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Old 08-29-2016, 10:30 AM   #81
ericthered
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
I believe a hell world is about me, you, and now, not our great grand children or ten generations down the line.
End of the world as we know it, not necessarily the literal end of the world or all life on it.
A dinosaur killing asteroid would count even though it wouldn't come close to killing all life.
Its also about the people down the street and the 10-year outlook. And in the context of infinity, it is about the legacy. If you save the present but no the future of the world, its a partial victory, and if you save the future but not the present, its incomplete as well. Both should be in jeopardy.

A world where an astroid will hit the earth in 50 years, or where everyone was mysteriously sterilized isn't a hell world -- its weird and in danger, but not hell.

A world where 50% of the population disapeared overnight isn't a hell world if it doesn't afterwards fall to pieces, and likely not even then. A world facing an invasion that will certainly be both driven off and take a lot of lives isn't a hell world.

For a solid, traditional hell world you need both an immediate threat and a hopeless situation.

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Lenin-2 is one of the less believable more exaggerated worlds based on a scrap of fact (that the Communist nations were far more ecologically irresponsible since the body controlling industry was not answerable to anyone except itself.) It's not at all likely that the described catatrophe would wipe out the plankton. Without WOG to tell me that they're all going to die, I'd expect the situation to stabilize in some fifty years.
Yeah, Lenin-2 is weird --- what the crap did they do? fill the ocean with mercury? Spray pesticides that killed off all animal life 5 years later? And the plankton comment feels like hyperbole. But it still illustrates the point I'm trying to make, scientific or not: most official hell worlds are bleak in both the long and the short term.
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Old 08-29-2016, 10:53 AM   #82
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

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I don't think an "extinction of the grasses" world would ever reach "uninhabited" status except in the most relative of terms. It would be a Hell World while food supplies were scarce.
Very, very scarce. Sure, humans can get by fine on potatoes and other root crops and so on, but consider for a moment the vast plains of golden grain covering much of North America, and the daily bread of prayers and aphorism; then consider the way that Asian cultures can class "eating rice" and "eating <anything else>" as almost separate activities, because you eat rice to fill your stomach and other stuff for more complex reasons. Then consider how many millions Chairman Mao killed just by hashing up the distribution system in a China that was still perfectly capable of growing edible rice. Thrown in the meat production systems that lean on grass or grain or maize...

So we switch to non-grass crops - while millions are desperate and starving, and are prepared to die fighting for access to the seed crops because, well, starvation is no fun.

Yes, humanity could probably survive the Death of Grass. Just. The global ecosystem could just about recover from the loss of multiple grazing species, maybe, after a while - though it's goodbye to the plains megafauna. But civilisation in any meaningful sense would be toast, and I'd reckon on the hell-world situation lasting thousands of years.
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Old 08-29-2016, 11:01 AM   #83
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

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Very, very scarce. Sure, humans can get by fine on potatoes and other root crops and so on, but consider for a moment the vast plains of golden grain covering much of North America, and the daily bread of prayers and aphorism; then consider the way that Asian cultures can class "eating rice" and "eating <anything else>" as almost separate activities, because you eat rice to fill your stomach and other stuff for more complex reasons. Then consider how many millions Chairman Mao killed just by hashing up the distribution system in a China that was still perfectly capable of growing edible rice. Thrown in the meat production systems that lean on grass or grain or maize...

So we switch to non-grass crops - while millions are desperate and starving, and are prepared to die fighting for access to the seed crops because, well, starvation is no fun.

