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goto124
2015-01-15, 02:52 AM
This thread is meant for getting information on real-life culture (fashion, food, social norms), morality and other things not related to combat.

Questions about weapons, armor, and tactics should be directed to the Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?392804-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XVII) thread.

I shall borrow the rules from the Weapon/Armor/Tactics thread to use here:

The concept has always been that the information is for RPG players and DMs so they can use it to make their games better, thus it's here rather than in Friendly Banter.


This thread is for asking questions about how things really work in real life. As such, it's not going to include game sources. If you have such a question, especially if it stems from an answer or question in this thread, feel free to start a new thread and include a link back to here. If you do ask a rule question here, you'll be asked to move it elsewhere, and then we'll be happy to help out with it.

Any weapon or time period is open for questions. Medieval and ancient warfare questions seem to predominate, but since there are many games set in other periods as well, feel free to ask about any weapon. This includes futuristic ones - but be aware that these will be likely assessed according to their real life feasibility. Thus, phasers, for example, will be talked about in real-world science and physics terms rather than the Star Trek canon. If you want to discuss a fictional item from a particular source according to the canonical explanation, please start a new thread for it.

Please try to cite your claims if possible. If you know of a citation for a particular piece of information, please include it. However, everyone should be aware that sometimes even the experts don't agree, so it's quite possible to have two conflicting answers to the same question. This isn't a problem; the asker of the question can examine the information and decide which side to go with. The purpose of the thread is to provide as much information as possible. Debates are fine, but be sure to keep it a friendly debate (even if the experts can't!).

No modern real-world political discussion. As the great Carl von Clausevitz once said, "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means," so politics and war are heavily intertwined. However, politics are a big hot-button issue and one banned on these boards, so avoid political analysis if at all possible (this thread is primarily about military hardware). There's more leeway on this for anything prior to about 1800, but be very careful with all of it, and anything past 1900 is surely not open for analysis (These are arbitrary dates but any dates would be, and these are felt to be reasonable).

Stay factual. Discussion of morality, especially over issues such as racism, sexism and slavery, can get ugly fast. We wish to stick with the facts, without arguing over what is 'good' or 'evil'. Again, we want any debates to be friendly.

No graphic descriptions. History can be violent, dirty, and horrific, and anyone discussing it should be keenly aware of that. However, on this board graphic descriptions of violence (or sexuality) are not allowed, so please avoid them.



With that, enjoy yourselves!

Eldan
2015-01-15, 03:42 AM
Might as well ask here, then. The question is rather general.

I have a sort of amazon culture in a game that's coming up soon. Rather than going for the clichés, I thought I'd base them on the Sarmathians and/or Scythians that I've heard real world amazons might have been based on.

Does anyone have good sources on them that go beyond what Wikipedia has? Preferably sources that are online? Any pictures would be appreciated, as well as just accounts of the general culture and day-to-day living.

goto124
2015-01-15, 03:44 AM
Amazon? Do you mean the all-female warrior group, or the people (both males and females) who live in the Amazon Forest or some other tropical forest?

I'm of not much help here, apologies.

Kiero
2015-01-15, 03:59 AM
Might as well ask here, then. The question is rather general.

I have a sort of amazon culture in a game that's coming up soon. Rather than going for the clichés, I thought I'd base them on the Sarmathians and/or Scythians that I've heard real world amazons might have been based on.

Does anyone have good sources on them that go beyond what Wikipedia has? Preferably sources that are online? Any pictures would be appreciated, as well as just accounts of the general culture and day-to-day living.

It's not online, but I'd highly recommend Christian Cameron's well-researched Tyrant series of historical fiction, which is about Greek and Sakje culture meeting and working together in the Hellenistic era. Even just the first book will give you a lot of insight into how things worked in a nomadic culture and the role women played. They're often available at libraries.

Also not online, but if you have access to a good library, The World of the Scythians by Renate Rolle comes highly recommended, and has lots of images. One that is online (and long) is History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. II: The Development of Sedentary and Nomadic Civilizations: 700 BC to AD 250 (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001057/105703eo.pdf), edited by Janos Harmatta, B. N. Puri and G. F. Etemadi.

Eldan
2015-01-15, 04:03 AM
Amazon? Do you mean the all-female warrior group, or the people (both males and females) who live in the Amazon Forest or some other tropical forest?

I'm of not much help here, apologies.

The all female warriors. Historical sources place them somewhere around the black sea and there's theories that they were based on a nomadic culture where women fought alongside the men.

Pilum
2015-01-15, 05:28 AM
The all female warriors. Historical sources place them somewhere around the black sea and there's theories that they were based on a nomadic culture where women fought alongside the men.
I also came across a nice theory once that the amazons were actually based on an Egyptian insult against the Hittites (I think). Because the Hittite men didn't shave their heads but wore their hair long, and didn't wear the short clothing favoured by Egyptians but wore the stereotypical Middle Eastern robes, the Egyptians nicknamed them "Women Warriors". Add a dose of chinese whispers reaching its way to the early Mycenaean cultures (possibly coupled with interaction with the scythians et al) and hey presto, a nation of Xena's is born!

I can't immediately remember where I read it (it was a fairly long time ago!) but it's the sort of thing I can imagine happening!

goto124
2015-01-15, 06:24 AM
How would a monosex culture keep itself alive anyway? Reproduction and all.

Yora
2015-01-15, 06:53 AM
I have a sort of amazon culture in a game that's coming up soon. Rather than going for the clichés, I thought I'd base them on the Sarmathians and/or Scythians that I've heard real world amazons might have been based on.

Does anyone have good sources on them that go beyond what Wikipedia has? Preferably sources that are online? Any pictures would be appreciated, as well as just accounts of the general culture and day-to-day living.

Oh yeah, that would be great. I've long been looking for online sources about scythians, but couldn't really find anything useful so far.

They have a pretty high rate of women burried in warrior graves compared to most other cultures, and I believe there's a couple of side notes in several ancient text that mention women among their soldiers. But I believe they were always fighting in mixed units, there never were any woman only armies, based on the few quotes I have seen.

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-01-15, 06:57 AM
How would a monosex culture keep itself alive anyway? Reproduction and all.
Repression of the other gender, so that the culture appears all one gender, but the other is hidden away and no outsiders ever see it.

Members of the culture go to other cultures to procreate, returning with a child of their gender. Whether that involves financial transactions, a Red Sonja-style "whoever beats me in combat can have me", or finding someone vaguely attractive in a tavern is another matter, as is what happens to children of the other gender. Or someone is "obtained" for that duty, whether willingly or not, and there's the issue of what happens to them after - riches, life long imprisonment or execution.

There's no direct lineage, and the each generation comes from one or more of: immigrants from other cultures, purchased slaves, orphans, people giving up their children to have a better life than they would otherwise have, kidnapping and so on.

Or if you allow modern science - for Amazons, you could potentially harvest an ova from each of two women, extract the DNA from one, and, having treated the other with the correct chemicals to simulate fertilisation, inject the extracted DNA and implant it into the parent just like a normal IVF treatment.

Kiero
2015-01-15, 09:01 AM
Oh yeah, that would be great. I've long been looking for online sources about scythians, but couldn't really find anything useful so far.

They have a pretty high rate of women burried in warrior graves compared to most other cultures, and I believe there's a couple of side notes in several ancient text that mention women among their soldiers. But I believe they were always fighting in mixed units, there never were any woman only armies, based on the few quotes I have seen.

I think the fact that there were female warriors was noteworthy enough for the (rather chauvinistic) Greek commentators writing about it - after all women didn't fight in the settled, "civilised" cultures. Something like 20% of grave-finds in one region were women - and remember these weren't common soldiers, but lords and leaders who merited that sort of grave. So we can assume the proportion of female warriors was probably higher than 20%.

What Cameron suggests in his fiction (and again, well-researched and non-fantastical) is that the unmarried young women ("maidens") served as scouts and skirmishers, having to make a certain number of kills, and take a certain number of horses in battle before earning the right to marry. Being generally smaller and lighter than men, women make very good light cavalry, especially horse archers.

Some stuff from elsewhere (a closed forum I'm part of):


Skuda Azdata (Skythian Nobles)

These riders are the upper echelons of Skythian society, who in peace spend most of their time training and exercising, while in war they take position in the centre and are the first to charge the enemy. Confident in their skills and protection by the gods, the Skuda Azdata have no qualms in fighting at close-quarters. Indeed they have instructed their armourers and smiths to forge the best armaments available in the Northern Pontic Region. Neighbouring communities, if not hostile, go to great lengths to gain these riders' goodwill and alliance, for their presence alone on the battlefield can decide an engagement. Throughout their lives these rider have collected a large number of decapitated enemies' heads and along with them honour among kinsmen.

Led by the Skulata clans the Skuda became masters of the Pontic Steppe already from the 7th century BCE. Since then they entered into close-contacts with colonising Hellenes and by the 4th century BCE Thrakian and Keltic cultural influence also reached the Skuda. Living side by side and intermixing with all these communities, the Skuda increasingly abandoned a pastoral way of life. During those difficult times around a third of the Skythian free women also had to join in military defense, making casualties even more aggravating. Surrounded by peoples, now turning hostile, and experiencing a climatic crisis, the Skulata opted to settle in Taurike Chersonesos, where from the 2nd century BCE formed new mixed communities. In these Hellenic and Skythian customs merged into a shared identity. Managing to overcome the 5th century BCE's intransigence, which caused massacres of Philhellenes among the Skulata. Skythian society was structured in three classes and all the Azdata were also known as Pilophoroi, hat wearers, which marked their high status. Overall during the Hellenistic period an increasing number of Skuda Azdata fought common enemies of the Kimmerios Bosporos and such Skythian riders were the majority of the heavy cavalry in Bosporan armies.

Also a note on the difference between Skythian and Sauromatae (Sarmatian) graves:


Skythian burials are the only ones where women show frequent signs of injuries and serious blows or stabs to the skull. Also arrowheads stuck in bones, clearly stating how they often died in battle. Moreover unlike Sauromatian burials, heavy weapons like spears, lances and axes have been recovered. However iron swords and iron scale belts have been found in only three female graves.

Obligatory images:

http://sheokhanda.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/scythian-warrior-woman.jpg

http://realtruth.org/images/scythian-ashz-120523.jpg

Mr. Mask
2015-01-15, 12:30 PM
Note the fact most of them were nobles' graves. Noble and warrior were interchangeable, in certain cultures. A lady buried with weapons might be a sign they fought, or that they were just that important. I know how misleading these finds can get, when the battle of Senbon Matsubaru had people saying 30% of samurai on battlefields were female. Those having studied Japanese history and culture will see the oddity. From what I recall, the battle in question was more like a massacre. The women of the Bushi class were trained, and armed in desperate cases, and they surely were dangerous opponents. But in Japan's example, it was not the kind of culture to have a third of their field samurai be female. A group like the Scythians? I'm less educated to say, and it could have been more than 20% as far as I'm aware. Merely, I wanted to give an example of how these can be misleading finds.

While it's hard to find a case of a female army in the distant past, there are some examples not long ago, such as the Dahomey Amazons of Fon.



Cyborgs: On a separate topic, in a world with very advanced cybernetic technology, what medical conditions could/would be treated with extensive cybernetic replacement?



Wandering Asteroids: What's the proper term for asteroids that travel from one star system to another?

Brother Oni
2015-01-15, 01:20 PM
Cyborgs: On a separate topic, in a world with very advanced cybernetic technology, what medical conditions could/would be treated with extensive cybernetic replacement?

Any disease that has progressive irreversible degeneration or any damage which has made the body pretty much unrecoverable/repairable.

The Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex addressed this, with a character being a full body cyborg due to being a survivor of a plane crash with near fatal injuries (quadriplegic, significant damage to the rest of her body, etc).

The Robocop reboot has a great scene involving this as well (I believe this is a link, but it's blocked for me: warning, body horror (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXOhIJg4B7k)). For reference, the character was less than a metre away from a large car bomb VBIED when it went off.

Kiero
2015-01-15, 01:39 PM
Note the fact most of them were nobles' graves. Noble and warrior were interchangeable, in certain cultures. A lady buried with weapons might be a sign they fought, or that they were just that important.

As noted in one of my subsequent edits, in the case of Skythians particularly, the female skeletons they found had signs of battle wounds on them. Not just important women, but warlords.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-15, 03:07 PM
Oni: Mm, I agree. I guess what I'm trying to work out is how many extensive cyborgs might build up over time. If non cybernetic cures were being discovered for many such diseases, it would reduce the number of occurring cyborgs.

In particular, I wondered if cybernetics might be useful in saving infant lives. If so, you might get the distressing GitS like situation where children swap in larger bodies as they get older, for the psychological benefit of it.


Kiero: Well, the women at Senbom Matsubaru also received some wounds. In the Scythian's case I'm not sure how many examples could be ruled as a massacre. Based off historical accounts, it does seem women commonly fought.

Brother Oni
2015-01-15, 07:34 PM
Oni: Mm, I agree. I guess what I'm trying to work out is how many extensive cyborgs might build up over time. If non cybernetic cures were being discovered for many such diseases, it would reduce the number of occurring cyborgs.

There aren't many cures for missing limbs (short of being able to grow replacement ones at a hyper accelerated rate) so more advanced prosthetics for amputees would be an initial step. As they become more sophisticated and require better bracing than the patient's body can provide, they end up becoming almost like an exoskeleton. From there, it's only a short step to fully cybernetic body replacement.

Even when they may have discovered cures, the ethics may prevent their use - most replacement organs and other body parts can't really be grown invitro (things like the liver aside), so they need a 'host body' to support them. At one end of the spectrum, you have a grotesquely deformed lump of meat, dedicated to the optimal development of the desired component to be harvested, which can't be taken off life support as it's non-viable, to the other end where you have clones of the host that are grown and developed independently, which are euthanised and harvested when required (see The Clonus Horror (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parts:_The_Clonus_Horror) or The Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_%282005_film%29) for examples of this).

One other aspect outside of medical conditions - voluntary replacement. More sophisticated cybernetics may well have a performance improvement over flesh and for occupations that require it, getting a part of yourself augmented may well be an attractive option.
The titular character of Johnny Mnemonic was a data courier that took confidential information from one location to another that couldn't be sent over the internet. I believe he had a storage device implanted into his head that let him take data (and I believe the system used part of his actual brain as well).

Mr. Mask
2015-01-16, 01:21 AM
I was actually thinking that another time, how you could get around the limitations of a super strong arm on a human body if you wore an exoskeleton in concert. You'd want strength limiters on the arm, when not wearing the exoskeleton. If the problem was that a civilian's body won't support a civilian-strength prosthetic, bracing or replacement might be necessary for long term function. When you need bracing or replacement, you are getting pretty close to being a full on cyborg (possibly with human organs). Heck, if you had that procedure done, you could have them add in a redundant organ just in case one fails.

With organ manufacture, didn't they make a human heart a while back? It seems like 3d printers are capable of supporting such projects in the future, so unless that hits a snag while cybernetics improves, it seems like it would be a possibility that harms cyberism. An issue that may well disappear is the idea of biological organs being superior. It is very hard to make an artificial heart as good as a real one, currently. Of course, as soon as you get cybernetic hearts that are simply better, preference could spike (with many still preferring natural hearts just because they feel better about them).

I've heard of microchips that can improve the memory of lab mice and the like which probably will reach human users at some point. The problem for cyberpunk being that there are likely to be ways to make an external interface for such devices.


Now, you're probably going to get a lot of cyborgs no matter what, just as people age. Already most elderly persons have one or two cybernetic parts, pacemakers and artificial hearts and the like. As more options become available, more people will get more replacements to extend their lives. A lot of accidents will also mean a lot more cyborgs, so a war is good for the prosthetics industry.

What I'm largely hoping to accomplish is plausibly establishing a political group of cyborgs, more or less. If cybernetics are expensive to have installed and kept running, then a lot of cyborgs being in debt will encourage them to unite under the banner of their problems. You could even get a little cyberpunk flare, like having a more classic-looking cyborg in their PR art, so as to stand out.

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-01-16, 07:33 AM
Cyborgs: On a separate topic, in a world with very advanced cybernetic technology, what medical conditions could/would be treated with extensive cybernetic replacement?

Where do you want to start? You've got the obvious things like eyes/ears for blindness/deafness. Shrink down a dialysis unit and you can replace a kidney. A double sided pump instead of the heart. Neural replacement for something like Multiple Sclerosis or Motor Neurone Disease, or an dampener system for controlling the tremors of Parkinsons. RAM implants to offset Alzheiemers.

