Finally, now we can have a normal discussion.
(Also thousandth post yay)
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Ah the relief.
so anyways, one last thing:
ah good, correct. i mean assuming we’re both talking about complex games. i have civ 5, and read the bare minimum of any important looking tutorial blurb, and that worked fine, in contrast for super luigi u i just play the goddam game, its a mario title, no one expects a tutorial. we arent in a making a mario game community we’re in a ‘civ 35 with stellaris strapped on top and proceduraly generated ancestor:a humankind odyssey and thrive as it stands rn attached on the bottom’ making community.
good talk, maybe we dont continue in in a week? you see by then i’ll be done with college and won’t have anything to avoid doing by hanging out on the forum (this is a joke i’ll still have people to avoid)
Also I don’t remember any arguments against floating forges very well could someone tell me why they are utterly impossible please?
That’s a little imposible, you know? I think the max level you can reach playing as an underwater Civ is Society Stage, and maybe, gets a little near Industrial (some kind of simple mass production).
This post was made 2 hour before the limit, don’t kill me.
My idea is do it how the Tool Breeders from All Tomorrows did it just breed animals as tools
That’s the idea everyone’s been working with but we all try to find holes in it to get past that idea. That’s what this whole thread is. The only person who doesn’t accept that as a premise to be subverted or backed up is burgeon. Of course you think it’s just plain impossible, which I think most of us agree with until a cool and original idea comes into being that we subscribe to until people shoot it down.
Highly impossible. Breeding isn’t a magic wand, animals can’t do everything. Try getting to space on the back of an animal. It really doesn’t work. Even if an animal happened to evolve a non-oxygen reliant propulsion system that was powerful enough to lift it off the surface (a stupidly unlikely idea) the square-cube law prevents them from growing to any size, and the rocket equation jumps on the theoretical critter when it’s down, as does the need to breathe, eat, drink, and refuel. As does the need to use computers to calculate orbits, and telescopes to even know what space is, and microscopes (and electron microscopes) to understand genetics, while engines, metal gearboxes, metal wheels, advanced travel networks, radio communications, and firearms (complicated pile of asterisks involving total war, forced democratization, horse tribes, and martial incentives) are needed to undergo an industrial revolution. I don’t think biotech could be as good at mechanical tech at industrial or transport needs, and you don’t go to space with medical tech. Also the underwater civ in question wouldn’t have CRISPER or anything.
Challenge accepted
you know, i feel like this thread needs a list of all refuted ideas for underwater civs
is there a list like that? or should we make one?
I made one a while back of all ideas that had been presented so far, before burgeon started discussing things. Here’s a link:
A little bit outdated because a few new ideas have been presented since then, like electric crabs and land suits, but still viable
(I actually have an idea I’m working on right now using aspects of burgeons land suits (more fully explained) and deathwakes floating forges, but I want to refine it a little before I let y’all tear it to shreds)
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we should definitely make a list like that required reading. no posting until you read all of whats been disproven first.
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Please forgive my double posting, slow mode prevents me from editing.
List with reasons attached, adapted from Twilight’s original list.
Heh big list
- Low melting point metals for Hydrothermal Vents
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- actually possible but doesnt allow anything stronger than gold.
- Forges built around vents and somehow forcing water out to increase temperature
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- Temperature caps out low.
- Scaly foot Gastropoda analog domestication for ‘metallic’ scales
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- Can’t be bred into larger shapes, and leaves you with at best two to three small, low quality pieces of metal you can make.
- Electric Eel domestication as generators
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- Voltage, amps, whatever metric uses for this, all off the measurements are utterly inconsequential when compared to the quantities needed to run an arc forge or welder.
- Bioengineering in general
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- Doesn’t adequately replace many technologies including but not limited to: firearms, steamships, computers, rockets, aircraft, engines, industrial factories, and construction with metal.
- Mechanical Computers/intermediate instruments until metalworking
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- does not allow for any real computing power or economies of scale and doesn’t explain how one would get metal.
- simple compasses /similar generators
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- does not explain how one would acquire metal.
- Current utilization w/ waterwheel to generate electricity
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- same issue as with electric eels
- Chemicals that burn in contact with water, typically isolated in caves
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- most do not burn at sufficient temperature and those that do require metals
- Anything that can burn in water/Greek fire
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- as above
- Thermite, phosphorous, etc
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- as above
- Amphibious people
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- not a true underwater civ
- Amphibious Slaves
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- either its trading with a land civ but not nicely or magically training monkeys to smelt.
- Crustacean society
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- either solves nothing or is amphibious.
- 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
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- no sufficient temperatures exist to smelt with
- 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.
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- old theory contingent on having not only both terrestrial and ice mooner geography but also smelting aluminium ore underwater somehow. not realistic.
- Water wires carry electricity when separated from other water
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- useless.
- Pressure forges force out water
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- requires oxygen, fuel, and ignition from unknown sources. pressure may not be sufficient i dont know for certain.
- Biomaterials: woody something, bones, etc.
