A question for super science geeks!

[Warren Okuma]

I have books that teach me all kinds of things, but since I live in a major metropolitan area, I doubt any would survive the initial strike or the subsequent fires as gas lines erupt and the city basically burns down.

Oh, too bad. But I don't live in a city.

The key knowledge that would let you rebuild society is whatever you can retain at your mental fingertips. Surviving books are fine- if I have them- but before I could get my smithy up and running, I'd need:

1) Food
2) Water
3) Shelter

Without those, I won't live long enough to get to the higher order tasks, and I sure as heck won't have time to re-read my old Scouting manuals...assuming I could even find them. And I'd need those 3 things in amounts large enough (or easy enough to aquire) that I have time to do tasks other than look for sustinence.

Ah, too bad. I live near a stream and store food. Oh, about six months, planning to increase it to a year. Just because you can't rebuild society doesn't mean I can't.

After that, I'd need:

4) Combustibles
5) Knowledge of the locations of raw materials or scrap that I can reforge.
6) Tools to build the tools that I'll need to build the smithy.
7) The ability to distinguish between what I can work with and what I can't. (As an amateur jeweler, I understand & recognize precious metals far better than base ones.)

Etc.

Essentially, I have to win the sprint of survival before I can even compete in the marathon of rebuilding.

I don't.

If all you have is basic combustibles like wood or paper, your factory has no fuel that will run the machinery in a machine shop.

I know a shop that has solar power. And it's rural.

I've been to 3 dumps in my vicinity. The books you'd find there would largely be unreadable- torn, shredded, and damaged by liquid wastes...assuming you can even find them in all the tons and tons of debris.

Could you get lucky? Sure! But the odds are stacked against you. You're more likely to find things you can use as fuel or building material in a dump than you are usable literature.

You are not looking hard enough. I found the garbage from a bookstore once. Didn't take anything though. It's amazing what companies throw away. Manuals, passwords... not that I ever dumpster dived to get passwords...

Some of us already know how to do this and other tasks. How quickly the rebuilding goes depends upon 1) how many of them survive the ELE
and 2) their ability to bridge the gap between immediate survival of the ELE and the actual business of rebuilding society- not a single task, but a multitude of smaller steps.

Yes, but some people actually have food on hand and the right books, and solar cells or a wind farm. For technology to utterly fail. Everybody's books will have burned. Every skilled person would have to die. That is impossible. Tech will survive and tech will recover. Just because you are not in an advantageous position, doesn't mean everyone else will suffer like you.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Every skilled person would have to die.

No, all it would take is for there to be significant barriers between people with the neccessary skills and the resources required for them to excercise their skills. Those barriers could be natural ones like an impassable mountain range (consider Nome, Alaska), or created like ELE-induced problems like the meteoric impact igniting the veins of coal in the local mine.

For example, suppose one of the people I know who is an actual blacksmith in Texas is on a trip to Aruba when the ELE occurs. Where he is, he has no idea where he can find the resources required to rebuild a smithy from scratch and get up to speed. Can he make educated guesses? Sure- but its going to be a lot harder than if he were at home. And if Guy X ordered his metals from across the country rather than acquiring them locally, he's going to have problems anywhere.

And if we're talking foundries...like most modern mechanics, those guys work with prefabricated parts. If the place were wrecked, they'd be unable to start over. Few people have all the knowledge needed to build a dynamo or internal combustion engine from scratch. By which I mean finding, mining, & working ores into usable alloys to make all those tools that are in turn used to make cams, bearings, gears, axles, wires, and so forth.

Heck, if you look at a map of mineral deposits in a given country, you'd see that such complex machines are only possible with international commerce- almost no place on Earth has all of the raw materials that go into a refined product such as even an early internal combustion engine.

Besides, as I've pointed out, there will be pockets of tech still around- its just that nobody will have whole package. Thus there will be inequities, causing people to want to repair & replace the old tech they've lost.

That is what is going to drive people into cooperating to rebuild trade routes & thus, higher civilizations than mere subsistence level communities.

 

[Warren Okuma]

No, all it would take is for there to be significant barriers between people with the neccessary skills and the resources required for them to excercise their skills. Those barriers could be natural ones like an impassable mountain range (consider Nome, Alaska), or created like ELE-induced problems like the meteoric impact igniting the veins of coal in the local mine.

Not all mines will be gone. Not many places will be impassable. Alaska I agree. Texas, no.

For example, suppose one of the people I know who is an actual blacksmith in Texas is on a trip to Aruba when the ELE occurs. Where he is, he has no idea where he can find the resources required to rebuild a smithy from scratch and get up to speed.