I'd almost say pick the disease/condition, and you can work out what would need to be done to replace it.

For infants, it would depend on the condition - some thing may be able to wait until they've reached the end of puberty and stopped growing, others may need to be done and then replaced at regular intervals to keep pace with their growth (which happens anyway for children that require prosthetics) - a kidney suitable for a baby wouldn't be able to keep up with the demands on it after a year or so, for example.

But depending on the condition, it may be possible to trigger or relocate undifferentiated stem cells (either in utereo if you can detect it then, or very soon after birth, IIRC, there's stem cells in the placenta), to at least give some functionality. Plus there's the possibility of gene-therapies which could be used to treat the condition, although it would still leave them as a carrier.

I know that kind of goes beyond what you're talking about, but cybernetic enhancements would need biological and medical advances as well.

For the biomechanical side, I agree that cybernetics would likely have to be limited in their abilities, otherwise you could try and lift something and rip all the muscles in your back in half. No doubt there'd have to be some level of physiotherapy after installation as well (which happens anyway with artificial joints, and people being free of pain for the first time in years and overdoing it is one of the main reasons artificial joints fail).

Politics - I could totally see a cybernetics rights movement. There might be those in the general population who're less accepting, seeing them as selling out their humanity. Others might go with a "Human plus" mindset, and use the group as a means to take control. And if those with cybernetics are pushed into dangerous or hazardous work, there'd eventually be a reaction to that.



Wandering Asteroids: What's the proper term for asteroids that travel from one star system to another?

Lonely :smallwink:

More seriously, I think they're termed rogue objects.

snowblizz
2015-01-16, 07:42 AM
If cybernetics are expensive to have installed and kept running, then a lot of cyborgs being in debt will encourage them to unite under the banner of their problems. You could even get a little cyberpunk flare, like having a more classic-looking cyborg in their PR art, so as to stand out.
Honestly, in that case I suspect the more likely scenario that only the rich can afford them. Or in a less *ahem* American society, they'd be heavily subsidised.

You don't really need such large issues, really. Take disabled people, say wheelchairs and they need to form political pressure groups to get wheelchair ramps installed. Maybe they have similar problems as people who are (supposedly) allergic (I think that's the word used to describe it) to electricity/magnetic fields or whatever it was.

Can't use a mobile phone in a hospital. Take that same principle in a person and the whole world is going to be problematic to live in.

goto124
2015-01-16, 07:49 AM
More seriously, I think they're termed rogue objects.

Suddenly, I'm curious about the history of rouge and other makeup.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-16, 08:27 AM
Snow: Mm, just about any bodily lack or ill can be replaced, with effective cybernetic tech. Of course, we will need advanced in a wide range of areas to have effective cyberization. Unless an element of the setting is all the cyborgs fighting cancer and withdrawal from their cybernetic parts (no necessarily a bad angle, if the cancer can be partially checked).

n particular, I was wondering about congenital illnesses that'd require the limbs, spine, and perhaps more replaced. That way, you suddenly get kids growing up as cyborgs. That is an interesting angle to cover in a story, and it makes for a group who grew up different from everyone else, who are capable of swapping out their cheap civilian parts, for military-strength cybernetic limbs and bracing. Add in some cyborgs being outfitted with these when they join the military, and criminals using these in their crimes (more covert than a military exoskeleton power suit), and you can generate a lot of tension, distrust and conflict between the cyborgs and the not (even if the nots have pacemakers and the like).

The question is, what illness would necessitate the replacement of the spine and limbs (brittle bone disease?) which is (or could become) common enough to bring about a reasonable population of cyborgs?


Snow: Was discussing that with a friend. We figured that while those with money and insurance would get the fanciest, life-like cybernetic or cloned replacements (with cloned-skin covering for cybernetic pieces), those without would have to make do with scrap metal prosthetics and unpayable debts.

It's true that regardless, you are going to see a political group concerned with magnetic fields causing them issues, or that they demand better anti-withdrawal treatment, etc..

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-01-16, 12:06 PM
Can't use a mobile phone in a hospital. Take that same principle in a person and the whole world is going to be problematic to live in.

I have that on quote good athority (as in from someone who's a paramedic), that's pretty much a load of rubbish, everything's shielded against mobile phone signal interference (frankly, the EM pulse off a defibrilator's going to be more of a problem than a mobile phone signal), and they're basically banned so you have to use the hospital's phones and pay through the nose (or whatever you're getting treated for). :smallamused:


In particular, I was wondering about congenital illnesses that'd require the limbs, spine, and perhaps more replaced. That way, you suddenly get kids growing up as cyborgs. That is an interesting angle to cover in a story, and it makes for a group who grew up different from everyone else, who are capable of swapping out their cheap civilian parts, for military-strength cybernetic limbs and bracing.

Hmm, interesting.

I guess you're talking about things like spinal scoleosis, maybe a mutated, immunisation bypassing form of something like Polio (there's your potential common enough cause), and brittle-bone as you mentioned.

I'm not sure cybernetics would be used in such conditions, I'd be thinking more exo-skeletal frames, gene-therapies, possibly artificial bones (say carbon fibre) where possible - the long bones are the main production sites for blood cells, and replacing vertebrae would mean you're at massive risk of damaging the spinal cord, but you could possibly replace others with minimal issues. Maybe someone would elect to have cybernetic replacement later, especially if they're a child and still growing.

Of course, if you've got money, you can buy what you want, and the rich could well buy an afflicted child cybernetics so they have a normal life, maybe replacing them every year as they grow, or maybe even going for the super expensive versions that automatically increase in size.


We figured that while those with money and insurance would get the fanciest, life-like cybernetic or cloned replacements (with cloned-skin covering for cybernetic pieces), those without would have to make do with scrap metal prosthetics and unpayable debts.

Agreed there. It'd be interesting to see what cybernetics would be covered on health insurance, what's available where universal health care is available, and whether they remain the property of the health insurance company at death, so in addition to the organ donor surgeons potentially coming in and harvesting what's still viable, a bloke with a set of spanners comes in and starts dismantling the cybernetics.

And you don't really need cloned skin - you could use the same techniques as are already used for skin grafting. In fact, there's probably a lot of cases where the surgeons could go in through some small slits, remove all the wetware that's coming out, replace it with the cybernetics (Polio's muscular degeneration, so you could potentially replace the muscles with whatever actuators you use and just attach them to the existing skeletal structure), and stitch the slits up again, leaving the original skin and epidermal blood vessels intact, all be it with some small areas of scar tissue.



It's true that regardless, you are going to see a political group concerned with magnetic fields causing them issues, or that they demand better anti-withdrawal treatment, etc..

I was thinking less magnetic fields and more being pushed into working in environments featuring radiation, toxic chemicals and so on, on the basis that there's less wetware to be affected.

Socio-political aspects are probably the hardest. Sports federations would have to determine where they stand - no cybernetics at all, or approved only, with random testing to prove that they're still legal. The moment someone conceals a weapon in a limb, or uses the space inside to smuggle contraband, airport security will become an absolute nightmare for those with cybernetics, especially those who've chosen to conceal them below skin.

Military cybernetics? What happens when the person becomes too old to fight? Do they get their cybernetics removed and replaced with civilian ones?

Religions? Where would they stand? No opinion, or against the teachings, making the recipients less human, less faithful? Would techno-faiths spring up in response? (I'm thinking particularly of 40K's Cult Mechanicus here).

Where does education stand if you can, say, just plug a chip with all the relevant knowledge into your head? Maybe you won't have the understanding that education would give you, but in a large number of cases, that probably wouldn't matter.

In some cases, that might be an advantage, for example, for a space mission to Mars, you wouldn't need someone trained as a surgeon in order to treat anything that might come up, you could have a set of memory sticks with medical knowledge on it, and plug the right one in if you need it.

And that's without considering the haves/have-nots, human/cyber-supremacists and all the other factions that are going to spring up.

Kiero
2015-01-16, 12:38 PM
I have that on quote good athority (as in from someone who's a paramedic), that's pretty much a load of rubbish, everything's shielded against mobile phone signal interference (frankly, the EM pulse off a defibrilator's going to be more of a problem than a mobile phone signal), and they're basically banned so you have to use the hospital's phones and pay through the nose (or whatever you're getting treated for). :smallamused:

It's total nonsense - the real reason is to preserve the monopoly of the fixed line provider used by the hospital, as you suggested.

Same goes mobiles on planes; that doesn't do a thing to the aircraft, but what it does do is disrupt the networks on the ground.

goto124
2015-01-16, 09:03 PM
Where does education stand if you can, say, just plug a chip with all the relevant knowledge into your head? Maybe you won't have the understanding that education would give you, but in a large number of cases, that probably wouldn't matter.

In some cases, that might be an advantage, for example, for a space mission to Mars, you wouldn't need someone trained as a surgeon in order to treat anything that might come up, you could have a set of memory sticks with medical knowledge on it, and plug the right one in if you need it..

I disagree with the bolded portion. Even if you've memorised all the knowledge in the world, it'll mean natch if you don't know how to apply it in your job. For example, medical knowledge is not enough to do actual sugery- you need the dexterity that only intensive training can give. We'll still need innovators to come up with ideas to constantly improve technology. The very information that goes into the thumbdrive must've started as a human idea after all.

Memory sticks will make the memorisation part of education easier. But it won't kill the education system completely. Instead, the focus of education shifts. We're already seeing this now IRL, even if not quite successful.

Khedrac
2015-01-17, 03:38 PM
It's total nonsense - the real reason is to preserve the monopoly of the fixed line provider used by the hospital, as you suggested.

Same goes mobiles on planes; that doesn't do a thing to the aircraft, but what it does do is disrupt the networks on the ground.
Err, not actually quite correct.

Oddly, about 1 month after the US Aviation Authority (FAA?) decided to allow mobile phones on planes, an example of the actual problem surfaced. A bunch of airlines made the UK news because the FAA was telling them they had to replace all of one type of LCD in the cockpits - apparently in a ground test a mobile phone did once cause them all to go blank, cause not completely understood.

The thing with aircraft is that the operators cannot take the risk that anything can interfere with the systems (which could cause the aircraft to fall out of the sky). Until they know it is safe, it gets banned.

Now looking at the electronics in a hospital the same applies - unless they are sure that it won't interfere, it's not allowed. Now people are confident about the safety, most UK hospitals allow the use of mobile phones.

The only one where I have come across a viable story of mobile phones having an effect other than the stated reason for not using is petrol(gas) station forecourts! It's fairly well accepted that they cannot cause fires as claimed, but I did hear that they could cause the pumps to misread - which makes it rather hard for the operators to charge for the fuel... That said, I do believe that when they originally banned mobile phones they did believe that they might be the cause of the fires that had occurred.

Pilum
2015-01-17, 04:10 PM
Backing Khedrac up: http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29445385

edit: the AD referred to is the first link in the news report.

Kiero
2015-01-17, 05:16 PM
Now looking at the electronics in a hospital the same applies - unless they are sure that it won't interfere, it's not allowed. Now people are confident about the safety, most UK hospitals allow the use of mobile phones.


The one about aircraft might be true, but I don't believe this at all. There is nothing in a hospital that is life-support critical, that is that sensitive to radio waves. It wouldn't be able to leave the design phase if that were the case, given how all-pervasive radio waves are in our urban environments.

Pilum
2015-01-17, 06:05 PM
The hospital could be a legacy of a more cautious time. Add a sprinkling of "just in case" with a large helping of "I really don't want to have people chattering endlessly on the wards to all and sundry" and a dash of "confidentiality worries" from aforementioned chattering and it's probably just as easy to keep a ban in place as it is to revoke it.

Kiero
2015-01-17, 06:10 PM
The hospital could be a legacy of a more cautious time. Add a sprinkling of "just in case" with a large helping of "I really don't want to have people chattering endlessly on the wards to all and sundry" and a dash of "confidentiality worries" from aforementioned chattering and it's probably just as easy to keep a ban in place as it is to revoke it.

It's a legacy of the era in which the senior doctors had ultimate power, and no doubt some one was of the view they didn't want people talking on their mobiles around. Given the deference that existed once, they were listened to, no doubt throwing in a dose of fear, uncertainty and doubt to back up their position.

Khedrac
2015-01-18, 03:12 AM
The one about aircraft might be true, but I don't believe this at all. There is nothing in a hospital that is life-support critical, that is that sensitive to radio waves. It wouldn't be able to leave the design phase if that were the case, given how all-pervasive radio waves are in our urban environments.

Whilst in general I agree with you (and I really like the theory about senior doctors that Kiero posted), you'd be surprised at what doesn't get thought of in design or tested (and I am currently a software tester - crap design is the bane of my work and makes me pity developers), if it was true that they would design them not to be susceptible to interference then they would not have designed heart pacemakers to have an unsecured wifi connection for software updates... People just don't think of implications and consequences.
Ascribing Machieavellian planning to ban mobile phones to make you use expensive lines requires too much coordination and forethought for people concentrating on being doctors and nurses.

Knaight
2015-01-18, 03:20 AM
The one about aircraft might be true, but I don't believe this at all. There is nothing in a hospital that is life-support critical, that is that sensitive to radio waves. It wouldn't be able to leave the design phase if that were the case, given how all-pervasive radio waves are in our urban environments.

Cell phones are generally microwave band, not radio. Not that there's anything life-support critical sensitive to those either.

Khedrac
2015-01-18, 05:39 AM
We are getting very off topic (probably, but not definitely). Some things to bear in mind with virtually anything complex:

1. We don't know all the implications of anything.
2. Our models are not that accurate.
3. Some people will believe the worst of everything.
4. Those people will occasionally be correct...

Some partial examples:

A lot of people believe that excessive mobile phone use has a negative impact on our brains.
- Oddly I did come across the results of a blind study that showed they speed up our brains (devices strapped to heads that emitted the same type of signal, participants doing IQ tests without knowing if devices switched on - result was same IQ levels but did the tests faster with them witched on).
Similar comments have been made about overhead power lines.
- Before we dismiss these as "crazy theories" remember that our brains operate on electromagnetic fields and these devices generate electromagnetic fields - just how certain are you that they are wrong?
In the UK a lot of people came across a report that a combined innoculation for babies for measles, mumps and rubella caused brain damage. The science in the report was flawed and numerous tests since have said "no", but how sensible is it to hit the immune system with three different things are once to build resistance to? Lots of people still object to the combined jabs.
A lot of testing was done on the then new drug thalidomide - but no one thought to check the effect on fetuses ("second-hand" as it were) - the results were a tragedy.
(Thalidomide is still used to treat certain conditions, just a lot more carefully).
A mechanical breaker switch for substations was replaced by a chip-controlled one that followed the rules of "if current drops for more than N nanoseconds drop the connection until reset. When a substation exploded they discovered a feature of the old one they had not realised existed. The old one was a pair of interlocking jaws with springs to pull them apart but held together by the magnetic field generated by the current flowing through. The current had gone into very rapid on/off cycling - faster than the threshold. On the old mechanical switch the jaws opened fractionally on each cycle until they got far enough apart to drop the circuit before damage was done. The chip-controlled variants were updated.
In Science of Discworld (1) there's an example given of an electrical experiment done with real circuits where the question was asked "why not just model it?" The end result relied on induction between discrete circuits and would not have been found by using a model.

Anyway what I am trying to say is don't assume that because things should not interact that they won't interact, especially when it comes to computers.
Add in the old maxim "never ascribe to malice what is best explained by incompetence".
And you get what appear to be silly restrictions that people make up conspiracy theories about but actually have a much more honest original reason for existing.

Usually when they are explained, safety restrictions put in by competent people made sense at the time (they often are continued long past any need, but that's different).

All that said, occasionally those conspiracy theories will be true...
(That or something is going wrong, just no-one has noticed yet.)

This makes me thing I should include people protesting about the effects of too much magic use on the environment in my next D&D campaign (the current one is post-apocalypse so they have a point).

Brother Oni
2015-01-18, 06:24 AM
In the UK a lot of people came across a report that a combined innoculation for babies for measles, mumps and rubella caused brain damage. The science in the report was flawed and numerous tests since have said "no", but how sensible is it to hit the immune system with three different things are once to build resistance to? Lots of people still object to the combined jabs.


While I see your point of unintended/unexpected interactions, popular opinion is no substitute for rational thought. Yes, a lot of people object to the combined jab but a lot of people object to vaccinations at all and with fatal results: link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Swansea_measles_epidemic)



A lot of testing was done on the then new drug thalidomide - but no one thought to check the effect on fetuses ("second-hand" as it were) - the results were a tragedy.
(Thalidomide is still used to treat certain conditions, just a lot more carefully).


