(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 brblues »

Pabappa wrote: 23 Aug 2020 16:17 2) Iceland. It's an island, like you said, and it's at least within reason that history could play out in much the same way as in our timeline if Iceland had been settled by a group culturally similar to Scandinavians but linguistically isolated. Perhaps they could be descended from the pre-Sámi hunter-gatherer substrate group .... their discovering Iceland before the Germanic tribes would be quite a stroke of luck, but not impossible. Only a few words are known from this substrate, so the project would be effectively a priori.

Alternatively, a tribe of Native Americans could have done the same thing from the opposite direction ... Im not sure if you can hunt seals, etc off the coast of Iceland but perhaps a change in diet would help them. There are at least some extinct Native American tribes whose linguistic affinity is unknown, so this could be a true a priori project. You could also still have Germanic tribes settle Iceland later on, either making the island bilingual, or having the first settlers be strong enough to resist the elsewhere victorious Vikings.
I think I do like that idea a lot, although I'd originally wanted to stay away from robbing a real-world people of its homeland, and rather insert a fictional island, but that is also fraught with problems... so I might actually go with Iceland here!

The idea then would be to make Iceland home to a completely a priori language, with the people living there in all but complete isolation up to a specific point in time from when I want to diverge the history, possibly based on some miraculous (i.e. fictional) technological advance or raw material encountered by that people. This would then be the catalyst for them entering the world stage, thus changing the course of history, in some areas more, in some less.


elemtilas wrote: 23 Aug 2020 21:46
You could put it in Ill Bethisad.
I'm not sure if it will be well thought-out enough for this, and there's also the issue of limited freedom of choice in where I want things to go then. On the other hand, I quite like restrictions in order to jumpstart ideas/creativity. But I think Ill Bethisad is a heavily a posteriori project?
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by elemtilas »

brblues wrote: 01 Sep 2020 19:53
elemtilas wrote: 23 Aug 2020 21:46
You could put it in Ill Bethisad.
I'm not sure if it will be well thought-out enough for this, and there's also the issue of limited freedom of choice in where I want things to go then. On the other hand, I quite like restrictions in order to jumpstart ideas/creativity. But I think Ill Bethisad is a heavily a posteriori project?
Don't sell yourself short! All that stuff started out similarly not-yet-well-thought-out.

IB is neither posteriori nor priori by design, anyway. If it seems heavily posteriori, that's simply a function of the whims and preferences of the language inventors in question.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by brblues »

elemtilas wrote: 02 Sep 2020 02:53
brblues wrote: 01 Sep 2020 19:53
elemtilas wrote: 23 Aug 2020 21:46
You could put it in Ill Bethisad.
I'm not sure if it will be well thought-out enough for this, and there's also the issue of limited freedom of choice in where I want things to go then. On the other hand, I quite like restrictions in order to jumpstart ideas/creativity. But I think Ill Bethisad is a heavily a posteriori project?
Don't sell yourself short! All that stuff started out similarly not-yet-well-thought-out.

IB is neither posteriori nor priori by design, anyway. If it seems heavily posteriori, that's simply a function of the whims and preferences of the language inventors in question.
I will need to have a closer look at it, and the process of joining! Are you active on there and could answer me some questions?
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Post by elemtilas »

brblues wrote: 02 Sep 2020 14:26 I will need to have a closer look at it, and the process of joining! Are you active on there and could answer me some questions?
I can answer probably just about any question you have!

The process of joining is very easy. It would help if you already have a Facebook account, because quite a lot of social activity occurs there. (If you don't have one, you can easily make a fake account or one solely for IB use.) Quite a few of the old members are present and there's always a warm welcome for new folks. Just introduce yourself and what it is you'd like to add to the dredged fresh from the bayou gumbo that is IB.

Almost all the active data creation occurs at the Wiki and that's just a matter of requesting an account.

I believe the annual semi-annual fête is still being held, by tradition dinner provided by only the best Jervaine chefs. You can pay the six pound membership fee then. Just make sure to wear your best tricorn hat.
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Post by brblues »

Thanks, will look into it!

