Remove ads

What Can SV Teach an Sorcerer in the Mesolithic?

Reader mode
Remove ads
0. Status, Basics, Summaries, & Tech List
  • Informational
    • 0
    Code: 
                             NOTICES
    Code: 
    Cacophonous Interlude is NOT active
  (Bianca does NOT hear what you write right now)
    Code: 
    Next story update : soon, I hope
Next vote closing : TBD
Progress toward next update : 2,724 words
We're on step 5: reading & composition of in-line replies
Total words in 'what Bianca's been told' notes : 3,119
    Code: 
    Anything I post that's not in vote options, quote boxes,
code blocks or in spoilers may be understood to be said
by Bianca.
    Code: 
    Players do not need to use code blocks or spoilers
outside of cacophonous interludes

If you use code blocks, please limit yourself to 32 lines
and your lines to 57 characters, so that people on mobile
can read them without scrolling within the code block
    Code: 
    You can quote other sources, but I don't want this to 
turn into Plagiarism Quest.

You're not discouraged from using outside reference
material or quoting other sources. When you do, please
cite your sources in spoilers or a code box.

Please do not use Large Language Model assistants like
ChatGPT or similar to compose your effortposts. I mean
for this game to be about communication, not prompt
engineering.

Thank you.


    Check the summaries in this status post and read the latest story post in the Threadmarks to get a rough idea of where things are at.

    If you're not already involved in the game and you want to get right into it without digging through the back catalog, consider doing this:
    1. Read the summaries in this Status Post.
    2. Pull up the latest Threadmark.
    3. Skip to the line that says "B R E A K."
    4. Skim from there to get an idea of what's going on.

    If there's no Closing The Vote post in the Informationals corresponding to the latest Threadmarks, then the game is in a Cacophonous Interlude and Bianca will hear what you post, unless you post inside spoilers or code boxes. The NOTICES portion at the top of this post should also tell you if the game is in a Cacophonous Interlude.

    If the game is not in a Cacophonous Interlude, you can still post. It's just that Bianca can't hear you. You might still want to post so you can coordinate with other players, make suggestions, ask questions, and propose plans. You can compose a message to Bianca all whether or not the game is in a Cacophonous Interlude. And once the game returns to a Cacophonous Interlude, you can vote and/or send a message to Bianca by creating a post in the thread.

    If you want to vote, simply do so as you would in other quests on this board. You may look at other players' votes to see how yours should be formatted. And you may check the tally to see that yours are counted as you intend them. I should find the 'how to vote' general post and link it here, I guess.

    If you want to send a message to Bianca, keep in mind that she is a creature of another time. She may not understand what you mean if you don't take the time to make it clear. This game rewards and demands work from its players. When a player wants to introduce a concept or tool or technology to Bianca, that player will probably need to expend effort to explain it carefully, and take into consideration the limits of her understanding of the world. You might even need to consider her biases and values.

    I think this is similar enough to Graeber's 'interpretive labor' that we can use the term colloquially to describe what is being asked of players. Put yourself in the mind of Bianca and ask yourself how such a person can be made to understand what you want to tell her.

    Bianca has different values than we do. She has different assumptions about the world and objects and forces within it. Her goals may not align directly with number-go-up or color-get-big gaming agendas. But she wants power and will listen most attentively to players that tell her how to get more of or closer to what she wants.

    Keep in mind that you players are not trusted advisors. You're the Astute Cacophony: voices that Bianca mostly can't tell apart from each other.

    If the total amount of player-generated content gets to be more than I can handle either because there are so many players or because player posts get so long, I will set a cap. At this time, I intend that the cap will be some total number of characters, with each player who speaks to Bianca having access to an equal share. Unused share gets divided up among the rest of the players until it runs out. If each player's share seems too small, I will also set a limit on the number of players Bianca will hear in a Cacophonous Interlude. And priority will be assigned based on post order.

    I guess ideally the story doesn't attract so many people who want to guide the uplift that I have to set these limits.

    I do not at this time plan to set a limit on voting players. I don't see how that could get out of hand on a niche quest like this.
    1. I post and Threadmark a story update that has 3 parts:
      • Bianca's responses to player posts made during the last Cacophonous Interlude, followed by 'B R E A K'
      • An update by Bianca following a hiatus of varying length but usually some number of years, covering what she believes is worth mentioning
      • Requests by Bianca for direction on a number of issues, which the players will provide in the form of votes
    2. Following each story update, players' posts are audible to Bianca until voting is closed.
      This is the Cacophonous Interlude.
      • Players may convey any information they can represent in text.
      • No images, sounds, or hyperlinks will get through (this is my limitation, not a limitation of the game, so please do not try to transcend it with clever protocol tricks).
      • Players may use spoilers or code blocks to communicate with me and with each other without doing so in ways Bianca can hear.
    3. When votes are tallied, I collect player posts in an Informational so that it may be known what Bianca heard.
      • Votes are tallied in the conventional fashion. So only votes in the most recent post by each player are counted. [X] marks what the player is voting for. And only effectively identical write-ins accumulate votes.
      • You can vote your own write-in any time you want anyway, of course.
    4. I collect player posts and post them in the vote results for reference. This is the point where what is said in the Cacophonous Interlude is locked in.
    5. I read player posts, take notes, determine what Bianca already thinks she knows, and compose Bianca's in-line replies to those posts that invite replies.
    6. I research player advice, claims, and suggestions, check my notes for precedent, determine what Bianca's right or wrong about, how likely she is to engage with the topic, how likely Blanca's followers are to follow through in the matter, and finally what the result is going to be, later in the narrative.
    7. When the narrative benefits from uncertainty and chance, I devise tests for Bianca or other characters and make those tests using die rolls on a post made just for that purpose.
      • Skill or attribute tests will be made with a largely undocumented homebrew that's mostly the Burning Wheel system, notably including War and Factions from the Burning Wheel Anthology -- which I really, really would have benefitted from the last time around -- on d10s with different 'shade' ranges (see below), no Artha, no Beliefs or Instincts, no Stock-exclusive skills, probably no Emotional Attributes, and clocks from Blades in the Dark because setting automation is fantastic. (The Burning Wheel is a good system and I encourage you to check it out.)
        • I will post the dice, threshold of success, and results of each test before rolling it.
        • Tests may:
          • Be made by rolling one of an entity's attributes against a static target, or may
          • Be made by two entities each rolling one of their attributes where the one with the greater result wins to some degree, and may
          • Have absolute results, or may
          • Have tiered results, and may
          • Result in pyrrhic victories or welcome defeats.
        • The rules being used and followed will be described in each Informational in which tests are made.
        • Normal mortals count 7s and better toward success.
        • Heroic characters and characters who are otherwise innately magical count 6s and better toward success, so long as what they're doing aligns with their heroism or their magical theme.
        • Demigod characters and characters who otherwise possess some spark of divinity count 5s and better toward success, so long as what they're doing aligns with their divine heritage.
        • Gods and count 4s and better toward success, as do their avatars, so long as what the avatar is doing aligns with the god's domains.
        • Gods count 3s and better toward success when what they're going aligns with their domains.
        • 1s and 2s never count toward success.
        • Sorcery, other magic skills, and some magical tools lower the threshold of success by a non-cumulative 1 to a minimum of 3 only when they are or are essential to the skill being tested, not when they help with other skills. Players may note that a god's threshold of success when they are acting within their domain does not improve when they use magic or magical tools.
        • Helping dice provided by magic, magical items, tame (not domesticated) warbeasts larger than hounds, or any incendiary devices more complicated than a burning arrow roll an additional die after each 9 or 10 and keep counting successes. Further 9s & 10s lead to further rolls. Unless the magic, magical item, or incendiary device is the product of an especially refined industry or practice (no exceptions for non-domesticated big warbeasts -- if the animal is dangerous to the enemy it is dangerous to everyone), these same helping dice cancel successes on 1s & 2s and roll another die for each 1 or 2. Additional 1s & 2s cancel additional successes. More 1s, 2s, 9s, or 10s mean more rerolling and more successes or cancelations, but only in the manner of the original die. That is, when a 9 or 10 on a helping die from war elephants provides an additional die and that die rolls a 1 or 2, that doesn't cancel successes or lead to further additional dice.
      • When players expect a test -- for example if they vote for an invasion or to send a diplomat to manipulate a foreign leader -- they might be able to add helping dice to the test by providing Bianca with advice specific to that matter. If the advice is not mistaken or outright bad, there will be at least a chance it will help. Often, decent advice adds dice. Sometimes good advice may outright guarantee success, preventing the test entirely.
      • I'm going to have to choose some kind of accumulation-of-progress-toward-a-goal mechanic that fits the faction clocks from Burning Wheel but I'm not sure about how that's going to work right now. Maybe Conflicts from Mouseguard or Torchbearer?
      • Similarly, since this is an uplift quest and players will often provide incomplete but potentially sufficient information, some kind of test will be needed to see if Bianca and/or her minions are able to fill in the gaps and implement the desired technology. This is probably just going to be some skill test with a high obstacle and not-a-complete-failure thresholds that make the next test easier and whoops-all-on-fire-now thresholds that make the next test harder.
    8. I compose Bianca's post-hiatus update, new questions for vote, and new vote options.
    9. GOTO 1
    Bianca will be the only character the players will directly interact with in this game.

    Bianca is a human-shaped interface in the material world for a powerful soul entity. She's smaller than most of the human and human-like people she's met. And her phenotypic expression is unique from all surviving human-like populations. She looks really old and she'll tell you that she wears it well.

    Bianca has magical abilities related to her original function as a vault guardian for her missing maker. She has other magical abilities related to the hundreds of years she spent traveling the world after she gave up waiting on her maker. As a being of divine heritage, Bianca counts 6s and better as successes on all tests. The nature of her divine heritage means she counts 5s and better as successes if what she's doing is related to getting into god crypts or similar, keeping others from getting into the same, or awakening great soul-things that have been cut off from the material world since the last time magic wasn't forbidden by reality. Other applications exist and haven't appeared in the game.

    Bianca needs to return to the vault that her maker entrusted to her every few years for magical maintenance on her material form. She's pretty sure that if her material form is destroyed without injuring her soul and the stuff in that vault is intact she can rebuild her material 'body.'

    Bianca has claimed to perform Soul Magic, Wayfinding Magic, and Healing Magic. She can also enchant objects under unspecified circumstances.

    Despite sacrificing autonomy to connect with the Astute Cacophony, Bianca values her independence.

    1. Era Choice
    Bianca woke up from a long time when magic didn't work. Afterward, she spent about 900 years in the place where she woke, which the god who made her told her to guard before everyone who couldn't survive without magic went into some kind of hibernation. Then Bianca traveled the world for around another 900 years. She found people who didn't have magic. She didn't find any gods.

    Bianca understands that the players can't tell her about the setting's magical systems. She wants power and wants the players to tell her how to get power in the material world.

    There's stuff in Bianca's Vault that does things she understands, and more that she doesn't.

    Bianca asks the players when the game should start.
    2. Three Quests at the Dawn of the World
    The players choose the Stone Age, but just barely.

    Bianca starts with two magic items: the Red Knife, a very nice Acheulean hand axe enchanted to keep its edge and not break; and the Coat of Two Suns, a shimmery cloak made from the hide of an unspecified magical creature ("swift running beasts that shimmer like water") enchanted to smell good and be soft.

    The players give Bianca a lot of advice. More than one suggest iron, which Bianca says she'll try to get.

    Bianca spends around 400 years getting pottery working, finding iron ore, figuring out iron smelting and fining, making soap, figuring out clay pot distillation of alcohol, obtaining potassium nitrite, and figuring out steel bluing.

    There's a community of fishers in a bay near where she's digging up ore. She pulls them into her shenanigans. The place they live is called Black Hook Bay.

    Bianca enchants the best blued steel 'knife' she made like her Red Knife. It's called the Black Knife now.

    The combination of the pescatarian lure of (mostly) relatively easy meat and the steel tools Bianca has given them and has taught them to make keeps the Black Hook Bay people around longer than the land will endure with grace. They've grown in number and overstayed their time such that they've cleared out medicinal and essential nutrition plants from the area. Also, they lost knowledge of a lot of them.

    (Un?)fortunately, their neighbors are within reach for young people with iron weapons and bright ideas. So raids are solving some problems and creating others.

    Bianca has asked the players which of three tasks she should undertake: very cursed dungeon crawl, suborn a murderous cult trying to summon the kind of god murderous cults summon, or befriend some monsters who aren't finding a place for themselves in a world after they went through some big changes.
    3. Launching the River Warrior's Legend
    Players chose to split Bianca's attention between a main focus on befriending the winged lions with a little side-trip to fuck up something powerful's blood-soaked wake-up call. Bianca does not win the trust of the lions and they leave. Bianca reached out again around 220 years after her last contact.