Actually with thalidomide, nobody thought to check for optical isomerism as awareness of the different effects that isomerism could have was limited (the R form is effective, while the S form is tetragenic). Modern pharmacokinetics thinking and analyses were limited back then - they certainly didn't expect racemisation caused by the blood pH.

snowblizz
2015-01-18, 09:29 AM
It's total nonsense - the real reason is to preserve the monopoly of the fixed line provider used by the hospital, as you suggested.
It's no more expensive to use the hospital landline (and for a long time it was much cheaper) than it is to use a mobile phone. Also the operator is the same in both cases, so... yeah clearly it's conspiracy!

Kiero
2015-01-18, 11:48 AM
It's no more expensive to use the hospital landline (and for a long time it was much cheaper) than it is to use a mobile phone. Also the operator is the same in both cases, so... yeah clearly it's conspiracy!

Free minutes covered under your contract v paying someone you wouldn't otherwise have to.

Doesn't need to be a conspiracy when it's good old-fashioned sharp practise/corruption.

5a Violista
2015-01-18, 11:26 PM
The question is, what illness would necessitate the replacement of the spine and limbs (brittle bone disease?) which is (or could become) common enough to bring about a reasonable population of cyborgs?

Old age and fatigue injuries are currently the highest factors that require joint replacements or fusions. Presently, spinal fusions are used but current research is going into alternatives to fusion, such as disc replacement. Likewise, there are several different limb and joint replacements (such as hip replacements) that happen, and the worst part is that having one joint replacement compounds the problem even further and requires an even larger joint replacement later down the road.

The problem in joint replacements for fatigue injuries are especially bad, because the people who are most likely to get these injuries are active people in their 20s or 30s. For example, probably a quarter of professional figure skaters will need hip or knee replacements partway through their career (which generally ends in their late 20s). Since young people generally stay active and rough even after replacements or surgeries, the joint replacements which are meant to last 10-30 years in the elderly will only last some 5 or 6 years in a physically active person, requiring them to not just get a new replacement joint, but an even bigger one since the problem has compounded since it was first diagnosed - for example, the bone accelerated its deterioration due to the stress shielding by the replacement joint.

It is entirely conceivable that, after the second joint reaches its reduced lifespan, the 30-year-old with joint replacements will opt for a more costly cybernetic replacement after the second or even the first passive joint replacement fails, so they can continue to live their active lifestyle without constant pain and nigh-constant rest.

In this case and this setting, you can expect several professional sports players (especially Olympians who have already gone through their high period) in their 30s getting cybernetic-assisted limbs. One possible consequence of this is that there will be another league for every sports league: above the professional league, there will be a very popular cybernetic league full of the people who grew too old or too injured for the more youthful sports leagues, because the cybernetic replacements will allow them to continue playing the sports.

goto124
2015-01-19, 10:04 AM
What sort of intoxicants were preferred in the Medieval ages? I know it's a very broad question, so define the time period and place yourself. Just wanted to go a bit beyond mead and ale.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-19, 10:35 AM
Sport injuries does sound like a good source of cyberism. Plus, if you enter the cyborg league, you have incentive to go as cyber as the rules allowed to give yourself an edge.

With the way culture idolized sport stars, it may even popularize replacements, and many would-be cyber league players might get them.

Brother Oni
2015-01-19, 12:06 PM
What sort of intoxicants were preferred in the Medieval ages? I know it's a very broad question, so define the time period and place yourself. Just wanted to go a bit beyond mead and ale.

The four staples during the Middle Ages in Europe were wine (including some wild fruit versions), mead, ale and an early form of beer (hops weren't added to beer until the late medieval times).

Bear in mind that there were multiple versions of these drinks - a single keg of beer for example could provide multiple types of beer:

The initial head which was ~1 % ABV. This would be drunk as freely as water (and was healthier than water at the time since it was boiled during brewing).
The middle part which was a stronger 2-4% ABV, would be drunk in pretty much the same circumstances as beer these days.
The dregs, which would be stronger at 5-6%, very dark coloured and bitter, with lots of bits in it.

Ale was more a nutritous broth than an alcoholic drink. It also spoiled easily, hence why beer was popular as it kept longer.

A quick wiki check indicates that a 'very good wine of sugar', most likely a form of rum, was served to Marco Polo during the 14th Century in what would become modern day Iran.

The Chinese had various forms of rice wine since Antiquity (link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_alcoholic_beverages)), although beer was never that popular until recently.
The Japanese had sake since approximately the 8th Century.

Eldan
2015-01-19, 02:08 PM
If one includes drugs as well, Cannabis in various forms (Bhang, Hashish, tea) has been consumed since prehistoric times in Africa and Asia (not so much in Europe, I think, though Wiki mentiones find from 3000 BCE in Romaniad). Herodotus wrote that Scythians used it in steam baths and some Renaissance explorers mention it in Egypt. Apparently, archaeologists think Shakespeare smoked it.

Opium was used widly in Asia and Arabic cultures, poppy seeds were used in the later medieval period in Europe too.

And then, there's of course various herbs with psychoactive substances. I know half a dozen that contain Scopolamin, for one, some of which are known as "Witch Herbs" in German, since they were apparently used as drugs. Other nightshades that contain scopolamin and atropin (like Datura, henbane, mandrake) have been written about since at least the ancient Greeks. Khat has been used in Africa for Millennia. The Xhosa used a form of Silene for hallucinations.

And fungi. Amanita, for one, was used in many cultures. Psilocybin containing mushrooms(magic mushrooms) are probably older than history as well. Ergoline (which can be refined into LSD), was mostly used in South America, I think.

Honestly, the list goes on and on, though most of those weren't all that common, outside of various shamans and experimentation-happy doctors and alchemists.

Spiryt
2015-01-19, 02:42 PM
The four staples during the Middle Ages in Europe were wine (including some wild fruit versions), mead, ale and an early form of beer (hops weren't added to beer until the late medieval times).
.

Actually it seems that hops had surpassed other additives by the Renaissance, save England, which indeed objected to it from some reason.

It was absolutely used before it.

The history of hops in Europe seems to be less than clear sadly, with some notions that it appeared around ~6th century AD from somewhere in the East, while some mention ancient Gauls using it already apparently.

Anyway, it's seems certain that in 1088 Vratislav II of Bohemia issues monks in Vysehrad Cathedral tithe of hops for brewing beer - if someone didn't read that source incorrectly, it seems like clear evidence. Though hops could theoretically be used to something else.

As far as fungis and herbs go, they were most likely magic, religion and other rites indeed, instead of 'normal' intoxicants.

They were most likely phased out by Christianity in particular, and even if not, they obviously didn't leave much sources.

Use of belladona, amanita and other such things without some special knowledge and tradition would likely be one time experience.

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-01-20, 04:24 AM
There's also fungi like Ergot, which grows on rye, and can cause hallucinations if ingested (and can also kill).

snowblizz
2015-01-20, 04:46 AM
Free minutes covered under your contract v paying someone you wouldn't otherwise have to.

Doesn't need to be a conspiracy when it's good old-fashioned sharp practise/corruption.
Except it's paying a dollar a minute on a mobile versus 10 cents a minute on a landline. There's not just one scenario here.

I'm trying to make the point that it works differently in different places. What I say is completely and utterly correct. There may be other scenarios.

Which seems more likely. That all the worlds hospitals (as far as we know) being run by numerous different organisations with different goals and all the worlds land-line operators who happen to be connecting a hospital have conspired to stop you using your mobile phone. Or that the introduction of mobile phones introduced an unknown variable in an sensitive environment (just like in planes) that anyone hasn't really bothered refuting.

It seems looking really hard for a conspiracy where there are more simpler and more reasonable possibilities.

Kiero
2015-01-20, 06:56 AM
Except it's paying a dollar a minute on a mobile versus 10 cents a minute on a landline. There's not just one scenario here.

I'm trying to make the point that it works differently in different places. What I say is completely and utterly correct. There may be other scenarios.

No, "free minutes" means you don't pay for them. They're a standard part of most mobile phone contracts, where you get a certain amount a month which are covered under your monthly charge. Thus it costs you nothing to make that call. Not to mention that many nowadays have free calls to landline numbers as well.

So yes, it's pay nothing using your mobile, or pay an exorbitant fee with the hospital's fixed line provision.


Which seems more likely. That all the worlds hospitals (as far as we know) being run by numerous different organisations with different goals and all the worlds land-line operators who happen to be connecting a hospital have conspired to stop you using your mobile phone. Or that the introduction of mobile phones introduced an unknown variable in an sensitive environment (just like in planes) that anyone hasn't really bothered refuting.

It seems looking really hard for a conspiracy where there are more simpler and more reasonable possibilities.

I'm not talking about "all the world's hospitals", I'm talking about the hospitals in the UK which are all run by the NHS, for the most part (barring the private hospitals, which are a minority). Who for years were profiting off their fixed line provision.

snowblizz
2015-01-20, 10:56 AM
No, "free minutes" means you don't pay for them. They're a standard part of most mobile phone contracts, where you get a certain amount a month which are covered under your monthly charge. Thus it costs you nothing to make that call. Not to mention that many nowadays have free calls to landline numbers as well.

So yes, it's pay nothing using your mobile, or pay an exorbitant fee with the hospital's fixed line provision.


I'm not talking about "all the world's hospitals", I'm talking about the hospitals in the UK which are all run by the NHS, for the most part (barring the private hospitals, which are a minority). Who for years were profiting off their fixed line provision.
In your one instance. There are many other scenarios.
But what of all the other ones where the mobile free hospital is not in fact profiting? Like the one *I'm* thinking about.
I'm talking about nonUK hospitals who are not profiting off the fixed line and where in fact the fixed line is much cheaper. Why would they stop mobile usage? Since it is all a conspiracy?

Lord Torath
2015-01-20, 01:58 PM
It seems looking really hard for a conspiracy where there are more simpler and more reasonable possibilities.Okay, you do realize where you are, right? This is the Giant in the Playground forum, which brought you such threads as Unprovable OOTS-Theories (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?366170-Unprovable-OOTS-Therories). Unfounded conspiracy theories is what we do! :smalltongue:

mig el pig
2015-01-20, 05:57 PM
If one includes drugs as well, Cannabis in various forms (Bhang, Hashish, tea) has been consumed since prehistoric times in Africa and Asia (not so much in Europe, I think, though Wiki mentiones find from 3000 BCE in Romaniad). Herodotus wrote that Scythians used it in steam baths and some Renaissance explorers mention it in Egypt. Apparently, archaeologists think Shakespeare smoked it.


There were hemp farms in Medieval Europe, one in southern england was even formed by a royal decree/support. The hemp was mainly used for rope, etc though. During the crusades the europeans also came into contact with Hashish.

MatrixStone93
2015-01-21, 07:41 PM
You have £1,800 British Pounds. Make a rebel army using yourself(As the leader and commander) and as few human soldier people as possible in the Victorian Era.

Cealocanth
2015-01-21, 09:33 PM
This is a good thread idea. Let's keep it alive.

We're taught that during the middle ages, there was a variety of grisly methods used in medicine in order to treat patients, from leeching to causing severe burns to drilling holes in people's skulls to relieve headaches. However, based on my knowledge that something that is obviously killing a person would probably not be used by medieval doctors simply because it doesn't work. The Dark Ages suppressed scientific advancement in Europe, but surely someone, somewhere during the period would have discovered that relatively common things that everyone they had helped patients heal. Did not a single doctor discover that pouring alcohol on a wound would help it heal? What about all those herbal and alchemical remedies that were made. Surely some of them may have worked...

So the question is, what methods of medicine were avaliable in the Middle Ages (not specific about the particular area. The Middle East, Europe, and East Asia are all viable options) that actually worked, even to the remotest extent? Most RPGs just pass all this stuff off as 'magic' and move on, but I'm genuinely curious.

Gnoman
2015-01-22, 03:29 AM
Despite myth, medicine advanced quite a bit in the Medieval period, including in Western Europe, where the much-touted decline was centered. Use of herbal remedies was quite common, and significant advances in surgery and dentistry were made. Most of the medical horror stories weren't from the medical guilds and hospitals at all, but from barbers, self-appointed "doctors", and home remedies. In other words, the Medieval equivalent of today's homeopathic clinics and quack supplements.

Note that all of the treatments (except the burning, I don't know what that's supposed to be) were generally survivable and often helped. Trepanning is a viable method of relieving pressure on the brain caused by bleeding -which causes headaches-, and archaeological evidence suggests survival rates as high as 87%. Leeches, likewise, are a good means of getting rid of hematomas, and there is evidence that the chemicals from them can help to stimulate circulation. In other words, the treatments of the era worked, or appeared to work, often enough that their failures could be chalked up to "Act of God" or "didn't treat in time."

It was only germ/parasite theory that really held medieval (and most other premodern) medicine back, as there was nothing else to suggest that not washing your bonesaw between amputations, or going straight from an autopsy to a child delivery is why that patient got sick and died. They had theories to explain disease, but vectorborne diseases hadn't even been conceived of yet. Don't forget that it took until the late 19th century to make the link between mosquitoes and malaria, and that's one of the more obvious links.

Eldan
2015-01-22, 03:48 AM
There were hemp farms in Medieval Europe, one in southern england was even formed by a royal decree/support. The hemp was mainly used for rope, etc though. During the crusades the europeans also came into contact with Hashish.

I know about hemp farms, but did anyone also try to smoke it?

On medicine:
Medicinal leeches are still used. Their saliva contains anti-coagulants and mild anestethics. The oldest evidence, by the way, is from 800 BC India, where they were used to treat joint pains and skin diseases.Today, they are used to stimulate circulation in grafted body parts, to relieve cramps and to treat varicose veins and, yes, arthritis. So, you know, at least some people knew what they were doing there.

Treppaning, as in, drilling holes in the skull, can help with internal bleeding or build up of fluids. It's been done for at least 7000 years. It's called craniotomy or craniectomy (depending on if the bone is replaced) today and considerably more refined, but still done. Mostly, however, to then do other things to the brain.

The only burning I'm familiar with was cauterizing of open wounds, especially in amputation. Which, while painful and scarring, does stop bleeding and does disinfect wounds.

From at least the 12th century, Byzantine, Persian, Indian and even Chinese medical texts were thought in Italy. See for that: The Canon of Medicine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canon_of_Medicine), which was said to contain all the medical knowledge in the world.

Apart from that, Europeans themselves made a number of discoveries: distillation was very important for chemistry and medicine, dissection was partially allowed again in some places and later in the middle ages, there were some actually quite good anatomical texts, see for an example here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Mondino_Dei_Luzzi_1541_Heart.jpg

Hildegard von Bingen (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen) is a woman everyone should know about, really. 1098 to 1179, amongst other things a saint, abbess, writer, composer, philosopher and author of two great works of medicine: Physica, in 9 volumes, on the medical properties of various natural substances, and Causa et Curae, also several volumes (can't find an number, but volume 2 alone had 300 chapters), which discribes the causes of illnesses and how to cure them. THough a lot of her ideas would be very strange to alternate today. (Four humors, faith healing, holistic healing, mysticism, etc.)

goto124
2015-01-22, 08:42 AM
What would an underwater culture/society (e.g. mermaids) be like if it was more realistic? For example, buildings won't have stairs when you can easily swim up and down, though there may be handrails for the elderly. What would the buildings be made of?

What about clothing? Surely there has to be more variety than 'naked' or 'seashell bra'. Maybe seaweed?

Eldan
2015-01-22, 08:51 AM
Given that ocean environments are very constant in temperature compared to land environments (and that warm clothing wouldn't really work underwater, I think), I'd assume clothing would be more cultural than practical, outside of armour. Just thinking about materials, seaweed could work, though it's probably not very strong. Coral, pearl, mother of pearl and fish scales would make good ornaments, at least.

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-01-23, 04:13 AM
Assuming they could do it, I was actually thinking tanned fish skins or maybe shark skin, as well as woven fibres from aquatic plants.

Eldan
2015-01-23, 09:06 AM
How would you tan underwater?

goto124
2015-01-23, 11:27 AM
Raw fish skins it is then :P

Shark skin is really rough, IIRC? How are you supposed to wear it without scratching yourself?

Also, I'm imagining a mermaid taking a 'bath', scrubbing herself with a sponge...

