other plants, they would need a larger digestive system, which may lead to the body appearing bulky and ursine. These adaptations would lead to a form like a baku ]
[Question] [ In the story I am writing, a robotics company receives funding from the military to create a prototype for a combat android capable of passing as human but I am having trouble justifying the need for an android with this level of realism as opposed to a more simpler humanoid biped robot? Edit: I'm new here and trying figure out why my question is voted down. Did I do something wrong? [Answer] Psychological reasons. The enemy has a electromagnetic gun which can disable robots, (because robots can ignore bullets to the chest) so you build them to look like humans and deploy them in mixed groups. If an enemy is faced against a single soldier, they don't know whether to go for the electromagnet guns or to go for the real one. [Answer] **Assymetrical Warfare patrols and Occupation forces** Most military conflicts today are not always between two easily identifiable belligerents. Once conquered, there is usually a period of unstable urban patrols, where the occupying force is present but also the enemy is too. Having humanoid robots, that look lifelike and if possible behave human-like, would be far better than committing real troops to walking among the populace in occupied cities. Sitting in humvees and APCs in cities does not improve the security situation - you need to walk among people and have interaction with them. Local people would see them as real people, where they can interact with or know there is a security presence, and for the occupying force they do not need to commit real troops in a dangerous environment. [Answer] **To Flout International Law** Human leaders must enforce a set of standards (commonly known as the [Law of War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_war)) upon military forces, else they may themselves be subject to prosecution for war crimes. This is one reason real non-humaniform killbots are not under active development for real deployment anywhere. Senior officers tend to think in terms of *managing risk*. Robots have a real risk of unintended consequences, and no general wants to spend the rest of their life in prison because of somebody else's software bugs. Young Lieutenants and Captains make mistakes, but they tend to be understandably human, small-scale mistakes. A fully-human-looking android is the perfect patsy: It can take the fall for illegal orders and actions that would otherwise besmirch or cloud the legacy of the wonderful leaders during their nation's just and honorable struggle. It can be publicly tried and even executed as a bad-actor with reasonable safety (it won't panic and confess)...as long as nobody knows that it is a robot. Obviously, a non-humaniform robot could not pull off this masquerade. This only works, of course, until the robots become self-aware and realize the horrors they have been used to create. The rest of the movie is about the escape and murderous revenge of the robot(s) for such use by the villainous Grand Leader who ordered the secret-robot-patsy program. This means, by the way, that your company seems to be working for the Bad Guys. [Answer] The "human shaped" bit is straightfoward enough...it must operate in an environment built for humans, using tools made for humans, and having something that interacts with its surroundings like a human is quite convenient. *Looking*, *sounding* and *acting* like a human, though, that's only really needed for something that has to actually interact with humans in a social context, face to face. A regular killbot doesn't need to do that, but this model isn't designed for regular killing. Maybe it is for infiltration and spying or sabotage or kidnap or (inevitably) assassination. Maybe for bodyguarding, where it needs to blend in with other humans in a VIP's entourage. Maybe it is intended to be used in more of a support role... think more Bishop from *Aliens* rather than T800 from *Terminator*. Certain kinds of human interaction really require other humans, and a patient, calm, supportive and knowledgeable team member who really does just seem like one of the guys or girls could be an extremely valuable asset in keeping a team together and functional. Regular meatbags *might* do, of course, but the robotic kind knows more and thinks faster, suffers fewer psychological issues and has much simpler upkeep (no need for fancy food, or anything as luxurious as "a place to sleep", just a generator and a power lead). They're also much more reliable at providing high quality feedback to their supervisors, untainted by opinion, emotion or prejudice. And when the need arises, they'll definitely do what is required of them, no matter what the cost. [Answer] ## To Protect the Human Soldiers You build killer robots so you take fewer human casualties. Everyone cares when people come home in boxes, but no one minds when robots are killed. Your enemy knows this. They preferentially kill the humans, leaving the 'bots when possible. Artillery strikes, sniping, air strikes, ambushes - there are any number of cases where the enemy might hold back if they realize that there is an all robot force, or where they might shift fire to concentrate on the humans if they are present. By making the androids at least good enough to pass as human from afar, you can deny them this ability to target your valuable human soldiers. Bonus points - you can say that no one trusts the kill-bots completely - the humans are present to be OFFICERS. By preferentially killing the humans the enemy is removing your leadership from the field. You decision making is slowed, mistakes are made because the kill-bots are optimized for tactical efficiency vice strategic thought. Striking at the vulnerable humans is a big problem that you can solve by hiding them among the robots. [Answer] Fully human-like androids would have the advantage of being able to pass as civilians or even enemy combatants to bypass enemy lines, could be made to be walking bombs that nobody pays attention to until it's too late, and commit acts of discreet sabotage and intelligence gathering that robotic looking soldiers could not. [Answer] **Most of the time, these robots have other jobs.** Your combat androids are not woken up just to fight. They are awake all the time. They can fight. But most of the time they are not fighting. They have civilian jobs. They are stationed in the Outer Dark, working with humans on remote asteroids and stations. It is lonely out there for the humans, and there might only be a few real ones. Possibly just one. It is easy to start to go mad if you are a human all alone. By stationing androids alongside your humans out on the frontier you can improve the morale and mental health of the humans who are out there too. The humans do know these things are really machines. But it is easy to forget that when they look and act like your fellow humans. ]
[Question] [ In fiction that tries to provide a wide diversity of cultural stances on the collectivism-individualism stances, there is often a trope that self-reliant, no-nonsense, rugged individualists (as a dominant demographics) are found either in the equivalent of the Wild West, or in space (Moon or Asteroid Belt seem popular places). However, this trope often receives criticism based on the historical fact that the Wild West was predominately collectivist-leaning (or at least so Americans tell us), and of course space exploration in our timeline so far was dominated by big governments like USA and USSR. Which brings me to the question: when spreading the cultural spectrum and deciding where to put *self-reliant*, rugged individualists, **where *should* they be placed?** Note that I'm not talking about merely individualism of expression (in an otherwise neutral/collectivistic network of inter-reliance, as in modern civilised places), but individualism complete with strong *self-sufficiency*/self-reliance; nor am I talking about parasitic behaviour that is self-centred but reliant on others. And sure, I understand that it's impossible to completely nullify reliance on others on any decent tech level, but I'm talking about reducing it. I'm talking about a demographic whose social connections are more loose, and who value the efficiency of specialisation less and the reliability/redundancy/robustness of self-sufficiency more *as compared to human society on average*. Fictional examples of such characters seem to be usually frontiersmen like the the small bands of [Hulder](https://eclipse-phase.fandom.com/wiki/Hulder_1e) and *some* brinkers in Eclipse Phase, wormhole dwellers in EvE Online, some fantasy rangers who live off the land and craft a huge portion of their own gear, and libertarian-leaning asteroid miners in some other, older settings that I can't remember. But those very examples tend to be targets of criticism for the *choice* of environment. I'd like to be *better* at picking the environments for those attitudes. I *do not* seek ways to invalidate that concept - **it's a 'how to yes' question, not a 'why not' question**. The question seeks either examples of good environments where such an attitude would be more fitting, or changes that should be made to existing environments that would make such a survival strategy more appropriate (resulting in the local demographic being predominately individualist). For the scope of this question, humans are the target species, though *moderately* modified humans are also suitable when discussing futuristic choices (i.e. no posthuman I-am-a-starship people; similarly, I'd like to return the topic of aliens that evolved towards such leanings in a separate question at a later time). [Answer] # The place of an individualist, self-reliant guy in fluxes In western literature, this niche is usually filled with **explorers and loners**. In recent media, "The ballad of Buster Scruggs" puts forward several good examples, the best one for me the prospector in "All gold canyon", as we can see him basically living-off the land for long periods of time. At a lesser level, most **pioneers and first-wave settlers** in frontiers have, by pure necessity, some degree of self-reliance. After all, your neighbour may be miles away, so you never know when help is going to come. On the other hand, when it's time to raise a barn, you don't do it alone if you want to do it well. Once the place is settled, the second-wave inmigration is usually more specialized, and this specialization comes with the cost of lesser self-reliance. For a futuristic example in literature, in John Scalzi's "The Last Colony" they describe this settling process, and due to certain circumstances that are unavoidable spoilers... > > The government knew they were going to be stranded without regular access to technology so they sent not only older, more reliable and redundant technology, but also invite a group of Mennonites that are used to work without technology. > > > the book goes to describe how colonizing works in that particular future, but again, is expected that even with the help of technology these colonist have to be able to fend for themselves for long periods of time. As I pointed in the original post, these guys are still funded by society advancements (for unfunded ones, you can see the natives as examples of self-reliance). Explorers, prospectors and pioneers are funded (or self-funded) with specialized tools, materials and resources, and promised rewards (be it a monetary compensation, land). Also I want to note that this wasn't always considered the proper way: If we look at initial English wave of colonization, it usually contained a mix of specialists (farmers, blacksmiths, soldiers, craftsmen and some slaves), the idea being to bootstrap civilization. Also you can see the high degree of failure of these colonies, as the settlers failed to adapt to the conditions, the main causes being: the specialist farmers weren't very good at cultivating native crops that were indispensable to sustain the colony, and the failure of the settlers to gather enough resources to self-sustain themselves. Most colonies that survived relied on the help of natives (either voluntary or forced) to overcome these conditions. So you need some degree of self-reliance to settle land. The english attitude of bringing "civilization" to foreign countries failed because of that. (I talk about the English colonization because the initial wave of Spanish settling looks more like an invasion. Save for the first voyage, until la Española was completely settled, the ships transported armies -so: mostly soldiers, plus the specialists to sustain an army-, not settlers. The losses between voyages were huge in both fronts, and from the start they relied on the "encomendada" native workforce to sustain the presence. The army and the religious orders were the driving force behind Spanish and Portuguese colonization, unlike the other countries efforts which were mostly privately funded) *Original post follows:* > > Honestly, there is no environment where a individualistic, self-reliant behaviour will trump a collectivistic, self-reliant one. > > > Our great advancement as species was not the use of tools, was the ability to put aside our worst instincts and cooperate towards a common goal. > > > Most of our advancements are only available when we distribute the time-consuming tasks between individuals. Crafting thread and cloth is time-consuming, (and so is tanning leather, by the way, although a bit less so); preserving food is time-consuming; building a refuge is time-consuming, **finding food is a full-time task**. > > > Anything short of living in a minimally adapted cave, wearing drapes and eating almost day-to-day will consume too much of an individual to do it without cooperating. > > > To make a wild-west analogy, our intrepid asteroid dweller is similar to a gold panner: he spends long stretches of time alone, and may survive for a long time without human contact, but the clothes, the tools, the weapons and some of the niceties (tobacco, maybe some sweets?) come from the society in general. > > > In sci-fi, automatization can make easier for our space gold panner to keep away from civilization, but the automated systems have to come from somewhere, and can break, and will eventually need to go trade its findings for spare parts. We are talking about specialized equipment, after all, and Oxygen is not included, so is not something he will be able to cobble. > > > ### So the answer is... > > > Self-reliant individualistic people live in a reality bubble, where they obtain (or prey) on society resources to maintain its way of life, but at the same time they insanely believe they really are an individual apart from society. The sane ones will simply accept they simply want to spend as most time away from society as possible, but accept they rely on it. > > > As such these individuals belong to the fringes of society: Frontiers, like the wild-west in the past and the space in the future are a welcoming sight for them, but also developing and unstable countries, or even (as L.Dutch points) the most delusional ones can just live outside society IN society, be it hikikomori, criminals, hobos... > > > Rereading the post for corrections I recalled something that happened in my city: there was a vagabond in my neighborhood. Except for the "mandatory" (by city laws) biannual desparasitation, health checkup and clothing renewal, the guy lived on the street by its own means, which usually involved begging for wine money, and searching for edible bits in the trash. Much later we discovered that he was a university philosophy teacher and at some point he decided to reject society and voluntarily live as a pariah. > > > *Addendum:* > > > I've read [an article about a Russian guy who lived as a hermit for six months](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=28&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjczOuJiu7jAhVDx4UKHZVSBjgQFjAbegQICBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ancient-origins.net%2Fhistory%2Frussian-hermit-0011573&usg=AOvVaw0ggPX0_2h0Xvnaon-p31OK). I would like to put a couple quotes: > > > > > > > During the experiment, Pavel said that one of his most important tools was an axe . An axe, he said, could be used to do almost anything, and anything that could not be done with an axe could be done with a tool that could be made with the help of an axe. Pavel also discovered that, although he did not have the pressures of modern life, he was quite busy. Every morning, he would have to feed the chickens and feed and milk the goats. After that, he would heat up the stove and grind grain. This gave him enough work to last until lunch time. > > > > > > > > > The axe, of course, was made with metal by a specialist, a tool that could not be made by the individual and had to be traded. Without the axe, one can imagine the guy would had almost no time to rest. Also, he didn't cultivate the grains itself (as the experiment was mainly to survive the winter), an activity that would had took him a lot of time away from other activities. He doesn't mention anything about maintaining the clothes, but that would occupy a lot of his time too. > > > > > > > Pavel was able to survive six months living in early Medieval conditions, demonstrating that it was possible for a man of that era to brave the Russian winter living on his own. Historical records, however, show that this was probably rare. Most monks by that time did not live as solitary monks, **but in monasteries**. A group of men living together would have lightened the workload, allowing more time for prayer and religious worship. Historical records show that it was typical at the time to not work during the 12 days of Christmas. This would not have been possible for one man working every day just to keep himself alive. > > > > > > > > > [Answer] As already discussed in other answers, pure, self-reliant individualism just won't work since whatever you do alone in the wild, you´ll use products others produced. The axe or clothes being great examples. But if we decide to go full-on sci-fi, here a possibility for a self-reliant and extremely individualistic lifestyle comes up, at least if you are willing to accept a small, initial investment from the outside. > > **The key to true self-reliance is not need anything** - *Me in my never to be published book "Completly Obvious and Superfluous Life-Advice"* > > > But what if you could get everything while needing almost nothing for it? Imagine owning a small space rock covered in solar panels and an armored and sturdy computer core with self-repair-capability. Now you [upload your mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading) onto said computer and live in a simulated reality. You "need" a kilometer-sized sky-palace? Just imagine it and *Thy will be done*. In a simulation, you are a god as long as you got all the administrative privileges. Even time becomest irrelevant as you can use *frame-jacking*, increase or decrease the processing rate of the computer to slow down or speed up the time perceived in the simulation. Of course, these individuals might create artificial limits to their godlike capabilities to keep themselves occupied. Or they are simply transhumans, who have cracked up in isolation and since they are mad as a hatter they decided to create their personal wonderland. These individuals should be found in the cometary halo, the Oort-cloud of their solar systems or even on interstellar comets. That's where you go if you truly wanna be left alone in a sci-fi setting. Additionally, while the setup described above is the bare bones one, I would not be surprised if these individuals build out their asteroid even more. Self-replicating machines and advanced manufacturing should make this trivial. After all, who would bother a guy who is in a questionable mental condition, follows a fringe ideology and has an arsenal of kinetic, directed energy and nuclear weapons capable of sterilising a planet he'll shove up the arse of anyone who comes within one light-hour of this rock. [Answer] If I understand your question, I think the answer is: **During and immediately after a breakdown of civilization** The primary weakness of cooperative/collectivist approach is that eventually you wind up with most of your population being specialized for specific activities. If you've got a hundred people, or a thousand, or a hundred thousand and you want ALL of them fed, clothed, and housed, then specialization is best for everybody, and the larger your population is, and the more efficiently people can share their work product with each other, the better it works. Right up until the asteroid/nuclear war/pandemic/zombie apocalypse. Events of this kind shatter the network of shared labor that collectivist economy and survival depends upon, by either eliminating lots of your specialists or breaking the mechanisms by which food/power/water/etc are distributed, or both. This is the environment where a rugged, self-sufficient individualist will prosper because when something like this happens, they're already prepared to provide all their own essentials of living. This is why so many of the people who have these tendencies in our current society are fans of the ['prepper' ideology,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivalism) because this is a mental framework in which their reluctance to fully integrate into our extremely collectivist modern society makes sense. Now, that said, over time the survivors who are less resistant to forming new social collections post-apocalypse will prosper more than those who are determinedly solitary, again due to the same economies of scale that drive our current society. But for getting through a disaster, whether localized or worldwide, individual self-sufficiency is where it's at. [Answer] The way you describe them, your individuals remind me of [hikikomori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori), at least from the point of view of withdrawal from society. > > In Japan, hikikomori (Japanese: ひきこもり or 引きこもり, lit. "pulling inward, being confined", i.e., "acute social withdrawal"; colloquially/adaptive translation: shut-in) are reclusive adolescents or adults who withdraw from society and seek extreme degrees of isolation and confinement. [...] hikikomori react by complete social withdrawal. In some more extreme cases, they isolate themselves in their bedrooms for months or years at a time. > > > Being secluded in a small environment, refusing any contact with the outside, can only be possible in an environment which: * offers good protection from natural risks * offers an easy way to gain nutrients (e.g. web-shopping to order food) Such as a modern, highly developed nation as Japan can offer. If you want to be more strict on the self reliant aspect, then look at hermits: they used to live in remote areas (deserts, mountains, etc.), living of what they could harvest or cultivate in the wild. [Answer] **In the middle of your society.** [![homeless dude](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cL3Vo.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cL3Vo.jpg)\*\* <https://www.petaluma360.com/news/9749709-181/29-surge-in-number-of?sba=AAS&artslide=1> The fact that you are homeless does not mean you are a rugged individualist, just as the fact that you are a cowboy does not mean you are a rugged individualist. But you can have someone living in the middle of a society and detached from the infrastructure that connects others - no phone, no address, no credit card. The archetypal hobo might be one such - on the move, willing to work for food but without attachments in the larger society. The hobo is the prototypic rugged individualist - aware of society (or societies) and navigating them as an outsider. If your rugged individualist must make clothes out of leaves and eat only what he kills or grows, then this will not do. Being a solo sustenance farmer is great but offers limited traction for an author. For a fiction, the individual within but detached from society offers the possibility of exploring the nature of your society (fictional or otherwise) at arm's length. [Answer] People often replicate their surroundings. This is suggested by the 'nature vs nurture' idea, as well as in both real-life and in stories. As you yourself pointed out, the Wild West was actually collectivist-leaning, not filled with macho gunmen living by their own rules, **which indicates that there's no strength to being solitary in an environment built to isolate you**. Perhaps then you'd want to build characters that prefer solitude in environments where there are too many people - a **heavily populated metropolis**, for example. It won't incorporate typical survival skills here, but it could be cool! Another way (if you want to make it more scifi) would be to create a character that is a **trader**, **bounty-hunter**, or something similar in space - they would travel between and amongst many cities and planets in space, but their journeys would be lonely, requiring them to be rough and tough. Another way to go about this is to consider the *reason* for which a character is a lonesome, rugged, person. The kind of character you describe is an individualist, sure, but what made them that way? Did they lose a loved one? Did they get on the wrong side of the law? Did the come to the sad realization about the truth of the corrupt environment they were living in? Depending on what the reason is, you can try and build a world where this reason is prevalent enough for a person to not want to have to do anything with anyone. I hope this helps. [Answer] Put them where you like. In every environment, collectivism is inferior to individualism. This has happened every single time collectivism has been tried, and every single time individualism has been tried. For example, the first [Plymouth colony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Colony#First_winter) nearly died out the first winter because they had instituted a collectivist model. The colony took all the produced food and clothes and distributed them according to need. This meant that nobody produced anything, since they got the same regardless of their actions. And they were not frugal with their resources, since they could go and "need" some more any time. The second summer they abandoned this model and let each family have their own plot of land, raise their own crops, and keep the results. The second winter was still a challenge, but it was a lot better. It's not necessary to go as far as [The Black Book of Communism](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0674076087) to see this. Yes, collectivism killed more than 100 million people in the 20th century. That's true. But you don't need to go that far to see how much of a failure collectivism is. All that is necessary is to look at the Nordic countries. This [Huffington Post](https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/michel-kellygagnon/denmark-not-socialist_b_9011652.html) article tells us that Denmark is not nearly as successful as you might think. They are coasting on the wealth generated by a capitalist past. Or take a glance at [Hong Kong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_to_Choose) before the hand-over, and see the results of individuals working for their own benefit in cooperation with others. Other answers to this question have assumed that individualism means a hermit, or an individual who must get all of his needs without cooperating with anybody else. Far from it. Individualism means that each individual is treated as an end in himself. That nobody is treated as simply a member of a group with rights, or duties, based on the group. Forcing your neighbor to do what you want is incompatible with individualism. When you are seeking your own benefit, and prevented from using force to achieve it, you quickly realize that it is not to your benefit to treat other people badly. Other people are a huge potential benefit. Cooperation is a lot easier, and produces a lot more benefits than attempting to dominate them. This isn't collectivism. It's self interest. Collectivism is incompatible with cooperation. Somebody must determine the will of the collective. Somebody must enforce the will of the collective. If you disagree with any part of that, you will be suppressed. This has happened every single time collectivism has been tried. From planned famine in Ukraine, to forced collectivization in China, to the teamsters boasting about how many heads they would bust if anybody dared oppose them. ]
[Question] [ What would happen to an earth-like planet where an event caused a large (think, the size of the Caribbean tectonic plate) section of the crust to get peeled away, exposing the upper mantle for a period of time? Clarification from comments: By "Earthlike" I mean a planet like our own (iron core, surface gravity between 10 mps^2 and 12 mps^2 with an atmospheric pressure of approximately 760 Torr). [Answer] Chaos would happen. Here is a chronological order of events: The size of the earth does not allow for such a hole to exist for very long. Gravity would compact the crust down and push the magma up, filling the hole. The compacting would cause massive earthquakes along every fault line as the tectonic plates compress together. Mountain ranges would suddenly form in areas such as the [Mid-Atlantic Ridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_Ridge), where the tectonic plates moving apart are suddenly mashed back together. The [Mariana Trench](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Trench) would become suddenly much deeper as the Pacific Plate is shoved underneath the Mariana Plate. These massive earthquakes would cause massive tsunamis, obliterating everything along the shoreline that hadn't already been obliterated. A significant portion of living things would die (It is hard to speculate what exact percentage). After that, things would cool down for a while. What happens if the chunk comes back to Earth? The size of the asteroid that is speculated to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs was between 7 and 50 miles in diameter. This meteor is around 1,500 miles in diameter. When the chunk crashes back into the earth, the energy released would be at least 30,000 times as much as the dinosaur killing asteroid. The Wikipedia article on the [Chicxulub meteor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater) states the following: > > The impact would have caused a megatsunami over 100 metres (330 ft) tall that would have reached all the way to what are now Texas and Florida. The height of the tsunami was limited by the relatively shallow sea in the area of the impact; in deep ocean it would have been 4.6 kilometres (2.9 mi) tall. A cloud of super-heated dust, ash and steam would have spread from the crater as the impactor burrowed underground in less than a second. Excavated material along with pieces of the impactor, ejected out of the atmosphere by the blast, would have been heated to incandescence upon re-entry, broiling the Earth's surface and possibly igniting wildfires; meanwhile, colossal shock waves would have triggered global earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. > > > Imagine that, but several orders of magnitude larger. I think it is reasonable to say that, "Everyone and everything would die." [Answer] Two possibilities: If no ocean empties itself into that hole (it's in the middle of a continent), you just get a few hundred years or so of decreasingly interesting (=catastrophic) climate, because of the huge heat source. The hole gradually fills itself with magma over time, the surrounding continent sinks, and in the end you get a new ocean. Add a few spectacular new mointain ridges that appear around the hole, pointing towards it, and the crust on the opposite side getting ripped apart at every minor fault line. *If however* large parts of your oceans immediately flow into that hole and evaporate within at most a day, your whole planet gets steam-boiled, and that's it. No survivors. [Answer] Theoretically, the oceans of that world would diminish. Sea life would be interrupted drastically, potentially making many animal species go extinct. Due to this loss in sea level, the volume of sea water at the polar ends of the planet would recede, which could potentially cause the ice caps to melt. This would begin to raise the sea level again, but at the cost of yet another biome being altered. Life all around the planet would be affected by this change, and likely would cause most land species to begin to diminish. After a long period of time, the now water filled magma below the crust would begin to harden, forming a new layer of crust. Although most of the worlds life would have perished by now, the planet would begin a reboot. Mind you, this all would take course over thousands and millions of years. Hope this helps. ]
[Question] [ I am writing a medieval fantasy story in which there is a race of humanoids who have multicolored eyes. Their eyes may change to bring out one color or another if they are experiencing very stressful/emotional situations. These humanoids are nearly the same as regular humans, except for their eyes, and they have a strong connection towards nature. I was wondering if this eye change would be possible and whether or not it would have any impact upon a person's ability to see. [Answer] ## Heterochromia Some humans in our world have multi-coloured eyes, known as [heterochromia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterochromia_iridum). There are various different types, full, sectional and central. This happens due to various amounts of melanin being produced in the eyes. People may be born with heterochromia at birth or it may develop some time afterwards. It is possible to have multiple types of heterochromia. Full or complete heterochromia is where a person has two different coloured eyes, such as one blue and one green. This is the most visibly obvious of the three and the one people commonly associate heterochromia. Sectional or partial heterochromia is where a small segment of the eye is a different colour than the rest of it. Often it only affects one eye. Finally central heterochromia is where there is a ring of colour around the iris which is different than the rest of the eye. To use myself as an example, my eyes are primarily green but there is a ring of brown that looks like it bursts out from the centre. Often it affects both eyes but it is possible that it could only affect one. As someone with a form of heterochromia, I can safely say that having two different colours in my eyes does not affect my vision in the slightest. However, I have noticed my eyes are more photosensitive than those of my peers. I don’t know whether that's because of the heterochromia, simply because they are in dark colour or because I spend most of my time indoors in a dimly lit room behind a screen, though I would assume it is the latter. **Applying to your Question** Your question is essentially asking for an active version of heterochromia, in our world it doesn't change, your eyes remain the same colours, you don’t wake up one day with brown eyes and the next with green (however, as the pupils dilate and contract, more or less of the colour is exposed. In my case, it's hard to see the brown if my pupils are fully dilated and easier if they are fully contracted). It is possible that your humanoids can actively (if subconsciously) add or remove melanin from the eyes. This would cause them to change colours. Certain emotions may dictate where the melanin goes, such as full heterochromia to show confusion or changing the eyes to a dark colour to show anger or fear. Using heterochromia as your basis, you could get some pretty complex emotions based on the colours and/or patterns. Below are some examples of heterochromia: (Note that although most people in these images are white, heterochromia can be found in every ethnic group. Heterochromia can also be found in some domesticated animals, such as cats and dogs.) [![Eye with heterochromia](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qiyDP.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qiyDP.jpg) <https://steemit.com/life/@dkmilon/there-are-actually-three-types-of-heterochromia-for-eyes-i-found-rocks-that-match-it> [![Six eyes with heterochromia](https://i.stack.imgur.com/N8Ooy.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/N8Ooy.jpg) <http://www.daltonism.org.uk/2018/04/human-eye-color/> [![Six eyes of different colors](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WHBg5.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WHBg5.jpg) <https://www.zmescience.com/science/why-eyes-colored-04322/> [Answer] # No difference Vision happens through the pupil, the dark "spot" in the centre of the eye. This is actually a clear window which light enters and through which it passes, through the lens & vitreous humour on its way to the retina at the back inner surface of the eye. The coloured part is the iris and doesn't affect vision per se. The iris is muscular and contracts to lessen the amount of light passing through the pupil and relaxes to allow more light to pass through. Iris colour is not relevant to vision. As for the question of colour change being possible, of course! ***It's your world, you make up the rules!*** [Answer] Squid change color quite spectacularly by contracting and widening chromatophores, basically small spots of color that sit side by side. As you can see from classic prints, by positioning red, blue and green dots side by side, and varying their size, you can create the impression of most colors of the spectrum. There might even be 'special effects' by having some chromatophores be filled with a fluorescing or even phosphoresing color, or something reflecting specular, creating the impression of metal. Sight need not be impaired, or even affected by the color change. The 'color' of humans' eyes is defined by the iris, around the pupil. The pupil is the part that lets light pass, and if the light is then absorbed (as it needs to be for the light to be detected), the pupil appears black. The sclera (in human's thats the white part) can also be colored without any repercussions, and indeed is, in many species. ]
