(C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Keenir »

LinguoFranco wrote: 04 Aug 2019 23:201) Would this make a space Western setting believable with outlaws and bounty hunters running around, since civilization declined, while still having some tech left over from the Dyson era?
sort of like Firefly, only Kaylee and other engineers could only repair things, and nobody could build new ships...makes sense. and the Dyson Sphere would be big enough (whatever version of a Sphere you want) to not need multiple planets.
2) Would a robot rebellion be enough to cause such a catastrophic event for an entire solar system?
oh at least, yes. after all, if the robots were what the society depended on, you wouldn't even need a war -- just have the dissatisfied robots say "okay, lets leave" or something along those lines.
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Post by LinguoFranco »

Keenir wrote: 06 Aug 2019 03:10
LinguoFranco wrote: 04 Aug 2019 23:201) Would this make a space Western setting believable with outlaws and bounty hunters running around, since civilization declined, while still having some tech left over from the Dyson era?
sort of like Firefly, only Kaylee and other engineers could only repair things, and nobody could build new ships...makes sense. and the Dyson Sphere would be big enough (whatever version of a Sphere you want) to not need multiple planets.
2) Would a robot rebellion be enough to cause such a catastrophic event for an entire solar system?
oh at least, yes. after all, if the robots were what the society depended on, you wouldn't even need a war -- just have the dissatisfied robots say "okay, lets leave" or something along those lines.
Good point about the robots. I guess civilization would collapse without them anyway. Though one of the story components is that there are bounty hunters who hunt down the robots. Originally, I was going to have them do it to wipe out what was left of the robots, but without a war, a bounty is placed to bring the robot back under their control.
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LinguoFranco wrote: 06 Aug 2019 05:17
Keenir wrote: 06 Aug 2019 03:10
LinguoFranco wrote: 04 Aug 2019 23:201) Would this make a space Western setting believable with outlaws and bounty hunters running around, since civilization declined, while still having some tech left over from the Dyson era?
sort of like Firefly, only Kaylee and other engineers could only repair things, and nobody could build new ships...makes sense. and the Dyson Sphere would be big enough (whatever version of a Sphere you want) to not need multiple planets.
2) Would a robot rebellion be enough to cause such a catastrophic event for an entire solar system?
oh at least, yes. after all, if the robots were what the society depended on, you wouldn't even need a war -- just have the dissatisfied robots say "okay, lets leave" or something along those lines.
Good point about the robots. I guess civilization would collapse without them anyway.
*nods* though, now that I think about it...mankind might still try to wage a war...whether to get them back under control, or to stop them from leaving, or...*shrugs*

depending on just how dependent mankind was when the robots said "okay, enough's enough", it might be less a conventional war, and more a nest of ants attacking an anteater or a person. or ants vs a coconut crab. (or another comparison entirely) :)
Though one of the story components is that there are bounty hunters who hunt down the robots. Originally, I was going to have them do it to wipe out what was left of the robots, but without a war, a bounty is placed to bring the robot back under their control.
maybe not all the robots left - for one or more reasons. (and even if all the robots did happen to leave...recall that people used to go questing for unicorns and dragons - and they found something to bring back too) :)

I wish you well in this crafting of a tale. thus far, it sounds fascinating.
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Post by Zekoslav »

So, here's a new map of that planet I was working on (currently in hiatus due to my hopeless perfectionism, but when I get over the perfectionism I'll be able to perfect it further):

Image

(each line is 15 degrees)

What effect on climate would the distribution of the continents have? There's land at both poles, which means no circumpolar currents and no stormy bands of low pressure: water from mid latitudes will regularly mix with water from high latitudes. On the other hand, there's water all around the equator, which means there will be a circumequatorial current which hasn't existed on Earth for so long that spellcheck doesn't even recognize it. Every source I've read agrees that this constant flow of water around the equator would be (or was, since it mostly deals with paleoclimate) a giant heat sink and that whatever water eventually gets to higher latitudes will be much warmer than on Earth... that is, the little continent in the southeast, as well as the southern polar continent will get a weaker but warmer equivalent of the gulf current. All things considered it looks like this planet wouldn't support ice caps and would be warmer than Earth even with a similar atmospheric composition.

On one hand this is good since with a cooler climate the northern continent wouldn't be very inhabitable: the north would be rather cold and the south rather arid. On the other hand this isn't what I was going for since I wanted a Carboniferous-like climate with a sizeable southern ice cap...

