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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 3960609" data-attributes="member: 19675">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?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.I studied the Oil & Gas industry as part of my education at UT Austin School of Law under Ernest Smith ( <a href="http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/profiles.php" target="_blank">http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/profiles.php</a> ), 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.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.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.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.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.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 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? 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 techand/or2) Haven't detected them at a range at which we could do something usefeul about them IF we have the tech.</blockquote>

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