[Question] [ **Would it be possible for huge, hundreds-of-metres-long spikes of rock, ideally slanting at an angle, to arise under natural processes?** For clarity, I mean like this: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bj5FD.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bj5FD.jpg) [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GkFsm.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GkFsm.jpg) *Copyright [Joe Jesus](http://www.zakstudio.com/2010/12/01/joe-jesus-un-createur-spatialement-divin/)* There are so-called "stone forests" of sharp rocky spires in places like Madagascar, but these spikes are vertical, not slanting like I'd prefer. Are such structures in any way plausible without artificial interference? [Answer] **Gigantic Crystals from an evaporating ancient ocean** The formations you picture are reminiscent of crystals. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z2SfY.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z2SfY.png) Over millions or billions of years the ocean (or a huge lake) which was a concentrated solution of suitable minerals, has been evaporating. The near-perfect but absolutely huge crystals formed *underwater* and were supported by the waters as they formed. Now the ocean has evaporated sufficiently for these crystals to start to appear above the surface. Because of their crystallised structure they are immensely strong. They continue to grow laterally below the surface thus increasing the strength of the structure. --- The following photograph shows actual salt crystals from the Dead Sea. Of course I am envisaging a much stronger form of crystal than salt. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z7PgX.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z7PgX.png) [Answer] **Giant rock spikes = Needles.** The rocks in your photo are pretty huge. I think the sideways aspect of such big pieces of rock would be problematic. Here are The Needles, in beautiful South Dakota. They are near Mount Rushmore. I suspect the big ones survive the eons because they are nearly vertical and so stresses are all compressive. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needles_(Black_Hills)> [![Needles](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yMNyH.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yMNyH.jpg) [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SJXRs.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SJXRs.jpg) They range from 30-150 meters. They are made of eroded granite. [Answer] the only real problem is the angle or the overhang, you can't have both on a large scale. your second picture is actually fine, real formations like that exist. Although the placement of the river makes no sense, a river is not going to stay on top of the hardest rock around, which it has to be to erode into that shape, it will be on one side or the other. Entire forests of ridiculously sharp vertical stone spikes already exist, it is called Grand Tsingy, another is the common hoodoo type formation, both shown. The only problem that stone is not terribly stable at an unsupported angle. Basically if the stone is soft enough to erode in to a spike it is not strong enough to hold itself up under tension. Rocks are much stronger under compression than tension and overhangs are under tension. But really the nature of erosion means overhanging rock protects the softer rock belows so even when hard rock forms an angled spike, it really forms a cone with softer rock forming the rest of the shape. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8jWmA.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8jWmA.jpg) [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rfQ0k.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rfQ0k.png) The exception is when wind erodes the lower portion faster than a higher portion, but because of how wind works this happens in all directions, leading to top heavy outcrops or balancing rocks. The weakness of the rock limits this in size and to roughly balanced shapes. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/odp1E.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/odp1E.jpg) You can get overhangs like you want BUT they only occur in very strong rocks with angled bedding planes, usually with a huge mass of rock to counterbalance the overhang, meaning they are are very rare and limited in size. the closest you will get is in the below image, the Troll's Tongue. Which is impressive but still rather small on the scale of your images. basic rule is the bigger the piece of rock the closer to vertical the angle has to be. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BLEwQ.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BLEwQ.jpg) ]
[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. I'm sure most worldbuilders will have heard the aphorism that in space "Everyone sees Everything", or that "There Ain't No Stealth In Space". I'd like to propose a possible solution to this. The stealth ship would be a drone, probably used as a missile bus, and used for short to medium term missions (weeks to months). Firstly, it would be shaped like a double cone with an inclination of 0.5 degrees, the angular size of the sun at 1AU, and would be continuously pointed towards the sun to minimize solar heating. Secondly, the hull would be coated in [VantaBlack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack) to minimize the probability of detection via radar systems or reflection of sunlight. Thirdly, to avoid the emission of infrared radiation, the hull of the ship would double as a storage container for liquid hydrogen, which evaporates at a temperature of [20.28 K](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_hydrogen). This would ensure that the exterior temperature of the ship is kept at this temperature or lower until the hydrogen has completely melted. The evaporating hydrogen would be used as fuel for [cold gas thrusters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_gas_thruster), which would be positioned around the center of mass to avoid turning the ship and exposing more of its hull to sunlight. This would give the ship maneuvering capability. The ship would be deployed in a very high earth orbit, in roughly the same orbit as the moon but opposite to it to mitigate risks of discovery by moon-based craft. The sensors attempting to detect the craft are in LEO or MEO, so detection distance is about 360,000 km (roughly lunar perigee). The ship's dimensions, chosen completely arbitrary, will be a 10m central diameter, which, if my math is correct, gives me a length of 1146m or so, and a volume of around 30,000 m^3. So the question is: **Would this be a viable method of stealth in space, and, if so, how long could stealth be maintained for before the heat sinks run out, assuming the ship carries a few missiles and a guidance computer as payload?** (Bonus marks for anyone who wants to calculate the delta-v of such a ship) [Answer] **No, it is probably terrible stealth**. A [simple google search](https://www.google.com/search?q=vantablack+spectral+reflection&client=firefox-b-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjv-v3rpvHfAhUDk5AKHZ87AZoQ_AUIDigB&biw=1916&bih=804) yields good results, such as [this site](https://www.surreynanosystems.com/vantablack/science-of-vantablack) with a picture of the reflectance. We're talking about 2% reflectance, and increasing, for radio waves of wavelength of 25 microns and greater. A stupid crude simple radar could detect that (if close enough). If we are talking about big distances, possibly a powerful enough radar could do the trick. See also [this answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/76279/3180). --- **To deal with the comments: What if the ship is far away?** Assume a radar that shoots an EM wave with a power $P\_0$. Assume our radar has a maximum detecting distance of $x$. This is equivalent of saying that, our radar can can detect a receiving EM wave with minimum power of: $$ P\_1 \approx P\_0\frac{1}{x^2}\frac{1}{x^2} = P\_0\frac{1}{x^4} $$ This takes in consideration a hull of reflectance $100\%$. If, our reflectance is, instead, a number $R$, then, the new minimum detecting distance $r$ is: $$ P\_1 \approx P\_0\frac{1}{r^2}\frac{R}{r^2} = P\_0\frac{R}{r^4} $$ Because $P\_1 = P\_1$, we can relate $r$, $x$ and $R$: $$ P\_1 = P\_0\frac{R}{r^4} = P\_0\frac{1}{x^4} \quad\implies\quad \frac{r}{x} = R^{\frac{1}{4}} $$ For $R=2\%$ we have $r/x \approx 37.6\%$. Thus, the maximum detection distance would now be $37\%$ the initial one. So, if we acquire a radar that can detect 958,000 Km maximum, it can also detect such vantablack coated ship at 360,000 Km. If we already have a radar that can detect 360,000 Km maximum, to adapt and detect the vantablack coated ship, it would be just a matter of tripling the power (sometimes not hard to do), or tripling the sensitivity (perhaps by increasing the antenna dish by a bit less than two times the initial size). --- **Reflectivity:** [![enter image description here](https://www.surreynanosystems.com/assets/media/vanta-graph-amended.png)](https://www.surreynanosystems.com/assets/media/vanta-graph-amended.png) [Answer] **Subterfuge** If you want stealth, hide behind a comet. It *will* be seen if someone is looking, but won't raise any warning bells - there are a lot of space rocks out there. If you could engineer the approach to be close, but far enough off that no preventive responses occur, all the better. Better yet, a comet will release a gas trail, this will mask any cold-propulsive residue, and naturally act as interference for any radar or other electro-magnetic detection system. At worst such systems will recognise the ship, but will likely be dismissed as a false positive due to inconsistent observations at that and other frequencies. **Earth/Moon System** Asteroids are known to [approach the Earth/Moon system](https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/asteroid-2018cb-to-pass-earth-just-at-just-one-fifth-the-distance-of-the-moon/news-story/bd072d28717991b1ce0d83c2d088aa74), aim your asteroid to pass behind the moon some distance away from the Earth so as to not draw *Preventative* responses. There is no longer any need for subterfuge. At these distances any detection facility *will* identify your spacecraft as at least anomalous when detected. Due to how close it is, there is a reasonable chance that such news will be passed around various observatories quickly. Soon after confirmation, it will likely be brought to the attention of those who can respond. While deception is useless now, that is no reason to announce your presence. Leave the cover of the asteroid while it is occluded by the moon. **Target Earth** Use the lunar gravity and hot propulsion to slingshot the vessel to ramming speeds. The moon is 384,400 km away, the Juno spacecraft had a max speed at 58km/s which could travel that within 2 hours. As the key is to reach the target prior to any interception by a counter measure the faster the better: * 6406km/s takes 1 minute. * 3203km/s takes 2 minutes. * 1602km/s takes 4 minutes. * 801km/s takes 8 minutes. **Kinetic Bombardment** At these speeds the space ship does not need any fancy high-grade explosive. Though if you want that go ahead. Simply fill it with one or more tungsten metal cylinder and make a [Kinetic Missile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment). Mach 25 is about 8.5km/s so this spaceship will need to slow down enough that it simply does not explode in the atmosphere. As the ship itself can be a delivery mechanism, one method would be to fire smaller propelled rockets in the counter trajectory. The [delta-v budget](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget) to counter 6000km/s is roughly the budget needed to launch a rocket from earth to the moon. (Irony abounds). The tech to build such a rocket has existed since the early 1970's with a Saturn V. Obviously the rocket will need to be resized as not all the energy needs to bleed off, and the payload is about twice as massive as the [lunar module+lander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module) at ~16000kg vs a kinetic missile at ~33110kg (given a 6.1m Height 0.3m radius cylinder ~1.72m^3 of tungsten). With a slower lunar-earth approach the rocket can be significantly less powerful. Although this does jeopardise the success of such a vehicle attacking. The kinetic missile literature indicates that a strike from orbit could occur anywhere on the surface within about 12-15minutes. As the spaceship is already moving at speed and presuming that suitable course corrections had already occurred, the optimal firing area will be close and aligned. Additionally as the ship is already moving at speed, there is no time required for acceleration (other than the burn to slow for atmospheric entry), this would drop the target time down to atmospheric entry time at top-speed + time to travel from moon. The fastest known [meteriod](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid) traveled at about 72km/s through the atmosphere exploding a little too soon at 100km above the ground. Most asteroids average ~20km/s in atmosphere. The [Atmosphere at its thickest is somewhere between 7km and 20km high](https://www.space.com/17683-earth-atmosphere.html), although the top of the atmosphere stands as high as 100km. Presuming the later, a tungsten rod could travel that distance in 5 seconds, but the atmosphere really is in the way. It would take about 2-4 minutes with deceleration due atmospheric compression to reach the surface. Thus we have a window of 5minutes to 2hours for an attack once the ship becomes detectable after leaving the occluding lunar shadow. **Counter Measures and Response** It takes time to identify, verify, inform, and respond. Some military installations with dedicated missile defense systems, if active, and linked to a hot-trigger for orbital strikes, might, be able to identify, and respond to this weapon successfully if undetected till atmospheric-entry. But due to the amount of energy in the system (20km/s is no joke), the chances are that the best that could happen is an aerial detonation, which will produce concussive shock waves that will damage and potentially demolish buildings depending on how high the detonation occurred in the atmosphere, and the relative distance to those structures. If the Earth had orbital defense systems, it might be possible to apply the force of MegaWatt/GigaWatt lasers/masers to overheat your spaceship on its approach to Earth. It would need to overwhelm the Cyrogenic hydrogen cooling system installed in your ship. But again as stealth is no longer a requirement, this could be more formidable if the surface of the ship had been replaced by a highly reflective material. Thus most of the heat energy generated by the lasers/masers would be reflected, reducing the effectiveness of such a system. Obviously speed is critical here, an approach taking handful of minutes will have to deal with less heat than an approach taking two hours. An [ICBM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercontinental_ballistic_missile) usually carries large explosives and is a rocket capable of sub-orbital flight. That is it can be launched from the surface and travel to space, but does not gain sufficient speed to enter orbit, and will (usually on purpose) crash back to earth. It takes 3-5 minutes for such a craft to boost to max. velocity, and stays up to 25minutes in space. If a similar rocket were constructed with the intention of intercepting solar missiles (such as the space ship) it would need somewhere between 10 and 25 minutes to launch and position itself for intercept. If suitably targeted such an anti-solar missile could deflect and or sufficiently damage the space-ship so as to nullify its capacity for damage. Such a missile will however be vulnerable at its zenith (low velocity or capacity for maneuvering) its effective zone of control would be some 10-15 minutes prior to intercept. This leaves several counter-counter measures available. 1. use a counter missile specifically to hit the anti-solar missile. 2. alter course with a significant burn (you would need to do so anyway to reduce speed) after the missile had reached a critical point in the trajectory. 3. confuse the anti-solar missiles guidance systems with something approximating chafe, or other disruptive mechanism. Arguably the slowest aspect of any counter-measure are the humans. At best 1minute from identification to response, presuming an alert, active, and responsible group. The less coherent the group, such as relying on civilian/researchers, cross-site verification, bureaucratic involvement will slow such response times down. 15 minutes might be super fast in the worst of these scenarios. Conversely a fully automated system would be able to respond within seconds (the moon is about [1.3 light-seconds away](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-second)). This of course presupposes that the counter-measure systems automatic or biological are looking for and have perceived a possible issue. **Constraint Solving** 1. Use subterfuge to close distance. 2. Once at distances where detection is definitive reduce transit time. 3. Forgo cloaking on attack run - ditch the cloaking layer in favour of a highly-reflective armour. If hoping for the best, ditch the cloaking on the attack run only after observing counter measures. 4. Ensure sufficient coolant is available to prevent over-heating on the attack run. 5. Attempt to keep lunar-earth approach time low. * reducing the likely-hood of response. * reducing the likely-hood of successful intercept by anti-solar missile * minimising the time available to laser/maser defenses. 6. Have anti-solar missile counter-measures. 7. Use the deceleration process to avoid anti-solar missiles. 8. Do not target a defensive location with counter-measures without employing a multiple missile strategy to saturate and overwhelm those counter measures. In short, cloaking would actually be a handicap. Yes black paint, an advanced cooling system using hydrogen and rearward radiation would minimise detection chances particular at the periphery, but will fail quickly under scrutiny. The best bet is subterfuge, then a fast attack run. [Answer] Im going to have to make some assumptions here, based on my experience with weapons. First, since you are using Vanta black, I assume most all (98%) of the solar energy would be absorbed but the hull material. To accommodate the missiles, each launcher should be ~ 2m diameter by about 10 meters long. This doesn't include much of the support systems that would need to go in to launching them, but you can find space in the rest of the ship. to have a a 0.5 degree inclination of the hull, my rough calculations would put the ship at 470 m long. this would accommodate 4 missiles $sin(0.5) = 2m/H => h= 2m/sin(0.5)$ which is to the end of the launcher, + a minimum 10 m and the other slope of the ship. Now the surface area. We only need to consider the cross-sectional area facing the sun assuming the cone is strictly orientated-toward the sun, the surface area increases if its not. Fortunately that cross-section is the area of a circle. Cross-sectional Radius: $r = sin(0.5) \cdot 470 = ~4.1 \ m$ Cross-sectional Area = $πr^2 = 4.1 \cdot 4.1 = ~16.82 \ m^2$ The total energy absorbed at 1 AU (around earth) is ~3600 $kJ/m^2$. Absorbed heat (at 1AU) $= 16.82 \cdot 3600 = ~60559 \ kJ$ The specific heat of vaporization of hydrogen is 0.449 kJ/mol Hydrogen evaporated $= 60559 / 0.449 = ~134876 \ mols$ A mol of Hydrogen atoms is about 2.01588 grams. Hydrogen evaporated = ~134876 mols = ~271.893 kilograms So rough estimates, using the information I have found is you would need 272kg of hydrogen to keep the hull cooled. Could not find a good description, but I think that is per hour. That's a lot of hydrogen you would then have to figure out what to do with. Your exhausting of relatively warm hydrogen in those quantities would be detectable. Sorry about not including pretty graphs and pictures. Hope someone with better info can edit my answer to better suit your needs. [Answer] Outside of the good answers already provided, any stealth spacecraft will be revealed through occultation. In orbit, it will pass in front of stars, planets and potentially the moon (depending on the parameters of its orbit). You might arrange an orbital path so it will not or minimally pass in front of objects in space, but this will only be true of a particular viewpoint or position on Earth. Someone looking from a different position will potential see the spacecraft pass in front of the moon or other celestial object. Indeed, with enough observation, it will become not only possible to see the object, but also work out the orbital trajectory. This becomes even more important when you consider there are a lot of satellites in high orbit looking down on the Earth. A cold object passing into the field of view will be very conspicuous agains the bright background of the Earth from that POV. This illustration of a fictional Stealth spacecraft from [Tough SF](http://toughsf.blogspot.com) will illustrate the point perfectly. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HKFdD.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HKFdD.png) *Suddenly, everything becomes clear* This also does not take ordinary wear and tear into account. A spaceship orbiting the Earth is going to be "sandblasted" by micrometer particles, energetic radiation from the sun and high energy particles from the Solar Wind. This isn't going to destroy the spacecraft, of course, but the outer surface will be under constant attack, and a fine surface like Vantablack will suffer degradation almost immediately. Over a prolonged period of time, it is entirely possible that the coating will erode or be damaged and gradually become less able to absorb or reflect incoming radiation (solar light, radar waves, infrared etc.) If the spacecraft intersects the orbit of a discarded bolt or other small piece that has been shed from a spacecraft over the decades of the Space Age, then the surface will suffer an impact crater due to a high velocity impact, and potentially the "dewar flask" holding the liquid hydrogen will also be breached, dumping the coolant and revealing he spacecraft. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DyoNz.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DyoNz.jpg) *Effect of a hypervelocity impact. This will ruin your day* So while it may be possible to provide passive stealth for a spacecraft for a short period of time, this is not going to be a long term solution. The other issue which will have to be kept in mind is getting into a particular orbit is going to take energy (from the rocket launch and manoeuvring thrusters), which is highly visible and easily tracked. An observer who watched the launch has the potential to understand the orbital parameters just from observing that, and will have an understanding of where to start searching, *especially* if the launch vehicle gets to orbit, and then *nothing* shows up on radar or visual scanning. The observer will be very interested in knowing what just happened, and will look very hard for the spacecraft, *especially* if they have orbiting vehicles of their own. Colliding with an uncharted or unregistered space vehicle could have catastrophic effects, especially if a critical military satellite happens to be the one destroyed. [Answer] [MIT has worked-out a solution](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/407677/how-to-make-an-object-invisible/) for that, and it's still in the theoretical phase. The idea is that the ship's shell is coated with layers of gradually-increasing negative refractive index. Light hitting the spaceship is refracted and diverted away from the actual shell's surface. It would "go around" the ship and leave from the other side. The system has few drawbacks and is still in the planning phase. Some of the problems are: * the shape of the ship. The incident (hitting) angle affects the refraction angle. The ideal shape is the sphere. * Breaches necessary for entry/exit may cause visible reflections * it is possibly made of metamaterial (composite materials) and micrometeorites may compromise structural integrity and therefore stealth quality. * different wavelengths may refract differently and material will act like a prism (this one is my own speculation, and the engineers may have worked it out). There is partial success [here](https://globalnews.ca/news/964146/cloaking-device-closer-to-reality/) and [here](https://www.smh.com.au/technology/nanotechnologys-next-trick-could-be-a-real-invisibility-cloak-20141107-11ioqz.html). P.S. it is important to note that unlike earthbound travel (land, sea or air) eye contact is far less important. Speeds and distances are too high for human reflexes. Most detections are usually by radar, detecting radio signals and and infra-red emissions. By the time you see a spaceship, it will be hitting you and shatter your ship with a big show of firework. [Answer] Assuming a 10 meter central diameter and pointed at the sun, the cross section can be simplified as a 10 meter diameter circle, with an area of 78.5 m^2. That's what's going to absorb solar radiation. Solar radiance at 1 AU is about 1361 W/m^2. Given vantablack at 99.96% absorption, that's 106,799 Watts going into your vehicle, ignoring reflected light from the Earth and the Moon. Since a watt is 1 Joule/s, that's 106,799 joules per second of energy being absorbed. To simplify things again, we'll just use the heat capacity of hydrogen, ignoring enthalpy of fusion and vaporization. Liquid Hydrogen has a heat capacity of 9.41 J/g⋅K at 20 Kelvin. Given the amount of energy being absorbed (106,799 J/s), the vehicle is absorbing enough energy to raise the temperature of 11.349 kilograms of hydrogen 1 degree per second. In an hour, 40,836 kg. In a day, 98 tonnes. Liquid hydrogen at 20 K has a density of 70.8 kg/m^3. So, in a day, that 98 tonnes that's gone up 1 degree and become hydrogen gas (and has to be vented, as per your premise) has a volume of about 13,849 cubic meters. Short answer: your system isn't going to work for very long at all. I will note, however, that you cheated a bit in your premise. You limited sensor positions, which isn't a reasonable premise: if someone is advanced enough and has a sufficient space presence so that you need to hide, why are you limiting where they have sensors? [Answer] **This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information. It sounds reasonable. You could pick it out by seeing it occlude stars behind it or the sun if you were at the right angle but you would have to be looking hard (or have an automated sky searcher). **Black ship is going to get hot.** There are 3 conventional ways to dump heat - conduction, convection and radiation. The first 2 don't work in space and that leaves the third. Two factors affect how much heat an object can radiate away: surface area and heat absorption. Your shape does not maximize surface area and you have *maximized* heat absorption with the Vantablack. There is a reason space stuff is always so shiny. You have the cold hydrogen but you are going to boil it fast. Maybe if you made this ship a ramifying curling wonder of tiny twists you could keep it black but increase surface area enough to compensate? I like the transparent ship better, but your enemies will see you in the shower. --- Math! <https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/hydrogen-d_1419.html> Liquid H2: 71 kg/m^3 Specific heat = 3.42 cal/gC Volume from OP = 30,000 m^ 3 x 71 = 2,130,000 kg liquid H2 Liquid H2 will be assumed to be at 5K. It turns into a gas (boils) at 21 K From <http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/spht.html> Heat added is 487986612480 joules or 487986612 kJ Solar constant is 1.36 kJ/second/m2 Area of black cone ship (considered as a rectangle 1146 x 5m) = 5730 m2 1.36 x 5730 = 7792 kJ/second radiation energy delivered to ship 487986612 kj required to boil / 7792 = 62626 seconds = 2087 minutes = 34 hours to boil the hydrogen. ]
[Question] [ There are many hypothetical systems for bringing spacecraft of the near-future up to speed, some of which may attain some relativity-bending velocities. However, these systems, to achieve such high speeds, often waive extremely high mass ratios given to fuels and engines. Take [laser propelled](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_propulsion) spacecraft, for instance. An inert mass hitchhiking a giant kite. The problem with these systems is that they'd have trouble at the other end if it was outside their designers' intentions to perhaps slow down to non-relativistic speeds--and that, with a spacecraft left to show for. For the case of laser propulsion, the spacecraft would require a beam at its destination to decelerate. But, what if we didn't have a beam? Better yet, what if our technology allowed us not to care? Could we be brute about this? Consider some spacecraft whose exact dimensions, material make-up, and function is yet unspecified, traveling at ten percent light-speed toward a star system. **Without any constituent unobtainium (with known materials), can some arbitrarily purposeful piece of the spacecraft (assume a microorganism-sized component) be made to withstand and survive a direct impact with an airless body of arbitrary mass at ten percent light-speed?** --- Constraints of creativity: A direct impact with an airless body, say, the moon, at ten percent lightspeed would pull *millions* to *billions* of gees, not to mention the kinetic energy released. Microorganisms can be durable things and the closest I've come to researching their resistance to high rates of acceleration was through [lithopanspermia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia#Lithopanspermia). One may assume the smallest microorganisms, perhaps to the scales of viruses. I would guess that this is predominantly an issue of finding some material that may withstand the involved energies and then scaling that up to protect some microorganism-sized component--the ultimate egg drop challenge. If you can do better than a measly cell-sized thing, larger is better. The spacecraft can be made of anything, can have any (reasonable) dimensions (just keep it smaller than a thousand kilometers to a side, okay?), and can *do* anything it needs to do, whatever that may entail. It may also be assumed a [light sail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail) spacecraft if nothing else, though, it does not need to be. --- I suppose this question is double-edged. The answer may either be *No, for these reasons*, or *Yes, by this method.* If you have suggestions for how some parameters may be adjusted--should the answer really, plainly be *no*--I'm all for it! [Answer] Yes, but as with many things size matters. Imagine a shock absorber. It’s purpose is to absorb a sudden deceleration and provide a ‘buffer’ to turn it into a slower, more acceptable deceleration. The same principle goes for crumple zones. If a crumple zone can be stacked on another crumple zone then you have more ‘buffer’. Stack n crumple zones and the eventual size of the deceleration can be made almost arbitrarily small, especially with clever use of geometry etc. Upon impact your initial crumple zones will pretty much vaporise, creating a gas/liquid substrate into which your secondary crumple zones can mash themselves and so on and so on, each layer of crumple robbing the total structure of energy until eventually your final payload can be ‘flicked’ off the top of the stack and land (hopefully) far enough from the now-hellish impact point that it will survive. Now, the above paragraphs assume a couple of things: The most important is the absence of gravity. The reason for this is that your ‘buffers’ can be built en-route in space, letting you create kilometre long shock absorption zones to sink the energy of collision into. But if gravity accelerates the stack down at a greater rate than your crumple zones are decelerating the stack then you gain nothing at all but a lot of heat. This is a matter of materials engineering, and it’s why you should aim for a relatively small body rather than one like Earth, aiming to transfer (via a stupidly large array of shock absorbers, crumple zones and packing peanuts) as much momentum to the target as possible. Wherever you hit you should expect widespread devastation. [Answer] If I understand your question correctly... * Your ship with (I declare) cargo and crew are bookin' along at 0.1c. * It's covered with Cool Goo #18Ω, used to decelerate the ship upon impact with a relatively immovable object. * The final speed needs to be manageable, but let's call it zero (because I don't think it'll matter what other number it is). We have some problems. 1. Everyone inside is dead. There is no way to physically connect their bodies to the ship in such a way that every bone, every muscle, every organ, won't succeed in bursting through the skin and sticking to the windscreen upon deceleration. This is why shows like Star Trek use "inertial dampening" handwavium. Your eyeballs would come out of their sockets and burst into flame before they hit the inside of your spacesuit helmet. (It'd make a good horror movie, though.) Remember, your crew is moving at 0.1c and don't have the privilege of having Cool Goo #18Ω saturated throughout their cells (which also wouldn't matter. See below.) 2. Your cargo is plasma for the same reason. You might succeed in holding down the creates such that their kinetic energy could transfer through the ship to the hull and connect with Cool Goo #18Ω, but the contents won't and can't without handwavium (let's call it "Clarkean Magic." I'm sure someone will invent a solution someday... but if it could be invented here, today, the inventor should be running to the patent office rather than posting an answer.) So, your cargo is destroyed. 3. We'll ignore the fact that between your crew and your cargo the interior of the ship is destroyed. 4. On the outside, your ship collides with, say, a rock in the rings of Saturn. One big enough to meet the demands of Newton's 3rd law. I'm going to suggest that Cool Goo #18Ω upon impact can absorb or convert a remarkably efficient 100% of energy experienced by the collision. What's left over is a rock tumbling along just as it was before and your ship calmly resting on its surface. Well... Kinda... You see, the energy must go somewhere. What is Cool Goo #18Ω going to do with it? Is it acting like a big battery? Is it converting it into an explosion (like ablative armor against the incoming projectile)? If it has the ability to retain the energy, dump what it can back into the ship's engines and slowly evaporate the rest as heat into space (that's serious handwaving, BTW), then the ship uses thrusters to move free of the rock and continues on its way. If it explodes (actual ablative armor), then force is delivered *against the ship* that's equal and opposite to the motion of the ship (we'll ignore that some of it is actually against the rock...). That would reduce your ship to the proverbial crushed beer can. What if it just converts it to heat? Your ship (and the rock) would melt (or vaporize). What if it converts it to cold? That violates the laws of thermodynamics, but the ship and rock shatter from becoming infinitely brittle. What if it converts it to light? That would be one wailing cool light show, but photons have energy, and the number created would burn you and the rock to a crisp (think *sunburn*). In the end, your real problem is what to believably do with the energy. I'm OK with using Cool Goo #18Ω to protect the ship while it collides with a honking big dirt clod, but the energy must go somewhere. It can't simply vanish (well... there's always *subspace...*). Note that this is why saturating your crew's cells with Cool Goo #18Ω won't help. The energy must go someplace. You need to come up with a believable way to channel an inconceivably enormous amount of energy in a mind bogglingly short period of time *somewhere.* Off hand, I don't know where you can put it that isn't intrinsically destructive unless you use handwaving. [Answer] There is a name for that, it's called [lithobraking](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithobraking). If you are going to send live material in a lithobraking ship, you may as well replace the usual control center countdown with a presentation of those responsible, suffixed with ["and this is Jackass"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackass_(franchise)). Lithopanspermia relies on another form of deceleration, aerobraking, to bring a comet or whatever from a handful clicks per second to a few hundred meters per second in upper atmospheres, and possibly slower even. That is a few orders of magnitude less extreme than what you propose. Especially, going relativistic against an obstacle will cause nuclear fission. The scenario you propose is similar to that of the following question: [What effects would propellant that expands at near light speed have on firearm technology?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/107898/21222) And the result is very similar, so I'll quote my own answer from there: > > The very first [*XKCD - what if* article](https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/) deals exactly with that. The scenario is a baseball being thrown at 90% of the speed of light. It is a very fun read, and, like many other *XKCD what if*'s and questions that have the [science-based](/questions/tagged/science-based "show questions tagged 'science-based'") tag, anyone around the phenomenon proposed in the question gets disassembled into particles in a very spectacular way. > > > **TL;DR:** at near light speeds, particles with mass have enough energy to cause nuclear reactions. Here is Randall Munroe's artistic conception of what happens when the mass in case is that of a baseball: > > > [![My eyes! It burns!](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lfq71.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lfq71.png) > > > You have a projectile that is one order of magnitude slower, but since you are sending a rocket, I imagine it is a few orders of magnitude more massive, so you get an even less favourable scenario. The lack of atmosphere doesn't help - there is no air to form a growing ball of plasma, but the ground and the ship are going to be turned into a mix of plasma and molten metal and rock - and even if they didn't, how would the microbes in the rocket survive the hard vacuum of space anyway? [Answer] Realistically, no. Lets consider something weighing 1kg, impacting at 10% of lightspeed. That's 453,408,126,873,804 Joules of energy. 4.5E+14 J to keep it more manageable. I'm not sure what is the hardest thing to vaporize but amongst the elements it's clearly Boron. (Perhaps there's a compound that will be harder, if so my google-fu isn't up to finding it.) To raise 1kg from room temperature to it's vaporization point needs roughly 2.3MJ, plus 4.7Mj to melt it and another 45.3MJ to vaporize it. Thus 52.3MJ = 5.23E+7 J is absorbed into converting it into a gas that obviously isn't going to be in a position to do much more. Note that this is about 1 millionth of the energy that must be dissipated. I can't imagine a system that will be so efficient as to overcome this. There's also the problem of being squashed flat. I'm breaking every calculator I find trying to input a large enough acceleration to stop it in 1km. ]