Problem now is that, besides the conlang, I don't have any specific setting in mind yet, while I would like to present one. So I will give that some thought, while browsing the IB wiki.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguoFranco »

So, I'm stuck with my setting. It is science fantasy.

Magic exists in the setting, but it is an untamed and unpredictable force, so phenomena such as magic storms are common. Civilization occurs in areas without as much magical activity.

Since people cannot normally use magic, they instead developed technology. However, I haven't decided what level of technology they are at. I'm opening to anything from clockpunk to futuristic tech (though not to the point of interstellar travel.)

I just have a big picture and don't know where to go from here. Any tips?
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by jimydog000 »

I don't have any tips, but I'm answering anyway as best I can.
LinguoFranco wrote: 08 Sep 2020 05:25 So, I'm stuck with my setting. It is science fantasy.
Have you heard of a TTRPG called Microscope? Might be worth a look, and I think its basically free.
Magic exists in the setting, but it is an untamed and unpredictable force, so phenomena such as magic storms are common. Civilization occurs in areas without as much magical activity.
What happens to the civilisations in the magic areas? Good? Bad? Attributes? Profit?
Eh, reminds me a bit of The Legend of Korra: Beginnings
Since people cannot normally use magic, they instead developed technology. However, I haven't decided what level of technology they are at. I'm opening to anything from clockpunk to futuristic tech (though not to the point of interstellar travel.)
Maybe start with:
A: A power source.
B: A war or other event, I remember reading Geomancer which felt like a good exploration of that.
C: A character with a basic belief system about technology.
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Post by Salmoneus »

I just have a big picture and don't know where to go from here. Any tips?
Well, the first question should probably be: why are you doing this?

I don't mean that sarcastically/aggressively. Conworlding is a hugely open-ended project, with no real standards to judge not only quality but even progress or completion. If you're not driven in a particular direction with it, it's worth bearing in mind: what are you really aiming to produce here? That can shape how you proceed.

Here's some suggestions:

- you want to create a conlang; the world is just there to provide cultural background

- you want to create other cultural artifacts (music, poems, art, etc), and you need the world for background

- you want to create a webpage, article, chapter, etc, presenting a general idea of an interesting setting for others to build on or be inspired by

- you want to create an introduction suitable to let the world be used as the setting for an RPG or other game or activity

- you want to create an encyclopaedia of a conculture

- you want to write a novel and need somewhere to set it

I'm not saying you have to have only one project in mind, or that you can't switch projects - but if you have writer's block, having a specific project in mind can help you focus on one thing, or one style, and avoid being overwhelmed by possibilities.

Note that different projects often suggest different styles of approach. Let's imagine you're writing about Middle-Earth. If you're creating Middle-Earth as background for a complete description of Gondorian culture and society, then you're going to have to go into a lot of detail about Gondor... but you can ignore most of the rest of the world, and have only a slight, passing awareness of ancient history and elves and whatnot. On the other hand, if you're presenting it as an RPG setting, you don't need much detail at all - you need a big-picture overview of geopolitical relations, and some catchy hooks to identify each culture and possible adventure area. If you're writing a novel, I'd suggest only a very vague outline of the world as a whole (too much detail can cramp your imagination for the story itself), but then a relatively detailed focus on the specific area your protagonist comes from, to create some verissimilitude for the protagonist - and then move on to think about other regions as you get there.

Whereas if you just want to write a brief intro to Middle-Earth as a concept, you're going to focus on the things that make it unique, and you're going to take a very wide-angle look - you're going to talk about the creation of Ea by Illuvatar, and weird things like the world having been flat but then being remade into a ball - which you almost certainly don't have to mention in a novel! The less fantastical version of this is often talking about things like orbits and moons and stuff like that.

---------------------------------

And my second question would be: why do you care?

Again, not sarcastic. What you've presented so far is very minimal (unsurprisingly, for a beginning). Most people reading it will shrug and move on. But you personally want to write more about this world. Why?

