Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

**Draz74** · 2013-02-19, 12:16 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Yora

Temperature can be "easily" adjusted by concentrations of Carbondioxid in the atmosphere.

Or the concentration of radioactive minerals, which determines the abundance of geothermal energy.

Originally Posted by hamishspence

I'm told that in Ireland there are no snake species at all- only slow-worms- with there being a legend that St Patrick drove them out of Ireland.

Hawaii is likewise strangely snake-free. (Or was; it's possible that snakes have now been artificially introduced and escaped/released into the wild.)

**hamishspence** · 2013-02-19, 12:20 PM (ISO 8601)

Could be that the ice age made it uninhabitable for them- whereas the south of England was just about habitable. That, or they were able to make it across the Channel land bridge before water covered it.

Though that wouldn't explain why there are lizards there but not snakes.

**TheWombatOfDoom** · 2013-02-19, 01:02 PM (ISO 8601)

So I did something silly but possibly helpful...I've archived links to each question posted so far in this thread. Yes, i'm mad. Here it is:

List of Questions so far in the Random Worldbuilding Questions Thread

Spoiler

Show

1. Are there actual cases of green flames comming from the ground? Is it possible to have small green flames sprad over a large area? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post13258886

2. If a race developed telepathy very early, what would their society looks like? What would entertainment look like? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...7#post13259067

3. How realistic is the scenario of a group of people who have a port in a mildly concentrated sulphuric acid filled water to have copper plated ships to avoid corrosion http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post13260321

4. I want to make a world that is further out from its star than Earth so that there can be more than one habitable planet in my fantasy setting. Based on my description of the climate [in this post], would this be feasible? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post13286800

5. What are the motivations for colonization, except for natural resources and prestige? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...7#post13296697

6. RPGs often have quite weird deities with improbable spheres of activity. However in mythology throughout history and all of the world, there have been deities worshiped for very specialized causes. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...8#post13307098

7. I know about the square-cube law and its limiting factor on animal/plant growth, but what sort of physical laws are in place to govern the size of man-made structures? Are ten-mile-high towers and multilayered dwarf cities feasible? I know anything will collapse under its own weight eventually, should it get big enough, but what measures can be taken to prevent this, and what are some architectural limitations that can't be overcome? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...3#post13329733

8. In which languages or families of languages is there a separate word for "evil" (= bad, but really really bad, the incarnation of the worst things in the world, the enemy of all that's good and pure in the world, diabolical, etc)? And in which languages does the word for "bad" fit all purposes? Any idea how the word "evil" (and its direct equivalents) came to carry all that baggage? In which language or when? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post13329906

9. How do a city’s tax collectors go about collecting trade taxes from merchants? Specifically how did they calculate how much the trades had to pay, and how they prevented tax dodging? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post13339905

10. What's the result of converting chemical potential energy, gravitational energy, nuclear binding energy, and relativistic rest potential energy in my setting where magic can convert any form of energy into any other (with acknowledgement of loss). http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post13342470

11. What the heck would a goblinoid society look like if goblins are a single species with three distinct phenotypes (goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear). Since they're all one species, any pair of goblinoids can breed, and their offspring are equally likely to be any of those three phenotypes. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post13342470

12. Are there any mamals in which body growth is affected by social factors beyond availability of food? Like fur color changes or growing tusks or antlers or anything like that? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...3#post13466163

13. How does the ability to speak telepathically affect a people as a culture compared to those that speak, such as labling a store or other objects, socialization, cause of war, Libraries would likely be memory storage areas, theater would instead be a broadcasted memory of perhaps an important event, or maybe even a trivial one? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post13474336

14. How long would it take the environment to restore itself after a nuclear exchange? How long would it take humanity (which was 90% destroyed) to get back to bronze age tech levels? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post13475651

15. Does anyone know how Nobilty works? I mean a list of titles and the expected duties? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post13478209

16. Does anyone know the logic of building castles and supporting towns? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post13478209

17. Can anyone tell me something about the origin of nobility and "civil offices" in "semi-civilized" societies? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...8#post13484078

18. I'm working on a setting patterned off the amazon rainforest, but beside piranha I don't actually know much about the regions fauna or flora for that matter, anybody want to point me towards aspects of the amazon that will make for an interesting setting? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...3#post13492553

19. How common were Iron Age Houses? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post13503940

20. What effect would an orbit around a sun with a black hole close by on a set triplet planets (3 planets orbiting each other) and the development of life on them? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post13504476

21. In my setting, unicorns and pegasi are the same species. Unicorns are male, and pegasi are female. Is it realistically possible for a mammalian species to be so different that one gender actually has 2 extra functioning limbs (plus the bone structure differences a flying animal would have compared to a non-flying one)? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post13524491

22. How much farmland was necessary for a city to support itself (or nearly so)? I assume the needs progress in a linear fashion and not an exponential one, so we'll go with a city of 5,000. How much grazing land for that same city? Sewage. What did they do with it? I assume a large portion went onto those fields. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13528272

23. If you had a race of the genetically perfect humans or whichever, how much better would they plausibly be? Like, "a lot", "an awful lot", "a crazy lot", or "not as much as you'd think"? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post13534910

24. What would the death of deities in a world setting do to the setting, how should they be replaced, and what would the effect of their death do to society? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...8#post13544018

25. Would [this description in the post] be a realistic zombie? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...8#post13544048

26. What would the climate be in the valley marked by the big red arrow [in the post]? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...7#post13558117

27. With existing science and technology, is it possible to build a gun that delivers an anesthetic, causing people to drop unconscious without otherwise harming them? And what would it look like? If something like that is possible for humans, is it reasonable for law enforcement to use such guns instead of firearms? Would the "bullets" be too expensive, or the accuracy too low, or the range too small for example? Would the anesthetic be unreliable to actually stop someone on the spot? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13559952

28. If you did get a group who were significantly more healthy, better warriors, better looking, etc.--how do you think they'd be seen by other cultures? Would they be hated jealously, or looked on with admiration? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post13574375

29. Anybody know of a good mapping program for world-building? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13582672

30. I am currently putting the finishing touches onto a magic system that requires a teleport explanation. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post13587091

31. How safe from attack(either from good nations opposed to things such as doing business with thieves or demons or from pirates/raiders) would a very small nation that makes most of its income from being a completely neutral merchant city be? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post13590164

32. Has there ever been a real world culture/country that used a system of having three leaders? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post13590164

33. How do nations protect national secrets like ship designs in Carthage? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...7#post13592547

34. How large of an area would an independent city state control? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post13597316

35. If you tried to supe up a flying, fire-breathing lizard, how far could you get before you hit some snags? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post13606984

36. One of my goblin cultures will use a certain tree for their dyes and canoes, I know little about producing either. The environment is a rainforest modeled after the amazon. Is their any such tree that meets these requirements and if not, what would it look like? Where in the forest would it grow? How could the goblins make boats and dyes out of this tree? What else could they cultivate from such a plant? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post13616505

37. If someone jumped (deliberately) from a height of 15-20 meters and landed on dry packed soil, how badly hurt would they be? I assume they would break both legs, maybe severly damage the spine too? How much difference could training make in this situation? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13620112

38. Dragons are often described as fire-proof, I find. How fire-proof can an animal get, with their skin and such? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post13620286

39. What would it take to get an anachronistic setting? We see these a ton in games, fiction, etc.--but they never really have an explanation for why there is full plate yet no cannons, or why they're using Viking-age swords and shields tactics when they have such fine armour. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...3#post13630663

40. If you had a human composed primarily of carbon nanotubes... what effects would that have? I get the picture of them being fairly invincible, but pretty heavy. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post13639959

41. I'm working on creating a tree that grows in tundras and stores water heavily. How do I make it so it survives winters where it is really cold, and is dark for the entire day? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...3#post13641433

42. How common was locks on private homes (of the poor) in cities around 1400 in europe? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post13641711

43. Would it be feasible to have a moon be 5 to 6 times the size of our moon in the night sky? Would it be possible to have this moon’s waxing waning cycle measure in centuries instead of days? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...7#post13653207

44. Does everything orbit the same direction? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post13654530

45. I'm considering an animal that is able to copy what it hears, in a large variety of sounds (mice, birds, cats, people, etc.). Does it need just a new set of vocal cords and tongue, or is it more complicated than that? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post13659721

46. Is it possible to get jungles without a very hot, constant climate? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post13662339

47. Why is it that some creatures have amazing bacteria tolerance/immunity compared to humans? Some can eat rotting meat, etc. Are there any complications in having a human-like creature with extreme disease tolerance (like goblins and stuff)? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post13664059