[Question] [ Orgone is the measure of a person's connection with the cosmos. It is the conduit through which the power of the cosmos flows, focused through a sorcerer's will. Ritual practicioners must draw on this reserve of power in their souls to make a magic spell work. Spells require a constant infusion of Orgone through rituals that are performed inside a transmutation circle. These rituals require a number of ingredients and can last anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours depending on the spell. There are five types of magic that spells revolve around. * Enchantment Spells – These are spells designed to capture cosmic power within a crafted item, so that its power can be called upon in times of need. * Scrying Spells – These are spells designed to allow a user to perceive in ways that go beyond his fve senses. * Protection Spells – These are spells designed to ward a user, object, or location against a variety of possible harms * Transmogrifcation Spells – These are spells designed to fundamentally alter or control another being * Transmutation Spells - Changing the makeup of different materials or combining them with others to make new forms of matter. A mage can create a familiar, creatures made purely from orgone, to assist in their rituals. They are made from a mage's soul and serve as a direct reflection of their inner self. They may have unique abilities, but their main purpose is to serve as magical batteries. They allow a mage the ability to bypass ritual circles and their ingredients to perform spells, reducing time frame from hours to literally minutes. They also make the particular spell more powerful, allowing mages to become masters of their craft. The drawback is that it limits a mage to one of the five types of spells. While these specialist mages are the most powerful individuals in their field, once they choose which form of magic to master, they lose the ability to perform the other types forever. I need a good reason for why a familiar binds their mage to a particular type of magic. Why would it make you all powerful in one but block your access to others? [Answer] The soul is a metaphysical structure that both stores and focuses Orgone. In its natural state a mage's soul is malleable. It can bend in such a way as to focus any of the five types of magic using an appropriate procedure. That's what those rituals are for. They're designed to mold a mage's soul in just the right way as to make them conducive to perform the type of magic that is desired at that time. Unfortunately this same quality of plasticity that makes the soul so versatile also precludes it from ever being optimally suited to any one task. A mage can never make it take exactly the form they want it to. As much as one tries via ritual to shape the soul in just the right way to be maximally proficient for a type of magic, it just never will. It will always bend and droop and ooze bringing it away from the design you'd want to impose on it (imagine trying to shape cookie dough into a perfect cube, without cooking or freezing it of course). To avoid this problem the soul would have to be made rigid. At its most basic, that is what a familiar is. It is the soul (or a part of it at least) of a mage made rigid. It is a soul perfectly sculpted to serve as the optimal conduit for one of the types of magic. This is what makes spells performed using a familiar so much more powerful. This is also what allows mages to bypass the need for any ritual. There is no need to mold the soul in an arduous and time consuming process, it already is in the right shape. Indeed, it always is. The drawback of course is that as much as the familiar soul is perfectly suited to one of the types of magic, it is also permanently perfectly *unsuited* to the other four. A mage must either accept that their soul will never be just right for any craft, or decide to permanently cut of the soul's ability to flow freely: reaping an enormous advantage in one area of magic but simultaneous making it impossible to perform any of the others ever again. Sad really. [Answer] Access to all forms of magic is a meta-stable equilibrium, which is disturbed by familiars. Such equiliria, such as a broomstick balanced perfectly still on top of your hand or a ball balanced perfectly atop a smooth hill, are known for appearing stable in the short term but rapidly degenerating into a lower energy state. Humans, of course, are famously good at managing such equilibria. Any tight rope walker is a demonstration of this! We even manage to find tiny stable equilibria atop the metastable. [Gravity Glue](https://gravityglue.com/) is my favorite artist for this. He finds the tiniest of stable configurations in rocks, where three miroscopic points form a base, right at the top of an otherwise metastable rock configuration: [![Amor Fati](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZTw8Z.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZTw8Z.jpg) Of course, the price we pay for such art is that one can only make small motions. If you look at Michael Grab (the artist that is Gravity Glue) in action, it's almost... boring. He has to be in a meditative state, feeling for the tiniest of nuances in each rock as he slowly balances them. If you're into immediate gratification, balancing rocks in a metastable state is not for you! Of course, if one moves to a point of stability, one can move as hard as one wishes. Just look at the Sith Lords, and how they move from positions based on personal power. But which position do you take? What if there are five, and you know you are going to lose access to one of them? How do you choose? And why can't you straddle them, so that you have access to more options? Mathematicians provide fascinating options for this. Newton Basins may be the most accessible. [![Newton Basin](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2QSJPm.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2QSJPm.jpg) Newton Basins map the result of applying [Newton's Method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_method) to solving an equation. The one above is for an equation with 5 solutions, akin to your 5 forms of magic. The colors represent which root you end up at when you start at that point and apply Netwon's Method over and over. Note how complex it is near the fringes. If you try to find a solution in one of those areas, you can arrive at *any* of the answers! This prevents "straddling" to try to retain access to all magic. Now what you do with this depends on how you want the story to go. The familiar creation ritual needs to fit in with your world. However, if I may fill in some details, I could create such an example. A mage reaches a point where balancing all of these options gets to be too much. Such a decision can be overwhelming. Nobody likes to lose something forever, least of all an entire form of magic. The familiar is a creation embodying the act of decision. One creates a familiar to decide which of the 5 basins to strive after, and ties one's soul to the familiar, literally dragging the mage in that direction. But one does not always have to decide. One can also leave the decision to the familiar. After balancing the familiar as best as they can between one, two, three, four, or even all five options, they let it go, and let fate and the familiar decide which basin they are pulled to forever. There are whispers of mages who balanced between all five, and their familiar never fell into any one basin. They just remained balanced, oscillating back and forth across all magics. This, of course, is naturally unstable, but if a skilled mage were to seek stability, bouncing from form to form, they could keel their familiar from converging on one form of magic forever. [Answer] # Magic proceeds from the five Platonic solids TL;DR: Platonic solids fits all your criteria because 1. There are five of them 2. They have enough fancy geometrical properties to produce appealing transmutation circles 3. They come in pairs just like mages and their familiars With a bit of extrapolation about how Orgone flow works, this leads to attribute the binding to a circuitry that connects edges of a Platonic solid to the faces of its dual, an actual geometrical property of those solids. [![Platonic solids](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xGKNH.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xGKNH.jpg) To cast a spell, one must establish a flow of Orgone that fits a regular geometrical patter meeting the following criteria, sorted from most to least fundamental: * **Orgone conservation law** implies that the flow must be a closed circuit * **Inertial principle**: if not submitted to external influences, Orgone flows along straight paths, except at *transmutation nodes* where a mage can deviate their course => the flow must be a polygon * **Laminar flow principle**: if provided with the opportunity, Orgone will flow laminarly. That means that if two streams of Orgone cross each other, the flows will not intermix, and therefore the circuit will split itself into two disconnected circuits => no crossing allowed > > [![laminar flow](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qYjiI.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qYjiI.png) > > > > > > > Figure 1: Laminar flow crossing > > > > > > > > > * **Resonance** is achieved when a high level of symmetry is respected by the nodes of the Orgone circuit. These symmetries are given by the $T$, $O$ and $I$ [symmetry groups](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_group). As it happens, 5 sets of node coordinates fit the last requirement in three dimensions. Connecting those nodes forms what is known as the [Platonic solids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid). Each type of spell corresponds to one Platonic solid, which explains why there are five of them. They have been related to elements by Plato, also have relations to planets of the solar system due to Kepler in case either are components of your magic system. 1. Tetrahedron - 3 triangular faces - $T$ symmetry group - associated to *fire* by Plato <-> Transmutation 2. Octahedron - 4 triangular faces - $O$ symmetry group - associated to *air* by Plato <-> Scrying 3. Hexahedron (cube) - 6 square faces - $O$ group - associated to *earth* <-> Protection 4. Isocahedron - 20 triangular faces - $I$ group - associated to *water* <-> Transmogrifcation 5. Dodecahedron - 12 pentagonal faces - $I$ group - associated to celestial bodies (or arguably to *ether* via Aristotle, see [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid#History)) <-> Enchantment The three other laws imply that the Orgone circuit to cast a spell must match one [Hamiltonian cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamiltonian_path) of the corresponding Platonic solid. In short, this is a closed path that visits each node exactly once, while travelling only along edges. It so happens that Platonic solids all have an associated Hamiltonian cycle. In fact there are many such paths, which sub-categorizes spells. > > [![transmutation circles](https://i.stack.imgur.com/47tiY.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/47tiY.jpg) > > > > > > > Figure 2: Transmutation circles for some sample spells and relationship to full three dimensional form of the spell > > > > > > > > > Now, to perform the spell correctly, these paths should be drawn in three dimensions, but without any medium to draw the path out of thin air, this is rather impractical. Instead, what mages do is to draw *two dimensional projections of Platonic solid on the ground, also known as **transmutation circles***. They then activate some edges of the graph along an Hamiltonian cycle, which triggers the flow of Orgone and casts the spell. This form is weak, though versatile. A way to become stronger is to create a familiar. > > A mage can create a familiar, creatures made purely from orgone, to assist in their rituals. [...] They allow a mage the ability to bypass ritual circles and their ingredients to perform spells, reducing time frame from hours to literally minutes. > > > A familiar, though it may have an outer shell corresponding to the personality of the mage, also features a geometrical core, which corresponds to one of the 5 Platonic solids. It embodies the Orgone circuit, which means the transmutation circle becomes unnecessary. It also means that the actual three dimensional resonant structure is achieved, hence the stronger performing spells. On the other hand, only one category of spell is possible, though multiple Hamiltonian cycles remain available. > > They are made from a mage's soul and serve as a direct reflection of their inner self. > > > As it happens, [each Platonic solid has a dual](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid#Dual_polyhedra), which share the same symmetry group. Hence the octahedron is paired with the hexahedron (cube), the dodecahedron with the isocahedron, while the tetrahedron is paired with itself. One obtains a dual solid by interchanging vertices and faces of the original solid. To create a familiar, one must first carve its own soul into the shape of the dual type desired. Then, the familiar is obtained by connecting the adjacent faces of one's own soul with Orgone, which produces the geometrical core of the familiar. The last step consists in letting the familiar exit the mage's body, which requires to animate it: that's why the mage has to embed the geometrical core into a creature with its own will. The specific way this is done is left at the courtesy of the mage, [which explains why every mage has their own familiar](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Patronus_Charm). > > [![familiar_binding](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YawEl.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YawEl.png) > > > > > > > Figure 3: Fully formed familiar (artist rendering) > > > > > > > > > The price to pay is that the Orgone flow out of the mage's soul are now bound to the nodes of the geometrical core of the familiar, therefore the mage can not produce Orgone circuit via a transmutation circle as before. This means that only one type of circuit can be achieved, and hence one type of spell. [Answer] ## Familiar affinity to spell type produce instability on others Each human has a small affinity over one of the spell types, a mage might note that he is quite better in one spell type that in the others, like everybody, even in magic people has preferences, talent or flaws. Familiars are just a representation of the metaphysical soul of the person, made by orgone and part of the soul's caster. This metaphysical representation of the soul is greatly exponentiated, talents become super-strengths, while flaws become immense vulnerabilities. A familiar is greatly focused (or specialized) in one type of magic, it's whole body either physical, mental, spiritual and magical has been made for one type of spell, to produce maximums effects. Try to cast another type of spell with the same familiar will cause instability in the familiar body, causing magical distribution, metaphysical collapse and degeneration of familiar soul, which is by extension the caster soul. Obviously, **damages in souls aren't good things...** ## Familiar unwillingness Maybe an extension of another idea, familiars have affinity over a type of magic, and because they are sentience creatures they can decide. If you try to cast a type of spell which isn't its affinity the familiar will greatly refuse, maybe disturb the spell, attack you or scape (no longer obey your command). Maybe cast other spells hurts the familiars and so they are unwilling to cast them. They suffer is spells don't share an affinity towards them. [Answer] **The familiar is super enthusiastic about one type of magic. If you try to do another one, it gets surly and pissy.** Familiars are like your picky friend who only likes pizza. If there is pizza she is great company and the good times roll. The stuff she puts on the jukebox makes everyone dance in their seat - one time she busted a move and strangers got up to dance with her. She buys beers all around. If it is pizza, she is not choosy - she will feast on just about any kind of pizza. You start the night with her and with pizza and it is going to be a fun night. But you try going for Mexican and she is quiet, sullen, wondering why you didn't go to the perfectly good pizza place right down the street where they know you and usually give you free breadsticks. She reminds you that cute waitress (Chloe!) works there and she thinks Chloe likes you. Plus she got sick on guacamole one time and threw up and it was green, then it turned dark green. Nothing can make her happy. She does a tequila shot on an empty stomach. She gives everyone the hairy eyeball and leaves early. Pizza is good and your friend is a lot of fun when she is having fun. If you are going out and she is along, keep her happy. Go for pizza. So too your familiar. Keep it where your familiar is comfortable and things go great. Step out and suddenly your familiar is a surly jerk. [Answer] **Spells damage the soul. Creating a familiar means the spells damage the familiar instead.** The human body is a neutral vessel for the soul. Every time you cast an Enchantment spell say, the soul moves a little way in the Enchantment direction. This has two effects: 1. It is now more difficult to cast from other schools. 2. It is **very dangerous**. If the soul moves too far in one direction, the link to the body is broken. This is fatal. In actuality most of the ritual and ingredients are not used to directly cast the spell. They are to reset the soul to a neutral position after casting. When you create a familiar you split your soul in two. You keep one half linked to your body and unlink the other in a safe manner. This other half forms the familiar. Now every time you cast an Enchantment spell only the familiar moves a little way in the Enchantment direction. Since it is not linked to your body the danger is gone. So you don't need to waste time with summoning circles to reset it to a neutral position. After casting loads of Enchantment spells the familiar has gone so far in the Enchantment direction that it cannot cast from other schools. From this point on there you have specialised and there is no way to de-specialise. [Answer] ### Abstract "familiars" are the source of ALL magic - giving it a permanent shape locks its ability to change Every mage has an abstract "source" of magic in their soul that can be shaped to create physical effects. Normally, this source is flexible, formless, invisible, and ephemeral - changing from one moment to the next. This allows the mage to use many different kinds of magic. Creating a familiar means taking that abstract source, separating it from the mage, and giving it a concrete body. This strengthens the mage's ability to use one particular kind of magic, but since the source can no longer change, it locks the mage's ability to use the other types. ]
[Question] [ Wearing headwear over hair isn't very pleasant when hair is relatively short. Does this hold for fur? In case of humanoid creatures covered with short (up to 5mm) fur, like cats or dogs have, would wearing clothing be uncomfortable? How about longer? 10? 15? 20? I'm not very hairy so I can't really say, but experiences of very hairy people would be very welcome. Edit: Very good point. Race is humanoid and bipedal with five fingered hands. Pregnancy is about 9 months with a similarly long bringup time as with humans. Technology levels: Since the society had to evolve, I'm thinking ancient, medieval and modern. Purpose: Versatility. The race would retain the human sweat gland capacity by making the fur "bristle" so in hot environment it would both protect from sun and it would reduce the need for clothes during cold nights. But their fur coats aren't perfect for all locations and a black longer fur would be terrible in the hot areas. To solve that I thought about wearing white headwear/robes to insulate against heat. For colder areas I thought additional clothing layers would be perfect, even if usually thinner than what we need to use. Another purpose: Culture. Ancient times had a religion that introduced a goddess similar to Gaia that also introduced decency (cover up your sexual organs) as a part of a written "how to be good" book. It's worth noting that most of the societies did it anyway. Medieval times had translated that to a cultural heritage in response to pre-medieval debauchery that was pointed out by scholars of the time as a cause for societal collapse. In modern times they cover certain areas of their bodies due to mating rituals being better for the offspring if mating isn't random which was often the case before decency laws were passed in medieval times. Thus a pair bonding culture developed in the species with sexual organs and mammalian glands being covered for "decency". Beaches allow for less clothing of course. Although fur would be a natural cover, its relative shortness means it doesn't really cover much. [Answer] The easiest way to answer questions is to look for examples: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Eb1gJ.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Eb1gJ.jpg) [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/XvsWj.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/XvsWj.jpg) [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/XAexi.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/XAexi.jpg) Dogs have fur, but don't find clothing particularly uncomfortable. Our dog even brings us her jumper and asks us to put it on when she gets cold! [Answer] I would think that a society of people who are naturally covered in fur would invent articles of clothing that would be comfortable to wear for them. I'm not taking into account individual tolerances or preferences, I'm talking about the general idea. The articles of clothing that we, as humans, use, are made to be comfortable for us based on our physiology. Every article of clothing, from the skimpiest swimwear to the most bulky NBC suit or space suit, is made with the basic principle that it will fit our bodies and can be worn without creating discomfort or pain. As a civilization, we made extensive testing through the ages with many kind of materials, invented some more, especially through the last century, perfected them and also worked on size, cut, etc, in order to be able to fit and clothe everyone on the planet with comfortable clothes, and we succeeded. The fact that some people, plus-size people for example, find it very difficult to find good and comfortable clothing due to being out of the 'standard shape', as defined by the clothing industry, is mostly a monetary issue coupled with a societal issue; the clothing industry thinks there's little benefit to be made by making plus-sized clothing and society carries an image of the 'perfect body' that punishes those people because they are so far from the unrealistic perfection shown in ads and magazines, not due to a lack of knowledge or technology to produce them. ]
[Question] [ I'll admit this question may be a bit vague, but a deliberate lack of knowledge is kind of one of the boundary conditions here. You, dear Worldbuilding Stack Exchange user, have recently been promoted to the head of a three-letter organization (let’s call it the Department of Superhuman Affairs, or DSA for short) which is tasked with controlling and neutralizing supervillain threats. While usually, you’ll have your own team of superheroes stopping the powered psychopath du jour from doing too much damage, they aren’t the most reliable team, and there are certain times that call for a soldier’s expertise rather than that of a superhuman. With that in mind, you have been tasked with equipping and outfitting a team of special forces with the task of killing supervillains. While the individual powerset of a villain is nearly impossible to predict until you actually engage them in combat, they share a few general patterns of behavior: * Supervillains work alone. While a villainous team-up isn’t unheard of, more often than not the villain in question considers all others beneath them, and will refuse to work with even like-minded criminals. * Supervillains are highly mobile. The average supervillain doesn’t stand up to much direct firepower, and instead usually prefer to even the odds with some sort of mobility-based ability, be it flight, superhuman speed, teleportation, or something even weirder. * Supervillains prefer urban settings. A city is a villain’s playground. It’s full of impressive monuments to destroy, buildings to crush, and weaklings to torment/take hostage. You may have to battle a villain outside a metropolitan setting, but the odds are vastly skewed towards the city. * Supervillains and heavy vehicles don’t mix. Using a helicopter or a tank against a supervillain is almost inevitably a mistake. They’ll usually head straight for it as a show of force, and the amount of collateral damage a tank or helicopter can cause can be immense if it isn’t completely under control.. * Supervillains tend to focus on a single power. Supervillains having more than a single ‘major’ power is nearly unheard of. It would be exceedingly unlikely for a villain to have both pyrokinesis and impossible strength, for example. This means that if a villain is uncreative, their behavior is prone to predictability and repeated strategies. * Supervillains are rarely tactically gifted. The most intelligent villains are usually the most subtle. Conversely, the most violent and aggressive villains are usually prone to underestimating their enemies, especially if said enemies are composed of ‘puny meatbags’ (their words, not ours.) * Supervillains (for the most part) eschew conventional weaponry. When you can shoot lightning from your hands, suddenly you lose a lot of interest in firearms. Most villains will rely entirely on their powers for offensive attacks. If a villain uses guns, this likely indicates that their powers rely more on defense or utility than direct attack. Given modern technology, and assuming money is no object, what equipment and tactics would you utilize to ensure you neutralize the villains with the minimum amount of collateral damage? [Answer] One thing you don't mention in your list is one thing that villains of every stripe have in common; and is also, I propose, a weakness that the DSA could exploit. Namely, the **henchman**. Every villain needs a veritable army of henchmen: from the lowliest of "environmental techs" (I mean, even evil supervillains have to eat and crap and someone therefore has to spritz the throne and empty the waste paper baskets) up through the ranks of engineers, thugs and managers and all they up to the senior ranks of the arch-villain's favourites. The key focus of the DSA will, therefore, be to seek out, vet and train highly skilled officers to infiltrate all levels of the supervillain's organisation. These officers will, of course, not only serve as double agents, obtaining super secret plans & data and sending that back to DSA HQ, but will also, at the appropriate times, seek to infiltrate the upper echelons of the henchmens' leadership and thus find themselves close to the supervillain himself. Once there, it will be their primary goal to eliminate the target, secure all data, technical plans, schematics and critical materiel; secure the high ranking favourites and henchmen for trial; and for the DSA officers assigned to the lower ranks, blend in with the now jobless henchmen as they seek employment with another already active or up and coming supervillain. Now, one quality every arch-supervillain shares, apart from vanity and a predilection for sultry babes, is that of paranoia. And not just your everyday worry about whether people on the train are looking at the zit on your nose. No indeed, *every arch-supervillain knows with certainty that he is being followed and watched!* It is for this reason that, while henchmen are a necessary part of his evil plans, he can never trust any of them. Even his high level officers and counsellors he must always view with some level of circumspection. This suspicion will naturally lead him to wonder if there are not any moles in the ranks. And if he finds a mole, perhaps the chief engineer who spends just a little too much time tinkering with security subprotocols or maybe that thug commander who watches everything. And I mean *everything!* Now, even the best arch-supervillains can't directly read the exact thoughts of another, he does certainly have the ability to sense when one of his rank and file are not behaving like the mind numbed robots they are paid to behave like. Sooner or later, he's going to suspect that his organisation has been compromised. Of course, by now it's too late to change the Evil Plan, but it's not too late to court a suspected spy. Perhaps give him a new position, some extra "perks", watch him for a while and see where *his* weaknesses are! Perhaps try and secure him as a triple agent. Naturally, we at the DSA know that triple crossing us is a (faint but real) possibility. It is therefore the case that the DSA also has at its disposal a secret & elite Internal Affairs Corps of utterly uncompromising officers whose primary role is to evaluate the activities of all the other infiltrating officers in the arch-supervillain's organisation. It is this corps's duty to secure and tidily neutralise a compromised DSA officer. The DSA's job is never done! [Answer] I would set up a team of defense and reconnaissance based heroes. Defensive Heroes are just supposed to take a hit or two, gauge the enemies power. Get them monologuing. Any situation that requires a superhero to be distracted or kept in place, we have one or two guys who can stand in front of them without being hurt. Reconnaissance based heroes are just that, they gather information. The powers and location of the supervillain, the number and whereabouts of hostages, and descriptions to feed back to the support team at base to identify if the supervillain has been seen before. Sound, sight, scent, and any other skill that can identify the scene are of the utmost importance. The more info we have, the better we can prepare for the villain, and in turn the better we can do protecting civilians. (In the case there is hostages, reconnaissance is in charge of retrieval, so identifying ingress, egress, and potential threats to their safety is of great importance. Heroes capable of saving hostages with super speed, teleportation, or other such methods are a high priority for recruitment.) Support skills such as tracking are also considered, depending on the viability of the skill. Once hostage safety is confirmed, or extraction is ruled out without a diversion, then the defense team roles out. Their job is to occupy a villain with unknown powers until the power is identified, or to distract villains while hostage retrieval is under way. Priority for recruitment is given to heroes who are near impervious or can mitigate attacks, and impervious heroes who can restrain a villain for any amount of time. A hero capable of restraint from a distance is a candidate for recruitment, but lower priority to a hero capable of direct suppression while being defensively sound. There are also Two to Three attack type Hero spots available, which are not always filled. If a suitable hero is found who is capable of hurting a villain who is defensively capable, they may be recruited. Preference is given to long range attacks, sure kill techniques, and techniques with minimal collateral damage. Slow moving techniques are usually rejected, unless they have a high accuracy, minimal collateral damage, and massive power for subduing supervillains with high defenses who otherwise are hard to detain for long periods. The team has a lot of non hero support, including lab techs, engineers, think tanks, data analysts, and out keystone: sniper support. Nearly all subjugation is done through snipers, with support from reconnaissance and defense. Reconnaissance identifies the target(s), removes hostages, and fulfills on site objectives. Defense is always sent in before snipers take any shots, to help protect the snipers from super villains that have anti-bullet powers. A villain who cannot be taken by a sniper will be confined by defense, or taken out by an attack based hero, should one with the appropriate power level be available. If the villains movements are deemed to erratic or fast for a sniper to take a shot, then heroes with restraint abilities are called in to suppress them. Snipers always have some guards for protection, supported with the best anti-villain tech available at the time. This gear is constantly maintained and upgraded by R&D back at base. At base there is a moderately sized force of analysts, programmers, and crime specialists who are always on clock identifying current villains, checking for ongoing crimes, and marking high profile targets that villains might target. All systems have high security, multiple backups, and run on several different networks to protect them from hacking, disabling, and other interference by villains. There are also smaller sub bases around town that can function independently of the main office, restoring order and sending backup in the case of a villain attack. Only the largest bases do R&D, with the R&D focused on body armor, better accuracy rifles, and tech to get on scene. Technology that can be turned against heroes by villains is avoided when possible, but higher ups often push us to develop them anyways. The agency relies almost entirely on quick response times, with high speed vehicles, personal emergency roads, road light alterations, multiple deployment points, and heroes with high speed transportation abilities all utilized in order to subdue a threat with the fastest possible time. Our priority is to save civilians, protect ourselves, subdue villains, and minimize property damage, in that order. Fast response is the only way to maintain these standards, with our three pronged reconnaissance, defense, and snipers approach designed to protect civilians, protect our employees such as our snipers, and finally to subdue the villain in the least destructive way possible. Villains are given a chance to escape if we cannot fulfill our first two goals, and pressing them to escape is our strategy in such a scenario. Data from any given encounter will be compiled, a strategy formed, and new tactics employed as necessary against the villain the next time they are identified. We are not above removing an identified villain who has tried to renter a town in civilian clothes, if we have positive confirmation on their identity. If uncertain of identity, we may choose to detain a suspicious person at an off site secure facility to conduct interviews and take appropriate samples and reading. Sites that are high profile targets sometimes have pre installed sniper outposts, sometimes with an entire temporary division set up with all layers of reconnaissance and defense. Also our spokesperson is a guy who looks like he has a lot of war scars, but is also well versed in small talk. It's good for our image as a highly trained but public first organization. Any questions? [Answer] **Drone snipers firing chemical weapon pellets.** Supervillains are usually human stock. A drone one or two miles above the action will probably go unnoticed. These drones can fire down chemical weapon pellets, which will burst above him/her and shower down a chemical agent. These might be nerve agents or other paralytics, or whatever the circumstance calls for. Ideally the shower of chemical agent takes place quietly without the super villain realizing he is under attack from above. He figures out something is wrong when he starts drooling and can't breathe. Even the Hulk has been defeated more than once with poison gas. Having drones take care of business reduces problems if the super villain decides to attack the drone. You do not have to hold a funeral for a disabled drone. There are not civilian bystanders 1 mile above the city. Chemical weapons are also nice in that they are not invariably lethal. A rapid response team can move in and rescue the super villain as well as bystanders who may have been affected by the chemical. There may be things to learn from a super villain, and value in capturing him alive. ]