Ask the locals, hey, where's junkyard I am going to need some steel? I need a hammer, some leather or cloth for a bellows and some wood. Oh yeah, I am going to need a rock until I make an anvil. Anybody got some pliers? Where's the forest so I can make charcoal? Oh, and we have blacksmiths in Hawaii you know.

Can he make educated guesses? Sure- but its going to be a lot harder than if he were at home. And if Guy X ordered his metals from across the country rather than acquiring them locally, he's going to have problems anywhere.

How much steel can you get from a car? Think about it.

And if we're talking foundries...like most modern mechanics, those guys work with prefabricated parts. If the place were wrecked, they'd be unable to start over.

Actually people who work at foundries know how to repair them and have the manuals to do so. Some use outside help for repairs, but those are small time operators. Most people I know who work at foundries can repair them. A lot of them actually contribute to designing of new ones. It's the Demings management principle.

Few people have all the knowledge needed to build a dynamo or internal combustion engine from scratch.

First of all they have working models. Figuring them out is easier. Encyclopedias showing the basic principles. How to books. Second one place has all the experts... a nuclear submarine or Aircraft carrier. If one nuke boat survives they have a machine shop and can power up a fabrication grid to rapidly rebuild society. Oh by the way making a dynamo from scratch was a class assignment in my high school electronic class, it was easy but tedious. Dunno, my cousin made a 1909 model T engine for his model T from scratch he said it wasn't very hard.

Edit: Here's the kit similar to the one I used. Caution ages ten and up.

http://www.fatbraintoys.com/toy_com...ric_motorgenerator_science_discovery_kits.cfm

By which I mean finding, mining, & working ores into usable alloys to make all those tools that are in turn used to make cams, bearings, gears, axles, wires, and so forth.

First you recycle. Then you do work arounds. Inferior materials will work, just not as well.

Heck, if you look at a map of mineral deposits in a given country, you'd see that such complex machines are only possible with international commerce- almost no place on Earth has all of the raw materials that go into a refined product such as even an early internal combustion engine.

Wrong. For the 1909 engine on a model T all you need is steel. Poor quality steel at that. Where did you learn about early internal combustion engines?

Besides, as I've pointed out, there will be pockets of tech still around- its just that nobody will have whole package. Thus there will be inequities, causing people to want to repair & replace the old tech they've lost.

Right and trade will patch the gaps. And thus blacksmiths will go quickly obsolete.

That is what is going to drive people into cooperating to rebuild trade routes & thus, higher civilizations than mere subsistence level communities.

And in 2000 years there will be back to the start or ahead of the game.

 

[pbd]

So, I'm from Rural Maine orignally. Up there we have lots of trees to burn to keep warm (heck we have winter for about 7 months all said and done). This is also a rural state with a low population density, my thinking is that a significant portion of the state would survive (bye-bye Portland and Bangor though, but eh, I'm from North Whitefield...). I'm going to make a generalization here and say people from rural areas would tend to know how to survive without technology better than those from urban areas. I would imagine in rural areas there be a lot of small farmers, who tend to be do-it-yourselfers who never throw anything away and can fix it if its broken. If you add to this the number of people I know from my upbringing that can get along fairly well without much in the way of technology (heck we had an outhouse for most of the 80's), I think that the world would be able to start working it's way back in a fairly short amount of time.

No, all it would take is for there to be significant barriers between people with the neccessary skills and the resources required for them to excercise their skills. Those barriers could be natural ones like an impassable mountain range (consider Nome, Alaska), or created like ELE-induced problems like the meteoric impact igniting the veins of coal in the local mine.

....

Besides, as I've pointed out, there will be pockets of tech still around- its just that nobody will have whole package. Thus there will be inequities, causing people to want to repair & replace the old tech they've lost.

That is what is going to drive people into cooperating to rebuild trade routes & thus, higher civilizations than mere subsistence level communities.

So I think this doesn;t take into account connunication devices like short wave radios. Sure cells phones or landlines aren't going to work, but witht he right conditions you can talk to someone half-way around the world on a short wave radio. And they don't take that much power to work, a generator (have to ration fuel at though, but ethanol is VERY easy to make) or a couple of car batteries and you should be OK. I'm thinking we wouldn't be that cut off and would be able to communicate enough to reform communities.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not all mines will be gone. Not many places will be impassable.

Most mines wouldn't be gone, since they're away from population centers.