48. Given that the religion hates abstract thought and automation of magic (at the level of skinning you alive, publicly), how far can you get in technological innovation if no one thinks in abstract terms simply because it isn't taught anymore. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post13665849

49. How hard is it to support a military caste of society? How significant of a drain does it put on your resources? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post13666594

50. About how long does it take for ice sheets/glaciers to grow and melt? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...7#post13666657

51. A large secret society whose goal is to keep the world at a stable "primitive" level, and to keep the world from ever entering an industrial revolution or the magical equivalent - How long do you think they could keep it up for? How successful would they be? If they were ingrained enough would it be possible to keep society in "stasis" forever? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...7#post13670267

52. What was early medieval feudalism like? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post13673725

53. My question is, does this [climate map of my world] look right? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13678212

54. Any good sources for finding out details of what medieval citylife/townlife was like, in various countries? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post13686864

55. How fireproof is plate armour? Is there a way to make it more fireproof? If you had a world with fire elementals, I think this would be a major consideration for knights. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post13699694

56. About how far could a horse be expected to ride in a day, assuming a sustained pace over several days? Assume a well-kept horse similar to the historical Arabian, carrying a hunter in light armor. Would 40-50 miles on flat ground be reasonable? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13706452

57. Would it be reasonable to have a large river in relatively close proximity to a rain-shadow desert? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13706452

58. How much food can fishing provide, assuming late medieval tech? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13706452

59. How strong would animal teeth and jaws need to be so that they could penetrate metal armour (not easily, of course)? I'm guessing they'd need to at least be as strong as steel to penetrate or damage steel. Also, there's the question of whether it would hurt too much, biting/clawing metal? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...8#post13708448

60. Assuming you have an air supply, how would fighting under water work? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...3#post13714413

61. Would it be possibile to use sails to propel and manouver a dirigible-like machine without using any sort of magic or advanced tech? Also, how many sails and placed in which locations would be appropriate for such a machine? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...8#post13717328

62. Let's assume a world where there are no fossil fuels, meaning no coal, no petroleum, no methane gas deposits. How would this impact the developement of technology and society? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...8#post13718218

63. How important were knights, generally speaking? Essentially, they were the lowest tier of nobility? More specifically, how many men did knights command, in comparison to other nobles? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...3#post13723763

64. Could you make a rifled gun with iron, or is steel or some other stronger alloy required for it to hold it's shape? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post13726804

65. If a creature has dark vision or low light vision, and they were in a lighted area, would they be able to see into a hooded cloak with no problem? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13732172

66. What kind of things need to be considered when building a city? To give better image, this is about a story/setting about a city founded in the middle of a desert as an exercise in power. The city would be filled with magically conjured water. What kind infrastructure needed to build in the beginning? What kind of people/human resource that would be most critical? What kind of trade/business/production it should build? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post13748870

67. What sort of ramifications would there be if a species had a more Fast Twitch than Slow Twitch Fibers? Rather fast, but easily exhausted? Difficulties with sustained exertion? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post13749210

68. I know "dry fire" (releasing the string without an arrow) are really bad for bows and I suspect the same is true for crossbows. What do you do if you don't want to fire a loaded crossbow? Shoot the ground? Is it possible to unload a crossbow without harming yourself or the weapon? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13763472

69. What are some examples of cheap military kit? Just thinking about if you have poor adventurers, what are they likely to wear (realistically)? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post13767165

70. I wanted to introduce blood magic into my setting. And was looking for ways of calling what the blood mages cast that didn't step into spells/powers/misteries/invocations toes and my English mastery is just not enough. Any good idea for it? Ritual sounds too long and sorceries seems well thinks that sorcerers do, not blood mages. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...7#post13770437

71. How close to the typical super-hero style of setting could reality get to? Could criminals get off/out easy, due to politics of the time? Could vigilantism be allowed by the state? What would motivate heroes not to kill villains, or either party to dress/act ludicrously? Anyone put much thought into this kind of a setting, as to how it could work plausibly? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post13780511

72. If the government cracked down on everyone with powers, wouldn't the powered people (potential heroes, and villains alike) become a crime organization or seize power? Mightn't be a popular move these days, since it'd be seen as akin to racism by some. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...8#post13790568

73. Pheromones. Anyone know much about them? For example, how much can they sway the behaviour of a human or animal? Wondering if you could have super pheromones, and what their effects would be. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post13795441

74. What methods are there for telling how healthy an individual is, and how many of them would be possible in ancient times? Partially, thinking about the Spartans, who judged whether an infant was healthy, and worth keeping. Could you tell by examining someone for a while? Would you need to know their recent ancestors' health? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...8#post13806098

75. What would be the likely cultural effects if a sentient race had more vestigial extremely strong animal instincts than humans have? Stuff like going into heat, or hiding anything that is theirs that they aren't using at the moment, or stealing shiny things? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...3#post13808553

76. I'm going to have my players go in past in a little 4e campaign, let's say 500 years (don't want many creatures alive at both periods). Considering D&D is inspired from dark ages in europe, what would be missing in this past (in technology, mostly...)? Considering D&D 4e history, what would change? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post13812355

77. The elemental planes are ordered (from top, clockwise) is Water, Earth, Wind, Fire. My question, necessitating this winding explanation is: What kind of resources would the for the four three Elemental planes have? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13817152

78. Is it chemically possible to have "paints" that change the color of skin cells to last for months? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13833902

79. how could one produce these effects (fireballs, lightning bolts, rain of ice, meteor showers, healing etc.), without use of oversized machinery (eg pocket-sized fission and fusion), in the usual rpg time frame (1 round casting), in large enough scale, in a setting no more technologically advanced than steampunk AND perfectly explainable by science. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post13835065

80. Would it be possible to energize the good microbes which work towards repairing the body? Perhaps energize the organs in charge of producing those kinds of things, or the heart so that you keep producing blood and don't bleed-out? Does any of that seem possible? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post13844784

81. Does anyone know of any simple climate simulation software? Such that you could design a world (physical geography, distance from the sun, world mass/gravity, etc) and it would work out the climate zones, wind patterns, etc? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post13852176

82. How would different races react to each other? Would they try to eliminate the alien races? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post13856705

83. Anyone know what gas would be the best for floating a very heavy person (one in armour)? How large a container of the stuff would be necessary, to float someone of about 180 - 200 pounds (that's including their equipment)? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13873302

84. Why build houses as longhouses? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post13885786

85. I've heard that as women get older, it gets more dangerous for them to have children (as in, the child will have things wrong with them). What sort of problems can arise, from this? Also, what is the prime age for having healthy children? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post13896785

86. If you had a Nutrients-Vampire, how would it get the most nutrients from a victim (aside from swallowing them)? I'm thinking the stomach would have the most nutrients, particularly with grazing animals. Are there any (other) high-nutrient parts of the animal or human body? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post13902271

87. How much farmland does a city of n inhabitants need to feed it? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post13919159

88. Assuming a race of people about half human height and proportionally strong, generally unarmored and almost never able to procure actual weaponry, as well as frequently having their hand tied together, how would their fighting style develop? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...8#post13922418

89. Are there any good examples of NON-mineable resources (aka resource that aren't mined) that are worth building a city around without good water access? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post13925446

90. How feasible is a gryphon? Also curious as to whether it would be possible to have an adult human rider? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post13936969

91. Something that I just now thought of, would a giant insect or arachnid be more plausible if it's chitin evolved to contain very high amounts of metals?, Like the brazilian wandering spider's fangs? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post13940175

92. There doesn't seem to be much terrorism in ancient times. Do you have theories as to why there'd be a lack of it? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post13948410

93. I'm currently trying to figure out how FTL would work in my Sci-Fi system.
I was orginally thinking transverable wormholes, but that has too much time travel in it, and wormhole generators seem a bit farfetched without ridiculious amounts of energy and Applied Phlebotinum. So what other methods could I utilise for FTL? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...3#post13954113

94. Anyone know how much money prostitutes tend to have made in ancient times (the ones who weren't slaves, that is)? Relatively speaking (as in, compared to a labourer's pay)? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post13970905

95. What are the challenges of getting a lizardman, gnoll, and things like that? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...3#post13974393

96. What technology is required to reattach limbs/body parts? Let's say you had a surgeon capable of this sent back to the past--what equipment would be required for them to reattach a limb effectively? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post13981292

97. What would be the implications of a planet within a binary system, and as such having 2 suns? Would it be able to support life? How would the distance need to change? Corollary: What does a planet need to support life (sun x light years away, other planets, etc.) http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...7#post13987537

