Antarctic Space Nazis Across the Multiverse

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

There are doubtless explanations for that.

Fiercely debated ones.

While small supernatural gifts possessed by shamans and other workers of magic among the natives might explain better craftsmanship (especially as devoted smiths may possess a knack for their craft) and what appears to be a fairly high standard of living for some societies with such simple social organization, they don't account for the lack of historically attested empires.

The world has Iranian-speakers, some of whom seem to have a class of Magi as the clergy of (more than one, actually) Zoroastrian-like religion. Why are they simply one culture out of many similar ones who live south of the Black Sea (and not that different from dozens of others north and east of it)?

As far as the ASNs can determine, there is a bewildering variety of cultures in Anatolia and points east of it, many of whom speak languages that the ASNs can't classify as part of any extant language family. Instead of relative linguistic unity in Mesopotamia and environs, with everyone speaking Assyrian or Aramaic, the ASNs have reports that numerous Semitic and non-Semitic languages are spoken in different city-states. The same applies in the rest of what ought to have been the Neo-Assyrian Empire before becoming the dominion of the Medes and then Achaemenid Persians.

Some of the Iranian-speakers who live in parts of the area may be Medes and Persians, but if so, the ASNs aren't sure exactly which of the roughly dozen tribal confederations or settled polities they would be. And it's pretty clear that while invading nomads may have sacked cities and even settled conquered territory, no one nation in Western Asia has conquered everyone else and incorporated them into a single unified polity, at least not for centuries, if ever.

Indeed, the surviving societies speaking incomprehensible languages might be relatives of Elamite-speakers, Hattic peoples, Hurro-Urartian peoples, Lullubi, Kassites, Sumerians or someone entirely different, unrecorded in Earth history. Just because some civilization was no longer recorded as a power in Earth history by the start of the 5th centurh BCE seems no guarantee there won't be speakers of such languages going strong on Germania Hyperborea.

One theory is that with shamanic communication with ancestors possible, it is much harder for even a small culture or ethnic group to lose its language, regardless of foreign domination and demands of tribute.

Originally Posted by johndallman

However, I forgot something simple which would give an approximate date much sooner: the precession of Earth's axis. There is an important starting point in the sky for both astrology and astronomy, the First Point of Aries, which moves slowly through the sky, going round it in about 25,772 years. Locating it takes some care with positional measurements over a few months, but is not difficult: it was defined by Hipparchus in 130 BCE.

The ASN astrologers would have been keen to get this kind of basic measurement done early on, so that they could cast horoscopes properly. I can see several possible answers:

• It's consistent with the eclipse-based date.
• It's exactly where Hipparchus placed it, and does not move.
• it's where it was in April 1945, plus time passed since then.

It will doubtless occur to someone to cast a horoscope for someone "born" at the Externsteine at the time the first ASN explorers appeared there in Germania Hyperborea.

Ah, I see.

Will this work even if the stars are entirely wrong?

Because I'm not sure which of the three answers would be preferable.

All three have some points in their favour. What would they mean, respectively, to you?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

. . . don't account for the lack of historically attested empires.

Aha, it's a whole world of the First Reich.

Will this work even if the stars are entirely wrong?

This only demands that the naked-eye stars are the same, which has already been established. If they are totally different, then this can't be Earth anyway.

All three have some points in their favour. What would they mean, respectively, to you?
* It's consistent with the eclipse-based date.

That means that this Earth's and Moon's motions with respect to the Sun are consistent with the original Earth, and don't disprove the idea that the ASN are in the past. The other two options do disprove that idea.

* It's exactly where Hipparchus placed it, and does not move.

That means that the world is mystically defined, and astrology is fundamental.

* it's where it was in April 1945, plus time passed since then.

That means this world was created for the ASN, and the creator went to the trouble of making the sky act right, at a basic level, as well as look right to the naked eye, but was neglectful of some details.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Aha, it's a whole world of the First Reich.

In some ways, perhaps, but in others, it's clearly not the same history, no matter how differently interpreted.

There are people speaking Hellenic languages in the Aegean, but none of them are speaking Attic, Doric or Ionian Greek. Instead, there are some half-dozen dialect continums which mutually default by one or two streps, but all of them are at least as distant from Attic Greek as the modern Greek language is (in terms of the difficulty of understanding, no statement about direct linear descent implied). And no language has been found which can convincingly be argued to be either directly descended from Attic Greek or ancestral to it.

For that matter, some coastal parts of what ought to be Greece are settled by speakers of non-Hellenic languages, some of them probably non-Indo-European, and these societies are, if anything, more likely to have TL2+1^ civilization than the more 'barbaric' Hellenes, not to mention more likely to engage in maritime trade. These langiages seem to be 'Aegeo-Asianic' (may be a geographic classification lumping together languages unrelated except for mutual influence) and Anatolian, with a few that may be related to other Indo-European languages in some unanswered way.

