Pecularities of a Machine Planet

Greetings!

A story I'm writing takes place on a planet that's been turned into a machine, with all that entails. Most of its surface is covered by what's basically a colossal junkyard, but beyond that I haven't given too much thought to the landscape yet.

Note that what turned the planet into a machine is at least partially supernatural/magical in nature and the Sci Fi elements will likely be rather soft when all's said and done.

I'd be interested in some thoughts on, for instance, the effects of lacking vegetation on the surface, as well as having such a large amount of rusting metal lying around.

My first post, so I apologize for any rampant bumbling in terms of posting location.

Things like food and even clean air are going to be hard to come by. On earth we've got entire seas of algae and vast forests to produce oxygen but a machine world won't have that.

Rust is going to be a massive issue if iron or steel is included.

Heavy metal poisoning could be common for most water sources. Stuff like iron, copper, and zinc won't hurt anyone but heavier stuff like lead and tin can if you can't find untainted water.

Is there any sort of organic matter left on the planet? Is there still dirt, oceans? If it's something like Cybertron, where everything is metal and mechanical from the core outward, then you have the issue of there being no atmospheric regulation other than what is provided by something like atmo scrubbers or other such filtration machinery. On the other hand, if there isn't much water or oxygen, rust actually isn't going to be much of a problem. Metal is very heat-conductive, meaning that a little past local noon, the entire day side of the planet will be a giant frying pan, and the night side will be extremely cold. The extreme temperature differential between day and night side means that there will probably be extreme storms around the twilight band.

edited 14th Mar '17 8:24:25 AM by danime91

Excellent points, thank you!

Inhabited locations have vast factories that churn out artificial food, which leaves the question what they are making the food out of. I've been thinking about the possibility of animal life having somehow adapted to a world of metal, though I'm not sure how feasible that would actually be.

I admit the oxygen question didn't occur to me as early as it should have. Surely a device that converts CO² into oxygen like plants do wouldn't be too implausible? Alternatively, could algae survive in polluted waters? There is a sizable ocean on the world map, though I'm not certain if one could actually exist with metal all around it.

Is there a way to refine water affected by metal poisoning? Almost every populated area has access to fairly advanced technology, so if it is that shouldn't be a problem. Also, does metal poisoning also affect the air, or just the ground?

Just like Cybertron the planet is metal and machinery from the core outward, safe for aforementioned oceans. If machinery to regulate the atmosphere would be too implausible, I can fall back on fairly reasonable supernatural aspects to keep the weather working.

I like the "day side/night side" thing, that hadn't occured to me at all. Would the heat of the "frying pan" be strong enough to melt any of the metal? Likewise, would the cold of the night side be strong enough to freeze anything?

Actually, I would appreciate a little crash course concerning the matters of "day side" and "night side", aswell as "twilight band". The whole thing confuses me a little.

Thank you for your help, I appreciate it.

edited 16th Mar '17 6:24:31 AM by ilili

We already have the rudimentary beginnings of atmospheric and water filtration technology, so a high-tech civilization having atmo scrubbers and water filtration isn't unfeasible at all. Metal poisoning in the air won't be too much of a problem, except possibly in the case of metal particles in dust storms.

Day side, night side, and twilight band are pretty basic. Day side is whichever side of the planet is facing toward the sun, night side is the side facing away, and the twilight band is the area between the two. The hottest point in the day is going to be several hours after local noon, when the ground has had the maximum amount of exposure to sunlight and will now retain it for the next few hours until nightfall. Early night will actually still be somewhat warm, as the metal is still giving off heat from the day, but a few hours before sunrise it will be extremely cold. Think of how temperature changes from day to night in a desert and it'll give you an idea of what to expect. The twilight band, being between the hot day side and the cold night side, is going to be the area of most extreme temperature differential. Hot air from the day side will flow over to the cold air on the night side, mixing and creating storms. How hot or cold either side would get is dependent upon the atmosphere and the type of star your planet orbits. If your planet has a similar atmosphere and star to Earth, then metals will only heat up enough to scald you, but not hot enough to melt metal or spontaneously combust or anything. At night it would get cold enough to ice over water and I would suggest not licking any metal.

You said that the planet still has its oceans, which brings up a few other points. Oceans are our own planet's major source of weather and climate patterns, since they absorb most of the heat of our sun. With whole continents of metal retaining heat from the day and absorbing heat at night, you'd have extremely strong currents, meaning turbulent weather and violent storms, something like East Asia's monsoon season dialed up to 11.

Speaking of which, will your planet have seasons of any sort? Does it have significant axial tilt?

edited 16th Mar '17 8:52:11 AM by danime91

If the stuff on the surface is still recognizable then there is still some kind of atmosphere otherwise it would eventually turn into a shell of slag on the ground, assuming there is ground under that.

Where did all of the metal come from anyway? Strip mines?, asteroidsm?, automatically spawning junk golem mooks?, etc.

One idea I ran across that I thought was kind of neat is that junk like that could serve as a kind of shield for space ships. Perhaps your planet moves around and has interesting ideas about recycling?

Thanks for the continued support!

Excellent, then I'll just go with the filtration machines. Considering the planet's transformation was a gradual process, surely there was enough time to develop those before any collective bullet-biting could have taken place.