98. How possible is it for a small community to survive without livestock? How badly does this limit population? There's also questions of alternatives to slaughtering the animals. Such as, letting them go when they come of age, then hunting them. That would bring its own set of problems: How do you stop them from over-eating the countryside? They also might be poor sport, if they were reared? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post14002602

99. How difficult would it be to devise a civilization that is reasonably advanced, that uses the barter system? How could this translate into a D&D Campaign? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post14002954

100. Are there ways to encourage the huntintg reserves, so that you can hunt them more steadily and in larger quantities? Killing wolves and such predators would help? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...7#post14006227

101. How strong could their eggs be? Dragon eggs are likely to be quite a bit larger than ostrich eggs, and I can imagine them being very strong as far as eggs go--just a question of whether it's something you can crack open a warhammer, or whether your need a sledgehammer. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post14012789

102. What would the world be like if the oceans were to rise on earth and most land became swamps or submerged completely, assume that it rose enough to cover everything but the highest elevated land and mountains?And there is also a low amount of light even in the middle of the day (Always heavy clouds)? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post14013015

103. If you have a severe Ice Age and the warmer latitudes are "moving" towards the equator, would it be possibly for the bands of desert climate north and south of the equatorial rainforests to meet and eventually disappear? So that you would have South European, New South Wales, or Argentina like climate near the equator? Or do the deserts have more to do with the air currents that circulate around the earth in different bands? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post14014070

104. What does everyone think would happen in a world with a natural respawn mechanic? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post14019244

105. I've heard tell that gnolls, lizardmen and other animal-human-things are impossible, or at least biologically hard to design/exist. Why is that? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...7#post14038277

106. I was wondering about intelligent carnivores, would they ever develop agriculture and civilizations on their own? Aren't they stuck with being hunters or herders. Even with agriculture they'd need a lot more space than the typical human farmer that ate mostly rice/wheat/maize. There probably wouldn't be cities of carnivores. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post14039311

107. Does anyone know of any books that might be of assistance in informing me how people, animals, and plants live, thrive, or survive in very cold environments? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post14039490

108. How much would you need to change an ant, or other insets, to get them roughly as big as a human? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...8#post14043578

109. Evidently, creatures like parrots can copy the necessary syllables pretty well. And cats can do the same with certain words. The question is, what kinds of vocal cords, tongue, and so forth would be required to talk in a comprehensible way? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post14047826

110. Assuming there is a race of humanoids that is based on aquatic mamals, somewhat similar to seals or otters. As such, they probably would have originally started as land-living carnivores, which then adapted to life in water, and then again adapted to life on land to get their humanoid anatomy.
What things should one expect from such a race? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post14048091

111. Let's suppose someone in country A gives an order to someone in country B to go and murder somebody (in country B). The story demands that the guy who gave the order can be legally prosecuted in his own country, even though the murder was committed elsewhere. (The story also demands that country B is not cooperating, because the murder victim was an undesirable - so it's all up to country A.)… Is that plausible? And if not, how can I make it plausible, law-wise? Is it enough to incorporate one appropriate law in country A, or should I assume an overhaul of the entire legal system, because jurisdiction is tricky? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post14095055

112. In Medieval times, around 10th century, would a standard commoner (say from eastern Europe) be able to know the exact date? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post14099356

113. What would viking-types (ocean-going, berzerker-y, raiders) be like if they came from a near-tropical climate? Is there any historical precedent? Any big differences other than a total lack of beards? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post14100244

114. Anyone know what criteria spooks horses? I know you can train them to get used to almost anything... but, I'm wondering how they'd react to orcs, gnolls, and other sorts of creatures. I suppose that horses would not react well to gnolls, but I'm not certain about orcs. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post14100564

115. What is Tippy-verse? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post14134789

116. Specifically, I am looking for any kinds of hats and headwear in general that would look appropriate in a prehistoric setting. It doesn't need to be from any specific era or culture, it just shouldn't look like something that is clearly medieval or modern.
Any ideas? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post14136460

117. Is it physically possible for muscles to support a human(?) body when the bones are broken/shattered/removed? That is, ignoring the fact pain would incapacitate you. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post14177982

118. Do you think this description is enough to run this nation in a game I am running? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post14178774

119. How does ventilation and heating work in large castles and inhabited caves? If you make a fire you get smoke everywhere. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post14189271

120. What would happen if the sun was somehow frozen in place in the sky? Would you end up with a desert (the intuitive result, which immediately makes me suspect that it's wrong)? What would happen to ocean currents, wind patterns, and precipitation? What about areas where the sun was frozen low on the horizon, or where it was night? How much solar energy would be diffused to the dark side of the planet? What plants and animals could or couldn't adapt? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post14236066

121. So I have a question about farming. About how much of a population of roughly 300,000 need of farmers/fishermen to sustain the nation with a small to moderate amount of surplus food. If it helps the area the nation is in has a mix of forests, plains and hills. It also tends towards the cooler side. I'm thinking more or less at least 1/3rd of the population needs to be dedicated food gatherer's. Is this roughly correct? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...3#post14252893

122. For my "Decadent, cruel Rome-falling-esque" minotaur empire, I need some nasty bits from Roman culture (especially as it was crumbling later in the Empire's lifespan) to add to them to flesh them out, because for now all I have is their love of making their cities as mazelike as possible, their really unpleasant enslavement of the Ormyrr that I will discuss later, and one other thing that I'm worried about. Could you help me out with that? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post14266341

123. And that other thing I'm worried about their culture is that they encourage male homosexuality and discourage heterosexuality out of pure mysogyny, that women are unworthy and gay is the only worthy way to go. I based this off actual Roman culture, but I'm worried about people getting angry about it. Could you give me some advice on how to handle the issue? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post14266341

124. Does anybody have some interesting tidbits from various real-life criminal organizations to add to my settings biggest criminal organization, the Undead Mafia? Their base would be your stereotypical Godfather-style Mafia headed by a group of powerful undead called The Crazy 8, but I'd also like to add the interesting bits from other criminal syndicates (IE, the Yakuza's pinky-chopping, the Columbian Necktie, ect.), so I need help with that. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post14266341

125. Let's say black clouds filled the atmosphere, thick enough to block sunlight from reaching the surface entirely. Obviously, this would cause the biosphere in the real world to completely collapse. Not only due to changes in temperature (it would rise quite a lot) and the inevitable pollution this would cause but also because photosynthesis would become impossible. I have a fantastic solution for this problem, however, so life will continue. So my question is, how would the weather change? I imagine that winds would violently increase and storms would become more frequent, though I'd like an opinion on the matter. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...3#post14271893

126. Something that came up in game- what would the response be to a major city losing ~92% of the population with major damage to the city and surrounding countryside (In this case, it was Chicago)? No one is entirely sure as to what happened, except that lots of violent wild animals were involved. I know that there'd be a lot of aid for the survivors, but what are some general political responses (keep it general and nonspecific. Forum rules and all that), economic ramifications, societal shifts, or other things that would happen after such an event? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post14272522

127. I could really use some suggestions. I'm designing a region which is based pretty much on mythological Scandinavia but with less ships. I'm putting a trading port on its shore, where the locals go to peddle their wares with the more civilized people, who have set up the city for this very purpose.
I could really use some good ideas for things you could get in a cold, mountainous region, which are sufficiently lucrative, not critically important for a society to function, and transportable. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post14367434

128. In a World full of about 99% Predetors, How long would one estimate they would Hunt for the remaining 1% Prey before they attacked each other? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post14367476

129. To give some cultures added individuality, I am considering what animals they are domesticating and hunting. The wildlife would resemble northern Europe, East Asia, and India. Any ideas beyond the basic cattle, sheep, goat, horse, dog, and boars? And also, how could such animals be found to contribute to the local peoples culture? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post14379364

130. What would be the most value-able trade object in a word ruled by Dragons, If Every Thing that could have material value (Gold, Sliver, ETC) is in the Dragons Hoards? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post14385390

131. What would be a way to make a black metal (Gold, silver, nickel, whatever else...) for a weapon, and still have it be useful as a weapon? And of any methods suggested, would they be able to be done in a medieval setting? Also would they be do able in enough time to make such weapons practical (Time-wise) in anyway? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post14390724

132. Anyone have any notion how long it takes to build a good, Roman sort of road with technology and techniques of that time available? Obviously it's gonna vary with plenty of factors, work force not being the least. Anyone have any kind of clue about this? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post14393236

133. How would a Kingdom have it's lands divided for the individual fiefdoms under the King? Would waning or waxing prestige be linked to a corresponding decrease or increase in lands, or would it be the other way around? Or both as situation warrants? What about towns or farms that find themselves crossing borders as a result of the above or does stuff like that not happen? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...8#post14411358

