synodiporia_ooc | Jaunt Restart Planning OOC Post

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~slivers & shards

Jaunt Restart Planning OOC Post

Given that the actual IC post for deciding where people are going to be put back when the Jaunt restarts has gotten very long and very confusing, we're making an OOC post for everyone to talk about what to do OOCly. Hopefully this one will be easier to follow!

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If you've got or have discovered plot information you want to share, put it here.

Edited 2020-01-09 09:45 (UTC)

Bernkastel used her Oracle of Probability powers here to determine that they have a much, much better chance of receiving actual useful help from Fallen Wrath than from any other Spire, with Fallen Heaven and Lodestar a distant second and third.

Like, Katadorlandia is 70% compared to 55% from the other two, it’s ridiculous.

I'm just copying both of them here since I'm at work and why switch journals?

"Naoya would like to use Opportunity for Renewal to find a new path forward. I'd think that the need to run from the Nation-Eaters is a pretty damn big loss."

"Boy howdy, does it ever.

Okay. The existing paths Travelers have suggested have fallen along three basic lines:
1) Destroy the Nation Eaters
2) Empower the Vale with enough psychic power to defend itself, if possible
3) Teach the residents of the Vale to avoid detection

And the existing paths suggested for the problem of the dying earth have largely been:
1) give the Vale the technology, knowledge, or resources to jumpstart their ecology

The way Opportunity for Renewal works, it won't suggest anything along those lines. It looks for the new answer, not the best answer.

The new answer is:
1) Get these people out of the Vale."

And

"Path to Profit - What would it take to destroy all of the Nation Eaters?"

"Options:
-decrease the earth's mass by 67%
-expand the earth's volume by 50%
-demagnetize the earth's core
-cool the earth's mantle until it solidifies

While this seems ridiculous at first, Casper will develop a new idea as a result of this...

What exactly does the data set 'all the Nation Eaters' comprise?"

There were two big group Sifts recently - I shared the info on plurk, but in case people haven't seen those I'm posting the results here as well. I'll put them in seperate comments in case people want to add anything to one or the other.

On the Shadow Tower data:

the available data is not a complete inventory of all knowledge about aquaculture, delving, and rail transit - it's essentially the map data on the second floor, and the browser cache on the fifth floor - everything that was taken offline to be cross-referenced or researched in the months or years before the rebellion. This is still a huge and useful amount of data, but it isn't enough to rebuild the psychic technologies and knowledge of the Protectorate completely.
the Towers have the same layout. Floor one: foyer/security. Floor two: cartography/map data. Floor three: office space. Floor four: material storage, including material cached by executives. Floor five: shade server backup data & ongoing research & computation projects. The index crystals are missing; sorting the raw data is work for about a dozen Factors to take about a year on (for all living Factors... still about a week). Floor six is power, broadcasting, and the link to the rail network. Those big, semi-collapsible open-sided trapezoids are Protectorate boxcars.
the energy stored in the Shadow Towers would be sufficient to run utilities for a few weeks, but it's not meant as long-term storage - just a distribution hub for nightly dreampush energy from tens of thousands. It's not clear if there are enough people left alive to power even the Vale-wide irrigation network indefinitely. That said, concentrating people in a smaller area would allow that area to restore utilities... but it would also draw Nation Eaters faster.
those origami robots are far beyond the capabilities of Protectorate technology or understanding.

On the environmental data:

The Earth has lost about 83% of its original water. The Vale is making do with about 4% of its original water, but 17% of the original water still exists, just not on the surface. This means, under ideal conditions, if 100% of water was clean and available, the Vale could produce around 4x as much food as it does now, the equivalent of 6 inches of rain in a year.
most of that water is deep under the soil in the bottoms of the original oceans. Any surface water would be likeliest, and cleanest, near the Earth's poles.
using Tower records to locate water, excavate, and irrigate, and combined Traveler scientific knowledge, it is possible to pump enough water from the bottom of the Mediterranean to sustain life in the Vale for several thousand years, if a power source equivalent to 30,000 humans (about half the Vale) dreampushing is provided. This is about 1 megawatt, if one seeks alternative power sources.
however, that amount of psychic power is well above what it takes to draw a Nation Eater, and not enough to do that AND create Protectorate=style shields (which only sometimes stopped Nation Eater attacks).
The two viable solutions appear to be moving the inhabitants of the Vale to another location, where water is more available, or providing an adequate alternate power source.
The water at the bottom of the Mediterranean would have to be cleaned of radioactive material - it's possible that thorium fission reactors or thermionic batteries could be created. However, there's no obvious way within the timespan of a Jaunt to retrieve that material, build a sufficient material infrastructure, or teach the Vale to safely use nuclear power.

This is less world-shatteringly widescale informative than the other power uses here, but Gil still used Path to Profit to try and work out how to make a more efficient battery for the Magnators.

Gil wants to use Path to Profit to work out how the locals, with particular focus on Magnators, Nectors and known information on the Towers, would be able to make more efficient batteries than their shitty vinegar ones. His goal is a car battery but he presumes that's not especially realistic, given the circumstances, and will be happy with like. A D-cell or AA equivalent.

Nectors could fabricate everything needed for molten salt thermal batteries - desalination work is already a big part of that they do. They need to be hot to work, but could be stored near campfires, ovens, and forges to gather charge. Sodium thermal batteries are about 3 volts; double a D cell, and are rechargeable. The battery needs to be welded shut; but compared to acid-based batteries, the technology needed is simple. A heated battery discharges electricity as it cools and has a lifespan of a few hours.
Batteries like this would not be very portable, given temperatures, but could easily be public utilities - one at every cookfire or oven.

Using information from the Towers, it would also be possible to build deep-sea wells that draw up thorium-contaminated water. The thorium, cleaned out of the water, could be used in nuclear thermal batteries - but that's a much higher level of tech.

Definitely not plot-shaking but probably relevant if fighting a Nation Eater winds up being a go, Liara's Sift on the Nation Eaters' data showed that they're vulnerable to electrical attack and interference, but are strengthened by heat and pressure.

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