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-01-23, 12:23 PM
How would you tan underwater?
Hence my opening my comment with "Assuming they could do it". :smallwink:

To be honest, to get an aquatic civilisation working, there's some serious issues to work around - manufacturing metals when all you've got are smokestacks to provide heat, for example.

I guess air-filled constructions could be produced for industrial processes - hollowed out coral, inflated whale stomachs, upward tunnelling through rock and so on, and the air either brought down from the surface in suitable containers, or something that can extract the oxygen from water and expel it as bubbles is placed at the bottom of the construction and left to it's own devices.

Or maybe the skins could be sealed in something like a large clam shell with the tanning chemicals and left.

As for shark skin, the outside may be rough, but the inside probably isn't. :smallwink:

Talyn
2015-01-23, 01:34 PM
So, I have a question I am hoping the Playgrounders can answer:

Assuming a more-or-less realistic world, how long after some sort of apocalypse (nuclear, plague, zombie, whatever) could survivors get by on scavenging? At what point can preserved foods, gasoline, guns and ammunition, and other survivalist staples simply no longer be found?

Obviously, the Fallout model of having still-edible food, still-usable medical supplies and still-functioning weapons and gasoline found in abandoned ruins after 200 years is patently ridiculous. I know that at some point, the survivors would need to be growing their own food and producing their own tools, because anything left that hadn't been already looted has decayed into uselessness. I just have no idea how long that period would be.

Gnoman
2015-01-23, 01:56 PM
So, I have a question I am hoping the Playgrounders can answer:

Assuming a more-or-less realistic world, how long after some sort of apocalypse (nuclear, plague, zombie, whatever) could survivors get by on scavenging? At what point can preserved foods, gasoline, guns and ammunition, and other survivalist staples simply no longer be found?


Canned food seems to last between 20 and 40 years, depending on what it is. Dr. Stuart Ashens has done several Youtube videos involving opening expired commodities of that sort, might be worth checking out. (Twinkies, by the way, last no more than 4 weeks.)

Gasoline has a pretty short shelf life, turning to shellac within a few decades.

Guns and ammo are a different story. Ammunition made in the 1880's has been successfully fired, and the modern metallic cartridge isn't old enough to determine an average lifespan. Much of the small arms ammunition used by the US armed forces in the early stages of WWII predated American involvment in WWI, and milsurp ammo from WWII is still being fired today. Firearms are likewise quite durable, particularly packed in Cosmoline or similar preservatives. Again, WWII-vintage milsurp is still slowly surfacing on the civilian or international arms markets after sitting in storage for decades.

Assuming that the gear is properly stored, 30 years for food and gas and 100-150 years for weapons seems like a reasonable approximation. This depends a lot on the ruggedness of the design, of course. Many surplus military vehicles no longer run despite being under the care of a museum, while I've heard of one case in the 90s where protesters fuelled up a T-34 that had been sitting outside as a war memorial since the war and attacked police with it.

Brother Oni
2015-01-23, 02:57 PM
This depends a lot on the ruggedness of the design, of course. Many surplus military vehicles no longer run despite being under the care of a museum, while I've heard of one case in the 90s where protesters fuelled up a T-34 that had been sitting outside as a war memorial since the war and attacked police with it.

Another example is a video of a group of enthusiasts repairing and driving off a SU-85 that had been left out in a field since WW2. I can't find that video, but here's one of pro-Russian separatists in the Ukraine driving off another display T-34 last year: link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xppBAiwmFsI).

Russian hardware was built to last.

Thiel
2015-01-23, 03:11 PM
Guns and ammo are a different story. Ammunition made in the 1880's has been successfully fired, and the modern metallic cartridge isn't old enough to determine an average lifespan. Much of the small arms ammunition used by the US armed forces in the early stages of WWII predated American involvment in WWI, and milsurp ammo from WWII is still being fired today. Firearms are likewise quite durable, particularly packed in Cosmoline or similar preservatives. Again, WWII-vintage milsurp is still slowly surfacing on the civilian or international arms markets after sitting in storage for decades.

People are still digging up Russian ammo tins from WWI battlefields and by most reports it works flawlesly.

Gnoman
2015-01-23, 04:20 PM
People are still digging up Russian ammo tins from WWI battlefields and by most reports it works flawlesly.

I hadn't heard that, but I think it illustrates the durability of metallic-cartridge ammunition quite well.

Talyn
2015-01-23, 08:24 PM
Thank you! That was very helpful. Now, as a follow-up: what about electronics? How long could one expect to scavenge a functional radio? Or a computer? Or even working batteries?

I'm also considering what would be good "dungeon rewards" for a post-apocalyptic dungeon crawl. How long do bags of fertilizer stay good for? Or a crate of antibiotics? How long would books in a library stay readable?

Gnoman
2015-01-24, 01:06 AM
Batteries will lose their charge within a decade or two, probably less. Books are less straightforward due to changes in printing. Stuff from before ~1900 will last a century or two easily, provided that the conditions they're in aren't too bad and there's nothing else stuck in them. Books after that date, even if printed on archival paper, will have a hard time reaching the century mark, and will probably become unreadable within five to seven decades (even if the paper remains readable, which most paper won't, the sort of bindings used nowadays will just fall apart outside of books specially made to last, and those are rare). Electronics, especially storage media has a fairly short lifespan. Powered on regularly, twenty-five+ years isn't out of the question, but after ten to twenty years without power, components will probably start failing, ROM chips will lose their data (the phenomenon called "bit rot", and the device will be rendered useless. As with books, the older tech is likely to be more durable, in this case because vacuum tubes and the earlier transistor gear is hardier but much less effective.

Chemical fertilizer is going to be extremely dangerous after thirty years or so. Most bulk fertilizer is ammonium nitrate, which doubles as a powerful explosive (for those old enough to remember, this fertilizer was a primary ingredient in the Oklahoma City bombing), and anything explosive becomes unstably explosive over time.

Antibiotics will go bad within a year, and become dangerous within ten.

Your best bet for a dungeon reward in such a scenario is 1890s books on electrical engineering or similar subjects (which will have the added advantage of being primitive enough to make applying the knowledge more practical) or archival-grade papers describing the process for making a fertilizer or wonder drug. Or, of course, a cache of ammunition will be a reasonable find, as described above.

Thiel
2015-01-24, 02:36 AM
It depends on the fertilizer though. Guano can last for centuries if stored under the right conditions.
In fact the storage conditions will be the deciding factor for most objects. Plastic will last basically forever if stored in DTU and dark conditions.

Gnoman
2015-01-24, 03:15 AM
I was assuming average materials under average storage conditions, which is why when nonspecific "fertilizer" was mentioned, I went with the type that's manufactured, shipped, and stored by the kiloton, and assumed that it was in a farmer's supply warehouse or similar.

Thiel
2015-01-24, 08:32 AM
It used to be the primary source of nitrates in the world and it's still used for gardening and organic farming.

mig el pig
2015-01-24, 09:23 AM
WW1 bombs are still dangerous. In West-Flanders (Belgium) alone we find around 200 tons of bombs each year. The last people to die in Belgium due to such an explosive device was early last year. (2 workermen found and manipulated such a bomb)
Noboy in their right mind would try to fire such a bomb from a cannon though.

snowblizz
2015-01-24, 09:26 AM
Batteries will lose their charge within a decade or two, probably less.
Way waaay earlier than that. A couple of years, less even. There are "best before" dates on battery packs. I've had batteries from my wireless keyboard start leaking over the summer. And those would not have been more than 1-2 years at most. Although storage (conditions) will likely have a huge impact.


Books are less straightforward due to changes in printing. Stuff from before ~1900 will last a century or two easily, provided that the conditions they're in aren't too bad and there's nothing else stuck in them. Books after that date, even if printed on archival paper, will have a hard time reaching the century mark, and will probably become unreadable within five to seven decades (even if the paper remains readable, which most paper won't, the sort of bindings used nowadays will just fall apart outside of books specially made to last, and those are rare).
Modern cellulose paper is slightly acidic which wreaks havoc with it (eventually). However, I spent a few weeks during the summer once in a library tearing up old books from the archive.:smalleek::smallbiggrin: None of them were in any way unreadable and a lot of it was at least 50 years old, if not more. Actually reading up a bit more, the type of material I was destroying would be the prime type of stuff to go bad faster and it lasted at least a century and more in many cases. In not ideal but at least good conditions (library archive, but not a super sensitive archiving environment, a "repurposed" bomb-shelter actually). Turns out most paper made currently is the acid-free variety so current material (something like the 1980s and later) is more likely to survive than stuff from the intermediate period
According to wikipedia average lifespan is 500 years for alkaline paper, and that's not the archival stuff.

Gnoman
2015-01-24, 04:21 PM
I used to work in used book sales (supplied from libraries and thrift stores.) Finding a readable book that was published between ~1910 and ~1950 was unusual, and undamaged ones were virtually nonexistant (to put this in perspective, I found nearly 100 1890s schoolbooks for every 1940s one). The conditions under which those books were stored (warehouses with no climate control) is far closer to post-apoc conditions than what you're describing.

Lonely Tylenol
2015-01-24, 04:58 PM
I have a horrible sense of distance, and it affects my mapmaking in a way that has a very real impact on my games.

What are, or were, typical travel distances between population centers (towns, cities, etc.) in European cultures? Middle-Eastern? Asian?

This is basically for any era before industrial travel (planes, trains, and automobiles), so if anyone answers who knows more about an era than others, just answer for the era you know best (but note it).

Brother Oni
2015-01-25, 05:06 AM
I have a horrible sense of distance, and it affects my mapmaking in a way that has a very real impact on my games.

What are, or were, typical travel distances between population centers (towns, cities, etc.) in European cultures? Middle-Eastern? Asian?

This is basically for any era before industrial travel (planes, trains, and automobiles), so if anyone answers who knows more about an era than others, just answer for the era you know best (but note it).

There isn't a set distance between population centres as these tend to spring up organically around an important landmark (such as a ford, bridge, castle, town/city etc) or resource location (mines, natural harbours, river mouth, fertile valleys, etc). As an example, here's a Roman Britain road map: link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonine_Itinerary).

A good soundbite figure would be in measures of day's travel by wagon (a city will have multiple farming villages within a day or two's travel to supply them with food), so every 10 miles or so. An inn spaced out one day's travel would also be typical for major routes.

The Romans went for spaced waystations (essentially a stables) every 4 miles and a proper inn every 12 miles (which was approximately a day's travel for an ox drawn wagon): link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads_in_Britain).

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-01-26, 06:02 AM
Thank you! That was very helpful. Now, as a follow-up: what about electronics? How long could one expect to scavenge a functional radio? Or a computer? Or even working batteries?

I'm also considering what would be good "dungeon rewards" for a post-apocalyptic dungeon crawl. How long do bags of fertilizer stay good for? Or a crate of antibiotics? How long would books in a library stay readable?
As already said, batteries would only last a few years, eventually they'll discharge and leak. Antibiotics and other medicines need to be kept cool, otherwise they'll denature and become useless (or even toxic), although other medical supplies might still be usable, especially things kept in sterile packaging.

Electronics - older and military stuff might last longer. Depending on how long after the apocalypse you are, some of that might survive, although it won't be as capable.

Books, even discounting outside interference (people using them for lighting fires or as toilet paper, rodents eating them), they'll get damp and become damaged and illegible in a few years. You might be able to piece together the information from multiple copies of the same edition though (and that could be a series of adventures in itself).

Tinned and vac-sealed food should still be edible. Volatile chemicals (ranging from petrol to bottled spirits) would have to be kept cool, or they will evaporate, but could be another possible "treasure".

There's always the possibility of bringing back something that the party don't want themselves, but can give to someone else in return for locally produced goods or services - possibilities range from small personal objects to industrial parts that can be used by the settlement. And while a mechanism may no longer be usable, it could potentially be broken down and used for spare parts. Or the "dungeon" could be part of a large settlement, and by clearing it out, the party allow their allies to move in and take a little more control (or it becomes the party's base of operations).

And there's always the chance some survivalist managed to seal stuff away in such a way as to keep it preserved, but due to the nature of the apocalypse, they were unable to seal themselves away too (or maybe they did, but succumbed to the effects very quickly). So long as you can justify why no one's broken in and cleaned it out yet.


For travel distances, even pre-industrial age, you've still got fast passenger/mail carriages, which IIRC, travelled about 30-40 miles a day on the best maintained roads. But a day's travel by which ever form of transport from one settlement to another of the same size is a good rule of thumb, with a smaller settlement being a lot closer.

For instance, a village may be a days walk from the next village, but around half a days walk from the nearest market town (so farmers can take their produce there, sell it and walk back all in the same day). The market town may be a days horse/cart ride from the next market town (bankers and other people who supply services to the markets might rotate around the various markets, each of which would be held on different days of the week), but only half a days ride from the nearest major town, which would be a days carriage ride from the next major town or city.

Coastal transport might take 2-3 days, and there's also the possibility of canals, which, as they'll be horse drawn in this time period, would have places to rest up at a days travel - this might be a town/city, but could also be an inn in the middle of nowhere, built by the canal builders to help pay for the canal's construction.

Brother Oni
2015-01-26, 08:25 AM
For travel distances, even pre-industrial age, you've still got fast passenger/mail carriages, which IIRC, travelled about 30-40 miles a day on the best maintained roads.

Depends on the system - the Romans could carry a message 200 miles in 10 hours along their roads and way station setup.

The Pony Express (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pony_express) could get a message from the East Coast to the West Coast of America (~2,000 miles) in about 10 days, with way stations set up based on how far a horse can gallop before it tires (ideally ~10 miles but in reality between 4-25 miles).

The Japanese hikayu message service during the Edo managed 6 days for the ~500km between Edo and Osaka. As far as I can work out, the hikayu were, surprisingly, primarily foot couriers.
There's a rather tragic story about a hikayu messenger in a Lone Wolf and Cub episode, which indicates they had other priviledges such as a limited version of kirisute gomen (they could legally kill 3 people who impeded them during official business).

Ra_Va
2015-01-26, 10:29 AM
So I was playing Legend of the Five Rings for the first time, for those who don't know it is a Samurai tabletop rpg, I was playing the ... mage priest class thing... and we were invited to stay at someones house of a local farmer, the wife offered me tea, after I said thank you and took the tea, everyone at the table acted like I killed a child. Apparently, when offered something in the psuedo-japanese culture of the rpg, you are supposed to deny it 'THREE TIMES' is this is any way factual basis considering it seems ridiculous.

GraaEminense
2015-01-26, 10:54 AM
So I was playing Legend of the Five Rings for the first time, for those who don't know it is a Samurai tabletop rpg, I was playing the ... mage priest class thing... and we were invited to stay at someones house of a local farmer, the wife offered me tea, after I said thank you and took the tea, everyone at the table acted like I killed a child. Apparently, when offered something in the psuedo-japanese culture of the rpg, you are supposed to deny it 'THREE TIMES' is this is any way factual basis considering it seems ridiculous.
I don´t know about Japanese tea ceremonies specifically and can´t be bothered to read up on it right now, but the tradition of refusing food, drink or gifts offered, and having to be talked into accepting, is not at all uncommon. Many cultures have similar traditions, especially in ceremonial settings.

Just ask yourself: When sharing food, if someone offers you the last piece... what is the expected response? Unless you were raised by wolves, it is probably something on the lines of "Are you sure?", "let´s split it" or, significantly, "no, I couldn´t/shouldn´t."

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-01-26, 11:07 AM
Depends on the system - the Romans could carry a message 200 miles in 10 hours along their roads and way station setup.

The Pony Express (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pony_express) could get a message from the East Coast to the West Coast of America (~2,000 miles) in about 10 days, with way stations set up based on how far a horse can gallop before it tires (ideally ~10 miles but in reality between 4-25 miles).

The Japanese hikayu message service during the Edo managed 6 days for the ~500km between Edo and Osaka. As far as I can work out, the hikayu were, surprisingly, primarily foot couriers.
There's a rather tragic story about a hikayu messenger in a Lone Wolf and Cub episode, which indicates they had other priviledges such as a limited version of kirisute gomen (they could legally kill 3 people who impeded them during official business).
Well, if you want to transport information, or a small object, then, yes, a system of horse couriers will do it very quickly (especially if they can travel overnight). And the Romans had very good roads, of a quality and network size that is only just being approached again in the time period we're talking about.

However, most people would want to rest overnight, so they'd ideally set off shortly after sunrise and want to be at their destination a little before sunset so they can get a meal and find a bed, not to mention the risks of accidents on poorly/non-maintained roads, and bandits/highwaymen in the dark.