Props for clearing that planet-side-thing up, I never did pay much attention during geology classes. Lots of helpful information in there, I'll make sure to look up desert weather aswell as the East Asian monsoon season.

I hadn't really thought of axial tilt before, let alone realise that the seasons are a result of it, so I just kind of rolled with four seasons and wrote a deity for each (meaning I'd have to scrap those if I had to scrap the seasons, which I'd like to avoid). This does not mean that the deities existence results in the seasons, they're just personifications. While I did hear that some cultures/countries had more seasons, weren't those just interstages of the classic ones? Perhaps I should strain my creative muscles and give fantastic seasons some thought, though I get the feeling I'll be too lazy and just roll with the usual four. I'm very much open to suggestions to prevent that.

Concerning the origin of the metal, you're not that far off with "automatically spawning junk golem mooks". It's safe to say that the presence of the metal is at least partially supernatural in nature and thus not relevant to the discussion at the moment, since right now I'm more trying to figure out how much I can keep "real" and what blanks I need to fill in with maaagic~.

To call the junk a shield would not be entirely inaccurate. That bit about the moving, recycling planet gave me an idea I think, but not to the point of making the planet into a starship or some such. Always nice to get some ideas.

As always, thanks for any and all contribution.

edited 17th Mar '17 1:32:01 PM by ilili

Well, the only reason we have four "seasons" as it is is because we basically have one cold season, one hot season, and the two transitional periods in-between. That's just what most cultures have accepted since those four states are the most easily distinguished. You have the period where plants start growing, the period that's really hot, the period where plants start dying, and the period where all the plants are dead and it snows a lot. If you had, say, a planet with a nominal axial tilt but with a very squished elliptical orbit, or a planet with a pronounced axial wobble and an orbit with the star much closer to one side, it could result in anything from 8 to 18 different "micro-seasons", or even seasons cycling multiple times within a single orbital cycle.

Of course, we notice the change in seasons on Earth because of all the plants around us. Without much plant-life, the only indication of changing seasons would be the length of the day and changes in weather and temperature.

edited 17th Mar '17 1:58:04 PM by danime91

Got it. I suppose I'll simply go with the four traditional seasons then.

Are there any animals that survive by eating metal, or something akin to it? Some form of animal life having adapted to the new environment would be convenient, but I'd like to know if there's basis for it in reality.

I also plan to introduce some sort of magnetic field starting from a certain altitude in the sky over the entire planet, to justify why travel by plane is not conventionally possible there. What could possibly cause such a thing?

Not much you could do that wouldn't be more heavily felt at lower altitudes. A magnetic field that makes it hard to fly would also make it harder to stand.

I can think of some electrical effects from a planet that's mostly electrically conductive creating a kind of bug zapper at a certain altitudes. Maybe some sort of corrosive gas that hangs out at higher altitudes?

Some microbes exist that eat metal, or at the very least survive off the byproducts of metal corrosion, and even humans need a small amount of iron in their diet. Taken to evolutionary extremes, maybe some sort of creature that has some sort of symbiotic relationship with metal-eating gut bacteria could exist. You'd start getting life that looks a lot like something that evolved on Mass Effect's Palaven, where metals are incorporated into their very tissues and bone structure, or Tuchanka, where they're extremely tough and extremely omnivorous.

As for reasons to make conventional flight impossible, magnetic field isn't going to be the way to go about it, because the magnetic field would get weaker as you go up, so a field that would make flying impossible at higher altitudes would cause all sorts of weird side effects at lower altitudes. Probably a lot of electrical build-up in the atmosphere, considering the majority of the landmass is a giant conductor. Maybe flight is impossible because anything flying above a certain altitude has an unfortunate tendency of attracting negative attention.

edited 31st Mar '17 9:31:18 AM by danime91

Bug zapper at certain altitudes? Yep, that oughta do it. Ditto for corrosive gas, so why not both?

That whole microbe bit is exactly what I was looking for, thanks a bunch. I'm not too familiar with Mass Effect (been meaning to play it for ages, haven't gotten around to it yet), but both planets ecosystems sound very interesting. I'll make sure to look into those some more. Wouldn't rat-like explosive breeders also work, or is the abundance of giant killer robots mucking about not really something one can adapt to?

I see, eletrical build-up it is then. I do believe that a world-wide bugzapper and corrosive gas would be enough to keep both aliens out and earthlings in. Would any of this end up darkening the sky? (It sounds like it would.)

edited 31st Mar '17 8:42:32 AM by ilili

Explosive breeding can be a viable survival trait, especially for small creatures that can easily hide in small crevices and crawl into heavy machinery for shelter.

Corrosive gases tend to be reactive, so corrosive gas in the atmosphere could have heavy concentrations of negative ions, leading to a lot of electrical conductivity. As for whether it would darken the sky or not, that really depends on what you want. You can easily just say that the corrosive gas absorbs a lot of sunlight, or that it almost completely blankets the entire planet and is instead very reflective, so that little to no sunlight gets past it to hit the surface.

Perfect! Hordes of adorable yet deadly swarms of rat-like critters it is, then! Perhaps I'll also implement a race of nomadic, turtle-elephant like creatures, but right now I'm content with the creek-rats.

Excellent. I was going to use a permanently cloud-filled sky anyways.

I suppose that's all, for now. I'll be back if I've got more questions, thanks for the help!