Terraforming in the OTU

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

'Rational' is a relative thing. An action is rational or irrational depending on the underlying motive, and motives can be nearly infinitely various. Just for a single real-world example, imagine a (technologically) primitive tribesman from a Bronze Age tribe, contemplating Mount Rushmore.

In one sense it's fully familiar, a monument to the tribal king might be completely part of his frame of reference. But the scale of it! It's totally irrational, it would require the effort of the entire tribe to the exclusion of all else for years on end if it could be done at all (which it could not, at is tech level). No sane tribe would carve a mountain into such a thing, when there are so many easier, cheaper ways to make a monument.

Motives don't have to make sense to anyone else, esp. once resources reach a certain level.

Stonehenge's trilithons alone would be a tribe's non-food efforts for several years. The quarrying alone would be a year's work for a tribe of a couple hundred. The transport looks to be a season for the same, if we guess their tech base right. And the assembly would be a season, as well. Plus years of observations (decades even), to establish placement. And that's only one of 4 periods of use of the site. (Modern use being period 4, and involving very limited new construction.)

Religious reasons can bring rather improbable and economically unwise projects into being.

Pride can do even worse. Just look at the gothic churches of France.