However, you couldn't continue mining operations in most of them using modern tech for very long, if at all. There are issues of:

1) Fuel for mining vehicles and the generators that power the lights, water pumps and air pumps. And the elevators that deliver the miners to the regions that haven't been played out.

2) Getting the miners to and from the mines. While most live in the vicinity of their places of work, they don't neccessarily work within convenient walking distance.

Exceptions exist, of course. Anything that is mined from a strip mine would be easily recovered, and strip mines would be a primary source of wealth for areas near impact sites.

Where's the forest so I can make charcoal?

The answer could be as simple as "Over there, blind man." coupled with a pointing finger to "We're in the farmlands of the plains- you're going to have to walk a few weeks." to "In the desert? Good luck!"

Oh, and we have blacksmiths in Hawaii you know.

I know. I also know that most of them import their ores and other raw materials from the mainland.

How much steel can you get from a car? Think about it.

1a) Less and less each year.

1b) None at all if it was in a city hit by a meteor. That which wasn't vaporized is still going to be buried, probably pretty deeply.

Yes, there would be all kinds of cannibalization of vehicles going on, especially once the fossil fuel reserves in the country dry up. But that is still a very finite resource. Add a little weathering to the paint job, and rust sets in, and the resource shrinks some more.

First of all they have working models. Figuring them out is easier. Encyclopedias showing the basic principles. How to books. Second one place has all the experts... a nuclear submarine or Aircraft carrier. If one nuke boat survives they have a machine shop and can power up a fabrication grid to rapidly rebuild society.

1) Models help...but they're located where?

2) People on a sub or similar vehicle docks is going to do just fine initially, and if they're nukes (or the fantasy equivalent) they're fueled up for as long as you care to think about it.

However wear and tear means they're eventually going to need spare parts for something. An Aircraft carrier's machine shop can fabricate just about anything, given the right materials.

And therin lies the rub- they go to any dock they know and its a crater...and no Naval craft with which I'm familiar carries any significant mining tools. They certainly don't have the refining capability to make new parts up to pre-ELE tech standards, and until they could, that would lead to increased wear & breakdowns.

Actually people who work at foundries know how to repair them and have the manuals to do so. Some use outside help for repairs, but those are small time operators. Most people I know who work at foundries can repair them.

And they'd have the same problems as the people in the Naval vessels, plus one more- they're more likely to be located in a population center that gets hit in the ELE.
Oh by the way making a dynamo from scratch was a class assignment in my high school electronic class, it was easy but tedious. Dunno, my cousin made a 1909 model T engine for his model T from scratch he said it wasn't very hard.

I'd bet both projects were built from near-scratch, as in using prefabricated parts. If I have parts, tools and a manual, I could probably follow the instructions, too.

But if I have to make my own parts or build the machines needed to build the parts? I'm dead, as are most people.

For the 1909 engine on a model T all you need is steel. Poor quality steel at that. Where did you learn about early internal combustion engines?

Here's what I can say about that:

According to Ford's own releases, they used Vanadium steel, the best available at the time. Vanadium wasn't discovered until the 1800s. The engine in question wasn't designed until after 8 unsuccessful prototypes.

I know nothing about internal combustion engines, but according to Lang's Old Car Parts Catalog, there's more than steel involved. Other materials listed for 1909s include felt, brass and copper, anything that goes into a thermostat or spark plug (probably copper or gold and some kind of ceramic insulator), and, of course, lubricants & fuels- petrochemicals.

An engine is a top tier technology, built by the accumulated knowledge of dozens of other engineering breakthroughs.

I'm going to make a generalization here and say people from rural areas would tend to know how to survive without technology better than those from urban areas. I would imagine in rural areas there be a lot of small farmers, who tend to be do-it-yourselfers who never throw anything away and can fix it if its broken.

I agree 100%- I've seen how my family's old farm in Covington, LA does things...

But even then, there are certain things they'd simply have to do without once intercity/interstate/international commerce breaks down. Where they are, they'd probably have petrochemicals few others would have access to, but once things start to rust out, there wouldn't be a new source for replacement parts. There is precious little mining and refining of ferrous metals in Louisiana.

So I think this doesn;t take into account connunication devices like short wave radios.

Or, for that matter, magical communication.

Such methods greatly accellerate the rebuild, to be sure. Other bits of magic, like teleporting, will also help out.

But any powerful spellcaster would be also be as much a prime candidate for direct targeting by the Illithids as a military base- remember, they've got intelligence maps & histories to guide them.

 

[Warren Okuma]

Most mines wouldn't be gone, since they're away from population centers.

