Platinum can be found in native form, and has a melting point of ~1750 Celsius, iron has ~1550 Celsius melting point, there’s a ~200C gap.
Additionally, irons specific heat is 0.45 Joules per gram, humans can output ~100 watts with a generator, it would only take a few minutes for a human to melt a kilo of iron, under ideal conditions.
Accounting for inefficiencies, it would only take a few dozen laborers to melt iron using electricity.
You can exploit platinum to act as a heater that won’t melt while the iron does.
It may be possible to smeltle the meltle (Under extremely contrived conditions, and assuming you solved the short circuit problem, and this may fall apart if the loss of heat due to water is too great)!
Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
528
That’s with 100% efficiency. A large chunk of the manpower would be lost, a large chunk of the electricity traveling to the zapper spot, and a horrendous amount of heat would be lost, especially underwater. It might work though (with better insulation and more people to throw at the problem), and that would be awesome.
But why would the civ do it? For reference, Mayas never invented the wheel because they didnt have any use for it, so, why would a primitive underwater civ go on its way to search for very rare materials, use a lot of their time and artisans to build something they basically dont have any obvious use for?
Hey, chopstick extensions for airpods exist, and they have no use.
Also the people could be under the influence of something while inventing and making it.
So I learned of this a few weeks ago, but forgot to post; apparently smelting oxides requires a reducing agent, such as carbon monoxide or hydrogen, normally carbon monoxide is present because (char)coal is also the source of heat, a platinum smelter couldn’t do this, it would be one hell of a copper smelter though.
Maybe you could electrolyze water to make hydrogen gas, and use that, but this is getting blatantly ridiculous.
So I just finished scrolling and double checking all three threads about underwater civilizations, and while I don’t have any full thesis and fully thought out ideas on the subject (though I am of the opinion they can exist) I noticed several instances where people bemoaned having to scroll through for all of the already done ideas, and wished a list was compiled but didn’t want to do it themselves.
I figured I might as well do that, and have compiled a list in miscellaneous order of proposed ideas, that have been discussed, some having been disproven and some not.
Here we go:
Low melting point metals for Hydrothermal Vents
Forges built around vents and somehow forcing water out to increase temperature
Scaly foot Gastropoda analog domestication for ‘metallic’ scales
Electric Eel domestication as generators
Bioengineering in general
Mechanical Computers/intermediate instruments until metalworking
simple compasses /similar generators
Current utilization w/ waterwheel to generate electricity
Chemicals that burn in contact with water, typically isolated in caves
Anything that can burn in water/Greek fire
Thermite, phosphorous, etc
Amphibious people
Amphibious Slaves
Crustacean society
Crustaceans utilizing mostly seamless (only seams adapted to release extra heat/allow limb movement) going by mid ocean ridges to avoid predators and eventually smelting
Octopi in shallows to Squid in depths symbiosis, idea specifically also had them on a Europa like planet and thinking about space by firing extremophile microbes through geysers, making rockets via ceramic plating and limpet teeth analogs.
Water wires carry electricity when separated from other water
Pressure forges force out water
Biomaterials: woody something, bones, etc.
Material unique to a planet
Fire breathing Sea dragon with a forge in lungs
Amphibious beast of burden Carrie’s sophont a to surface in water filled stomach/pouch
Bubble Forge
Floating surface forges/fire
Sulfate dissolving to ‘forge’
Fire in water Vapor?
Black Smokers can and do melt metal and have organisms adapted to them
Thallium Reactors
O2 from swim bladders/lungs
Underwater launching rockets
Alternate Tech Trees
Plants/Cellulose can be harder and lighter than steel, can be done irl, problem is isolating pure, mesoscopic cellulose
Cold Forging/Shaping
Organism that soaks up water (to allow for space to forge)
Fluorine vs. Oxygen Burning
CO2 bubble filter on bubble forge
Uplifting
Symbiosis w/ surface species
Cave amphibians/Cave lakes forging
Forging using Cave air pockets
Stone Age w/ advancement but no tech (ex. Native Americans/Incans, etc.
Bacteria bonding accidentally to dropped stone tools near vent, same bacteria creates Iron covered tools, similar to Scaly Foot Gastropoda irl
Thought I might add in my own two cents, surprisingly oil is not once discussed even once, and it occurs naturally seeping from the sea floor.
Hope this is helpful to somebody.
6 Likes
Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
534
Dam- this is pretty thorough. Much appreciated. As for oil I think that would be really useful for getting to space without fire i.e. Europa type world through gysers with ceramic or wooden rockets, or sea launch rockets to ship all the massive economies of scale needed or whatnot, despite those two being utterly rediculous theories oil helps them out. Also oil is good for storing really flammable things, especially those that burn underwater. I think oil might help with the floating forges idea, I mean it’s not hot enough to melt much, but it’s way easier to burn oil than damp driftwood by a longshot, so that could get a society quite good at fire until they get some coal or thermite or something that can reliably burn how enough to smelt iron or other metals needed to get far on the tech tree. I think that either floating forges or trading with surface civs are the most likely scenarios, like for real no one had any really good arguments against them, aside from yk “why would two civs be on the same planet” and “that’s super spicific like very unlikely” which doesn’t actully change anything. It doesn’t need to be probable, likely, or easy, just somewhat doable. Also as for the two civs being implausible thing, take fire hawks, birds witch use fire, or Parrots or dolphins or crows or other primates. Given a few million years and humans sticking to a single biome, that would be super reasonable. Especial trading with a pre-existing aquatic civ to skip across the tech tree until they surpass the older civ. And a stone age hunter gatherer or farming villages can last millions of years without going extinct or accending by way of being too smart. Especial if there’s a hard limit on tech. So yeah. It’s a numbers game and one or two civs could pull it off using one of the two lamest methods easily. Also amphibious civs are disqualified for being lazy and not doing it underwater. My worldbuilding project has underwater cities on this one planet and I don’t count the speicies on it as a underwater civ. It did all the smelting on the islands. So yeah
hear me out, lava snails. they have iron shells and live underwater if the player lets say evolves a creature to produce iron shells and shed them they would have usable iron right there. by making their creature have many shell shapes (or have the shells be made of individually shedding strips (or both)) they could use this as their method of metal acquisition.
Idk maybe creatures that are made of metal and fill in space? so you could basically make a mold and have it grow into it
Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
539
Um- and biotech is suddenly feasible. Then again, useless without welding and that doesn’t work for computers or engines or rockets. At best you’ve pushed the issue from nothing past neolithic to nothing past iron age.
@TwilightWings21 knapping I assume. Primitive af lol. I recommend taming an noc like this so you can breed them into any shape.
1 Like
Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
540
I don’t know what your talking about I was talking about the player designing their species to have shaped iron (or other metals if possible) shells for every purpose they can need metal for.
But they wouldn’t be able to use that metal for anything but basic tools
Making a Neolithic or simple tools Civ is already determined to be possible, but not something industrial or space stage
The problem with your idea is that there is no way to shape the metal into various different desired shapes, only a select amount by breaking the metal.
