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Answer 1

Title:

Scientifically plausible way to bring the Earth to a 28- to 30-hour solar day

Doomsday clocks are sort of a common theme in my stories. When I saw @eHaraldo post the sandbox question about slowing down earth’s rotation to create a 30-hour day, and then apparently abandon it; I am now adopting it. Because it’s a good question.

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I'm worldbuilding a post-apocalyptic story set in the near future (~200 years). In my story, the Earth's rotation speed has been slowed down to 28- to 30-hours per day. I'm trying to explain how this happened. Note: the 200 years is approximate, and it allows for the day to be slowed down less abruptly. i.e., **there is no need for a single, abrupt event **.

The scale of the event, given the above numbers will require an input of 30.014 billion zetajoules of energy applied against the earth's rotation through that ≅200 years. It won't all go to slowing the planet, figure something bigger to offset waste.

My research suggests that it may be possible through several events though I will need the confirmation of an expert opinion before considering it an answer.

• A barrage/trail of asteroid impacts
• A neutron star flyby
• The moon doing something horrible
• A disruption of the Earth's core

My setting requirements

Given: the cataclysmic event has wiped out most of humanity, and will have caused a series of major geophysical disasters, including tidal waves, earthquakes, volcanoes, and weather tragedies.

Some humans and enough of a biosphere to keep them alive must have survived, but mass devastation of the planet including extinction of many species is acceptable and expected.

The Earth's orbit may or may not have been affected, but tidal locking did not happen.

The above consequences are acceptable side-effects to the alteration of the solar day.

The expected consequences will be:

• Food shortages and famine
• Water shortages and drought
• Disease outbreaks
• Social unrest and violence
• Economic collapse
• Environmental degradation

Q: What cataclysm might create this world within 200 years?

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I assume the tags for this will be [planets] [apocalypse] [solar-system] [science-based]

Answer 2

Graduated Questions List

In accordance with Sandbox policy, answers containing graduated questions will be deleted. This answer is designed to be a repository for all those questions that have graduated. It is a community wiki answer, so add in your question here, at the end of the list, once it is posted on the main site! Position #1 is an example of how to do this to get the ball rolling.

1. Sandbox for proposed Questions
2. How large of a magma chamber do I need to geothermally power a small city?
3. How can muscle atrophy due to long gestation in artificial wombs be avoided?
4. Knocking Out Zombies
5. How to map arms of the galaxy?
6. How would I go about establishing phenotype in the case of co-dominance where mixed phenotype is not an option?
7. How can I determine gene expression in cases of multiple co-dominant genes?
8. Surviving Organ Failure
9. How to Optimize CO2 and H2 Intake for a Sessile Methane-Producing Organism
10. Solutions for an Aquatic Race to Harvest the Sugar Under Sea Grass Meadows (edited for reopening)
11. How to recreate a "land" harp that can work in the deep sea?
12. Evidence of lightning-caused mass extinction
13. Toddler/Baby Labor
14. Producing A Chosen One Via Eugenics: Is It Possible?
15. Would killing 444 billion humans leave any physical impact on Earth that's measurable?
16. Finding possible geological incongruities
17. https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/259673/40609
18. Looking backwards to navigate forwards
19. Will The Cluster World hold onto an atmosphere for a useful length of time without further intervention?
20. Adjusting the fundamental interactions to create abnormally hard structures
21. Atmospheric composition/segregation across the gradient on an Alderson Disc
22. What situation leading to a complete sex separation fit my criteria?
23. Weather in The Cluster World
24. Is my magic enough to keep a person without skin alive for a month?
25. Compacting biological traits arising from emergent biological mechanisms into singular artificial genes
26. How could the power to adjust the fundamental forces deal with antimatter attacks?
27. Locally warping space so Earth turns "inside out" and engulfs the moon
28. defending a steampunk airship against feral angels

Answer 3

What qualities would an AGI need to gain legal protections today?

Sandbox notes:
This question was closed as "opinion based" however it is important to my many other AGI questions. I need this world built. Any help is great.
- Related question for this world
- What are the parenting options available to species that reproduce by fragmentation?
- What faith do my AI follow that is most belligerent to human traditions and beliefs?
Per the Meta reference on "stoy based closing", this question is on topic, as it asks: "What could cause a government [English common law] to pass such-and-such law [AGI rights] given these societal conditions [an AGI of X definition is created]"

First: assume society is as it is today, British common law; United States might be easiest but any government will suffice.

