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Cam is out flying. There's a decent cloud of atmosphere around the gold plane, now, millenia of demons making air around themselves for comfort and not sealing it up because why would you bother. There's a small forest, here - the effect is kind of ruined by the lamps it has to grow under, but it's still pretty.
He feels an open summons and lets it grab him -
the Connecticut Yankee summons Demon Cam
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from_scratch
connecticut_yankee
This method of creating-anything-imaginable has its attractions.
Hank briefly starts trying to plot courses, but is replaced in seconds by people who are from the relevant areas and can find locations as well as he can or better.
"That part may go more quickly than I thought.
If you make the best transportation system you can, we'd have no idea how to keep it running. Is there anything we can adopt into one of our designs and have it make sense?"
Hank briefly starts trying to plot courses, but is replaced in seconds by people who are from the relevant areas and can find locations as well as he can or better.
"That part may go more quickly than I thought.
If you make the best transportation system you can, we'd have no idea how to keep it running. Is there anything we can adopt into one of our designs and have it make sense?"
from_scratch
"Uh - maybe. It's been a while since I studied the minutiae of monorails. I could just do a regular train platform up on columns, if that'd be easier? Then you can put normal train cars on it, swap them out as your infrastructure catches up. Monorail was mostly just for the cool factor."
connecticut_yankee
"We could probably swap out monorail cars as easily as train ones, but train tracks would mesh more easily with the existing lines.
Do you need spaces dug out for the bases of the columns, or does pushing things out of the way extend to this?"
Do you need spaces dug out for the bases of the columns, or does pushing things out of the way extend to this?"
from_scratch
"It'd really be best to have proper holes. 'Unpredictable materials stress' isn't something you want near your train columns. If it's inconvenient I could make the holes with ice, wait a bit, and use that."
connecticut_yankee
"We could have them dug the same way we clear any above-ground obstructions out of the way. It would just take longer. Ice is a fantastic idea. Or perhaps solid carbon dioxide, it seems neater.
What happens if you use the same method to get rid of every other obstruction? Could this theoretically be done in minutes or seconds?"
What happens if you use the same method to get rid of every other obstruction? Could this theoretically be done in minutes or seconds?"
from_scratch
"Dry ice could hurt somebody if they touch it, will people not touch it? And it depends on the obsctruction. It'd take me a good while to tunnel through a mountain or something with ice - the matter still all exists, if I move it around in the wrong way it'll collapse into a new stable configuration and if I just use ice pockets to weaken it for conventional tunneling to go more smoothly the conventional tunneling still has to happen. A vertical hole in the ground to put a column in is pretty trivial by comparison even if I do a million of 'em. Getting a tree out of the way is worse - I can ice one to smithereens but then I have tree smithereens, not exactly ideal foundational substrate. And my usual limitations on interacting with matter when I'm not looking right at it apply, of course."
connecticut_yankee
"Dry ice is the carbon? I was just thinking that it wouldn't have to stay untouched for long, and would disrupt the area less when it disappears. Any other solid-to-gas material has the same benefit, of course, if you know about a better one than I do.
We're already selecting routes that are as flat as possible. No mountains or anything, but probably some trees. Having a tree where a hole is supposed to be seems like a necessary consequence of doing a million of 'em; does that mean we can't just hand you a map of places for ice columns?
The best-case scenario that I was thinking of was an ice replica of the entire thing, following the blueprints, columns and all, so that anything in the way gets smithereensed by some magic material that disappears right away, and then putting the real thing in the open space. But I can see how that wouldn't work if the smithereens themselves are a problem."
We're already selecting routes that are as flat as possible. No mountains or anything, but probably some trees. Having a tree where a hole is supposed to be seems like a necessary consequence of doing a million of 'em; does that mean we can't just hand you a map of places for ice columns?
The best-case scenario that I was thinking of was an ice replica of the entire thing, following the blueprints, columns and all, so that anything in the way gets smithereensed by some magic material that disappears right away, and then putting the real thing in the open space. But I can see how that wouldn't work if the smithereens themselves are a problem."
from_scratch
"Dry ice is carbon dioxide, it doesn't sublimate that fast in the sizes we're talking about, and it's cold enough to do harm if you grab it without gloves. I'll look through my notes and see if there's anything safer but it doesn't seem that likely, and I guess dry ice probably won't kill anybody unless they're really keen on poking the hurty cold thing...
If I try to make the entire thing out of ice it won't work where there's solid stuff in the way. My options when there's stuff in the way are grow the new thing from a single point, shoving the original out of the space in the process and cracking it into a few pieces if it's fragile; or destroying the original thing by growing something in many locations all at once till it comes apart." He makes two blocks of wood. One splits in half in his hand as he grows an ice cube in the middle; the other crumbles to damp sawdust as it fills with tiny ice crystals. "Like so. I have to be doing one or the other, there isn't a magical default option if I try to just plain add ice to an area and there happens to be a tree present."