However, you couldn't continue mining operations in most of them using modern tech for very long, if at all. There are issues of:

1) Fuel for mining vehicles and the generators that power the lights, water pumps and air pumps. And the elevators that deliver the miners to the regions that haven't been played out..

Pick. Walk. There are tons of small "uneconomical" deposits of coal all over the place, which the major industrial concerns ignore. Salvage solar panels or wind turbines from country homes and get those air pumps to work. Or generators and distil alcohol. Or make a steam engine. And if you can easily make an electrical generator if need be. Hell generator kits are sold to ten year olds (you did check out that link, right?). Mines will be up and running.

2) Getting the miners to and from the mines. While most live in the vicinity of their places of work, they don't neccessarily work within convenient walking distance.

They can move. Yeah it's a hardship but it beats dying from freezing.

Exceptions exist, of course. Anything that is mined from a strip mine would be easily recovered, and strip mines would be a primary source of wealth for areas near impact sites.

Yup. Centers of tech.

The answer could be as simple as "Over there, blind man." coupled with a pointing finger to "We're in the farmlands of the plains- you're going to have to walk a few weeks." to "In the desert? Good luck!"

This was a island situation, so it will not have a desert. I agree with you that desert communities are not going to fare so well. But Texas and other southern states will carry the ball. People move all the time.

I know. I also know that most of them import their ores and other raw materials from the mainland.

1a) Less and less each year.

1b) None at all if it was in a city hit by a meteor. That which wasn't vaporized is still going to be buried, probably pretty deeply.

And there is a huge junkyard full of rusting metal outside of Honolulu. Cranes, tractors, cars, trucks, rebar, and other metal junk that won't be vaporized. They don't put junkyards and dumps near the city. I donno how it's like where you live, but in Hawaii we put junkyards or trash dumps away from the city. Have you been to a major junkyard? If not I suggest you go a visit one, you are going to be in for a treat.

Yes, there would be all kinds of cannibalization of vehicles going on, especially once the fossil fuel reserves in the country dry up. But that is still a very finite resource. Add a little weathering to the paint job, and rust sets in, and the resource shrinks some more.

Eh, early combustion engines are engines easy to make, and you can distil alcohol or use bio diesel. Not like that's hard to make.

1) Models help...but they're located where?

Broken engines. Stuff in garbage dumps, stuff in junk yards. Stuff dug out of the ground.

2) People on a sub or similar vehicle docks is going to do just fine initially, and if they're nukes (or the fantasy equivalent) they're fueled up for as long as you care to think about it.

However wear and tear means they're eventually going to need spare parts for something. An Aircraft carrier's machine shop can fabricate just about anything, given the right materials.

And therin lies the rub- they go to any dock they know and its a crater...and no Naval craft with which I'm familiar carries any significant mining tools.

Correct. They have to get the communities up and running and power fabrication grids. Long enough to get technology back up and running in that small area.

They certainly don't have the refining capability to make new parts up to pre-ELE tech standards, and until they could, that would lead to increased wear & breakdowns.

All military vehicles have incredible machine shops. You can just anchor off shore and ferry stuff back and forth. When the ships wear out you salvage the machine shops.

I'd bet both projects were built from near-scratch, as in using prefabricated parts. If I have parts, tools and a manual, I could probably follow the instructions, too.

But if I have to make my own parts or build the machines needed to build the parts? I'm dead, as are most people.

We got the point that you will be dead and you will not be able to rebuild civilization. There are tons of machines out in the countyside that can do fabrication. Car repair, tractor repair, general fabrication, contractors, and customizers...quite a few of them are located outside of the city. You measure the part and fabricate it to that specs. The you fit it. If it's too big you work on it some more.

Here's what I can say about that:

According to Ford's own releases, they used Vanadium steel, the best available at the time. Vanadium wasn't discovered until the 1800s. The engine in question wasn't designed until after 8 unsuccessful prototypes.

I know nothing about internal combustion engines, but according to Lang's Old Car Parts Catalog, there's more than steel involved. Other materials listed for 1909s include felt, brass and copper, anything that goes into a thermostat or spark plug (probably copper or gold and some kind of ceramic insulator), and, of course, lubricants & fuels- petrochemicals.

You don't have to use brass and copper if you are going to make a crank start engine. Electrical start engines need copper and brass. Yes, normal carbon steel will wear out 5-15% quicker, but you can still build engines. Or you can always overbuild as well.

An engine is a top tier technology, built by the accumulated knowledge of dozens of other engineering breakthroughs.