Brother Oni
2015-01-26, 11:59 AM
So I was playing Legend of the Five Rings for the first time, for those who don't know it is a Samurai tabletop rpg, I was playing the ... mage priest class thing... and we were invited to stay at someones house of a local farmer, the wife offered me tea, after I said thank you and took the tea, everyone at the table acted like I killed a child. Apparently, when offered something in the psuedo-japanese culture of the rpg, you are supposed to deny it 'THREE TIMES' is this is any way factual basis considering it seems ridiculous.

From my time with the L5R RPG, the 'refuse three times' custom is for formal gifts or other items of great worth. Unless the tea was some sort of elixir of immortality, or they were a dirt poor farmer offering the very best they had to samurai, the other players around the table have mis-interpreted the custom.

However it's only really an issue if you were of a Clan that really should know better (Crane, Scorpion, etc) and you're receiving a gift from a superior. People shouldn't expect the highest standard of social niceties from a Crab or minor Clan samurai and gift exchanges between good friends are generally informal.

Remember that if the farmer plays up and you're of the samurai caste, you have the right to kill them for impuning your honour (kirisute gomen), assuming you can get away with the justification.


I don´t know about Japanese tea ceremonies specifically and can´t be bothered to read up on it right now, but the tradition of refusing food, drink or gifts offered, and having to be talked into accepting, is not at all uncommon. Many cultures have similar traditions, especially in ceremonial settings.

If it's the formal tea ceremony rather than just refreshments, that's an entirely different set of circumstances and proper behaviour would require an Etiquette (Tea Ceremony) roll.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-26, 03:48 PM
One thing that is often missed out by writers is that treating people as though they've been rude can also be rude. If the samurai comes to your house and acts a little coarse, it is not the farmer's place to complain or correct him--doing so would be even more rude.

goto124
2015-01-26, 06:40 PM
The correction could be done OoCly though. Also depends on whether the PC is supposed to know. It could go like this:

Farmer: A cup of tea for you.
PC: Thank you.
*Everyone blinks at PC*
*PC blinks back, confused*
Farmer: It's okay, have a sip.

Even IRL, we would let minor trangressions slip, because going any further would only worsen the situation.

Brother Oni
2015-01-26, 07:39 PM
One thing that is often missed out by writers is that treating people as though they've been rude can also be rude. If the samurai comes to your house and acts a little coarse, it is not the farmer's place to complain or correct him--doing so would be even more rude.

That's because the far Eastern concept of 'face (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_%28sociological_concept%29)' (the Japanese term for it is mentsu) is really tricky to explain and quite complex papers have been written on it (link (http://www.uri.edu/iaics/content/2014v23n1/9-%28XXIII-1%29%20Lin%20Tao.pdf)). The Chinese version I'm familiar with is best described as a cross between respectability/dignity/prestige and I'm aware that the Japanese version differs (especially the feudal samurai version), I'm not sure exactly how.

To use your example, the samurai would lose honour for his misbehaviour, his superior admonishing him for his indiscretions in public would lose honour (he is responsible for the conduct of his subordinates), then the samurai would lose more honour for causing his superior to lose face.
It's one big massive complex web of interlinked behaviours and honour loss all round, which many tables prefer to either ignore or take the 'lite' version of.

That said, it's most certainly not the farmer's place to correct improper behaviour of a samurai as he is not samurai himself, rather than it being rude of him to do so. As an example of what a samurai is permitted to do, there's a story where a peasant insulted a samurai, to which a duel was the only recourse. Since the peasant was unarmed, the samurai offered him one of his swords in the interests of fairness, at which point the peasant fled with the sword, resulting in the samurai being cast out from his family for the dishonour of having his sword stolen by a mere peasant.
He eventually regained his honour by tracking down and recovering his sword, while killing the peasant and their entire family as recompense for the dishonour.

Eldan
2015-01-27, 03:21 AM
Would that peasant even have been allowed to use the sword? I mean, what would have been the outcome if, through incredible luck, he actually managed to defeat the samurai?

Mr. Mask
2015-01-27, 03:59 AM
In the law, lower ranking samurai are allowed to defend themselves. The samurai was just extending that practice to the peasant. If the samurai got killed... that'd be embarrassing. Otherwise, the samurai asked for the duel, so if he dies then that's his problem.

Brother Oni
2015-01-27, 08:25 AM
Would that peasant even have been allowed to use the sword? I mean, what would have been the outcome if, through incredible luck, he actually managed to defeat the samurai?

I forget the exact time period for the story in question, but the various early Edo period edicts prohibited the various non-samurai castes from owning weapons - using them wasn't actually against the law (although someone using a weapon is most likely also the owner).

As Mr Mask said, if the samurai got himself killed, it was his own fault but depending on the circumstances (and how vindictive the samurai's family was), the peasant could be found innocent, to being tried for murder, or him and his family on the receiving end of a very one sided vendetta/blood feud (kataki-uchi).

goto124
2015-01-27, 08:56 AM
Samurai: Borrow my sword, and we shall have a fair duel!
Peasant: *rolls a nat 20*
Samurai: *dies*
Peasant: ... what... where do I bury the body...

Would it have been possible (and how possible) for the peasant to find some way of escaping or hiding? Learning how to do proper combat? Were there anything like secret samurai clans?

This could make an interesting backstory. 'You managed to kill a bleeping samurai then?' 'I'm not sure how I did it, either'.

Eldan
2015-01-27, 09:04 AM
Not Samurai, but the Ikko-Ikki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikk%C5%8D-ikki) were pretty good at fighting them.

Brother Oni
2015-01-27, 12:17 PM
Would it have been possible (and how possible) for the peasant to find some way of escaping or hiding? Learning how to do proper combat? Were there anything like secret samurai clans?

This depends on a number of variables.

Post Edo, no witnesses, nobody knows that the duel is happening, the best option would be to bury the body in a shallow grave (or throw it off a cliff/into the sea) and pretend you never heard of them. Whole villages have been known to lynch samurai and blame it on wild animals (or ninja), so when in small groups, samurai should be careful not to throw their weight around too much.
Fleeing to another village would be difficult as any outsiders in a close knit community would stand out, not to mention peasants needed travel papers, else they'd be arrested when they got to a checkpoint.

Pre-Edo, owning a weapon and knowing how to use it wasn't uncommon, particularly during the Sengoku civil war, although these would be more basic weapons like spears rather than swords, barring stuff looted from the battlefield. Any formal weapon school was unlikely to accept a non-samurai student (for one, they would be unlikely to be able to afford the tuition fees), so again during less peaceful times, training would often be ad hoc by whoever was around them (ronin, other Itto Ikki members, etc).

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by secret samurai clans. There were smaller branch houses related to the main ruling family/house which were known to specialise in less honourable activities, often hiding in plain sight.

fusilier
2015-01-27, 10:51 PM
Many surplus military vehicles no longer run despite being under the care of a museum, while I've heard of one case in the 90s where protesters fuelled up a T-34 that had been sitting outside as a war memorial since the war and attacked police with it.

The stories I've heard are pretty impressive if the vehicle was properly "mothballed" -- Sherman tanks that sat around in humid Virginia for forty plus years were simply driven away. The storage procedure involves filling the engine with transmission fluid, and coating the wheels with paraffin, etc. So it's not a simple matter of filling up the gas tank and driving off. But the tanks didn't need any serious maintenance or repairs.

Gnoman
2015-01-27, 10:59 PM
The stories I've heard are pretty impressive if the vehicle was properly "mothballed" -- Sherman tanks that sat around in humid Virginia for forty plus years were simply driven away. The storage procedure involves filling the engine with transmission fluid, and coating the wheels with paraffin, etc. So it's not a simple matter of filling up the gas tank and driving off. But the tanks didn't need any serious maintenance or repairs.

It depends, of course, on the basic design of the vehicle in question, as well as the circumstances in which it was abandoned. A lot of British and German military vehicles were difficult to keep going despite continuous maintenance (proper mothballing can be a substitute for such maintenance, but this is not guaranteed), while many Soviet and American vehicles survived in good shape without it.

Mr. Mask
2015-02-03, 06:41 AM
Anyone able to tell me a little of the history of sea navigation? There used to be theories the Norse couldn't cross the sea, until their use of sun stones was recognized. There seem to be cases of America being discovered prior to Columbus, but major trade and colonization between America and other continents only seemed to take shape after Columbus' time. Why was that?

MrConsideration
2015-02-03, 12:36 PM
History teacher here, but I'm spit-balling:

Well, Europe simply did not know the Americas existed. The impetus for Columbus discovering the Americas was to find a means of reaching India which would involve extensive trade with the Mamluk or Ottoman Empires - they were Islamic, and the Catholic Church would often pass ineffective bulls banning all trade with them. Sea voyages are expensive and dangerous, and there wasn't a will to discover new territories - noone knew they were there to discover. It took Columbus a lot of tries beyond Ferdinand and Isabella agreed to find his voyages, and widespread colonization doesn't even begin until a century or so afterwards - and it required considerable changes to ship design. The European worldview was parochial, and considered itself to be a complete picture of the world. Not to mention, Europe had been trading with India and China since the Roman Empire, and knew, vaguely, of their existence. The world was already big.

The Norse settlements were abandoned west of Iceland, and they didn't have a literate culture or the contacts to spread their knowledge that a continent existed in the West - in all honesty, they themselves were completely unaware of the extent of the Americas or their value.


China had a maritime focus in the time of Zheng He* who traveled extensively in Oceania, promoting Chinese interests. There is also some evidence he traded in East Africa and Persia. They projected power, and trade interests, and briefly brought Indochina, Indonesia and the Malay region into the sphere of Chinese interest - they were among the states that accepted the Chinese Emperor as ultimate wordly power and the role of China as world-leader. Later Ming government, being dominated by a Eunuch faction, felt that the expenditure had been wasted and China become more insular, abandoning it's largely state-supposed maritime heritage

For long-distance trade to function without being purely an exercise in state power-projection, you need a wealthy enough merchant class (and that's wealthy in liquid capital, not land or property) to invest in risky voyages. You also need a strong enough consumer class for imports to be valuable enough for re-sale which makes a profit. These conditions came about in Early Modern Europe but did not really exist prior to the Renaissance - until the late medieval era, the only European powers which had a navy at all were Venice and Genoa, neither of which were interested in leaving the Mediterranean.


*This man never discovered Italy, or started the Renaissance, or went to America, despite what 'alternate History' would have you believe.

snowblizz
2015-02-03, 01:09 PM
Anyone able to tell me a little of the history of sea navigation? There used to be theories the Norse couldn't cross the sea, until their use of sun stones was recognized. There seem to be cases of America being discovered prior to Columbus, but major trade and colonization between America and other continents only seemed to take shape after Columbus' time. Why was that?
Sea navigation has two problems, finding longitude and latitude. Latitude is easy and been known since ancient times, just measure the angle of the north star, only valid on the northern hemisphere but that's also the major seafaring "place". Something like a quadrant or later (1700 hundreds) a sextant. The vikings could without problem have navigated without sunstones, if they indeed are real (in the sense used for navigation). Longitude is harder to get right but easy in principle, you just need to keep track of time. It was just that until the 1700s no one managed an accurate enough timepiece that was suitable at sea. Lack of accurate navigation aids did not exactly hinder us in the real world.

As mentioned previously it's the motivation that was lacking. It took the Portugese decades and direct threats against crews to get them to sail further along the coast of Africa. The viking ships weren't eminently suitable to cross the Atlantic, it was pretty harrowing really, and the "pay off" just wasn't good enough.

Basically as alluded to, before the "age of discovery" all the pieces needed for voyages of discovery just weren't there, both social and technological.

Gnoman
2015-02-04, 11:20 PM
Simple compass and dead reckoning didn't work because of the interaction of current and wind that could move you considerably off course without you knowing it. Basically, before the invention of a superbly accurate clock, it was literally impossible to set sail from Europe with the intention of landing in -for example- what would become New York Harbor using only a map. The absolute best you could do is "If I go this way, I'll hit the northern half of North America". In modern terms, a ship that was trying to go from London to New York would, in a best case scenario, end up somewhere between Virginia and Canada. Once a trip was made, it was possible to use a rutter, or logbook, that gave directions along the lines of "Sail three points South by Southwest for 4 days, then turn 3 points west and continue for six days" to crudely duplicate a previous voyage (this would let you hit the same general winds and currents as the other ship, allowing you to (hopefully) arrive in the general area), but these were not only imperfectly reliable, but were also very carefully guarded by their owners because a sailing route that cut two or three days off a voyage (such as the one around the Horn of Africa) was a very valuable trade advantage and an almost priceless military one.

Columbus got very lucky. His ships were very low on food and on the verge of mutiny (sailors of the era pretty much knew exactly how big around the Earth was, and believed there was nothing but empty ocean between Europe and Asia), and had a current been a little diffrent, everyone would have died before making landfall. Most of the other seafarers simply didn't find the risk worth making before that.

PersonMan
2015-02-05, 01:25 AM
*This man never discovered Italy, or started the Renaissance, or went to America, despite what 'alternate History' would have you believe.

Isn't the point of alternate history being...alternate? So, not what actually happened? :smalltongue:

Mr. Mask
2015-02-05, 01:42 AM
Thank you all for the navigation answers! It has helped to deepen my understanding in the area, and that of the history related to it.



Separate question: If you had a civilization of avian, harpy-like persons, what might their food source be?

If they have human arms, they might be able to start farming. Clawed feet might be a little help for scratching soft dirt, perhaps? With aerial reconnaissance they might have an edge spotting certain threats. Bandits, wolves, and bad weather? Not sure about those, as they're reasonably like to move around at night, and I'm not sure about weather in general (seeing it an hour early mightn't be that useful, anyway).

Herding seems a strong possibility. They could act as sheep dogs buzzing over their domestic flocks, and could probably render them simple assistance and rearing even without hands.

Hunting and gathering would be the most neolithic option, and they'd probably be quite good at it with an open plain as their territory. Able to swoop down from the sun on their prey which they sight, probably operating in teams. Mushrooms and berries would require them to be an inconvenient position, even if it sounds a bird sort of thing to do--as taking off amongst the trees is probably difficult for birds of their size (especially depending on their flight qualities).

Fishing might also be possible for them, with certain fish that come near the surface. It's hard to say, though, if it would be worth the energy expenditure. It is for kingfishers.

Thiel
2015-02-05, 03:04 AM
Fishing seems the best bet. Herding might be an option, but I'm not sure they'd be really suited to a nomadic life since Harpys can't carry much weight and they really aren't built for riding or walking. I suppose they could herd goats in some really mountainous areas.

Mr. Mask
2015-02-05, 03:27 AM
Was thinking that with the right bird-like features, they might be able to weather some stuff without tents and other common nomad gear. I wasn't sure how long their flying ranges might be, and thought they might be able to migrate over a relatively small area.



Which brings me to another question: How far and often do nomadic herds need to migrate?

snowblizz
2015-02-05, 06:31 AM
Which brings me to another question: How far and often do nomadic herds need to migrate?

That depends a lot (like really a lot) on the area in question and animals.
It was quite common to herd animals into higher pasture over the summer and they'd stay there until autumn. Of course eg cows need to be milked every day. Depending on area that might mean you herded them every day or moved up to milk them. If not higher pastures sometimes they'd be further off in "wild" areas, a couple of miles or something. In some areas in Scandinavia e.g., there was this whole "summer pasture" where you had cottages in the pasture areas which lay just far enough off that you didn't want to bring them back every day but you could travel back and forth if needed. Young people (farmhands, maids) would then live there for the summer months, which also doubled as a way to provide independence and privacy... IIRC the Saami bring reindeer up/down from pastures a few times a year as well. All of these are fairly low-scale so won't quite as easily expend the area as might grazing on plains.

Cealocanth
2015-02-05, 07:57 PM
I've been designing a stone-age Savage Worlds game and I ran into an interesting question. Just how long does bone usually last when exposed to the environment? While there are a number of cases of bone tools lasting millennia, these things are not found in the near abundance that stone artifacts are found, but are more frequent than wood, which disappears due to insects, mostly. So a more specific question is, how long would a carved bone implement last with constant exposure to the elements, and how long would a structure made of bone last in comparison?

