Zompist Bboard Again

I think they don't but are just optimistic.

The words "fictional future history" seem to indicate that it's from the perspective of someone quite some ways in the future. That is, they'd know because that's how things turned out in their world.

I had an idea of an alien species that can control the matter states of their bodies (being able to shift between solid, liquid, gas, and possibly plasma) and that they have numerous civilizations that orbit one of the last remaining blackholes (whose accretion disk can still emit sun-like light) in the universe of a post-Stelliferrous Era future.

Can anyone shed any light on this idea:

An Earth-like planet puts millions of satellites into its orbit over the first couple of hundred years of spaceflight, then loses the ability to control them. Eventually they coalesce into a ring (system).

I imagine this structure could be short-lived. Perhaps it consistently sheds material which (usually) burns up in the atmosphere. I wonder how long it might take to form, and how short-lived it might be? Whether bemused post-apocalyptic cultures might observe its rise and fall?

Can anyone help me work out whether there's any physical possibility of this occuring? (Perhaps the pre-collapse civilisation could have been into tugging asteroids into near-space for mining, if that helps any.)

sasasha wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 5:50 pm Can anyone shed any light on this idea:

An Earth-like planet puts millions of satellites into its orbit over the first couple of hundred years of spaceflight, then loses the ability to control them. Eventually they coalesce into a ring (system).

I imagine this structure could be short-lived. Perhaps it consistently sheds material which (usually) burns up in the atmosphere. I wonder how long it might take to form, and how short-lived it might be? Whether bemused post-apocalyptic cultures might observe its rise and fall?

Can anyone help me work out whether there's any physical possibility of this occuring? (Perhaps the pre-collapse civilisation could have been into tugging asteroids into near-space for mining, if that helps any.)

Look up ‘Kessler syndrome’, if you haven’t already.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 5:58 pm

sasasha wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 5:50 pm Can anyone shed any light on this idea:

An Earth-like planet puts millions of satellites into its orbit over the first couple of hundred years of spaceflight, then loses the ability to control them. Eventually they coalesce into a ring (system).

I imagine this structure could be short-lived. Perhaps it consistently sheds material which (usually) burns up in the atmosphere. I wonder how long it might take to form, and how short-lived it might be? Whether bemused post-apocalyptic cultures might observe its rise and fall?

Can anyone help me work out whether there's any physical possibility of this occuring? (Perhaps the pre-collapse civilisation could have been into tugging asteroids into near-space for mining, if that helps any.)

Look up ‘Kessler syndrome’, if you haven’t already.

Argh, thank you! I am so glad I asked the question! The answer (yes, this is essentially physically possible, and the total lifespan of this type of structure is likely to be some millennia) is incredibly helpful to the development of my conworld. I've been trying to find a catalyst for the development of what I call “Secularism” ‒ the assertion that all the myths about the amazing past of magical technological power were just that, myths ‒ about a millennium before my main ‘now’. The final disappearance of rings which had been formed this way would absolutely do that.

Quite excited now. Thanks.

sasasha wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 6:18 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 5:58 pmLook up ‘Kessler syndrome’, if you haven’t already.

Argh, thank you! I am so glad I asked the question! The answer (yes, this is essentially physically possible, and the total lifespan of this type of structure is likely to be some millennia) is incredibly helpful to the development of my conworld. I've been trying to find a catalyst for the development of what I call “Secularism” ‒ the assertion that all the myths about the amazing past of magical technological power were just that, myths ‒ about a millennium before my main ‘now’. The final disappearance of rings which had been formed this way would absolutely do that.

the sheer distance in time, might also do that.

just having the rings up up there, wouldn't keep people from thinking that the rings were part of technology...after all, when pieces fall from the ring to the ground, they'll either burn up or melt into slag.

keenir wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 7:58 pm

sasasha wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 6:18 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 5:58 pmLook up ‘Kessler syndrome’, if you haven’t already.

