EMPIRE! CWBG VIII: It's Not An Event Without A Few Corpses

[BladeofObliviom]

Entirely personally, I raised an eyebrow at the giant osmium statue. A statue of that size would contain more osmium by volume (and therefore much more by mass) than all the gold there is on Earth - and not just a bit more, hundreds if not thousands of times more. This would have a corresponding effect on market value, to the extent that osmium would be worth a lot less than gold, and very possibly less than baser metals given its abundance and limited application.

Given that osmium is also extremely heat-resistant and hard to manipulate while solid, to the extent it's only become useful relatively recently in human history, I'm not sure how such a statue would even be created (magic, I guess?), let alone how that much of the stuff could be acquired in the first place. In fact, a statue of that size in any material would be astonishingly tall - about six times taller than the tallest free-standing artficial structure on Earth. Just something to consider.

Also, Osmium is a metal and thus conducts heat, which is important: This statue would no doubt be sitting in the sun, which would heat its exterior over time. At three miles up, wind speeds tend to rise, which means that cloud erosion will almost certainly occur over time. Dislodged Osmium particles react with O2 to form Osmium Tetroxide, a ludicrously deadly poisonous substance that sublimates at about room temperature and would now be placed in a perfect position for said wind to scatter it across the land, causing thousands of cases of potentially lethal pulmonary edema and blindness.

Assuming that it's real-world Osmium, anyway. Chemistry tends to fall apart somewhat in fantasy land.