    Armed with an indicator species and the function of the liver, Bianca decides that The Problem with Black Hook Bay is something in the water downstream from her smelting sites. She tells the people to move and not use the water in certain places and matters improve.

    Bianca invents an alphabet, writes down iron-making instructions, and teaches BHB folk to read. They're a bit excited about being able to write their own names on stuff, but don't use literacy enough to keep it long term

    Bianca loses interest in glassmaking after a series of frustrating explosions but the BHB folk are in love with the stuff and are going to try to figure it out for themselves.

    Those rare magic livers the BHB folk end up with make them resistant to poisons and are there because Bianca was healing that population for generations.

    People the BHB have been stealing from get fed up and follow a Special Kid on a Unicorn to attack the BHB. They get trounced and the BHB gets the Horn of Sheshlan, which has healing powers. They also get a head start on regaining their lost area lore, but kind of fuck that up instead of making progress when they get the chance.

    Bianca goes looking for a place to invent farming and picks some nice floodplains with just one problem: a magical river dolphin that fucks up whatever Bianca doesn't ward the fuck out of every time the river floods. She's picked out a grain to focus on and can grow more than she can harvest alone. But she can't get enough to keep people fed year round. She does bring seed back to BHB at unspecified intervals to get more iron for tools.

    Bianca kind of raised a Heroic River Warrior and needs to give the woman something to focus on.

    Bianca asks the players about handling that very cursed dungeon crawl from last time, the possible murder god's wake-up call that's kind of trying to stop being on hold, that fucking dolphin, and a cache of bog iron up-country that she's been thinking about.

    This list is of things that Bianca has described to exist in the setting independently (or -- later in play -- at least seemingly independently) of actions she has taken based on player advice.
    • Language
    • 'Wolves' (dogs)
    • 'Hide' clothing
    • 'Webs of vegetation' clothing
    • Sharp sticks
    • 'Broken rocks' (knapped stone tools and weapons)
    • 'How to live in the places they go' (local plant, animal, mineral, weather, and geographic lore)
    • 'Brimstone' (elemental sulfur at volcanic sites)
    • Murder
    • 'Dragon Glyphs' (actual ideograms (as opposed to logograms) that are used by or the product of magic)
    • 'Counting by dozens, grosses, great gosses, and so on' (base-12 eunmeration)
      • 'Dragon counting' (base-8)
    • 'Bulbs that grow leaves like a hawk's tail' which nearly all people plant wherever they go
    • Spreading the seeds of every plant they use as they travel
    • 'Don't handle shit, don't eat rotten things, & keep the midden away from living spaces ' (very basic hygiene)
    • Rope
    • Gold, silver, iron, and copper (all very rare)
    • Needles
    • Thread
    • 'Boats' (logs that dream of being as cool as caballito de totora but have a long way to go before they get there)
    • 'Webs' (nets, this time)
    • Resource raiding
    • Poisoning
    • 'Sunstead' (understanding of the seasons sufficient to identify a solstice)
    • Bows and arrows
    • Soft metal seen once that might have been lead
    • "Where beasts' seeds fell outside the womb" (ectopic pregnancies in animals)
    • Bees and honey
    • Toys that spin in the wind
    • 'Stones to weigh down webs' (weighted nets)
    • Buckskin tanning
    • Unicorns, horses, and zebras
      • Unicorns are larger than horses, not as robustly build, and have a magic horn
      • Zebras have family dynamics
      • Stallions do not lead horse herds, they herd from the back
    • Hills and walls of ice in high places and far north and south (Glaciers and polar caps)
    • "The world is round like a perfect river stone"
    • "There is something in the work that brains do with substance that touches the Soul Lands"
    • Bone setters (she says people just figure that shit out all the time)
    • Basket fishing and fish weirs
    • Baskets in general
    • Non-domesticated grains, beans, and nuts
    • River dolphins
    This list is of things that have been described to Bianca. To let me know about something I missed, PM me a link and a searchable keyword from the passage.
    Bianca reports failure
    Bianca reports success - Skill exponent opened (if any)
    • Writing
      • Paper
      • Soot ink
      • Printing press
      • Cypher Wheel
    • Farming
      • Irrigation
      • Evolution
      • Selective breeding
      • Food preservation
    • Disease
      • Sickmakers (pathogens)
        • Wound care - Field Dressing
      • Undersuckling (nutritional deficiency)
      • Slow poisons
      • 'Free problems' 'wardful flesh problems' (immune problems)
      • Cankers (cancer)
      • 'Origin problems' (genetic problems)
    • Lye-making - no Skill opened
    • Soap-making - no Skill opened
    • 'The stain' (alcohol) making - Distiller
    • Clay pots and other shapes - Potter
      • Waterproofing clay with ash - no Skill opened
    • Bricks & mortar - Mason
    • 'Rock-cooking tower' (smelter) - Tree Cutter & Miner (kind of incidentally)
    • 'Air-cooking tower' (blast furnace) - no Skill opened
    • 'Bubbling cooking tower' (finery) - no Skill opened
    • Metal
      • Copper
        • Malachite
        • Chalcocite
      • Tin
        • Cassiterite
        • Bronze
      • Zinc
        • Smithsonite and hemimorphite
        • Brass
      • Iron - Blacksmith
        • Magnetite
        • Hematite
        • 'Firm iron' (steel) - no Skill opened
    • 'Blue-making' (steel bluing corrosion protection) - no Skill opened
    • 'Fat on iron' (steel oiling corrosion protection) - no Skill opened
    • 'Blow-bags (bellows) - no Skill opened
    • 'Charred coals' (charcoal) - no Skill opened
    • 'Biters' (tongs) - no Skill opened
    • 'Burning' (annealing)
    • 'Pot-ash-niter crystals' (potassium nitrate) - Munitions
    • 'Outclappers' (explosives)
    • The value of falsifiable claims (Scientific method)
    • 'Improved midden' (covered latrine) - no Skill opened
    • Long bows - Bowyer
    • Fletched arrows - Fletcher
    • 'Trunk and take' (block and tackle and related compound bow)
    • 'returning doves (homing pigeons)
    • Nose and mouth masks when in the presence of sick people
    • Storm signs
      • Birds fly low
      • Smoke stays low
      • People ache more
      • Pests bites more
      • Smells are stronger
      • Clouds that are tall, fast, or change direction
      • Certain people's headaches
    • Volcanos should show up in lines (plate tectonics)
    • Lighting lure - no Skill opened
    • Bog iron - no Skill opened
    • Boats
      • Dugout boats - Boatwright
      • Second boat fastened to first by stout branches (outrigger) - Carpentry
      • Pitch - Pitch Collector
      • Oars - Wood Carving
      • Sail
      • Seabirds fly away from land in the morning and toward it at night
      • Shallow water reflects more light to the underside of clouds
    • Buildings
      • Cob
      • Start walls below the ground (foundations)
      • Fire in home with smoke pipe (fireplace and chimney)
      • Arches - Architect
      • Concrete
    • 'Breaking rock with outclapping stuff' (blast mining with explosives)
    • Tools
      • 'Shover' (shovel)
      • 'Point' (pick)
      • 'Striker' (hoe)
      • 'Cutter' (chisel)
      • Breaking up rocks with fire
      • Hafting by shrinkage and spike and even glue
    • Agriculture
      • Plow
      • 'Dirt making' (compost) - Farming
        • Basket with layers of green & brown, little water, ready 6 months later
      • Use the seeds of the plants that work best
      • Remove undesired plants
      • Mushroom farming - Farmer
    • Grow branches as forms for clay pipes
    • Hills and ravines against flood rivers (levees and canals)
    • 'Fighters that only fight' (Standing army)
      • People should have a plan and a leader they'll listen to if they want to win combat
      • And they should play at fighting to get better at fighting
      • Murder axes should the lighter so they're faster
    • Glassmaking
    • Glue - Mending
    • Liquor social
    • Hypothermia recovery
    • Math
      • Vertical addition
      • Vertical subtraction
      • Partial product multiplication
      • Long division
    • Body weight poison determinism
    • Saltpans - no Skill opened
    • Phonetic alphabet - Read and Write
     
    Last edited:
  • Informational
    • Large parts of my effortpost are above the limit:
    forums.sufficientvelocity.com

    What Can SV Teach an Sorcerer in the Mesolithic? Original - Fantasy

    This is Black Cat, welcome again. I still exist. I now think that we Voices may be from many places, not one. Perhaps we are different types of creatures, even, not one. And that time may pass differently for us. I mean, for me it feels like a dozen days, and for you sometimes centuries passed...
    forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com

    But feedback is welcome.
     
    Since it seems that bianca will venture into the blight in some manner, i'd suggest people to pick my effort post about weapons and armour:
    forums.sufficientvelocity.com

    What Can SV Teach an Sorcerer in the Mesolithic? Original - Fantasy

    There are more useful things for her to focus on. Anyway, we-who-are-many brought up armour in the last cacophony, but nothing really came of it, so I'll try my best this time. Also a spear and sword. Spears are simple, easy to use and easy to make, but a good spear design can save a lot of...
    forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com
     
    I mean, I just did a lot of editing to my main post to add a large section on geometry, which is above the limit. I clearly marked the end of 2k words with a code block note saying so.

    I will attempt one last post on fine metalworking tools, today.
     
    While intended for Bianca, this post is lower-priority. If it doesn't get in, we'll just post it again next turn.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Junction speaking. Let's try again on getting you some workable explosives. You already know how to acquire all the necessary ingredients for black powder: Potassium Nitrate, Charcoal, and ignition boosters. Options for ignition boosters include Sulfur and ground-up grain powder that's been cooked until browning.

    The proportions of the ingredients can vary depending on desired characteristics, but by weight a decent starting point is three quarters Potassium Nitrate, one sixth Charcoal, and one twelfth ignition booster. All ingredients should be ground to fine dust while wet, and mixed thoroughly; the water both improves mixing and greatly reduces the risk of explosions during manufacture.

    At the end of mixing, you should have a thick paste. At this point, squeeze said paste through a strong board with holes drilled through it. The idea is to have rounded pieces of paste in a regular size, which are dried after the squeezing. There is a reason for this: small gaps between the pellets of black powder allow its flames to spread very quickly throughout the entire charge, greatly increasing the force it can produce in a short amount of time. Different applications call for different sized pellets; the faster the blast needs to be, the smaller the pellets should be, provided there are still gaps for the flame to spread.

    In addition, black powder needs to burn in an enclosed space in order to concentrate its blast into a single shock. This requires that it be in a container of some rigid material, which can include the rock you're attempting to break if you're using it for mining. There are other explosives that don't need the container, but they are much more complicated to make.

    Once you've got it working properly, there are two very powerful projectile weapons using black powder that you will be able to create: rockets and guns.

    Both of them involve black powder in a tube that's open on one end to produce a directional force. In guns, a projectile is launched from the tube at great speed. In rockets, the tube is the projectile.

    For rockets, the slow burn of gapless black powder is preferable, but you also need a fair degree of surface area to get a good burn. Shove blasting paste directly from the mixing into the rocket cavity, leaving a cone-shaped hollow. Before the paste dries, attach a lid with a small hole in it to focus the plume of flame and amplify the force; the rocket will fly in the opposite direction as the flame. To stabilize the rocket's flight, either attach a stick to the back of the rocket, or put smaller flame-holes at an angle in the end, so that the rocket spins in flight.

    The front of the rocket can include an isolated chamber with gapped blasting powder and rocks, with a flint-and-iron igniter struck by the rocket slamming into something at the end of its flight, causing significant destruction on impact. Alternatively, put little holes in the front so that the rocket shoots jets of flame shortly before it burns out, setting fire to anything burnable near its impact point.

    Guns meanwhile need a MUCH stronger tube than rockets; cast steel into a pottery mold with a wooden stick poking up from the bottom. Once it's cool, burn the wooden stick out, and use a spinning cutting tool to smooth the internal edges of the tube. Then drill a narrow hole near the back of the tube.

    Load the tube with some gapped black powder, then shove a lead, iron, or other dense ball closely matching the width of the hole down on top of the powder. A paper wrapping for the bullet can greatly improve the seal, thus reducing the amount of force that leaks around it during firing. A wooden brace attached to the tube lets you hold the gun firm against your shoulder for steady aim, and applying a flame to touch-hole will ignite the powder charge to shoot the gun.

    a lever below the gun with some burning match-string (soaked in potassium nitrate) attached to the other end significantly eases the aim here; simply pull the lever, and the match-cord will turn to ignite the touch-hole. That way you don't need to take your focus off the aiming.