My story has an AGI species interacting with humans and their definition needs to snub any qualms about, "The police wouldn't do that because legally..."

A good answer provides the "what" portion of the on-topic example question in the Meta about "Why is my question too 'Story-based'"; which is formed as:

What could cause a government to pass such-and-such law given these societal conditions?

Where:

• What Is the answer you give, narrowly defining qualities of an AGI
• government is English common law government
• such-and-such law is, specifically, the Bill of Rights principle of "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" classifying these fictional AGI as "men" in the same way it now classifies women as "men" in modern interpretation.
• The societal conditions are that a new artificial species has been created and propagated throughout society.

A good question avoids

1. changes to society
2. relating this species to current AI or its methods
3. simplistic "just write a law" answers (laws don't protect anything under common law; blind protections of the law works only in dictatorships)

The Common Law principle that applies here

This is an aside for clarification
Laws of society can only grant rights if there is some means to remedy the violation of the right. For example, a law that protects a human’s right to breathe water can’t be tried in court even if some human finds out they can’t breathe water. The law simply can not possibly “fix” the thing that’s been “taken” from you - an impossible ability to breathe water. That is a ridiculous example, I know, but ridiculous laws do happen. The point is, simply saying you have a “right” to this or that doesn’t create any legal right unless you're in a dictatorship. The common law principle originated in Roman law as ubi jus ibi remedium, “where there is a right, there is a remedy”, and remains in effect today when our courts decide if you have been violated. But this principle applies to my problem through its logically equivalent contrapositive: Si nulla remedium existit, tunc nulla ius existit. Thus the existence of rights is contingent upon the availability of remedies to enforce and protect those rights. Without a remedy, any purported rights become meaningless and unenforceable. Ergo; we do not put dead murderers on trial, punish insane felons, or sue dead offenders, or punish people who safely shoot their own computer. What could the judge take from one and give to the other to remedy your loss?
A real-world example: we have a right to have our credit information accurately reported. This law is called the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). But even if the credit company gives false information about your credit, the court can’t and won't give you anything. Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (2016) ruled that even though misleading figures were published by the credit card company, the plaintiff could not show that they actually lost anything from inaccurate or incomplete information in their credit reports. There is no right to relief until you have actually “lost” something.

thought experiment

This is about designing a fictional Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and answering what “ingredient”—for lack of a better word—would afford it rights under existing common law: Let’s assume we invent the asked fictional AGI, and we put them into a mechanical body. Now let’s assume a group lobbies and passes a law that makes it illegal to willfully dismember and destroy the AGI, and treat such an act as a “wrongful death.” They classify this as a crime just like it would be for a human (because again, no laws are changed) When an AGI is destroyed, someone claiming a relationship to it wants the system to prosecute for wrongful death. Well, there clearly exists a “wrongful death” law in the books because it was passed. But the judge’s first job is to decide if some remedy exists to what was “lost.” This means the judge has to be convinced that at first, the AGI even had a right to life before asking if a life has been lost. So the question came to me: If an AGI is a computer program, and computer programs can be and are backed up and saved regularly, so effectively they can only be lost by deliberate manipulation of the server; does a computer program have a “right to life?” This doesn't work! Something has to be different about these AGI.

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What about our world (specifically, about the qualities of an AGI in this world) needs to be changed

to give artificially generated algorithms and programs a right to life, that could be recognized and fairly remedied in a human justice system? (Answers do not need to fix the problem, the question only asks what needs fixing)

Emphasis again, I don’t believe our real world could possibly argue for the right of an artificial construct to exist, as they currently exist. The question tries to pin down what prevents this, and removes that quality from what we call an "AI" (by changing the AGI, or maybe the environment - anything except the basic principles of jurisprudence)

I can’t state this enough. This question is NOT asking about current AI or anything existing today.

Answer 4

Title: Is this time travel mechanic plausible?

I was trying to ask a question for a novel I am trying to make, but it was closed for many reasons. I need help making it ask-worthy. This is my question with various revisions that I made after it was closed, but with some parts remaining in hopes that they can still remain in the finished question.