I tend to find, whether it's a conworld or a story, I have a kind of 'image' of the thing - not necessarily visual, sometimes more a feeling. I write more about it (or more often: think more, intend to write it up, get distracted) because something about that image hooks me - there's something there I want to explore. It can be a moment, a fear, a dynamic, a visual image... something.

Let's imagine Middle-Earth again. Let's imagine we've invented a very vague idea of middle-earth (or have heard a vague idea of it and want to write fanfic!). What makes us carry on with this world rather than any other? There's got to be a hook of some kind. Maybe it's: the Shire is a buccolic idyll, like England before the War; but its inhabitants don't realise that it is encircled by incredible darkness, ancient and almost unstoppable, and posed to destroy it. Maybe it's: Gondor is a warrior kingdom created to keep watch on the Dark Lord; but the Dark Lord seems to be gone, and the kings have gone away too. Maybe it's the feeling of being lost in the dark, mossy woods and having the creeping fear that you can see the trees starting to move out of the corner of your eye. Maybe it's the sadness that a great power and beauty has passed from the world, and the world is now dreary and mass-produced and normal... and yet, at the same time, safer and more comfortable as a result. Maybe it's just the idea of a lonely mountain in a desolate waste, inhabited only by a dragon and memories, and an intrepid band of refugees who want to rebuild what was lost, despite having no apparent way to do so.

As these suggestions indicate, you don't need to have only one hook (indeed, because LOTR has had relatively little editing, you can almost feel the clunks as Tolkien realises a new idea is more interesting to him). But it helps, in getting started, to have one thing, one dynamic, one image, that really calls to you, that you want to explore. Find out what it is!


--------------------------
LinguoFranco wrote: 08 Sep 2020 05:25 So, I'm stuck with my setting. It is science fantasy.

Magic exists in the setting, but it is an untamed and unpredictable force, so phenomena such as magic storms are common. Civilization occurs in areas without as much magical activity.
Is it science fantasy? At the moment, I'm not sure it's either science or fantasy. On the one hand, if it's not future tech, how is it 'science'? On the othe hand, if "magic" is unusable and just creates storms, is it really fantasy at all? Is it really magic, rather than some sort of ion storm?

What is 'magic' in this world? What is a 'magic storm'? Do bunnies pop out of the air? Is it just big lightning bolts? Or is it a jumbled terrain in which the space-time continuum is knotted up?

And the people on this world. So far, we just know that they have some sort of technology level, we don't know which, and they live in places where there isn't any magic. You may need to be more specific!

Since the magic storm zones are the only solid thing so far, maybe ask more questions about them. Specifically, what is the relationship between the magic and the people? Do they avoid it, try vainly to harness it, run in terror from it? Worship it? Theorise about it?

Here's three images:

- a scientist in a tower, with a telescope and an array of strange mechanisms, measures from a safe distance some aspect of a magic storm, in order to write his groundbreaking new paper for the Society

- a priest bows before a magic storm, performing ancient rituals to placate it - even though he doesn't understand it and knows his rituals are probably useless. Nonetheless, the fact that he cannot understand or control the magic is why he worships it, the one incomprehensible thing in an otherwise orderly and dull society

- a farmer sees a magic storm coming, and is consumed by terror. Knowing he doesn't have time to bring his family to safety, he lets his animals out of their byres, hoping desparately that they will run for their lives, and shelters with his family in a deep cellar cut into the rock, surrounded by warding iron - not knowing if they will survive a direct hit, not knowing if their house will be destroyed, hoping they will not end up as more of the ragged storm-refugees who line the streets of the local city, begging.


All three images are possible responses to the idea 'magic storm'. All of them answer the question: how do people interact with this phenomenon? And of course, a complex world might well have room for all three images in it! But it can help to pick one image and use that as your lens into this world, your viewpoint. And which viewpoint you choose - whether you think of this as a world of terrified refugees, or of fascinated academics - can substantially shape how you develop the world, both in the features you give it to make that image more vivid, and in what you choose to write about and what you choose to ignore...
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguoFranco »

I'm building the setting mostly for the sake of worldbuilding, but plan to develop it enough to write stories in it.