134. What materials were known (or at least theortically producable) during the Midieval/Early Rennisance aside from the list I have below? (also, I don't mean just in europe) http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post14423750

135. I'm trying to think of possible genetic patterns where that sex ratio would stay stable over time, but I'll be darned if anything comes to mind. I'm thinking some sort of epigenetic or environmental patterns would be necessary, but I'd love to hear any ideas. Also, what sort of societal impact do you think a largely male or largely female population would have, if it was consistent? (Not caused by wars/plagues/etc) I have a few types of different societies in mind, but I wonder if anyone has ideas? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post14437572

136. Been wondering about a humanoid (human size) with amazing strength, and what this would mean realistically. For the example, let's say that, despite being of a mostly human weight and build, they are stronger than a Grizzly Bear. Discuss. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post14467306

137. So, has anyone ever made a world from the ground up? Like, literally. Start with geology, then geography, then natural history, then humanoid prehistory, then early history, then eventually 'modern' times. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post14469565

138. Have been thinking of how much a space economy might suck, lately. If you live on the colony world, first you need to adjust yourselves or the planet to try and get it to a decent level of liveability. Even when you get things survivable... how do you play a part of a inter planetary economy, realistically? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...8#post14472328

139. Magic. It's a powerful force, that allows those gifted with control over it incredible power and a degree of control over their environment. The question is, in a worldbuilding sense, why haven't magically-gifted creatures, such as magical beasts and dragons, completely replaced nonmagical species? I mean, a wolf can't really compete with a blink dog in terms of hunting efficiency. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...5#post14474615

140. How would the merchant houses fight each other in my setting description, assuming none of them want actual street fighting (which would disrupt trade)? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post14503874

141. To give my setting an unusual touch, I want to have humans, elves, gnomes, lizardfolk, and goblins, but with the wildlife and vegetation of the asian countries along the pacific coast. That is China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philipines, and so on. Maybe some India/Nepal as well. Does anyone know of good summaries on some websites, which animals and plants dominate these ecological environments? Animals that went extinct relatively recently are also of interest, of course. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post14515734

142. What is the longest reasonable period of time between the collapse of a modern power grid (or even slightly futuristic one) and the need to move into a realm of needing subsistence farming. Once we've looked at that what kind of time frame would it be before people resort to attacking each other with primitive weapons rather than firearms (I'd assume as soon as the bullets run out)? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post14541879

143. Assuming that something could actually cause an event such as a world wide collapse of the power grid, what kind protection would be needed to keep a least a small part of the power grid, or separate one, from being destroyed? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post14541879

144. How are magical seals and writings supposed to work? Have people ever come up with explaination why substances need to be arranged in specific patterns to have supernatural effects? Unless it's meant as a magical circuit board or container of magical energy, I don't see how it's supposed to be effective. But then, it wouldn't really be the patterns that are magical. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post14614369

145. Assuming a decent dirt road, how much energy would you save by using a simple two-wheel cart or a full four-wheel to pull a load instead of carrying it on the back of a person or animal? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post14663020

146. A colony is founded with 500 colonists, all in their mid-twenties, 50 years later I need to figure out how much the population has realistically grown. Suppose mortality and average life span comparable to that of a today's first world country and that there are a lot of incentives to make babies. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post14706584

147. How can one balance free will and destiny? As in how can both exist? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post14715384

148. What commonly dictates destiny in a setting? Deities? Time? Something? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post14715384

149. Basically, I want a world that would be uninhabitable, but only because of exceptionally harsh conditions - things the gods can fix, such as temperature, tectonic instability, storms of lethal quality, uninhabitable oceans, so on. So what I need help with is constructing a solar system where that planet exists. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post14730686

150. What makes sub-artic environments attractive for settlement? People have adapted very well to live in Siberia, Scandinavia, and Canada thousands of years ago, but what made people go there and not run away back south after the first winter was over? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...1#post14731841

151. Vikings seem to have had a thing for snakes in their artwork and mythology. Are there even any snakes in Skandinavia, or was that more of a fascination with an exotic creature traders and raiders had seen in the most distant lands of their known world? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post14734546

That way, people can peruse the questions before asking them...however its so long, it might not be looked at unless they were categorized.... Hmmmm...thoughts? Yora?

**hymer** · 2013-02-19, 02:01 PM (ISO 8601)

Hat off to the wombat for doing all that work. I think Yora ought to link to that in an edit to the OP. Aside from that, I don't really know how best to organize it.

**TheWombatOfDoom** · 2013-02-19, 02:06 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by hymer

Hat off to the wombat for doing all that work. I think Yora ought to link to that in an edit to the OP. Aside from that, I don't really know how best to organize it.

Thanks! It was somewhat for convienience, and somewhat because I was bored and I'd been wanting it to quick reference people who asked the same question or what not. It was tricky at points finding out which were the original questions, and which were questions offshooting this. They could be sectioned into things like, Biological, Historical, Social, Space, so on. I might have missed one or two as well, so apologies if I did.

**Conundrum** · 2013-02-19, 04:42 PM (ISO 8601)

New Zealand also has no snakes, which is odd given their close proximity to Australia and our legions of deadly deadly reptiles.

Also, great work Wombat! I would think categories such as Space, Biology, Society etc would work pretty well.

**Conundrum** · 2013-02-26, 07:04 AM (ISO 8601)

Apologies for the double post, but I've got some questions about how worlds which have been terraformed would be different from our own. Specifically:

1. What distinguishing features or characteristics would a roughly earthlike world have if it were too close to its star, and was then moved outwards;
2. Same question, but for a world which started too far from its star and was moved inwards.

I'm guessing that in the first case, it would have had quite a lot of tectonic activity due to solar tides stressing the surface. Potentially also a thin atmosphere, resulting in lots of impacts and a very scarred surface? Water would have then been brought in by redirecting icy asteroids (with magic) to the world - how feasible is this, and how much water could reasonably be placed on a world in this way?

In the second case I'm less sure. Potentially liquid water locked in ice caps for convenience, which then melts once it's moved closer to the star. I have no idea about what the atmosphere would be like, though, or what effects this would have on the landscape.

Both worlds would be spinning faster than Earth, which as I understand it would help contribute to increased tectonic activity and higher winds. (High tectonic activity is desirable, so bonus points for a situation which is conducive to that).

What other steps would be necessary in order to terraform these worlds? I think that getting the atmosphere right is mostly done by using plant life to convert to the desired gasses, but beyond that I'm a bit lost.

**Yora** · 2013-02-26, 07:28 AM (ISO 8601)

Ice think you should probably look up some articles about major climate changes in the Earths history. With Earth, it was the concentration of gasses in the atmosphere that made the planet retain energy more or less efficient, instead of having the sun deliver more or less energy, but the climate changes should be mostly similar.

If the planet was moved a couple of million years ago, there shouldn't be any differences compared to Earth.
If the move was more in the span of thousands of years, you would have either more or less terrain features that are created by glacial activity. If there was lots of hyper massive glaciers, you would have lots of the landforms associated with it. If the planet was hot and never had any ice before, these would not exist at all.
The Baltic Sea region is a very good example for a region that was located right at the zone where the polar icecaps ended, so that might be something to look into. (I grew up there, so that's what did in geography most of the time.)
However, except for the fjords in Norway, such landforms aren't really spectacular in any way. In moast areas, the ground will simply be very flat with all major hills being scraped down to relatively low height of under a hundred meters and very gradual slopes. Because of the ice everything is mostly rubbed flat and smooth. The only somewhat "freaky" thing I can think off are huge smooth boulders just lying half burried in the plains, with no mountains around for hundreds of kilometers. Those were pushed by glaciers and left where they were when the ice disappeared.

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On the other hand, if the planet did not have any ice or much rain, the lanscape would be very jagged, as there was barely any errosion taking place, that would have worn them smooth.
Here you have the himalayas, which are still in mint condition with no glaciers ever covering them, and Norway, where huge layers of ice have been scraping over them for thousands of years.

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But overall, I think the differences would really be minor.

Faster spinning would result in shorter phases of heating and cooling of the air, but at the same time, the air wouldn't have as much time to heat up on the day side, and cool down on the night side. Which too me sounds like winds would be even less severe, with smaller temperature gradients, or at the very most unchanged.
While it might theoretically have a slight impact on tectonic activity if you have two 100% identical planets and one spins faster and the other one slower, this factor can easily be ignored. The internal composition of a planet is way more imporatant when it comes to tectonic activity. If a planet is cold and solidified, no amount of spinning will make it tectonically active. If a planet is already active, stopping any movement won't suddenly stop it from being so. If it really is very important to know the difference between before and after the changes to the rotation, then there might be a difference. If everything that matters is how the planet behaves now, it's completely irrelevant. I would dare to say that the impact might be as great as if you pick a starting point for tectonic activity from 0 to 100% based on it's internal composition and structure, and then you add to that it's orbit an rotation, which adjust that number by an additional plus or minus 0.1%. It just doesn't matter.