    There's also another way, using a flint-and-iron striker to let the gun ignite itself. This calls for three pieces of annealed flexible iron, which snap back to their original position when bent out of shape. These pieces will henceforth be called springs.

    The first spring holds the trigger forwards; this is a small lever that when pulled back releases a catch on a striker, with the striker holding a piece of flint in a clamp. This striker is being forced forwards by the second spring, but can't move until the trigger is pulled. When released, the striker rapidly launches forward, scraping the flint across a specially shaped iron lid for the touch-hole. This motion produces sparks, while at the same time forcing the lid open, allowing the produced sparks to ignite a smaller charge of black powder on top of the touch-hole. This smaller charge produces flame that ignites the main charge, shooting the bullet.

    The last spring simply holds the lid on the priming pan closed, keeping the priming powder in place until needed.

    There are two remaining matters to guns: improving the accuracy, and speeding up the reloading process.

    The accuracy can be improved by including spiral grooves on the inside of the tube, causing the bullet to spin in flight. This is called rifling, and bullets used with rifling need a different shape for best results; they should be a cylinder with a point on the front, and a conical hollow in the back. When fired, the blast forces this hollow wider, squeezing the lead of the bullet tightly against the rifling. This both seals the gun to avoid wasting force, and ensures that the rifling efficiently imparts spin to the bullet. Metal protrusions on top of the tube that you can line up with the target while aiming also help a lot with accuracy.

    As for hastening reloading, pre-packaged quantities of gunpowder and bullet, wrapped in paper that's subsequently re-used as wadding to hold the bullet in place until fired. Dumping the powder in, then ramming it down the barrel in one go is much faster than measuring powder and wadding and bullet individually each time. Beyond that, you need a gun that you can open from the back; a steel cartridge containing powder, flash-pan, lid, spring, and bullet can be inserted into the open back of the gun. Then fix that cartridge in place with a sliding block of steel that locks in place closed, preventing the cartridge from being blasted backwards out of the gun.

    To reload, unlock the block, pull out the fired cartridge, insert a loaded cartridge, close the block. The lever that opens the block can also be used to bring back the striker for even smoother reloading.

    As for getting the lead for bullets, galena is a common lead ore that can be smelted in an ordinary wood fire; it appears as light grey angular crystals, is brittle, scratches easily, has a metallic sheen, and when scraped against a ceramic surface it leaves a light grey streak. Remember, lead is a slow poison that especially damages the mind, and it retains this property no matter its form. Take extra care to keep it out of the body of anyone you don't intend to kill, and especially make sure it cannot contaminate bodies of water. As such, don't use lead shot for food hunting, only for killing things you don't want to eat.

    The only reason we're recommending it for gun projectiles is because the only other metal that can provide the needed softness and density for the hollowed rifle bullets is gold, which is much harder to acquire.
     
    Yeah no, we had major problems with introducing guns way to early, last time around. They are super powerful, such that they obliterate thousands of years potential military advances we could roll out to always keep the upper hand. Once guns are introduced warfare becomes about who has more people armed with guns, and who has better guns.
     
    Last edited:
    The former which requires societal advancement that most of us suck in actually bringing across in a reasonable and actionable way and the letter which runs into problems of us having rushed so far ahead that we can't make the tools to make the tools.
     
    Lincolnator said:
    I mean, I just did a lot of editing to my main post to add a large section on geometry, which is above the limit. I clearly marked the end of 2k words with a code block note saying so.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    This is the proper way I think - LoserThree said that he will include by default not 2000 first words, but 2000 from the biggest post (!!).

    I will write responses to the first 2,000 words of each player's longest post.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Everyone, take this into account to avoid unpleasant surprises!

    ----
    Whole quote about limitations:
    LoserThree said:
    3a
    Code: 
    Here's how the Cacophonous Interlude works, now that
y'all've proven your capacity to overwhelm me (not
complaining, just talking about how it is):

I will write responses to the first 2,000 words of each
player's longest post. If a player has no post of that
length, I will write response to their longest post
addressing Bianca and other posts they wrote up to a
total of 2,000 words, starting with their earliest.

After the Cacophonous Interlude closes, there will be a
second and much shorter round of voting where players can
vote for player posts over 2,000 words. And I'll write
responses to the ones that get the most votes.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Please fellow Players, read the GM with understanding.
     
    Last edited:
    We Just Write said:
    For rockets, the slow burn of gapless black powder is preferable, but you also need a fair degree of surface area to get a good burn. Shove blasting paste directly from the mixing into the rocket cavity, leaving a cone-shaped hollow. Before the paste dries, attach a lid with a small hole in it to focus the plume of flame and amplify the force; the rocket will fly in the opposite direction as the flame. To stabilize the rocket's flight, either attach a stick to the back of the rocket, or put smaller flame-holes at an angle in the end, so that the rocket spins in flight.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Firstly, you should say that using some wooden fins as fletching like on arrows at tha back of the rocket is far better than the stick stabilization method, both in accuracy and in the lower weight that lets the rocket fly further. If the rocket still tumbles through the air, add more or bigger fins.

    You should edit this to include having a cone shaped bell nozzle on those holes: that will literally more than double the rocket performance, and make them far more accurate than a simple hole nozzle which can direct thrust in random directions based on inconsistent burns in the combustion chamber.

    for exploders, just have a fuse poke into the combustion chamber just enough to be lit, and burn out through a hole in the top, and loop around a bit to add enough delay, before reaching the bursting charge.

    Ideally you should have a section just behind the bursting charge filled with very very finely ground charcoal dust, that will act as a thermobaric explosive once the black powder bursts and disperses it. That should significantly increase the explosive power of the rocket.

    We Just Write said:
    The accuracy can be improved by including spiral grooves on the inside of the tube, causing the bullet to spin in flight
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    You should change this from 'grooves' to oval rifling, which is much less susceptible to powder fouling and much smoother to reload. It is also much easier to manufacture, all you need is a suage block of hardened steel that has the spiraling oval profile of the desired oval rifling, which you push down through the iron barrel with a press all the way to the end of the barrel. Leave it there as a plug for the other end, or push it all the way through if there is a breech at the end of the barrel.

    Ah shit, we need to describe hardening and tempering and case hardening don't we. I'll add that to the metalworking tools post.

    If nothing else, the suage block can be pushed through when the barrel is heated.

    liberty90 said:
    This is the proper way I think - LoserThree said that he will include by default not 2000 first words, but 2000 from the biggest post (!!).
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Yeah, I noticed that, which is why I added a big geometry section to my main post lol.
     
    Last edited:
    Code: 
    Touch screens were a mistake and this is twice now I've accidentally posted this so I guess I'm editing it live instead.

Probably going to split it into two posts eventually.

    Greetings, Bianca.

    Wheels are, simplified, discs which rotate around a central rod, an axle. This in turn will be connected to some object or structure. If you sawed a cross-section off the end of a log and drilled a hole through the middle, that would be a wheel. If you stood it upright and put a stick through the middle, you would have an axle as well.

    A pulley is a small wheel used to change the direction of a rope, often with a groove along the middle of the rim so that the rope doesn't slip off of it.

    There are many uses for wheels. Which parts are fixed to which, and which parts rotate, depend on the purpose.

    The hole or holes where the rotating part connects to and rubs against the fixed part are called bearings. These can be lubricated with fats or oils, and may be reinforced with metal sleeves to turn more smoothly and resist wearing out.


    The first use is to move heavy objects, either by attaching wheels to them directly or by creating a wheeled platform called a cart to carry them.

    This is the same principle as placing log rollers beneath a heavy object to make it easier to push by reducing friction with the ground.

    In this case the axle will be fixed to the object and the wheels will spin, with the bearings between the wheels and axle.

    How many wheels and axles depends on the size and weight of the vehicle and its purpose. Almost always the wheels will be on the ends of the axle, unless there is only one wheel in which case it will be in the centre. An extremely heavy vehicle might require additional wheels spaced along the axle to spread weight, but such a thing would be more of a mobile house than a cart.

    An object's weight is spread proportionately to how much of its weight-bearing parts touch the ground. In snow or deep mud, a standing person will sink more deeply than one lying down, as their weight is concentrated on the narrow surfaces of their feet. By wearing broad snowshoes on their feet to spread the weight, they could walk across the surface instead of sinking in.

    As wheels tend to be narrow, wheeled vehicles have high ground pressure and work best on firm ground.

    Balancing the weight and spreading it across an increased number of wheels and axles reduces the amount each part must bear and reduces ground pressure. It also increases friction and the difficulty of turning, so unless a load is very heavy and cannot be put on multiple carts, past a certain point it's wasteful to add more.

    Spacing the points of contact out around the load improves stability, making the vehicle less likely to tip over. The wider the axles, the more stable. Also, how high the load is above the axle - a tall load acts as a lever.

    Larger wheels spread force and handle rough ground better but are harder to make.

    One way to make a wheel has been described before, but another is to build it in parts using wooden rods, or spokes. This involves a central hub, a thick wheel with a small diameter to connect to the axle, around which spokes are attached, and curved segments of wood connected to the end of the spokes and to each other to form the outer rim. Such wheels are much lighter and can be almost any diameter desired.
    The number of spokes should not be fewer than four. More spokes spread the weight more evenly around the rim.

    Metal may be used to reinforce the rim. One method was to make an iron ring slightly smaller than the wheel, heat it so that it expanded and fit over the rim, then cool it with water. The contracting ring would hold the wheel tightly together.

    A cart will usually have a pole or poles used to push or pull it around. This could be done by humans, or by tying a harness to a suitably strong and obedient animal and making it pull.
    A people who are very good with machinery may instead put a power-generating machine- an engine -on the cart so that it pushes itself. Such things are useful but require expert metalworking and large amounts of metal, and involve many exciting and innovative new ways for an experimenter to kill or maim themselves or hapless bystanders.

    A small cart with one wheel- a wheelbarrow -will have two handles at the back. The user will lift them and push the vehicle around. Two legs at the back keep it upright when the user sets it down.

    There are two kinds of wheelbarrow. The first uses a small wheel (perhaps knee-high) centered at the front, with a basket or platform behind. In use, it is similar to two people carrying a load between them, but more inclined to tipping sideways. Because the load is not balanced above the axle, the user must lift more of the weight themselves, so this type of wheelbarrow works best with relatively small loads moved over short distances. The handles act as a lever so it's less work than carrying it by hand, but more than pushing around a more balanced vehicle.

    The second type has a larger wheel, perhaps waist-height, with two platforms, one on each side of the wheel. When loaded the cargo will be balanced around it, weighted slightly towards the handles so that it does not fall forwards when set down. This is larger and can carry heavier loads that the other type and handles rough ground better, but the load needs to be balanced. For very heavy loads it might have handles or ropes that extend in front so a second person help pull it.

    A cart with two wheels will have them on the ends of the axles and the platform between them. This is approximately like the second type of wheelbarrow, but with smaller wheels and much more stable.

    A light two-wheeled cart meant for carrying people and pulled by one or more horses is a chariot. This allows people to use horses to move around in the awkward times between domesticating horses and breeding horses that are large enough to carry a person on their backs. They could probably also be pulled by a team of trained dogs, though I'm not sure if anyone did that. Usually dog-teams were used to pull snow sleds, I think.

    In countryside with firm, flat and open ground, such as plains, a chariot can travel very quickly. High-speed chariots offer young men a fun and novel way to die, which is sure to happen the moment they realise chariots can be used for racing.
    Other uses include the delivery of urgent messages, the transport of important persons in a very impressive manner, and war.

    An archer in the back of a chariot can be very difficult for warriors on foot to catch or escape from, and can attack or withdraw almost at will. It's a deeply unfair way to fight. In such country, a deep distinction forms between peoples who have chariots and peoples who do not.

    A four wheeled cart, or wagon, is similar to one with two wheels, but with a longer platform and with the axles on either end. As the weight balances between four wheels, this is more stable again.

    Here is where turning becomes a problem. As a cart turns, its wheels draw two circles, one for the outer wheel and one for the inner. As the outer circle is larger, that wheel has farther to travel. As long as they can turn independently of each other this isn't a problem. However, the vehicle rotates around a point between the wheels. With one or two there is no problem: the pivot point is in the middle of the axle. With more, they skid: the back wheels are dragged outwards, and the front wheels are dragged inwards, requiring the turn to take a longer curve or damage the wheels.
    By putting the front (or steering) axle on a central pivot, allowing the two axles to match the arc of the turn, the problem is solved - the wagon becomes, effectively, one two-wheeled cart towing another. Though more of a nuisance to make. And of course the axle should not be able to turn far enough that the wheels scrape against the body of the cart.

