Or just natural selection and acclimatation...
CO2 is not toxic, what can be harmful from this atmosphere is either CO (probable, due to higher CO2 percentage) or low oxigen, and both can leatd to acclimatation, to an extent.
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Or just natural selection and acclimatation...
CO2 is not toxic, what can be harmful from this atmosphere is either CO (probable, due to higher CO2 percentage) or low oxigen, and both can leatd to acclimatation, to an extent.
As the article also mentions (emphasis mine):
The plan was to import 1 million new settlers from 1110 to 1120 [...]. With their skills the tech level and wealth of the planet would hopefully increase to the point where more new settlers could be attracted with less inducement. The Ministry of Colonization goal was a healthy agricultural planet with Early Stellar technology and around 10 million inhabitants.
In 1110, when the first batch of new settlers arrived, that plan was already going awry. Parts of the project were several years behind even before the Fifth Frontier War caused them to come to a screeching halt. Unfortunately, the plan involved recruiting new settlers in the Imperial core and this part was not affected by the war; the settlers began arriving exactly according to schedule. But the infrastructure necessary to house them, feed them, and put them to work had not been built. It became necessary to divert project funds to buy supplies and ferry them to Forboldn. Worse, the local Colonial Office officials have decided to cover up the problem, so the Ministry of Colonization believes everything is going fine and colonists keep coming. So far the Colonial Office has managed to keep most of the newcomers alive, but little progress has been made in making them self-sufficient.
In 1110, when the first batch of new settlers arrived, that plan was already going awry. Parts of the project were several years behind even before the Fifth Frontier War caused them to come to a screeching halt. Unfortunately, the plan involved recruiting new settlers in the Imperial core and this part was not affected by the war; the settlers began arriving exactly according to schedule. But the infrastructure necessary to house them, feed them, and put them to work had not been built. It became necessary to divert project funds to buy supplies and ferry them to Forboldn. Worse, the local Colonial Office officials have decided to cover up the problem, so the Ministry of Colonization believes everything is going fine and colonists keep coming. So far the Colonial Office has managed to keep most of the newcomers alive, but little progress has been made in making them self-sufficient.
All it actually means, though, is that the author (me) had read two books written by Poul Anderson (Orbit Unlimited and New America) set on a planet called Rustum where the CO2 concentration rendered all but the highest parts uninhabitable but pre-screening, accimatization, and natural selection allowed greater percentages of succeeding generations to live at lower and lower levels.
FMS was formed in 1089. Before that Forboldn was to all intents and purposes balkanized into quite small parts with little government around to have a policy of eugenics. Cultural choice might be invoked, but since only 20% of the population has even one level of CO2 tolerance after a full millenium of breeding, I'm inclined to blame simple natural selection alone.
Hans
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Refer to "Great Leap Forward" and compare the obvious parallels.
The rest of the quoted material also has parallels to Mao's "Great Leap Forward".
Might I suggest that the wording in the article be changed to reflect this?
The wording presently in use (emphasis mine)...
...just screams eugenics.
I'm sorry, but the rest of your response had absolutely nothing to do with what it was replying to.
Thus it made absolutely no sense.
Consider the following:
The FMS set things up such that the population 'owned' Forboldn, aka, 'means of production'. In other words, Marxist communism. The rapid parallel advancement of both agricultural and industrial capabilities are attempted and local management makes false reports of success. Policies are made based on false reports of success.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
Chaos ensues.
Personally, I'd find setting PC's loose in such a background to be more interesting than worrying whether or not they use Zeppelins. But it is YTU.
You may have a point there. Do you have a sugggestion for the wording?
You made some assumptions to explain the incongruity of large numbers of imported TL12 goods contrasted with the local TL of 4. I explained the reason for the situation and pointed out that in 1105 there were no large number of imported TL12 goods. I also explained that the large number of imported TL12 goods did not translate into a higher-tech infrastructure. In 1117 you can find grav vehicle repairmen in Ashar City, but they tend to be temporary workers from Regina who plan to return to Regina eventually.
The population don't own the means of production collectively. Land and factories are owned in a positively capitalist fashion. They own shares in the planetary government, which is something altogether different.
No, it's the OTU. At least, it's potentially the OTU. Since it's not canon, it's not actually the OTU, true, but since it's something I plan on submitting for official publication, I try to keep it as close to the OTU as I can.