Not really, it's a centuries old tech. And if you want to build a crank start engine, all you need is steel. My cousin built one, and he's not the smartest tool in the shed. He can't walk an chew gum at the same time.

I agree 100%- I've seen how my family's old farm in Covington, LA does things...

But even then, there are certain things they'd simply have to do without once intercity/interstate/international commerce breaks down. Where they are, they'd probably have petrochemicals few others would have access to, but once things start to rust out, there wouldn't be a new source for replacement parts. There is precious little mining and refining of ferrous metals in Louisiana.

Nah, interstate commerce will not break down. Too many work arounds such as distilling alcohol and making biodiesel. And the US oil fields will be up and running hook or by crook. All it is drilling holes and pumping out stuff, if not alcohol or biodiesel.

Let's see. If 90 percent of the population is killed, and the US has 300 million (for easy calculations) that means 30 million people are left. So there are millions of vehicles left. Trade stops? In some places, yes, but in most. And making alcohol and biodiesel is easy. And 30 million people means that they have a lot of stuff to rebuild society.

Or, for that matter, magical communication.

Such methods greatly accellerate the rebuild, to be sure. Other bits of magic, like teleporting, will also help out.

But any powerful spellcaster would be also be as much a prime candidate for direct targeting by the Illithids as a military base- remember, they've got intelligence maps & histories to guide them.

Rope trick or the like. The secretive paranoids are going to survive.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Pick. Walk. There are tons of small "uneconomical" deposits of coal all over the place, which the major industrial concerns ignore. Salvage solar panels or wind turbines from country homes and get those air pumps to work. Or generators and distil alcohol. Or make a steam engine. And if you can easily make an electrical generator if need be. Hell generator kits are sold to ten year olds (you did check out that link, right?). Mines will be up and running. (etc.)

I've actually toured mines in a few countries.

Unless its a strip mine, a new mine, or some kind of material found close to the surface (like certain salt mines or the Royston Turquoise Mine) you can't simply walk into a mine and start working anymore- everything near the surface has played out.

Most modern coal mines generally involve going down a vertical shaft via a generator-powered lift or in an angled powered rail system. It has electrical lights. They're deep enough that air needs to be pumped in, and often, water needs to be pumped out. You'd have to build quite an array of alternative energy sources to power all those systems- you might be able to scour the county and come up with the neccessary stuff by cannibalizing all of the farms. But that's assuming things like solar panels still produce viable amounts of power after being battered by ejecta, and that the windmills are still standing after the ELE. (Yes, you can build an old-style windmill, but I honestly have ZERO idea how you'd get it to generate electricity...and if you're in someplace like Arizona or Kansas, you might not have the right lumber to build one of a size.)

Currently, the two main reasons coal deposits are not economical to recover are depth and nature preservation efforts. Again, not things you could just walk up into and start digging with a pick.

Then, of course most operational mines would be in the hands of the world's subterranean races- if not before the ELE, then definitely after.

All military vehicles have incredible machine shops. You can just anchor off shore and ferry stuff back and forth.

Again, from where? Like the saying goes, "There's no there there."

Any deepwater port capable of handling a sub or aircraft carrier would be a primary target. The city would be a meteoric crater (or cluster of several) surrounded by wasteland, and whatever metal is there would be deposited in a fine sedimentary layer over miles of countryside.

They don't put junkyards and dumps near the city. I donno how it's like where you live, but in Hawaii we put junkyards or trash dumps away from the city. Have you been to a major junkyard? If not I suggest you go a visit one, you are going to be in for a treat.

Actually, yes.

I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. I've been to several of the junkyards & landfills in the area. There's one in Lewisville near Coppell (where I live), and Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie is built over one* that was closed just before I moved here from Irving (just north of it). Irving & Grapevine both have many huge scrapyards and auto salvage centers. If you look at a D/FW map, you'd see that all of those areas are well within the "mega-city" formed by D/FW and their suburbs.

When I lived in Robinson Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany, there was a smallish dump right on the base.

Any of those places would be gone in the Illithid's strike.

Like the island vs desert scenario, this is obviously something that would vary depending upon location.

*Which raises the other point- you can't salvage from a landfill you don't know exists. Lone Star Park is just one example of the trend to cover dumps with usable spaces, like baseball diamonds and parks...and most people don't even realize what they're walking on.

You don't have to use brass and copper if you are going to make a crank start engine.

Fair enough...but you still have to lube it, and most animal-derived oils burn after only a few minutes at the temps within an engine.

