And heavy ropes even lower.
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Non-magical fantasy subways
- Thread starter Whizbang Dustyboots
- Start date
Paul Farquhar
Legend
As @aramis erak said, ropes are too stretchy for most heavy engineering purposes (unless you use fantasy materials).
aramis erak
Legend
The issue with natural fiber (and most synthetic fiber) ropes is springiness vs friction+inertia. On a long enough run, the rope won't move the train for up to several seconds, then elastic rebound jerks as inertia is overcome... whiplash is not fun.
Also, if the rope's elastic limit is reached before overcoming friction+inertia, the rope snaps and can potentially kill; wire is more deadly when it snaps, but modern cable car cables are strong enough that the cable-clamp breaks before the cable. Still, SF has to retension frequently due to cable stretch. (IIRC, weekly.)
Elasticity is good on a belay line, bad on a hoist line or motive line.
TaranTheWanderer
Legend
What about magnetic? A big metal train floating in a tunnel and the surrounding tunnel rock is some kind of magnetic material. If the train has its own magnets on board and then flips them in ways to propel the train by using attraction or repulsion.
Since it’s a fantasy world you can hand waive the details but have basics. It would be very tricky for people wearing armour and carrying metal items. Unless the materials of the train weren’t specifically magnetic. Maybe the type of rock only attracts and repels a specific material.
Or, it could all be done with psionics. Using telekinesis. Maybe the walls and the train are alive. Maybe the train whole system is a hive mind that’s been grown or adapted to have worked as a symbiotic relationship with the previous culture. Maybe it doesn’t work anymore because there isn’t enough intellects around to power it. So, if the pcs come across it, its use is limited. But smarter PCs can make it work faster and better.
Since it’s a fantasy world you can hand waive the details but have basics. It would be very tricky for people wearing armour and carrying metal items. Unless the materials of the train weren’t specifically magnetic. Maybe the type of rock only attracts and repels a specific material.
Or, it could all be done with psionics. Using telekinesis. Maybe the walls and the train are alive. Maybe the train whole system is a hive mind that’s been grown or adapted to have worked as a symbiotic relationship with the previous culture. Maybe it doesn’t work anymore because there isn’t enough intellects around to power it. So, if the pcs come across it, its use is limited. But smarter PCs can make it work faster and better.
I understand perfectly. However, the reality is, even if a material is flawed, it may still be the best thing available for the purpose. After all, heavy hemp mooring ropes were the maritime standard for centuries for reasons, even (or especially) for the largest of ships.
Hell, even today, when nylons and other synthetics have replaced hemp in mooring ropes for the most part, ropes are still what’s used for tying of ships in modern times. And yes, they DO fail- sometimes, spectacularly. Lethally.
I was trying to find the AI-narrated safety PSA I coincided just watched a couple days ago of mooring systems failing but couldn’t. In it, you see things like mooring posts being launched like cannonballs into the sides of ships pulling away from the dock as well as people being knocked down by flailing broken ropes. One clip included a safety demo of a test dummy cut in half by a large broken mooring rope end whipping through the air.
But ropes still get used, probably because of cost and weight issues.
aramis erak
Legend
I've seen the USN training film of a beautiful #3 catch-wire trap (carrier's aircraft arresting gear) failing and causing an involuntary bolter (missed landing) ... and slicing a crewman where he shouldn't have been in half... just before the camera takes the other end. It was either Korea or 'Nam era. I knew a nam era photographers mate - he lost a camera to a trap-wire fail.
As for mooring lines, the give is a benefit there. Or so my Naval Science I-IV instructors kept telling us. The sea is never truly still, and you need that give when moored to the dock, because the ship's also always moving... at the very least, up and down with the tides.
The give is also useful for hangings... as Gunny B. said, "the jerk at the end ends the jerk on the end." (Sadly, most post 1800 hangings have not been deserved, IMO. At least not in the US. Most US hangings have been domestic terrorist acts, going back before that term...)
Imagining what this would look like made my morning. Ty!
Always moving, you say?
Let me show you the paternoster:
That’s an elevator system that is in constant motion. The same principle- including all of the obvious problems with such a system- could still be applied along a horizontal plane as opposed to vertical.
It might look a bit more like a moving walkway, but it could still fit the purpose.
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Paul Farquhar
Legend
My university library had a paternoster. Terrifying thing, I took the stairs.
Pater Noster is presumably also a prayer a Christian might say before getting into one of those apparent deathtraps.
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