Any input?
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Nmmali »

Zekoslav wrote: 12 Aug 2019 19:10
Spoiler:

What effect on climate would the distribution of the continents have? There's land at both poles, which means no circumpolar currents and no stormy bands of low pressure: water from mid latitudes will regularly mix with water from high latitudes. On the other hand, there's water all around the equator, which means there will be a circumequatorial current which hasn't existed on Earth for so long that spellcheck doesn't even recognize it. Every source I've read agrees that this constant flow of water around the equator would be (or was, since it mostly deals with paleoclimate) a giant heat sink and that whatever water eventually gets to higher latitudes will be much warmer than on Earth... that is, the little continent in the southeast, as well as the southern polar continent will get a weaker but warmer equivalent of the gulf current. All things considered it looks like this planet wouldn't support ice caps and would be warmer than Earth even with a similar atmospheric composition.

On one hand this is good since with a cooler climate the northern continent wouldn't be very inhabitable: the north would be rather cold and the south rather arid. On the other hand this isn't what I was going for since I wanted a Carboniferous-like climate with a sizeable southern ice cap...

Any input?
I don't know, but have you considered what kind of typhoons it could generate with just one contiguous giant ocean?

And the other reason I came here: at an early 20th-century tech level or so, if humanity were greatly reduced by a plague, could that result in arrested development for a while as the population ticks back up, or would the labor shortage require more innovation? Of course, if too many people die, then there could be total economic collapse, so I guess that might discourage production. In any case, it sounds like a lot of fallow land.
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The dinosaurs didn't seem to mind any of the typhoons their own contiguous giant ocean generated... even if the planet ends up a hothouse I hope it could still be suitable for civilization.
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Post by Nmmali »

Zekoslav wrote: 13 Aug 2019 12:21 ... even if the planet ends up a hothouse I hope it could still be suitable for civilization.
I suppose it could lead to cool sounding architecture. If you're inclined toward engineering you could handle their drainage systems. But for all I know your world is inhabited by nomadic sapient turtles who have no need of architecture because they carry all the comforts of home around with them.
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After some more reading, I've found out the exact climate effects of a circumtropical current:

1. Smaller temperature gradient across latitudes: low latitudes remain the same, but high latitudes are warmer by 4-7 degrees relative to the tropics.

Basically, a belt of equatorial winds creates an westward-flowing circumtropical current. This current flows around the equator multiple times and absorbs a lot of heat: upwelling of cold deep water displaces the warm water to higher latitudes, where it downwells and returns to the tropics via deep water circulation and upwells again. Basically the circumtropical current warms all the oceans.

1. More evaporation and more humidity in the air.

Even if atmospheric composition stays the same, the loss of icecaps and increased water vapor (an important greenhouse gas, as Venus would like to remind you) in the atmosphere will cause warming relative to the present earth. With greenhouse effect taken into account, high latitudes are warmer by 7-11 degrees relative to the tropics.

Let's say we don't add any carbon dioxide (all the plants grown by higher precipitation and higher temperatures have been burying it for the last couple millions of years) and take an average high latitude increase of 7 degrees.

Looking at a list of average temperatures, Sweden would become as warm as Croatia, and Canada as warm as Sweden. Greenland would finally live up to it's name.

This would certainly influence air circulation too. Since the sea would be warmer on average, temperature gradient between land and sea would be smaller, which means weaker winds and especially monsoons. So there might be a larger belt of tropical rainforests instead of savanna and of savanna instead of deserts, but interiors of large continents would still be rather dry and seasonal. Continental and rainshadow deserts would be larger than subtropical deserts, and the far south might have a southward-shifted belt of steppe.

Basically, if I heat the planet as little as I can, I get the Miocene, and if I heat it as much as it probably would be heated, I get the Eocene.

Do I go with it or add an isthmus somewhere?
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Post by Keenir »

Zekoslav wrote: 13 Aug 2019 12:21 The dinosaurs didn't seem to mind any of the typhoons their own contiguous giant ocean generated...
if you're referring to the Triassic, yes they did - the equitorial zones were barely habitable.
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Post by Zekoslav »

Keenir wrote: 17 Aug 2019 05:45
Zekoslav wrote: 13 Aug 2019 12:21 The dinosaurs didn't seem to mind any of the typhoons their own contiguous giant ocean generated...
if you're referring to the Triassic, yes they did - the equitorial zones were barely habitable.
I had the impression that was a temporary consequence of the Permian-Triassic mass extinction (tropics overheated to the point of becoming uninhabitable and it took time for things to settle down) and not simply a result of the existence of a supercontinent and a superocean. Tropics were lush in the Carboniferous and okay in the Permian with the same setup of land and sea.