(An engine is) it's a centuries old tech

Old, yes. But still a pinnacle tech in the sense that you can only have engines after developing several interim technologies, like smelting of ores and refining fuels. If you lack some of those techs, you may still be able to keep one running for a while, but eventually it will be unrepairable.

Nah, interstate commerce will not break down.

Sure it would, at least temporarily. Most major freeways would be cratered at least when they pass through population centers, and you'd have no working railways for the same reasons (before you point it out, the trains and rails are both VERY likely sources of refined metals that could be recycled).

In a place like Texas, you'd still have a network of Farm to Market roads that would unite a lot of small towns, but even those would have significant damage- they also tie into the major highways entering the cities.

Effectively, you'd be back to the frontier-eral transport- without trains! And trains were the major (almost exclusive) mode of interstate commerce in that time.

Rope trick or the like. The secretive paranoids are going to survive.

They'd have to be aware of the attack.

Sure, the better Oracles (arcane and divine) would be raising the alarm, but how many people- even spellcasters- would believe warnings about octopus headed beings from the future ending the world by dropping rocks from beyond the sky...

...much less believing that anyone could drop enough rocks to level a city, much less the world...

...from beyond the sky...

...and octopus headed? Who ever heard of such a thing...

...and, for that matter, who ever takes oracles literally, anyway?

When was the last time you saw someone word their Contingency to avoid that kind of fate?

Its Jor-El warning his fellow Kryptonians all over again.

 

[Slife]

Sure, the better Oracles (arcane and divine) would be raising the alarm, but how many people- even spellcasters- would believe warnings about octopus headed beings from the future ending the world by dropping rocks from beyond the sky...

...much less believing that anyone could drop enough rocks to level a city, much less the world...

...from beyond the sky...

...and octopus headed? Who ever heard of such a thing...

...and, for that matter, who ever takes oracles literally, anyway?

When was the last time you saw someone word their Contingency to avoid that kind of fate?

Its Jor-El warning his fellow Kryptonians all over again.

Hmm... everyone who has in the past predicted the future successfully are now saying that squid-headed beings from the future are going to try to destroy humanity... well, they're all 100% unreliable, and everybody disbelieves them. They're less credible than those guys talking about Roswell. Even that time when they said "a flood is going to overwhelm Monstropolis at 5:12 PM on Saturday, the fourteenth of November, 324" and it did. It was just luck, really. Besides, there's no spell that lets them contact otherworldly beings who have a divine portfolio giving them advance knowledge of the future.

It's a good thing that there aren't any spells that can create matter out of nothing with no material component. That would really be bad. Especially since those spells could be cast repetitively.

And it's really too bad no spells exist which would allow someone to survive in hard vacuum, or, say, transport themselves to an arbitrary location, or look at places they aren't.

Well, it's not like there are several hundred other beings that are like humans, but with animal parts. Let alone evil ones. Who would ever think of such a thing existing. And it's not like anybody has ever created magic that can screw with time, let alone magic that could be known about with a DC 30 knowledge check.

And when was the last time you've seen a contingency that hasn't been vague enough to cover all possible forms of imminent death. "If I am about to be hit by an object, creature, or effect which would kill me, teleport me into my secret underground lair out in the middle of nowhere."

 

[Warren Okuma]

I've actually toured mines in a few countries.

Unless its a strip mine, a new mine, or some kind of material found close to the surface (like certain salt mines or the Royston Turquoise Mine) you can't simply walk into a mine and start working anymore- everything near the surface has played out.

Most modern coal mines generally involve going down a vertical shaft via a generator-powered lift or in an angled powered rail system. It has electrical lights. They're deep enough that air needs to be pumped in, and often, water needs to be pumped out. You'd have to build quite an array of alternative energy sources to power all those systems- you might be able to scour the county and come up with the neccessary stuff by cannibalizing all of the farms.

Most mines I toured have two backup generators. All you need to do is make biodiesel or alcohol. It's there as a safety feature. I think it is mandated by law or the unions. They have two back up generators, so they can keep mining during power failures because closing a mine during a power failure means that they are throwing away money. Greed. Oh and safety... yeah right. Those KCA (Kentucky Coal Association) guys.

But that's assuming things like solar panels still produce viable amounts of power after being battered by ejecta, and that the windmills are still standing after the ELE. (Yes, you can build an old-style windmill, but I honestly have ZERO idea how you'd get it to generate electricity...and if you're in someplace like Arizona or Kansas, you might not have the right lumber to build one of a size.).

Windmills can be repaired and not all solar cells will be destroyed.