    Carts with more wheels vary. A six-wheeled cart could have two axles close together at the back to carry most of the weight, and a steering axle at the front, or could be made especially agile by having them evenly spaced with pivoting axles on both the front and rear axle. Though I think six is the most that's likely to be practical in most cases. Certainly any weight demanding such a large wagon would be difficult to pull.

    Additional fittings include brakes: pivoting pieces of wood on the body of the vehicle that can be clamped against the wheels to slow it or prevent it from rolling (usually actuated by a lever) and suspension, dangling the passenger section of a person-carrying carriage or chariot from leather straps or propping it up on flexible wooden or metal strips (flat springs) to absorb the jostling of riding over bumps in exchange for becoming bouncy and adding a new way to break.


    The main other use for wheels is in a wheel-and-axle. In this case they are fixed together, and the bearings are between the axle and whatever it turns upon.

    Such a wheel acts like a lever: as it is turned, the axle turns a lesser distance than the rim, and consequently with greater force.

    Specifically, the diameter of the wheel divided by the diameter of the axle: a wheel four hands across, fixed to an axle one hand across, would have a mechanical advantage of four to one.

    A wheel with handles sticking out of the rim in line with the wheel is a windlass. A wheel with a handle at the rim sticking sideways in line with the axle but on the other side is a handwheel. You don't need a whole wheel for that: simplifying it to the axle, the handle, and a bar between them is a crank. Crank handles might spin on axles of their own to reduce the friction of them rubbing against the hand of the user.

    A gear is a wheel with a series of teeth in the rim so that it interlocks with another gear. As a gear turns, it forces any connected gears to turn with it.

    Gears may be fixed directly to their axle so that both turn together, or freely spinning if nothing else needs to connect to their axle. In machinery, gears shape forces and direct them from one place to another to accomplish tasks.

    The teeth of two gears can be across the outer rim, or set at an angle if their axles are aligned in different directions. They may be cut into the rim, or separate pegs or shapes inserted into holes cut or drilled along the rim, for ease of creation and of repairing broken teeth.

    The shaping of gears and calculation of size and number of teeth is complicated. More complex tooth shapes transfer forces more evenly, making mechanisms quieter and allowing smaller gears to transfer greater force without breaking. Teeth should be evenly spaced and the teeth of two meshing gears should have the same spacing.

    Each additional gear in a chain reverses its rotational direction. Thus if the first gear is turning to the right, the second will turn to the left, and the third will turn to the right again. If a gear is connected to more than one other gear, this must be kept in mind so that the machine does not turn against itself and break or lock up uselessly.

    A similar and easier to make but less efficient method to transfer forces between wheels is belts - loops of leather or rope tightly bound between two separate wheels so that they turn together. Compared to gears belts can slip if the forces exceed their friction against their wheels, do not reverse rotational direction unless they are deliberately twisted, and their wheels must be more or less in a straight line.

    Similar to a gear is a ratchet - a device where the moving end of a hinged flap or block called a pawl rests against a toothed wheel, in such a way that when the ratchet is turned in one direction, the teeth lift the pawl up and turn freely beneath it, but if it attempts to turn in the other direction the teeth press against the end of the pawl and are blocked. This allows it to turn, but only in one direction unless the pawl is deliberately lifted.

    One use for this is in a winch, used to pull on a weighted rope. This is a rotating axle with a crank handle, where the end of the rope is connected to the axle so that turning the winch winds the rope around the axle. The leverage of the crank handle amplifies the strength of the person winding it, allowing them to pull the rope more forcefully, and fitting it with a ratchet and pawl allows them to release the handle without allowing a weight on the end of the rope to unwind it.

    This can be very useful with a block and tackle, especially when hauling a long rope. A crank is easier to turn than a long rope is to haul, a ratchet prevents the risk of losing one's grip on the rope, and the rope is neatly wrapped around the winch instead of coiling all over the ground.


    Just as pulleys can amplify lifting strength, machinery can channel other motion.

    Leverage is another form of mechanical advantage.

    The simplest form of this is a stick, called a lever, and an object for it to pivot on, called a fulcrum.

    The key to this is balance. If a rigid object is turned, both ends turn equally. It has to, or it breaks.

    If it is rested on a pivot, or has an axle through it, it will rotate around that point.

    If the fulcrum is beneath the lever's centre of mass - that is, if the lever is perfectly balanced upon it - the forces applied will be equal. Push on one end, and the other moves an equal distance in the opposite direction. Even a very heavy object may be turned easily if it is well balanced.

    If the fulcrum is not under the centre, the movement is no longer equal: the long end moves a longer distance, and the short end moves a short distance.

    But the strength behind the movement remains the same.
    As with the pulleys, distance is exchanged for strength. The short end moves a smaller distance than the long one, but with greater strength.

    Or oppositely, a small motion on the short end will cause the long one to make a larger but weaker motion.

    The longer the lever and the closer the fulcrum is to the object to be moved, the more leverage it has, and the more any force applied to the long end will be amplified.

    Notably, the fulcrum can be on either side of the object.

    If the lever would be too long, multiple smaller levers can be linked, short end of one to long end of another. This adds their advantage together, though more levers means more friction.

    Levers, gears, screws and pulleys allow for great forces to be applied for comparably little effort (or even no effort at all, if powered by wind or water) but this comes with matching dangers. Increased forces mean increased strain on the parts: it is easy to construct something which will tear itself apart, sending heavy objects flying or letting the end of a snapping rope whip outwards with enough liberated energy to maim or kill.

    They are also mindless: a machine will do as it is built to do- which may not be what the builder or designer intended it to do -until it breaks or power is no longer applied to its mechanism. A log-sawing machine will not decide "yes, I should stop cutting here". It will cut anything the saw can reach with implacable indifference. "Merciless" is not the right word, because it implies the ability to choose mercy. The sawmill cannot care whether it is cutting logs or planks or the body of a worker who has accidentally fallen into its workspace. A hammering machine will hammer, whether the anvil beneath it holds hot iron or the hand of the blacksmith.

    Even when in perfect working order, machines are tireless and often vastly stronger than a human. That is, after all, the point. Parts move with unstoppable strength and rotating wheels and axles are particularly dangerous: if someone's hair or loose clothing becomes snagged, it will wrap around the part and drag them into the mechanism. If they are lucky, they might tear free before they are hurt. If not, they may be maimed terribly.


    The earlier speaker on armour did not actually describe shields. They also did not describe helmets.

    Previously I spoke on axes. You described these as tools for killing people. Axes are mostly used for felling trees and crafting wood. Our perspective is one where wars are rare, usually distant, and fought by armies of professional soldiers. In these wars, explosives and ranged weapons are long ranged, accurate, rapid, and deadly, to the point where trying to fight using hand-to-hand weapons is mostly a complicated form of suicide.

    Therefore, aside from certain boastful eccentrics, battle-axes have long been out of fashion. I had thus meant the aside on their shaping as a clarification for fellow voices who may not be aware of the differences.

    Shields are a different matter. These are for killing people. A miner or builder may wear a helmet to protect from falling objects. A person riding a dangerous vehicle may wear armour in case of mishap. A hunter may carry a spear or knife, a bow or sling or gun, or even sometimes a sword. But the only use for a shield is to fight someone.

    A shield is a panel of some sturdy material, held in one hand or strapped to one arm, used to block or deflect blows and projectiles.

    For us almost all people are and were right-handed, and so they would carry their weapon in their right hand and their shield in their left. Between two such opposing warriors, each would find their weapon opposed by their enemy's shield.
    If your people's bodies are less consistent It may be less predictable for them.

    Striking a shield directly risks binding your weapon - piercing it or embedding in its material in such a way that your weapon becomes stuck, allowing the shield-bearer to control it or take it away, while doing as they please with their own weapon. This can, of course, be very unhealthy.

    In single combat a warrior with a shield is much harder to strike, requiring tricky techniques, strikes from awkward directions, or hacking the shield apart with repeated blows.

    In group combat, a line of warriors with shields standing relatively close to each other - perhaps an arm's length or two - can protect each other from harm: a warrior in a shield-wall cannot be easily struck with a blow to their left, because they will deflect it with their shield. Equally they cannot easily be struck to their right, because then the warrior beside them will catch it. Strikes downwards at their head may be more successful as lifting their shield may make them vulnerable to an ally's weapon - this is another reason the most important piece of armour is the helmet.
    The advanced leg and foot were another common target.

    The world has had many peoples, and most of those peoples have at some point had to fight, and most of those peoples have used shields, because without ranged weapons, strong and widely-covering armour, or very long spears, a warrior who does not have a shield will not tend to live very long.

    There are therefore many ways to make one, out of many materials.

    The first consideration is size: a large shield is more protective and could be better in a shieldwall, but too large a shield is tiring and encumbering. A small shield is more agile, but less effective against projectiles.

    A typical shield, if rested on the ground, would usually reach the upper thigh or hip. A large one might reach the chest.

    Archers armed with bows or crossbows sometimes used very large shields with a folding leg inside as cover - standing the shield up and then sheltering behind it while fighting other archers, though these pavise shields would not be very useful in a close fight. This was particularly a technique of crossbowmen, since reloading the most powerful of those could take quite a while.

    Duelists sometimes used very small shields, little more than a metal bowl with a handle inside. I presume they must have been very confident in their ability to slap aside their enemies' sword thrusts, since they wore no other armour - but these were young troublemakers wandering about and using foolish pretexts to challenge each other to fight in order to show off how brave they were, so perhaps confidence was to be expected.

    An easy method to make a shield is wicker, using similar techniques to those used in basket-making. These could be both large and lightweight, though I believe flimsy. The people who made the most use of this that I know of were very fond of bows, so it fits that their shields were better suited for arrows than spear-thrusts. But a number of peoples did this, particularly for warriors who fought by moving quickly and throwing darts and javelins.

    A similar method is to stretch leather or hide across an open frame, which could itself be wicker.

    I believe most were made of wood. Either planks nailed together or plywood - thin layers of wood glued together, such as a layer of pieces going vertically, then an alternating layer aligned horizontally, then a third going vertically again, for strength and light weight. As you have found, glue does not do well in water, so these would usually have a strip of leather or thin metal around the rim for both durability against blows and to keep water out. They would sometimes be covered on the front with leather, and would usually be painted brightly: partly to protect from water, partly for decoration, and partly for identification, so that both friends and enemies would know which warrior they were witnessing, or which family or settlement that warrior came from.

    In any case shields would be usually fairly thin, seldom more than finger-width thickness and usually less.

    I believe most shields were gripped with a handle in the centre, often with a hole in the wood around the hand covered with a round, outward-bulging bowl-like piece of metal called a boss to protect the wielder's hand and be used to directly parry blows.

    Others, especially heavy ones, could have two leather straps, one which the arm went through and the other gripped in the hand, to spread the weight across both forearm and hand. For these the centre of the shield would be about mid-forearm.

    The overall shape of shields varied hugely: sometimes they were flat, sometimes curved, or with a ridge up the centre for strength and to deflect blows. Sometimes they were circular, sometimes rectangular, sometimes oval or stranger and harder to describe shapes entirely. But the most common type was a flat circular disk.




    I believe the rings in mail armour are usually as wide as a finger, rather than half. Just that size is quite enough. As armour, mail makes a person almost invulnerable to cutting, and resistant to any thrust that is not delivered squarely with a strong, stiff blade. Ironically, hitting such a person with a blunt weapon can be more effective - such as a club, or historically, a mace, which is a weight of stone or metal attached to the end of a handle for greater force - in other words, a fancy club.
     
    Last edited:
    Earth again, you have mentioned horses. They are a very valuable animal to domesticate, while they will be small now, they are still better at pulling a plow then an human can be, good for increasing your farmland. A good way to start the process is to isolate a single horse in a round fenced in area of some decent size. Make noise and otherwise agitate the horse until it is focusing on you, let it relax as it paying attention to you. As they get acclimated to you, slowly approach, getting it used to touch, and some simple ropes around the chest, head, to direct it. Moving stuff around with a horse and cart is much faster, and can move more then a human alone. In time horse can be breed to be larger and larger, eventually growing large enough to carry a human on their back. Horses will be a key feature of military, communication, farming for thousands of years.

    List of domesticated animals - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

    Focusing on Wildlife

    Celebrating the biodiversity of Planet Earth, we promote wildlife conservation and condemn wildlife crime.
    focusingonwildlife.com focusingonwildlife.com

    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_auMA2y5QI/SPOILER%5D
     
    Last edited:
    3.e. Closing the story vote for Launching the River Warrior's Legend
  • Informational
    • 3e
    Adhoc vote count started by LoserThree on Jul 5, 2024 at 4:56 PM, finished with 94 posts and 12 votes.
    Click to expand...
    Code: 
    [Bog Iron] Give mortals half the iron from what they bring - 11
[Theroriparian] Send the Heroine to deal with it - 10
[Solstice] Make a false stone on a nearby hill - 5
[Blight] Brick up the opening - 5

    Code: 
    Players may now vote for which effortposts get heard.