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I am trying to make a novel, and I wanted to know if this is a good hard science theory for time travel. Given that (as far as I know) white holes are theorized to have negative mass; and that anything with negative mass travels faster than the speed of light*, would that mean that white holes can travel faster than the speed of light? If not, why? This is disregarding causality, I already have a workaround.

*1 : This is due to the same principle that makes massless particles travel the speed of light. I believe it has something to do with inertia, in which case this would make sense, but either way, this was used in a theory for tachyons and was not criticized.

Answer 5

I have posted this question in sandbox because:

1. I'm not sure whether this is more suited to worldbuilding or the math stack-exchange site.
2. This question, while simple to me, may feel convoluted because it's asking for a general algorithm as opposed to a single answer to a single query.

Title: "Simple model for trait propagation in a population"

In a worldbuilding project of mine, humans can have a pseudo-magical trait that, if present in either mother or father, is 100% of the time passed on to a child (unlike genetic traits, which are generally more complicated than that).

In order to be able to estimate how quickly this trait is propagated in a given population of humans, I'd like to have a simplified model that I can apply to different sizes of populations.

I have the rules I would need to run a simulation of this model, and I could probably program it if I have to. But I suspect that there's likely to be a mathematical/probability-based way to do it without needing the simulation, and thought I would ask if anyone here would be able to point me in the right direction.

The model

Suppose we have a fixed population size of 2n, consisting of n males and n females. Associated with each member of the population is a simple true or false value indicating the presence of the trait.

Each generation, the males and females are randomly paired off and each pair produces exactly 2 offspring - one male and one female. These offspring are the (exactly 2n) members of the next generation, and each is given a value of true if and only if either or both of their parents had it.

With the above model, I could run simulations to answer questions like,

• "For a population of 1000 with 1 trait-positive individual, how many generations would it take (on average) for the whole population to be trait-positive?"
• "For a population of 500 with 100 trait-positive males and 250 trait-positive females, how many individuals (on average) would be trait-positive after 3 generations?"

The question

Is there a mathematical algorithm or approach I could use to answer these kinds or questions, using this model, without needing to simulate it generation-by-generation?

Answer 6

What techniques can be used to keep magic weapon technology secret?

In a previous question I had asked how I could ensure that they would not wish to go all imperial and stay isolationist despite the military might granted by them and an answer I really liked and plan to use is that others could steal the weapons and take the advantage. However, I don't know much about how they could try to limit the spread of that information to other countries because then they could lose the advantage regardless.

I don't need a way for the knowledge to be completely hidden but I would like some advice about what techniques or methods they could use to hide it like how some real world nations managed to keep trade secrets that could still be applied to magic technology.

One constraint with this question is that it is impossible to learn without weapons or a mentor as the weapons are made with a divine language forged into it that was gifted to the dwarves by the deity that created them. As an additional note he language has no effect when inscribed on anything else and may or may not have a spoken form. (I plan on actually making the whole language later after I finish a different language for that universe.)

Does this version look better?

Answer 7

If 30% of global military spending for the next 30 years were instead spent on an "intelligent life" backup colony, where should we site it and why?

Originally posted (and subsequently closed) question.

Some discussion in this meta post.

Notes about the question (not for the description)

The plot of the story is 1) AI near-miss happens, 2) There is agreement to spend big on a solution, 3) Then debate on the best solution occurs, 4) Colonize Venus wins, 5) Earth colonizes Venus with solar powered aircraft.

I'm looking for help with (3). I want the debate about alternatives to be as realistic as possible, so I need some more creative and well-supported counter proposals. It is the brainstorming and exchange of perspectives from the proponents of different ideas that I'd like the community's help with.

Question Description

Some industry leaders have proposed that AI poses a risk of extinction. Suppose some kind of an AI-related incident occurs that really scares humanity into action, and that this causes the world's governments to come together and agree to reallocate 30% of the many trillions of dollars that they spend on defense to developing a single insurance policy megaproject called "Plan B". Plan B must ensure that, even in the event of civilization-on-Earth ending calamity, intelligent life will nevertheless persevere.

What would be the best place to site this backup colony?

Keep in mind that whatever "Plan B" is, offering better natural immunity to AI-related threats will be an acceptance criterion. If it's a backup plan in case of other existential threats, such as nuclear war or an extinction-level comet or asteroid impact, that would be a bonus.