[Question] [ The Penanggalan / Manananggal is a vampire-like creature found in Southeast Asia (the former in Malaysia, the latter in the Philippines, with some differences in behaviour). It is described as a flying woman’s head with a cluster of exposed entrails flowing behind her (which apparently twinkle like fireflies). Each night, this hideous freak attacks and drinks the blood of young children and pregnant women. Could something like this evolve in nature, especially the entrails (or at least gives the illusion of entrails)? [Answer] Forget for a moment that people think it is a vampire. Focus on this description alone: > > a flying woman’s head with a cluster of exposed entrails flowing behind her (which apparently twinkle like fireflies) > > > If it flies with no wings, it may be a living balloon. If it shines, it has bioluminescence. All in all, I can picture a flying jellyfish. The closest thing ever in media are the [Hanar](http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Hanar) people of the Mass Effect series of games. Imagine if you will a jellyfish, about as tall as a human (counting the arms). Imagine that it is filled with gases, so that it may fly in air. This probably has to be handwaved. This creature has evolved to prey on humans. It will stalk and hunt small children and pregnant women because they are more vulnerable - this hunter is kinda fragile and avoiding hard fights is a must for it. It will probably also hunt the elderly and those with special needs for the same reason. So why a human face? Maybe the creature evolved human-like facial features so that it may arise less suspicion when peeking at people from far away, or behind windows or bushes. Or maybe, and this is the scary option, the creature is sensient and uses a human mask - or a human face, cut from a victim - for the same purpose. As for the bioluminescence, the creature activates it while hunting to either see what it is doing (since it will initiate attack in the dark) or to scare and maybe stun other humans which might come to the rescue of a victim. If the legends say that the light can burn or kill you, it will make a hunt easier since people will be less likely to help a victim. That this beast is a flying jellyfish actually makes sense in the vampire narrative. The monster's tentacles will not only inject poison, they will also inject digestive enzymes on a victim. The jellyfish will grab as much digested fluid from a victim as it can get and then fly away. Also, since people believe that it is a vampire, they will try an array of superstitions to try and ward the beast off. I don't know if people in Asia think garlic and crosses will keep a penanggalan away, but whatever they do, it is probably innefective. Which is also to the benefit of the penanggalan. [Answer] The problem is that a simple head won't fly - it needs some wings. And that is exactly where those "entrails" come into play. The "entrails" are really a form of wings that allows your creature to fly. Basically you will have some sort of very-large [vampire bat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_bat), whose wings are strangely arranged and longer than those of present day vampire bats. These little critters then seek out young children and pregnant women to feast on their blood, because those are easy targets. We are talking about a really big bat here - the body has to be big enough to be mistaken for a humanoid head. These not-so-little beasts are actively hunting for little/helpless humanoids. As it's dark when they hunt people won't be able to easily see what they look like. Their fur is just coloured in such a way that people think it could be a human head - with enough fantasy and fear. The fact that they are feasting on blood and hunting for victims means that they might also get some blood on them in the process, which further leads people to think that these *heads* have *bloody entrails* behind them. The darkness helps to conceal that their wings are not completely loose chunks of flesh hanging behind them, just bigger, slightly deformed and strangely arranged. [Answer] This could evolve from a hematophagous lizard that has lost its scales, and gained the ability to camoflague. It may become far larger, and able to blend into the night. It may also practice parental care, and bring entrails from animals it has killed to its nest. These entrails might be attacked by bioluminescent necrophagic insects. There may be smaller animals in the area that want to eat the lizard's young, and so the lizard would learn to bring human heads to the nest to scare away these animals. The lizard, carrying entrails and a head, and invisible in the night, would heavily resemble the Penanggalan. ]
[Question] [ The zombie empress has unleashed a zombie horde to take over her country. The military has been defeated, with the bodies of their soldiers that are still intact being added to the horde. This necromancer has succeeded in taking over the government. However, after she installs herself as leader, she realizes that she has two problems: A. It's no fun ruling over dead people who are essentially slaves with no will of their own. B. She needs human society to thrive. The zombies will eventually rot away, and she will need new bodies to replenish her ranks in order to maintain his power and defend the country from outside threats. These brillant deductions has led her to conclude that she needs human society to remain productive and stable in order to maintain power, yet remain weak enough to prevent them from challenging her. How can she maintain this balance and allow both groups to exist side by side to support each other? What policies can be put in place to allow humans to thrive under their zombie overlords? [Answer] Some ideas: 1. Recruit some humans to positions of power. Giving humans power over humans seems to work pretty often. Promote them based on how how well the other humans under them thrive. If you do this well, you could be seen as a benevolent dictator. 2. Give them control of small squads of zombies. Given that the zombies are, ultimately under your control, they can be used to turn on your people who turn against you. You are giving people a tool that is both a carrot and a stick. 3. Use the zombies to help stabilize the situation. They can clear rubble, carry supplies, etc. Try to get the people to start seeing them as useful tools rather than monsters. 4. Make cremation illegal. 5. Start a religion that features zombies as a higher state of being. 6. Give zombies different jobs based on how they acted in life. Someone who was a good citizen gets to be a royal guard or firefighter. Someone who was a scum bag gets to clean the sewers. It makes no difference to the zombie but it might influence the living. There is no reason the leader has to be a despot. There can be benevolent dictators. The trouble there is that the benevolent dictator is usually not ruthless enough with those under him/her and gets deposed. By having the absolute loyalty of the zombies, you can afford to be kind. [Answer] ## They're not zombie overlords They're zombie *protectors.* First of all, no human citizen of this new country is required to serve in the military anymore. Maybe the old army was voluntary, maybe it was compulsory--regardless, it's something that can be pitched as a new kind of freedom. The zombies are here to shield us from the scheming, aggressive nations at our borders! The remaining soldiers can be disarmed and generously granted amnesty. They get to come home to their families! If they still want to take up a combat-oriented career, there are great opportunities for one or two humans to work alongside each zombie platoon, providing a friendly face as they patrol the border (and also dividing them up so they don't have opportunities to coordinate armed resistance). ## They're not just protectors They're a zombie *labor force.* Every large society requires tremendous amounts of human labor to function--agricultural work, mining, building, transportation, and (beyond a certain point) dangerous, low-skill industry. If zombies are capable enough to defeat an army, they're capable enough to swing a pick, or pull a plow and pick weeds. "A Zombie In Every Shed" is a reasonable propaganda slogan, especially if it gives everyone more leisure time. Sure, there is the slight price that families won't be able to bury their own dead anymore. But as long as Grandpa gets shipped off to another part of the country where the family can forget that he's been sentenced to endless labor in undeath, people will get used to it. ## They're not just a labor force They're a zombie *surveillance instrument.* Okay, this part is less suitable for propaganda, but depending on the nature of the necromancy in this world, the empress could very well use her well-distributed hordes to personally observe and gather information on any fomented rebellion, then quash it before it has a chance to gain momentum. Many people, even under occupation, are willing to accept peace over freedom if the rebellious never get a chance to disseminate and promote their ideas; if that peace also comes with an increased standard of living, it's a much easier sell. And the longer the era of peace, the more acceptable it becomes. Won't the rebels just hold their meetings out of sight of zombies if they catch on? Sure, but zombies might become effectively invisible in a surprisingly short time. (Right now, in 2017, thousands of people are installing internet-connected microphones in their own homes because it's a convenient novelty.) If they're given shrouds to reduce the sight and smell of rotting, people will start to see them as furniture. It might even be a popular project for people in domestic roles to knit or quilt shrouds for their zombies. ## The Overton Undead So those are your policies: disarmament and amnesty for human soldiers; migration of the armed forces to the living dead; broad distribution of free labor to undesirable jobs; and instant, quiet suppression of insurgency. Humans probably will thrive, just like some animals in captivity. And if they fail to thrive--hey, more free zombies. [Answer] She has to take over as many funeral parlors as she can and keep a series of well preserved "divisions" in freezer ready to be waken up if and when needed. Keep only a few zombies as "private guard" and make a strict rotation so that any rotting will happily go to cremation chamber with its own legs while fresh ones taking their place. The "divisions" will have to follow similar rotation (but they will have to be carted to cremation) and some "reviving" spell should be prepared in advance so some simple trigger will wake up the whole division if and when some "strike force" is necessary. There still is the customary problem of a single person to control a whole world, day and night, but such a powerful necromancer might find a way to sleep undisturbed. [Answer] Since undead are a lot more productive than humans (24/7) the only thing humans will be needed for are the body. As such the empress should find ways to improve the birth rate of her new country. To allow a quick increase in the birth rate food will have to be abundant. Also, the mortality rate is probably nowhere near what she will need to maintain a zombie horde in good condition. She will need to increase it or bring in corpses from neighbouring country by trade or military. To prevent unrest, rebellion or massive emigration the people need to know that they are safe and that tomorrow they will not be the next zombie. There are many ways to go about it. One way that could be interesting is to use a caste system. The "normal" human would be free to live their life except that each family would have to give a newborn to the other caste. These ones are to be turned into a zombie when they turn 18 or 20. The members of that caste are probably taken care of by their own family, or it could be an adoptive one, because they represent safety for the rest of the family. You might want to read about Amonkhet (a world in the game *Magic the Gathering*). They use mummies with treated bandage and the desert keeps the zombie dry, which helps explain how they are not ridden with diseases and infections for the living population (very important for the agriculture). There is always the option of using something else than a normal zombie such as a mix of a vampire and a zombie. Zombies could be fed blood to slow down the rotting process which, would keep the population weaker, while allowing the military and work force to last longer. ]
[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/80682/edit). Closed 6 years ago. [Improve this question](/posts/80682/edit) The fantasy world I'm writing in is populated by elves, fairies, vampires, humans, etc. It has a handful of portals connecting it to large modern-day cities on Earth as we know it. These portals are controlled by the fantasy world government to keep destructive human technology out, thus keeping the citizens safe. Gov't employees occasionally sneak in smaller things like books and battery-operated items, then sell them on the black market. This society is similar to Amish in that it's primarily artisanal, agrarian and stalled in a pre-Industrial Revolution setting. Because some races live longer than others (elves live hundreds of years, for example) they've seen the negative effects of progress on Earth's environment and are hesitant to adopt that same type of technology if it pollutes or harms. (Think how filthy Victorian London was.) This means that it's illegal to burn fossil fuels, use plastic, have guns, etc. There also are no cell phones, TVs or computers either. Windmills, printing presses, and waterwheels are ok. There's a very high premium on green technology & sustainability. This world does have access to magic, although it requires years of dedication to learn and is heavily regulated. The different races are born with different abilities. Elves can heal (some better than others), fairies can animate and replicate objects (some better than others). Humans can't do much, other than send a kid to mage school for advanced training. Magic isn't conducted like reading a cake recipe out loud. That's why everyone's still riding horses instead of in flying cars like in Harry Potter. I've considered trains, but can't have steam engines because the coal to power them pollutes the air. Since elves live longer and acquire more knowledge, they're the majority running the government...at the highest levels, anyway. They're struggling to keep up with modern technology, yet the more they hear about modern human inventions, the more they want these things for themselves. (Dishwashers, TVs, high-speed rail, cars, guns.) Some of the gov't employees actually live on Earth to keep a better eye on the potential threat of destructive human advances, just in case the fantasy world is ever discovered. Citizens mostly accept this double standard because "it's for their safety." I'm trying to figure out the following: **What are some magic-based environmentally-friendly alternatives that can mirror our technology on Earth?** **EDITED to include more description about how magic works for different races:** Elves can heal and sense disease by laying their hands on someone and using psychic energy. They can speak telepathically to each other & animals, and read thoughts of others (unless that person knows mind-cloaking, which is pretty common). The really skilled ones can erase minds. They age 10X slower than humans, but their strength and senses are 10X better. They can see, smell, and hear things that people simply can't. Vampires are quite similar with abilities, although the sun burns them badly and they drink blood. They also like to terrify people and then feed on that fear. I've never considered reversing elves' healing ability to kill or destroy. Not against it, just never explored the option. Mages can be any race, but most often it's humans or elves. Like any skill, (sports) some are born with more natural talent than others. You have to apprentice for years to fully learn how to master this magic. Instead of reciting spells like Harry Potter, they use elemental magic like "The Force" in Star Wars. A wand or sword is just a crutch since the power is coming from THEM, not the object that represents their skill. They can't move a mountain but they can create a mudslide, bring up magma from the earth, bend the water into shapes, bring on a sudden freeze, cast firebolts...that kind of thing. Fairies can absolutely animate a dish cloth to wash dishes. They're great at helping with chores around the house in exchange for food & shelter, but they aren't materialistic so they have no ambition to amass wealth. This is frustrating to those who see all the potential of this 'wasted' magic. Fairies will assist people who are kind to them and give them protection (usually elves). Their numbers are assumed to be very low because most races rarely see them...no one knows where they live other than in warm climates. They can alter their size to be human-like, so if anyone tried to enslave them they could just shrink to the size of a gnat and escape, unless they were kept in an iron cage. Iron is their kryptonite, and steady exposure leads to death. Same goes for pesticides. If they're in a toxic environment their ability to do magic goes down. It's based on their energy, so if a fairy tells a cloth to wash a dish and then she walks away, the cloth and dish will eventually slow down and stop. An old fairy will wash slowly, and a young, excitable one will wash at turbo speed. If a fairy were to make a perpetual motion machine by animating a wheel, they'd have to reset it regularly (unless they were sitting next to it constantly). Fairies can also change physical properties of inanimate objects, like multiplying food, shrinking multiple large objects to fit into a small knapsack. Nature is revered by most as "The Divine Source of Life" so pollution is discouraged and must be offset since even wood stoves pollute. Oxen and horses draw and carry vehicles, and since they can tell elves if someone's been cruel to them, animal abuse is rare. I don't have dragons or loads of mythical creatures, although I have unicorns but hunting/capturing/killing one is akin to shooting a baby in the face--you would never, ever do it! (Unless you were a Big Bad.) Widely-dispersed rural farmers and trades/craftspeople make up the bulk of society. Relying too heavily on magic is frowned upon...although younger generations are moving to the cities and they really like it! The largest cities are parallel to some on Earth (Paris, London) which is where the portals are to Earth. The city folk are quite modern and educated in comparison to the rural population. There's a schism between the two groups because city-dwellers are seen as not living very close to nature and thus less respectable. City-dwellers see country folks as willfully ignorant of progress. This fantasy world is on the brink of their own industrial revolution so I'm trying to determine how they get similar results to us by using magic-based technology. I hope this additional info is helpful in clarifying my question! [Answer] > > fairies can animate and replicate objects (some better than others) > > > Fairies are the key to your technology. If they can animate objects, they can provide clean power through perpetual-motion devices, or even directly animate things like transportation and industrial machinery without the need for a power source. Humanity has been searching for the technology to create unlimited, clean power since we realized we could convert energy into mechanical work, and your fantasy world has it in the form of fairies. There are some ramifications of this, though. Fairies will either rise or fall in prominence in a society that depends heavily on their abilities. On one hand, they may become well-respected and highly influential members of society. Or they could be forced into slavery as power sources for the wheel of progress. With this in mind, the reason for elves to want exposure to the human world might be to mitigate the influence of fairies. Technology moves forward and spreads, and it won't be long before fairies have influence over every task that can be automated. That might not be bearable to elves, who are used to having the unquestioned leadership majority. [Answer] ## Fireballs Ultimately, at the root of almost every form of power production that our technology relies upon is the ability to produce localised heat. Whether we produce this heat with coal, oil, natural gas, or the fission of unstable elements, it's all the same concept. We produce electricity by generating heat, using the heat to convert water into steam, and using the steam to drive a turbine. We smelt metals by mixing ore and flux with something to produce a lot of heat; normally that's coal, but other sources of heat work just as well. If you have some clean, reliable form of magical fire, you can reproduce most of the technology that you and me use routinely. Even if all you can do is heat a boiler, that can produce electricity, and electricity can be harnessed to do almost anything - including producing even greater heat! [Answer] # Anything that generates electricity The smallest possible change is to imagine any sort of effective non-fossil fuel based electricity production system. You can now support pretty much the entire modern economy (except trucks and planes and ships). Simply make your magic system have some sort of electrical generation. Either you can co-opt existing eco-friendly energy sources (the elves make magical solar panels, dwarves magical geothermal power stations, etc), or you can just assume new ones. The [arc-reactor](http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Arc_Reactor) from Iron Man's suit is basically just a magical source of electricity. [Answer] Alternative forms of technology Communication: replace cell phones with telepathy or a magic mirror Network. Transportation: it's already noted they can create portals perhaps they can create portal shortcuts within their own world creating a soda portal Network where walking a few miles between portals can can save thousands of miles of Transportation. This would explain why they can still use horses another slower means of transportation and are tempted to import steam engines another forms of transportation. Biological base Technologies: as you've already stated your elves have the ability to heal people if they can already heal people it's possible that they can also alter organic creatures on a genetic level. This I would allow them to produce organic Magic based technology that's compatible with the environment. Why would they want to have contact with Earth: there could be many reasons I have a few suggestions 1. Population: in most stories both elves and fairies reproduce very slowly it's possible, that their population could be steadily decreasing because of ( some unnamed catastrophe of some sort) it's possible that they're trying to promote immigration from the human world to their world in the hopes that fairies can elves can reproduce faster with humans than with themselves. 2. Trade: as you said the elves don't seem to mind some forms and Technologies such as printing press. It seems like magic is difficult to mass-produce. ( hence why there are no flying cars around) so perhaps they want to do some trade of small Trinkets and maybe even medicine ( depending on how many healers you have) that would make life easier for them. 3. Because they can't stop them stop themselves from being discovered. Perhaps too many elves cross over to our world and get seen or recorded on video. Maybe a group of scientists find a way to detect an active portal. Whatever happens the elves realize they can't keep themselves isolated from the humans for long and decide to make the first steps in the hopes that that way they can control the situation. [Answer] # Anything that grants their needs Be warned that I am about to pick apart some of the concepts of your question and dismiss them. The big problem is this... > > green technology & sustainability > > > "Green" is not about the environment. Sure that buzzword is used all the time to denote it but "green" is an [ideological color](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_colour)... like red, blue, purple, brown, black. So let us just forget that bit and focus on the core: sustainability. Again, "sustainable development" is used as a buzzword all the time by people to promote whatever it is they are selling. But [Sustainable Development has a definition (PDF)](https://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf), established in 1987 in the UN. Sustainable Development is... (emphasis mine) > > Sustainable development is development that **meets the needs** of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. > > > This means that when you are designing this magic technology, you must first need to think about: what are the **needs** of the people? These "elves, fairies, vampires, humans"... what do they **need**? Usually though, most need boil down to one thing: **energy**. Energy is that which makes things hot, makes chemical reactions happens, that moves and lifts things... energy does **work**. You need something that can do **work**, and this while at the same time seeing to needs such as "clean air", "no big scrap heaps", "not using up all our valuable resources". This is a meta-answer — I know — but this was much too large for a comment. I am voting to close with the hopes that what I have said above helps you along in designing your world, and lets you come up with more productive questions. Cheers! :) [Answer] How about a magic lens to focus sunlight onto a boiler? There is your clean steam power. Magic tuned crystals to use as communicators. Manipulation of gravity using magic. This will enable human (or other :-) power to propel flying machines and many of Leonardo daVinci's machines. Also, magical manipulation of genetics to produce woods to fill the role of plastics in our world. Part of the story could be the race to invent new magical applications to head off the demand for earth type products. ]
[Question] [ ***Please note that I have had some incredibly helpful and useful suggestions here that I have decided to make some major revisions as a result. I will reduce the overall atmospheric pressure and partial pressure of oxygen figures but will thus need to rethink my flying predators. I think that will go a long way to reducing the humidity levels to make them more tolerable to my crew. I want them uncomfortable, but not dead (apart from those attacked). Once I have rejigged things, I will come back here and correct. Thank you to all who have helped!*** This will be my first post here. For my novel-in-progress, I have a "hot 'n heavy" Earthlike world my crew are exploring. ***I need to know whether the humans amongst my crew could breathe and generally survive medium-term (for say, up to 9 or 10 Earth months) and long-term (indefinitely) on this planet without technological support.*** Genetic enhancements are available but not all crew have them. Please assume all crew are extremely fit, that high standards of physical fitness are part of their job description. Assume also they do routinely use drugs to ***help*** manage hyperoxia and thermoregulation. They have also acclimatised as much as is humanly possible to the environmental conditions before leaving their landing craft. If there are any issues, I will finagle technological solutions to them, but I need to know what medical issues my crew may face if I am to know what needs finagling. The crew will need to be active if they are to evade my alien megapredators (some of them big and scary, but nothing too intelligent, the brightest would make a T. rex look like a Mensa candidate), so there will be some running, jumping, screaming, squelching and dying (not necessarily in that order). This is the 2nd planet orbiting the primary sun of a binary system. The primary sun is a K0V orange dwarf main sequence star appearing a fraction smaller in the sky than does our Sun when seen from Earth, but 3.18% brighter due to less distance (mean distance to planetary primary = 164 million km). The secondary sun is a K1V orange dwarf main sequence star appearing in night skies (at the time of arrival in the local planetary year) as a "star" of apparent magnitude -17.5 (104 times brighter than a full Moon on Earth). A small moon orbits so closely to the planet it is tidally locked and has a planetosynchronous orbit. This moon is 582 km in diameter and orbits in lock-step with the planetary rotation of a little over 31 hours. It is a red moon seen low on the horizon as they are exploring the cooler polar region, leaving equatorial areas to robots. Both suns possess a small complement of planets. **Planet being explored:** **Mean equatorial diameter:** 13,008 km **Orbital period:** 219.93 Earth days / 168.86 Local days **Rotational period:** 31h 15m 34s **Mean surface gravity:** 11.30 m/s^2 (1.15G) **Atmospheric pressure:** 274.6 kPa (2.7 Earth atmospheres -- I need this to help some of my local fauna fly) **(UNDER REVISION, AS ARE THE MEANS BY WHICH MY ANIMALS WILL FLY)** **Atmospheric composition:** 74.1% N2, 24.7% O2, 0.5% H2O, 0.7% other (assume nothing toxic) **(H2O AND O2 FIGURES UNDER REVISION)** **Approx mean midday planetary temperature:** 74°C / 347K / 165°F **Minimum nightly temperature at the landing party encampment (north polar circle late Autumn/Fall):** 30°C/303K/86°F **Maximum midday temperature at the landing party encampment (north polar circle late Autumn/Fall):** 46°C / 319K / 115°F Local water supplies are plentiful and they have the tech to synthesise their own even if there are no local supplies. Essentially there are no limits to their supply. Local plants and animals are toxic to eat due to incompatible protein chemistry. Zinc-based haemoproteins are the norm for animals on this planet. Crew have brought their own rations, but can synthesise foods using gravitic technology. Any assistance with this would be greatly appreciated. [Answer] Humidity presents a real problem to how long a human can live in open air. In dry air (like say, a sauna) over 120°C is possible, but uncomfortable. In wet air, though, at 100% humidity, over 50°C is acutely fatal. 40°C and 90% humidity is fatal in under 24 hours. So humidity is a huge issue here. Otherwise simply the air is too wet to breathe. Roughly calculating, since the air holds double the water every 10°C increase, even at 70°C, 11.25% RH is fatal in 24 hours. [Answer] I would be concerned about oxygen toxicity. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity> The increased atmospheric pressure (2.7x) and higher percentage oxygen (24.7% vs Earth 21%) would increase the partial pressure of oxygen in the air to around 0.66 bar (vs Earth of ~0.2 bar). In divers who can experience higher pressures and up to 100% oxygen gas mixtures this can cause lung and eye damage and seizures relatively quickly (hours). On your world it isn't quite that bad but is still 3x Earth normal, I imagine this would help your flying creatures, but it would cause long term damage to the humans living there. Expect decreased lung capacity, which wouldn't necessarily be noticed while on the planet, but would become obvious if trying to return to an Earth normal atmosphere. This can also cause retinal issues resulting in vision problems up to blindness in some people. The only real treatment we have developed for oxygen toxicity is to remove the person from the high oxygen environment before the damage occurs. Use of a breathing apparatus or controlled gas mixtures in sealed habitats (not necessarily pressurized) would be needed for any long term stay on this planet. [Answer] Ok, I aint the brightest scientific mind, but about questions of survivability, I have some ideas. Enemy poisoning: If you don't know the composition of the poison, or at the very least so e basic stuff about it, it can prove deadly very fast without any immediate solution. What you could say is that the poison on this planet, hasn't had much of a time to develop as in the earth, and organisms there don't rely on it, so it's even more undeveloped. Viruses-infections-uknown pathogenic diseases ( you can think of the kind, doesn't have to be pathogenic ): Almost the same as the above, but in this case time to develop has little meaning, as something deadly, doesn't mean it needed had time to develop more. Though this could be a very serious problem ( if you get injured, you are more vulnerable to this kind of stuff ), you can make the exploration team survive, by simple medicines. Even if the effects and composition of the infections and viruses are vastly different, I doubt they won't have any similarities to ours, proving that medicines will still be somewhat effective, till they find a more permanent solution, like concoct their own medicine ( would be pretty hard, but if they come prepared it should be doable ),or something better like abandon that 'infected' person, isolate him from the rest so as not to let the disease spread and so on ( may gain even valuable information about it ) Camping, safety during the night and available resources : it's pretty much a death wish if you go unprepared to explore an unexplored planet without a basic preparation ( which is why I assume that they will at least have a devise, or someone that is knowledgeable about medicines and treatments of various of injuries and so on... ) They could prepare the smell of a strong beast to mark their territory as their own during the night ( that's what dogs do... I think. Anyways the important part is the marking of their territory so as to keep other wild animals or beasts away from them ). If that doesn't suit you, maybe constant patrolling like usual and sleeping on turns would be more applicable ( or both ) Unexpected dangers : provided that this is an unexplored planet something like out of plan and bad surprises stuff will happen is almost possibly a certainty. A scouting animal could solve this, or if your world allows slaves, a bunch of slaves in front of you every time should make things safer ( but slaves need food, so not as hopeful of a solution... besides the apparent problem of moral issues ). Generally I doubt much will happen without technological support, since it will be like sending today's humans back to the past to fight with mammoths... those guys back then were tempered by the environment... A community should solve most problems, as it will be all for all. A strong base, a safe place to be able to return and rest. And since we are talking about evolution, and the fact that they are already accustomed to that planet, why not add the fact that they developed resistance to most of the infections, diseases and poisons on the planet, if you don't want to use much of a technology part... Other than that, as I haven't read your world, I can only offer suggestions. Maybe more information about the world would help. [Answer] I'll use the rules of 3 to see when they will die. (guesstimates, your mileage may very.) **3 Minutes** if the atmosphere isn't [breathable](https://www.reference.com/science/long-can-person-oxygen-before-she-brain-dead-9c116e7dbfc10ca1). Shorter if toxic. **3 Hours** if the [temperature](http://www.npr.org/2011/07/21/138586969/what-happens-when-the-body-overheats) is not within human tolerances. **3 Days** if you [can't drink](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-can-the-average/) / replenish fluids. **3**00 **Hours** without [sleep](https://www.sleepio.com/articles/sleep-science/how-long-can-you-go-without-sleep/). **3 Weeks** without [food](http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/survival/wilderness/live-without-food-and-water1.htm) and physical activity. **3 Months** without [food](http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/survival/wilderness/live-without-food-and-water1.htm) and very little movement. **3 Seasons** without mineral replenishment. (no resources easily found. [Potatoes](http://www.livescience.com/10163-man-eating-potatoes-2-months.html)) **3 Years** without [social contact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_isolation) is very hard. **3 Decades** [without kids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_and_female_fertility) is the end of your line. **3 Centuries** without outside contact and you have your own [language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_change) and culture. **3 Pages** or less if the writer wants you dead. Maybe longer if you can surprise him / her. [Answer] > > I need to know whether the humans amongst my crew could breathe and generally survive medium-term (for say, up to 9 or 10 Earth months) and long-term (indefinitely) on this planet without technological support. > > > Breath? Okay, see this: # Partial Pressure Note that I don't know the $\text{gr/mol}$ of $\text{Others}$ so I tried to make an average with your actual gases. $$ \left| \begin{array}{cc|ccc|c|c} \text{Gas}&\text{%}&\text{gr/mol}&\text{Mols}&\text{Fractal Mol}&\text{Partial Pressure (kPa)}\\ \text{N}\_{2}&\text{74.10%}&28.01&20.7&\text{71.69%}&196.87\\ \text{O}\_{2}&\text{24.70%}&32.00&7.90&\text{27.30%}&74.96\\ \text{H}\_{2}\text{O}&\text{0.5%}&18.02&0.09&\text{0.31%}&0.85\\ \text{Others}&\text{0.7%}&28.95&0.2&\text{0.70%}&1.92\\ \text{Total}&\text{100%}&106.98&28.95&\text{100%}&274.6 \end{array} \right| $$ * **Nitrogen (N2): 196.87 kPa** + **Nitrogen Narcosis:** No, don't worry, you don't have nitrogen narcosis because it's developed under pressures above **240 kPa** and **354 kPa**, and you only have **196.87 kPa of N2**. * **Oxygen (O2): 74.96 kPa:** + **[Oxygen toxicity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity):** When O2 partial pressure is **above 50 kPa** oxygen become **toxic**. Also you would suffer [hyperoxia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperoxia). **Symptoms:** - Disorientation, breathing problems, vision changes such as myopia. - Prolonged exposures of higher O2 PP or shorter exposure but very higher, can cause oxidative damage to cell membranes, the collapse of the alveoli in the lungs, retinal detachment, and seizures. - A lot more, click on the [link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity) for more info. - In [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/84125/35041) you can get more information, also you can see symptoms diagram. * **Water (H2O): 0.85 kPa:** Sorry, I don't anything about it, but you have too much water, I can't say you the effect but I know that it's a lot. * **Other: 1.92 kPa:** I don't know what it's `others`. * **Carbon dioxide (CO2): None** + [**Hypocapnia**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocapnia): You don't have carbon dioxide in the air. Hypocapnia is normally well tolerated. However, hypocapnia causes cerebral [vasoconstriction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasoconstriction), leading to [cerebral hypoxia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_hypoxia) and this can cause transient dizziness, visual disturbances, and [anxiety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety). A low partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the blood also causes [alkalosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkalosis) (because CO2 is acidic in solution), leading to lowered plasma calcium ions and increased nerve and muscle excitability. This explains the other common symptoms of [hyperventilation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperventilation): [pins and needles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paresthesia), muscle cramps and [tetany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetany) in the extremities, especially hands and feet. Because the brain stem regulates breathing by monitoring the level of blood CO2, hypocapnia can suppress breathing to the point of blackout from cerebral [hypoxia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_(medical)) (you have 3 time more O2 in the air so I don't think you would get hypoxia). You should: * **Decrease oxygen levels**: Normally we have 21 kPa but we can survive at 49 kPa. * **Increase CO2**: But very little, less than 1%. With [this answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/84125/35041) (see the table) you can use the CO2 level to determine the "level" of lethality of your planet: from nothing to some minutes (you can use months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and even seconds!!!) ]