See spoilers for examples.

    It should be no less clear than this:

    [ ] @LoserThree post 2 What Can SV Teach an Sorcerer in the Mesolithic? Original - Fantasy

    [ ] @LoserThree post 1 What Can SV Teach an Sorcerer in the Mesolithic? Original - Fantasy

    [ ] @LoserThree post 210 What Can SV Teach an Sorcerer in the Mesolithic? Original - Fantasy

    Code: 
    Effortpost voting closes on Saturday at 1500 PDT

    Psuedo Nym said:
    Now that we've identified the hawktail plant one of us definitely needs to tell Bianca all of its modern and ancient uses especially in cooking after all it has been proven that food someone thinks tastes good provides twice as much fuel for the body as the same food turned into a paste. Food tasting good is your bodies way of telling you it is good for you while bad taste usually means something poisonous to you with the best tasting things indicating something rare and vital for a hunter. Farming can be one of the best ways to have an abundance of vital foods though this comes with risks that won't be relevant for many Great Grosses worth of years

    With that out of the way, Greetings Bianca you may call this one Lucid or Clear as I hope to make my explanations easy to understand.

    You have asked how a tree's roots can eat things from the earth without destroying that earth but the core of the answer is already known to you. Just as animals draw fuel from the air to power there bodies without noticeably affecting the air they breath out, when a tree or other thing with roots consumes something from the earth the signs of them doing so are very hard to notice.

    I believe you also questioned where the fuel for animal's inner fire comes from and how it hasn't been used up and in this case trees and there relatives act as a mirror, for while fires and animals take in something to use as fuel and breath out an invisible waste that floats through the air trees and other green growing things take in that waste from the air to use as fuel while breathing out the same thing that is in turn used as fuel when animals breath in. Just as green things are fueled by animal waste and corpses to create things that animals in turn eat the delicate balance of all things eating all other things is at its simplest a circle.

    if you are wondering how this circle formed we must go back to the origin of the Ancestor of Green.

    Once there was a small Green thing in a wild age of abundance. The thing had found a means of turning something within the air into something to fuel its growth beyond anything that had been seen before. Unfortunately for the things that lived in the time of the Ancestor of Green the waste made after the Ancestor had consumed this fuel was deadly poison for everything else living at the time. Less than one in every Gross of other things living at the time would survive the poisonous nightmare world made by the waste produced by the Ancestor of Green in the greatest time of mass death in the world of substance's history, but some small creature found a way of using that fatal waste as vital fuel.This Pale Ancestor would give rise to all other living things within the world of substance including the Ancestor of Red, responsible for the red blood of humans that swiftly carries the fuel we take from air to every part of a man's body thus allowing for his great size and vitality. Thus we come to one of the great truths of the world of substance, the Truth of Fatal Fuel, what is consumed by one living thing as vital fuel may in turn be fatal poison if consumed by another living thing.

    Generally the more related one thing is to another thing the more there list of boons and banes aligns so what is good for one human is usually good for another. However I must warn you that animals other than humans have different lists of poisons, for example now that we know what the hawktail plant actually is you should know that wolves find every part of the hawktail to be a poison that damages there blood so that drawing breath cannot properly fuel the vital work of there bodies. in fact the thing that makes a hawktail delicious to humans is a poison intended for insects that only has any effect on humans if they eat more than two full bulbs raw. this is another aspect of the Truth of Fatal Fuel as anything is Fatal to the body if consumed in excess.

    To help determine general boons and banes when eating I will tell you one of the means of sorting the animals of the world. the three most common categories of animal are meat eater, leaf eater and all eater, to give an example of each, Wolves are meat eaters, Horses are leaf eaters, and Humans are all eaters. These are of course broad generalizations, humans cannot eat literally anything but they can eat parts of green growing things and parts of other animals, wolves love to snack on certain berries but would grow weak if they could not eat meat, and horses will eat eggs fallen from nests but would not live if they could only eat animals. There are of course lesser categories, but we can save bone eaters, corpse eaters and bark eaters for another time.

    To delve further into how bodies turn food into fuel, you had stated that there must be something within the stomach and intestines that helped the body process what it ate and you are correct. In truth every animal contains an Inner Forest within themselves full of Invisible Worms that help the body rather than harm it. These Invisible Worms are found in a creatures gut and eat the food that enters the gut before producing waste that is vital fuel for the body. Many things that harm the body when consumed do so by poisoning the Invisible Worms that make up your Inner Forest or contain Invisible Worms of there own that do battle with the invisible worms of a creatures own inner forest. While human bodies can't destroy the Invisible Worms of uncooked meat like wolves and other meat eaters can, the human body draws extra fuel from cooked food to provide more energy than could ever be offered by raw meat. The Mouth telling the rest of the body how good a meal is going to be excites ones inner forest and makes it work harder.

    To clear up some possible misconceptions and further questions related to the Ancestor of Green, various poisons, and the Inner Forest.

    The green fuel is called carbon dioxide and the pale fuel is called oxygen, as those words have no meaning to you feel free to come up with your own means of referring o them Bianca. As for why it is the Green and Pale Ancestor rather than the Green and Red Ancestor, know that the green of rooted things is vital for the making of carbon dioxide into power and the thing that makes blood red is only one of many substances that creatures can use to make blood work so well. Before you feel sorry for the countless beings that died as a result of the Ancestor of Green know that the living things of its age were unimaginably tiny and frail in comparison to the great and hearty descendants of the Pale Ancestor that populate the modern world.

    to address Corpse Eaters for a moment there importance to the circle of eating can not be overstated. a forest without large Corpse Eaters like Bald Headed Birds will be overwhelmed by the dead and the Truth of Fatal Fuel allows one to use the white Corpse Eater maggots of flies for healing in an admittedly disgusting way though one must be careful to not use Meat Eater Maggots for healing. If many cleaned Corpse Eater Maggots are placed on a bloody or pus leaking wound that does not reach the vital organs and left there for a day the Maggots will only eat the part of the flesh that has rotted like a Corpse while leaving healthy flesh unharmed

    Yes there are things that use the poisons made by producing Firmiron as fuel but such creatures can only be found in the darkest pits of the Ocean where the Cousins of Trees could find no purchase as the sun which fuels there inner forges could not reach these depths. Even if one were to reach them, these creatures would die in the belighted shallows of rivers and oceans as surely as a fish would drown on dry land, though in there case rather than drowning they tend to explode. Perhaps where the world of substance offers no useful answers the return of magic to the world may provide a solution.

    In the end it's a matter of what your inner forest is best at turning into fuel as ultimately all animals need the same elements to fuel themselves but a wolf's Inner Forest cannot draw fuel from grass even if berries provide the occasional boon and what a horse gets from a fresh carcass cannot fuel all of there bodies functions. Even the Ancestor of Red shows the truth of Fatal Fuel as the substance that binds Oxygen to Human Blood is Iron which cannot be processed by animals in it's raw form and must first be invisibly eaten by green things before leaf eaters consume it and take it into there bodies with there inner forests before meat and all eaters use there inner forests to turn the leaf eaters into fuel.

    In opposition to what you might be thinking regarding Inner Forests an animal eating its own kind is one of the worst things it can do despite sharing an almost identical Inner Forest. The gut processes it oddly risking the onset of Brain Rot which is as terrible a way to die as it sounds and can spread by consuming the flesh of any animal with Brain Rot even if that animal is something like a horse. so don't let your horses too close to the dead bodies of other horses. This is not a universal rule as Chickens and Wolves are immune to Brain Rot and Rabbits can only get it from eating an animal that already has Brain Rot. Still one act of prevention is worth a dozen cures so take caution when feeding an animal its own kind

    While I know my words are not as directly useful as the Secret of Firmiron or fishing and my way of informing is winding rather than straightforward I hope that different fragments of what I have given you show there use throughout your quest for ultimate Power and Ruling the world.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    We Just Write said:
    Junction speaking. There are now limits on how much each voice can tell you each summoning. These limits are purely due to the connection nearly breaking from sheer quantity of words last time. Therefore, we cannot honor our promise about the mathematics.

    First, to define four words: a state is a group that maintains sole right of coercive power within a specific territory. A government is the subgroup within a state making decisions of leadership. An institution is a group filling a specific purpose, on the direction of a government. Taxation is a coerced transfer of resources from the state's people to the government, used to keep the institutions working.

    There are good reasons for you to found a state with a large territory under its control, with you playing an important role in its government. If all the people over a large stretch of land view you as the person to contact about magical matters, and there is an institution of messengers to get such news to you, then you will be alerted to many magical opportunities and problems that you may not have even known about before the time ran out. It will also make it vastly easier to get material things done, having so many people working under common leadership.

    Now comes implementation, starting with loyalty. While it's true that each person has a limit to the people they can know and be loyal to, people can be loyal to ideas, which can be copied endlessly. Ideas can be things like the government providing stability, protection from bandits, and aid in hard times. If everyone is loyal to similar ideas, they can work together on truly massive scales.

    There are other factors in loyalty to a government, and with it the state. First is that people directly benefit from the state's institutions; things like bridges, disaster response, fair conflict resolution, and dealing with troublemakers. Second is the threat of the state's coercive power if they start causing problems. Third is having some say in who gets to be part of the government.

    Aside from loyalty, seizing all of the government's power for yourself is a trap. Even without your intention, those working under you will eventually start saying what they think you want to hear, instead of what is true. This can be avoided if much of the top levels of government are decided by votes of the state's people, instead of being directly chosen by you. To avoid problems of coerced voting getting scumbags into power, votes should be conducted secretly, with only the voter knowing who they voted for. Each voter marking a card that they then put into a box for later counting is a workable example.

    It's also good that those voted only hold their position for a set number of years, needing to be voted again in order to keep their position of power.

    We will also introduce a related concept: federalism. The farther away from the center of government, the harder it is for the government to govern a given place. This problem can be mitigated by having local governments that only govern specific regions within the state as a whole, having their own officials while remaining answerable to the central government. These places with local government can then also send representatives to the central government every few years, participating in its affairs.

    For a state to persist, it needs to enforce its sole claim to coercive power. This will require people who are armed and permitted to employ violence against troublemakers. To minimize problems, enforcers should be drawn from those loyal to the state's ideas, rather than those inclined to violence. Inclination to violence doesn't mean being best at violence; those who are not particularly inclined can be motivated to train by a desire to protect those they care about, which can include the state itself with sufficient idea-loyalty. Practice-fighting with blunted training weapons is very helpful in this.

    These enforcers should try to capture rather than kill in most cases, with those captured being brought to an appointed or voted judge to figure out two matters: first, did the captured individual actually do whatever they are accused of? Second, what punishment is appropriate. This is called due process, and again does a lot to minimize resentment. Advocates for the accused and accuser are helpful, presenting the available evidence in the way most favorable to their appointed side. Judges can also be called to decide disputes that don't require the enforcers, if these disputes are sufficiently troublesome.

    Two related notes: First, memory's fallibility means that the precise details of witness testimony should require multiple people with similar accounts. Generalities are somewhat more reliable. Second, torture is useless for extracting information; the victim simply says whatever makes it stop, rather than what's true. As such, the use of torture for such purposes should be banned.

    Anyway, all these enforcers and judges and other institutions require resources to keep running, which is where taxation comes in. Taxes very obviously shouldn't take all of what people produce, instead only taking a small portion that they can afford to exchange for the services of the government. Tax rates should also increase with the wealth of those being taxed; not only can they afford the higher taxes, but those who are extremely wealthy generally get that way by exploiting others, and a counter for their greed is required. If anyone is exempted from taxes, it should be those poorest.

    Tax collectors should be drawn from those of similar loyalty to the enforcers, but need different skills. Specifically, they need mathematics skills and writing in order to keep track of resource levels, notice if someone hasn't been paying their required allotment of taxes, and similar. These people can also get involved in planning of large projects to make sure they can actually be afforded, and to minimize waste. This includes ensuring that planting and harvests happen at proper times of year. Tax collectors providing useful services aside from tax collection reduces resentment; give them a fancy title with the job.

    If someone refuses to pay, or tries to cheat on their taxes, the tax collectors should get enforcers, a judge, or both involved.