The magic storm isn't a regular storm or an ion storm, as getting caught in it might turn people into dogs or something. It's effects are mostly unpredictable and usually dangerous. Magic exists all over the world like an atmosphere, but it's stronger in certain areas, while people live in the places that don't have a lot of magical activity.

There are actually magic users in the setting, but they are incredibly rare since magic is too risky to use. Spellcasting involves trying to bargain with it, persuade it or trick it into doing what you want. Mages can only channel very little mana at a time due to the risks.

There is a history of sorts. There was an ancient civilization renowned for it's scientific achievements. However, it was destroyed overnight as they attempted to actively control the magic for their own purposes, mostly in the name of research as well as using to expand their own power. The setting takes place after the destruction of this civilization, which left behind ruins to explore. I'm thinking this could be an allegory for man growing proud and the ruins being a lesson of what happens when you try to control magic. On the other hand, perhaps magic wasn't always like this, but became this dangerous and unpredictable force as a result of the civilization experimenting with it.

Scientists dedicate themselves to trying to understand magic, but still know very little about it.

I find the problem with fantasy is where one draws the line between magic and science.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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This might not be a quick question, but I am not sure. In my conworld, Frēdauon, some theories that have been disproven *here* just happen to be true. One of them is Neptunism, i.e. rocks comes mainly from precipitation and not from volcanoes. I have a hard time grasping how this makes Frēdauon different from our world. What conditions have to be true? What consequences does it have for geology?
So far I think I have the following things down:
  • Frēdauon will have started out as a waterworld that somehow lost water after some time.
  • There might not be plate tectonics.
  • Volcanoes should be rarer in general, as they happen only where coal deposits are available (but where does coal come from?).
  • Earthquakes should happen very differently if they are caused by collapsing underground caves that have been washed out by water. Should they only happen where water was available underground?
  • Continental shapes should be less angular and more circular, I guess.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguistCat »

Creyeditor wrote: 21 Dec 2020 15:14 So far I think I have the following things down:
  • Frēdauon will have started out as a waterworld that somehow lost water after some time.
  • There might not be plate tectonics.
  • Volcanoes should be rarer in general, as they happen only where coal deposits are available (but where does coal come from?).
  • Earthquakes should happen very differently if they are caused by collapsing underground caves that have been washed out by water. Should they only happen where water was available underground?
  • Continental shapes should be less angular and more circular, I guess.
Some things off the top of my head that might push you in the right direction. Sand would be a lot more common, and igneous or metamorphic rock would be a lot rarer. Sandstone might even be the most common kind of stone, though I don't know what the grains of sand would be made of.

Coal irl came from compressed trees before there were microbes that could break them down. Coal would have to form differently to be connected to volcanoes in any way that makes sense. Maybe the volcanoes form the "coal" but it's not quite equivalent to coal here on Earth.

The cycles for a few atomic nutrients would be different, including carbon, calcium, zinc, magnesium, possibly iron and a few others?

"Losing water" implies that either 1) things got very hot at some point but then cooled down again for some reason, 2) a meteor strike or in-atmosphere near miss caused a lot of water to be thrown out into space, or 3) the planet is drawing water from the surface to somewhere below the surface, possibly where the water takes a different from (part of a rock structure or the like). There might be other reasons but I don't know what they might be.
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Post by Creyeditor »

Wow, thank you [:)] Those are all great points. I will need to spend some time thinking about them.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

By itself, it doesn't mean anything.

When you break the laws of nature, the question stops being 'what would happen?', and becomes 'what do I want to happen?' - because you can produce a wide variety of outcomes by changing which laws of nature you want to break.

WHY does precipitation cause rocks in your world? How?

Do the rock giants hurl down gravel? That's one sort of world.
Is all rock just dried water? That's another sort of world. [it's a world that some ancient Greeks believed we were in]
Does rain contain the magical element Solidinum, which over time causes dissolved minerals to aggregate into rocks? That's another sort of world.
Do the dissolved minerals in water just gradually precipitate out into rock? That's another sort of world.