(Also, I try to keep my TU as close to the OTU as I find practical. So far I believe my writeup of Forboldn are canon-compatible and will remain so unless I'm unlucky and some official publication overwrites it.
Hans
Ish,
The Traveller Wikia stuff you quote is from a series of articles in JTAS Online, articles written by the same fellow who started this thread.
I don't think you're going to get very far quoting his own materials back to Hans...
Actually, he pointed out a line that could be misinterpreted, for which I'm grateful.
Besides, precisely because the Wiki stuff is just the library data appropriate to the writeup, there's a good deal of information that isn't covered, so it's only fair that I expound on the parts that are unclear if there are any misunderstandings.
I do suggest that anyone who has a subscription to JTAS Online might enjoy giving the articles themselves a look-over. Even if they don't mention zeppelins with one word.
And for anyone who don't have a subscription, think seriously about getting one. It's a fantastic bargain, $20 for about 1500 articles (1402 in the archive as of today and two articles per fortnight for two years).
Hans
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Dude!
I swear, you tell us what you did with our cranky grognard right now you doppleganger or it's torches and pitchforks time.Actually, he pointed out a line that could be misinterpreted, for which I'm grateful.
Besides, precisely because the Wiki stuff is just the library data appropriate to the writeup, there's a good deal of information that isn't covered, so it's only fair that I expound on the parts that are unclear if there are any misunderstandings.
I do suggest that anyone who has a subscription to JTAS Online might enjoy giving the articles themselves a look-over. Even if they don't mention zeppelins with one word.
And for anyone who don't have a subscription, think seriously about getting one. It's a fantastic bargain, $20 for about 1500 articles (1402 in the archive as of today and two articles per fortnight for two years).
Hans
True, but:
R38, aka ZR2, crashed 1921
USS Roma crashed 1922
Dixmude lost in storm 1923
USS Shenandoah was torn apart in a squall 1925
Italia crashed 1928
USS Akron crashed 1934
USS Macon came down and sank after losing too much helium in an accident over water in 1935.
Hindenburg lit up 1937
A Soviet V6 dirigible crashed into a hill 1938
Dirigibles are temperamental beasties at best, and they do not handle rough weather well. I wouldn't want to be in one if all I had for meteorological forecast was Tech Level 4 equipment. (Least of all if I was an American. Jehosephat, we had the worst luck!)
I swear, you tell us what you did with our cranky grognard right now you doppleganger or it's torches and pitchforks time.
I haven't done anything to Bill.
(Do I really come across as cranky? I'm really sorry to hear that. It takes a lot to annoy or offend me, so usually I'm quite cheerful when I post.)
Hans
Ah, the riposte.
And just to let you know, I have been enjoying this thread quite a lot. It seems that you have put a lot of thought into this whole colony thing. I suspect I might come back to it when time for me to do one. Well, a low tech one that is.
Sometimes, yeah. Well, more like an arrogant know it all, but you have seemed to have mellowed lately. But hey I can't resist sometimes poking the bear. :devil:I haven't done anything to Bill.
(Do I really come across as cranky? I'm really sorry to hear that. It takes a lot to annoy or offend me, so usually I'm quite cheerful when I post.)
Hans
And just to let you know, I have been enjoying this thread quite a lot. It seems that you have put a lot of thought into this whole colony thing. I suspect I might come back to it when time for me to do one. Well, a low tech one that is.
You already wrote it
"...where the CO2 concentration rendered all but the highest parts uninhabitable, but pre-screening, acclimatization, and natural selection allowed greater percentages of succeeding generations to live at lower and lower levels."
You might want to look up the role of CO2 in breathing. As CO2 builds up in the blood stream, it lowers the bloods ph which triggers deeper and more rapid breathing. Without this mechanism, consciousness can be lost without the feeling of 'starving for air' despite the lack of oxygen. So perhaps those who can live at lower levels can black-out without warning when at higher levels unless getting more CO2 through a nose tube, perhaps?
Go too much further than this, and you'd probably need to change human blood chemistry.
In the series of events I've hinted at in previous posts, I'd go so far as to believe that the lower level folk come from the Guguran stock and that they suffer from the Great Leap Forward just as the Tibetans did n the late-50's and early-60's even before the Cultural Revolution attempted to wipe out much of their unique society. But that's just me.