    To start, we would recommend that aside from judges, enforcers, and tax collectors, the most important institution would be official messengers with some kind of verification - perhaps use encryption? If their cipher-word doesn't decrypt to the correct secret word when put through the correct one-time pad, they're fake.

    Another important institution would be official sorcerers, taking orders only from you, and providing some assistance with magical matters, perhaps entirely handling ones you can't be bothered to. To ensure their loyalty, a peculiar trick of the mind is quite useful: if getting into a group requires some kind of personal sacrifice or hardship, those who do get in will be quite reluctant to betray that group or spread its secrets.

    Additional institutions that would be useful, but lower priority: teachers to ensure everyone learns things like reading and the ideas of the state, trained builders who study what makes certain structures stay up and others fall, government-sponsored ironworkers, and a standing army for directed violence against outsiders. Again, soldiers for the army should be recruited for loyalty to the state's ideas, rather than for an inclination to violence; it lets them better cooperate on a much larger scale, which is very useful for battles and war.

    Do Not allow lineage or heredity or skin color to get conflated with loyalty. It causes problematic attitudes among those favored, and squanders the potential of those discriminated against.

    Now for beekeeping.

    There are three sub-types of honeybee: Mothers, Fathers, and Workers. Each colony has only a single mother, a few fathers, and a great many workers. Most decisions are not made by the mother or fathers, but instead through votes of the workers. In spring, the mother will leave the colony with half the workers to found a new colony, with the new mothers left behind fighting to the death to be the only one remaining.

    These traveling bee mothers and workers look for specific things in a colony site: the most important being an enclosed space to keep the rain off, notable elevation off the ground, and a small entrance that they can easily guard. A box fitting all these criteria is simple to make.

    The inside of the box should have slots for wooden frames that can be taken out and put back in; these are where the bees will make their honeycomb, and this allows the frame to be removed and harvested for honey without killing the bees or destroying the comb. The distance from the middle of one frame to the middle of the next should be about as wide as both your thumbs side-by-side, in order to give the bees space to move. The center of each frame should have a taut net to facilitate the bees making their combs.

    The bees can be stunned using smoke, reducing the risk of being stung. Protective suits for the beekeepers are still advised, with thick fabric, gloves, and a brimmed hat with mesh to keep the bees away from the face.

    Certain regions have large hornets that invade and murder bee colonies. Steel edges to the entrance will deny these hornets access, especially if the entrance is only barely tall enough to allow bees through, though it can be wide to make up for this. These hornets can also be lured to their death by injuring one hornet, then sticking it to something covered in glue; the hornets will try to rescue their comrade, get stuck to the glue, and exhaust themselves to death.

    As an important detail: always leave some honey for the bees. They need it to stay healthy, especially over the winter. This is not an onerous requirement; the bees produce more honey than they need, most years. The comb is also where the bees keep their babies, so it's important not to try collecting honey from cells containing baby bees; that just reduces the worker population. Cells used for babies become dark over time, cells used for honey stay light colored.

    It takes bees eight times as much honey to produce any amount of beeswax, so return the wax to the bees if you don't have any particular use for it. Honey can be extracted from frames by spinning them around at speed; the spinning force drains the honey into a vessel spinning with the frame.

    To answer some questions:

    Glass needs to be annealed. The rate of cooling can cause or reduce stress in the material, and glass handles these stresses much less gracefully than iron. So it needs to cool slowly.

    Iron can also be magnetized with lightning, or vigorous rubbing against another magnet. It just doesn't hold it as long as magnetite. Remember, bluing produces artificial magnetite; if scraped off and melted together, you should be able to make a solid chunk of it. Use a sealed crucible to avoid chemical changes.

    The poison from smelting can be contained and kept away from the river. The most important part is making sure that water running through the smelting waste cannot return to the river without first evaporating and falling again as rain. Keeping the smelting waste dry would also serve this purpose.

    Writing is easiest for mortals to learn when young.

    If the heroine fails to kill the dolphin, temporarily poisoning the river could work. A fast poison, rather than a slow one.

    Also, ChatGPT has been banished. Good riddance.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    liberty90 said:
    This is Black Cat, welcome again. I still exist. I now think that we Voices may be from many places, not one. Perhaps we are different types of creatures, even, not one. And that time may pass differently for us. I mean, for me it feels like a dozen days, and for you sometimes centuries passed. Humph. That's not too important. But it may explain something to you about some of our mad-sounding words, and make you less confused about our weirdness, perhaps. Humph.

    We forgot about poisons from smelting. Yes. Truth. The Bay should be able to heal with time, I think, but poisoned water would need to be directed into some deep useless holes, perhaps, instead of the river. Humph. It would still somewhat poison ground-water downhill anyway, but certainly less. Already present poisons should be slowly washed away by new water.

    Regardless. You and your mortals had issues with roofs falling on them. This can be solved, even so well that thin bricks will become viable as parts of these roofs. How to explain... Lay long, strong wooden poles - across the tops of support pillars, made previously from wood or bricks. Make sure they're tied tightly to the pillars. Next, put smaller poles across these big ones. Finally, cover this with dried grass or wooden planks. Layer them like fish scales, starting at the bottom and working up. This keeps rain out. Or, indeed, use even water-proofed thin bricks, firmly on these long wooden supports.

    Remember to make the main pole or poles in the middle taller than the ones on the sides. If you have four poles, the two in the middle should be taller. Now, when you lay the long branches across, they won't be flat. They'll be higher in the middle and lower at the edges. This makes the slope. This helps water run off instead of pooling. If the house is big, put more support pillars inside to hold up the roof, or internal walls. Obviously bricks also work instead of wooden poles as pillars to the ground, but across the top it's much easier to place wooden supports.

    It's like, that's just an imperfect comparision... Like a skeleton and bones for a living creature. With the main wooden pole at the center of the roof serving like a spine, like a main bone.

    Somebody already suggested to use such skeleton-like structure also to make ships greater than any one tree. Only then wooden pole-spine is down, not up like a roof. Obviously waterproofing is harder and more important.

    It's even possible to make roofs sturdy enough to sustain weight of people and things on them! And then make something like two homes and one on top of another roof. It maybe sounds mad, but.... Perfectly possible with this craft perfected. This way family could store food or tools safely up-stairs, and sleep downstairs.

    "Stairs" are steps that go up. Like climbing a hill, but inside. Make flat pieces of wood or stone. Put one on the ground. Put the next one a bit higher and back. Keep doing this. When done, you can walk up these steps easily.

    Underground is often moist and in some places trying to dig underground home would cause hole to fill with water, but there are also other places where underground water level is low enough, that the same principle could be used to make storage space below home, under it. Underground is often cool in summer.

    Huh. Underground water level... Dig a hole deep enough... Then make the hole stronger with bricks, to avoid dirt filling it again... And... Down the hole there may be water after some days. Not from rain. Fresh water not from rain, not from river, from underground moisture. It would need to go below local underground water level. Water well. At the bottom, put clean rocks or sand: this helps clean the water. Put a wall also around the top to stop people from falling in. Perhaps place wooden something on top when not in use, to avoid leaves or rats falling in. There is no need for going down to use: use a bucket on a rope to pull up water. The deeper you dig, the more water you'll find. Obviously: keep in mind to keep it uphill from waste.

    I recently discovered a secret. There's a way to make dark soil that makes plants grow very well. This soil is better than the mud left by rivers or rotted plants we put on fields. To make it mix together charred wood, the same as used for ironmaking, with... Old animal and plant parts, broken pottery, and the waste from people and animals. Let this mix sit for a year or sometimes two, but sometimes mix the layers of this foul stuff. Add moisure if needed. Black soil when ready becomes safe, but when making it keep in mind dangers of waste. If done well, finished it should look like black soil. Plants should grow very well on it. And once created, black soil can remain for centuries and while it can be ovedrained by plants, it usually retains ability to regenerate faster than regular soil. With time, it could make lands around the Black Hook Bay better yet safer for farming than the river floodplain with unreliable floods.

    There is another thing making mining and moving stones and bricks and soil easier... The wheel. Find a tree with a wide trunk. Cut a thin slice from it. Make it as round as you can, shape of a circle, round like a sun. Now, make a small hole in the center of this round piece. Not too big, just enough to fit a strong stick through.

    Take a strong, straight stick that's longer than the round piece is wide. Put it through the hole in the round piece. The round piece should turn around this stick easily. To help it turn smoothly, put some animal fat or oil where the stick touches the hole. On both sides of the round piece, put something on the stick to keep the round piece from sliding off.

    Carts... Make four of these rolling things, wheels, of the same size. Connect them with long sticks as was explained, make a platform above. You can pile heavy things on this platform and push or pull it. This is good for moving lots of heavy things at once, like logs for your fire or rocks with iron inside.

    Second, wheelbarrow. Make just one of these rolling things. Attach a stick into center of this wooden circle as was before explained. Attach two other long sticks to this main stick, one from each side, but this time going up. Between these sticks, make a deep basket from woven vines or wood. When you lift the ends of the sticks, the basket will be between them. You can put heavy loads in this basket and push it around easily. This is very good for moving dirt, rocks, or anything else you need to carry. These work best on flat, hard ground. You might need to make smooth paths where you use them most.

    Making people peaceful... Select 5 well-respected people, perhaps the most important in biggest families, to be "Five Judges" over the Black Hook Bay. Afterwards, when one dies, remaining Four Judges shall select replacement. When there is disagreement that cannot be resolved inside of families, the Five Judges will hear both sides, then talk, then decide. When in doubt, the eldest one proposes solution and if at least 2 others agree, then it becomes decision, and dissenting Judges must remain calm. Tell them that it must be so, and that if you ever return to see no Five Judges then you shall punish the Bay. There would be Five, so they are less likely to be too harsh like one person could be when given power. They would also already, ideally, have some respect and authority over their families. If done well this could make guidance of existing leaders stronger and more durable, instead of trying to create leaders from nothing.

    I'm not saying that this is a perfect solution. But I'm reasonably sure that it's worth your time to try it and return later to observe if effects decreased discord and increased useful work.

    I would advise also to build a special house where the Five Judges would meet to talk, and where riches too great to be under control of one mortal should be, to be used by all in true need. These riches that you don't want for yourself, obviously. Perhaps the unicorn horn could be stored in this special house.

    This is not something that is just my imagination. I had seen such, and more complicated, hierarchies of people working for a very long time and surprisingly well. Not perfectly, no, but surprisingly well and usefully well. I guess that the first twenty years is the hardest - after children are raised to adults in a settlement with firm rules about leaders and disputes, they start to consider such rules as normal and needed for peace.

    In a more complicated system there are also Guards. Judges are often elders, but Guards are younger. Their role is to protect Judges from harm and help them when needed, and to break up fights with use of sticks. There is a small danger here of Guards taking power for themselves, but surprisingly small if people who respect and obey elders are wisely selected. Disciplined and obedient to elders Guards, with solid wooden sticks, can stop fight between two stronger but undisciplined and chaotic folk.

    I think that, for now, expecting all leaders to be able to read and write would be impossible, but... If possible, leaders should know how to read and write numbers. Counting and writing how many hides, food or tools there is, for example. Even if with only number and a crude picture, not words. Numbers are certainly exeption to the rules of writing, and deserve separate symbols.

    I know a writing system for numbers, I use counting by 10 for it, but similar one could use 12...

    They had separate sign that mean 1, then sign with meaning 2, then 3, then 4, then 5, then 6, then 7, then 8, then 9. They used also another sign that means "nothing", 0

    Then when I want to make sign for 10 according to their ways, I write signs 1 and 0. 1 tens and "nothing" else.

    Then to write 11, I use signs 1 and 1. Just adding 1 to 1 would make 2 obviously, but for these signs it means instead 1 tens and also 1.

    Ten there is 1 and 2. 1 tens and also 2.

    And this way with only 10 different signs I can paint or carve on wood or clay any number. Do you understand? 1 then 5 then 2, written closely one afrer another means 1 hundred, 5 tens, and also 2.

    But sometimes you may instead want to write "55 should be added to 11", how to write it? Just use separate sign for "added" and "results in". 5 tens and also 5, when added to 1 tens and also 1, gives us 6 tens and also 6, 66.

    200 is preserved with signs like this. Sign 2, sign 0, another sign 0.

    208 like this. Sign 2, sign 0, sign 8.
    2 hundreds and nothing tens and also 8. 208.

    1000 like this. Sign 1, sign 0, sign 0, sign 0.

    1270 like this. Sign 1, sign 2, sign 7, sign 0.

    By knowing how to make only 10 signs, preserve in signs on fired clay any number that is hard to remember, even 7851. Much easier to learn.