It would be valid (not necessarily the best site) if the colony was sited in an underground bunker on Earth or in orbit around the Earth. If the best site is off-world, assume that the cost of going to Mars, Venus, or the Moon is 1B per metric ton (MT). Global military spending in 2022 was 2.24 Trillion USD/Year. We can assume that somehow we will lower the cost-per-kg by a factor of 100 for such a large project, so if the entire budget was spent on interplanetary transportation, our mass budget would be around...

MassBudget=(30years)(0.3)($2.24T)(100)/($1B/MT)=2,160,000tons

Of course, the mass budget for a giant orbiting habitat or an underground bunker on Earth could be higher, and it is unrealistic to spend the entire budget on launch. Perhaps a 50/50 split would be more reasonable.

I'm looking for the best site when using an approach grounded in present-day physics, materials, engineering, and medical knowledge. The answer does not need to provide a detailed plan, it just needs to explain enough to illustrate the key advantages of the proposed site and establish why it is the best alternative.

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JBH's Proposed Edit

Background

A story event occurs that causes the Earth's nations to unite in the effort to colonize another planet in our solar system. They have dedicated 730 Billion U.S. dollars annually (approximately one-third the global military budget to achieve this goal.

I have chosen Venus to be the planet for colonization.

• The project will take 30 years (22 Trillion USD total investment from concept to occupation of Venus).
• It will cost $?.??/ton to move the ship and its cargo to Venus.
• A maximum of 30% of any ship's total mass is payload.

Question

What are science-based reasons why Venus would be the superior choice compared to other planets?

Please note that this is the first of two questions. The second question will ask for scientific reasons why Venus is not the better choice. If you're tempted to provide a frame challenge to this question, it should instead be submitted as an answer to the second.

Answer 8

What would it be like at the Lagrange point of my world?

I have an ice cream sandwich world*. It looks more or less like the one in the link. The “stars” in mine aren’t actual stars, they’re large glass-like orbs that give off light. There are five larger ones (one is mountain size, the rest are about half that) and about ten thousand smaller ones (bouncy ball size). Each half of the world is about the same density as Earth (I might change this). Assume the stars have the same density as glass. What would the gravity be like in between the halves? Would it be zero g, or something totally different? Would going near a star cause a noticeable change in gravity?

*A world like an ice-cream sandwich?

Answer 9

The link to the question i submited on the main site before i posted it here : https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/posts/260082/timeline

Maybe the subject isn't as interesting as I thought ?
Anyway, it seems i didn't ask the question properly so i'm submitting it here to have advice on how i can ask better questions.

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I'm writing around a RPG module in an ancient Egyptian like setting.

What I want to do:

I want to add a fun but realistic heavy jurisdiction session based on the bureaucratic hell trope. This jurisdiction will include choosing an insurance coverage plan from diverse companies.
I think the insurance will cover the group as a whole, not an individual. (but I'm open to modification if necessary.)
Each plan provides various combinations of coverage and choosing a coverage will be deliberately difficult.

The context (and what can be source of a resource expenditure) :

The country is in an ancient Egyptian setting, with high magic.

New pyramids just appeared out of the sand.
The government is okay with the adventurers exploring them, but only if insurance is provided, and if they can get a percentage of the treasure found inside. Only two groups can and will be in the pyramid at the same time.

Some guards and medics will wait at the entry of the pyramid, to heal or defend the outside from the danger that will eventually get out. I will refer to them as the pyramid guard.They normally don't intervene inside the pyramid.
The character can still request help, but any action of the guard directly caused or asked by the characters will be at a substantial cost, that may or may not be covered by the insurance.

The government demand specific coverages:

• Cost of restoration of archeological items and art damaged by the explorers
• Cost of ressources expanded by the pyramid guard to protect the outside from something directly caused by the explorers

Options that is not needed but still proposed to the adventurers :

• One revive spell per exploration
• One curse removing
• Eventual cost of a body repatriation team
• Cost of other guard intervention, up to 1000 po

What i'm asking

I'm asking for coverage or additional reasons for insurance coverage. Of course I'm also open for suggestion and critics.
Thanks in advance !

law archeology

Answer 10

Title: Ancient warfare without horses

The civilisations of my world are spread over several large islands close by each other. Trade routes for copper and tin make possible various development stages of Bronze Age cultures.