**Tirunedeth** · 2013-02-26, 09:33 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Conundrum

Apologies for the double post, but I've got some questions about how worlds which have been terraformed would be different from our own. Specifically:

1. What distinguishing features or characteristics would a roughly earthlike world have if it were too close to its star, and was then moved outwards;
2. Same question, but for a world which started too far from its star and was moved inwards.

I'm guessing that in the first case, it would have had quite a lot of tectonic activity due to solar tides stressing the surface. Potentially also a thin atmosphere, resulting in lots of impacts and a very scarred surface? Water would have then been brought in by redirecting icy asteroids (with magic) to the world - how feasible is this, and how much water could reasonably be placed on a world in this way?

Unless the planet was very close to its star, I don't think tidal heating would be a major contributor to its internal heat, or at least not more so than it is for Earth. To use an example, the solar tides on Venus are about the same as the lunar tides on the Earth (tides go as 1/r^3, and Venus is at a distance from the Sun of 0.723 times Earth's distance, so solar tides are 1/0.723^3 = 2.65 times stronger than Earth's solar tides, which is about the same as the ratio of the lunar tides to the solar tides).

The atmosphere could easily be thicker (see Venus) or thinner (see Mercury) than Earth's.
If it is thinner, you're right that you would probably see a lot of impact features. Since it was closer to the star, it also probably would not retain a lot of water the way Mars does, so you would need to supply it with water to terraform it. While asteroids do carry some water, you would probably be better off bringing it in using comets. The Earth has oceans which mass about 10^21 kg, or in terms of volume about 10^18 cubic meters of water. That's quite a lot to be bringing in, even using magic - over a hundred trillion ten meter comets, if they were composed entirely of water. What might be a bit more feasible is to have a large-ish planet, a few times Earth's mass, in the same system with extensive oceans. A magical gate could then be opened to that world's oceans. You'd need a pretty big gate, though: a gate with a radius of 2 meters would take nearly ten million years to get all the water through, while a 100 meter radius gate would only take about 3,000 years (proportional to the inverse of the radius squared). Multiple smaller gates could also be used.

Originally Posted by Conundrum

In the second case I'm less sure. Potentially liquid water locked in ice caps for convenience, which then melts once it's moved closer to the star. I have no idea about what the atmosphere would be like, though, or what effects this would have on the landscape.

It's probably quite a bit easier to terraform this planet. Taking Mars as a model, just moving it in would probably release enough of the water and CO2 locked in the ice caps to provide a pretty significant atmosphere. I'd expect that rapid melting of the ice caps would produce a lot of water, which could carve some pretty impressive features. Especially if you wind up with something like Lake Agassiz. You'd get something similar if you're getting water using the "gate to a water world" trick, especially if it's one big gate and not a set of smaller ones (also note that the numbers I calculated for that situation above also have the water coming out of the gate at near the speed of sound).

Originally Posted by Conundrum

Both worlds would be spinning faster than Earth, which as I understand it would help contribute to increased tectonic activity and higher winds. (High tectonic activity is desirable, so bonus points for a situation which is conducive to that).

I agree with Yora that rotation rate probably wouldn't have much effect on tectonic activity. On Earth, internal heat is primarily due to the decay of radioactive isotopes (particularly the two isotopes of uranium, thorium-232, and potassium-40), so one way to increase the tectonic activity would be to have the stellar system be rich in heavier elements. Alternatively, you could give the planet a large moon, which could drive tidal heating. To prevent it from being tidally locked, you'd need to have the moon in an elliptical orbit (similar to the situation for Mercury and the Sun), or you'd need a second moon interacting with it to prevent circularization of its orbit (akin to the situation for Io and Europa around Jupiter). Note that both of those situations would result in quite significant oceanic tides on the planet.

As for winds, it looks like the heat differential between night and day (apparently referred to as "thermal tides") isn't significant for a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere (at least at sea level; the textbook I'm looking at does mention that there are thermal tides in the Earth's thermosphere, which is around 100 km up and thus probably not all that important to what you're doing). Most winds on Earth are driven by differences in temperature north-south, which are then deflected onto the east-west axis by the Coriolis force. Faster rotation would increase the magnitude of the Coriolis force, but it seems that the Coriolis force does not influence the speed of winds (at least, not directly). All in all, I'm not really sure how to obtain higher wind speeds.

Originally Posted by Conundrum

What other steps would be necessary in order to terraform these worlds? I think that getting the atmosphere right is mostly done by using plant life to convert to the desired gasses, but beyond that I'm a bit lost.

Hmm. Temperature, oceans, and atmosphere are the most important things that come to mind for terraforming a planet. You're right that the atmosphere should mostly be handled by plants, but note that plants do generally have some atmosphere requirements. First, you obviously need enough CO2 for them to work with. In fact, if you want an atmosphere with enough oxygen for Earth-like life, you'll need an atmosphere with enough CO2 in it to provide all that oxygen. Also, IIRC most plants require some oxygen to photosynthesize, so you'll need to get them started somehow. Finally, you need to make sure there aren't any toxic compounds in the atmosphere (another reason for not using comets to provide the water, since cyanide is frequently found in comets).

**Yora** · 2013-02-26, 11:32 AM (ISO 8601)

Fortunately, carbon and oxygen are among the most common elements in the universe. If you exclude hydrogen and helium (which are 98% of all atoms), there is more carbon and oxygen than all the other 86 elements combined.

**Conundrum** · 2013-02-26, 10:16 PM (ISO 8601)

Wow guys, thanks! This is brilliant, and it's solved almost all my problems.

I love the idea of bringing in water from another world by portal, especially for the dramatic landscapes it would create (and the mythology likely to arise around such a place).

The heavier elements and big moon are great solutions to the tectonic problem, too. You mentioned that the large moon would cause "significant oceanic tides" - how significant are we talking, here? Disaster level? If not, would it be possible to elevate them to such a point?

Finally, regarding the winds. Do we know what causes Jupiters winds and storms? (I read some stuff about strong convection currents, but they seem to imply that the air is mostly moving up in those storms, which confuses me). Would something like that effect be transferrable to this world?

**Draz74** · 2013-02-27, 12:54 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Conundrum

Finally, regarding the winds. Do we know what causes Jupiters winds and storms? (I read some stuff about strong convection currents, but they seem to imply that the air is mostly moving up in those storms, which confuses me). Would something like that effect be transferrable to this world?

I don't know, but if you are wanting high-speed winds, you should read up on Neptune sooner than Jupiter.

**Conundrum** · 2013-02-27, 04:19 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Draz74

I don't know, but if you are wanting high-speed winds, you should read up on Neptune sooner than Jupiter.

Woah, I didn't realise Neptune was so windy! I knew it had those "dark spot" storms but I always thought Jupiter's were the biggest/fastest.

Unfortunately it seems like our understanding of what causes the winds is very sketchy. Many sources credit "heat trapped in the atmosphere", but then say that the upper atmosphere is roughly -210 degrees Celsius, and make no mention of even roughly *how* hot it is further down. So I don't know if those conditions would be conducive to life.

Ok, I just found a source saying 5000 degrees Celsius at the center of the planet... not super helpful. I think maybe these particular winds could be a gas-giant specific thing - gasses rush from the hot center of the planet out to the very very cold outer atmosphere at very high speeds.

I suppose another option to get high winds could be a slower rotational speed, allowing a higher temperature difference between the night side and the day side, and therefore higher convection? But I don't know how high winds could get from that effect before life became impractical (or before the nights were unreasonably long for my setting).

**Yora** · 2013-02-27, 06:03 AM (ISO 8601)

I think the distribution of land and water, and the way ocean currents flow and mountains channel air flow should have a much more severe impact.

**Tirunedeth** · 2013-02-27, 09:41 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Conundrum

The heavier elements and big moon are great solutions to the tectonic problem, too. You mentioned that the large moon would cause "significant oceanic tides" - how significant are we talking, here? Disaster level? If not, would it be possible to elevate them to such a point?

