[IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

[David Johnston2]

A world that hadn't rendered silphium extinct might have a valuable export. It was a plant, possibly related to parsley, or more accurately a type of giant fennel plant cultivated for its resin – known commonly as laser, laserpicium, or lasarpicium - which was used as a culinary additive, a topical ointment or salve, and a medication for several ailments, and most relevant to this discussion, a form of birth control. There isn’t a lot known of it, in fact, it’s relation to the family Apiacaea (celery) is mostly speculation, though most sources will attribute it to the genus Ferula.

[starslayer]

Oops

Oops is any one of dozens of words that the probe conveyer went to and then relayed no telemetry, marking it as a no-go.

But a typing error a year later sent a probe conveyer to the same world, relaying back images of open space, and shattered pieces of rock, the probe was sent to investigate one of the rocks, where it registered a huge radiation spike before going offline.

Infinity quickly realized that this is any number of 'antimatter' worlds, where chiriality favored the formation of antimatter over normal matter, and there first conveyer reacted with the planet, destroying it.

With careful magnetic isolation any one of the chunks of antimatter can be isolated suspended and moved to another world, so far this has not bee attempted, due to concern of an isolation failure, but the use of oops for research, energy generation or even weapons is staggering.

[ericthered]

A single conveyor won't provide near enough mass to exceed the gravitational binding energy of a planet. you need about 10^15 kg. Which in some ways makes "oops" even creepier.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by ericthered

A single conveyor won't provide near enough mass to exceed the gravitational binding energy of a planet. you need about 10^15 kg. Which in some ways makes "oops" even creepier.

Maybe it was a really small antimatter planet. :)

Seriously, differences in the laws of physics that probably reduce the total amount of matter (or rather antimatter) to a much smaller level but form that antimatter into a small planet-like body at the same co-ordinates as Earth are the sorts of things weird parallels do.

If the OP wants the numbers matter and antimatter mutually annihilate at 43 megatons per kilo and I'd suspect that an Infinity probe is less than 100 kilos. While I'd rather that no one set off a 4 gigaton device in my hemisphere you'd need a solid piece of matter (or antimatter) around 11 km in diameter to trn a an Earth-sized planet into floating rocks.

.....unless that's what's weird about the place i.e. planets pop like balloons.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Maybe it was a really small antimatter planet. :)

Seriously, differences in the laws of physics that probably reduce the total amount of matter (or rather antimatter) to a much smaller level but form that antimatter into a small planet-like body at the same co-ordinates as Earth are the sorts of things weird parallels do.

If the OP wants the numbers matter and antimatter mutually annihilate at 43 megatons per kilo and I'd suspect that an Infinity probe is less than 100 kilos. While I'd rather that no one set off a 4 gigaton device in my hemisphere you'd need a solid piece of matter (or antimatter) around 11 km in diameter to trn a an Earth-sized planet into floating rocks.

.....unless that's what's weird about the place i.e. planets pop like balloons.

The Martians destroyed that Earth for violating the Antimatter Weapon Test Ban Treaty.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

There isn’t a lot known of it, in fact, it’s relation to the family Apiacaea (celery) is mostly speculation, though most sources will attribute it to the genus Ferula.

This is actually pretty likely, given that we have images that look rather close, members of the same genus were traded under the same name as spices, and quite a few fennels have a multiregional history of use as abortifacents, contraceptives or galactogogues.

But useful biology *ought* to be a pretty major trade item for crossworld travelers. Many useful plants are discovered accidentally, and many domesticated ones are heavily modified and/or originate from rare crossbreeds or weird mutants. If somebody swaps the jar containing the seeds of that one with the next jar over and eats rather than plants that particular strain, it could easily have vanished from history.

An example: all fruits have yeasts on them. But the commercial yeast strains used in baking and brewing don't descend from them. There ancestors apparently grow on acorns, and are now relatively rare, though it's hard to say whether that's true historically. Still, we really have no idea how these got into grains or grapes, but they're substantially better than the fruit yeasts. If they never did, maybe nobody ever invents leavened bread, or brews anything with more than 3% alcohol content. Could some other microbe out there do something equally central to civilization on some other timeline? Very probably, but there's no way to tell what.

It's a long list - wheat's a low probability hybrid, every flavor of apples originates in a single tree (and are propagated by cloning, apples don't "breed true"), maize is so dissimilar to it's wild ancestor there's still debate what that is, but the "best" theory seems to involve not one, but two hybridization events, all citrus trees are hybrids or mutations of 3 or 4 wild ancestors (only one of which, the mandarin orange, is very edible), domesticated grapes owe their success to a mutation that broke the gene that turns off the sex determination of their wild ancestors, allowing the plant to have both sexes, self pollenate and hence vastly increase chances you actually get fruit....

[Flyndaran]

One way to get valuable animal products could be through unique venoms.
Some spiders' bites induce priapism, so perhaps a one world has an otherwise non-dangerous species that only induces temporary harmless effects.
Even better if this world is adjacent to the natural birth control plant reality.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

The Martians destroyed that Earth for violating the Antimatter Weapon Test Ban Treaty.

Correction; the Matter Weapon Test Ban Treaty. ;)

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

One way to get valuable animal products could be through unique venoms.
Some spiders' bites induce priapism, so perhaps a one world has an otherwise non-dangerous species that only induces temporary harmless effects.
Even better if this world is adjacent to the natural birth control plant reality.

I suppose as aphrodisiacs go getting yourself bitten by venomous spiders isn't the craziest thing people have tried. No stupider than snorting poisonous mushrooms.

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by malloyd

An example: all fruits have yeasts on them. But the commercial yeast strains used in baking and brewing don't descend from them. There ancestors apparently grow on acorns, and are now relatively rare, though it's hard to say whether that's true historically. Still, we really have no idea how these got into grains or grapes, but they're substantially better than the fruit yeasts. If they never did, maybe nobody ever invents leavened bread, or brews anything with more than 3% alcohol content.

Sounds like a good setting for a Horror campaign.