The Order of the Stick

The story began with wankering about what the fable isn't about. The myth of Midas was "be careful what you wish for and know what's actually valuable to you". Ryan's idea was "okay, but what would actually happen if everything turned to gold?" Applying science to something that never intended to have that done to it is what this idea is predicated on.

ALL THAT SAID, the comic actually does have a still-spherical gold earth◊.

MINE

IT

Of course!

Problem is, you need to mine it extremely carefully, so that you don't end up with solid gold miners.

What, Midas is still there?!

Yeah, nobody's fully explored the planet yet.

Of course, that means that whoever can retrieve and contain Midas first is the one who controls it all.

Wait, the gold turns you back into itself? So it's like a gold virus? Or ice-9?

It's like, any solid matter touching Midas turns to gold. And matter touching gold that's touching Midas turns to gold. And so on. So, I guess loose atmosphere that isn't directly touching him or the gold is fine, but everything else that was on the surface is doomed, and the air that does touch him slowly turnss into layers of golden ash or something.

But if you could find a way to get a piece of gold out of the system (which would probably take some superscifi stuff, since gold isn't exactly magnetic), you'd just have a piece of non-deadly gold.

edited 4th Aug '15 10:40:49 PM by Enlong

Bombs. Most versions of the Midas tale that I know say that a layer of gold protects against Midas 's touch

Hm. There's a thought. If you sent down a crane tipped with gold, would the change stop at the gold, not seeing a need to change it? Or would the gold still become part of the link? This is the sort of careful planning you need to do to safely make an expedition to the Golden Planet.

The impure gold becomes pure gold and being a changed material conveys the link!

edited 4th Aug '15 10:59:59 PM by Adannor

Cut the cable! Cut it!

Hmm, you could loot stuff if you have antigrav rather than magnets.

Otherwise it's pretty much down to cutting off a top of a building with laser and trying to catch it while it falls.

Or locate and nuke Midas, without him emanating the curse, the planet becomes just gold.

Secondary idea: if Midas is magically invulnerable, steer the planet into a sun and see what happens.

edited 4th Aug '15 11:02:37 PM by Adannor

I'm assuming with no food or water sustaining him hrs effectively immortal

That or he asphyxiated about 3 minutes after it all started.

Depending on how you define a self he could have turned parts or all of himse-

Wait isn't this the OOTS thread? Where did this derail come from?

edited 4th Aug '15 11:33:42 PM by Arha

Linking to an older strip.

Wait, nobody thought of dropping a bomb on the planet and catching the flying pieces mid-air? Of course the bomb itself has to be detonated in mid-air, but that's not a great problem I guess.

Already Said Bombs.

Just use a huge-ass railgun. Turning the round into gold won't matter when the round is moving at multiple machs.

I have an even better idea. If there is a genie that granted Midas the "ability" to turn everything he touches into gold, then you can find the genie and ask him to make the planet explode. Now you have a lot of golden asteroids, most of them disconnected from Midas, that can be mined safely.

It was a god. I doubt even a jinni would have that much power

A planet made of gold would, if mined, eventually make gold worthless.

Still. That's a lot of dental fillings and microchips there.

If the Midas Touch is a chain reaction such that anything touching gold that is touching Midas turns to gold, there is no safe way to mine the planet. The reason the gold is gold is because it's part of the chain, and anything that makes contact with any of the gold anywhere will become part of the chain as well.

Given it's importance to electronic communications and utter pointlessness elsewhere I'm all for pushing gold's value off a cliff.