My story is set primarily on an island roughly the size of Greece and partially inspired by the Hellenistic world. There exist a number of city states that try to outperform each other and sometimes need to band together to ward off external enemies.

Their warriors are built around various spear-wielding martial traditions, just as there existed many different kinds of ancient Greek phalanxes made up of Hoplites and similar. The protagonist of my story is an external foe that will try to break into the realm of these city states and I imagined them to ultimately face Macedonian-style heavy phalanxes after some initial headway, as these seem to have been the most developed version of Greek phalanxes in ancient times.

My worry is whether such a heavy phalanx could reasonably develop in a world without any horse equivalent. No one rides any animals into battle, although there are slow beasts of burden for logistical purposes in some places.

In my understanding, the mixed troops built up around the Macedonian phalanx were meant to defend the phalanx’ back and flanks as well as break the enemies' formation while the phalanx keeps them engaged. To what degree are military strategies based on and therefore the development of such heavy infantry viable when no one has greater mobility than that of a lightly equipped human? This lack of mobility seems to hinder how a Macedonian phalanx was supposed to work.

Probable tags:

ancient-history, bronze-age, military, strategy, tactics

Why I’m trying to ask this question:

I’m mainly interested in how warfare at the junction of Hellenistic city states, Roman empires etc. would have looked like without any animals that can participate in battle or even be ridden for swift delivery of messages. From what I’ve read, during Roman republican times there may have only been a few hundred or less horses per legion, but clearly these animals were important enough to warrant major investments into them. During imperial times and the medieval ages horses made up more and more of the battle force of each army and military campaign until infantry became almost irrelevant unless they were specifically meant to counter horses.

So I’m having trouble telling how impactful a lack of such animals would be even in early times. No fast messengers, no chariots, no chasing enemies and navigating into the back of your foe at speed too great for them to react to.

However, I felt this would be too broad to ask, so I’m trying to focus it on the question if a very heavy phalanx had made sense as a sort of local apex of infantry development or if the assumptions of warfare are now so different that it wouldn’t stand out as particular useful anymore.

Addressing comments: I refer to battle formations consisting of spear wielding warriors. To the best of my limited knowledge these are called phalanxes, I have not found a more specific term for that. I do not intent to ask whether rectangle formations in general would have developed, but whether a highly specific version, that of the Alexander-style/Macedonian-style phalanx, could still have developed to be the highest form of spear wielding ancient warfare in a world without mounts. Given the large amounts of research on why warfare works the way it works I do not believe this is any more opinion based than other questions I could ask about military strategy, which seems to be on topic according to the existing tags. I hope to receive help to focus this question enough to qualify for this site.

Answer 11

Title: Roughly how sensitive would this ice-creature's hearing be?

Tags: magic, science-fiction, mythical-creatures, anatomy, ice

Say you have a creature whose body is mostly or entirely made of ice, which is like normal ice in most ways except for being alive, slightly magical, slightly resistant to melting, and able to move and change its own body structure. Assuming it mimicked the structures of fine hairs we have in our ears (or something analogous to it), how well would it be able to hear?

Constraints

• The ice may contain a skeletal structure of sorts to provide structural integrity, but does not have any biological organs.
• The ice-body can intrinsically sense pressure, temperature, and similar -- anything that would have a physical effect on normal ice.
• The magic is mostly limited to movement/animation of the ice and, through that, whatever happens to be inside it.
• The environment is Earth-typical and, if required, you may assume the temperature is 20°C (room temperature). The creature can regenerate any ice it loses from melting.
• Answers that propose a different hearing mechanism that I may not be aware of are also welcomed, especially if they take advantage of the physical properties of ice.

What I've got so far

It looks like ice crystals can be small enough to mimic the fine 'hairs' used to sense sound-vibrations, since both those and hair cells have measurements in micrometers. I know that the number of these is significant, but can't figure out what the sensitivity might be (how good its hearing is, in other words), given the fundamental differences between biological structures and ice.

[Sandbox note: I tried looking into the evolution of hearing, since I figured simpler things would be easier to emulate, but everything I've found so far is pretty vague. Is it worth mentioning in the question body?]

Note that I am aware of the lack of cochlear amplifier or similar at this stage, and so I expect that it wouldn't be able to hear nearly as well as a human -- I want to know what the starting point without that would be.