If I try to make the entire thing out of ice it won't work where there's solid stuff in the way. My options when there's stuff in the way are grow the new thing from a single point, shoving the original out of the space in the process and cracking it into a few pieces if it's fragile; or destroying the original thing by growing something in many locations all at once till it comes apart." He makes two blocks of wood. One splits in half in his hand as he grows an ice cube in the middle; the other crumbles to damp sawdust as it fills with tiny ice crystals. "Like so. I have to be doing one or the other, there isn't a magical default option if I try to just plain add ice to an area and there happens to be a tree present."
connecticut_yankee
"And it's the first thing that would make holes, but the second thing for destroying obstacles. That could be a problem."
from_scratch
"Exactly. I mean, I suppose I could look through my chem textbooks and see if there's a nice acid that'll do the job without decomposing into anything horrible?"
connecticut_yankee
"I'd be very surprised if there's an acid that's safe at the kind of quantity we'd need. If not, we can clear trees and tree-equivalents the normal way. Would you be able to mark the route with paint or something similar once we have the map ready? The clearance will go faster if we can tell the workers 'remove anything between the yellow lines,' and we'd hardly need to worry about the structural integrity of paint."
from_scratch
"Oh, sure, paint I can do. I'd suggest just suspending all the tracks from the air but none of the ways I can think of to do that are gonna be maintainable - yeah, draw me up a map to tell me where to put the paint, clear the way the long way around."
connecticut_yankee
The map is still being produced, but the people plotting it are making quick progress.
Clarence comes back and tells Cam, "I've just received word from Mercia. They say they've cast the type and are ready to go to press."
Clarence comes back and tells Cam, "I've just received word from Mercia. They say they've cast the type and are ready to go to press."
from_scratch
Cam makes a copy of what they're going to press with and has a look.
connecticut_yankee
The headline shouts "Interdict Ended!" and "Nation to Hold Elections Until Arthur's Return."
Most of the article is a direct retelling of how "the eyes of a host of good knights beheld the descent of an Angel from the clouds even as their ears were filled with a divine accompaniment like unto no music heretofore heard upon earth." It depicts the knights as much less terrified than they were, but accurately records what Cam said.
Quotations, mostly recounting predictable things like the witnesses' shock at the message and the impossibility of disbelieving it, are attributed to people like Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Draft. Presumably names will be manually inserted once they've gotten people to say the quotations.
It ends by saying "We at the Hosannah have taken the liberty of re-activating our machinery and electric lightings, and suggest that our readers may now do likewise. We trust the prohibitions will be rescinded as soon as the Church hears of the events here described."
Most of the article is a direct retelling of how "the eyes of a host of good knights beheld the descent of an Angel from the clouds even as their ears were filled with a divine accompaniment like unto no music heretofore heard upon earth." It depicts the knights as much less terrified than they were, but accurately records what Cam said.
Quotations, mostly recounting predictable things like the witnesses' shock at the message and the impossibility of disbelieving it, are attributed to people like Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Draft. Presumably names will be manually inserted once they've gotten people to say the quotations.
It ends by saying "We at the Hosannah have taken the liberty of re-activating our machinery and electric lightings, and suggest that our readers may now do likewise. We trust the prohibitions will be rescinded as soon as the Church hears of the events here described."
connecticut_yankee
"And it'll probably work, too.
Now we just have to be able to hold an election before everyone stops talking about this. If only all those people who said the public attention span was getting progressively shorter had been right, this would be a lot easier."
Now we just have to be able to hold an election before everyone stops talking about this. If only all those people who said the public attention span was getting progressively shorter had been right, this would be a lot easier."
from_scratch
"Pair me with a teenage boy, I will teach him how a cellphone works and get his help writing an accessible-to-a-layperson set of instructions set up with some combination of pictograms and recorded voice instructions on the phone, I will airdrop a crate full of phones with satellite service into the middle of every town? I may have to customize some voting software but I know how to program and most of the features seem like they'd be pretty straightforward to import."
connecticut_yankee
"Would an election over telephone work? I'm not going to immediately say it's impossible, but I've never heard of it being tried. This is why I've been in such a hurry about the railroads.
The crates of telephones are definitely a good idea anyway."
The crates of telephones are definitely a good idea anyway."
from_scratch
"Well, I don't mean having everyone make a voice call in, that would require a lot of staffing. I mean I'll hack together a little polling program so people can submit their candidacy if they want to run and then select from the available choices. Box full of ludicrous amounts of math, you see."
connecticut_yankee
"...Math can do that?
Um, even if that would work I doubt anyone would trust it. A lot of people further from proper civilization aren't even going to trust the newspapers at first.
It'd be far too easy for anyone to say the glowing boxes must be wrong because they and all their friends voted for the loser. If we have officials literally count ballots, they can testify to the result or even save the ballots as proof.
Maybe we can vote by math in future elections, once everyone is used to it never being wrong."
Um, even if that would work I doubt anyone would trust it. A lot of people further from proper civilization aren't even going to trust the newspapers at first.
It'd be far too easy for anyone to say the glowing boxes must be wrong because they and all their friends voted for the loser. If we have officials literally count ballots, they can testify to the result or even save the ballots as proof.
Maybe we can vote by math in future elections, once everyone is used to it never being wrong."
from_scratch
"Okay, you have a point, the glowing boxes full of math are probably not going to be obviously trustworthy. I think you might need to figure out how people are going to submit their candidacy before you decide how to hold the election, in that case. Are you planning to run yourself?"
connecticut_yankee
"Maybe. I'm not done changing the country yet, and if I do that while holding elected office it'll give the republic some legitimacy. On the other hand, I shouldn't be a candidate in an election I help set up. Maybe next time.
For candidacy, we might just require people to tell us in person. At least for the offices that don't have merely local constituencies. I don't like throwing that in their way, but anyone who can't make it to declare their candidacy isn't going to have much support across the country anyway."
For candidacy, we might just require people to tell us in person. At least for the offices that don't have merely local constituencies. I don't like throwing that in their way, but anyone who can't make it to declare their candidacy isn't going to have much support across the country anyway."
from_scratch
"They could if they could distribute information about their platform to other settlements."
connecticut_yankee
"The other thing I'm worried about is illiterate voters. If candidates announce their run in person we can put their pictures in the ballots, but virtually nobody has cameras to get that done if we can't."