Yes, humanity could probablt survive the Death of Grass. Just. The global ecosystem could just about recover the loss of multiple grazing species, maybe, after a while. But civilisation in any meaningful sense would be toast, and I'd reckon on the hell-world situation lasting thousands of years.
Again, it is a question of "when did the grasses die"? The closer the die-off date is to the 21st century, the more the scenario looks like your outline. Going back, you (slowly? quickly?) reach a point where food sources are far more localized and variegated. Going forward, food production technologies may reach the point of offering any or all of the following:

1. A return to similar levels of localization and variegation as in the past
2. Higher density production of non-grass foodstuffs
3. Previously unknown foods of at least equal nutritional (if not also culinary) quality

And when survival is at stake, cultural norms usually fall to the wayside. If the only available food is non-grass-sourced, that's what will be eaten.
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Old 08-29-2016, 11:15 AM   #84
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

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Again, it is a question of "when did the grasses die"? The closer the die-off date is to the 21st century, the more the scenario looks like your outline. Going back, you (slowly? quickly?) reach a point where food sources are far more localized and variegated.
Not that quickly. Most things resembling civilisation are largely based on cultivation of some member of the grass family.

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And when survival is at stake, cultural norms usually fall to the wayside. If the only available food is non-grass-sourced, that's what will be eaten.
What's available of it will be eaten, once people understand that it's nutritious. The trouble is, in a culture built on food <A>, the amount of food <B> available will be far less than the population needs, for several years (if not decades), however willing they are to eat <B>. And starvation kills in less than years.
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Old 08-29-2016, 11:38 AM   #85
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

Every tuesday at 4AM GMT, exactly 1% of the population dies for no apparent reason. Hearts stop, brain death happens instantly -- the entire human dies all at once. Theories as to why are common and diverse.

The main difficulty is that the deaths are completely random. There is no pattern in terms of genetics, location, moral behavior, birth date, or any other statistical measurement.

Most people have accepted some sort of quasi-religious/supernatural explanation. Half the world has given up on itself.

40% of the world will die each year (leaving 36% left after two years, 20% after three years...). The life expectancy of a human is about 16 months. Or rather, that's the half-life of a human.
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Old 08-29-2016, 12:03 PM   #86
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

Amok: extreme emotion has a chance to spiral out of control inducing psychotic breaks and violence. Sadly, fear and panic at the possibility of such breaks often induces them.
The only regions with any stability are those that rigidly control their feelings. Of course, wrangling children got a whole lot more "interesting" with child care workers needing armor.
Unlike Vulcans, humans don't do well under such repression. So even those stable regions are beset with all sorts of psychological issues.
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Old 08-29-2016, 08:02 PM   #87
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

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Cryptobiosis literally hidden life. When an organism is so "on hold" as to appear dead. Usually in simple seed/spore/egg form, but a few hardy critters handle freezing solid or desiccation like the now famous tardigrades aka water bears. It would be a nice mysterious but sought after research subject for cross-timers.
Not just long distance travel in space. But imagine putting the injured or sick into suspension until reaching the hospital or develop a cure for X. Or just safer surgeries without risky drugs; poor anesthesiologists out of a job though.
Before the difference between real sleep & 'The Big Sleep' was brought up in this forum, I had never thought of the possibility that some Homeliner would want to figure out the cryptobiosis (awesome sounding science word for a sci-fi concept, like 'cryptozoology') of Slumber.

That could inject the world into a Homeline Infinite Worlds game. Homeline scientists, maybe even Homeline governments, trying to investigate, Infinity trying to stop them.


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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Yeah, Lenin-2 is weird --- what the crap did they do? fill the ocean with mercury? Spray pesticides that killed off all animal life 5 years later? And the plankton comment feels like hyperbole. But it still illustrates the point I'm trying to make, scientific or not: most official hell worlds are bleak in both the long and the short term.
Lenin-2 does seem extreme. Infinite Worlds clearly wanted a 'man-made pollution has gone too far' hell world, where it's not some deus ex machina that caused the hell but mankind itself, and this was the best way of fitting the bill, while also making it close enough to the real world to be relatable.

It's just hard to make that kind of world, because it needs to be relatively high-tech (which also pushes it forward time-wise), but not wealthy or too advanced (or they'd figure things out & fix them before too long). And had to be dictatorial. Lenin-2 is about as close as one can get.


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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Every tuesday at 4AM GMT, exactly 1% of the population dies for no apparent reason. Hearts stop, brain death happens instantly -- the entire human dies all at once. Theories as to why are common and diverse.