    Code: 
    1972 words above

    Code: 
    STUFF BELOW IS BEYOND
2000 WORD LIMIT,
(unless later people vote for it
I suppose)

    I shall mention another tool, to hopefully make you more pleased after hearing confusing things. A monjolo is a wooden tool used to hammer iron ore with no magic but also with no human work after the tool is build! Sounds weird? Probably, but listen.

    It's a small log or heavy stick with two ends. One end has a heavy wooden hammer. The other end has a scoop. Small amount of water, for example redirected with a channel from a stream, flows from above and fills the scoop, making it heavy. This makes the hammer end lift up. When the scoop tips over and empties, the hammer falls down, hitting the iron ore below. The water keeps filling the scoop, making the hammer go up and down over and over again. This way, the tool thing hammers the iron ore without using much effort after it's made.

    The tool stays in place instead of falling away because it's attached attached in place with a sturdy axle stick placed in hole across the middle of monjolo tool. This lets the tool to move up and down without sliding out of place. The base is firmly set into the ground or secured with heavy stones to keep it stable. This way, the monjolo can move without falling out of place.

    An axle is a strong, straight stick or rod. It goes through the hole in middle of the tool, keeping it in place but allowing to move up and down. This stick lets the heavy hammer end and the scoop end move up and down. The axle stays in one place, keeping the monjolo steady while it moves. To make rubbing between axle stick and rest of the tool more gentle, animal or fish fat need to be rubbed on axle stick.

    More things...It may be worth time to create special paths from iron smelters to homes, or from fields to homes. Not only remove plants and trees from the path, but also place some stones or bricks on it, and wooden structures over streams, to make moving things easier.

    To make a bridge over a stream find two strong, long logs to reach across the stream. Place these logs across the stream, ensuring they are stable on both sides. Then, lay smaller logs or thick branches across the main logs, close together to create the surface. Use strong rope or vines to tie these cross beams to the main logs, keeping them in place. Finally, cover the surface with flat stones, planks, or thick branches to make it smooth and easy to walk on. Check the bridge to make sure it is sturdy and safe before using it. Also, while you cannot avoid bridge destruction from great flooding, you can try to to avoid damage from minor flooding: place both sides slightly raised on ramps, not at the ground level, try to give stream more place below to rise before bridge damage happens.

    It's even possible but harder to build such paths over bigger streams. You would need a pillar placed deep into the stream sand or mud, deeply into rocks below the stream. Big enough pillar so that logs could be on top from both sides, creating bigger structure. Probably slightly hard work even for you, but good to know what is possible.

    Do you managed to make concrete, liquid that hardens into rock? You asked once: "I might know that rock. Is the stone itself sticky or is it just that you make sticky from it?". The stone is not, no. You need to make a powder. "Break it into small pieces and burn it in a hot fire until it turns into a white powder called lime. Next, mix the lime with sand and small stones. Add water to make a thick paste." I must add that it's not like glue, you cannot use it to join pieces of wood. But it should work to join two bricks, or many pebbles, or just to make a rock with weird desired shape.

    White paint: crush limestone, the same grey stone used for creating powder used in concrete, that's fired at very high temperatures. Mix with water. You can use it to paint things white, I think that painted wood should survive for longer. It's not perfect but smallest worms and mold somewhat dislike this paint, so paint walls of homes even inside, and re-apply after some time.

    Imagine you're building a statue of a cat. You start with a toy, small clay model that fits in your hand, as is good practice before making a new thing. Now, you want to make it bigger - say, as tall as a person. As you make it bigger, something strange happens. The outside of the cat - its skin and fur - grows much slower than its insides. If you make the cat twice as tall, its skin becomes four times bigger, but... its body becomes eight times bigger inside. More usefully, this is also true about buildings. This rule affects everything we build or grow.

    As to glass. If it explodes it means that our explanation was imperfect, as sometimes happens. But there is one thing that you can create from glass that is not only pretty but also offers something more than pottery: transparent glass pots, transpatent like clear ice can be, with things inside visible from outside without any magic. To make glass with fewer explosions: heat the sand slowly, cool the hot glass slowly. Also mix the sand with ash from certain plants. Seaweed ash works well, or ash from plants that grow near salty water. Also try to add a small amount of limestone- this helps the sand melt better. Stir the melted mix to remove bubbles, using a long metal rod. When it's fully melted and smooth, shape it quickly before it cools. Cool it slowly to prevent cracking, or especially exploding.

    So big well-made glass pot may be interesting even to you, I think. Shards from explosions, less so. Maybe Black Hook Bay could exchange glass to outsiders, in mostly peaceful exchange for needed things, and steal less? They won the fight nicely, yes. But they would again make enemies with this constant stealing and murdering. Perhaps they should mellow their ways and learn to deceive outsiders about value of useless baubles, instead.

    As to better brush, you asked about it: do you tried just hair, a piece of wood and glue, instead of hair and clay? Get a wood for the handle. Find some animal hair or plant fibers for the brush part. Bunch these fibers together. Tie them tightly at one end. Now, attach this bunch to your wooden handle with glue. Or perhaps two small pieces of wood, and hair secured with glue in between these pieces.

    Are people of Black Hook Bay increasing in numbers? I hope so. It would be good to count their adults once in a while, and write number, to have a better understanding how much our advice helps with increasing numbers of servants. Preferably they should be persuaded to do it themselves, to save on your valuable time, humph. Are they building homes with foundations under, bricks and arches and fire enclosures? Perhaps try to show it to them to test effects. Try to see effects on things, try to see effects on people... Something can be "tested" in Black Hook Bay before doing it elsewhere.

    Overcrowded and dirty and wet and moldy homes: can be very harmful to health. More space, as long as it's well-heated in winter and dry, should help also with health and decreasing risks of sickness spreading. Many ideas about bigger structures were already provided.

    Dry and clean skulls of enemies, for example with flesh removed by boiling, are nice decorations. You mentioned Black Hook Bay people to already store skulls of some enemies, very nice, but warn them to clean fresh ones from flesh, avoid rot. Also, don't eat people, that is sadly unhealthy, the most easy spread of diseases. It would be the safest to just burn most dead bodies, including dead people of the Black Hook Bay; with only some clean skulls of enemies as fun decor. Also, some groups people have wasteful burial practices that should be avoided, burying or destroying tools of the dead- it would be more useful to, instead, fairly divide items between living.

    Do you know a simple tool known to me as lever? A long, strong stick used to move heavy things. Put one end under the heavy thing, rest the stick on a rock, and push down on the other end. It makes lifting easier. Obviously wooden one would break more easily and be less useful than iron lever.

    An angle is like the corner where two lines meet. Imagine you're standing with your legs apart. The space between your legs is an angle. You can make it bigger by spreading your legs more, or smaller by bringing them closer together. Measuring angles help make sure things stand up straight and fit together right. If the angles in a building are wrong, it might lean or even fall down. If you assume that 360 degree angle is full circle, then 90 degrees helps us build strong corners. 180 degrees helps us make straight lines and level surfaces. So these numbers come from dividing a circle into parts. But the idea of these special angles is what's important, not the numbers themselves. Carve a shape from wood to measure 90 degrees and be more sure if walls stand straight up. Also, we Voices often mention angles, maybe you noticed.

    A triangle is a shape with three straight sides that meet at three points. Think of three sticks laid out so their ends touch, forming a closed shape. A wedge is a tool shaped like a triangle, but solid. It's thick on one end and gets thinner to a sharp edge on the other end. To use a wedge: Push the thin, sharp end into a crack in wood or rock. Then hit the thick end with a hammer or rock. The wedge forces the crack to open wider. Wedges are useful for splitting logs for fire, or breaking apart big rocks, perhaps after weakening rocks with fire and water.

    Rake is a tool good for mixing rotting plants or black soil, or just gathering leaves for use in black soil. It includes many long metal teeth at the end of wooden handle. When you pull the rake across the grass, its teeth pick up the leaves and bring them together in a pile.

    Comb is a very small tool consisting of a shaft that holds a row of many small wooden or bone teeth for pulling through hair to clean or untangle them. Combs can be carved out of wood, bone.

    Scissors are tools for cutting hair, rope, hide. This tool is made of two metal blades. These blades are joined in the middle, like two fingers crossing. This joining point lets the blades move. One end of each blade is sharp. The other end is shaped to fit your hand. To use scissors, put your fingers in the hand-shaped ends. Open the hand ends wide. Put what you want to cut between the sharp ends. Close your hand. This makes the sharp ends come together and cut.

    Tooth that cause significant pain should be removed with forceps. A tool pretty similar to biters used in iron-making, but much smaller and thus able to properly grasp a tooth, at least in the most cases. Forceps should be clean and boiled for a while before use, like knives used to cut living body. Even though tooth extraction is usually simple, there are some risks from smallest worms. To stop bleeding, bite on something clean for a while, maybe on a very small piece of leather.

    A mortar and pestle are simple tools used for grinding and mixing substances. The mortar is a sturdy bowl, usually made from stone. The pestle is a heavy, club-shaped but small tool that you hold in your hand. It's often made from the same material as the mortar. To use them, place the item you want to grind into the mortar. Then, press and grind the pestle against the item in the mortar. Use a circular motion, pushing down with some force, to crush and grind the item into a fine powder or paste. The rough interior of the mortar helps break down the materials. This tool is very useful for preparing ingredients. It's simple to use and requires no special skills.

    Poppy flower has thin, tall stems that can grow as high as a person's waist or even chest. At the top of each stem is a single flower. The flower itself is quite large. It has four petals that are very soft and delicate. These petals can be different colors - bright red is common, but they can also be pink, white, or even purple. Inside the flower, at its center, is a round pod. This pod is green at first, but turns grayish-brown as it dries. This is where the seeds and the special sap come from. When the pod is cut, a white, milky sap comes out. This sap is what can be used to make the strong medicine against pain. Collect it carefully and let it dry into a sticky brown substance, it can be also mixed with alcohol for long storage and easier use. The seeds inside the pod are tiny and black. They can be eaten and don't have the same strong effects as the sap. While this plant can be very helpful for easing pain, for example before bonesetting or cutting into body, it's a strong medicine that should be used carefully. Too much can make a person very sick or even cause them to stop breathing.

    More about giant boats... Great boats made with many wooden planks on wooden keel, like a skeleton but for a boat and without bones, with wooden planks like skin... instead of using only one log. Possible next way after hollowed logs... Such a boat made from parts could be great enough to fit few people at the same time and many, so many, so many fish... Possible. Planks are... Long, thin, flat pieces of wood. Would need labor and tools to produce from logs. Tree resins to seal the gaps between the planks... Making the boat watertight... Also try to carve a slot in one plank and a matching one on the other plank, fitting them together.

    Maps. Pictures representating land, on a flat surface, clay tablet, or stone, or leather. For example, decide that there is a symbol for a settlement, lines symbolize rivers, and size of average human finger symbolize distance that you can cross during one day on a decent and level grassland. These are obviously only examples that need to be changed to better serve your needs. Now, you can make your map of some territory on a clay tablet, a picture that shows where thimgs are, and how much distance may be between these. You can also include hills or whatever you like; also some written words, names of places and numbers if pictures are not enough.

    Oil lamp, light source much smaller and better than torches... Start with a small bowl. It can be made of pottery, stone, or metal. This holds the oil. In the middle of the bowl, you put a wick. The wick is like a piece of small rope. It can be made from plant fibers. You pour oil into the bowl. Close the bowl, with only some wick going out of it. Some oil should go up the wick. When you light the end of the wick, it should burn slowly. The fire eats the oil that's in the wick, without entering the whole bowl. As it slowly burns, more oil climbs up the wick, and the flame gives off light, letting you see in the dark. You can make the oil from plants, by pressing seeds, or from animal fat or whales.
    Oil lamps are great because you can carry them around easily, unlike a big torch. They're safer too, as long as you're careful to not spill oil around.

    Another thing. It's good for settlements keep track of time by marking and counting days and years. Each day, when the sun rises, they could make a mark on a big rock or piece of wood. By counting these marks, they could see how many days have passed.

    If your world works like I think it works, there should be 365 days in most years, but 366 once after every 4 years. So after 365 marks for days, mark Year 2 and count days again from 1. Unless it's a Year 4 or Year 8 or similar, then after 366 marks.

    Anyway. Counting days and number of years is useful because it helps to know when the seasons and events change, so they could better prepare for different weather, and it will be crucial for planting plants well. It also helps to plan for important activities, like hunting or gathering food, and allows to remember when things happened, like the last big rain. Using this way helps to stay ready for changes. Some fish movements also may happen every year around similar number of days.

