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Old 01-28-2013, 02:13 PM   #31
BrockNicholson
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
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Default Re: Pros and cons of growing your own island nation?

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Originally Posted by Seneschal View Post
With the Compartmentalized Mind (noncombat) (100 castings/second), couldn't he just drop millions of cubic metres of earth from high up, devastating any major city? I mean, no nation would refuse to recognize his legitimacy if he threatened to bury their capitals.

Even if he's not a villain, no one is going to risk pushing him. I mean, what can they do? Surround the island with ships? I doubt even aircraft carriers can survive a hundred tons of rock raining down from the stratosphere.
If I were the GM I would rule that destroying a city was combat.
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Old 01-28-2013, 02:21 PM   #32
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Default Re: Pros and cons of growing your own island nation?

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If I were the GM I would rule that destroying a city was combat.
Only when the airplanes come to shoot you down. Pouring boiling water on an anthill isn't combat - at least not to the boys that do it,
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Old 01-28-2013, 05:00 PM   #33
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Default Re: Pros and cons of growing your own island nation?

Resources can be provided by essential earth. What, you have good iron mines? I have essential iron mines.
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Old 01-29-2013, 02:54 AM   #34
Joe
 
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Default Re: Pros and cons of growing your own island nation?

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Now, a work gang of earth elementals, on the other hand......
I'd be very interested to see someone do the numbers on this one - is this a better plan than the Volcano one, perhaps?
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Old 01-29-2013, 04:56 AM   #35
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Default Re: Pros and cons of growing your own island nation?

Or, if you're not wedded to an island, Bir Tawil is still terra nullius ...
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Old 01-29-2013, 12:27 PM   #36
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Default Re: Pros and cons of growing your own island nation?

I don't think earth elementals are able to create earth, are they? So rather than earth elementals, wouldn't you want fire elementals, to agitate the magma from below? Or perhaps both, to arrange an eruption most efficiently?

More on new islands: Surtsey appeared off the coast of Iceland (in relatively shallow 425-foot-deep water) and took almost four years to reach a maximum size of one square mile. By 2002, wind and wave erosion had caused its area to dwindle to half that, though that harder remainder is expected to last until at least 2100.

Wikipedia has a list of new islands -- most of them temporary, due to just such erosion.

One of the better options might be Kavachi: it's already highly eruptive, and located between Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, neither of which has much renown for enforcing territorial claims.

Other possibilities might include Metis Shoal and Home Reef, though both are decidedly within the Kingdom of Tonga, so there'd need to be some politicking and horse-trading by any prospective "owners".
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Old 01-29-2013, 12:31 PM   #37
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Pros and cons of growing your own island nation?

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I don't think earth elementals are able to create earth, are they? .
They can gather it together. Which is good since it means the ocean levels world-wide will be unaffected.
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Old 01-29-2013, 01:23 PM   #38
Jerander
 
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Default Re: Pros and cons of growing your own island nation?

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I don't think earth elementals are able to create earth, are they? So rather than earth elementals, wouldn't you want fire elementals, to agitate the magma from below? Or perhaps both, to arrange an eruption most efficiently?
And likely the water elementals, to keep them from putting the kabosh on a project like this...

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They can gather it together. Which is good since it means the ocean levels world-wide will be unaffected.
So how long this method would take depends on the number of elementals you can control at once and how effective they are at moving the mass. Could be days, could be centuries.

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One of the better options might be Kavachi: it's already highly eruptive...
I'm not sure I'd go with an already active volcano. Since it may not turn off when you finally have an island the size you want...
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Old 01-29-2013, 01:32 PM   #39
Proteus
 
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Default Re: Pros and cons of growing your own island nation?

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They can gather it together. Which is good since it means the ocean levels world-wide will be unaffected.
I don't have time to run the math at present, but I'm pretty sure that, even using the profile of a shield volcano, the creation of a moderate-sized island will have a negligible effect on worldwide sea level. The oceans are really, really big.
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Old 01-29-2013, 02:56 PM   #40
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Default Re: Pros and cons of growing your own island nation?

However; build a new island chain in the artic or antartic <don't need to be big>, and make them set up to support a huge ice shelf growing over them and you could REDUCE water levels (Doubly so if you have a complex infrastructure to encourage ice forming). Declare yourself a country with the intent of lowering sea levels and anyone who attacks you will be condemned as an eco-terrorist by everyone else!
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