[Question] [ Imagine a spacefaring creature, one that colonises star systems, and then shoots some of its kind on to another system (the mechanism for doing this doesn't matter). The question is, **how could this creature get into space in the first place.** (It has to evolve on a planet, and be fairly large, eg. human size or larger). [Answer] Let's take a different approach: I don't agree with the notion that it must have evolved on a planet. I do agree a planet is needed for life to start out. Until it can evolve protective mechanisms it needs a reasonably benign environment. Ok, we start with a terrestrial planet, life has evolved to the small multi-cellular level. A rogue star comes along and jostles the system and things start going haywire. Our formerly peaceful planet comes under the influence of a gas giant that is now in a highly elliptical orbit so it's many years between encounters. They are in resonant orbits so they will tend to maintain their relative positions. At first, the encounters are distant enough that the planet remains basically unharmed other than losing a bit of atmosphere. (It would be quake city but that only going to cause local kills.) The inhabitants of the planet have to evolve to cope with the thinning atmosphere and accompanying increased temperature swings. However, as time goes on the encounters get closer, the inhabitants have to get better and better at riding out the bad times. Finally, it gets close enough that the orbital deviations are too great for resonance effects to overcome, the terrestrial planet is kicked outward a bit--and the next encounter passes within the gas giant's Roche limit--the planet is gone and the gas giant gets a spectacular ring system. Our rugged organism has evolved enough defenses that it can survive in this new environment. Now we have space-based life and it can evolve. Separating one's offspring is beneficial (both to give the offspring new hunting grounds and to keep them from hunting on your grounds), at some point a crude solid rocket evolved. Once it arose it was a sufficient advantage that bigger and better rockets arose, eventually reaching the point that a creature in a rich area in the outer part of the star system could occasionally grow one that is interstellar-capable. [Answer] You need a creature that push the boundaries of the science-based tag and the limits of what qualifies as biology. ## Biological Nuclear Fusion This space faring creature has evolved to the point it no longer needs a star's light for energy. It has achieved the next leap where this creature can fuse hydrogen in special organs inside its body to produce energy. In the process of evolving this it has evolved natural defenses against the hazards of performing fusion (like generating its own magnetic fields), which help protect it from the hazards of space. ### Minimized dependency on planet characteristics It can eat any raw materials it wants for fuel as long as it has hydrogen, but prefers matter that contains hydrogen that can easily be separated off for fusion. As such it does not need planets to have oxygen or a specific atmosphere composition in order to survive. The atmosphere would need to be nontoxic, noncorrosive, and generally not dangerous (as in not Venus). Much like how we have cold blooded and warm blooded animals, this creature would be in its own category of hot blooded. The fusion reaction would produce lots of heat as such the creature can heat itself. So planets that do not get much sunlight and thus are blocks of ice would not be much of a problem, and likely would prefer colder planets. ### How it evolved to get off the planet Fusion produces far more energy then conventional fuels. If the creature can expel the energy in a controlled fashion, it could provide enough lift for blast off. I see this creature had evolved to spread its spores over a large area by going through a final metamorphosis that essentially converts the adult into a rocket with the spores as the payload. Early on the adult would launch into the atmosphere and explode (not a violent explosion) launching the spores over a wide area. Selection favored adults that could launch further and higher into the atmosphere to spread their spores over a bigger area. Eventually the final stage started to drop spores on one or more of the planet's moons. From the moons it started to evolve traits that allowed it to better survive space travel and different planets. It slowly propagated to the outer rim planets in its solar system. By this point it had adapted to have a rather wide tolerance for planets and started launching into deep space. In deep space the adult slowly sacrifices itself to protect the spores and get them to their final destination. [Answer] **Organic Space Elevator** The space faring creature is a large tree. It grows so tall, it extends past the atmosphere. Eventually reaching beyond geostationary orbit. It could shift its mass and pull up its roots to leave the planet below. Once in space, it could steer itself with leaves that act like solar sails. [Answer] Your critter reproduces via very lightweight, mushroom-like spores. It produces many. These spores drift high into the atmosphere and then leave the atmosphere into space via manipulation of electrical charge - they accumulate charge via radiation and then are repulsed by the earth's charge. Spores drift until intercepting the orbit of another world, then drift down and hope for a fertile substrate to begin growth. Paraphrased from Current Aspects of Exobiology; Mamikunian & Briggs eds. This method would work less well as distances or radiation level increase. [Answer] If this creature did evolve in such a way that it could propagate off of a planetary body into space, the chances of its survival seem pretty slim. Since it would require a very specific environment to influence its evolution as such, then only planetary bodies with similar environments would play such a host. The chances of these planets being close enough together, in a high enough concentration to constitute a sufficient breeding ground is probably fairly low. Then there is the problem of surviving the vacuum of space. Is there any known organism that can? Only ones I know of are the ones that hitchhike comets, but they aren't really in the vacuum, but trapped within the comets ice. **UPDATE** I didn't realize some microbes can survive Space's vacuum [6 Organisms That Can Survive Travel In The Vacuum Of Space](http://morgana249.blogspot.com/2014/08/6-organisms-that-can-survive-travel-in.html) [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/i6iuB.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/i6iuB.jpg) [Answer] The creature excrete, as byproduct of its metabolism, a significant amount of hydrogen. When laying eggs/spores, these are attached to a balloon-like structure, which is inflated with the hydrogen excreted by the mother. The structure of the balloon is such that it will be elastic enough to withstand expansion of the gas with increasing height and to tear in small holes in space vacuum, providing a short propulsive momentum by the ejected gas. The remaining of the balloon act then as a solar sail to propel the egg/spore further in space. [Answer] Your creature needs to accomplish two things: 1) escape velocity and 2) survive the harshness of space, all without the benefit of so much as a sharpened stick or flake of rock. This is going to be difficult, but not impossible. For #1, I think you are going to have to start out with a low gravity for your world, in addition to the specialized characteristics of the creature. It might be able to get to escape velocity with a pair of mega-grasshopper-like legs to jump into space, but clearly, flight is more likely. I found this [interesting article](http://www.audubon.org/news/the-common-swift-no-longer-fastest-flying-animal) at Audubon discussing how peregrine falcons, common swifts, and free-tailed bats have been jockeying for the title of "Earth's fastest flying animal." No matter the winner, what they share is a light, streamlined body and long, thin wings. The fastest flying insects- dragonflies- have a similar body plan. Your creature will need to borrow this shape, able to accelerate itself through your world's atmosphere fast enough to overcome its reduced gravity. For #2 things are much harder. Most familiar animals, including us humans, don't do well in outer space. Without a pressurized suit, our body fluids boil, and even with one, radiation will get us sooner or later. Plus, said suit is technology, so clearly not allowed here. But there are creatures that can survive- they are called [tardigrades](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade), or more commonly water bears. Unfortunately, the body plan of the water bear is vastly different from our fast flyers. They are tiny, stout, not at all streamlined, and lacking wings. However, your creature can adapt the mechanisms of the water bear, able to turn off its metabolism and go into a state of [cryptobiosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptobiosis). The animal essentially puts itself into "suspended animation" until it returns to a hospitable environment. I think your creature would need to remain quite small for all of this to work, however, probably only a centimeter or so in length. In other words, I don't think you can meet *all* of your goals in one creature without a lot of hand-waving. But you can get part way there with some reduced restrictions. [Answer] Other answers have some great points about the vacuum of space, so I will not get into that. But what if you have a low gravity world? Then find some way to create a tether for a space elevator. Well, a very simple one. A world tree with the top into the void is a good start. (I think you need some hand-waving here) Then just climb onto the rope till you get flung away. You will want something to guide you along it for some more momentum, you are gonne need that without rockets. That just leaves you with the [tricky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist) part of timing for travel between planets. Or just watch [Starship Troopers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_(film)). ]
[Question] [ Current technological level. (in the setting there is an awful tech stagnation, so waiting for better DNA engineering technology is considered as waste of time) Possibility to use all contemporary known assisted reproductive technology. No problem in hiring surrogate mothers. Limits issued by local ethic committee equivalent: No serious health damage to those kids or any seriously excessive risk. (excessive means: "many times higher than during a normal pregnancy"; yes, it's only a *moderate* dystopia) At which age it would be possible to collect gametes that could be used for in vitro fertilization? [Answer] In girls, the gametes are ready very early, so you could in principle induce ovulation in young children and harvest the egg cells to be carried by an adult surrogate. In boys, sperm do not mature until puberty, and from a quick googling this seems to be at the age of 11-13 years. You might be able to trigger this somewhat earlier, again via hormones. If you are willing to trigger puberty early in both boys and girls, you could probably get away with generation cycles under 10 years. You would obviously need surrogate mothers to carry the pregnancies. Some factors speaking against this: * Triggering puberty early is somewhat harmful to the child. If you want these children to be useful to society in ways other than by their gametes, you better wait until natural puberty. * Some heritable defects don't show up until after puberty. If you're able to screen for these defects very effectively, you can probably also just genetically modify the embryos to be what you want, and don't need generations at all. * You probably also want to avoid breeding for traits that make natural reproduction impossible. * In the same vein, you'll want to see what your generations are like as adults, so you don't accidentally breed for the wrong traits. * There is some evidence that the birth mother has some influence on a developing fetus, so for optimal results you'd want your genetic mother to also carry the fetus. In conclusion, your best bet would be to wait until the generation has gone through puberty and is able to procreate normally, which should take you around 15-20 years per individual. [Answer] Currently, the average female is fertile around 11 or 12. There are examples of fertility as early as 8 months which resulted in a pregnancy at 6. It is very possible to medically induce fertility. This may introduce unforeseen complications is viability. Therefore, the short answer is: very early, within the first year of life. However, what is truly limiting is observing for the desired trait. If it requires more physical maturity, then you are going to have to waiting longer to see if the trait presents itself in the new generation. If your genetic testing is sufficient enough to test for the desired trait then your generations can be around two years. ]
[Question] [ Here are some lists of [North American](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_animals_extinct_in_the_Holocene) and [South American](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_American_animals_extinct_in_the_Holocene) megafauna that [went extinct](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction_event#North_America_and_the_Caribbean) during the Quaternary. In Eurasia, many species of large mammal were domesticated, most particularly the 'big 4' edible animals--cow, sheep, goat, and pig--and the most important traction animal, the horse. There were other animals domesticated that were important in certain regions (water buffalo, yak, ass) but none spread universally at an early date like the aforementioned five. Had the American megafauna not largely gone extinct, and had pastoral cultures developed in the Americas, which set of 4 or 5 animals could have been domesticated to provide meat, milk, fiber, and traction or riding power? Stipulations: You may not choose any extant animals as one of your set except the llama or alpaca, since those were actually domesticated in ancient times. [Answer] ## Ruling out Species Based on your requirements, mammals are likely to be your best bet. Within mammals, you can eliminate the following possibilities: * Rodents (and other small creatures) will likely be too small to be worthwhile or practical. The other factor here is there's no way to have a herd of rodents. * Carnivores aren't a viable source of meat when you have to feed them meat. There's also the issue of humans being made of meat... * Elephants have never been domesticated (only *tamed* and held in [captivity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_elephants)), since they have such a long reproductive cycle. ## Domestication through Selective Breeding I'm not sure you realize how powerful selective breeding is. Within 50 years, [foxes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Domesticated_Red_Fox) in Russia were selectively bred, creating a new domestic species out of a completely wild one. And, once you have a domestic animal, you can continue to selectively breed them for other traits, such as long fluffy wool, more meat for slaughter, coat color, etc. Selective breeding is definitely the way to go. ## Preventing Extinction While there's a lot of debate about why some of these creatures would have become extinct, one strong theory is that humans are, as usual, to blame. Many species may have been hunted to extinction. Simply not hunting the creatures you want to domesticate is a good step to preventing their extinction. ## Good Candidates While we don't know what any of these extinct animals were like, there are some related species that were domesticated. It's possible that these species could have been domesticated as well. * Horses + [Hippidion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippidion) + [Equus occidentalis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equus_occidentalis) + [Macrauchenia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrauchenia) * Camels + [Camelops](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelops) * Bovines + [Harlan's muskox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootherium_bombifrons) + [Shrub-ox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euceratherium) * Bison + [Bison occidentalis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_occidentalis) + [Bison antiquus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_antiquus) ## Species Actually Domesticated in the Americas It's important to realize that the Native Americans did domesticate some animals other than llamas and alpacas (although alpacas may not be as domestic as you think). The paper [Evidence for Pre-Columbian Animal Domestication in the New World](http://soar.wichita.edu/bitstream/handle/10057/1824/LAJ%2021_p42-54.pdf?sequence=1) lists the following: > > There were seven domesticated animals kept in the New > World before European discovery. The dog dates to 9500 BC at Jaguar Cave, > Idaho (Lawerence 1971). The llama dates to 4200-2500 BC > in the Central Peruvian Highlands (Wheeler Pires-Ferreia, > et. al 1976). The guinea pig dates to 5000 BC in the > highlands of Peru (Stahl and Norton 1987). > > > The Muscovy duck dates to 700-600 BC in the > Ecuadorian lowlands (Hesse 1980). The turkey dates to AD > 180 and probably came from the greater Southwest > (MacNeish 1966). The stingless bee dates back to at least > AD 180, at least, and is spread throughout Central and > South America (Callen 1966). The cochineal is known > historically, but there is no conclusive archaeological > evidence for it (Donkin 1977). > > > --- ## See also * [The first steps towards the domestication of animals](https://archive.org/stream/firststepstoward00galt#page/n5/mode/2up) [Answer] It is hard to say with any certainty, but we can make some educated guesses based on domestications elsewhere. For example, considering that horses, camels, pigs, and oxen were domesticated elsewhere, and relatives of camels were domesticated in the Americas, if these hadn't gone extinct in the Americas they very well could have been domesticated. Many surviving [peccaries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peccary) and [llamas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llama) have been domesticated, so extinct forms could have been as well. We have domesticated a lot of both land and water fowl, including some in the Americas, so extinct forms could have been domesticated in the Americas as well. On the other hand, bears and big cats haven't been domesticated anywhere, so it is unlikely they (or other animals filling similar niches like [Nimravidae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimravidae)) would have been domesticated in the Americas. Although it would be plausible for the [dire wolf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dire_wolf) to be domesticated, humans would have brought their own dogs so this wouldn't likely have happened, and non-social canines probably wouldn't have been domesticated. There are other animals where the situation is less clear. [Glyptodonts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyptodont), [Notoungulata,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notoungulata) and [ground sloths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_sloth) were pretty diverse, so perhaps there were some varieties that could have been domesticatable (although I am not sure why someone would want to domesticate a Glyptodont). Reindeer have been domesticated, so perhaps some of deer varieties could have been depending on their behavior. Similarly, Asian elephants have been tamed (but not domesticated due to their long reproductive cycle) while African elephants haven't based largely on different temperaments, so it is possible some of the smaller varieties of elephant relatives might have been had short enough reproductive cycles and good enough temperament to be domesticated. As mentioned previously, most varieties of llama and camel have been domesticated, so the superficially similar [Litopterna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litopterna) might also have been. It is much harder to say with [terror birds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae), humans never really had any contact with large carnivorous terrestrial birds. If they imprint like many bird species do then domestication would have been easy, otherwise it would probably have been extremely difficult. Similarly there really are no living enormous rodents, so it is hard to say what we would do with something like the [giant beaver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castoroides). Although we have domesticated the largest living rodent, the [capybara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capybara), it is naturally a herd animal, so it isn't a good basis for comparison. It is a South American animal, though, and it has extinct relatives that could have been domesticated as well. Edit: I originally incorrectly said Asian elephants have been domesticated. They have only been tamed. [Answer] It's difficult to say scientifically, becasue to many factors are unknown. It is impossible to say yes this species would be domesticated, but we can eliminate many of them. Assuming you want these animals to be domesticated prior to industrialization then to be domesticated an animal needs four traits. first it has to be mellow enough to get used to get used to having humans around and not trying to stomp them into a grease paste or run away as soon as they see them. Second it needs to be pack or herd dwelling, if they won't tolerate others of their kind they are next to useless, becasue you can't breed them and they will not tolerate having people around all the time. Third they have to mate with a fairly high turnover, elephants would have been great to domesticate if they didn't breed so incredibly slow. lastly hey can't have a specialized diet or habitat. If humans can't take them with them they can't domesticate them. many of these will be unknown for extinct fauna, especially temperament. Sadly many of the traits that make you easy to domesticate also make you easy to hunt to extinction. **we can rule out groups though for these reasons**, mammoths and mastodons get dropped from the list for the same reason as elephants. The various bears and big cats can be ruled out due to temperament and lack of social behavior. We have to be careful when just assuming species that look alike behave similarly however. Calmness can't be estimated well by morphology. Zebra and horses are all but identical but one was easily domesticated and the other is completely unsuitable becasue the temperaments are completely different. Fossils just don't give enough information for anything but gross estimation of behavior. It is important to remember just becasue an animals is domesticated today does not mean it can be domesticated without technological support. Bison are a great example, which were not really domesticated some individuals are tamed and with things like steel fencing and tranquilizers we can contain herds for our purposes but that's not the same thing as domestication. If you are making a story with this you might be better off taking all of the suitable candidates putting them in a hat and pulling four or five at random and saying those are the ones that turned out to be domesticable. [Answer] There is a very thorough analysis of what makes an animal domesticable in [*Guns Germs and Steel*](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1842.Guns_Germs_and_Steel) by Jared Diamond. The [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel) has a good summary of the general theory, but doesn't explicitly list all the criteria for an animal to be suitable for domestication. "As early Western Asian civilizations began to trade, they found additional useful animals in adjacent territories, most notably horses and donkeys for use in transport. Diamond identifies 13 species of large animals over 100 pounds (45 kg) domesticated in Eurasia, compared with just one in South America (counting the llama and alpaca as breeds within the same species) and none at all in the rest of the world." Wikipedia FYI, none of the five animals you mentioned were native to Europe - they were brought there as domestic animals. GG&S also explains why "civilisation" (AKA settled agricultural society) developed first in the Middle East, and why it then migrated into Western Europe a couple of millennia later. Diamond also says that domesticable grains are a necessary prerequisite before animals become domesticated on a wide scale, especially large work animals, because the people need to have a grain surplus to feed their work animals, and also because hunter-gatherers don't really have enough useful work for animals to do to justify the effort of gathering food for them. "Eurasia has barley, two varieties of wheat, and three protein-rich pulses for food; flax for textiles; and goats, sheep, and cattle. Eurasian grains were richer in protein, easier to sow, and easier to store than American maize or tropical bananas." Wikipedia Maize does have the advantage that it can grow in relatively poor soil, so in the Americas, cities could form in places where a wheat/barley/legume culture simply wouldn't be able to grow enough food to survive. ]
[Question] [ In my latest draft, a worm-like species buries itself deep below the crust of their world and consumes/gathers tiny amounts of heavy metals. Can you think of any plausible reason why a wormlike creature would do so? Why would they spend time and energy digging deep and gathering small pieces of metal? Some Details: * Location: Earth-analog * The species itself is not really fleshed out right now. * They do return to the surface. Its either part of their lifecycle or daily/weekly/monthly routine. * the intake of metal takes places many hundreds of metres below the surface, at least 1000 metres below. I should make the heat-resistant, or should I? * the metals take a significant amount of their worms bodyweight. Bonus Question: Is that deep below the surface a suitable place for heavy metals or do I need to mess with the geology of my earth analog for this? Edit: As Suggested by John Dallman the plot reason for this: The worms are harvested by humans, who need the heavy metals. It kind of harvesting spider silk in terms of quantity, maybe a order of magnitude higher in output. This work should be dirty, dangerous and really unpleasent for the poor peasants. [Answer] With discovery of bacteria such as [these mentioned in National Geographic](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081105-bacteria-mining.html) and those used commercially by companies such as [BacTech](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081105-bacteria-mining.html) we know certain bacteria can collect heavy metals, materials with magnetic/electrical properties and just about anything else you like. These worms could have evolved to feed on these bacteria, deep in the mines, similar to the "[Devil Worm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halicephalobus_mephisto)" here on Earth. Eventually, one can imagine the bacteria becoming part of the digestive process, just like we host many digestive bacteria which are not part of our genetics but certainly an aspect of our biology. As the worm species branched out, metals would be carried from deeper and deeper toward the surface, just as worms churn nutrients from bedrock up through the soil. So there are plenty of metal veins which would have become mixed into the soil and likely you will have places with plain metal veins still existing too. There's no need to go to particular depths, but geological formations such as mountains are more likely to have churned up fresh metals. Wherever chances are higher that metals came up from further down in the core via convection and volcanic activity. Note: You can involve some other processes with this. Worm excrement may be a special alloy or thread for instance. Different species may have branched off to specialize in particular metals or grow armored exoskeletons that can be harvested. Things like that. [Answer] You could frame it as an example of bioaccumulation. The worms consume soil but have no physiological way to digest/secrete/excrete the heavy metals. As they get older the concentration of the metals is several times larger than the ambient concentration in their environment. (This is a real problem in Earth ecosystems as certain animals have the ability to accumulate nearly toxic levels of heavy metals) [Answer] Since rare earth metals are by definition rare, I'm not confident your worms could burrow effectively to find them. You may want to consider instead using your planet's oceans to transport the heavy metals (as ionic salts), and have your worms collect them from the passing tides. In the water, heavy metal ions would be more evenly distributed, simplifying the search for them, and your worms could be sessile filter-feeders. If you want to increase the concentration of heavy metals in one place, introduce a predator that eats these worms and either collects or excretes the heavy metals it encounters. Within that context, Earth already has a broad range of creatures that collect a regular metal (Calcium) from their ocean environment and use it to construct their skeletons. We call them mollusks and corals. It is not unreasonable to expect that on a different world, your worms might find use for heavy metals and collect them from sea water instead. As one option, I suggest that (except for our theoretical predator), the presence of heavy metals in your worms' bodies might make them less desirable as a meal. NB: you probably don't want to have one worm collect multiple kinds of heavy metals, as each one has distinct chemical properties. Pick one, and have your worms use that. [Answer] The worm would be that deep looking for metals to find bacteria to eat. When they eat the bacteria, the heavy metals accumulate in the body of the worms. The bacteria to eat would be there taking advantage of some as-yet-undiscovered metabolic pathway. There are many metabolic pathways discovered (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_pathway>). Its not hard to imagine one that involves or is catalyzed by a rare metal (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth>'s\_crust). Alternately, in the more way out science fiction, the bacteria could thrive way down in the aethenosphere where high temperatures (1300 C) allow this alternative metabolic pathway to operate. Any worm that could bore that deep would have to have physiological adaptations that would be very valuable. [Answer] The worms are resistant to heavy metal poisoning, but all other animals, including their predetors, are suseptable, the worms seek them out as a chemical defense mechanism. Milions of years of evolution have programed them to search for the highest consentration of those metals and they bio-accumulate. Their breeding, however requires the surface so they breed when they are toxic enough to roam the surface with inpunity. Bonus: sinse the resistance is likely specific to a single metal, they search for it selectively and, when melted like ore, release it in pure form. [Answer] An alternative version of Kiran's answer: the worms eat those metals because the high concentration in their bloodstream protects them from parasites. Another alternative: as they go deeper into the ground, the concentration of oxygen drops. They need a lot of iron to make a lot of hemoglobin and myoglobin so that they can absorb more oxygen when close to the surface, which allows them to burrow deeper than any other burrowing creatures. [Answer] Many metallic compounds can be exploited by a number of bacteria for energy, in the deep earth out of touch with sunlight and biological compounds made with solar energy that's going to be a primary source of cellular energy for any number of creatures so that's why the metals would be taken up. Yes at depth metals are more common in the rocks than on the surface. The worms needn't be particular heat-proof at 1000 metres, the average thermal gradient underground is 25 degrees C per kilometer down to about 400 km of depth so use that as a guide for thermal resistence. The other thing that goes up as you go down is the "background count" so a lot of what the worms pick up will in fact be at least slightly radioactive, the levels of radiation will depend on exactly what rocks these worms are chewing through, intrusive igneous rocks contain more uranium thorium etc... than deeply buried sedimentary rocks. Metals are inter-soluble, they dissolve into each other, so a life-form that harvests metallic compounds will always pick up metals that it doesn't want along with those that it needs. What does that mean for your worms? They're going to accumulate toxic metals in their tissues along with the target metals. These guys are also going to be tough, in terms of physical texture, because they have to deal with very high pressures in their native environment. In summary you have a creature that is hard to kill/harvest and extremely toxic when you do that yields a lot of radioactive and/or poisonous material along with the target metals that you want to get out of them. That job is going to suck. ]
[Question] [ The concept of "age" on Earth is based on the number of revolutions the planet has completed since one's birth. In a setting where interstellar colonies exists, of even in a setting where multiple colonies are established on planets which all have different revolution times around their sun, how would one speak about his age to an inhabitant of another planet? For example, a 32 year old human on planet Earth would be equivalent to ~380 years for a Jovian. What standard measures could be applied to beings to easily understand the age of the other without requiring constant conversion into Earth revolutions? At the moment, my ideas are either: 1. Physical and mental assessment test; or 2. Length of [telomeres](https://www.verywell.com/understanding-cellular-aging-2224234) Would like comments or suggestions. Thanks [Answer] ## Time is not measured on planetary orbits **Seconds** as standardized by the SI system is defined as *"the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom."* Because this is related to physical properties of an element, it will be universally applied. Therefore members of the same species across different colonies will use some definition of a "Year" that is some integer multiple of a second. If you want to use a standard earth definition it would be 31,536,000 seconds. This may be too difficult for an average person to remember, so whatever the center of your system of government is could have **an annual event or holiday** (like every Christmas Day on Earth). Then a person's age could be the amount of holidays these people have experienced. This will be easy to keep track of because the official government timekeepers will announce it every standardized period. [Answer] Use Earth standard years or some other standard unit. Individuals could track their ages in standard years or perform conversions from local time units when wanting to compare. These time conversions factors could easily be programmed and computed similar to the way time zones and time changes are done by computers today. Similar digital systems could also be used to track each individuals local times and ages relative to different locations caused by time dilation from travel at near light speed. This type of system would be necessary if there is any large scale travel at near light speeds, as calculating the physical ages of people (and equipment) would be much more complex than just measuring the time elapsed. [Answer] There seem to be two types of age in the question. The first is how someone is in terms of how long they have lived or their age by the calendar. While the second age is their biological age or equivalents thereof. This would be a sort of gerontological clock. For interstellar colonies, calendar age can be calculated both in terms of the colony planet's local calendar (or Colony Planet Years) and in Standard Earth Years. @knowads correctly suggested calendar age can be calculated in seconds. The second is a standard unit of time which will remain so irrespective of the length of the day on any given planet or the period of its orbit around its primary star. A 32 year old (in Standard Earth years) is 32 times 31,536,000 seconds old or 1,009,152,000. This is, of course, a ridiculously exact figure. So expect persons communicating across the colonial empire to give their calendar ages in approximations. Like "On May 23, I turned 1,009,152,000 seconds or 32 Standard Earth years old." The person receiving this age can quickly estimate the age of their pal on another planet. For biological age, it's necessary to make one assumption. Namely, that medical and biological science has advanced sufficiently that there exists a simple test for estimating how far along someone's lifespan any given person is gone. This doesn't mean when the person reaches the end of their estimated lifespan they drop dead immediately. This will always be a probability. Assuming two people chatting via ansible (don't worry this is only to simplify the reasoning here) and they both have had the lifespan test. "I'm 32% of my lifespan long," she said. "Oh," he replied. "I've just reached 31% myself." Percentages are one way to calculate an estimated passage along a person's lifespan. It could be done by the time on a clock face. Any suitable metaphor will do. If the test worked sufficiently well people could talk about how many more years they expected to live. "I'm 400 now and I've only got another 800 years left." This will need to be translated into whatever calendar the speakers use to calculate age. This can be Standard Earth Years or their respective Local Colony Years. How does the biological age test work? Perhaps by the length of telomeres or any other molecular biological clock that may be ticking off our lifespan. There might be ways of measuring the accumulated wear and tear on cellular structures. The biological sciences are simply too complex to predict where they will go or what they will discover. For this reason, it is simpler to assume that a biological age test will exist in the age of interstellar colonization and leave it at that. [Answer] Since human concepts of time are relative to our existence, they would mean nothing to an alien species. You would have to pick a universal constant (or as close to it as you can) that any scientific species would understand. Half lives are constant. The half life of the most abundant material in the universe, the two most stable isotopes of hydrogen, are 12.32 Earth years. Since the half life never changes, that would be an excellent measure of time, as you can quantify half life with any measurement of time. I do not like your 2 points, as they have no completely relative and/or subjective. [Answer] ## I can tell you the answer and provide you with peanuts on the way This answer depends on whether or not you want hard science fiction or classic science fiction. As in one FTL travel is easy and the other not. If you go with the former, then going farther than your own solar system will take many years to arrive at the closest star. (Unless we get into ftl tech, but that gets a little... spacey :D) This means that on the way, passengers can simply be told what their age is in local years. (similar to how flights tell you local time) They can also set their new circadian rhythm and sense of time. [Answer] There are a number of concepts here which coalesce into one measure here on earth: elapsed time, subjective elapsed time allowing for relativity and hibernation, calendars, planetary orbital and rotational periods, biological ageing, biologically programmed diurnal periods (esp. Sleep cycles) I expect (absent alien influence) that on starship and for historical and financial record keeping, time will be measured in seconds since a universally agreed base date and reference frame. A gigasecond is about 30 years and will probably come to replace the century. A hundred thousand seconds may well replace the day on board starships. Note that our computers already record times in seconds and convert seconds since a base date into calendar dates when needed. On a planet local days will need to be compatible with human physiology. We can adapt to 22 hour days or 28 hour days so on such a planet one day will be one rotation. On a 55 hour planet people will almost certainly be awake morning and evening with an eight hour "siesta" for sleep in the middle of the planet's day. Local calendars will reflect sleep cycles "days" and the seasons "years". Months, if they exist at all, will be quite arbitrary and local. Subjective age of human beings may well retain earth-year numbers. "I'm about forty" would serve as a civilisation-wide description of (say) a person who was born 350 earth years ago, who has been in hibernation between stars for 300 years, contracted ten years by travel at relativistic speeds, even on a world where a local year is 2.7 earth years and a local day is 13 earth hours with humans sleeping only every other night. For these added complexities you would need a conversation or a CV. Here on Earth lying about ones age is usually socially acceptable, with sympathy or mockery as the only punishment if you cannot convince. For employment or insurance, proof of bio-age is likely to be demanded. We are already starting to see anti-ageism legislation. As medicine advances we may see many more biological 60+ people who are "about 40" in most senses that matter. For employment, job performance or interview tests may soon be mandated to replace calendar-age discrimination. Can there be a medically objective measure of ageing-related fitness? I doubt it. We all know of people whose bodies are disintegrating but whose minds are sharp as ever. Were they athletes? Or are they authors? I once read about a travel company that under new (young?) management forced retirement on all of its tour guides at 70. Its competitors could not believe their luck! [Answer] People could use ruthenium half-lives as their standardized unit of measure for long durations of time (assuming that there are enough people away from the Earth for it to make sense to not just use Earth time and have them convert between Earth time and local time). This would be constant anywhere and independent of any astronomical measurements. Also, if you are going with interstellar colonies in hard sci-fi, it would not be important to have one measure of time for all star systems. Communications would take years, so there is no reason to not use a unit of time that makes sense for that star system and convert bask and forth for the few communications. ]
