Intercepting meteors with magic

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

If you can throw regular matter into the path of the meteor reliably you've arrived at your solution and there's no need for elaborations involving Force Walls.

If the meteor would explode when it hits the ground it will explode when it hits anything solid. Probably even when it hits anything liquid f you can get the liquids to stay in one lump in front of the meteor.

Even an object whose explosions would be too small to vaporize the meteor would fragment it and throw the pieces onto different trajectories.

The main problem s getting into position to intercept the meteor with something solid rather than doing enough once you get there.

Note that many impacting bodies, including the Tunguska meteor and the meteor that created Meteor Crater, AZ, are thought to have exploded high up in the atmosphere. The problem is that all the exploded stuff was still going in the same direction, with enough mass and momentum to smash up stuff on the ground pretty good. So you need to more than explode it, you need to put enough stuff in the way to slow it way down.

Luke

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by Balor Patch

What is the SM of the city, or the world? Phase Other won't work against meteoric iron, Blink Other won't move it far enough, Teleport other should work if the local mage guild can find the energy.

Against meteoric iron Divination won't work either. How is this being detected again?

Also, I strongly agree with Sir Pudding.

Divination works just fine on the city being destroyed by meteoric fire. Given the magnitude of the event, I'm betting a wide variety of cryptic warnings result in solid forewarning.

Next Plans:

Harpoon the Meteoric Iron (TM) rock with a steel anchor/handle/push-plug. Use magic on the handle.

Depending on TL, there are a lot of non-magical solutions.

Shifting the world out of phase for the required time seems like a reasonable Wish, particularly since nothing appears to happen other than the world surviving.

Depending on if the light counts as magic or not, you could use Sunbolt arrays to heat the meteor and the resultant thrust can push it off course.

Zargon the Space Dragon swoops to the rescue.

You align the four elemental stones around the chosen one...wait, that's Fifth Element...

[PseudoFenton]

I guess we're talking about a big meteor here, the End Game deal? Otherwise, many meteors aint even worth worrying about - you might lose a city block or even a city, but so what? With enough warning you can just move everyone elsewhere.

So, assuming a large enough forewarning and a large enough meteor that you can't just avoid the fallout site. You should use Machine Summoning, and then Awaken Computer. Ask it how to solve the problem. Done.

I'd imagine it would suggest something like use Create (Earth) or anything else so long as its pretty dense to stick something near its path. Which it would've already calculated to be in the right place to veer the path of the meteor off enough that it will explode in the upper atmosphere or better yet entirely destroy itself during entry. (I doubt you'd get it to miss the planet, not without some very large Create spells or some very high range penalties and a huge forewarning.)

When it comes to meteors, it aint hard to prevent them touching ground... although some can ignite the very atmosphere, and the resulting firestorm afterwards isn't much fun either... but a smart enough machine should be able to plan for that, and you can use magic to build a subterranean civilisation instead.

[The Benj]

Originally Posted by PseudoFenton

I guess we're talking about a big meteor here, the End Game deal? Otherwise, many meteors aint even worth worrying about - you might lose a city block or even a city, but so what? With enough warning you can just move everyone elsewhere.

So, assuming a large enough forewarning and a large enough meteor that you can't just avoid the fallout site. You should use Machine Summoning, and then Awaken Computer. Ask it how to solve the problem. Done.

Dude, mediaeval fantasy.

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by The Benj

Dude, mediaeval fantasy.

I've read pratchett, Hex could totally do the job.

[Anders]

Summon Tiamat and have her eat the meteor.

Next problem: How to deal with Tiamat.

[Mr Frost]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Note that many impacting bodies, including the Tunguska meteor and the meteor that created Meteor Crater, AZ, are thought to have exploded high up in the atmosphere. The problem is that all the exploded stuff was still going in the same direction, with enough mass and momentum to smash up stuff on the ground pretty good. So you need to more than explode it, you need to put enough stuff in the way to slow it way down.

Luke

Explode {with real matter in its' path} the would be meteor far enough out in space that by the time it hits the atmosphere it will have spread out sufficiently that the by then far greater area and volume of atmosphere it is interacting with can safely absorb it .

Then curse the mad creator that thought up something so beggaring of all superlative cheesy as meteoric iron :/

[Anders]

We might benefit from knowing how we would defend the Earth from meteorides when they come. Because they will come.

Bruce Willis need not apply. And he's getting too old anyway.

[Anaraxes]

Roundabout. Your average meteor is bound to fail that IQ roll to avoid moving in the new direction.

[Anders]

Why you shouldn't blow up an asteroid.

A small asteroid (40 meters) weighs 85,000 metric tons. That means you need to do some 4 000 points of damage... to fragment it into smaller asteroids that will still be very unpleasant. To reduce it to dust you'd need to do ten times, and bring it to -10xHP. That's 40 000 points of damage. That's a mighty large explosion.