Raunchel
2015-02-06, 05:46 AM
I have been doing some research on the Creataceous (Maastrichtian to be precise) recently, for something that I'm working on. Of course, I looked beyond the flora and fauna, and into the climate and atmospheric conditions as well. I found that the partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere was 28 kPa, as opposed to 21 kPa in the modern day. CO2 was at 60 Pa compared to 28 Pa of the pre-industrial average and 36 Pa in the modern day. This led me to wonder what the effect of such a higher oxygen content would be on human beings who would suddenly find themselves in such a situation. I don't think that short-term toxicity would be a major problem, but really wonder what it would do to the metabolism, and of course, what the effect would be on any tools.

Brother Oni
2015-02-06, 06:42 AM
I have been doing some research on the Creataceous (Maastrichtian to be precise) recently, for something that I'm working on. Of course, I looked beyond the flora and fauna, and into the climate and atmospheric conditions as well. I found that the partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere was 28 kPa, as opposed to 21 kPa in the modern day. CO2 was at 60 Pa compared to 28 Pa of the pre-industrial average and 36 Pa in the modern day. This led me to wonder what the effect of such a higher oxygen content would be on human beings who would suddenly find themselves in such a situation. I don't think that short-term toxicity would be a major problem, but really wonder what it would do to the metabolism, and of course, what the effect would be on any tools.

Starting with the oxygen, there wouldn't be any toxicity issues as the lower limit for oxygen toxicity is 30 kPa.

I'll have to do some more digging, but I don't think there would be much change in the short term. Haemoglobin is pretty much saturated at 21 kPa O2 (link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haemoglobin#Allosteric)), so changing that to 28 kPa wouldn't make much difference, especially since inhalation is triggered by CO2 levels in the blood.
There may be possibly faster recovery from exertion but differences would be limited. People suffering from respiratory problems (eg COPD) would find it signficantly easier to breathe though as this would be on par with supplemental low concentration oxygen therapy (which ranges from 24-40 kPa: link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_therapy#Supplemental_oxygen)).

Longer term, there may be an evolutionary pressure to select for a less efficient (and hence less energetically expensive to biosynthesise) or a greater capacity (to take advantage of the higher oxygen concentration) form of haemoglobin, but this is unlikely with current human culture.

Fire would catch far more quickly though and flames would burn hotter, so anything fire related (eg metallurgy) would be 'improved' over existing Earth.

The higher CO2 levels wouldn't have much of an effect as up to 1 kPa can be safely tolerated over a lifetime (link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_poisoning#Tolerance)).

Personally I think the flora and fauna (especially at the microbial level) would be a bigger issue than the atmosphere.

Tobtor
2015-02-06, 07:49 AM
I've been designing a stone-age Savage Worlds game and I ran into an interesting question. Just how long does bone usually last when exposed to the environment? While there are a number of cases of bone tools lasting millennia, these things are not found in the near abundance that stone artifacts are found, but are more frequent than wood, which disappears due to insects, mostly. So a more specific question is, how long would a carved bone implement last with constant exposure to the elements, and how long would a structure made of bone last in comparison?

Depends very much on the elements and the stability of the atmoshphere.

Dry condition (desert or tundra) and they will preserve relative well. In very wet conditions it depends heavily on acidity of the soil/atmosphere. Also of course animals, if not close to humans.

In a temperate zone, especially if it has a coastal climate, the changing weather will make bone deteriorate fast. Bone that dries will get small cracks, and if exposed to water these will fill and crack even more. If wet bone, that is exposed to rain, freezes the water will freeze and expand, making the bone crack completely. So stability is key, either hot or cold and preferably dry, then bones can last for a very long time, like the huts preserved from the last ice age:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezhyrich

Now these have of course been buried (keeping oxygen away), but it is viable to build structures out of bone, especially in continental zones with dry and somewhat stable climate.

Kiero
2015-03-21, 09:34 AM
This is a semi-military, but non-combat-related question. You've got a (military) science team on some remote location, comprising about ten doctorate-level types in various specialisms. What sort of support staff would they need, in order that they could focus on doing their jobs?

I'm thinking:

Maintenance - ie a tech who can fix thing and jury-rig stuff
Logistics - someone who gets stuff for us, doubles up (with VI support) as admin/finance
Communications - a specialist who is good with comms
Medical - if not a proper medic, at least a well-trained nurse/orderly
Lab tech - to help the scientists with their experiments
Food service - for the sake of comfort and morale, someone who knows what they're doing in the kitchen; perhaps they're also the PT trainer as well?


Is there anyone unnecessary there? Or missing?

mig el pig
2015-03-21, 03:13 PM
- Admin (especially if it's a goverment operation)
- Security (even if it's remote facility you still want some guards)

Then depending on the research:
- Manual labor/Machine operators (for excavations)
- Zookeeper (if the experiment uses animals)
- Specialists (Pilots if it's aviation research, astronauts for space, elite forces if it's for battle suits/weaponry)

Kiero
2015-03-21, 03:52 PM
- Admin (especially if it's a goverment operation)
- Security (even if it's remote facility you still want some guards)

Then depending on the research:
- Manual labor/Machine operators (for excavations)
- Zookeeper (if the experiment uses animals)
- Specialists (Pilots if it's aviation research, astronauts for space, elite forces if it's for battle suits/weaponry)

Admin is done by a Virtual Intelligence supporting the Logistician. Security we're not allowed - the alien government in charge of the place is covering that and was explicit about us not bringing our own.

Labour will be done by mechs (robots), zookeepers would be the science team. Specialists are also covered by the science team - we have archaeologists, biologists and so on.

Brother Oni
2015-03-21, 08:07 PM
Admin is done by a Virtual Intelligence supporting the Logistician. Security we're not allowed - the alien government in charge of the place is covering that and was explicit about us not bringing our own.


The head logistics guy would most likely be the head of all the support staff and in a military operation, he would also be the commanding officer. This would mean that there would a separate quartermaster who's in charge of the actual book keeping and stores maintenance (and he would probably have a subordinate or two).

Using a real world example, the Royal Army Medical Corp have Medical Support Officers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_Support_Officer), who are proper military trained officers who handle all the command and control duties, while the army doctors (who hold officer rank in name only) get on with their job of doctoring.

Kiero
2015-03-21, 08:14 PM
The head logistics guy would most likely be the head of all the support staff and in a military operation, he would also be the commanding officer. This would mean that there would a separate quartermaster who's in charge of the actual book keeping and stores maintenance (and he would probably have a subordinate or two).

Using a real world example, the Royal Army Medical Corp have Medical Support Officers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_Support_Officer), who are proper military trained officers who handle all the command and control duties, while the army doctors (who hold officer rank in name only) get on with their job of doctoring.

This is a detached situation with a very small support team, and no soldiers to support, just scientists (and only about 10 of them). For a temporary assignment could they get away with just one person covering a role? So for example, in this instance, there's just the quartermaster on-site, without any subordinates. Medical would just be the doctor (or an experienced corpsman), again with VI support to handle their admin.

Brother Oni
2015-03-21, 09:25 PM
This is a detached situation with a very small support team, and no soldiers to support, just scientists (and only about 10 of them). For a temporary assignment could they get away with just one person covering a role? So for example, in this instance, there's just the quartermaster on-site, without any subordinates. Medical would just be the doctor (or an experienced corpsman), again with VI support to handle their admin.

Really paring it down, with VI support for the legwork and robotics to handle all the grunt work (assuming they can be left unsupervised to complete a task), I reckon you can get away with just two (quartermaster/maintenance and comms/tech support), if everybody takes turns on making dinner for the whole team.

Depending on the level of medical care you need, it could also be incorporated into one of the above role (not much above a first aider or combat medic) but it would be a fairly stressful role on top of their other duties. Anything approaching a proper nurse or a doctor would likely need a separate person.

Kiero
2015-03-22, 06:47 PM
Really paring it down, with VI support for the legwork and robotics to handle all the grunt work (assuming they can be left unsupervised to complete a task), I reckon you can get away with just two (quartermaster/maintenance and comms/tech support), if everybody takes turns on making dinner for the whole team.

Depending on the level of medical care you need, it could also be incorporated into one of the above role (not much above a first aider or combat medic) but it would be a fairly stressful role on top of their other duties. Anything approaching a proper nurse or a doctor would likely need a separate person.

Alright, good to know how small the team can go if need be. I think they'd want to stretch for a dedicated Food Service person regardless, they could be stationed there for months!

I think a proper medic would be a must; over a dozen humans on an alien base for potentially months on end will need a doctor. Though they'd probably have little to do on the trauma side of things since there's no soldiers in the team.

Brother Oni
2015-03-23, 04:56 AM
Alright, good to know how small the team can go if need be. I think they'd want to stretch for a dedicated Food Service person regardless, they could be stationed there for months!

If they're stationed there for months, then other issues crop up like laundry, haircuts (unless everybody is willing to go shaggy mountain man/woman), etc. Basically all the menial tasks that people living on their own for the first time suddenly realise they have to do.

If they're sharing the amenities on the base with the aliens, hopefully there won't be any alien biology issues. The last thing you want is the laundry detergent or today's chilli special being classed as a bioweapon against another species.


Though they'd probably have little to do on the trauma side of things since there's no soldiers in the team.

Shhh, you're not supposed to give the DM ideas... :smalltongue:

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-03-23, 08:05 AM
If they're stationed there for months, then other issues crop up like laundry, haircuts (unless everybody is willing to go shaggy mountain man/woman), etc.

Or buzzcuts.



Basically all the menial tasks that people living on their own for the first time suddenly realise they have to do.

A lot of that can probably be done with rotas, especially if there's a hierarchy in place. But having a handyman/janitor would be very useful - they could potentially be the administrator.



If they're sharing the amenities on the base with the aliens, hopefully there won't be any alien biology issues. The last thing you want is the laundry detergent or today's chilli special being classed as a bioweapon against another species.

Or the after effects of the chilli special... :smallamused:

Brother Oni
2015-03-23, 08:25 AM
Or buzzcuts.

As I understand it, all the scientists aren't military and would probably would object to buzz cuts (the women in particular).



A lot of that can probably be done with rotas, especially if there's a hierarchy in place. But having a handyman/janitor would be very useful - they could potentially be the administrator.

I suggested that for the meals, but it got nixed. I suspect there would be a very stereotypical food prep/cleaner role (maid/housekeeper) to add to the others.


Or the after effects of the chilli special... :smallamused:

"Commander, there has been a complaint from the Xel'drath delegation about your crew attempting to poison them with a concealed chemical weapon last week."

"We have no weapons on site - you've scanned us when we got here and you monitor and screen all our supplies. What's this weapon that we've been accused of using?"

"Hydrogen sulphide."

"Hydrogen sulphide? Wait... was this last Tuesday?"

"That is the allegation."

"Ah crap, I know what it was. Bob, can you tell Steve 'no more MRE omlettes'."

Kiero
2015-03-23, 08:50 AM
Yeah, some of the scientists are military, but not all of them. It's very much a case of getting the best people who were available for the job, and many of them would have come out of academia and the like. I think the civilians, even more than the military people, would appreciate having a competent cook in the support team.

Taking on what's been said so far, I think we'll have a proper logistics officer in charge of the support team.

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-03-23, 10:29 AM
As I understand it, all the scientists aren't military and would probably would object to buzz cuts (the women in particular).

Depends on the people involved and the circumstances around their being sent to the facility - if it's a prestigious posting, they might be willing to put up with a few privations. There might also be good reasons for people to keep their hair short anyway (if they have to wear things like hazmat suits/space suits, for example).



I suggested that for the meals, but it got nixed. I suspect there would be a very stereotypical food prep/cleaner role (maid/housekeeper) to add to the others.

Actually, Kiero makes a good point - a good cook would help maintain morale for the people working there. But again, it's not that necessary if the posting is really good, and there might be someone who cooks as a hobby, and allowing the staff to indulge in hobbies would also help with morale.

Mike_G
2015-03-24, 02:30 PM
OK, I have to get all pedantic on this.

"Beer" includes all ales and lagers.

Ale is brewed from barley (usually) and fermented with top-fermenting yeast, and generally ferments faster than lager.

Lager is beer also brewed from barley but stored (lagered) longer, and used slower acting bottom fermenting yeast.

Neither had hops originally, hops were added as a bittering and preservative agent later. India Pal Ale is one of the most highly hopped beers.

All ale is beer. Not all beer is ale.


The four staples during the Middle Ages in Europe were wine (including some wild fruit versions), mead, ale and an early form of beer (hops weren't added to beer until the late medieval times).

Bear in mind that there were multiple versions of these drinks - a single keg of beer for example could provide multiple types of beer:

The initial head which was ~1 % ABV. This would be drunk as freely as water (and was healthier than water at the time since it was boiled during brewing).
The middle part which was a stronger 2-4% ABV, would be drunk in pretty much the same circumstances as beer these days.
The dregs, which would be stronger at 5-6%, very dark coloured and bitter, with lots of bits in it.

Ale was more a nutritous broth than an alcoholic drink. It also spoiled easily, hence why beer was popular as it kept longer.

A quick wiki check indicates that a 'very good wine of sugar', most likely a form of rum, was served to Marco Polo during the 14th Century in what would become modern day Iran.

The Chinese had various forms of rice wine since Antiquity (link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_alcoholic_beverages)), although beer was never that popular until recently.
The Japanese had sake since approximately the 8th Century.

Kiero
2015-03-24, 04:58 PM
Depends on the people involved and the circumstances around their being sent to the facility - if it's a prestigious posting, they might be willing to put up with a few privations. There might also be good reasons for people to keep their hair short anyway (if they have to wear things like hazmat suits/space suits, for example).


Actually, Kiero makes a good point - a good cook would help maintain morale for the people working there. But again, it's not that necessary if the posting is really good, and there might be someone who cooks as a hobby, and allowing the staff to indulge in hobbies would also help with morale.

It's a pretty prestigious mission; searching out highly prized ancient alien artefacts and working in collaboration with an alien species as well.

The person in charge of the support team (now a proper logistics officer) would want to do everything to the best of her ability. Knowing these sorts of things as she does, getting a good cook is a priority every bit as much as a good maintenance tech or comms specialist.

fusilier
2015-03-24, 08:19 PM
A lot of that can probably be done with rotas, especially if there's a hierarchy in place. But having a handyman/janitor would be very useful - they could potentially be the administrator.:

I wanted to second this. Remember people often have more than one specialized skill -- many are decent cooks, etc. You might want to look at how arctic research expeditions are organized for inspiration.

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-03-25, 04:33 AM
I wanted to second this. Remember people often have more than one specialized skill -- many are decent cooks, etc. You might want to look at how arctic research expeditions are organized for inspiration.
Exactly - and not every scientist is the stereotypical "speccy geek" who got their second doctorate at the same age most other people were getting their first bachelors degree - for example, Richard Feynman taught himself to pick locks and became a good enough artist to be exhibited.

So, your metallurgist might have a small brewing kit in one corner of their quarters, tolerated because they don't produce enough to get anyone really drunk, but the occasional beer on special occasions keeps morale up, the paleontologist plays the bongos, and performs some songs every couple of weeks with the biochemist who's got a decent singing voice and a massive and varied music collection, the doctor can juggle thanks to having done a rotation in a childrens ward, where they found it useful to get their patients minds off whatever treatments they were receiving, and the geologist is an amateur photographer who's planning on releasing a book of their photos on life in the facility when they get back home.

Add in a few basic skills (for instance, fabrication skills like welding so they can repair or make specific items of equipment they need before the next supply shipment arrive) they can be taught alongside anything they actually need for the facility (say hostile environment and zero-g/vac operations, basic driving/piloting of any vehicles assigned to the facility) and you're probably good to go.

Roetroc
2015-03-25, 04:44 AM
[QUOTE=Storm_Of_Snow;19011484, the paleontologist plays the bongos, and performs some songs every couple of weeks with the biochemist who's got a decent singing voice and a massive and varied music collection, [/QUOTE]

Sort of like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7zo2zY1Zqg?

Ashtagon
2015-03-25, 07:28 AM
I have been doing some research on the Creataceous (Maastrichtian to be precise) recently, for something that I'm working on. Of course, I looked beyond the flora and fauna, and into the climate and atmospheric conditions as well. I found that the partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere was 28 kPa, as opposed to 21 kPa in the modern day. CO2 was at 60 Pa compared to 28 Pa of the pre-industrial average and 36 Pa in the modern day. This led me to wonder what the effect of such a higher oxygen content would be on human beings who would suddenly find themselves in such a situation. I don't think that short-term toxicity would be a major problem, but really wonder what it would do to the metabolism, and of course, what the effect would be on any tools.