Anyway, my world is more similar to the late Jurassic/early Cretaceous period, with an equatorial ocean and multiple continents. It's not what I imagined, but creating a hothouse world might be interesting.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguoFranco »

Would a humanoid race that has tails make things inconvenient, like sitting or wearing pants? What are some ways to get around this?

I'm talking about anthropomorphic animals, of course.
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Post by Keenir »

LinguoFranco wrote: 31 Aug 2019 22:23 Would a humanoid race that has tails make things inconvenient, like sitting or wearing pants? What are some ways to get around this?

I'm talking about anthropomorphic animals, of course.
that probably depends on things like
  • how flexible are their tails, particularly where the tail attaches to the body
    do they have pants with tailholes, kilts?
    do they sit in chairs, on sofas, on blankets, or just kneel during meals?
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Post by eldin raigmore »

LinguoFranco wrote: 31 Aug 2019 22:23 Would a humanoid race that has tails make things inconvenient, like sitting or wearing pants? What are some ways to get around this?

I'm talking about anthropomorphic animals, of course.
Dogs have tails, and sit.
Some horses and donkeys and mules sometimes sit, I think, though not often.
Cats sit and wrap their tails around all four feet so they can’t be seen. They follow the motto “if i fits I sits”.
Monkeys have tails and do whatever it is monkeys do.

Birds perch. Or at least passerines do.

Their chairs or stools or other seats might be different.

Animals with tails might wear trews or hose or leggings instead of pantaloons.
Or chaps.

tl;dr summary: idk.
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Post by LinguoFranco »

eldin raigmore wrote: 10 Sep 2019 18:47
LinguoFranco wrote: 31 Aug 2019 22:23 Would a humanoid race that has tails make things inconvenient, like sitting or wearing pants? What are some ways to get around this?

I'm talking about anthropomorphic animals, of course.
Dogs have tails, and sit.
Some horses and donkeys and mules sometimes sit, I think, though not often.
Cats sit and wrap their tails around all four feet so they can’t be seen. They follow the motto “if i fits I sits”.
Monkeys have tails and do whatever it is monkeys do.

Birds perch. Or at least passerines do.

Their chairs or stools or other seats might be different.

Animals with tails might wear trews or hose or leggings instead of pantaloons.
Or chaps.

tl;dr summary: idk.
I just had an idea for pants. Discussions I have read on the topic suggest that animals could have a slot or cut out that is U shaped to allow the tail to rest on top of it rather than a hole to put it through. I think that there should also be some kind of strap that buttons after the tail goes through, to keep it in place.
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Post by Zekoslav »

Concerning my planet, I decided to go with the hothouse climate. It's interesting...

- global circulation stays the same: rising air at the equator, falling air at the tropics, rising air at the polar circles and falling air at the poles as well as corresponding humid and arid belts*.

- temperature gradient between the equator and the poles is small: this is especially true of the sea, but also of land**. Absolute global temperatures are higher, but high latitudes are relatively much warmer and low latitudes may be relatively colder. There's still tropical and temperate rainforests separated by an arid zone, but the flora and fauna of temperate rainforests ends up being pretty much the same as that of tropical rainforests. Poles may be warm enough to support broadleaf forests and there is no permanent ice and snow at the poles.

- increased temperature, especially ocean temperatures, means increased evaporation and increased precipitation. Humid belts expand and arid belts contract: instead of 10 degrees, tropical rainforests extend to 20 degrees north an south, tropical grasslands partially or, if the continent is small and maritime enough, completely replace tropical deserts, which are in any case limited to the immediate neighborhood of horse latitudes. Poles end up being much wetter (I haven't read this everywhere, but I suspect they're dry today because it's so cold there's practically no evaporation). The resulting cloud cover is thought to prevent them from loosing too much heat during winter.