I'd like to be able to answer this question with more detail, but I haven't been able to find a good source for how tidal heating scales with orbital radius. The equations I've found give me ridiculous numbers when I check them with figures for Earth, I think because they are only valid for tidally locked bodies. So I can't really tell you how close the planet's moon would need to be to get the kinds of geothermal activity you want. What I can tell you is that it doesn't take much to get some very impressive tides, because they scale with cube of the orbital radius of the moon. For example, the Earth's Moon is thought to have been around ten times closer to the Earth in the distant past. At that distance, you'd be getting tides around a thousand times greater than they are today. Given that the average tidal range today is around 0.6 meters, that would give you a difference between high and low tide of around 600 meters. Bear in mind, however, that strong tides tend to cause tidal locking, where the planet rotates with the same period as the moon. This would cause the position of the tides to remain fixed relative to the surface, effectively eliminating the tides.

Tidal locking can be prevented by having the orbit of the moon be highly elliptical. The rotation period then gets forced into a resonant relation with the orbital period, such that an integer number of rotations correspond to a different integer number of orbits. An example of this in the Solar system is Mercury and the Sun, with Mercury rotating 3 times for every 2 times it orbits the Sun.

I worked out some quick numbers for an Earth-like body and a Moon-like body. If they orbit at an average of 55,000 km, the planet's rotation period would be 24 hours (the moon's rotation period would likely be the same) and the moon's revolution period would be 36 hours, for a 3:2 resonance like the Mercury-Sun system. The moon would range from 44,000 km to 66,000 km because of its elliptical orbit, and would vary in apparent size from about 3 times the apparent size of the Earth's moon to over 4 times. The tidal range would probably be around 120 to 400 meters, depending on the distance of the moon at that time. I think the period of the tides wouldn't be the ~12 hours it is on Earth due to the resonant relation between rotation and orbit.

I need to go to right now, but I'll try to comment some on the winds this evening. I don't know as I'll be much help. The topic you probably want for wind patterns on Earth-like planets is Hadley circulation.

**Yora** · 2013-02-27, 12:02 PM (ISO 8601)

Could you wear a pressure suit under warm clothing under a fire proximity suit with a sealed helmet, to make an allround space exploration suit?
Of course, not just packing the existing suits over another, but making a custom suit that has several layers that serve the three functions. You also would need air supply and probably some heating and cooling devices.

Putting arctic gear over a pressure suit shouln't be any problem at all. But would the arctic gear interfere with the heat reflective material of a fire proximity suit? Would that reduce the suits ability to stay warm in cold weather, or make it difficult to keep the interior from overheating when close to a heat source?

**Tirunedeth** · 2013-02-27, 03:44 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Conundrum

Woah, I didn't realise Neptune was so windy! I knew it had those "dark spot" storms but I always thought Jupiter's were the biggest/fastest.

Unfortunately it seems like our understanding of what causes the winds is very sketchy. Many sources credit "heat trapped in the atmosphere", but then say that the upper atmosphere is roughly -210 degrees Celsius, and make no mention of even roughly *how* hot it is further down. So I don't know if those conditions would be conducive to life.

Ok, I just found a source saying 5000 degrees Celsius at the center of the planet... not super helpful. I think maybe these particular winds could be a gas-giant specific thing - gasses rush from the hot center of the planet out to the very very cold outer atmosphere at very high speeds.

I suppose another option to get high winds could be a slower rotational speed, allowing a higher temperature difference between the night side and the day side, and therefore higher convection? But I don't know how high winds could get from that effect before life became impractical (or before the nights were unreasonably long for my setting).

As near as I can tell, you are right that it isn't well understood what drives the winds of gas giants. However, it's probably something fairly specific to the thick atmospheres of gas giants, so it probably isn't relevant to an Earth-like world. Unfortunately, I can't find a whole lot on the winds for an Earth-like world that isn't excessively complicated. The best I can do is suggest a relatively thin atmosphere. It seems that a less dense atmosphere will result in higher wind speeds. However, wind of a given speed will also blow with less force in a lower-density atmosphere, so that may not have the effect you're looking for. A thin atmosphere would also produce a higher temperature differential between the night and day sides of the world, which should allow you to have a shorter rotation period and still get significant thermal tides (as, apparently, winds due to a difference in temperature between the day and night sides of a planet are called). Unfortunately, I'm really not sure how to work out how strong these winds would be.

**Conundrum** · 2013-02-27, 04:41 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Tirunedeth

As near as I can tell, you are right that it isn't well understood what drives the winds of gas giants. However, it's probably something fairly specific to the thick atmospheres of gas giants, so it probably isn't relevant to an Earth-like world. Unfortunately, I can't find a whole lot on the winds for an Earth-like world that isn't excessively complicated. The best I can do is suggest a relatively thin atmosphere. It seems that a less dense atmosphere will result in higher wind speeds. However, wind of a given speed will also blow with less force in a lower-density atmosphere, so that may not have the effect you're looking for. A thin atmosphere would also produce a higher temperature differential between the night and day sides of the world, which should allow you to have a shorter rotation period and still get significant thermal tides (as, apparently, winds due to a difference in temperature between the day and night sides of a planet are called). Unfortunately, I'm really not sure how to work out how strong these winds would be.

Ahh, well thanks! I've got everything else pretty much down pat so I'm ok with handwaving the wind speeds a bit if necessary. Thanks so much for all the tidal stuff - 120-400m tides sound great. They'd be devastating, I would think!

My last question along this line of thinking (I think...) is about stars.

What would the effects be if you compressed or expanded a star? I'm talking like increased or decreased its density, rather than changing the total amount of matter.

Would it burn brighter/dimmer? Hotter/colder? Would it have any effect on gravity, or would it collapse or explode or something else catastrophic? Do we have absolutely no idea?

**Gnoman** · 2013-02-27, 05:43 PM (ISO 8601)

A recently introduced part of my setting (as in the PC's just discovered it) iss the existence of "vergences" in time which connect to all points of time and space simultaneously. These are very useful for divination, as it is easy to read scenes from a potential future in such points, and the proper spell (different for each such point, as each is different. The one that's been discovered takes the form of a flame, so the proper spells are water and ice) will cause you to recieve a massive overload of predictions. Besides this, traditional forms of divination such as numerology, gyromancy, and astrology are unusually effective in these areas due to the close connection to Time itself. Spending too long in the vicinity of one causes intelligent creatures to be "lost in time", floating invisible and incorporeal through the ages for a time. This rapidly becomes permanent if it happens repeatedly, and inevitiably leads the spirit in question to go insane, unless it's an elf (because elves are immortal, their minds are built to handle Infinity in a way no other race's is).

My question is this: would two or more of such points cause any complications besides the potential for deadlocking speed chess? Assume that they are nearly unknown, and most who do know of them seek to avoid them and suppress knowledge of their existence.

**Beleriphon** · 2013-02-27, 10:02 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Conundrum

What would the effects be if you compressed or expanded a star? I'm talking like increased or decreased its density, rather than changing the total amount of matter.

Would it burn brighter/dimmer? Hotter/colder? Would it have any effect on gravity, or would it collapse or explode or something else catastrophic? Do we have absolutely no idea?

That one is actually pretty easy. As you get a Sun like star to expand it turns into a red giant and eventually brown dwarf (as it expands it gets brighter, and then burns off most of its matter getting dimmer).

Compressing a star is going to dramatically increase its gravitational forces as the most compressed star matter are black holes. A pulsar is also a super dense star and they look white when viewed so they are super bright.

I'd suggest reading the Wikipedia entry on stars, specifically Post-main sequence stars for a bit more info about what an expanding star does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars

**Xuc Xac** · 2013-02-27, 10:41 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Beleriphon

That one is actually pretty easy. As you get a Sun like star to expand it turns into a red giant and eventually brown dwarf (as it expands it gets brighter, and then burns off most of its matter getting dimmer).

Compressing a star is going to dramatically increase its gravitational forces as the most compressed star matter are black holes. A pulsar is also a super dense star and they look white when viewed so they are super bright.

I'd suggest reading the Wikipedia entry on stars, specifically Post-main sequence stars for a bit more info about what an expanding star does.

Nope. Gravity is based on mass not density. If you collapsed the sun into a black hole, the planets would continue undisturbed in their orbits but they would all freeze over because they would no longer be receiving energy from sunlight.

If you were to expand a star, its gravity would eventually pull it back to its normal size. If you expanded it too far, fusion would stop and it would go dark.

Remember that stars are big balls of gas, so they will act like it. If you compress them, they will get hotter. If you expand them, they will get cooler. If you compress it small enough, it will be a black hole but it won't have enough gravity to hold itself together. As soon as you stop crushing it, it will spring back to full size (and probably explode).

**Beleriphon** · 2013-02-27, 11:35 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Xuc Xac

Nope. Gravity is based on mass not density. If you collapsed the sun into a black hole, the planets would continue undisturbed in their orbits but they would all freeze over because they would no longer be receiving energy from sunlight.