Answer 12

Title: The Effect of a Fantasy Metropolis on Surrounding Towns

Tags: Magic, Fantasy, Society, Economy, Cities, Towns

Background: I'm building a high fantasy world as a homebrew tabletop setting, that would have its own interesting cultures etc, but works off standard fantasy incarnations. So far, I've built out an large island continent where a race of long lived people that have unified as a nation after some infighting and have discovered a type of magic that lets them manipulate natural materials with ease (Geomancy that lets them widen rivers and Pluck huge stone blocks out of Hills at a significant pace, etc). This has led to a massive redevelopment of the land and Especially the Coastal Capital City that sits on the mouth of a major River, turning it into a Big Metropolis. Such Advancements include:

• Massive Redevelopment over pre-existing Capital city, newer and larges spaces from government, to residential, industrial, commercial buildings/functions etc
• Widening of the city crossing river, from its oceanside mouth all the way along to the far end of the counties coast, greater boat trading potential
• Development of a Magic Food System that helps offset new population needs and loss of local Farm Lands (This food system is localized to the city and has a lack of presence outside the city.)
• Timeframe: Basic City to Current State Metropolis over the course of 50 years, aided by the Geomancy magic that helps shift local natural resources to the site and shape them much faster than conventional methods, allowing this complicated metropolis to be built in a relatively fast time.
• Level of Tech/Magic: Conventional High Fantasy, regular folk have Late antiquity/medieval where these long lived people are more Late Medieval/Early Renaissance. Magic may help facilitate magic food and geomancy but it's not without limits. (For sake of discussion, think DND)

Main Question: When a City/Metropolis of this size and development is made, I didn't consider how it might affect the local towns around it. Thus I ask, What would the net effect be for local towns when a fantasy metropolis is established in the region as a capital, given that the Metropolis is Successful and Growing? Clearly the town upstream of the Capital might benefit from the increased trade on the river, but would it simply become an extended suburb of the Metropolis, and grow to fuse with the city's size? Would it suffer from the encroaching urbanization mass that is taking up local farmland and falling apart as its population moves to the city for better opportunities? If you could provide examples of relevant situations to my Q, please provide them.

I've added a rough image of the situation to help visualize the intended idea. I'll try to answer additional context questions if that would help. Thank you for your consideration!

Answer 13

A little imaginative riddle: Pressure Plates in a Dungeon

I am unsure if this kind of question would have fans here or would just be closed for whatever reason. So I appreciate your feedback on that aspect as well as on improving the text.

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Imagine Sir Kunibold, a knight and adventurer, enjoying his favorite hobby: Dungeon exploration!

He is a few levels deep into the lair of some ominous villain, as he enters a room finding a door he needs to open. But this is prevented by a mechanism involving two pressure plates.

He figures that the plates need to be pressed at the same time in the most synchronized fashion possible, but...

• Kunibold is alone and cannot recruit any other creatures or summon them

• In the corners of the room are various piles of stuff to search and find things he needs to overcome this obstacle

• There is a small flow of water coming from the ceiling

• Kunibald has enough air, food and torch light to not be hampered by that.

What does Kunibold need to do in order to open the door?

Describe your blueprint, machinery or actions that Kunibold needs to perform.

• You can come up with (almost) any items you need for your plans
• Available items/materials must "typically" be found in a dungeon (things made out of wood, cloth, iron, some tools)
• You need to list all items with a numbered list
• Providing sketches of the constructions are encouraged
• The less items you need to maximize the synchronized pressing, the better you have helped Kunibold!

Infos

• Pressure plates are 60x60 cm in size (2x2 ft), 3m apart (10ft)
• Pressure plate's pressure needed to press is 10kg each (22lbs)
• The door is magically, indestructible sealed and can only be passed if the plates are used to open it

Answer 14

Title: Creating a habitable zone in a Cluster World.

A question about the survivability of The Cluster World answered itself in the research phase, the cluster, as it is, will be red hot from a depth of about 1000km from the surface getting hotter the deeper one goes. So same data new question:

Current compositional notes for The Cluster World:

• Mass of solid material ~5.97x10²⁴kg, solid material density 3000kgm^-3

• Current average density of the cluster is ~2100kgm^-3.

• Current volume of ~2.84x10²¹m³, radius of ~8785km.