Whipsnade: Of course I knew he is the author. The writing style and word choice make that fairly obvious.
have fun
still a much better track record than any one jet airline...
CO2 is unbreathable, though. And indirectly causes higher temperatures.
christopher.boote
SOC-12
Hmm - sounds almost exactly like the founding and expansion of Grahamstown, in South Africa
Settlers kept arriving, (tempted by bribes ... err ... settlement bonuses from the Foreign Office) despite the impossibility of any real agrarian economy working, and so they retreated to the town and went back to practising their original trades, mostly selling goods to each other and the military
Effectively, the entire settlement was being shipped out paid for by the Foreign Office, and when their funded by the Army, and no-one told the Colonial Secretary or War Minister what was going on
True, by the same formula I said will produce acidic rain, but is the CO2 produced by the own person wich will produce it, not CO2 taken from atmosphere. As long as you have enough oxigen in the atmosphere, you won't absorb CO2 through breathing, just it will accumulate in your bloodstream if there's no oxigen enough to make the exchange in your lungs.
I guess you meant oxígen through nose tubes...
True, but simply wearing the oxígen nose tubes Ishamel said would allow anyone to breath it, unless too high CO levels are also present.
Actually, gas exchange in the lungs depends on partial pressures of the gasses in the lungs and in the bloodstream. If the partial pressures of CO2 in the atmosphere is higher than in the blood, then the CO2 that the body produces will not be expelled and the blood can actually take on more CO2. The result is hypercapnia.
Even with enough oxygen, there will be the sensations of suffocation such as with the use of carbogen gas.
My main idea was that any adaptation would require the body to be less sensitive to blood ph as a signal to breathe thus higher concentrations of CO2 would be needed to trigger it. If the concentration is not high enough, the body will simply not breathe regardless of how much oxygen is present unless the breathing is from conscious, not involuntary, muscle control. Hence, the breathing tubes would have CO2 to trigger the breathing response in people adapted to higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere.
As far as adaptation goes, is the 50 or so generations since the original settlers going to be enough?
( 1000yrs and 20 yr per generation )
Even with enough oxygen, there will be the sensations of suffocation such as with the use of carbogen gas.
My main idea was that any adaptation would require the body to be less sensitive to blood ph as a signal to breathe thus higher concentrations of CO2 would be needed to trigger it. If the concentration is not high enough, the body will simply not breathe regardless of how much oxygen is present unless the breathing is from conscious, not involuntary, muscle control. Hence, the breathing tubes would have CO2 to trigger the breathing response in people adapted to higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere.
As far as adaptation goes, is the 50 or so generations since the original settlers going to be enough?
( 1000yrs and 20 yr per generation )
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This adaptation occurs, to an extent to those peoples affected by chronical lungs disease (such as heavy smokers), whose breathing becomes more regulated by the lack of oxigen in their bloodstream than by the lowering of pH due to CO2.
So, if one person may (slightly) adapt in his lifetime, I guess adaptation by the full community, exposed to high CO2 since birth, will need quite less time than you expect.
We don't know the exact percentage of CO2 in Forboldn's atmosphere, but it's rated as 9, not as A (wich will mean totally unbreathable, but not toxic levels, I guess on the range up to 7.5% you cited above) nor B (toxic, wich will probably mean more than 7.5-10%). I guess those levels would be among 1-3%, but the main problem would be lack of oxigen. Of course, this is only my guess...
Good to know, Ish.
I wanted to make sure because not many of us have JTAS Online subscriptions anymore.
It seems that all or most of the crashes were caused by combinations of design, pilot and navigation error, ignorance of weather conditions. With the simplest of radios you can hear the weather forecasts from the higher-TL starport (and I don't care how poor a world is, they can probably afford a few satellites and a couple of radio transmitters). As another poster has already pointed out, it's not fair to consider the safety record of a nascent technology and then project it to a situation where airships may have been in use for thousands of years.
Heavier-than-air flight was appallingly dangerous at the start. It's not just the increase in TL that's made it safer, it's the increased experience -and that just takes time, not better materials science and physics.
Anyway, we've probably digressed a bit from the point of the original post, and Ranke's been very patient with us, so I'm going to stop banging on about airships.
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Slightly off topic, but Magnus, I would love to co-run another PbP game with you some day.
It was fun working with you on that last game.
Dave Chase
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