The high CO2 itself isn't a problem; levels would have to be far higher to create an issue for humans.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14937029&postcount=23

High Oxygen Atmosphere: Characters in high-O2 air gain a +2 bonus on checks made to sustain forced marches, long-distance swimming, running, and similar acts of exertion requiring stamina. Such atmospheres do not grant any special bonus in drowning/suffocation or high altitude situations.

In addition, fires burn more fiercely. All non-magical fire damage is increased by 50%, as if under the effect of the Empower Spell feat (except obviously, it's not magical). This does not affect damage from scalding water or radiated heat - only actual fire.

Magical fire that lasts for extended periods (such as wall of fire) is also affected as if by the Empower Spell feat, but magical fire that is instantaneous in duration (such as fireball) is not affected.

In the Early Earth, this applies to the Carboniferous and Cretaceous periods.

Low Oxygen: In some periods of Earth's history, the oxygen content was quite low, such that the oxygen content was equivalent to that on a mountain in present-day Earth.

In a low-oxygen environment, characters must succeed on a Fortitude save each hour (DC 15 +1 per previous check) or become fatigued. This fatigue lasts until the character enters an environment with a normal oxygen level. In a modern environment, this is achieved by descending to low altitude. In Early Earth environments, this will typically require magic.

Any character who spends one month in such an environment becomes acclimatised, and no longer suffers this fatigue penalty or needs to make these Fortitude saves. A character who spends two months away from such an environment is no longer acclimatised. Creatures native to the environment (historical time period) are automatically considered to be acclimatised.

In the Early Earth settings, this applies to the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, and Triassic periods.

Very Low Oxygen Environment: This environment is hostile to normal animal (including "vermin") life. Every six hours, a character that needs oxygen must pass a Fortitude save (DC 15 +1 per previous check) or take one point of ability damage to all six ability scores. It is not possible to become acclimatised to a very low oxygen environment.

In the Early Earth settings, this applies to the Ediacaran (and earlier?) periods.

Kiero
2015-03-25, 08:26 AM
I wanted to second this. Remember people often have more than one specialized skill -- many are decent cooks, etc. You might want to look at how arctic research expeditions are organized for inspiration.

True enough, and thanks for the tip on Arctic teams; but in this instance the notion is that the support team is built to ensure the scientists don't have to multi-task. Not that they can't.

It starts from an ideal world position where manpower isn't a tight constraint (either because you don't have the people, or are limited in how many you can bring). While there will do doubt be other skills amongst the science team, no one will be impaired in their work because everyone has grown to rely on them to cook the meals.

Brother Oni
2015-03-25, 05:57 PM
True enough, and thanks for the tip on Arctic teams; but in this instance the notion is that the support team is built to ensure the scientists don't have to multi-task. Not that they can't.

This was the angle I was seeing the situation from as well, hence my apparent view of overly specialised individuals unable to multitask.

Beleriphon
2015-03-26, 03:50 PM
I've been designing a stone-age Savage Worlds game and I ran into an interesting question. Just how long does bone usually last when exposed to the environment? While there are a number of cases of bone tools lasting millennia, these things are not found in the near abundance that stone artifacts are found, but are more frequent than wood, which disappears due to insects, mostly. So a more specific question is, how long would a carved bone implement last with constant exposure to the elements, and how long would a structure made of bone last in comparison?

Centuries, if not millenia. In the right conditions mind you. Usually that means dry.

Kiero
2015-04-11, 01:59 PM
In a post-apocalyptic setting, how useful as a source of nutrition for non-babies is infant formula milk? Is it the sort of thing survivors raiding a derelict store would make a point of taking away?

Khedrac
2015-04-11, 03:58 PM
In a post-apocalyptic setting, how useful as a source of nutrition for non-babies is infant formula milk? Is it the sort of thing survivors raiding a derelict store would make a point of taking away?
I cannot answer the nutrition question (though I think the answer is "not very") but as for survivors raiding a store, well that will entirely depend on what the survivors think is the answer to the question, which may have very little to do with the actual answer...
So questions to consider for whether they take it:
1) Do they have any babies or do they expect to have any babies soon? - if yes the chance goes up a lot (but see 2).
2) How educated are they on how to use powdered milk and what the risks are with non-sterile water?
2a) Do they have the facilities to mix it properly?
3) How educated are they on nutritional values?
4) How biased was the source of their education? A lot of thinks quite well educated people believe can be wrong due to educational bias (usually unintentional, but sometimes not).
Remember a lot of people pushing diets push some very different theories on what matters and what works (personally I suspect that how your body reacts to different things matters more, different theories are right, or close to right, for different people).
5) What else is available and what transportation capability do they have? - The more that is available the less likely it is to be taken. The more carrying capacity they have the more they will take.
Etc.

Gnoman
2015-04-11, 03:59 PM
It is not that much different nutritionally than any other kind of powdered milk, just formulated to minimize gastrointestinal distress. An adult can't live off it.

Brother Oni
2015-04-12, 11:43 AM
Looking at some baby formula (link (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/baby-foods/452/2)), it's got a lot of what's required for daily health, and in the US, there's some quite strict requirements on must be in baby formula (link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_formula#Nutritional_content)).

That said, Gnoman is right - for an adult, the calorific content is too low (78 calories / 100g) and it's significantly lacking in things like fibre and other macro nutrients like protein.

Kiero
2015-04-12, 04:14 PM
To be clear, I wasn't trying to insinuate that it would be a meal replacement for adults. But rather whether it would be worthwhile taking. It comes in bulky cans which take up a lot of space, which doesn't make it automatically a good choice if you're having to carry it.

You can boil water to kill most of the bacteria in it, then let it cool to make up some formula. Given the various micronutrients added, it has to be better than plain milk powder, and that's something easy to make and easy to store. Chances are it's easier to get hold of than regular milk from a cow/goat/sheep.

Cealocanth
2015-04-12, 05:10 PM
To be clear, I wasn't trying to insinuate that it would be a meal replacement for adults. But rather whether it would be worthwhile taking. It comes in bulky cans which take up a lot of space, which doesn't make it automatically a good choice if you're having to carry it.

You can boil water to kill most of the bacteria in it, then let it cool to make up some formula. Given the various micronutrients added, it has to be better than plain milk powder, and that's something easy to make and easy to store. Chances are it's easier to get hold of than regular milk from a cow/goat/sheep.

After comparing some data (thanks for that link, by the way, Oni), if you have to choose between dry milk and dry infant formula, the formula has a higher fat content and more vitamins but the milk is better for you in pretty much any other way. If you had to live on one or the other, you will survive off of the formula for a little bit longer due to sheer caloric intake. However, I've heard that formula tastes a little funny compared to the usual stuff.

Is it worth taking? Sure, but you can't live off of it alone. The formula actually has more calories per ounce than most canned food (including the weight of the can). However, unlike with canned soups and the like, the milk only really works as a high-calorie supplement to other sources of fiber, minerals, and vitamins, which tend to be killers when low-quality food is the only stuff present. If you have to decide between canned food and canned baby formula, go for the food. If you have to decide between canned food and powdered baby formula, you may actually be better off taking the formula due to the amount of "meals" you can get out of it.

However, in a post-apocalyptic situation, the survivors rarely get a chance to make choices like this. Most stockpiles would be supplies of whatever the survivors could get their hands on in the crazy events that caused the apocalypse in the first place.

Brother Oni
2015-04-12, 06:46 PM
I agree with Cealocanth that it's worthwhile taking as any food is better than no food in a post apocalyptic situation. I would say that formula is better as a food supplement with something else to provide the calorific intake as it doesn't even beat the obligatory tin of baked beans (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/legumes-and-legume-products/7698/2) at 105 calories / 100g (although if you're surviving on baked beans and baby formula, your intestines are probably going to trigger a second apocalypse) and certainly doesn't beat skimmed milk powder (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/84/2) (362 calories / 100g), let alone whole milk powder (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/82/2) (496 calories/ 100g).

Formula does indeed taste funny compared to proper milk (it's a bit sweeter in my experience, particularly when you don't quite get the ratios right in a sleep deprived stupor), but it's bearable.

Ninjadeadbeard
2015-04-13, 11:53 PM
Been trying to do research on 17th Century Europe, specifically Spain and specifically-specifically during the Thirty-Years War for a setting I want to make. But no one seems to want to help me with it. Can anyone recommend me some good history books to read up on the subject?

Brother Oni
2015-04-14, 01:51 AM
Been trying to do research on 17th Century Europe, specifically Spain and specifically-specifically during the Thirty-Years War for a setting I want to make. But no one seems to want to help me with it. Can anyone recommend me some good history books to read up on the subject?

You may want to cross post this request in the Real World Weapons, Armour and Tactics (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?392804-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XVII) thread as I'm sure there are people who can point you in the right direction.

Ninjadeadbeard
2015-04-14, 02:25 AM
You may want to cross post this request in the Real World Weapons, Armour and Tactics (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?392804-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XVII) thread as I'm sure there are people who can point you in the right direction.

Alright. Thanks for the advice.

The Grue
2015-04-14, 02:30 AM
Bit of a long-shot, but I'll ask anyway:

What would the shut-down mode of a liquid- or vapour-core fission reactor look like?

Kiero
2015-04-14, 04:55 AM
Once again, I have never implied or intended that formula could be a food replacement, or something you can live upon alone, but as a supplement to whatever else you can scrounge up.


I agree with Cealocanth that it's worthwhile taking as any food is better than no food in a post apocalyptic situation. I would say that formula is better as a food supplement with something else to provide the calorific intake as it doesn't even beat the obligatory tin of baked beans (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/legumes-and-legume-products/7698/2) at 105 calories / 100g (although if you're surviving on baked beans and baby formula, your intestines are probably going to trigger a second apocalypse) and certainly doesn't beat skimmed milk powder (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/84/2) (362 calories / 100g), let alone whole milk powder (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/82/2) (496 calories/ 100g).

Formula does indeed taste funny compared to proper milk (it's a bit sweeter in my experience, particularly when you don't quite get the ratios right in a sleep deprived stupor), but it's bearable.

That's only looking at macronutrients, I need only look at the lengthy rundown of vitamins and minerals in the special formula (no dairy or soya) my eldest is on to see a huge range of things regular powdered milk doesn't have in it. Whether they're actually bio-available, and would survive being stored possibly long past their shelf life is another matter, of course.

Gnoman
2015-04-14, 03:15 PM
Bit of a long-shot, but I'll ask anyway:

What would the shut-down mode of a liquid- or vapour-core fission reactor look like?

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking here, but I know that the lead-cooled reactors used on Soviet-era attack submarines simply solidified if they were shut down, resulting in a solid block of lead with radioactives trapped inside.

The Grue
2015-04-14, 04:44 PM
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking here, but I know that the lead-cooled reactors used on Soviet-era attack submarines simply solidified if they were shut down, resulting in a solid block of lead with radioactives trapped inside.

I'll explain a little more what I mean.

Current-day fission reactors are solid-core, ie the fissile fuel is solid inside the reaction chamber. The amount of usable energy you can extract from a fission reactor is directly proportional to its core temperature, but obviously that temperature is limits by the melting point of the nuclear fuel. Things tend to go badly when a solid-core fuel pile melts(hence the term melt-down); see Chernobyl for a practical example.

A liquid-core reactor is a theoretical fission reactor where the operating temperature is above the melting point of the fissile fuel, essentially existing in a state of controlled meltdown. Higher temperature means higher output, but solid-core methods of dialing down the reaction (typically control rods made of a neutron-absorbing material) probably wouldn't cut it here for obvious reasons. A vapour-core reactor is the next step up, where the reactor core operates above the fuel's boiling point. Both of these concepts are purely theoretical at this point.

My question, then, is what techniques would one use to prevent a runaway reaction and/or shut down such a reactor?

Your mention of Soviet submarines gives me an idea though - perhaps brute-force? Inject a super cooled nonreactive element(say, liquid nitrogen) into the reactor pile/cloud, let it cool and condense and then solidify back to solid fuel? Of course then you'd just have a solid puddle of barely-critical nuclear material which might not be a great thing.

fusilier
2015-04-14, 09:53 PM
I'll explain a little more what I mean.

Current-day fission reactors are solid-core, ie the fissile fuel is solid inside the reaction chamber. The amount of usable energy you can extract from a fission reactor is directly proportional to its core temperature, but obviously that temperature is limits by the melting point of the nuclear fuel. Things tend to go badly when a solid-core fuel pile melts(hence the term melt-down); see Chernobyl for a practical example.

A liquid-core reactor is a theoretical fission reactor where the operating temperature is above the melting point of the fissile fuel, essentially existing in a state of controlled meltdown. Higher temperature means higher output, but solid-core methods of dialing down the reaction (typically control rods made of a neutron-absorbing material) probably wouldn't cut it here for obvious reasons. A vapour-core reactor is the next step up, where the reactor core operates above the fuel's boiling point. Both of these concepts are purely theoretical at this point.

My question, then, is what techniques would one use to prevent a runaway reaction and/or shut down such a reactor?

Your mention of Soviet submarines gives me an idea though - perhaps brute-force? Inject a super cooled nonreactive element(say, liquid nitrogen) into the reactor pile/cloud, let it cool and condense and then solidify back to solid fuel? Of course then you'd just have a solid puddle of barely-critical nuclear material which might not be a great thing.

Cooling isn't the issue when SCRAMing a reactor, you want to stop the nuclear reaction (in fact cooling alone might make it worse). You could probably inject some sort of inhibitor to make it go sub-critical, it doesn't have to be in the form of control rods. Take a look at Neutron poison:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_poison

And SCRAM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scram

Once it's shut-down, then cooling becomes a problem due to decay heat.

fusilier
2015-04-14, 10:10 PM
Been trying to do research on 17th Century Europe, specifically Spain and specifically-specifically during the Thirty-Years War for a setting I want to make. But no one seems to want to help me with it. Can anyone recommend me some good history books to read up on the subject?

Well, you should watch "Alatriste" if you haven't yet . . . :-)

Unfortunately, I don't really know any books on the subject. :-( Wikipedia is ok as I recall, possibly by looking at the page for Philip IV of Spain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_Spain

I don't know if that's enough. The old AD&D book "A Mighty Fortress" has some background, but doesn't really focus on Spain, and covers a fairly large period.

EDIT--
The major war that Spain was involved in during this period was the "80 years war" --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War

Then they got involved in the Thirty Years War, and Portugal rebelled -- I think the war with France went until 1659:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Spanish_War_(1635–59)

King of Casuals
2015-04-16, 01:42 PM
I just have to know, how would you justify Ammo Regeneration? Im playing a sniper in One Piece D20 and I have a 50% chance to not use up ammunition when I fire a shot, even though I'm still shooting a bullet out of my gun. How?

The Grue
2015-04-16, 01:56 PM
I just have to know, how would you justify Ammo Regeneration? Im playing a sniper in One Piece D20 and I have a 50% chance to not use up ammunition when I fire a shot, even though I'm still shooting a bullet out of my gun. How?

I don't think One Piece counts as Real World. :P

Beleriphon
2015-04-18, 01:01 PM
I just have to know, how would you justify Ammo Regeneration? Im playing a sniper in One Piece D20 and I have a 50% chance to not use up ammunition when I fire a shot, even though I'm still shooting a bullet out of my gun. How?

Magical anime guns made of Schwarzeneggerite alloy suspended in Vandammium-Stallonium matrix?

Eldan
2015-04-18, 03:58 PM
That almost works, but one has to remember to reverse the polarity of the Dirty-Harry-flow.

Milodiah
2015-04-18, 04:59 PM
I just have to know, how would you justify Ammo Regeneration? Im playing a sniper in One Piece D20 and I have a 50% chance to not use up ammunition when I fire a shot, even though I'm still shooting a bullet out of my gun. How?

The only thing I've seen make sense is when we get to energy-based weapons like lasers, where the power storage mechanism can be made more efficient and squeeze out a few "free" shots by conserving energy from previous shots.

Brother Oni
2015-04-19, 02:36 AM
I just have to know, how would you justify Ammo Regeneration? Im playing a sniper in One Piece D20 and I have a 50% chance to not use up ammunition when I fire a shot, even though I'm still shooting a bullet out of my gun. How?

There's only two games where I've seen ammunition regeneration make sense: W40K where some tyranid bioweapons need to regrow their ammunition after firing and the first Mass Effect game, where ammunition is effectively unlimited (they used microparticles accelerated to very high velocities with ME fields) and weapon ROF is limited to heat disappation.