Originally Posted by johndallman

This only demands that the naked-eye stars are the same, which has already been established. If they are totally different, then this can't be Earth anyway.

Well, not the same. But, yes, similar enough to fool the average observer, without actual knowledge of astronomy.

Originally Posted by johndallman

That means that this Earth's and Moon's motions with respect to the Sun are consistent with the original Earth, and don't disprove the idea that the ASN are in the past. The other two options do disprove that idea.

That means that the world is mystically defined, and astrology is fundamental.

That means this world was created for the ASN, and the creator went to the trouble of making the sky act right, at a basic level, as well as look right to the naked eye, but was neglectful of some details.

Hmm... these all sound like things that are part of the truth.

I guess, the first, with a caveat that it's possible to argue the third as well, depending on interpretation of various analomalous measurements. As in, it's possible to argue that the measurements are creating a plausible solution, which didn't exist at the start.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

In some ways, perhaps, but in others, it's clearly not the same history, no matter how differently interpreted.

What I meant is that it's a world where polities are always small, and large-scale organisation doesn't seem to happen much. Where politics is always a bit First Reich-flavoured.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

What I meant is that it's a world where polities are always small, and large-scale organisation doesn't seem to happen much. Where politics is always a bit First Reich-flavoured.

Ah, okay. I thought you meant it was none of Holy, Roman or Empire, i.e. that familiar historical labels may have little to do with the actual situation, even if we were merely to travel back in time in unaltered real history.

After all, it's not like Persians called themselves Persians, and a farmer in Syria under the Aechamenid Empire might not have recognised the polity by any name modern people would use. After all, he still lived where his ancestors always had and spoke his own language. He wouldn't know the first thing about where a portion of his taxes eventually ended up or what ethnicity the guy claiming his part of Syria on the basis of having defeated a local warlord might be.

Your explanation is spot on, excellent analogy.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Indeed.

But if you just place them on the ice, won't they be incredibly obvious?

Whereas if you conceal them under ice, they will be prevented from bouncing, which makes them less effective.

(SNIP)

If the ice is as smooth as a frozen lake, maybe. Even then, cut a hole just large enough to hold the mine, paint the trigger white and then cover the whole thing with a thin layer of snow, and I think you'd be fine.

Down in the tunnels, if the floors are rough, uneven mixes of ice and rock, then I doubt there'd be much problem concealing them.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

If the ice is as smooth as a frozen lake, maybe. Even then, cut a hole just large enough to hold the mine, paint the trigger white and then cover the whole thing with a thin layer of snow, and I think you'd be fine.

Down in the tunnels, if the floors are rough, uneven mixes of ice and rock, then I doubt there'd be much problem concealing them.

Hmm... I guess you could break ice into shards, but there's no snow, as such. The place is a desert, annual precipitation much less than the Sahara.

And there is rock, yes, the uncanny black rock of Kadath, stronger than any substance known to man, as the tunnels weave through the twisted spires of inhuman palaces sunk in the ice, for millennia and more. Indeed, if the precipitation has always been so meager in this place, it would have taken millions of years for the ice to cover as much of the city as it has on the highest level of the plateau, around the pillar of the gate.

Of course, you are quite right that not all the tunnels will be smooth and featureless. Some are formed by the ice breaking and cracking from unimaginable forces underneath. Yet others appear as the pathways of water flowing underground at some distant point in time, pethaps warmed by volcanic vents long extinguished, perhaps made liquid through the great pressure of the ice above. Other tunnels can have no Earthly cause, but seem shaped by alien thought alone, taking geometric shapes unfathomable to experienced spelologists.

It's chiefly the smooth ones I'm concerned about defending, as the ASNs must fear that nightgaunts or ghouls may assail their base from beneath, and new tunnels that their patrols suddenly discover must be particularly worrying. So, they'd need to use mines which were useful, but not particularly scarce at their current infrastructure level, given that they'll scatter them like candy around the ever-changing outer perimeter down there.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The ASNs do not routinely operate in arctic conditions. Indeed, over the fifty years since they left Earth, this is probably their first sustained expedition in arctic conditions.

This is much more severe than normal arctic warfare conditions. A steady -80°C isn't as cold as the most severe conditions in Antarctica, but it never stops.

How much of the skill set of mountain troops is applicable to operating in, patroling and setting up defenses for a maze of confusing caves and tunnels in ice?

The thing they can really help with is moving around on ice. But they're used to being able to see their opponents a long way off.

Would there be any advantage to a unit of allied specialists in TL5^ tunnel warfare, if those experts were exclusively used to caves and tunnels of stone and Earth, not ice?