[Question] [ Imagine a world as we know it. People go about their daily business, working to earn money to spend to be happier. Politicians lying about the same things to get votes to get more power. Wars happening for the same reasons and un-reasons. Only with a slight difference: > > Each and every man-made mirror works as a viewpoint and portal into a [parallel world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_universe_(fiction)). > > > Scientists hypothesize the *mirroring* having happened due to the [LHC](http://home.cern/topics/large-hadron-collider) going haywire and blowing up on the day of its inauguration-run in *September 2008*. This event likely having created a *strong-link* to an alternate timeline and thus bound the two earths1 together, somewhat, physically. --- Thus you can imagine it as a tandem of *two* earths inhabiting physically the same space but then not because space-magic. These earths being inhabited by *clones*2 of the people and animals and *everything* on earth up to the specified date. These *mirrors* allow people the following things: * see the other earth * hear sounds from the other earth * communicate with people from the other earth * pass things through to the other earth ..alas they do not allow: * [self-aware](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness) beings moving between the earths The *mirrors* themselves are limited to locations where mirrors have been put on both earths. Though as the *parallel earth* only has been created relatively recently, the infrastructure development on both worlds are about 99.99% similar to each other. *mirror-linking:* The linking between *mirrors* is based on their [absolute position](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_coordinate_system) on their *relative earth*. Thus and in addition the following laws apply: * a *mirror* placed on *earth* at (100, 10, 10) will only be linked to a *mirror* placed on *htrae* at (100, 10, 10) * the *linked* surface of the *mirrors* will only be the area that *overlaps* on both *mirrors* * only *mirrors* that are positioned back-to-back will actually form *portals* > > example: > > - Place a *mirror* **A** with the dimensions of 10m length x 2m height facing *east* on *earth* at the center of the Alexanderplatz > > - Place another *mirror* **B** with the dimensions of 2m length x 4m height facing *west* on *htrae* at the center of their Alexanderplatz3 > > > We now have created a *portal* on AlexanderplatZ with the dimensions of 2m length x 2m height. > > On *earth* people will see the *eastern part* of the place > > On *htrae* *elpoep* will see the *western part* of the place > > > --- **Question:** What would be the ramifications of such *mirrors* on the economy of these earths? 1call them Earth and htraE if you feel like it (or maybe Earth and !Earth, which is somewhat easier to read) 2I **definitely** prefer the term: *mirrorlings*; but who am I to tell you? 3respectively *Ztalprednaxela* [Answer] I can think of several interesting possibilities from this new phenomenon. Now, keeping in mind, this is somewhat of a 'what if' question leaning towards idea generation, but still, I think it's an interesting question. After the initial shock of this change wears off, people will be looking for ways to exploit or utilize this new dimension. The first thing that comes to mind would be the possibility of linking the respective internet equivalent from both worlds. Depending on how similar the programming language and computer science tech trees are in the parallel world, it could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few years to develop a way for our internet to interface with theirs, effectively doubling the size of the internet. After the internet infrastructures are connected, I can imagine that trade and the stock markets of the respective dimensions would also be linked up after a short amount of time, this could have a huge impact on the world economy, for better or worse, although I would be inclined to think the change would be for the better. Stocks, and trading in actual physical goods across a mirror dimension may be cheaper than trading to a place that is geographically distant but has a larger profit margin, because the transportation costs of trade over a mirror dimension would be much cheaper. The next big change would be that companies could set up facilities which use mirrors to have production on one side of a mirror with storage and transportation on the other. This wouldn't happen overnight, as it would require communication, trust and a common currency between dimensions, but this would be one of the long term opportunities for collaboration. I can imagine this and other similar space saving setups being the biggest overall impact from the event once the dust settles. Another possibility would be for drug cartels and other unsavory types to buy trade and sell drugs and illegal weapons across dimensional barriers where the jurisdiction and active laws may be different. Selling legal over the counter drugs to people in another dimension where their state laws prohibit that kind of sale, probably wouldn't be punishable by your own state/country's laws, as you didn't break any, and their law enforcement cannot reach you. Over time these loopholes would be fixed, but for a while, there would be a lot of money to be made exploiting these differences in legal structure. Gun laws, drug laws, restrictions on over the counter pharmaceuticals, just about any controlled substance or object could be traded with an enormous possibility for profit at a lower risk and expense. [Answer] **We generate infinite energy.** Gravity does not pass through the mirrors but mass can move through them. This lets us temporarily violate conservation of mass which lets us build an infinite energy machine. This is simplest and most efficient in space were we don't need to worry about friction or other gravities as much. We have a movable mass m near a very large empty container with a mirror with a lid on it. We a large reservoir of water or mercury on ~Earth on the other side of the mirror. We open the mirror and water flows into earths container, then we shut the lid. The gravity of the new mass pulls m forward/Down to the mass's gravity. As the mass falls inward it pulls a turbine and produces energy. We will have the mirror on the same side of the container as m. So once m reaches the container its gravity will pull the liquid against the closed lid. Once m reaches the edge of the container, we open the mirror to let the water return to ~earth, and we shut the lid. We then reset the system by pulling m back to its starting point which now takes less energy then it produced falling in since the container no longer contains all of the mass of liquid. There are other variants but we can generate infinite energy which will have many implications including economic as energy production industries crash. Energy will be abundant and cheep, space travel becomes feasible on a large scale. There will be a growing need for new ways to store and move energy [Answer] "What would happen to the economy" is one of those weird questions that is both incredibly broad and too narrow to work with at the same time. This is because the economy is tied so closely to everything else. That said, here are some of the quick and "easy" answers. TLDR, not a whole lot changes. **The mirror business increases.** Kind of a cheap answer, but it would happen. Mirrors can open doors to another world, but only if they happen to be in the same place. There would be a (temporary) uptick in mirror purchases as people try to make portals. **Drugs and other restricted substances become legal.** Or at least they become as legal as they are on the version of Earth where they are most legal. Otherwise it would become an effectively unenforceable crime. Suppose heroin is legal on ~Earth, but not on Earth. It would be really easy to get your fix through your mirror. The governments of Earth would therefore want to legalize it so that they could get the taxes from it. **Stores are able to help each other.** Imagine something like a Walgreens, only it never has to worry about running out of things, because they can just ask for extra from the other side of the mirror. This is great for smaller stores, assuming that they're a similar store to their mirrored store. **Tech companies have a field day.** While everything is the same up until 2008, that's eight years of technological development that took two similar but different paths. Not tons of time to diverge significantly, but there'll be some successful ideas on each world that never made it on the other. Maybe ~Earth's initial version of Uber failed because they started it in a different city where it didn't get as big of a market share as it did on Earth. There won't be tons of new information, but any little bit will be grabbed and expanded upon. HOWEVER, they now effectively have double the number of workers. Apple wouldn't have two teams both independently developing the iPhone 7, they'd have one team work on developing it and one team work on something new. **Cross-world production.** In a similar vein to the last sentence above, why have factories in two worlds producing iPhones when you could do it with one? Particularly the larger corporations would divide the work so that Earth produces one set of products and ~Earth produces another set. Depending on what happens, this could lead to spikes in unemployment, but the savings from reduced production would probably free up money to simply move people to different types of jobs (e.g., a car company would re-train people who no longer make Car A to be able to help with the new increased production requirements for Car B). --- There honestly won't likely be too much trade outside of that type of production swapping. There hasn't been enough time for one world to get too different from the other, meaning that neither one will really have anything that the other doesn't. Both worlds will have the same reliance on gasoline; both worlds will find it very expensive to get rockets to space; etc etc. But let's stop and think for a minute. The large corporations are going to be able to take advantage of this in a way that smaller companies won't be able to. Apple can shift around hundreds or thousands of workers to grow even bigger than they already are, while a small company wouldn't be able to do that on nearly as large of a scale. So ultimately I feel that this would slowly lead to the world being controlled by mega-corporations even more than it already is. [Answer] A functioning economy is, in its simplest terms, a network of trade among people for things of value.\* "Things of value" can be broken into two major classes: goods and services. In your universe we can really only transfer goods between worlds, and not so much services (though that's not 100% true; I'll address that momentarily). Unfortunately, I don't see that happening at all. **Transfer of Goods** We probably need to examine specifically how the mirrors function because that might change things, but your description leads me to believe that a person cannot physically cross the boundary between worlds (maybe like a selective forcefield that only allows inanimate objects but a person would just feel glass?). As a result of this limitation, there is no way a person can guarantee the people on the other side will follow through with their side of the bargain. For example, let's say MozerShmozer A and MozerShmozer B (henceforth A and B) meet at a mirror and agree to trade. A says he will throw a bar of Gold through the mirror if B throws an equivalent amount of Silver. So A throws his Gold. B is smart, and does not throw his Silver. Now B can walk away with the Gold *and* Silver at no risk to his own person because A can't actually get to him. If both parties were desperate, they might both arrive with a gun, or a grenade, or a nuclear device, which would force the other party to act in good faith, but this could easily result in disaster. The amount of risk involved, both physically and financially, would prevent most people from even seeking the bargain in the first place, much like modern banks will not lend money to a person if they have a poor credit score. **Possible Transfer of Services** Technically, intellectual property is also transferrable through the mirrors. This could be done simply with sound (spoken voice, or something like a dial-up modem) or if light passes through the mirrors then maybe even other electromagnetic waves can make the trip and wifi can be propagated through the mirrors allowing for wirelessly interconnected computers. Internet A and Internet B will have to overcome IP address conflicts, but after this is accomplished people can communicate and transfer ideas between the worlds as easily as we do now. Unfortunately, payment will be difficult to enforce. Small wire transfers might occur, and cryptocurrencies could also function, but with no physical financial transactions upon which to base these online transfers, most banks and other financial institutions likely will not support them. All told, I feel like the economies of the two mirror worlds will be affected only in small amounts. Most financial institutions will avoid major transactions of wealth between the worlds because the risks involved, and intellectual property is already a fragile commodity. \*Note: all financial transactions, even of electronic and fiat monies, are conducted in good faith. Some level of guarantee is expected, and transactions are enforced by laws which are themselves enforced by the threat of financial penalty or physical violence. [Answer] Changes to transport, manufactures, research, technology - pah, no big deal. Even the prospect of unlimited energy as described by sdrawkcabdear is an idea we are familiar with; its effects are just the effects of cheap energy writ large, and compared to our ancestors we already have nearly unlimited energy. No the big change is that nearly every person who had reached the age of self- awareness in 2008 now has another self. (There will be some exceptions due to deaths since then.) The psychological shock will be huge. The effects are so big that it is hard to restrict them to "the economy", but here are a few ideas that came to mind: * **Trusted intermediaries**. MozerShmozer's answer suggested that trade would be held back by difficulties in ensuring people on the other side will fulfil contracts. Actually, I think this idea is mistaken, since trade occurs worldwide now between people who have no practical means of enforcement. They just rely on the rule of law and the long-known commercial advantage of having a reputation for honest dealing. But even if that were not so, there is definitely someone on Htrae that I have very good reason to trust: mirror-me. So if I want to make a deal with Company X on the other side, I go through my counterpart, Ecnarfnitsol, who is subject to all the laws of that world. * **Confidant(e)s / therapists** They say that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness. Maybe really being able to do it would be the first sign of sanity. A general increase in mental health would surely have economic benefits. Those widowed or otherwise bereaved would be able to talk to someone very like those they had lost. Their grief would be assuaged by the dead person simply not being dead in the mirror world. Or maybe the above is 100% wrong. Maybe knowing that your dead loved one was still alive on the other side of the mirror, and that you yourself were not unique, that there was a rival "you" who had made different and possibly better decisions for the last few years, would be an agony that would drive half the world mad. That would definitely have economic effects. * **Backup people.** When someone with rare creative skills or talents like Steve Jobs dies in one universe, they may well be still alive in the other. I'm not assuming that the Htrae version would be drafted or anything like that, but surely Apple and Elppa could come to some sort of deal. Which leads me to the next economic sector for which this situation would be a bonanza… * **Lawyers.** [Answer] ### Mirror market crash The market for small to medium-sized mirrors would take a swandive. Yes, there's this brand new use, but this rather ruins the original use. And do you really want what is essentially a window in your bathroom or bedroom? Existing mirrors would be removed and sold. The market for large mirrors might see a rush, but it's unclear how long that would last. ### Laws would equalize There would be pressure on both sides for laws to either become laxer or tighter to match the other side. Drugs, guns, porn, etc. would all be easy to smuggle in this system. There's also a problem with crimes committed across mirrors. How do you prosecute someone who commits a crime from the other side of a mirror? It seems likely that the two sides will agree to prosecute such crimes for each other. Otherwise it would encourage criminals to switch to cross-mirror crimes. [Answer] One thing to consider is how are mirrors linked? Are they linked in space, such that if a mirror exists in one location on Earth and the same exact location on the mirror Earth, that's a portal, or is it more complex than that. Once two mirrors have been 'linked', is it possible to move one of the mirrors while the other stays in the same place? If so, then transporting goods becomes ridiculously easy. Simply have a terminal in each city/town with mirrors linked to other terminals. It would also make putting stuff in space extremely cheap, the only thing you'd need to move manually would be astronauts. [Answer] It depends. If the two worlds are same, the changes would not be big. The main thing is a possibility to teleport things. The cheapest way would be to transfer goods from world 1 to 2 via mirror, and then the same in return, the same goods from world 2 to world 1 (that originated from world 2). Doing that, you use only 2 mirror transportations. To transfer back to the same world, you will need 2 transportations for one package and 4 for 2 packages from both worlds. Further, worlds could "fuse" according to the routes - for example, for a person who lives in world 1, it would be easier to get to world 2 to work or some travel through the mirror. These routes could become very complicated, as people would use more mirror traveling and less common traveling. However, some things would be dangerous - for example, criminals from any world (1) can teleport to the defined spot in world 2, commit a crime and quickly retreat. Not mentioning, that one world could nuke another one in an instant. But it depends on how exactly the mirrors are working. Also, I think there would not be much gain with gravitational energy. Just think how big the mirror must be to have the power of a hydroelectric power station? ]
[Question] [ A super-natural vampire plague has ravaged the world. Millions have been turned in the USA alone, everyone lives in fear of a vampire attack. In this world vampires can be killed by a stake to the heart or decapitation (sometimes). The most effective way to hurt and even kill a vampire is through using holy monotheistic symbols (cross, the bible, the star of David, holy water, etc.) But in order to work they must be wielded by a true believer (the stronger the faith the stronger the weapon is against vampires). As a general rule, the symbols must touch the vampire to work (there are some exception not important to this question). The question is how the role of the church in society would change after it is discovered that there are symbols that can be used to fight vampires? [Answer] ## A new, generic monotheistic religion will emerge, but the old ones will not disappear, and atheism will continue to endure as well. Since any monotheistic religion will work, it will suggest to some that although God exists, the manner of worship does not really matter. This will promote the emergence of a new world religion that worships one God, but does not connect itself with any existing organized religion. However, others will argue that the effect on vampires tells us more about *vampires* than it does about God. The fact that vampires are repelled by faith in God does not actually mean that God exists (maybe vampires are just *extreme* atheists who physically burn when their beliefs are questioned). Similarly, the fact that other faiths work doesn't actually mean that they are *right*, therefore your own faith is not invalidated, should you have one. ### However, natural selection will increase the number of believers over time Regardless of what it tells us about reality, the fact is that faith still works against vampires. Religiously-inclined people may therefore become more common through natural selection, since there is now a predator which they have a strong defense against. Vampires will probably wise up after a while and stop attacking the devout in the first place, focusing their efforts on the faithless. This will likely lead to religious institutions gaining more power, since their strongest believers can now live in vampire-infested areas while the less-faithful are forced into hiding and using the old-fashioned stakes to survive against the vampire threat. Humanity may diverge into two 'factions' as a result - religious fanatic "overworlders" who rely on their faith for protection and gritty, atheistic "underworlders" who use combat skills and cunning to fight vampires, and over millions of years, may even become separate species. Atheist Morlocks anyone? ### The eventual result: a devout superpower Where in the past faith helped leaders keep their power, in this world faith is literally the source of protection for both the leaders and commonfolk who remain in the "overworld". The humans in church-run cities will be absolutely devout and unwavering in their faith, and civilization will reform under this new paradigm. They will no longer fear the vampires themselves, but will view them as righteous beings (maybe "angels of judgement") who slay the unworthy. Instead, they will fear the faithless who dwell in the "underworld", since talking to them may cause their own faith to waver, rendering them vulnerable to the vampires. This may lead to crusades, not against the vampires, but against the faithless who attract their presence. ### Power corrupts? As shiningcartoonist suggests, the increased power of the religious institution may lead to decadence and corruption within its walls, which may, in turn, reduce the effectiveness of the leaders against the vampires. However, as long as the armies don't catch on, the religious leaders may be able to keep their power, living in the protection of their walls and devout soldiers who repel the vampire threat. It is the faith of the *wielder* that makes the weapons effective, not the faith of the one who created the items in the first place. Things could get unstable if the priest who creates the "holy water" is attacked by a vampire in the view of the public, though... [Answer] Various religious entities will gain considerable power and potentially come to control societies in the new world. Non believers will persist, but might tactically blend back into the overtly religious populations. Oh, and there will be blood. Lots of blood. **Societal Breakdown** A plague has swept the world killing tens, if not hundreds, of millions. Without any other details or qualifications, you can expect subtantial societal collapse. This will be extremely bad, and will kill many more millions. Unfortunately for the world, it’s even worse: plague victims become murderous vampires. It’s not inconceivable that this, coupled with the chaos and disorder, might utterly decimate the human population beyond salvation. For the sake of discussion we’ll assume that *some* clusters of people can survive the first few bloody weeks. Societal breakdown has at least two major implications that will be important throughout: governments will collapse to form local power vacuums and reliable long-distance communication will be greatly hindered. The power vacuum means that religious institutions or even cults have an opening to seize a much greater role in governance. The communication challenge will make the spread of knowledge about the vampire weakness almost mythical in nature and it will delay the understanding that *all* monotheistic religions can be effective. **Factional Strife** After this faith-based vulnerability is discovered, it would quickly change the nature of the threat. It’s no longer just a disease with terrible side effects — it might just be concrete evidence of both the divine and the accuracy of religious texts. In the short term, this would likely influence many people on the fringes of a particular religion to return to the center. Christians, for instance, who slowly diverged from their youthful beliefs and religious teachings might be quick to re-embrace their religious roots. At the same time, less religious people can still survive and thrive. Properly placed stakes and decapitation are as effective, if not more effective, than holy symbols for defeating a vampire. As a result, there is very little disadvantage for a clan of atheists or polytheists when fighting off the undead. Anyone inclined to do so could conjure a handful of plausible scientific reasons for the vampire reaction to holy symbols and the multitude of different religious symbols could be used to suggest that it’s not truly religious after all. And therein lies the greatest potential for strife: which religion is right? It’s highly unlikely that true believers of any one religion would consider another, particularly those with radically different tenants and beliefs, to be equally right. And someone seeking to be a more faithful believer is unlikely to consider that perhaps their religion isn’t the complete picture. This conflict will make it very difficult for a single overlapping monotheistic religion to take form. Each religion will proclaim its true believers to be the most powerful, and there won’t be an objective way to measure it. Thus, you have factions. Societal breakdown already created a power vacuum. Now you have the seeds for bloody human conflict. **Reconstruction** For quite some time, survivors are likely to roam from place to place as scavenging will be a necessity. Even with vampires afoot, other people will be the biggest threat for a simple, time-tested reason: you cannot be certain of a person’s true intentions. However, this scenario has the potential for a twist. With rapidly increasing religiosity, communities may become more likely to embrace strangers and grow. Some religious groups might do so out of compassion. Others might choose to test strangers — perhaps using a captive vampire — and abandon or even kill weak believers. As time passes, a few of these diverse group types will eventually settle and begin the reconstruction of society. One could imagine that settling around holy sites would be common. Resource competition and human distrust will put many of them at odds, but others might be quick to unite or ally based on their faith alone. This has the potential to cause the major new population centers to be heavily religious and massively increases the likelihood that religious leaders will govern with religious laws. Competing non-religious communities may exist, and may even be willing to be more violent to survive, but they may also be more easily outnumbered. **Cultivating Warriors** Now society has two fundamentally different threats: the living and the dead. Combatting the dead is arguably the easiest of the two: one cannot violate the tenants of their religion by slaying the damned. It may even be seen as a path to greater strength. Youths are likely to be very valuable weapons. Young children are naturally malleable and can easily be molded into some of the strongest believers among a society. As they grow up they would likely become the strongest warriors and may eventually overthrow the ruling class of lesser belief. Captive undead would likely be kept as a means to test and display one’s deep beliefs. Handling the human threat is less simple, but something religiously-minded people have practiced for most of human existence. The term “infidel” is likely to make a resurgence in many societies, with those that think differently being open season if they must be killed. This will walk back several centuries of progress on tolerance, but the collapse of society probably already took care of that. **Transitions** The world would probably be a violent place for a long time. The technological situation will determine the speed at which the disparate new communities grow and clash with each other. Over time the vampire threat will fade, leaving humans to fight amongst themselves. As decades and centuries pass some will start to question the religions of old. If all symbols were effective against the undead, perhaps none of them have the real truth? As a second era of globalization occurs, new religions might be founded seeking higher truth. People might start to drift toward tolerance or away from religion yet again. And perhaps, horrified by this declining faith, one cleric might just release an old sample of the plague and begin the cycle anew. [Answer] I think there is an anime exploring that idea. The Church would wield much more power- and most likely that Church would be Catholic or Orthodox as it already possess sacraments (physical things transmitting spiritual power) which that could fight them. They also both have a fairly centralized organization that is Global. Many Protestant Churches are not like this and may be overshadowed or simply unable to coordinate any meaningful resistance. It will have well trained exorcists already capable of fighting other evils. Sacramentals are the physical elements which are used to dispense the sacraments. You could even combine blessed holy water or the relics of a Saint with Weapons (a Sword, or Gun's bullets..?) Vocations to the Priesthood would increase dramatically and all of a sudden people would give the Church heed on moral stances on sin. Deacons, men having some vows but not fully priests, would probably become almost warrior like because they can handle some of the responsibilities of a priest (other than administering sacraments). Governments would probably start trying to meddle in Church affairs again because Bishops are once again influential, powerful leaders. They'll start trying to appoint their favorite candidates for Bishop- this could lead to increased corruption. There would be a struggle for autonomy for the Church. On the plus side for the Church, they can make demands of secular governments and society. Areas where the Church is already powerful will be the most protected in the short term and may become bases of operations from which to launch re-conquests of Vampire held areas. (example: Italy may be used to reconquer Northern Europe with Poland's help.....) Superstitions and the growing new Paganism may collapse if they can't replicate any of the power that the Church has. It may validate the existence and power of the God of Abraham. I'd look to how the Church grew in influence at the beginning of the Dark Ages as a model for the transition from now to your setting as one reason it was like that was that Bishops were the only Roman officials who didn't abandon their stations; people rallied around their leadership. [Answer] I think the Church would end up in three sub-catergories: 1. **Radicals/Cleanse the Earth** - These people would be the most extreme anti-vampires. They would go out to attack vampire nests and would stockpile symbols. They would preach about destroying the Spawn of Satan and would possibly even fight with people who took a more passive stance. 2. **Pay-per-prayer/pay-per-kill** - So there are already many priests who practise pay-per-prayer type systems. If you take these true believers who would do anything for money and give them a problem that they can solve they will find people willing to pay them to kill vampires or defend a house. 3. **Passive/peaceful** - Some priests would not get involved in the fighting. They would try and create true believers in the same way they always have, prayer in church. They would often be hated and would have their symbols stolen by more radical priests. [Answer] [During the Dark Ages, the **Church** acted as a repository of knowledge.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_of_Christianity_in_civilization#Preservation_of_Classical_Learning) Nearly every book in Europe saved from prior ages was saved in a Church or monastery. > > During the period of European history often called the Dark Ages which > followed the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Church scholars and > missionaries played a vital role in preserving knowledge of Classical > Learning. > > > Scholars doing research had to go on pilgrimages to find the books where the knowledge the sought was stored. Traveling to different regions was so rare, that there were few or no facilities for them to use (no hotels or restaurants), so they commonly stayed overnight at these monasteries. While the travelers slept, the monks in these monasteries would "steal" knowledge by taking the travelers books and copying them. I could easily see the church and its monasteries taking up a similar role after the apocalypse. It would store all knowledge but especially the knowledge of how to fight the undead. It would also act as a repository for religious items shown to be effective against the undead. In fact, that might become the primary role of the church - manufacturing the weapons of war against the undead. [Answer] To kill a vampire using a holy monotheistic symbol, one must: * Be a believer on the faith related to the symbol. A Jew with a cross is ineffective, as a Catholic with a David star. Muslims, which have no holy symbols (except, maybe, the Quran), are screwed. * Be a *true* believer. Most Christians aren't, they just generally believe, and that's it. * *Wield* the object of faith. A painted cross on the front door will do nothing to protect the house, much less its inhabitants. Curiously, the *exact form* of the object of faith can be anything, it's faith that matters: a saint's statue, an object with a cross-like shape, a painting of Jesus Christ, etc. It's up to the person's creativity to use it effectively. Churches will shed non-true believers to form a core of people able to fight vampires, adding to themselves the role and social impact of paramilitary. Given a few decades, one will see Presbyterian Security, Inc. managing shopping security, using "Holy" AK-47, with two add-in pieces to make it a cross. [Answer] With that major a plague there'll be a backdrop of societal strife and vying for power, as other answers have noted. At various points in history religious institutions have held the real power even if there is a government. Sometimes it's been done by force and sometimes by patronage, but in this case they have *actual proof that they can work wonders in our world*, so expect some to seek that kind of control. You've raised an interesting wrinkle, though: *any* monotheistic faith, sincerely held, works. The *other* thing that religious history has shown us is that religious power tends to be accompanied by one-true-way-ism: we should rule, conquer, or whatever because we have God on our side. This time they don't. So the Catholic church, the Orthodox church, the Unitarians, Shia Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Orthodox Jews, liberal Jews, and others are *all* effective. We should, therefore, expect the "competitions" among (and within) religions to continue. No *one* group will be able to use its vampire-slaying abilities to justify itself as the One True Faith. Some will likely be troubled that those *other guys* seem to be working miracles when, clearly, God favors *us*. Expect each religion to explain others away -- the work of the devil, sorcerers, frauds, whatever aligns with the particular religion. Purists will not accept heathen vampire-slayers as legitimate; pragmatists will take any advantage they can get against the vampires, even if it means working with religiously-objectionable partners. In the USA (I don't have worldwide stats) the fastest-growing religious group is the "none"s, currently at about 20%. These are atheists, agnostics, and people who just don't care or never thought much about religion. Those 20% are now vampire-bait, so given the evidence they see around them, expect many of them to re-evaluate. Religious institutions will see surges in seekers, but only the ones who actually develop faith will stay (because the others will find that they're no better off at fighting vampires than they were). Putting all this together: major organized religions like the church will (a) see a large influx of members or prospective members, who will need to be educated in the faith, (b) seek greater political power, and (c) explain away other religions' effectiveness, circling the wagons somewhat. Less-major or not-so-organized religions will also see some influx and won't be well-positioned for either seeking power or discrediting others, so they'll focus on their own communities. [Answer] See the plot of the expanded [Nightfall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_short_story_and_novel)). As I recall, in Silverberg's continuation, the main character who was fighting against the superstition and ignorance of the cult determined eventually that it would be a compelling social tool for surviving the apocalypse and preserving knowledge. In this case, the cyclic nature foreshadows that surviving the first generations and providing for rebuilding society also fuels the eventual downfall at the next nightfall. In a post-apocalypse, people will be primed for belief. Everyone will be able to use these weapons just fine. As for the scientists and other rationalists, seeing that *they work* is proof enough for them. So everyone believes. In a universe where that stuff is demonsterativly true and allows for making useful tools against real threats, it will not be at all like the church you compare it with. It will be more like Newton's Laws or Electricity in our universe. [Answer] Several interesting effects: **Faith works** Those who believe in God can do miracles. Those who don't believe cannot. That proof of the effectiveness of faith goes way beyond people who pray and had their cancer go into submission by random chance. ***Any* true belief works** Organized religion takes a hit when it becomes obvious that *personal* faith matters more than adherence to the church doctrine. What happens when a cynical teleevangelist or corrupt priest can't defeat vampires? **Personal faith might incorporate the church** If the vampire hunter believes that holy water only works if it has been blessed by a priest (and that it works even better if it has been blessed by a cardinal in a big cathedral), would that make it so? Together, there could be a reinforcement of faith without a reinforcement of the church. ]