Currently, the two main reasons coal deposits are not economical to recover are depth and nature preservation efforts. Again, not things you could just walk up into and start digging with a pick.

Wrong, the main reason that some coal deposits are not economical is because the deposit is too small. It takes money to start up and a small deposit is not economical. That's according to my friends uncle who is a prospector.

Then, of course most operational mines would be in the hands of the world's subterranean races- if not before the ELE, then definitely after.

Nah, not the surface ones.

Again, from where? Like the saying goes, "There's no there there."

Any deepwater port capable of handling a sub or aircraft carrier would be a primary target. The city would be a meteoric crater (or cluster of several) surrounded by wasteland, and whatever metal is there would be deposited in a fine sedimentary layer over miles of countryside.

I only expect an average of five to ten mile devastation inland on the average. You are talking about 90% casualties, not 100% right? And running a power line 100 miles is not that bad. And anchoring off shore is not very hard, it just sucks in a storm.

I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. I've been to several of the junkyards & landfills in the area. There's one in Lewisville near Coppell (where I live), and Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie is built over one* that was closed just before I moved here from Irving (just north of it). Irving & Grapevine both have many huge scrapyards and auto salvage centers. If you look at a D/FW map, you'd see that all of those areas are well within the "mega-city" formed by D/FW and their suburbs.

When I lived in Robinson Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany, there was a smallish dump right on the base.

Any of those places would be gone in the Illithid's strike.

I see your problem. You are not modeling the impact accurately.

The average impact will yield about 80,000,000,000,000,000 Joules of energy right? Give or take. For a ninety percent casualty rate. It can go slightly larger, but you risk total extinction considering the amount of targets you have... which yields... lemmie dig out my impact effects formulas... hmmm...

Within a three and a half mile radius an over pressure of 20+ Pounds per square inch: Total devastation, the area is leveled. Maybe a few shock cocoon structures may survive. Poor salvage. 98%+ killed.

Out to about ten and a half miles radius you will get oh... on average 5 pounds per square inch: Destruction of most buildings and 40%+ killed. Average salvage.

Out to 29 miles, you will get on average a 1 PSI blast: Damage to most buildings, and excellent salvage. 2.1%+ killed.

So take a map and see where it hits. The blasts are going to overlap. If your dump is four miles from the strike, salvage will be average.

Like the island vs desert scenario, this is obviously something that would vary depending upon location.

*Which raises the other point- you can't salvage from a landfill you don't know exists. Lone Star Park is just one example of the trend to cover dumps with usable spaces, like baseball diamonds and parks...and most people don't even realize what they're walking on.

But you know, and now I know. And maybe five percent of the pop in Texas knows. Especially the protestors, some legislators, park employees, sanitation engineers, etc....and the neighbors and their friends and...

Fair enough...but you still have to lube it, and most animal-derived oils burn after only a few minutes at the temps within an engine.

Not too bad of a problem. Processed plant derived oils. And start up the oil wells.

Old, yes. But still a pinnacle tech in the sense that you can only have engines after developing several interim technologies, like smelting of ores and refining fuels. If you lack some of those techs, you may still be able to keep one running for a while, but eventually it will be unrepairable.

All the interim technologies are easy to get up and running. I agree some tech will be unrepairable. And yeah you are going to have to settle for WW2 era tech for a while. Oh well.

Sure it would, at least temporarily. Most major freeways would be cratered at least when they pass through population centers, and you'd have no working railways for the same reasons (before you point it out, the trains and rails are both VERY likely sources of refined metals that could be recycled).

Some places would not even lose their roads. (see my impact effect table or let's see yours) Yeah some places will be isolated for years.

In a place like Texas, you'd still have a network of Farm to Market roads that would unite a lot of small towns, but even those would have significant damage- they also tie into the major highways entering the cities.

Some will, some won't. See my impact effect table. You are thinking a 100% kill rock (you've got to take into account the secondary blast effects you know). Think ninety percent KIA rock. Totally destroyed roads means totally destroyed people. Eh been driving on damaged roads forever.

Effectively, you'd be back to the frontier-eral transport- without trains! And trains were the major (almost exclusive) mode of interstate commerce in that time.

In some places yes. Not everywhere.

They'd have to be aware of the attack.

Hell no. My arcane spell casters just love to live in Mordenkanin's Magnificent mansion. Casting that is status. Rope trick is an effective anti theft/anti-scrying spell and gives privacy and security. Especially female spell casters. Pervs you know. And magic spam and junk mail.