Okay, true. Black holes are theoretically such massive stars that they collapse in upon themselves. They then make time and space do funny things to itself. The theorized centre of our own galaxy for example is a super massive black hole that is 4.3 million solar masses (think about that, its something that is 4.3 millions times the mass of the Sun but even smaller than a neutron star which I describe below). At the centre there is the singularity where it has all of the mass but a volume of 0 and infinitely dense.

Generally speaking, that has nothing to do with the question of expanding and contracting stars.

If you were to expand a star, its gravity would eventually pull it back to its normal size. If you expanded it too far, fusion would stop and it would go dark.

And thus you have a brown dwarf, although that has do do physical processes within a star. In some stars, especially really big ones, fusion stops because the hydrogen that was there has fused so far that the core starts to fuse into iron. That is found in red super-giants and they actually do expand as this occurs. Mind you its not just an issue of volume increasing but it is a form of solar expansion.

Remember that stars are big balls of gas, so they will act like it. If you compress them, they will get hotter. If you expand them, they will get cooler. If you compress it small enough, it will be a black hole but it won't have enough gravity to hold itself together. As soon as you stop crushing it, it will spring back to full size (and probably explode).

Which is kind of what a nova or super-nova actually is. Its the compression of a dying star finally releasing. Those are truly massive stars though, we're talking one that during its main sequence stage was at least 20 solar masses (that is to say something 20 times the mass of the Sun).

If you want massive star compression look at neutron stars, they're roughly 500,000 times the mass of Earth, but in sphere roughly the size of Brooklyn NY.

As Xuc Xac mentions stars can be very hot if compressed, however it isn't the only thing that determines the properties of stars. An O class star has a surface temperature of at least 33000K, the Sun is a G class star and has a surface temperature of between 5,500 and 6,000 K. Zeta Ophiuchi is an O class star that is 19 times the mass of the Sun and roughly 8 times its radius. So, it is a truly massive star and probably going to go supernova when it dies.

Just keep in mind that you can learn exactly what you want by deciding what type of star you start with and looking at what happens as the star ages. It will both expand and contract as time goes on.

Here's a hint though, neutron stars are 1.4 to 3.5 times the mass of the Sun, but have a radius of about 12km. They are also insanely hot and bright, so if you compress a star enough you end up with something nothing could possibly live near (and by near I mean light-years distant).

**Draz74** · 2013-02-27, 11:52 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Xuc Xac

Remember that stars are big balls of gas, so they will act like it. If you compress them, they will get hotter. If you expand them, they will get cooler. If you compress it small enough, it will be a black hole but it won't have enough gravity to hold itself together. As soon as you stop crushing it, it will spring back to full size (and probably explode).

And as an extension of that, if you compress a star even to a lesser degree (not to a black hole or even a white dwarf or neutron star), it will spring back to its original size ... then even bigger, due to inertia. But as it gets bigger and therefore colder than its original form, there will be less radiation pressure to hold its outer layers "up" against gravity, so it will shrink back down to (approximately) the size it was while compressed, and the whole cycle repeats itself.

This whole cycle of growing and shrinking typically takes a period of a few weeks (although it can be significantly longer or shorter), and causes the star to be designated a "pulsating variable star." Which are actually very common, although in most of them the whole cycle is rather subtle.

From the planet's point of view, the star will be hotter in the smaller stage of its cycle, which means it will hit the planet with more total energy during that time, and its light will also be overall further towards the blue end of the spectrum.

**Conundrum** · 2013-02-28, 12:28 AM (ISO 8601)

Hmmm, very interesting. The reason I ask is because rather than moving the planet in order to make it inhabitable, the gods of the setting are going to manipulate the star. I won't worry about the pulsating effect, because I'll assume the gods have a magical way to keep the compression or expansion constant.

I'm worried that this might significantly alter the lifespan of the star, though. I know that often smaller, hotter stars aren't considered viable for life supporting worlds because of the much shorter lifespan - is that an issue here? I suppose if it is then I can say the gods helped evolution along, in order for it to happen within the stars lifetime still.

Of course, if I go with making a small hot star larger, then I wouldnt have to worry because I'd be making the lifespan longer at the same time...

**Yora** · 2013-02-28, 06:25 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Beleriphon

And thus you have a brown dwarf, although that has do do physical processes within a star. In some stars, especially really big ones, fusion stops because the hydrogen that was there has fused so far that the core starts to fuse into iron. That is found in red super-giants and they actually do expand as this occurs. Mind you its not just an issue of volume increasing but it is a form of solar expansion.

No, a brown dwarf is a sub-star that simply does not have enough mass to create fusion.

When a start has the mass to fuse silicon into iron, the iron just mostly sits there and no longer does any fusing to produce heat. Before that happens, heat from inside the star will push against the stars matter, causing it to inflate. But with the lack of new heat energy being produced by the iron, gravity becomes the stronger force and the star will start to shrink. Often extremely rapidly, causing it to simply collapse, and probably go supernova.

Older stars start to expand because they are loosing mass, which reduces the gravitational compression, while at the same time more fusion is going on, producing more heat.

**Beleriphon** · 2013-02-28, 08:42 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Yora

No, a brown dwarf is a sub-star that simply does not have enough mass to create fusion.

When a start has the mass to fuse silicon into iron, the iron just mostly sits there and no longer does any fusing to produce heat. Before that happens, heat from inside the star will push against the stars matter, causing it to inflate. But with the lack of new heat energy being produced by the iron, gravity becomes the stronger force and the star will start to shrink. Often extremely rapidly, causing it to simply collapse, and probably go supernova.

Older stars start to expand because they are loosing mass, which reduces the gravitational compression, while at the same time more fusion is going on, producing more heat.

Very well, I've gotten my terms confused.

I know that as a star ages it goes through a series of fusion processes sometimes even having layer of fusion with the outermost being hydrogen and the core being iron (with everything in between the two going on as well). The ones that get to iron tend to be very large stars like Betelgeuse.

Originally Posted by Conundrum

I'm worried that this might significantly alter the lifespan of the star, though. I know that often smaller, hotter stars aren't considered viable for life supporting worlds because of the much shorter lifespan - is that an issue here? I suppose if it is then I can say the gods helped evolution along, in order for it to happen within the stars lifetime still.

Of course, if I go with making a small hot star larger, then I wouldnt have to worry because I'd be making the lifespan longer at the same time...

Its actually the inverse, small stars (red dwarfs) tend to last tens or hundreds of billions of years but are dim, while truly gigantic stars like Eta Carinae (somewhere in the neighbourhood of 100 to 150 solar masses) only last a few million years. Remember that O and B class stars can burn very hot and tend to be much larger than the Sun but will only burn a few million years as compared to the Sun that will last tens of billions of years. Also, the sun is a G2 V yellow dwarf, basically the same as Alpha Centauri A a number of other stars. It is among stars spectacularly non-unique..

Decreasing a star's volume should increase its temperature by virtue of compression processes. That said there is something to keep in mind with gases if you compress them far enough, they become liquids. I have no idea how this might apply to a star but I suspect a giant ball liquid hydrogen undergoing nuclear fusion would be interesting.

At any rate just keep certain sizes in mind. If the Sun were the head of a pin some stars would be the size of a house in comparison. So if you really want to change the properties of a star you'd be better off adding or removing mass to force the star to change its fusion processes.

**Tirunedeth** · 2013-03-01, 09:28 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Beleriphon

Decreasing a star's volume should increase its temperature by virtue of compression processes. That said there is something to keep in mind with gases if you compress them far enough, they become liquids. I have no idea how this might apply to a star but I suspect a giant ball liquid hydrogen undergoing nuclear fusion would be interesting.

At any rate just keep certain sizes in mind. If the Sun were the head of a pin some stars would be the size of a house in comparison. So if you really want to change the properties of a star you'd be better off adding or removing mass to force the star to change its fusion processes.

You would get changes to a star's fusion processes even if you just compressed a star, so long as it was a constant force and not just something done briefly. Basically, what it comes down to is that stars are held up by radiation and gas pressure against the gravitational attraction of their mass. If you compress a star, the mass gets closer together and the gravitational force of the star on itself increases (it is true that this process won't change the external gravitational field of the star, but it does change the interior gravitational field). The pressure, density, and temperature would increase, which would increase the rate of fusion.

Of course, if you compress the star too much, you're going to eventually reach a point where the star can't compensate for the increased pressure. I don't think that you'd get to a point where the star would become liquid, since stars consist mostly of plasma, not gas. Getting it to liquefy is a matter not just of pressure, but of reducing the temperature sufficiently that the electrons can recombine with the ions. Even then, stars are massive enough that in the absence of radiation pressure the only thing that will hold them up is electron degeneracy pressure (a quantum mechanical effect due to the fact that two electrons can't be in the same state as each other).