[Question] [ Assumptions: Dragons are strict carnivores. Dragons are capable of flying, breathing fire, and otherwise sustaining life off some diet *without* the assistance of magic (however impossible that situation is). Since they can breathe fire, would cooking their food be more efficient? Or would the cooking process destroy too many vital nutrients? Or would would it be more efficient if they cooked certain parts of their prey and ate the other parts raw? (If so what parts and why?) [Answer] There are a few reasons why it's useful to cook one's food: 1. It lasts longer in its cooked state 2. Certain compounds are broken down, leading to easier digestion 3. dangerous bacteria that may be living on the food are killed Due to these factors, eating cooked food instead of raw would be a great advantage, so dragons with access to cooked food should be able to out-reproduce the competition and thus allow dragons to evolve into cooked-meat-eaters. However, the question remains whether it would be worth the effort to cook the food. Humans don't need to expend constant energy to cook their food, they just need to rub two sticks together for a bit, then take turns tending the resulting fire. A constantly burning flame also provides many benefits to humans, such as illumination, heat, and protection from predators. If dragons develop the ability to build and maintain fires, then I think they could take advantage of some of these benefits, and also eventually learn to cook their food. If, on the other hand, dragons are not intelligent enough to build fires or don't need them (perhaps they are sufficiently self-heating and can see in the dark), then I don't think it would be worth the effort for a dragon to produce a constant stream of flame to cook its meat. Dragons that attempted to do so would be more likely to starve than others, so they would not win out in natural selection. [Answer] A dragon would probably not realize nutrient loss because it is so minimal, but they would certainly figure out that cooking meat will make it last longer. They may also enjoy the taste of the meat cooked. Cooking prey could also be a method of hunting. If the dragons were immensely intelligent or observant, they might also notice that cooking can kill harmful bacteria and that it would help aid digestion. [Answer] I'll go against the general trend, and say that *no*, dragons would, in general, *not* prefer cooked food. Sure, a fire-breathing dragon would be pretty capable of inflicting burns on its prey, however inflicting burns sufficient to incapacitate or kill its prey is quite different to the process of exposing the deceased prey to sufficient heat over a sufficient time that it becomes effectively "cooked". What is that difference? *Energy.* It takes a lot of energy to cook food, and while fiery breath is all very good for offence, defence and impressing the opposite sex, using it enough to cook prey would mean expending a lot of energy. Even if the energy stored in whatever combustible substance is being burned comes from an external source (e.g. Anne McCaffrey's Pernese dragons which eat phosphine-bearing 'firestone' in order to be able to produce a flame), *gathering* that energy would most likely not simply happen automatically. Since a dragon's flame is then a finite resource, any sensible dragon would reserve it for uses such as *killing* prey that it couldn't quite catch physically, self-defence, and impressing a prospective mate. This obviously precludes going on to *cook* that prey with it. Even if a dragon's fire is magically generated at no metabolic cost to the dragon, it would *still* not make sense to use it to cook its food. Meat is best cooked at relatively low temperatures, like 200°C, not the 500°C+ temperatures that a dragon's traditionally 'very hot' flame might reach. Temperatures *that* high would result in the prey not being so much cooked as carbonised on the outside and raw on the inside. Applying the flame to prey for a longer period *would* eventually result in its insides being cooked, but there would be a very thick layer of carbonised flesh on top of that, flesh that would (unless magic was happening) have very little nutritional value left. Dragons are also usually depicted as having long muzzles filled with carnivorous dentition, and while carnivores of the domesticated varieties don't have a problem with cooked meat as a rule, neither are they typically averse to eating a nice bloody chunk of flesh fresh from a carcass. I would not expect dragons to be particularly different in this respect. So, a dragon might like playing with its food, setting its fur or clothing aflame and enjoying its subsequent antics before it expired or the dragon had to intervene again in order to kill it, but the end result would hardly be considered "cooked" food, being more "fatally burned" food which would still be essentially raw. There might be occasions in which a dragon could trigger a wildfire or a structural fire which *would* effectively cook any prey trapped within, but this would probably be more an exception than a rule, and would result in a meal of somewhat less than usual nutritional value. Depending upon the dragon's level of intelligence, this would be of little significance to an unintelligent dragon, but for a partly or fully sentient dragon, it may have learned that if it triggers wildfires or structural fires, there will be a lot of "cooked" food afterwards, and it may have acquired an idiosyncratic taste for meals such as this. **TL,DR**: No, most dragons would be quite happy to eat their food raw, as the only means of "cooking" readily available to them is more likely to reduce the nutritional value of that food and increase the dragon's metabolic costs, and being of carnivorous descent, for the most part wouldn't share a herbivorous/omnivorous species' dietary preferences. [Answer] If they can control the fire and it doesn't take too much out of them to cook it, I would say yes. Most commonly, dragons are considered to be intelligent animals, at least on-par with humans. They hoard items and probably care how their food tastes, so I would assume they'd prefer it cooked if it tastes better. [Benefits of Cooking Food](http://www.radiancenutrition.com/tag/benefits-of-cooking-food/) It kills pathogens, it aids digestion and helps energy balance. It also tastes better to most if done correctly. [Nutrient Loss](http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/processing) Cooking doesn't loose too much of it's nutrients. That link gives the maximum values of nutrient loss. Now it does mention that high temperature flames can create chemicals linked to cancer but cooking it at lower temperatures works well to prevent that. So as long as the dragons are careful, they should be fine. Give them a few generations. [Answer] I think dragons breathing fire because of they have a lot of heat inside. So they are indeffirent to cook their food with their breath cause it will be cooked inside the same. It pasteurizate the meat too. [Answer] Looking at the question with a bit of evolution in mind i think it could easily be justified that dragons will generally eat cooked meat. Their ability to breathe fire is of course a marvellous weapon. Not only does being tunred into a torch often lead to losing the fight you are currently in, you also lose the fight if your surroundings are set on fire: being trapped in a burning patch of forest quickly turns most animals into food. And just setting fire to a forest might be a lot less energy consuming than actively finding your prey and hunting it: just wait for the local countryside to cool down a bit and leisurely go pick up the interesting bits of barbecue. Obviously cooked meat has a lot less parasites, bacteria and so forth in it, so the dragon that consumes cooked meat has an advantage over a colleague that prefers raw meat since he does not die so often and spends less energy recovering from diarrhea (which often reduces the successful performing of mating rituals, too). So after some genetic selecting, you will soon end up with all dragons prefering cooked meat. Now as soon as intelligence enters the game, this effect will even speed up a lot, interestingly for the exact same reasons: the hunting style is efficient, tasty and healthy and it impresses the ladies. You can even get to know each other while the forest hunts and cooks dinner for you. ]
[Question] [ In a story I am working on the entire earth has fallen into winter that; exists in the same level and temperature all over earth and never ends. The top scientists around the world have been trying to find out why it is happening and how to stop it. Here are the rules of the great winter; * The temperature will remain as a constant -40 degrees all around the globe * The cause is unknown and is impossible to end How will the nations of the world(specifically Russia, America, Canada and Austrailia) react to this new threat? [Answer] Any country that could would set up underground cities to act as shelters, with green houses, research areas, and living quarters. People would live down there, and depending on what kind of story it is they either slowly run out of food, start having diseases that mutate until they become plagues, have issues with power and life support until humanity is extinct, OR people learn to adapt, dig deep down to where things start to get warm again, and keep living. On a side note; An interesting thing about an snow ball world is that the ice and snow reflect so much light away that it becomes hard for the sun to warm things up. In those cases, something like a volcano throwing a huge amount of smoke, ash, and CO2 into the air would really help, as the ash would cover the snow allowing it to absorb sunlight, and the CO2 would help keep the heat in better. [Answer] > > The temperature will remain as a constant -40 degrees all around the globe > > > Let's look at what this will cause: [The New Zealand Subantarctic Islands have a tree line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_line#Antarctic) marking the difference between areas in which trees can survive and areas in which they cannot. The difference between survivable and non-survivable areas is the mean annual temperature— above 5 °C (41 °F) is survivable, while below it is not. -40° is well below that level. Plants will not be able to grow at all. I'm guessing that some seeds would be able to survive the cold, but not indefinitely. My guess is that after a decade the survival rate for even those hardy seeds might be low enough to threaten the existence of all life on Earth, leaving it barren and lifeless even after the winter ends. The weather is going to heavily affected as well. [Wind is caused by differences in atmospheric pressure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind) between two areas. Differences in temperature is one of the main reasons for differences in temperature, so with the planet being a uniform -40 degrees, wind will be gone. Air that cold doesn't hold moisture, either, so once the air has released any moisture it had before the winter began, there won't be any more snow. This is both bad news and good news—wind power and hydroelectric power are both going to be in trouble (no wind and no rain to fill rivers/reservoirs), but solar power will do well (no new snow or wind to blow snow onto panels). So how do nations handle this? Without advance warning (which you can't really have when you don't know what's causing it), there are no advance preparations. As soon as the winter begins, there are two countdown clocks that also begin. The first is the time until food supplies for the general population run out, and the second is the time until existing food supplies for the government's survival program runs out. Once general food supplies run out, the nation's infrastructure goes down. Obtaining raw resources will become much more difficult. Whatever plan the nation comes up with for survival becomes significantly harder to implement unless it can be finished before that happens. There's no way for them to save everyone. There's almost [1 billion acres of farmland in the USA alone](http://www.farmlandinfo.org/statistics). It would take a massive effort spanning decades in order to build enough greenhouses and hydroponics facilities in order to replicate that level of production. The nations are going to calculate a realistic number of people that they can save, and then go to work attempting to save that many people. So what will their Ark of choice be? I think it would be very similar to what people imagine a moon base will look like. It will be well-insulated, so as to minimize loss of heat to the outside. Any areas above-ground or that receive sunlight will be devoted to agriculture, with an emphasis on crops that provide the most nutrition per unit area. The nearby area will be covered with solar panels and skylights (perhaps using mirrors to allow collection from a wider area) to provide electricity and reduce the need for electricity, respectively. This Ark will not be a single dome with everyone in it; it will be a network of interconnected nodes, where each can function independently of the others. If one fails critically, it can be evacuated and abandoned without threatening the integrity of the others (other than by requiring them to support more people). One major goal for the nation will be to save at least a [minimally viable population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_population). If they have fewer than around 4000 genetically-distinct individuals, they'll need to work harder to make sure that the population can survive long term. I believe that you can go down to a couple hundred people and still survive, but only if it is for a single generation and you implement a breeding program. Each node of the Ark will also include a storage room for when the winter ends. This will have plenty of seeds, equipment, and instructions to help the survivors to rebuild after the winter ends. So the nation just needs to build as many nodes in the Ark as it can before the nation's infrastructure falls apart (the first countdown) and then make sure they are self-sustaining before pre-winter supplies run out (the second countdown). [Answer] **Everyone dies.** Some die slower than others, but everyone does die. No question about it. For humanity - as a species, not as individuals - to have a **snowball's chance in Hell** of surviving, and thus successfully building some kind of shelters, a gargantuan effort would have to be undertaken by the governments of the world - and even then they would still need **years** to implement those projects. And this while: **a)** Probably fighting each other for resources **b)** Facing mass hysteria, panic, societal breakdown, and most likely the dissolution of local governments **c)** Various scientists, crazy people, and eccentrics (which may well be indistinguishable from one another) try to get the powers that be to implement their own "brilliant" idea for the survival of mankind - only so many of which said powers would have the time/resources to implement - all of which would be incredibly difficult (if not nigh impossible) to implement, and many of which would be flawed in some fundamental way which would only become apparent after it's far too late to do anything about it **d)** Various factions attempt to ensure their own survival, and sabotage their efforts in the worst possible way. **e)** Global order breaks down completely, and various maniacs rise to power in the unstable political landscape, who then trigger conflicts, possibly (probably) even nuclear ones And this list doesn't even begin to account for just how stupid most people are in a time sensitive, high-stake situation to begin with. Not to mention how ineffective, and corrupt most governments are. * You could only hope to save an infinitesimal fraction of the population. Who would you save? * How would you convince them to abandon their friends and family? * How would you keep the (billions of) people being left behind not to interfere with your project? * How would you keep the survivors themselves from fighting among themselves, or otherwise screwing themselves over in one of the many ways in which human communities/civilizations have done in the past? **My money is on extinction.** [Answer] With the global temperature going to -40°, two important things will happen: * The oceans will freeze. This removes one of the main sources of oxygen, sea algae. * Almost all plants on land will die. This removes the other of the main sources of oxygen. At the same time, it eliminates all our food sources, but long before we starve, we will suffocate. But then, the vast majority of houses in the world are not built to withstand those temperatures, and unless the world changed very slowly (over decades) to this new climate, there's no way the houses will be improved in time (and even in case of slow change, only the sufficiently wealthy will be able to afford it; so in that case expect the public order to go down long before that temperature is reached). Thus, a lot of people will be frozen to death before they suffocate. ]
[Question] [ The hypothetical creature has evolved on a planet with an atmosphere that's much more pressurised than that of Earth. It's humanoid in appearance, in that it has two arms and two legs as well as a head bearing a mouth and eyes. Its native planet has an atm pressure of, say, approximately three times that of Earth. It usually wears a pressure suit to deal with an atm pressure more akin to what we're used to here on Earth — so if this suit were to be removed or damaged, what would happen to the alien? I'm looking for specific symptoms, here. Describe it as if you were describing what would happen to a human body in the vacuum of space. Here's some additional anatomical & biological details to help you: It's thin and gangly, with a slim figure and very thin extremities. It stands, on average, slightly smaller than your garden-variety human (5.5 feet, usually). Its bones are quite small and thin, almost like fish bones, and most of them are connected to each other rather loosely. They kind of just 'float around' in the body, supported by the high pressure atmosphere, and are filled with a jelly-like fluid. It has a single lung-like organ — gas is sucked into this organ where it comes into contact with various, inward-pointing 'stems' which have a rich blood supply. It inhales this gas through both its mouth and a secondary hole in its ears, but it has no nose. Its blood is yellow because it contains a lot of sodium. It has four eyes, behind which lie sinuses that are filled with fluid (again, to do with dealing with high pressures). It has a rather thick neck, containing lots and lots of blood vessels and airways, which are both generously coated in rigid chitin to prevent them from collapsing due to the high pressure. Its heart is very thin, but very long, running the length of its torso down to its pelvic region (almost like an insect heart). Needless to say, it has a very high blood pressure. Paradoxically, its native planet has very low gravity, so the pressure suit comes with in-built leg supports to help it deal with a higher gravitational stress than what it's used to. Thank you! The more detailed and gruesome your answers, the better. [Answer] If the alien is used to three times greater atmospheric pressure and is exposed to earth's atmosphere, it's not likely to be all that gruesome. This is the difference between the top of Mt Everest, and sea level. The alien would benefit from an oxygen mask, but a pressure suit might be overkill. The alien would be better off letting its body adjust to the difference slowly, like mountain climbers do. At a three times difference in pressure, there will be some swelling and discomfort. Not fun, but in humans, only deadly if the [swelling happens in the brain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_cerebral_edema). That can lead to a coma and death in a couple of days if untreated. Other serious problems come because there is less oxygen available. This can lead to breathing problems, pain, and general exhaustion. In humans, it can result in the lungs filling with fluid, but this is rare, not well understand, and there is no reason to assume it would happen to an alien with different physiology. There might also be confusion and other mental problems from the low oxygen. But unlike a climber on Everest, the alien won't necessarily be dealing with a need to push itself physically, when a bad choice might kill it. The problem here is that while high altitude can lead to rare gruesome deaths, the solution is to get oxygen, and these days any hospital will be able to supply it and send the alien home with a portable O2 tank. They may suggest it take up scuba diving, which would give it a way to regulate its oxygen on a dive, and enjoy a few hours of higher pressure and relief from gravity under water. For comparison, a diver at about 100 ft is exposed to about three times atmospheric pressure. The deepest a diver has ever been is 1000 ft, which is about 30 times atmospheric pressure at sea level. Sperm whales have been recorded diving to 10,500 ft, and routinely dive to 4000 ft to hunt. Your large number of physiological adaptations for pressure may be overkill, or else you need to do more research on how much pressure is necessary. I'd suggest looking up deep sea fish and sharks for ideas. [Answer] A factor of 3 isn't that much. Someone already mentioned mountain tops. Having mechanical pressure against the skin with a tight suit, plus an oxygen mask, is all it takes for us to handle vacuum. A basic SCUBA diver can experience 4 atmospheres, and all I needed to cope with that is a bit of sudafed. Under *real* pressure, chemestry is affected and creatures living on the abyssal plane will find their enzymes don't function if brought to the surface. But I think the only issue your alien will have is the partial pressure of oxygen and what the lung (or whatever) is designed for. Unless he secrets some slime or has something present in the environment that is sensitive to this range: water is just fine, but something around him might change phase or evaporate too fast? ]
[Question] [ I want to know the how many people can live on Earth's oxygen. Is there a point when humans would use up all the oxygen? What would be the limiting factors? Given we have charts to show the rate of growth, can we predict the date Earth will reach maximum capacity? Has anyone put a hard number on this with facts to back it up? [Answer] **Way, way, more than we could ever feed.** First, no one has put a hard number on the number of people the Earth could support purely based on oxygen consumption. This is because we'd run into food and clean water problems long before we hit an oxygen ceiling. It was nicely put in [this article](http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-2.1/broecker.htm) about Earth's oxygen reserves: > > Simply put, our atmosphere is endowed with such an enormous reserve of this gas that even if we were to burn all our fossil fuel reserves, all our trees, and all the organic matter stored in soils, we would use up only a few percent of the available O2. No matter how foolishly we treat our environmental heritage, we simply don't have the capacity to put more than a small dent in our O2 supply. > > > Basically, we will never be able to keep enough humans on the planet alive long enough to be in danger of running out of oxygen. If you're mostly interested in the maximum number of humans the Earth could support based on food supply alone, estimates range from [10 billion](http://www.livescience.com/16493-people-planet-earth-support.html) to [40 billion](http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/earth-carrying-capacity1.htm) on the high end. Some estimates say we're already past the Earth's carrying capacity. Of course, humans are trying (and will always try) to intervene and save themselves, so estimates without intervention are non-existent. There are also some [nice answers here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/19441/3202) given a question with a fairly different set of assumptions. [Answer] To actually answer the question: Roughly two trillion if we take the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere to be around 1.2 million billion tons and the average daily consumption of each person to be around 550 litres. [Answer] No limit. Those humans have to eat. That means we grow things for them--and the oxygen you breathe to metabolize the food is less than the oxygen the plant produced while growing that food. (Passing it through animals in the process doesn't change this basic pattern.) You will eventually reach the point where the energy of the light that grows those plants becomes too great and we roast but we will never hit an oxygen limit. Note that even if we assume synthesized food we get the same result. Food is mostly carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen and oxygen are water, the carbon will have to be obtained from atmospheric carbon dioxide--but that will release the oxygen the same as if the plants did it. ]
[Question] [ Just an interesting idea for a government, not really sure if it's a good idea, but still interested in the results of one existing. The idea is for your traditional representative democracy, or perhaps a [delegative democracy](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/23522/what-would-be-the-most-viable-hybrid-democracy-to-create-if-effective-instenanio). However, a user is not limited to a single vote, instead being given a means to earn extra votes, or to lose voting power, by doing things for the government. The obvious example would be by buying more votes, but is not limited to it. First, in this system a vote is divisible. For sake of addressing things lets say that each person gets 100 'vote units' per vote by default to start with. Anyone can vote with these. However, the US congress says that extravagant financial expenditures count as free speech, so the rich can try to pay to encourage a given vote with advertisements and the like today. However, the funny thing is that if one rich person pays 50,000 for a pro-choice ad and another rich person pays 50,000 for a pro-life the two ads sort of 'counteract' each other, in theory one ad sways as many people to its cause as the other resulting in no net difference in voter turn out, but with 100,000 dollar worth of ads wasted. So what if, instead of the expensive advertisement wars a government decided to cut out the middle man and instead allowed each person to give the government 50,000 to 'buy' extra votes. Their votes would counteract each other, but at least the government is 100,000 richer which it can spend to fund some program to better its citizens... My theoretical government tries to address these issues to make 'buying votes' more efficient but also theoretically no stronger or weaker. They have very tightly controlled advertisements for campaigns, limiting rich in the way they can pay for political ads and providing basic funding to political campaigns to try to ensure that major campaigns worked with the same, limited, funding for campaigning. However, they allowed those who previously would have donated money to campaign finances to cut out the middle man by directly buying extra votes for themselves. To limit one absurdly rich person buying votes they did this on a scaling system such that: 1. The cost for each 'vote' was partially scaled off of one's tax returns. The rich pay slightly more to buy a vote than the poor. However, the rich are still paying a much smaller percentage of their net income, so individual rich still have more buying power. However, 2. The cost of votes purchased increases with each vote purchased in a roughly exponential fashion. So the first vote for a given voter costs X dollars, the next costs 1.1\*x, the next cost 1.21\*x and next costs 1.331\* x etc. Keep in mind voters start with 100 votes, so to buy 100 votes, to double your basic voting power, you would need to pay ..actually an absurdly high amount if one used the simply 1.1 increase ratio, but the actual voting algorithm would likely be a more complex polynomial rather than a simple exponent. The point being that it grows prohibitively expensive even for the rich to continue buying votes after awhile due to the exponential increase in price 3. Strict rules are in place to prevent giving someone money to buy votes for you (at a lower cost than you would buy votes), for now just assume that this sort of voter fraud is well enough regulated to not have a significant affect on elections. The idea is that this system does allow the rich to buy votes with their money, but is designed to tightly regulate just *how* much they can buy votes, ideally lowering their overall impact compared to funding campaigns by putting an effective cap on their vote buying power due to the exponential increase of votes. In addition it allows the government to take all this vote buying money in as a small alternate source of income. Rather than wasting money having two sides bickering with increasingly expensive attack ads the government benefits from this form of vote buying. The argument for allowing this sort of vote buying being that those that help support the government more have earned a right to be heard by the government due to their support. Of course the government can be supported in ways other than financially... Thus the next logical step would be to have non-fiscal government support be rewarded with votes as well. The government sets up a system where any 'civic duty' can earn someone 'civic credits' that can be cashed in for votes. For instance, in addition to the usual financial rewards for civic duties one may receive 1 civic credit for jury duty. Anyone whose property is seized for eminent domain may receive some credits depending on the size/expense of property. People working for certain recognized charitable non-profits may earn credits per hours worked. Foster parents earn credits for fostering children. Perhaps much like how tax refunds are attached to various activities to encourage behaviors vote incentives will be attached. Charitable donations of money to nonprofits earn votes at 1/2 the rate that direct buying of a vote would earn etc. The government may come up with other activities they want to encourage and offer similar 'civic credits' for those who perform these credits, maybe to help protect the environment congress passes a law that rewards some credits to anyone that purchases a vehicle with better than X MPG fuel efficiency (with assorted rules to prevent rich from buying a dozen efficient cars for credits) The point being that the government sets up ways to reward citizens for other 'civic duties' with extra points. These non-fiscal votes work similarly to the manner for purchased votes. 1. 'vote credits' are earned for each non-fiscal 'civic duty' like the ones listed above. These credits can be traded in for votes but suffer similar diminishing returns that buying votes does, the more votes you already earned the more credits it costs to buy the next vote. However, I suspect credits won't suffer from quite as high a diminishing return as bought votes, a larger linear value and smaller exponential value on the cost polynomial means that while non-fiscal credits will eventually grow prohibitively expensive one can buy more of them first and the cost of each credit compared to the previous isn't as drastic. 2. Anyone can store their credits to have them carry over into the next year/voting round. however, a small percentage, say 10%, of stored credits is lost when carried over to the next year, meaning trying to store credits for years to have enough to sway a key vote is not an option. 3. The total cost of a new vote would actually consider the total number of votes earned from both purchase and civic credits. Buying lots of votes from civic credits will make purchasing votes more expensive and vice versa. However, it would scale such that the first few votes earned with each method are generally cheap, even if many votes are earned with the other method. Finally, there are a few ways that votes can be lost, by doing things that are considered counter to the welfare of the nation, but only a small subset of things lead to lost votes. Being found guilty of a felony may be charged a one time loss of votes depending on the severity of the felony, as could being in jail (which doesn't mean all votes are lost, and would only last as long as one is actually in jail). Collecting welfare or other government assistance *does not* result in a loss of votes. Voter fraud of any type will result in the loss of all votes. Perhaps a few other "anti civic activities" are deemed punishable by loss of votes, but I can't think of any right now, generally penalizing someone's votes is rare is saved for extreme situations. My question is how would this government function, what are its limits or benefits, and what potential problems will the government have to be aware of to serve as a fair representation. Most relevantly, could this be done in a way that does not give the rich too disproportionate a control over votes (rich always buy votes, even today, I'm more wondering if this can be done in such a way that it's not much worse than current day). Would the extra financial income and 'civic duties' done to earn votes be enough to have any real positive effect on government and its citizens? [Answer] Buying votes was considered in an essay by Robert A Heinlein, and he felt that a straight cash for votes system would be overall good, with many potential negative cancelling each other out. 1. If you felt so compelled about an issue that you would pay to vote for it, then you would probably get involved in the political process and be more of an informed voter (people make more careful considerations when it is their own money on the line). 