Random Questions Thread

How long would "a while" be? Decades? A century?

That's what I was trying to find out here.

Come again?

PS: For the record, I'm more or less modelling this fictional country after the island city-state of Singapore, whose land area is almost entirely urbanized and had been considerably expanded via land reclamation.

edited 20th May '16 10:14:50 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

In my mind, an island in the Atlantic Ocean is unlikely to be very politically or strategically significant regardless of where it lies if we are talking the 21st century - all travel there is long distance. Especially in somewhat geologically plausible regions.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

... Your use of "unlikely" implies that there is a way to make it so, albeit it is quite difficult, comes with a catch, or has some similar price.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

If your island is really large and not too volcanically active (which can be a contradiction in many situations) it can support a large population. It takes time though.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

The city-state of Singapore is barely above 700 sqkm, and its population was estimated at over 5 million last year. Hong Kong, also technically a city-state, has similar numbers (over 1,100 sqkm area, over 7 million population). Does that suffice?

edited 20th May '16 2:26:12 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I suspect it won't. You'd need some justification to put a city on such an island, Singapore's justification is the strait if memory serves, an island of the same size in the Atlantic probably won't have a rationale.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

It's supposed to be a refuge for the diaspora of a fictional stateless nation who got tired of all the persecution they've suffered and the various political governments' lack of commitment to actually doing something about it (sort of like how the Marvel Universe's UN ceded Genosha — after its anti-Mutant regime was overthrown by the X-Men — to Magneto in order to give Mutantkind a homeland of their own). The intent is that they were sent there because the governments thought it would be the easiest way to get the problem off their plates, only to later be stupefied when the tiny and seemingly worthless island country pulls an economic miracle out of seemingly nowhere (emphasis on "seemingly") and becomes the local Singapore.

edited 20th May '16 2:33:38 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Quick question. What do you call those weird tie/medallion combination things that are often seen being worn by rich men in Western settings or from the Deep South?

"If you think like a child, you will do a child's work."

OK. There is a big ethics issue with putting people on a just recently formed, possibly unstable or volcanically active island, tho'. And it would require some rather costly security measures.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

The governments aren't the ones who suggested the idea; the activists for said stateless nations did, it earned widespread approval from members of said nation based on rigorous surveys, and a few major companies offered to handle the entire project's actual work if the governments were willing to pay off whatever portion of the expenses that's left after a major donation drive.

As for the volcanic activity making the island stable, after the initial explosive eruption, the volcano settled down to a effusive pattern that makes it no more dangerous to any settlment built away from the typical lava routes than Hawaii's own volcanoes are.

Security measures for what?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Are you talking about bolo ties?

edited 20th May '16 2:57:07 PM by peasant

If your volcano is effusive, that island will not be habitable anywhere soon. Lava creates bare rock, and it is very effective at destroying man made structures.

"Safety measures" entails some way to handle a sudden collapse of part of the island, or parts of the island being overrun by lava or by noxious gases.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Yeah, those are what I was thinking of. Thanks.

"If you think like a child, you will do a child's work."

Not even if a bunch of industrial corporate giants collaborate in an intensive land reclamation project? Bear in mind that after the initial eruption, the volcano's lava mainly erupts laterally on one particular side due to existing fissures and/or vents, so there should be little to no danger of the lava flows hitting the city.

PS: If all else fails, I could just fall back on the setting's Science Fantasy nature to do what a volcanic origin could not for why the island has been uninhabited by humans.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Why spend so much money to do that?

It's probably easier to suspend disbelief if you just said "turns out all these while, there's an island here in the middle of nowhere that we didn't discover until lately".

edited 20th May '16 10:34:29 PM by hellomoto

Or just set up the island as having been around for far longer and habitated. I do have a setting that is a group of islands northwest of the Cape Verde islands, as an example.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Would "Dadiy (Dady) Abaze" be an accurate full name for a Circassian female (my sources are this and this)?

An island in the Atlantic may be important as a military staging post, somewhere to refuel, such as Wideawake Island.

I vote creating an island that's just kind of been sitting there, with maybe an old military base or two from decades ago, until suddenly it's important.

Plenty of precedent for that.

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Does anyone know any good websites I can post my story on?

I've tried Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Wattpad and Tumblr but no one seems to care.

A part of me wants to try 4Chan next but I'm reluctant considering a) I don't know which board to post it on. And b) it's essentially a troll's paradise.

Ryoko.

If it's fan fiction, you could try fanfiction.net, which I think is still reasonably active. Also, I know a lot of people are posting on Archive of Our Own now, so maybe try there?

Reposting my question from earlier, since I didn't get a response:

What would be some quick visual cues that two characters who everyone assumes are siblings are actually half siblings, without being overly obvious? The older boy's biological father doesn't know until the younger boy is about 12, so anything to Chocolate Baby levels is out, and I'd like them to keep the same hair color.

Things suggested to me or that I've come up with include the younger son turning out atypically tall or short for the family, freckles or lack thereof, different eye colors, and how easily they tan.

Personality differences could be the biggest tell. You could also have a pointed chin, curly hair, green eyes, broad shoulders, more body hair.

I have seen some people post stories on deviantart.

And also: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=xzytsgs4xnttk18ua33gm1er

edited 21st May '16 8:38:51 PM by war877

RE Atlantic island country: Would it be plausible if the island had existed for a long time, but was never inhabited by humans before the British/Americans came upon it, and by the late 20th century whatever "population" that lived on it had already left for green pastures^note There is precedent for such declining population numbers among a few real-life island dependencies that are sufficiently remote, small, and very scarce/depleted in natural resources (especially food sources).? And the government decides that the island is insignficant and unimportant enough that they can sell it off to the private parties that want to build this seemingly crazy project on it?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

That may make sense, but it would have to be very small indeed. Also, it's probably going to be a low latitude island.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

How small and low-latitude, and why the latter?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.