The main difficulty is that the deaths are completely random. There is no pattern in terms of genetics, location, moral behavior, birth date, or any other statistical measurement.

Most people have accepted some sort of quasi-religious/supernatural explanation. Half the world has given up on itself.

40% of the world will die each year (leaving 36% left after two years, 20% after three years...). The life expectancy of a human is about 16 months. Or rather, that's the half-life of a human.
This is a scary prospect, but has a short half-life. It might work better if the time period was extended, giving humanity decades, not months.

Also, having it occur on the hour every Tuesday points to some relationship with human society (fitting into our schedule of the day and how we add up the days). It might work better if there is just a set time of no other particular significance. Then the 'death moment' would also shift when during the day it happens.


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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Amok: extreme emotion has a chance to spiral out of control inducing psychotic breaks and violence. Sadly, fear and panic at the possibility of such breaks often induces them.
The only regions with any stability are those that rigidly control their feelings. Of course, wrangling children got a whole lot more "interesting" with child care workers needing armor.
Unlike Vulcans, humans don't do well under such repression. So even those stable regions are beset with all sorts of psychological issues.
Would this have come in at some point, or always been a feature of humanity? If the latter, likely humans would have just died off, unable to properly reproduce.

Perhaps it came in during ancient times, and society has ossified. It's 1900 A.D., but the only civilizations are still on the Nile, Tigris/Euphrates, Indus, and Yangtze Rivers. In some ways they're very similar to ancient societies - in other ways much different.
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Old 08-29-2016, 08:20 PM   #88
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

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Insomnia - In the twenties people become unable to sleep, and slowly start going crazy. By 1935, there are only the feral crazies, 'quiets' who keep the insanity at bay by living boring pastoral lives with as little stimulus as possible, and the 'louds', who get their demons out by brilliant/insane artistic creation and dissemination.

Not a biological virus, more psychic, psychological, kind of like a viral meme, it infected the first I-Scouts and the worldline was closed. But Infinity still has beacons that monitor radio waves, and somehow there are still radio stations transmitting maddening radio plays and the like from such places as Paris' Left Bank and New York's Greenwich Village.
All the ideas you posted were great, but this one is particularly great and creepy.

I sent a PC to a hell world based on Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros. (Ignoring all the metaphor and taking it very literally.) People begin acting wild, roaring and bellowing, and generally smashing things up. Eventually they begin to change physically, developing bestial features, becoming semi-upright, developing chitinous, horn like growths, and becoming vaguely greenish. Exposure to them seeds the idea of mimicking them in the mind of the observer, as does hearing their bellowing.

The PC was only there briefly, but long enough to see a vaguely reddish pair of "rhinoceroses" be encircled, gored and consumed by the greenish locals.


What about a world where everyone (or nearly so) went blind and deaf. Mass die offs are going to be the obvious result, but creepy, perfectly silent communities have formed that communicate by a form of tactile sign language and have developed odd and frightening customs. Their other senses are extremely developed and their psychology is inhuman. Having scouts chased through the ruins of Chicago or London by silent killers hunting them by the vibration of their footfalls and the smell of their sweat is my kind of fun.
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Old 08-30-2016, 12:52 AM   #89
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

What is the definition of a hell world?

I assumed that it meant that humans from that world were extinct and humans from a different dimension would be unwilling and unable to form a self sustaining colony on that planet. Essentially the world is only suitable for short term visits by adventurers at great risk with little or nothing to gain as the world is beyond salvation.
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Old 08-30-2016, 12:56 AM   #90
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

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...
Would this have come in at some point, or always been a feature of humanity? If the latter, likely humans would have just died off, unable to properly reproduce.

Perhaps it came in during ancient times, and society has ossified. It's 1900 A.D., but the only civilizations are still on the Nile, Tigris/Euphrates, Indus, and Yangtze Rivers. In some ways they're very similar to ancient societies - in other ways much different.
Umm... it is possible to reproduce without extreme emotion. Not going to mention other less savory ways.
But a dying humanity with only the Vulcan like rigidly controlled societies lasting a bit longer is what makes it a Hell world.
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