And is this process ongoing? AIUI, classical neptunism tended to be a young-earth model, in which the neptunian processes were mostly no longer operative [that is, they didn't think water curently contains dissolved granite, just that it used to, a long time ago]

[you can also have a hybrid neptunian model, in which all rocks start out as sedimentary, but igneous and metamorphic rocks are still formed in the normal way after the great compression and melting of the core]

-------------------

Going through your conclusions, I don't think any of them are really necessary!

- why must Fredauon have lost water at some time? Earth has lots of water. And maybe there's more, too, underground. Maybe it's all water, underground! Remember also that the primordial waterworld may have had less dense water (what with all the dissolved rock in it...)

- why wouldn't there be plate tectonics?

- why would there be fewer volcanos, and why would they be connected to coal? [after all, coal fires are nothing like volcanos]. Why is the origin of coal a problem? What's wrong with "it's created from fossilised trees under great pressure"?

- why would earthquakes happen differently? Even if you don't have tectonics, why would they be obviously different when they're due to subterranean collapse? No, cave collapses don't require water, although who knows where the water would be on your world (while a belief in subterranean caverns is common, different theories suggested that they would be air-filled or water-filled).



------


Personally, if I were to imagine a neptunian world filled with 18th-century myths, it would run something like:

- the world was once all water
- rock precipitate out of the water, forming a two-shell world: rock core, water crust
- the rock in the middle of the core became really hot from being squeezed too tightly, and turned to liquid rock. Very hot liquid rock is metal (it stays metal when it cools). This created a three-shell world: water, rock, and liquid rock/metal

- water permates down from the world-ocean into the rock, forming caves. The rock became riddled with caves
- the hot lava was expelled out through those caves. A little bit reached the surface (metal deposits), but most just filled up the lower caves. The force blasted passages between caves, creating an almost solid shell of cooled metal. Now we have a four-shell model: water; rock; metal shell; inner rock/metal; empty void
- the loose rock deep in the earth collapsed into the void, forming a rocky inner core. Water; rock; metal; void; rock core.

- Rock continued to precipitate out of the upper waters (covering up earlier stages of life, maybe even civilisations)
- meanwhile, the water continues to permate down, forming caves
- but it cannot permeate the (mostly) metal shell. As a result, the water pools over the metal shell
- a huge amount of water has now gone down to the lower ocean, and as a result the surface level of the upper ocean has dropped considerably, exposing more and more land

- the world thus consists of:
-- the atmosphere
--the surface world
--a mostly soft rocky mantle riddled with caves, and many lakes
--a second atmosphere, with a large amount of magnetised, luminiferous aboron in it
--a second surface. This is an almost total world-ocean, over a seabed of mostly metal
--a third atmosphere
--an innermost, rocky core, with oceans (not much water has made it down this far, but the core is small, so...)

- meanwhile, although the outer mantle has not collapsed, it is straining under its own weight. It is gradually contracting, causing such phenomena as deep sea trenches, subduction and orogeny. This contraction causes scraping, causing heat, melting rocks and causing surface volcanoes.
- unhealthy vapours from the caves escape onto the surface causing diseases
- magnetised luminiferous aboron escapes at the poles, causing the northern and southern lights
- the two mantles and the core rotate at slightly different rates, causing the wandering of magnetic north.
- continued precipitation explains the existence of fossils


--------


I'm of course not suggesting you need to adopt that model, it just seemed like a fun idea...
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Thank you so much Sal [:)] A lot of interesting stuff and I think some of it changed my perspective quite a bit. And I realized that I should be a lot clearer in my wording. The "points" that I have down are actually (mostly) things that Netunists proposed that I want to try to incorporate. This is true for coal volcanoes, cave earthquakes and the ancient water world. If you can explain away earthquakes and volcanoes, there is less directly observable evidence for plate tectonics. I guess that was my thinking, though I am still not a hundred percent sure.
I actually really like your semi-hard (sci-fi) explanation using Solidium. I will figure out some more con-chemistry along the way, I guess.
Also, thanks for the advise on hybrid worlds (as our world IRL is also hybrid). Metamorphosis can of course still happen under pressure. I hadn't thought of this, but now it seems obvious. And I will spend some time thinking about the geological history of Frēdauon.