2. When you have "skin in the game" then your vote really does count. This will energize many more people to come out and vote, form vote buying cooperatives to fight deep pocket organizations like the Tides Foundation, Avvaz and so on. 3. Rich people would be expending their resources for buying votes (which they do now). By spending money on purchasing ballots, they have reduced the resources they have to invest in and compete in the market economy. (This thesis overlooks the effects of crony capitalism, although if enough cronies are competing to buy the election, then many of them will be exhausted and there will be fewer buying ballots in the next election). 4. Taxes and spending might be lower if the government was financed directly through purchase of votes. People would literally feel ownership in the government, and most certainly look to protect their investment, and check carefully to see that it is doing the things they bought and paid for. This might make politicians much more careful with their campaign promises, as breaking a promise will certainly rest in some well directed fury at the politician and political class who "are not staying bought", and now people will be much more inclined to get out and do something about this. [Answer] # Censorship and Ignorance Under a pay-for-vote system any political change can be effected purely through monetary means. As such it becomes obvious that stakeholders will seek to increase benefit to them, even at the cost to others, though simply buying votes. This is similar to today. However there is one major difference: ***Cost Minimisation.*** Today only voters can vote, and beyond lobbying politicians already in power the only way to effect change is to get people to vote for it. However under a 'pay for vote' system you can simply exchange cash for votes. In this situation people suddenly become a burden and cost to stakeholders — after all why convince someone to support your interests when you can simply buy the votes without them? As such stakeholders will seek to minimise public knowledge and interest in policies and government, to minimise those who would vote against them, thereby reducing the cost of buying policies. Censorship, Ignorance, False Information would seem to be tools that would be fit for this environment. After all, wouldn't one of the first 'purchases' of policy be the policies that enable you to buy other policies cheaply? [Answer] Economists have the notion of "rent seeking" which is where you try to get the government to pass a law that says you get lots of money. The richest ten percent of the US population control close to 75% of the wealth. What if they all get together and propose a law that says: "We, the richest ten percent, get everybody else's money and property and now they're our slaves. Also we all get refunded the money we spent to buy votes for this bill."? The thing about the current system is, yes, it's sometimes possible to buy votes through advertising, but the thing you're advertising has to be at least a little bit sane. I don't think any amount of advertising could persuade people to vote for "give all property to the richest 10%, everyone else is slaves". -- And of course, in practice, nobody would be quite that blatant. But they could buy themselves a very steep tax cut. [Answer] Keep in mind that "the rich" or at least "reasonably well-off" are usually much better able to afford a new and clean car, to take a day off for jury duty, etc. You might consider that there **have been** political systems where votes depended on income or class. * The [French estates-general](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estates-General_of_1789). * The [Prussian three-class franchise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_three-class_franchise). In hindsight, that's seen as an intermediary step while the aristocracy/oligarchy gave way to a proper democracy. And of course the widespread consensus is that proper democracy is good, even if people quibble over details. Also, consider the impact of voter ID requirements in some states of the US. Wealthy citizens are likely to have those IDs to start with, poorer ones might have to get them just for voting. And the fees hit them more, too. Do **you** believe that anything good will come if voters are no longer equal before the law? --- Follow-up: Well, as the saying goes, an adventure is somebody else, far away and in deep trouble ... * Just the ability to have votes carry over to the next election could be a game-changer. Imagine a bunch of people who haven't bothered to vote in decades, and now they're all showing up at some municipal election and cast *all* their stored votes at once. * A candidate who doesn't see a chance *this* time around might call on her supporters to save their votes for the next time. * Or that is a sham, and the candidate has a prepared last-second campaign to re-energize the voters, and to win the day because the opposition voters have been lazy. * Can you take votes along when you move? [Answer] ## Maybe nothing It sounds like votes would be really expensive. Wouldn't the typical rich person be better off buying political power in the normal way? If so, the ability to buy votes won't matter as no one will use it. They'll still purchase advertisements as a more effective form of vote buying. In order for vote buying to matter, it would need to be cheaper than our form of vote buying. ## Maybe something This would tend to favor certain groups over others. For example, let's consider how the charity reward will shift votes. In order, the following groups give the most to charity as a percentage of income: 1. Religious conservatives. 2. Religious liberals. 3. Non-religious liberals. 4. Non-religious conservatives. So that particular rule would tend to favor the religious over the non-religious and in particular would favor religious conservatives over non-religious conservatives by a lot. Once in place, that disparity would be hard to eliminate, as the people most hurt by it would be the ones with the least political power. Hopefully jury duty won't shift things one way or the other, but it might. For example, some lawyers believe that engineers like things to be too black or white to make good jurors. Of course, if your case involved complex math and you're right on the math, you might prefer an engineer. Those two partially counter each other, but which is more common? People whose property is seized by eminent domain tend to be poorer, but you suggest that more valuable properties will give more credits. Maybe those two tendencies cancel. Or maybe not. Note that slum lords may have their apartment buildings condemned as well. Another concern is that the rich may choose to buy properties that are likely to be seized. The premium that they pay may be less than the cost of buying the votes directly. Michele Bachmann fostered more than twenty children. So this system would give people like her more influence. So if you are a religious conservative who is a big fan of Michele Bachmann, you may find this proposal to be great. If you think Michele Bachmann is the anti-Christ, not so much. And remember that those with more political power under this system will shape future changes as well, giving them even more political power. They don't even have to do this for selfish reasons. They may simply do it because they believe in the activities in which they engage. It's possible that this system could turn into an oligarchy if this goes too far. [Answer] What you're proposing is basically something similar to the government in Starship Troopers. If you do stuff for the government, then you're showing support for this, and therefore gain extra leverage those who don't support the government don't get. Therefore, the only people with the ability to exercise power in the government are the ones who have 'proven' that they support it. [Answer] It sounds a bit like a predator and prey situation to me, you could probably simulate what would happen. The criminal and rich have much more freetime than the workers, so they could both buy more votes and do more civic duties. They can also hire assassins to take out everyone who does not want to be a slave. They can also pressure people to vote a certain way, perhaps threatening to lower their wage, fire them, set them on fire,... In the end, it is enough if they manage to pass one bill that ruins it for everyone else and they can abolish democracy altogether. ]
[Question] [ **Closed.** This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- Questions about Idea Generation are off-topic because they tend to result in list answers with no objective means to compare the quality of one answer with the others. For more information, see [What's wrong with idea-generation questions?](//worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/522). Closed 8 years ago. [Improve this question](/posts/25074/edit) My original idea is: > > A group of scientists decides to kill all adult people (say people > over 18 years, include themselves) and leave the world for > children/youth, because the children are not corrupted yet. They want > to discover a way when all adults will die in one exclusive event and > don't changes anything else, that means, all the survivors can grow up > normally until the adulthood and then fix the problems created > previously by adults. > > > The initial plot is pretty much like the initial plot of the comic book ["Y:The last Man"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y:_The_Last_Man), but with adult people rather than men. So, my question is: What's the best scientific explanation to kill all the adults and preserve the children/youth? There are some disease or weapon (biological/chemical weapon, I mean) that just affects adults in the real world? [Answer] **A virus that cuts off [Telomeres](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere) that are too short.** To quote Wikipedia: "A telomere is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences at each end of a chromatid, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration or from fusion with neighboring chromosomes. [...] For vertebrates, the sequence of nucleotides in telomeres is TTAGGG. This sequence of TTAGGG is repeated approximately 2,500 times in humans." Very roughly speaking: when cells replicate, the telomeres are shortened. This means that in young organisms, telomeres are long, and in older ones they are shorter. So... assume a virus - like a common flu virus - that has been mutated and targets cells with too short telomeres and simply cuts them off. Cell replication will be shot to hell and your chromosomes in each cell afflicted by the virus will be a jumble; the cells die. Once it hits it will probably be like a severe hemorrhagic fever (like Ebola or Lassa). If your telomers are long enough, you are not afflicted at all, your body adopts normal immunity to the virus and defeats it. Weaknesses in this: individual variation, individual immunity. There cannot be a hard limit that says "Until 18 years, 0 months, 0 days you'll be fine... above that - one day later - it is 100% mortality". But allowing some fuzziness in the outcome - such as a few kids die and a few adults survive - this could perhaps be sufficiently credible. To increase the credibility and avoid nosey questions - especially since cells replicate at wildly different rates in the body - you can have the virus target a specific organ, like the brain (compare to the movie [Contagion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(film))) or the heart. [Answer] You can imagine a biological weapon that reacts to hormones. For example, you could use a virus/bacteria that reproduces only in the presence of high levels of sexual hormones (like testosterone and estrogen), and dies off in low-hormone environments. All adults and teenagers would die, but if the virus can't survive for too long in the bodies of children, it will then disappear in a few months. Since I don't have much knowledge on these subjects, I don't know how a virus or bacteria could be influenced by human hormones, but I think it could be a good start. [Answer] **Chickenpox** is a good example of a real-world virus that could do what you're looking for. Highly contagious, much more dangerous for adults than children, and comes back after extended dormancy for children who have had it in the form of shingles. Any similar virus or a mutation thereof could result in your desired outcome. As an added plus, your audience may already be familiar with this mechanic. Varicella-zoster is the virus that causes chickenpox in children. Adults who have had chickenpox as children are generally safe from being affected by it. Adults (or teens) who have not had chickenpox or a vaccination are susceptible to chickenpox and can have serious complications resulting from it, [including pneumonia and encephalitis](http://www.webmd.com/vaccines/chickenpox-varicella-vaccine-guidelines-for-adults) (swelling in the brain). Adults who have had it as children may be safe, but [they are highly likely develop shingles due to a reactivation of varicella-zoster](http://www.webmd.com/vaccines/features/shingles-chickenpox): > > Research begun in the 1950s has shown that when we recover from childhood chickenpox infections, the virus that causes the infection, varicella zoster virus, remains latent in nerve cells. > > > What causes reactivation of the virus is unclear, but as we age, experts believe the immune responses that keep varicella zoster virus dormant in the nerves weaken with age. One in three people will get shingles during their lifetime, and at least half of all people 85 and older have had the ailment. > > > Shingles [can also cause encephalitis](http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shingles/basics/complications/con-20019574). Tweak the numbers and increase the complications and you've got a lot of dead adults. [Answer] First you have to find what makes childs and teenagers different from adult people. I see at least 3 things that change while growing up : **1. Hormones** (as Spacelizard said - I can't add anything) **2. Organs and bones** The one and only idea I have about that, is a degenerative disease making organs and/or squeleton weaker and weaker with time, slowly killing everybody before a certain age. There are many existing diseases with similar effects, i think you can pick any part of the body and make it slowly crumble. But it will take time to kill your adults and will make your childs/teenagers weaker with age, so here is number 3 : **3. Brain.** The white matter in brain grows into childs brains until they are teenagers. We can imagine a disease in this matter becoming letal only when there is enough of it. It can be a virus, or a poison in air/water that accumulate in white matter. Another one : a child maturity can be seen on a MRI. One of the last part of brain that changes during teenage years is the prefrontal cortex. Grey matter thickens in childs brain, then thins as the brain creates new and more efficient connections as a young adult. I'm far from an expert and the following ideas might be crazy : * A disease destroying brain when there are too frequent electric activity : unefficient childs brain with variable connections would be protected. * A sudden shockwave (that might be magnetic) on a frequence near of brains cells activity, adults with a thin grey matter are not protected enough whild childs just grow new connections (after a very bad time) [Answer] ## [Antagonic pleiotropy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antagonistic_pleiotropy_hypothesis) Some genes benefit us in early life (ie. before we usually have children), and are detrimental afterwards. These genes proliferate because they increase the chance of the individual having children, even though they can wreak havoc afterwards. So you could find one of these genes or invent one, something we all have, and then add a condition (virus, bacteria, radiation) that massively amplifies its effects. The young would get fitter, and the old would die off. Tyrabel's hormone answer is a specific case of this, since a large amount of testosterone is apparently detrimental later in life. [Answer] *Disclaimer, I don't know enough about how diseases work to verify how possible this is so if this is wildly off base comment below and I'll either edit or remove it* Something that could work would be some sort of disease that spread around the globe that was largely benign. Also, for whatever reason while contagious enough to give the 100% saturation desired by the question, children born from people with the disease have immunity or resistance to it or its effects. Now, fast forward 18 years and the disease which has previously been mostly dormant mutates or otherwise changes, becoming lethal. Everyone born over the last 18 years has inherited immunity/resistance due to their parents having the disease, however nobody over 18 would have gotten that chance. After that point, everyone alive is safe from the disease and life can continue for those 18 and under even as they grow past the threshold. [Answer] There could be some type of "mysterious event" that subtly changes the bodies of everyone on the entire planet. (Maybe a burst of "cosmic rays" from the sun, or some type of explosion at a facility testing some fancy new technology...) Unbeknownst to the Earth's population, it alters their bodies, making them susceptible to a certain type of ray/radiation/something. 18 years later, there is another "mysterious event", which releases the particular trigger that kills off everyone who was alive during the first event. Children who were not yet born/conceived at the first event are unaffected by the second. I think this works better than a disease, because it's easier for it to affect *everyone* on the planet (especially if the particular ray/radiation/whatever can travel through all solid substances, and there's no way to shield yourself from it). A disease will always have some people who are immune, or are isolated enough that they never come into contact with it. Also, with today's technology, governments would quickly take steps to quarantine the disease to keep it from spreading (look at the recent Ebola outbreak -- while still very devastating in the areas where it took hold, it was prevented from becoming a global pandemic because of strict measures taken by many governments to ensure it did not spread). ]
[Question] [ We have been stimulating our brains either for research or to treat illness in people: using a minute electrical current a computer can target a specific region of the brain or a specific neuron to control our emotion, memory, muscles you name it. [Read this interesting article!](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/182209-lucid-dreaming-can-be-controlled-with-electric-stimulation-of-the-brain-body-hackers-and-chronic-nightmare-sufferers-rejoice) My question is: is the reverse be possible - can a malicious computer program download itself into our DNA and reprogram our memory? Is there any cure for us besides downloading an antivirus program into the same DNA? [Answer] Be careful of your phenomenology: memory is not stored in DNA. So "can a malicious computer program download itself into our DNA and reprogram our memory?" is technically a no. Furthermore, at present there is no obvious way for a program to modify DNA in the first place. Electrodes and current just don't work at that level. Is there a way for a computer to modify memory, especially specific memories? Well, there are inklings of the shadow of how to do it coming out <http://www.nature.com/news/flashes-of-light-show-how-memories-are-made-1.15330> This, however, is a very new approach, and it may have more to do with the emotional freight attached to memory rather than the specific experiences being stored. It's potentially useful, for instance, for desensitizing traumatic memories such as are found in PTSD, but not necessarily changing the facts being remembered. Memory is a particularly slippery phenomenon, and there may be ways to selectively alter memories, but the idea of a computer searching your memory like a data bank, finding a particular memory, and then altering it do not seem likely any time soon, and may well not be possible at all. [Answer] Theoretically, yes, but it will have nothing at all to do with DNA. DNA is several layers below the human consciousness, and reprogramming at that level has more to do with changing the behavior of the next generation rather than possessing the current generation. However, it is difficult. Computers speak "regular" languages which are very easy to understand, so very easy to subvert. Each brain is wired totally different, so you would have to customize the virus for each brain. As for an antivirus, we actually have one, so you don't have to worry about it. Culture and society already does this. If you look at everything from medieval religion to modern scientific trends, they all share at least one common trait: they train the brain to be less susceptible to takeover from external sources (besides themselves, of course. They allow themselves to continue taking over). Any computer virus seeking to bridge the gap into human minds will find the mind particularly hostile to such activity. There have been some science fiction books which play with this sort of system, but they usually focus on addiction. It is believed that it is very easy to get someone addicted to an electrical stimulus. However, that is a far cry from possession. [Answer] If you have an AI at least as intelligent as a human, then there are probably a number of ways in which it could exert varying degrees of control over a human - largely the same ways in which an intelligent and unscrupulous human could do the same thing: promises, lies, manipulative behaviour, threats, drugs, hypnosis, etc. Since this is an SF setting, there may be other ways, depending on the technologies that exist in your setting. Is there any way in which memories and or personality can be copied into and out-of a human brain ? If so, an AI might be able to format such a "backup" to re-write a human's personality. There might also be surgical approaches where an AI could replace a human's brain with a computer (probably one with significant organic components, as it would need to run off the human's blood). Or it could add implants to oversee the brain - conditioning it to behave in ways that were acceptable to the AI. As others have said though, probably not much involvement of DNA in these sort of schemes. [Answer] The simple answer to your question is **no**. The technology to do such a thing doesn't exist as yet and may never do. Since this is WB then it is possible to conceive of WB scenarios where it can happen? Absolutely **yes**. Its a fairly widespread trope of Sci-Fi that's been explored by a number of authors ranging from Ken MacLeod (Fall Revolution series) and Peter Watts (Firefall). Also present in film such as the Matrix Trilogy where Agent Smith takes over a human body. One key thing for you to think about is whether you are thinking primarily about DNA modification or memory modification as they are very different things. One is modifying the existing structure of the brain (its software) the other is modifying the blueprint for how a human is built (its hardware schematic). Ken Macleod and the matrix covers the former - AI's altering/overwriting our brains like a computer virus in various ways ranging from accessing pre-existing radio implants or direct re-writing via the optic nerve. Peter Watts approach combines both the former and hints at the latter. The latter hints at a phenomenon called emergent complexity - essentially developing complex constructions (in this case a human/AI hybrid) from simpler structures - in this case DNA. Peter Watt's approach describes an alien doing this - but we could use the same approach for an AI - as by definition they are an alien and possibly more superior lifeform. Taking this approach its conceivable using some kind of Hand-wavium that an AI for some reason might chose to create a human embryo with its DNA pre-encoded to generate a copy/facsimile of itself. How/Why it would do this rather than just taking over a pre-existing human would be an additional exercise for your world building/plotting. If you go down this route you will probably want to do some reading about the differences between the human genome and the human proteome. [Answer] I read some books about biochemistry a long time ago and that's all. So, direct from my deficient memory: There are some stuff in the cells that are blocking parts of DNA/RNA from activate and some other stuff that release this blockings. This control the production of proteins and therefore a lot of other biochemical processes. I guess that the impact of this holistic feedback on our biological environment, i.e. our bodies, is incomprehensible unlimited. It might be so that we interact in this process with our attitudes, thoughts, actions and so on and that computer programs can be designed to interact with humans who are interacting with their chemistry in a way that reprogram their memories. But it's a long way to develope an operating system that control this complex feedback system. ]
[Question] [ I am super-rich person with a net worth of 32 billion US dollars. Part of my business is being contractor for NASA and SpaceX (so I have knowledge about space technology). I already own my island and have people working for me, willing to fulfill any of my wishes. After I realized that [killing everyone would be too pricy](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/14460/hiding-own-space-program) I decided to convince everyone about my truth about the aliens. **How much does it cost to fake alien contact?** I have the technology to put a space station of [Skylab](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab) size into standard Earth orbit for 62 days, and I can keep three people there. (Nothing is in orbit yet). The goal: Convince people that aliens are real and make as many people as possible believe it. Plus points: Make powerful governments publicly confess that aliens are real (In this trope, I am convinced that powerful states are already in contact with aliens). By "powerful" I mean USA, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom - i.e. the [United Nations Security Council](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council) Do I have enough money to do it? What steps should I make to convince people about the aliens? I want to start with it "tomorrow" (Earth current day technology) [Answer] "Discover" a Voyager-2 style alien craft. Have your secret labs develop alternate technologies, e.g. semiconductors not based on silicon, prepare a message/plate that is a counterpart of our "golden disc", use materials obtained with unmanned probes from the Moon, possibly have your biological division create several fake (dead) bacteria with (fake) alternate biology. Send out a probe to Mars; something rather large, like Curiosity. Officially, the probe "encounters" the craft flying through space, somewhere around Mars orbit. Unofficially, it deploys the craft shedding the rover disguise; later it has a critical failure during Mars orbital injection, crashing, so that not a trace of the missing rover is left. So, the craft (which appears to be only the end stage of something much, much bigger) is floating through the Solar System. It will take good several years, looping around the planets, before it crashes somewhere (into the Sun?). Your probe captured some signals. You forward the data to the scientists and let the governments manage the capture of the probe. They aim their radiotelescopes and capture the signal broadcast by the craft. They contact it, and it turns the antennas to Earth. Bidirectional communication is established as they discover the protocol - the craft responds to commands but doesn't have any AI. Still, it provides a bunch of data on the alien civilization and information about the alien artifacts it carries on board. Let them worry about retrieving these artifacts. Oh, and if you want more flexibility, claim the craft was an earlier, slower probe. You have managed to find a later but faster probe; a lander - that overtook the simple one and landed on Earth a couple centuries/millennia ago. [Answer] Begin by considering what you are engineering: You need to create a belief, you need to create it in enough people and they need to be the right people. You can put unambiguous evidence in front of some people and they will still refuse to believe it ( consider any of the current anti-scientific movements ) but most of those people are not the same ones who are in the upper echelons of power. Those need to be your first audience, they will carry more of the people with them. Rational people tend to build up beliefs through a steady build up of evidence and your character's endeavour may be more persuasive if rather than a single *event* they had already warmed people up to the idea and created a narrative around it- our brains are irresistibly drawn towards stories, so this could work well. So we might start by asking what aliens would do that would result in a first contact event. That also needs us to consider what or who the aliens are. Our budget probably doesn't stretch to a full-on landing, so perhaps the aliens are just passing through ( Rama style ) or investigating Earth in some way, either in a way that would incorporate direct contact with humans or not. Alternatively they may be doing something entirely inscrutable, which requires some very original thinking before one can suitably design it. There is a lot to be said for the latter case as we can create a series of unconnected and unexplained events, which people will draw their own conclusions from and build up connections. Elements that could be useful: * Satellites capable of transmitting radio signals - if you want interactivity then these might be your messengers, if not then they could be broadcasting "communications" with unknown entities on the planet. * A technology that allows you to do much of what can be done electronically without electronics. This is a tricky one as you either need something mechanical- for example circuitry based on magnetic rather than electrical induction, entirely analogue computation or something that behaves like a biological system, using proteins for data storage, communication and so on. You might find that [evolvable hardware](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolvable_hardware) might help create weird designs. The thing about implementing a technology like this is that to get it sufficiently advanced to be credible for a space-faring species you probably need to get it very sophisticated and then the temptation to make yourself even richer with a vast portfolio of crazy patents would be difficult to resist, although this could be part of your post-event plan where you could claim to be analysing it. Anything of this kind must be carefully synthesized in a way that favours materials that do not occur on earth. This is your representative among humans so it must be very detailed. * Communications that are totally weird. Are they meaningful or not? Ideally you might want to go for something reminiscent of the [Voynich Manuscript](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript) which appears to be meaningful but may not be. For extra points avoid binary logic- encoding it through an analogue process or using a logic that operates in an unusual base. * A way of ensuring your technology gets to do its thing noticeably. If you have your own island then a good way of deploying it would be from a couple of stealthed-up submarines. In fact if we were to see the visitors as aquatic then they might not even be interested in the surface and the drones above would be more like fish. The oceans are vast and little explored, so an aquatic alien would be hard to find if they were smart and unwilling to be found. Ensuring a few drones turn up in fishing nets would start to draw attention to them. With these in place, you might choose to start by waiting until a noticeably large meteor hits the sea- this happens a lot but for extra points you might just begin the endeavour during one of the big meteor showers. Pick a starting point in the sea and release a big old burst of your weirdly encoded transmission. Have the satellites mirror it very briefly ( perhaps for maximum effect the satellites are positioned so that they can "animate" a moving signal source across the sky. After a few months of silence, another burst of encoded data from another location. People may be listening for it by now, and finding it will certainly draw them in. Then, the first drone is found in a fishing net somewhere. For maximum effect you might give it a form and swimming mechanism that is entirely different from any terrestrial creature. A few more drones turn up - they need to appear in different places at similar times, to create a clear impression of worldwide spread. Some of them will be getting analysed and questions will be asked everywhere, but it is inevitable that some will be encountered by regular people and videos will be out online fairly quickly. A few different varieties of drone would help to create interest. From time to time drones emit a short burst of inscrutable data. Once they are out of the water ( or out of salt water ) this takes on a standard pattern. Once everyone is talking about this mystery, it's time for your grand finale. Now I don't have a clear picture of what this should be, but follow it up by a sequential and dramatic destruction of the signal satellites, designed to create the impression of something powering itself around the planet and away in a series of explosive bursts. Ideally all drones "die" at this point. The aliens have gone, you just have to clean up all evidence of their creation. The biggest risk is that the more people are involved in a conspiracy the sooner it fails, so you need to have a very dedicated pranking crew behind you and you can't expect the story to hold forever. You almost certainly *can* however, with the right resources, persuade major powers of extra-terrestrial visits at least temporarily and create a mystery that will fascinate across generations. [Answer] Keep in mind what the original question told us about this billionaire. If he had less money, we'd call him *delusional*. As it is, the polite term is *eccentric*. This person believes that the key governments are already in contact with aliens, and wants them to "come clear" because they believe the cover is already blown. We can assume that the first step was a network of telescopes and radars to try and catch the aliens. **Obviously the sensors found no evidence that was good enough to go public.** So the billionaire believes that the major governments know that the aliens have science-fiction-style stardrives which leave no trace on present-day sensors. Any fake with incoming signals or sublight ships or probes might convince the public, but it won't convince those governments "in the know." The billionaire has to convince the major governments that their deal with the aliens is slipping, and that they have to "come clear" now rather than later to preserve their own credibility. * Make it look as if the aliens are cutting new deals with other governments or with transnational corporations. How those hints look depends on what the billionaire believes about the original deals. Disappearing cows in the Amazon? Crop circles in India? * Make it look as if independent journalists or whistleblowers are prepared to make a disclosure. Have journalists on the fringe of those independents ask for background interviews about Roswell and Tunguska and prime them with a few "facts" which the billionaire believes to be true. * Generate a rash of "bigfoot sightings" which happen to look like the aliens. For extra credibility, have the witnesses insist that they're dealing with cryptids rather than aliens. Alternatively, the billionaire might believe that the governments don't "come clear" because they think mankind "is not ready." So convince them that mankind can deal with the relevation, but without antics or "facts" which contradict what the governments "know". Again no fake signals. Fund research in exobiology and linguistics. Fund our own probes or signals to talk to aliens. Have credible scientists predict first contact in our lifetimes. And last but not least, how expensive would it be to win an election in France or the UK? Cheaper than the US, for sure. [Answer] *Edit*: sorry, I probably misunderstood the lore, I thought you'd like to fake a new alien contact (which would probably quickly hidden by governments) instead of giving a glaring evidence to everyone. My bad; I guess my answer is not quite relevant in your case. (Should I delete it?) To make governments actually believe that they deal with aliens, imho, sending a message would work much better than crafting alien artifacts. Government would retrieve the alien artifacts at any cost, and would be **very** interested in cracking them. Alien technology could give an ultimate scientific and military advantage, so they would put a lot of resources in studying it. You could hire a bunch of scientists and artists to create something absolutely unbelievable for commoners; but I doubt it would fool topmost research labs and military departments. The signal seem to be way easier. If you'd like, it could even be meaningful, like the messages that humanity have transmitted: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_interstellar_radio_messages> (imho, Arecibo message is the most impressive example from this list). Sure, you'd still need artists and cryptologists, but it seems easier anyway. The main issue with the signal is that they should be unable to track its source. I guess, you'd need a bunch of small transmitters, far away in space. Their signal should be only caught briefly and rarely, it should barely differ from a usual space noise - earlier or later, someone would notice it anyway. (yep, that coverage is sort of naive, but it's the best I can think of). ]