Sure, the better Oracles (arcane and divine) would be raising the alarm, but how many people- even spellcasters- would believe warnings about octopus headed beings from the future ending the world by dropping rocks from beyond the sky...

So mind flayers are almost extinct and never seen? People can't use a celestron telescope to check it out the sky?

...much less believing that anyone could drop enough rocks to level a city, much less the world...

...from beyond the sky....

There are space flight today. And sats, and telescopes, and TV programs warning of asteroid strikes. And amateur skywatchers. Hell I know amateurs with 12 inch telescopes who would check out anything. And they love to find asteroids and regularly talk to NASA and they are more chatty than teenage girls. Speed dial NASA. Some people.

...and octopus headed? Who ever heard of such a thing...

Nobody goes adventuring underground anymore? What?

...and, for that matter, who ever takes oracles literally, anyway?

You would be surprised on how many people believe in ghosts, UFO's, Bigfoot, etc....

When was the last time you saw someone word their Contingency to avoid that kind of fate?

Its Jor-El warning his fellow Kryptonians all over again.

Oh... the people that can't look though a telescope? Come on. They committed mass suicide IMHO.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Before responding, I do have a question about the early crank engines, Okuma.

I can understand that a crank engine sparks fuel in the chamber on startup, but how does it work with only steel? As I recall, steel on steel doesn't spark well. What is the actual sparking mechanism?

All you need to do is make biodiesel or alcohol.

Personally, I can't really do either...and one of my Great Uncles makes his own 'shine. (I know I'm a dissapointment.) I mean, I know the general ingredients, but not the process.

I suspect few people actually possess that knowledge.

That's according to my friends uncle who is a prospector.

I studied the Oil & Gas industry as part of my education at UT Austin School of Law under Ernest Smith ( http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/profiles.php ), including the details of what makes a mine profitable, secondary & tertiary recovery methods, etc.

According to him, even small deposits get worked by someone if they're near the surface or otherwise easily recoverable. There is always a company/community/person for whom mining such a deposit would make economic sense.

Nah, not the surface ones.

Most O&G mines are not surface mines.

Some coal is mined at the surface in some areas, usually by strip or mountain top removal processes, in which heavy machinery does the heavy digging down to the coal- typically 1000 feet down or so- before anyone just walks up and starts working with a pick.

Still, you might be able to keep mining the coal at a subsistence level that prevents you from having to cannibalize your paper goods.

I only expect an average of five to ten mile devastation inland on the average. You are talking about 90% casualties, not 100% right?

90% casualties overall- distribution of survivors would be lumpy, not evenly spread. Cities would be flattened (well, cratered, really) but rural areas would be relatively untouched, so casualties in and nearby cities would be basically 100%, but in rural areas, possibly as little as 10%.

So the problem remains.

I see your problem. You are not modeling the impact accurately. <snip many accurate facts>

Its not a question of impact modelling.

The Illithids are coming from the future with a plan to utterly destroy the surface civilization, leaving only enough people for thralls & snacktime.

Thus they will know how many and will use as many rocks as it takes to do the job of thoroughly annihilating the cities & major targets of the surface world.

But you know, and now I know. And...

It doesn't matter what I know, it matters what % of the survivors know.

Your list made me think about skewed demographics. Given that rural areas would be fairly untouched, many modern nations would find themselves in a situation in which the bulk of survivors would be:

1) Farmers, Ranchers & survivalists who live out there most of the time...

and

2) Outdoorsmen and others who vacation out there, including a disproportionate number of wealthy & politicians. Which reminds me of Douglas Adams's books...
tart up the oil wells.

So mind flayers are almost extinct and never seen?

No, as per Lords of Madness, Illithids don't exist at all in the here and now until they come back in time and start trying to hasten the rise of their kind in the future.

In this campaign, that will be right after the ELE.

...and, for that matter, who ever takes oracles literally, anyway?

You would be surprised on how many people believe in ghosts, UFO's, Bigfoot, etc...

And how many people in authority or power actually take them seriously enough to do anything about the impending UFO/Bigfoot Invasion?

The point is that historically, oracles are seldom given creedence. In a fantasy world, there would be more people who did so, but the question is how many and what could/would they do?

Oh... the people that can't look though a telescope?

Just drawing from current reality- we currently have more observational power than ever before, and yet we still have cataloged fewer than 1% of objects capable of ending life on Earth...AND most of what we've detected we can't do anything about because we:

1) Lack the tech

and/or

2) Haven't detected them at a range at which we could do something usefeul about them IF we have the tech.