The best bet would be to have some of them in an experimental unit that would figure out how to operate in this environment, given that the people doing it have ended up on the short end of the sensible answer ("Get someone else to do that.") A lot of the methods are likely to be unique to this environment, and involve heated shelters that the troops have to spend plenty of time in.

I'm trying to figure out how the ASNs set up defences against ghouls or other threats that might find their way through the confusing maze of caves and tunnels below Kadath.

Beats me.

What ought the salient feature of ASN underground defenses be, in case the PCs try to be sneaky and subtle?

Being very noisy is a good idea.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I'm gradually making sense of this.

This is somewhat challenging. It has to be all pre-fabricated low-temperature steel, carried over the World Tree, and assembled by unskilled labour. There will be skilled supervision, but their ability to handle anything made of metal is quite limited in -80°C conditions.

One trick we can use is exploiting the cold: make use of contraction as the metal cools to make things fit more closely. We'd like to use that as the primary securing technique, since bolts will be hard to fit, and thermite welding will spoil the low-temperature properties of the steel. So that creates a need to bring parts in and fit them quickly, while they are still warm.

The subsystems are:

1. The “corset” for the Pillar, used to attach things to it.
2. The crane to lower cargo from the pillar to the ice layer, attached to the corset.
3. The lift for passengers and small cargo.
4. The airship mooring mast, also attached to the corset.
5. The airship restraining railway, which needs to be anchored to the ice.
6. The anchor car on the railway, which will be weighted with ice.
7. Five winches, for crane lift, crane swing, passenger lift, mooring mast and anchor car, all with enchanted steel cables.

Our basic material will be railway rail, or similar lengths of steel. We'll use 60kg/m rail, which is fairly heavy-duty stuff in the real world, and should be tough enough for significant service. Our unit weight is about a ton, and single components over 5 tons will be a problem.

The pillar is 30m high and roughly 10m diameter, with a slight taper, the top being smaller.

The corset has a pentagram on the top as bracing for a steel ring around the top of the pillar. (5x10m, plus 40m), five vertical rails (5x30m), and rings each 10m of height (3x40m). That's 360m of rail, 30 tons with all the jointing.

The crane has a smaller pentagram and ring as base, plus a pivot, and its jib. 65m of rail, about 6 tons, plus the pivot in two 3-ton pieces, total 12 tons. It needs a small heater on the pivot to keep frost from jamming it.

The lift has two 10m rails, plus control gear, about 2 tons, plus a 3m cube cab, about 3 tons, total 5 tons. It also needs a heater so it can be a refuge for humans working on the pillar.

The mooring mast projects sideways about 6m from the corset, with one heavy member below leading straight to the vertical rail that supports it, and two lighter ones going to adjacent vertical rails of the corset. 3x10m for the heavy member, 2x20m for the light ones, 70m, about 5 tons with joints.

The airship railway needs about 180 degrees of track: we can't have a full circle because the pillar gets in the way, but this allows us to face either into or away from any wind. I'm going to guess at 130m radius, about 850 metres of track, and the same again for anchors to be sunk into the ice. That makes about 105 tons of rail and anchors. If you want to cut this down, that involves making assumptions about possible wind directions and risking the safety of the moored airship if the assumptions are wrong.

The anchor car is about 3mx5m, with a 1m high ballast box filled with any loose stone you can find, but mostly ice. The winch goes on top of it. 50 square metres of 10mm steel plate is about four tons, plus two tons for wheels, axles and suspension.

The winches will each have a bobbin weighing about a ton, with two tons for a base, axle and support, and a ton of cable, plus a ton for gearing and crank handle. They're built heavy, because they're going to be operated by ST 50 zombies, and they each need a heater to keep frost from jamming them.

So that's a total of about 72 tons of machinery plus 105 tons of railway and anchors.

The ASN will want to make spare parts, but it's better to store most of those in a different world, so that they can be brought in warm and fitted before they cool. Heating broken parts so they can be disassembled is best done with thermite. They will want a spare winch cable, handle and gearing stowed in-world, so those have to be fittable while they are cold, and cables should never be wound onto winches until they have thoroughly cooled to ambient temperature.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by johndallman

This is somewhat challenging. It has to be all pre-fabricated low-temperature steel, carried over the World Tree, and assembled by unskilled labour. There will be skilled supervision, but their ability to handle anything made of metal is quite limited in -80°C conditions.

One trick we can use is exploiting the cold: make use of contraction as the metal cools to make things fit more closely. We'd like to use that as the primary securing technique, since bolts will be hard to fit, and thermite welding will spoil the low-temperature properties of the steel. So that creates a need to bring parts in and fit them quickly, while they are still warm.

Would it be possible for the ASN to have constructed a low-temperature oven to reheat parts for this purpose?