It's interesting to thing how civilization might develop in this world. Would the polar latitudes be a good place to develop agriculture? They'd be habitable but there'd still be a need to store food for winter since I doubt leaves or fruits would grow during a months long night. As for urbanized, large-scale civilizations, it is thought they developed where there was a need for irrigation, and there'd be much less such areas in a hothouse world than in an icehouse one.



*Uninhabitable tropics in the Triassic and the early Jurassic seem to be a result of contemporary geography, namely the existence of Pangea: arid belts expanded towards the equator and deserts replaced the rainforest, likely because of increased continentality and monsoons so that evaporation around the equator exceeded precipitation. This was somewhat like Somalian climate, but on a larger scale: central and eastern tropical Pangea was completely arid while western tropical pangea was more hospitable. None of that applies to my planet.

**Some pollen finds from Antarctica suggest palm trees and other subtropical vegetation at the coasts, and broadleaf forests akin to those of New Zealand inland. This lends credence to the idea that a circumequatorial current driven heat transport trough the oceans is a key component of hothouse climates.
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Post by Xonen »

Zekoslav wrote: 28 Sep 2019 14:18Concerning my planet, I decided to go with the hothouse climate. It's interesting...
Indeed, thanks for sharing it. [:)]
Poles end up being much wetter (I haven't read this everywhere, but I suspect they're dry today because it's so cold there's practically no evaporation).
Partially, perhaps, but my understanding is that it's also specifically because they're relatively cold, i.e. colder than their surroundings. The descending mass of cold air creates a high pressure zone and winds blowing away from the poles, taking what moisture does evaporate with them, and blocking wet weather systems generated elsewhere from reaching the poles. This would presumably to some extent still be the case in your scenario, but depending on various factors like ocean currents, the positions of land masses, exact temperatures and whatnot, I suppose it could still work.
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Post by Salmoneus »

I seem to recall that an odd number of atmospheric cells per hemisphere (i.e. relatively dry poles) is a physical universal. Although come to think of it, perhaps Uranus is a counterexample? So maybe if you have your planet lying on its side, that might change things.

Otherwise, no, your poles will be relatively dry.
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Post by Pabappa »

i'd always assumed an even number of cells wouldnt work because thered be no way to get all the storms to cluster together at the poles ... but on second thought, that doesnt explain a lot , since we already have subsidence clustered together at the poles. and that subsidence (high pressure) quickly become low pressure as one ascends through the atmosphere, which is why the atmospher is much thinner at hte poles thant the quator. sorry i didnt sleep last night. my typing is far form its best but you all get the picytre.

i wanted to post more on this thread but I havebt been able to keep up. I like that youve chosen to go exotic, though, as not too many conworlders are that brave.
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Post by Zekoslav »

Re: polar climate. I'm aware of the fact that poles will always be relatively dry due to descending air, and I'm struggling to combine paleontological data with that fact: while relatively dry, they were wet enough to support forests (to be fair it's hard to collect pollen from central Antarctica... maybe it was grassland in the middle of the continent, for all we know).

I was thinking that, maybe, the coastal forests would be able to trap moisture, allowing the growth of more forest further inland, and so on an so on... kind of like Californian redwood forests and the Amazon. This could lead to some nice (i.e. interesting, not pleasant!) ecological disasters once agriculture and deforestation appear.

In addition, considering that the sea will be permanently warm, and the land will have pretty large temperature swings due to polar day and night, would that lead to some kind of monsoon? i.e. would the high pressure zone turn into low pressure zone in summer, or is it impossible due to the aforementioned physical universal?

EDIT: most models of climate change predict increased rainfall in high latitudes, including poles, although I haven't been able to find the cause since I don't understand the papers' jargon.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguoFranco »

eldin raigmore wrote: 10 Sep 2019 18:47
LinguoFranco wrote: 31 Aug 2019 22:23 Would a humanoid race that has tails make things inconvenient, like sitting or wearing pants? What are some ways to get around this?

I'm talking about anthropomorphic animals, of course.
Dogs have tails, and sit.
Some horses and donkeys and mules sometimes sit, I think, though not often.
Cats sit and wrap their tails around all four feet so they can’t be seen. They follow the motto “if i fits I sits”.
Monkeys have tails and do whatever it is monkeys do.

Birds perch. Or at least passerines do.

Their chairs or stools or other seats might be different.

Animals with tails might wear trews or hose or leggings instead of pantaloons.
Or chaps.

tl;dr summary: idk.
Maybe they could have those short Japanese tables that they sit around without chairs.
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