I guess I will have to start a thread about it some time soon, so I can ask all the questions in one place. Maybe next year, when I find the time.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Vlürch »

Let's say a huge ice meteor hit the Earth and caused sea levels to rise by about 230 metres. How big would it have to be? How fast would the oceans rise?

I've been trying to figure this out for a while but honestly can't math even at the level of a primary schooler, so I figured I'd just ask here if someone has any idea. I mean, I guess an exact answer isn't even possible since it's such a hypothetical thing and there are probably other factors to it, but...
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Post by Pabappa »

well if we assume about 80% of the earth's surface is below 230m elevation, then you'd need a meteor composed of at least (80%) * 510.1 million km² * 230m, so about 80 million cubic kilometers, which is about the size of the largest asteroids. Far, far, far larger than a typical meteor, but really the main issue is that asteroids tend not to have a lot of water .... you need a comet, and a very very big one in fact.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

Unfortunately, the answer would be a lot more complicated than that.

For one thing, you can't just calculate the volume of a prism above all the surface of less than 230m height above sea level: the area that wouldn't be flooded until waters had risen 229m is much, much, MUCH smaller than the area that would be below water (including the area currently below water) when the waters had risen 1m... so you're dealing with a truncated prism (as it were), rather than a prism (as it were).

The second problem you've got is that you're assuming the water after the comet is simply the water before the comet plus the water in the comet. In reality, however, you'd have to factor in the icecaps. If global dust from the cometary impact creates a strengthened greenhouse effect, ice will melt, raising sea levels, so you don't need as much cometary water. If, though, as is more likely, the dust causes an immense cometary winter by blocking out the sun, water will freeze, and you'll need more cometary water to make up the difference. And remember: while there's not much water left to melt, there's a LOT of water left to freeze, if you think back to when we had kilometres of ice over most of Europe, Asia and North America.

The third problem is that whenever you fiddle with the icecaps, you also fiddle with the heights of continents, because the icecaps weigh us down. Removing ice makes the continents bounce up; adding ice presses them down. Although it's not even, and in some places removing weight actually causes sinking (southern England is sinking, though Scotland is rising). For most of the world, the total scale isn't that great at the moment, but in some places it is - parts of Canada are still bouncing up at a rate of a couple of metres each century. It's actually had to be explicitly dealt with in law in Finland (which until recently was mostly underwater).

This effects are considerable: during the last ice age, sea levels were around 120m lower - although because of rebound, that doesn't mean that everywhere now 119m below sea level was then land. So if a comet triggers an ice age, you may be talking about having to have 360m of rise, not 240m. Or more - the last ice age was relatively warm and un-icecap-y, compared to the colded periods in Earth's history, when possibly ALL the land was under ice.


In any case, the short answer to this question is just: it would have to be a comet big enough to obliterate all life on earth, if not actually smash the earth apart.


Let's get a little context here. The Chicxulub impact had the force of over a billion nuclear bombs going off simultaneously. Everything within 1000km would have been instantly evaporated; the earth's crust was effectively turned into liquid in the local area and bounced up and down like a glass of water when a raindrop has landed. Debris was shot into space, spread all over the world and landed as a vast shower of white-hot meteorites, setting fire to the entire planet. The impact sent a megatsunami around the world, 100m tall - because it landed in very shallow water. If it had landed in the middle of the ocean, the tsunami, it's been calculated, would have been 4 or 5 kilometres tall. It's theorised that the impact may have detonated volcanoes around the world, including the vast Deccan Traps (at the directly opposite side of the planet) that covered an area equivalent to half of modern India with lava. 75% of all species were exterminted globally, including almost all species larger than about 50 pounds.