I believe in the One Piece setting, you have gunpowder flintlocks, so I can't see how it can be justified except through phenomenon of instananeous reloading so as to not disrupt the action flow, more colloquially known as the John Woo effect.

Edit: thinking about Milodiah's comment some more, rather than having dialled back weapon output to conserve battery life, with an acid/metal battery pack, agitation and rising weapon heat being fed back into the battery could prolong or increase the chemical reactions to get a couple of extra shots out.

Cazero
2015-04-19, 03:17 AM
There's only two games where I've seen ammunition regeneration make sense: W40K where some tyranid bioweapons need to regrow their ammunition after firing and the first Mass Effect game, where ammunition is effectively unlimited (they used microparticles accelerated to very high velocities with ME fields) and weapon ROF is limited to heat disappation.

In the context of 50% chance of not using ammo, there is also the possibility that one action worth of shooting can be more than one shot, and more efficient shooting means less ammo spent. But that doesn't work well with slow reload weapons.

Jay R
2015-04-19, 10:27 AM
I just have to know, how would you justify Ammo Regeneration? Im playing a sniper in One Piece D20 and I have a 50% chance to not use up ammunition when I fire a shot, even though I'm still shooting a bullet out of my gun. How?

If I allowed it at all (doubtful), it would represent her scrounging or reloading skills. She uses up the ammo, but she's really good at finding or making ammo substitutes.

Brother Oni
2015-04-19, 06:07 PM
If I allowed it at all (doubtful), it would represent her scrounging or reloading skills. She uses up the ammo, but she's really good at finding or making ammo substitutes.

That reminds me - during the Napoleonic War, light infantry armed with the Baker Rifle sometimes took their issued ammunition and reprocessed them to even out the amount of powder in each cartridge (giving consistent performance) or milling the gunpowder even finer (better performance but also made it more likely to explode prematurely). Perhaps the 50% chance of not using a shot represents additional cartridges created by such measures?

Mr Beer
2015-04-19, 06:48 PM
You carry around additional ammunition stored all over your clothing that you suddenly 'remember' about and reload with as needed. Like a sort of limited, repeatable version of the Batman utility belt.

Milodiah
2015-04-19, 07:54 PM
I think we might need some clarification, actually...

Is this affecting your total supply of rounds, or is this affecting the one in the chamber? Because the above totally works for "You have fifty cartridges, you load one, you shoot one, you have fifty cartridges", but not so much "You have fifty cartridges, you load one, you shoot one, you don't have to reload and can shoot again". Because I was under the impression we meant the latter.

Jay R
2015-04-20, 07:11 AM
I think we might need some clarification, actually...

Is this affecting your total supply of rounds, or is this affecting the one in the chamber? Because the above totally works for "You have fifty cartridges, you load one, you shoot one, you have fifty cartridges", but not so much "You have fifty cartridges, you load one, you shoot one, you don't have to reload and can shoot again". Because I was under the impression we meant the latter.

It's retro-documentation - trying to invent an explanation for a rule that makes no sense, after the rule was written, instead of writing a rule that makes sense.

Ashtagon
2015-04-20, 07:57 AM
It seems a bit off-topic for this thread tbqh. Ammo regeneration and One Piece are clearly not real-world things.

Jay R
2015-04-20, 11:23 AM
It seems a bit off-topic for this thread tbqh. Ammo regeneration and One Piece are clearly not real-world things.

Good point. It's not unambiguously a non-military question, either.

So here's one, about the cube-square law.

We know that as creatures get bigger, their weight increase as the cube of the increase, and the strength of the legs increases as the square of the increase. This is why bigger animals have thicker legs.

So does this have any other effect we should consider when designing giant creatures for our games?

dramatic flare
2015-04-20, 11:50 AM
Good point. It's not unambiguously a non-military question, either.

So here's one, about the cube-square law.

We know that as creatures get bigger, their weight increase as the cube of the increase, and the strength of the legs increases as the square of the increase. This is why bigger animals have thicker legs.

So does this have any other effect we should consider when designing giant creatures for our games?

That depends. Are you talking about the notion that Godzilla or King Kong couldn't have existed and/or walked on land because their mass would've heavily outweighed any support their body could've provided? There's a certain amount of handwavium involved in how creatures that big work in games, particularly of the collosal size in DnD.

5a Violista
2015-04-20, 12:17 PM
Another effect of giant creatures that has nothing to do with the cube-square law is the reaction time.

The signal traveling through the body travels at anywhere between 0.5 m/s to 120 m/s (depending on myelination and fiber type) (compare to the speed of electricity, whose speed is often expressed in terms of the speed of light). What this means is that a small creature like a mouse can react two orders of magnitude faster than a large creature like an elephant, not including brain size (which a larger brain would slow it even more) and decision-making skills. Thus, larger animals are not only mentally slower but also less dextrous.

Also as a consequence of the square-cube law, large animals don't jump very well because jumping would mean fracturing their own bones. Bone strength can't increase; you can only increase its density (to a point) and its surface area (but larger surface area means more mass, which means less space for muscles and more mass necessary). Of course, if they spend all their time in zero-g, leg strength doesn't really matter.
So just make all your giant creatures eat spaceships, and you won't have to worry about the square-cube law.

Oh! Also, I remembered another one: blood flow. Larger creature = higher hydrostatic gradient in blood + more blood volume + more distance = heart has to pump harder.

King of Casuals
2015-04-20, 12:38 PM
I think we might need some clarification, actually...

Is this affecting your total supply of rounds, or is this affecting the one in the chamber? Because the above totally works for "You have fifty cartridges, you load one, you shoot one, you have fifty cartridges", but not so much "You have fifty cartridges, you load one, you shoot one, you don't have to reload and can shoot again". Because I was under the impression we meant the latter.

Although it's technically both, I'm asking about the former, as you could explain having more bullets in your clip as reloading with lightning speed.

King of Casuals
2015-04-20, 12:45 PM
Good point. It's not unambiguously a non-military question, either.

So here's one, about the cube-square law.

We know that as creatures get bigger, their weight increase as the cube of the increase, and the strength of the legs increases as the square of the increase. This is why bigger animals have thicker legs.

So does this have any other effect we should consider when designing giant creatures for our games?

Well you could, but remember that not all sci-fi and fantasy creatures are created through evolution. Creatures created by genetic manipulation or magical research can often have defects caused by imperfect, human design.

Mr. Mask
2015-04-20, 12:49 PM
To get a creature like King Kong, wouldn't it need to be made almost entirely out of carbon nanotubes or such? Or perhaps simply unobtainium?

goto124
2015-04-20, 06:35 PM
Wait till you meet the giant insects.

fusilier
2015-04-20, 07:39 PM
Good point. It's not unambiguously a non-military question, either.

So here's one, about the cube-square law.

We know that as creatures get bigger, their weight increase as the cube of the increase, and the strength of the legs increases as the square of the increase. This is why bigger animals have thicker legs.

So does this have any other effect we should consider when designing giant creatures for our games?

Not the cube-square law, but there's a related law that I'm used to calling the M^3/4 law, although it's apparently known as Kleiber's law*:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law

As a creature's mass increases the amount of resources it needs, per mass unit, actually decreases. So, pound for pound, large creatures are more efficient than small ones. To express that another way, a 6-ton elephant will need fewer calories than 6-tons of mice.

*The wikipedia page expresses it in terms of metabolic efficiency. Interestingly, I was first exposed to this concept when it was applied to studying the resource consumption of cities, where they appeared to show a similar trend, i.e. bigger/denser cities consume less resources per person.

Knaight
2015-04-20, 07:45 PM
Good point. It's not unambiguously a non-military question, either.

So here's one, about the cube-square law.

We know that as creatures get bigger, their weight increase as the cube of the increase, and the strength of the legs increases as the square of the increase. This is why bigger animals have thicker legs.

So does this have any other effect we should consider when designing giant creatures for our games?

There are a lot of differences. Cooling is a pretty major one - the rate at which heat is generated is going to be based on three dimensional size increase, the cooling surface is two dimensional. Staying oxygenated is a big thing as well, as lungs are a 2d surface, though the air concentration changes are more based on the three dimensional volume and majorly affect rates. Arthropods in particular are affected by the air one. For cooling, it's worth noting that maintaining heat is also affected, and being larger actually helps, particularly in water (where heat transfer rates are going to be far higher for a given temperature difference). Beyond that there's also a lot regarding composition of internal tissues, implications for changes in blood pressure as it gets pumped, so on and so forth.

On the matter of limbs, another point regards the ends of bones. Generally they jut out to some extent at joints (at least those pulled by muscles), where the muscles exert torque using the extent of the jut as a lever-arm. Larger creatures often had bones which stick out further. Dinosaur bones in particular are a great example of this, running the gamut from chicken sized dinosaurs with minimal protrusion to the massive creatures that the term usually evokes.

Mr Beer
2015-04-20, 08:06 PM
Good point. It's not unambiguously a non-military question, either.

So here's one, about the cube-square law.

We know that as creatures get bigger, their weight increase as the cube of the increase, and the strength of the legs increases as the square of the increase. This is why bigger animals have thicker legs.

So does this have any other effect we should consider when designing giant creatures for our games?

Strength per unit of body weight drops for this very reason, although its somewhat countered by the bulkier construction of larger creatures. This is why tiny spindly ants are incredibly strong for their size whereas large, sturdy horses are not.

Of course, this is not fun at all when designing large giants, dragons and other such behemoths. So I largely ignore such concerns.

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-04-21, 03:42 AM
There are a lot of differences. Cooling is a pretty major one - the rate at which heat is generated is going to be based on three dimensional size increase, the cooling surface is two dimensional.

That was going to be what I was going to mention - body core temperature. It may be more advantegous for cold-blooded animals to get bigger, as they would retain heat in their body cores and thus they could be more active, while warm-blooded animals would run the risk of heat stroke/hyperthermia.



Staying oxygenated is a big thing as well, as lungs are a 2d surface, though the air concentration changes are more based on the three dimensional volume and majorly affect rates.

Not quite. The gas exchange surface in the lungs is a thin membrane but the alveoli have curved surfaces, which increases the available surface area. And if an animal is larger, then their lungs would be larger and they would consequently have more alveoli.

Brother Oni
2015-04-21, 07:05 AM
That was going to be what I was going to mention - body core temperature. It may be more advantegous for cold-blooded animals to get bigger, as they would retain heat in their body cores and thus they could be more active, while warm-blooded animals would run the risk of heat stroke/hyperthermia.

Animals in cold environments also get bigger for this reason so as to lose less heat to their surroundings - see deep sea gigantism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-sea_gigantism).

Knaight
2015-04-21, 10:42 AM
Not quite. The gas exchange surface in the lungs is a thin membrane but the alveoli have curved surfaces, which increases the available surface area. And if an animal is larger, then their lungs would be larger and they would consequently have more alveoli.

True, but that's not innate to scaling - it's basically an introduction of a more wrinkled surface which is better adapted to the size, much like there are differences in bones. Even taking that into account, there's a scaling discrepancy, though the surface could be better approximated as 2.something dimensional to account for alveoli differences.

snowblizz
2015-04-22, 04:14 AM
What makes volcanic islands so fertile (presumably all kinds of volcanic "residue" but it's the tropical volcanic island that's the archetype)? Is it the cooled lava rich in minerals, the volcanic ash or what? If it is the lava then it has to be, to some degree, broken down first? By "precursor" species colonising the eruption site, IIRC that's a thing.

Is the fact that a lot of them are in the tropics a fairly important? Heavy rainfall and warm temperatures naturally leads to good growth.

Sort of trying to nail down what makes the difference between the Azores and Island, and if given enough labour one could turn lavafields into nice agriculture land.

Ralanr
2015-08-14, 09:48 AM
I'm probably doing a horrible act of necromancy here, but I've got a question that I'm not sure fits the tactics, weapons and military thread and I don't think I should start a new thread.

A character of mine has been running (more like jogging) for 2 days straight (suspension of disbelief) while carrying the torso of a humanoid creature that's about 1.5 to 2 times larger than her (which is why the arms and legs are gone). Upon reaching her destination she collapses from exhaustion.

What I wish to ask and hopefully have answered: Given the destination (Native Americanish type village in the plains) what would be their most effective way of treating someone who has collapsed from exhaustion and is most likely unconscious?

Gnoman
2015-08-14, 09:55 AM
I'm probably doing a horrible act of necromancy here, but I've got a question that I'm not sure fits the tactics, weapons and military thread and I don't think I should start a new thread.

A character of mine has been running (more like jogging) for 2 days straight (suspension of disbelief) while carrying the torso of a humanoid creature that's about 1.5 to 2 times larger than her (which is why the arms and legs are gone). Upon reaching her destination she collapses from exhaustion.

What I wish to ask and hopefully have answered: Given the destination (Native Americanish type village in the plains) what would be their most effective way of treating someone who has collapsed from exhaustion and is most likely unconscious?

THAT level of exhaustion? Burial was the most common choice, but some tribes are believed to have practiced cremation and/or cannibalism.

Seriously, that's so far beyond what a human can do that you're at The Flash levels of Suspension of Disbelief.

Ralanr
2015-08-14, 09:58 AM
THAT level of exhaustion? Burial was the most common choice, but some tribes are believed to have practiced cremation and/or cannibalism.

Seriously, that's so far beyond what a human can do that you're at The Flash levels of Suspension of Disbelief.

Yeah I figured as much. How about a lesser level of exhaustion?

Brother Oni
2015-08-14, 10:36 AM
Yeah I figured as much. How about a lesser level of exhaustion?

I'd say the same treatment for exhaustion after long distance running.

A quick read of running sites on post marathon recovery indicate initially a tepid water soak to get the heat out of the muscles and appropriate hydration (with electrolytes if neccessary), followed by eating fruits (apparently for the vitamin C to combat free radicals from all the energy production), carbohydrates and protein (energy recovery and muscle repair), along with gentle massages and/or very light exercise for the following three days.

Milodiah
2015-08-14, 10:59 AM
If I recall correctly, part of the SEAL BUD/S training is forty-eight near straight hours of physical exertion followed by a precisely formulated "cooldown" process to bring them back down to normal people levels. I don't recall much of what it's supposed to be specifically, but I do recall that you can't immediately let those people just fall asleep, or their hearts/brains might stop, almost like a concussion victim...apparently forty-five minutes of rest at a time at first.

Mike_G
2015-08-14, 11:37 AM
Rest is important, but you need to replace the water and electrolytes that you've sweat out, the fuel you've burned, and let your body get rid of the toxins built up from beating on your muscles that much.

Hydration is huge. The character will have lost a lot of fluid through sweat and respiration, and the kidneys need fluid to help flush out the byproducts of metabolism. When cells burn sugar, they produce CO2, which you can exhale, but also lactic acid, which causes the burn in your muscles from exercise. Once you are out of sugar, and the body starts burning fat, it produces ketones, and more acid. Once you run out of fat, the body starts to burn protein, which it canabalized from your muscles, which is even less efficient as far as energy produced for the amount of waste. So your pH will be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off. And cells don't work right if the pH gets too far out of whack.

When we exhale CO2, we blow off carbonic acid, which helps, and when you urinate, you excrete uric acid, which is how your body maintains pH, but it can't keep up forever.

Electrolytes are charged particles that the cells use to produce electricity, which is what runs the nervous system, and makes muscle fibers twitch, including the heart muscle, so if your electrolytes get too far out of whack, your heart starts doing funky things and not beating in the correct sequence, which means you aren't pumping blood, which means bad things.

And last, when you beat up tissues, some cells will die, and break down, so bits of protein and enzymes and waste products of cell death will be floating in the bloodstream, messing everything up.

Now, how to fix it.

You need to rest, but you also need to keep breathing and peeing and replacing what you've lost, so going to sleep for twelve hours is bad. Alternating sitting and walking is good.

You need fluid, electrolytes and sugar. But digestion takes energy and shunts blood to the digestive system, so we don't want much heavy stuff in the belly. Water is important, but some kind of broth or other stuff is needed. Diluted Gatorade is good, (you need to cut it with about half water, half Gatorade) or some low-tech equivalent if "Running Elk needs Gatorade!" breaks immersion. Thin broth with some saltiness and nutrition should be ok.

Lastly, your feet will be beaten raw and probably bleeding. Anywhere you had a belt or strap over even rough clothing will be chafed raw and bleeding.

Today, you'd get an IV of fluids (0.9% saline until they did blood work and then balanced to your blood levels of electrolytes) plus some dextrose and thiamine.

Ralanr
2015-08-14, 01:08 PM
Thanks everyone!