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- Useless for going to space, computers, and random chance if a planet has anything even somewhat useful.
- Material unique to a planet
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- explain, also same issues as above.
- Fire breathing Sea dragon with a forge in lungs
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- utter fantasy, no reason one of these would evolve, and having a forge in one’s lungs tends to result in death,
- Amphibious beast of burden Carries sophont a to surface in water filled stomach/pouch
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- possible, but how does one forge from inside a frogs mouth? also societies don’t domesticate massive animals so the creature would have to be unbred, wild, tamed (read: less trained) and societies don’t tend to tame large animals without preexisting wealth,
- Bubble Forge
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- insufficient oxygen, how are bubbles made anyways, what fuel, why would a stone age civ waste time on this?
- Floating surface forges/fire
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- no idea, seems a bit crazy for a stone age civ to figure out and fuel is an issue but never seen anything damming.
- Sulfate dissolving to ‘forge’
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- i dont know this one.
- Fire in water Vapor?
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- impossible
- Black Smokers can and do melt metal and have organisms adapted to them
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- not really, like, lead maybe? dissolved aluminum maybe? nothing useful.
- Thallium Reactors
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- how in hell? also what for? poisoning everyone?
- O2 from swim bladders/lungs
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- fuel where? sufficient oxygen = nope
- Underwater launching rockets
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- made from what metal?
- Alternate Tech Trees
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- unexplained rambling. specify what you want and then we’ll shoot that down.
- Plants/Cellulose can be harder and lighter than steel, can be done irl, problem is isolating pure, mesoscopic cellulose
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- how to isolate cellulose? also doesnt make computers, steam engines, or rockets very well.
- Cold Forging/Shaping
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- shaping what metal? native gold or copper is possible but useless.
- Organism that soaks up water (to allow for space to forge)
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- life isn’t minecraft, when you remove water more rushes in.
- Fluorine vs. Oxygen Burning
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- doesnt work underwater to my knowledge but this is one im least sure of.
- CO2 bubble filter on bubble forge
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- useless.
- Uplifting
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- litterally waiting for divine intervention isnt a viable solution.
- Symbiosis w/ surface species
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- 100% possible but unlikely.
- Cave amphibians/Cave lakes forging
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- Basically amphibians with extra steps/you’d run out of oxygen.
- Forging using Cave air pockets
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- above + how do you forge? telekinisis?
- Stone Age w/ advancement but no tech (ex. Native Americans/Incans, etc.)
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- totally possible but useless you can’t get past society stage.
- Bacteria bonding accidentally to dropped stone tools near vent, same bacteria creates Iron covered tools, similar to Scaly Foot Gastropoda irl
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- super cool idea, wildly unlikely, would make incredibly low quality iron, and wouldnt be scalable.
- land suits
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- production unexplained, economies of scale needed, and land suits would most likely be mechanically impossible without metal.
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Excellent. I’ll link that post in the OP and tell everyone to read it.
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Oh man here we go again… native gold,copper, iron or nickel are usefull for constructing underwater forges with connection to the air above, and smelt other types of metals.
heres a question though, why would any underwater civ try to do that? how will they come up with the idea to make a forge in the first place?
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Any proof that they can be cold snapped into the necessary shapes?
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This thread in a nutshell The Balls Harden - YouTube
People cold forged native copper for example before hot forging was invented, into many different shapes. I dont see your point at all… as always…anyway , I pm-ed you cause of the 8 hour downtime between posts.
But could they cold forge the mwtals into the necessary shapes to make this furnace? You need to read and understand what other people write, because I never said is impossible to cold forge.
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Shoouldve realised youre nitpicking, if we assume that they could cold forge, we also assume they could make anything needed to construct that forge unless you want to be unreasonable and assume that they cant make anything we didnt make with primitive cold forging even if its theoretically possible (Like for example metal sheets of simple geometric forms)…If youre going down that path of argumentation we could also say that with the same logic:
-romans for example could never do a steam engine even if they did a steam powered toy
-humans couldnt box before boxing was invented
-humans couldnt build wheels before 4000BC
-humans couldnt make wine before 6000BC
And the list can go on ad infinitum.
Does this seem like a reasonable argument to you?
Cold forging doesn’t rely on forges. You simply need two, heavy, tough dies and the muscle power to press them together, and some metal to put in them. Granite is honestly hard enough to do the trick for gold or copper. The parts are accounted for. Ironically enough people whose whole argument is attacking assumptions don’t expect us to do the same to them and have no responses when theirs are attacked.
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So you are saying that there is no difference between the things you can make with cold “forging” and normal forging? You do realize that is a new claim you need to show evidence for, right?
That is only if cold forging can actually be used to make the parts needed, which you showed no proof of, now that I think about it, you never actually explained how this forge would actually work.
This seems like a strawman to me, you are misinterpreting my argument.
And where is this nitpicking? There literally is nothing to nitpick at.
I indeed agree, have you noticed the 8 hour slowdown?
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