I can see three possible end states for compressing a star too much. The first is running out of fuel, and has already been discussed. If you increase the luminosity, you increase the rate of fuel consumption. If it increases too much, you run out of fuel, and wind up with a red giant and then a white dwarf. There is also a possibility that you could wind up with pair production, where sufficiently energetic photons start spontaneously converting into electron-positron pairs, which reduces radiation pressure and leads to what are known as pair instability supernovae in very massive stars. I'm not entirely sure what would happen in a solar mass star, though. Finally, if neither of those happen, the star would eventually reach a point where electron degeneracy is the primary thing holding it up, similar to a white dwarf. However, it would still be undergoing fusion, so you'd have a rather different situation to a conventional white dwarf. I actually suspect you'd run out of fuel before electron degeneracy sets in, since fusion of hydrogen on a white dwarf tends to be a runaway process which results in novas.

**Draz74** · 2013-03-01, 03:25 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Conundrum

I won't worry about the pulsating effect, because I'll assume the gods have a magical way to keep the compression or expansion constant.

Fair enough.

I'm worried that this might significantly alter the lifespan of the star, though. I know that often smaller, hotter stars aren't considered viable for life supporting worlds because of the much shorter lifespan - is that an issue here? I suppose if it is then I can say the gods helped evolution along, in order for it to happen within the stars lifetime still.

Originally Posted by Beleriphon

Its actually the inverse, small stars (red dwarfs) tend to last tens or hundreds of billions of years but are dim, while truly gigantic stars like Eta Carinae (somewhere in the neighbourhood of 100 to 150 solar masses) only last a few million years.

The relationship between size and lifespan isn't simple. Small stars can burn themselves out quickly if they're hot enough (like Sirius). Larger stars have more fuel to work with, so they'll actually last longer. Yes, red supergiants like Betelgeuse don't last long ... but that's because they're already old before they grow up to supergiant size.

But regardless of all of the above, temperature is going to have a much more dramatic impact on the star's lifespan than size. Fundamentally, the star will keep going as long as it hasn't run out of the energy that it needs to stay in relative equilibrium, and since the energy it radiates away is proportional to T^4 (T is temperature), the blue vs. red factor is going to be the real, main deciding factor in lifespan.

Anyway, yeah, if you compress a star and speed up its energy radiation, that will indeed decrease its lifespan. But as you say, that's not a big deal within the scope of a fantasy world, as long as the gods don't have to wait for geology or evolution to work along their normal time scales.

Of course, if I go with making a small hot star larger, then I wouldnt have to worry because I'd be making the lifespan longer at the same time...

That works too, if you just want the setting to include a detail about the gods messing with the star.

Originally Posted by Yora

causing it to simply collapse, and probably go supernova.

Only if it's especially big. Most collapsing giants just become white dwarves, rather than Type II Supernovae.

Older stars start to expand because they are loosing mass, which reduces the gravitational compression, while at the same time more fusion is going on, producing more heat.

The mass loss due to the actual fusion reactions is a tiny percentage, practically negligible. Same with ordinary solar prominence/flares. So I don't know why you say they're losing mass.

Older stars actually mostly expand because their inner cores contract -- counterintuitive, huh? But yeah, as the lack of abundant fuel becomes an issue, the inner layers of the star start cooling down, which causes them to contract, which makes them hotter than they were before, which gives them enough thermal pressure to push the outer layers of the star outwards. This puts the outer layers in a precarious position, ready to collapse (after a few rounds of especially violent, unstable pulsation) when the radiation from within finally starts to decrease again.

Originally Posted by Beleriphon

Remember that O and B class stars can burn very hot and tend to be much larger than the Sun but will only burn a few million years as compared to the Sun that will last tens of billions of years.

Well, at least ten billion. I don't think we're sure about twenty or thirty billion. But your main point stands.

Also, the sun is a G2 V yellow dwarf, basically the same as Alpha Centauri A a number of other stars. It is among stars spectacularly non-unique..

Actually, in recent years they've been discovering that red dwarfs are significantly more common than previously thought. That makes yellow stars like our sun (they go back and forth on whether it's a "dwarf" or not) are a little more unusual than the old textbooks say. Although it's certainly spectacularly non-unique compared to rarities like blue-hot Sirius or a supergiant.

Decreasing a star's volume should increase its temperature by virtue of compression processes. That said there is something to keep in mind with gases if you compress them far enough, they become liquids. I have no idea how this might apply to a star but I suspect a giant ball liquid hydrogen undergoing nuclear fusion would be interesting.

Originally Posted by Tirunedeth

Of course, if you compress the star too much, you're going to eventually reach a point where the star can't compensate for the increased pressure. I don't think that you'd get to a point where the star would become liquid, since stars consist mostly of plasma, not gas. Getting it to liquefy is a matter not just of pressure, but of reducing the temperature sufficiently that the electrons can recombine with the ions. Even then, stars are massive enough that in the absence of radiation pressure the only thing that will hold them up is electron degeneracy pressure (a quantum mechanical effect due to the fact that two electrons can't be in the same state as each other).

Good answer. The sun is too hot to really become a liquid regardless of pressure. If you compress it hard enough to induce a phase change away from gas/plasma (stars are actually mostly gas, by volume, with a core of plasma), it will collapse to the point that only electron degeneracy pressure is holding it up. This is what we call a white dwarf. If you increase the pressure to beyond what electron degeneracy can handle, it collapses again, becoming a neutron star (and blowing off a Type I Supernova in the process). Now it's still held up by quantum degeneracy pressure, but by neutrons rather than electrons (since all the electrons and protons combined to form neutrons). If the pressure increases enough to beat even that threshold, it collapses again and becomes a black hole.

Note that stellar evolution can skip these steps if a star is massive enough. When a big enough giant collapses, it goes straight to supernova + black hole, without becoming a white dwarf or neutron star in between.

At any rate just keep certain sizes in mind. If the Sun were the head of a pin some stars would be the size of a house in comparison. So if you really want to change the properties of a star you'd be better off adding or removing mass to force the star to change its fusion processes.

Which also changes its gravity, messing with the orbits of all its planets ... madness reigns. Which could be good or bad, for a fantasy world.

Originally Posted by Tirunedeth

(snip)

OK, I will no longer think of myself as the most knowledgeable astronomer in this thread.

Must read up on pair instability supernovae ...

**hamishspence** · 2013-03-01, 03:35 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Draz74

FThe relationship between size and lifespan isn't simple. Small stars can burn themselves out quickly if they're hot enough (like Sirius). Larger stars have more fuel to work with, so they'll actually last longer. Yes, red supergiants like Betelgeuse don't last long ... but that's because they're already old before they grow up to supergiant size.

Actually it is. Sirius is more massive than our Sun- hence it's slightly bigger, and a bit hotter. Higher mass=larger size=shorter lifespan is a pretty standard rule for stars.

Betelgeuse was a blue supergiant before it was a red supergiant- and because it was so massive, it had a short lifespan- it's not been around very long in astronomical terms.

**Tirunedeth** · 2013-03-01, 10:55 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by hamishspence

Actually it is. Sirius is more massive than our Sun- hence it's slightly bigger, and a bit hotter. Higher mass=larger size=shorter lifespan is a pretty standard rule for stars.

Betelgeuse was a blue supergiant before it was a red supergiant- and because it was so massive, it had a short lifespan- it's not been around very long in astronomical terms.

To add a bit more detail, the luminosity of a main sequence star is roughly proportional to about the 3.8th power of its mass. Since the amount of fuel a star has is proportional to its mass, this means that larger stars burn through their fuel faster. The matter is somewhat complicated by the fact that some stars have convection throughout their entire volume while others only have convective cores (and, as I recall, some only have convective outer layers). The ones that are only partially convective can't burn as much of their hydrogen, so they run out of fuel more quickly than you'd expect just from total mass and luminosity.

And now for a question of my own! I'm working on a setting wherein most of the land of a more-or-less typical fantasy world was destroyed (or sunken or vanished) during a great cataclysm centuries ago, leaving only islands. I'm trying to work out what sorts of crops would be grown on the islands, so I need to figure out what sorts of conditions are required to grow the crops and where those sorts of conditions will occur. I'm particularly interested in flax and wheat, with a lesser interest in grains such as rice, oats, and barley. I'm also wondering about how big an island needs to be to support a tree population which can be harvested indefinitely, and how much area growing trees might be needed to supply a given population with lumber.

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