How Does the Cat Stay in the Bag?

[Ed the Coastie]

From the game I am working on, I have a premise that in 1828, then-President John Quincy Adams authorized a "Second Voyage of Discovery", this one heading north to check out the validity of John Symmes' hollow Earth theory. Not only did the expedition successfully locate "Symmes' Hole", which gave access to the inner world, but they also made contact with the Nahash (pronounced "NAY-kosh"), a race of humanoid reptiles whose distant ancestors had fled to the inner world 65 million years ago in anticipation of the asteroid impact that led to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. (The Nahashi were TL11 at their height, but their technology tends to be biologically- and/or psionically-based, and they never developed space travel.)

How do you keep something like that a secret from the general public, even after nearly 200 years? I don't just want to "hand-wave" something...I want to have at least some rational (or even semi-rational) explanation other than the fact that most Nahashi want little or nothing to do with humans.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ed the Coastie

How do you keep something like that a secret from the general public, even after nearly 200 years?

Assuming a remotely free society, you don't. Not that you couldn't keep the initial discovery secret, but by the mid 20th century it's way too easy to detect without ever coming close to the actual hole.

[Flyndaran]

That kind of thing couldn't be hidden from TL 7 let alone 8 geology. The ultra tech pacifist "aliens" could be brushed off as silly paranoia though.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Ed the Coastie

From the game I am working on, I have a premise that in 1828, then-President John Quincy Adams authorized a "Second Voyage of Discovery", this one heading north to check out the validity of John Symmes' hollow Earth theory. Not only did the expedition successfully locate "Symmes' Hole", which gave access to the inner world, but they also made contact with the Nahash (pronounced "NAY-kosh"), a race of humanoid reptiles whose distant ancestors had fled to the inner world 65 million years ago in anticipation of the asteroid impact that led to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. (The Nahashi were TL11 at their height, but their technology tends to be biologically- and/or psionically-based, and they never developed space travel.)

How do you keep something like that a secret from the general public, even after nearly 200 years? I don't just want to "hand-wave" something...I want to have at least some rational (or even semi-rational) explanation other than the fact that most Nahashi want little or nothing to do with humans.

Close the hole. A big honking hole that's there all the time can't be concealed for that long.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Close the hole. A big honking hole that's there all the time can't be concealed for that long.

Even if you close the hole, a giant hole in the ground would have effects on gravity and propagation of earthquake waves that are fairly trivially visible by TL 7.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Even if you close the hole, a giant hole in the ground would have effects on gravity and propagation of earthquake waves that are fairly trivially visible by TL 7.

It would require vastly different physics, as well as fundamental aspects of volcanism, magnetism, and geology.

What would be the theory for such hollowness other than habitable air pockets? Determining that false consensus might help coming up with how the overall secrets could be kept hidden.

[Anders]

I don't understand. You put a bag on the floor, and the cat stays there because he wants to. You don't have to force him. He's a cat.

[Ed the Coastie]

It's just a game, guys...not a geology dissertation. I can get away with claiming a "hollow Earth" because it is, in fact, a feature of my setting; most people are aware that the Earth is hollow or at least has several large and inter-connected subterranean "pockets". However, it is generally maintained that the subterranean region is uninhabitable for one reason or another, and what is being kept secret is that not only is it habitable but there is an "alien race" dwelling within.

[robkelk]

Perhaps most of the expedition never returned. It's trivially easy to die of exposure in the High Arctic even if you're prepared for it, and they wouldn't have been prepared for it in 1828.

The expedition's survivors wouldn't want to be responsible for sending others to their deaths, so they kept quiet about what they knew - except in the official, Top Secret government report.


Would that work?

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by robkelk

Perhaps most of the expedition never returned. It's trivially easy to die of exposure in the High Arctic even if you're prepared for it, and they wouldn't have been prepared for it in 1828.

The expedition's survivors wouldn't want to be responsible for sending others to their deaths, so they kept quiet about what they knew - except in the official, Top Secret government report.


Would that work?

Not really, no. Consider all the arctic and antarctic expeditions in the real world. The main problem is that somebody else would go there to see for themselves. As for not wanting to be responsible for sending others to their death, they would be highly unusual explorers if that prevented them from publishing their discoveries and hitting the lecture trail (Again consider historical explorers).


Hans