The Chicxulub impactor had a diameter of, probably, around 15km. That means its volume was around 1,800km^3. That means that, if it were entirely made of water (and all the water ended up on the planet rather than blown into space), it would have been enough to raise the sea level 250m... for a square of land 85km on each side. That's... just slightly bigger than London.

You'd need over 100 extinction-level-event comets just to raise the sea level that much in an ocean no bigger than the United Kingdom.

To do this across the entire earth, you're looking at absolute obliteration of the planet levels of energy. Or, at least, of its surface. Whether you'd actually smash the planet in half again, I don't know.

[this is actually how most of our current oceans were created. but fortunately that happened a long, long time ago]
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Vlürch »

Thanks Pabappa, and thanks for the very detailed response Sal! [:)] Your posts made it clear that an ice meteor (or comet or whatever) couldn't be the handwave I thought it could be, so now I'm going to have to go back to thinking of other ways for the sea to rise that wouldn't have (as) catastrophic consequences for the entire planet.

For context, (at least) two related stories I'm writing are set in a parallel world where the sea level has to be 230 metres higher than IRL and my first idea of extremely accelerated climate change that somehow began independent of human action in ancient history had to be scrapped because I found out that even if all the ice melted, the sea would only rise by 70 metres at most. Climate change is still a part of it, even just to explain the (semi-)tropicalisation, though, and it's not that important what the impact on the rest of the world is like because the only relevant area in the stories corresponds more or less to what IRL are the Kansai and Chūgoku regions of Japan.

Not that it's probably relevant, the exact point of divergence from real history isn't that important. It does have to be several thousands of years ago, though, or maybe it never had the same starting point to begin with, it doesn't really matter. The sea level has to have remained more or less the same for at least 500 or so years. It's basically an entirely different world, except there are some kind of mysterious portals between it and the "real world" so there's stuff like modern technology and some influence from IRL cultures because people have crossed over there.

If nothing could cause the sea level to rise by 230 metres, would it be possible for something to have caused the Amur Plate to sink some of the way and for the sea level to rise the rest? Like, if a big ice meteor (or comet or whatever) hit the Sea of Japan and triggered an earthquake that caused the Amur Plate to sink and released lots of methane from the seabed, then the methane caused some of the ice from Antarctica and/or Greenland to melt? Or would there still be an impact winter?
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by elemtilas »

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet (unless I missed it!) is that the size of the body you'd need to fulfill your condition is far larger than anything the Earth could handle without basically being destroyed or severely damaged. If a large comet hits the Earth, you get a big crater, a lot of local cracking and deformation of the crust and lots of knock-on effects like real climate changes that will likely cause mass extinctions. But the amount of water in the comet is trivial. You'd need several times the amount of ice in Antarctica to do the job. According to here, that will give you about 58 metres. You'll need four of those!

Volumewise, that's a bit larger than the second largest asteroid, Vesta, at around 525 km across, plus whatever volume of rock is involved in this object. (The Chicxulub meteor was possibly 30 to 70 km across). Something this big will more than likely shatter the crust, causing earthquakes and shockwaves all around the planet. Can't imagine anyone would survive a planetwide earthquake. No one will be left to measure the effects of this thing on sea levels.

Objects not much larger than Vesta, Ceres for example, will more than likely vaporise the ocean, at the least or cause planetwide tsunamis, spew a pretty good portion of the crust and mantle out into space, where it may form (temporary) rings. If you thought the earthquakes were bad enough before, this kind of impact will very likely split the planet. As all that rock that was shot up into space starts raining down again, the surface of the planet will heat up, melting the crust and resculpting the entire surface of the planet.

Eventually, gravity will pull all or most of the jetsam back down, and if we're lucky, whatever evolves from the microbes that make it back down, three or four billion years from now, may or may not be smart enough to look up in wonder at their planet's moons and wonder how they got there.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Khemehekis »

What would a radiate with the ability to float or fly in the air look like?

I already have a radiate called the phelus with helicopter-like wings on Shaleya, but I want a different body plan for my flying radiates on Doyatl.
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