Argh, thank you! I am so glad I asked the question! The answer (yes, this is essentially physically possible, and the total lifespan of this type of structure is likely to be some millennia) is incredibly helpful to the development of my conworld. I've been trying to find a catalyst for the development of what I call “Secularism” ‒ the assertion that all the myths about the amazing past of magical technological power were just that, myths ‒ about a millennium before my main ‘now’. The final disappearance of rings which had been formed this way would absolutely do that.

the sheer distance in time, might also do that.

just having the rings up up there, wouldn't keep people from thinking that the rings were part of technology...after all, when pieces fall from the ring to the ground, they'll either burn up or melt into slag.

But the ring would provide a constant focus for the stories to propogate around; as if Bifröst, for instance, had actually existed until about 1000 years ago. Yes, time is of course a factor in eroding the memory of the world before. But while the rings were visible, and were visibly changing (at least, frequently shedding meteorites), there was a constant psychological conduit to the past era. Not all cultures remembered deeply about before; but those that did pinned their cosmology/ontology on the cultural memories of the appearance of the rings, which, after all, did historically co-occur with ‘the end of the old world’.

People in the era of Secularism, when the rings are gone, are told by their mythos that there was once a big bridge in the sky, visible day and night. They are told it was built by the ancients in their last days as an attempt to escape the failing earth and take refuge in the heavens ‒ but it became a prison, instead, a wall, to prevent souls escaping.

But Secularists don't believe that there was ever any bridge. They think the entire mythos is foundationless. Actually, they tend to blame the Vashari for propogating the myths in the first place, to keep human ingenuity in check – see, and keep an eye on, the Sego thread for more info.

sasasha wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2023 7:45 am

keenir wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 7:58 pmjust having the rings up up there, wouldn't keep people from thinking that the rings were part of technology...after all, when pieces fall from the ring to the ground, they'll either burn up or melt into slag.

But the ring would provide a constant focus for the stories to propogate around; as if Bifröst, for instance, had actually existed until about 1000 years ago. Yes, time is of course a factor in eroding the memory of the world before. But while the rings were visible, and were visibly changing (at least, frequently shedding meteorites), there was a constant psychological conduit to the past era.

Interesting. And I look forwards to learning more about your conworld, no matter what you do.

The following is not put here to discourage you or make you change it; just me putting it here so you're aware it doesn't need to be millenia from the time of the rings:
[spoiler]
Theres a tale told in anthropology, about someone who went to a village where people told him that the massive stones and ruins on the edge of the village, were put there by giants. As it turned out, the ruins were part of a waterwheel and milling house that were only 200 years old; this was in North Carolina, but it echoes how people in the Middle Ages saw the remains of Romans and earlier peoples.

Heck, we are less than a century from when people built and used the Apollo rockets...and not only can we no longer build more Apollo rockets, but we have people who don't believe we used them to go to the Moon.
[/spoiler]

keenir wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2023 11:06 am

sasasha wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2023 7:45 am

keenir wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 7:58 pmjust having the rings up up there, wouldn't keep people from thinking that the rings were part of technology...after all, when pieces fall from the ring to the ground, they'll either burn up or melt into slag.

But the ring would provide a constant focus for the stories to propogate around; as if Bifröst, for instance, had actually existed until about 1000 years ago. Yes, time is of course a factor in eroding the memory of the world before. But while the rings were visible, and were visibly changing (at least, frequently shedding meteorites), there was a constant psychological conduit to the past era.

Interesting. And I look forwards to learning more about your conworld, no matter what you do.

The following is not put here to discourage you or make you change it; just me putting it here so you're aware it doesn't need to be millenia from the time of the rings:
[spoiler]
Theres a tale told in anthropology, about someone who went to a village where people told him that the massive stones and ruins on the edge of the village, were put there by giants. As it turned out, the ruins were part of a waterwheel and milling house that were only 200 years old; this was in North Carolina, but it echoes how people in the Middle Ages saw the remains of Romans and earlier peoples.

Heck, we are less than a century from when people built and used the Apollo rockets...and not only can we no longer build more Apollo rockets, but we have people who don't believe we used them to go to the Moon.
[/spoiler]

I also look forward to seeing more. Another real-life parallel: we refer to a certain style of Mycenaean stonework as "Cyclopean" because the Classical Greeks saw these walls built by their own ancestors just a few centuries earlier and considered them to have been the work of Cyclopes, as only they would have had the strength to move stones that heavy.