• Current surface gravity is 5.163ms^-2, ~0.53G, escape velocity 9.524ms^-1.

• Currently the initial atmospheric volume is ~8.57x10²⁰m³ (at STP). That's 1.11x10¹⁸kg of dry air.

• The initial gravitational potential energy of the atmospheric gases at this point will be ~8.35x10³¹J, almost all of which becomes kinetic energy, much of this is eventually converted into waste heat due to frictional collision interactions.

• Because the "rocky" material is "pinned", due to the magic used to create the overall structure, there is no limit to the temperature that material can reach, the rocky bodies are, in effect, under infinite pressure and cannot boil though they can liquefy. Currently the, very rough, initial temperature at the core will be ~234059K.

• Current initial volume of water is ~3.624x10¹²m³, approximately equivalent to the proportional volume of water on Earth.

• The "core ocean" of the previous question's diagram doesn't initially exist, not as a definable entity separate to the atmosphere, instead there's a roiling sphere of supercritical gas/plasma throwing off geysers that burst into flames as they rise into lower pressure zones. As such water migration can be assumed for any depth/height that dry air would reach.

While keeping the total rocky mass, and rock density, constant can we alter the overall density, and thus the atmospheric, and water, volume, and mass, to create a habitable zone with survivable air pressure, temperature, and water migration?

Light at the habitable level is not a necessity, it is in fact massively preferable that the habitable zone be well below the surface to maintain atmosphere against solar wind stripping due to the lack of magnetosphere.

Answer 15

Title:So how accurate is this thesis when it comes to the implementation of firearms in any setting?

So, I asked a similar question a few months ago, and ultimately decided to just not have firearms in my setting entirely. Like the advancement of magic and the like was favored over mechanical weaponry much like in Full Metal Alchemist:Conqueror of Shamballa where it's revealed that in eds world the advancement of alchemy took precedent over the steam engine.

But I digress, I settled on this because no matter what I did I could not think of a scenario where one didn't eventually overshadow the other eventually. Sure, they could coexist for a time, but eventually it would get to the point where guns would overshadow magic and traditional weaponry due to mass production, or Magic and weaponry would overshadow firearms as one had the potential to become strong enough to take on whole companies of gun users by themselves.

I just could not think of anything that could reconcile this indefinitely. Either guns would feel like ineffective peashooters because there was little reason to use them over bows and crossbows, or they would become so powerful the entire landscape of battle would be centered around dealing with them whether you chose to use guns yourself or not.

So, I ultimately decided to just not have guns in my writing altogether, and say this is a world where magic and weaponry such a swords, bows, spears, etc continued developing and even if they would figure out something similar to a gun it was brushed aside as there was no real tangible benefit anybody could see over existing weaponry and spellcasting.

So is there a way to make it so firearms even modern day ones won't overshadow other types of weapons and make them irrelevant?

Answer 16

'm writing a book in which a group of people live a very secluded and sheltered existence, separated geographically from the modern world (circa 1980). These people have recently been oppressed by their leader. What began as a peaceful existence has turned into what amounts to a complete loss of personal freedoms. Their once-peaceful society has turned murderous.

The leader justifies his actions and those of his henchmen by citing Old Testament verses. He views his actions as justified by citing -- and grossly, fanatically misinterpreting -- scripture. What the modern world would classify as cold-blooded murder he considers to be either justice or sacrifice.

Here is my wonder: how can I write this so that

Current readers who follow the Bible are not offended and won't think it's me who misinterprets the Bible in this way, and

Readers not familiar with the Bible won't get the idea that all Christian or Jewish people think this way.

Answer 17

What short message could accelerate the industrial revolution by 100 years?

Extraterrestrials invaded Earth and won. It was a tough fight, but we just weren't technologically advanced enough. However, one of the voyager space probes has discovered a short-lived temporal anomaly. By [handwaved mechanism], this will allow us to write a short message on a piece of rock or metal and deliver it to [point in history convenient to the narrative] that starts the industrial revolution a full century earlier, giving humanity the edge they need to beat the extraterrestrial invaders.

What message of 1000 characters or fewer could be sent back in time to a particular person and point in history that has a plausible chance of causing the industrial revolution to start in the 1600s rather than the 1700s? (I don't need the actual text of the message, but rather when/where the message is going to and what it says.)