    Perhaps you could in fact declare that this Year is Year 600, not 1. So that people count years from around your first visit in the Bay. Then people always when counting years would think how great and eternal you are, as for mortals even 600 sounds like forever.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Andre Chaos said:
    - Did you ever tried to stitch cleared wounds? You probably would need special needles and strings, but it can make healing a lot easier.

    - You cannot do everything alone, on your own - not now at least. You need some minions or servants, some loyal people for you to command and to do things for you. This is one type of power. It would greatly contribute to the type of power you seek: control and autonomy.

    - Did you know the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is always the same number? Easy to check with some ropes and knots.

    - Living things are so interesting on the inside while they are alive. Blood is pumped by the heart through arteries to the body's tissues, then returns through veins to the heart. As blood picks up oxygen in the lungs, it changes from dark red to bright red.

    - Everything material is made of smaller things, which in turn made from smaller things... Until you reach some limit. Like the sand made of grains, but each grain made for smaller blocks stuck together. Isn't it marvelous?

    - What is magic? And what laws govern it in this world? Why one with enough will cannot just snap thier fingers and wish somethins into reality? Where souls come from? Can soul be butchered, bottled, measured?

    - Air is not one substance, but mix of several. Oxygen is one of them: feeding our lungs and blood, but also feeding fire. This is why if one covers the fire with the pot, it cease - because fire breathed in all the oxygen from air trapped underneath the pot.

    - If one travels back in time and kill their own grandfather, what would be the end result of this situation?

    - There are hundreds of fundamental elements - atoms, which make up bigger building blocks, to build everything. From the grains of sand and trees, to your own flesh. Body of any living creature mostly made of four components: Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen. But I don't think, it will mean anything to you at this stage.

    - When the animal exhales, this air no longer contains Oxygen. But it has something else, which plants around breath in and using power of sunlight, some water, a little bit of Oxygen around and elements taken from the soil to grow. Then they exhale more Oxygen then they took, which you and other animals inhale again. Pretty cycle.

    - Everything the person is, it is inscribed within the brain inside their skull. Different parts inscribe different things. It is possible to hit someone on the head in a way for them to lose the ability to hear speech, but still have ability to hear other things. Question, changing the brain to turn one person into another would change the soul or not? Would changing the soul of a person change their brain?

    - Eggs and some water can be good way to wash your hair, my dear. Did you ever try it?

    - Does these symbols mean anything to you: ᛗ ᛃ 🜁 🜃 ♋︎ ♑︎ ☰ ☵ I am just curious how far translation of our words goes. I expect it to be gibberish for you, but on our side these symbols has established meanings.

    - Is it possible to feed and raise the spirit? Can it be bound not to physical object, but to something else. Perhaps, to the meaning of word. Magics of different realities fascinates me.

    - I wonder, how good you can fight and kill with your bare hands and weapons. I expect you are capable, but did you ever analyzed your experiences?     ​
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Legion0047 said:
    Hello you-who-are-mighty, for this is one-who-is-many.

    I failed to introduce myself last time, but we shall once again talk about some obvious points that might have been misses. Less deep, but hopefully just as useful.


    I'd garner a guess as to why the voices ignored to talk about bog iron is a combination of simply forgetting about it and once again thinking at the wrong scale of things. Bogs produce low quality iron at a low rate, which is perfectly fine for now but won't be sustainable once people grow to larger numbers.



    Sailing against the wind works because of a very weird combination of things. See, the wind basically pushes the boat mostly to the side and slightly backwards because of the angle of the sail. However, because the full length of the boat is pretty hard to move sideways, the movement instead turns into a sliding motion which, because the boat itself is also angled against the wind, moves the boat forward.

    Very weird.



    Something to note for the constant weeding and maintaining of your fields is that once a field has been in use for a few year it usually becomes a bit easier to grow more things on. Not a lot, but enough to make starting new fields even more of a hassle than farming already is.



    There is a mushroom that grows in the brains of ants and spiders, directing them to stand around in the open to be eaten, so that the mushroom can then spread even further through the poop of whatever ate the infected animal. Thats probably what other voices were talking about.



    It is very important to note that iron doesn't grow, it expands. This is probably already known to you, but I'd rather clarify something you already know than have you operating under false knowledge. As to why you should add the glue and the spikes is to keep the head from slipping off the shaft even with the friction of the shrunken head holding it shut. A tool of good iron can be handed down through generations and when you swing it with the full force of your arms the sheer power you put behind it will loosen the head sooner or later.


    How to store foods can be done one of two ways: Cold or Dry.

    If kept below the point of coldness that water becomes ice, food won't rot no matter how long it remains like that, and keeping it near that point is already enough to slow down any rot. This is slightly useful during the winter, but one can gather ice and snow during it into great heaps that can take well into the months of summer to melt, or even not at all and last until the next snow to store food. You usually make a big pit in which to keep the snow and ice and build a roof above it to keep the sun out, allowing the ice to last longer.

    If food is kept for very long times in ice it will slowly start to become less nutritious, with the speed and severity of that process being very varied depending on what is being stored.

    This will likely be of less use to you and the fisher people, unless you can conjure ice in large enough quantities that is, and so I will move on to dryness.

    Things being wet is the biggest source of them rotting, be that wetness on the surface or wetness inside, and so removing wetness is very useful in making food last longer. This is usually achieved through drying them with a fire or in the sun, curing them with salts or smoking them - or a combination of the above.

    Combared to the ice method, dry methods will usually change the taste of the food quite severly.



    The Shape of the boat is very important once the boats being made stop being logs. If you draw your hand through the water, you will feel different levels of resistance depending on if you do it with the edge of your hand or your palm and the same applies here. A good shape for the parts of the boat that are underwater make it more stable and quicker than one with a bad form.



    The blooming of plants is guided by one thing, temperature, and influenced by three others - the availability of water, the availability of nutrients in the soil and the availability of sunlight.

    To make plants bloom in the winter, one must as such make it warm like spring while providing the three other things I listed.

    The answer to this riddle is to make a house with roofs and walls of glass that allow sunlight to enter while keeping the cold out. Water will likely have to be brought by hand and nutrients through the pots of rot other people have talked about, but the house of glass, very creatively called either a glasshouse or a greenhouse, provides heat and sunlight.

    This whole thing is very expensive to make and the harvest will likely be less than if grown normally because there is simply less warmth and sunlight during winter to go around, and some plants are not really suitable to be grown this way, but fresh apples during winter are a luxury eagerly seen by most anyone.

    If you deny water to plants just before they would fully ripen you can sometimes delay when they would have to be harvested. By doing this for half the harvest one can have more time to actually do the gathering. But thats more a convenience than what you asked for.



    The important thing to note for our advice on legitimacy and leadership and the example i brought up here is that very few of the people addressed in the example would have known the king personally or even seen him before this moment.

    While for those one knows personally one can call upon friendship, brotherhood or bonds of family to make them march to battle with you, or for others promises of loot and riches might suffice, these things can not be scaled to bring an army of twenty thousand armed men - or multiples times that! - upon a battlefield. It is how the king would have likely gathered his most powerful of followers, those worthy of his attention, who then brought along some of their followers and so on, but to then make this gathering of men face their foes there has to be an obligation for them to do so and a reason for them to actually follow the obligation.

    Again, self interest, greed and close bonds might work to a certain degree, but no one can be friends with everyone and while a few more can be forced to fall in line, not everyone can - especially if there aren't also ones following on their own accord - and so the person leading must have a reason to compel them to do as he asks.

    Legitimacy is complicated to explain, with other voices trying to bring up organized violence or states or other concepts that are king of related but also kind of not, but if I can parse it down to its absolute basic, it is the believe that the person in charge has the right to be in charge.

    In the example i brought up, the king says "I did a good job in all the tasks I have as a king and so now you should follow me to battle because leading those is also one of my tasks." Bidding upon his legitimacy to get them to follow him. There is of course also a degree of punishment involved if they were to not do as he asks and rewards for instead doing as asked, but again, those to not scale if you want to get people to do what you want at a certain scale.

    It's a very complicated and cyclical thing that, as we said before, is not yet all that important because tribes are small and people are few so that it is actually possible for a chief to be friends with everyone and to call up a warband simply by asking all his cousins and brothers and friends to come to battle and to also ask their cousins and friends and brothers to do the same.

    BUT. It is also something that a lot of voices seem very eager to talk about and so I really feel the need to explain it from a more basic level than their advice.



    The pitch burner I explained is in the ground because it is easier to make than a tall tower of bricks, if slightly less convenient as far as we understand its operation.



    Making boats out of larger trees only works until you want a boat that is larger than any tree available to you. There are also some things about how the tree itself restricts the shape of the boat, but thats really it. However, even relatively simple boats can get very, very large.

    And to make boat parts fit together better requires nails, so let me explain those:

    Take a length of iron the length of your index finger and no thicker than the same. I don't know what smithing tools are available to you, but the easiest way to do this is to drawn very hot iron through a thick plate of steel with a hole the width a bit smaller than the desired width. You do this in steps, slowly pulling the the iron through smaller and smaller holes until it is the width you desire. This is also how you make lightning rods. Now hammer one side until it is tapering to a fine point and a flat top on the other and you have a decent enough nail that can be driven into two pieces of wood. If the nail is thin enough, the taper light enough and the tip sharp enough, it will cleanly punch into the wood if hammered and sit securely, connecting the two pieces.

    To improve the nail and make the hammering easier, the flat end gets reheated and the nail secured in such a way that there is a flat surface a bit underneath the flat end - this will likely involve holding it in place and something similar to the drawing plate. Now the nail just needs to be hammered from directly above until the heated part squashes up and turns into a flat circle of metal that is wider than the main body of metal below it.



    You can encourage trees to grow faster by burying organs or bones or other inedible animal parts near their roots, but thats about it.

    Check the stump for any infections by mould or insects to keep it healthy and cut it down near winter when the tree has already lost its leaves and can grow new shoots in spring, would be all that comes to my mind.


    Making grain easier to eat is a matter of either boiling them or grinding them up. Mix the ground up grain, called flour, with water and knead it until it has become a singular mass of dough. Spread the dough on a hot surface - like a stone sitting on a fire - until the result, called bread, is ready to eat.

    Adding milk, salt or eggs to the mixture before heating it changes the texture and taste.


    Ah, damn, we didn't tell bianca about all the dangerous as fuck stuff coming out of a furnace. Uh, throw all that stuff into pits lined with glazed ceramic and seal it up tight. Best way to deal with it and stop it from leaching into the water for now.

    Oh and before I forget it: Rabbit meat is so lean of nutrients and fat that if you eat nothing but rabbit you will starve with a full stomach.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Ciber said:
    [X] [Solstice] Dig up the stone, guide the rite, steal the power (Community Management 4 + Distiller 1 + Empathy 1 = 6; Ob 4)
    At this time this seems the surest route to further power for Bianca.

    [X] [Blight] Brick up the opening (Mason 3 + Warding Magic 2 + Architect 1 = 6; Ob 2)
    This will keep. Low priority for now.

    [X] [Theropirapian] Send the Heroine to deal with it (Fishing 6 (aligned) + Spear 1 + Hunting 1 + Bianca's magic gaff 1 = 9, Ob 6)
    It did probably kill her parents. Seems most appropriate for a story. Do warn the Heroine that dolphins are evil tricksters and rapists.

    [X] [Bog Iron] Give mortals half the iron from what they bring
    Sounds like a good way to sidle sideways into taxation!

    A good way to make the mortals remember the making of language glyphs is to give them a practical use. And the use which most directly plucks at the human soul is the recording of debts. Although your memory is certainly without peer, I would suggest that whenever a mortal owes you something, or is owed something by you, you record it on a fired clay tablet. People love their rituals. Their traditions.
    If you do this thing, then people watching will want to copy you, and swiftly among them it shall be that none will remember a time when debt were not recorded upon clay. It need not be the system of sound symbols which you worked out already. It could be a simpler system. Numbers could simply be a number of lines. And you could draw a cute little picture of whatever is owed.

    My other suggestion would be that you designate some area of forest near the village which you enforce that none may hunt or gather within. On pain of death if need be. This way, when the population of animals in the surroundings is depleted, there will still be a source nearby for them to repopulate from.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    HighPriest said:
    Oh, you know about bees, wax and honey. Good, are you aware that honey can be used to treat wounds? It can act as what's known as an antiseptic, applying it to a wound treated with alcohol can prevent the invisible warms from getting into it again, giving improved chance of recovery.

    also, it is also possible to a limited degree to tame bees, known as beekeeping.
    To do so first you'll need bee-proof clothing. For that, take thick leather, and cover the entire body below the neck, leaving no gaps. Then create a large hat from reeds, with a grass mesh over it that goes down to your neck, with holes big enough that you can still see through it, but small enough that a bee is unlikely to get in.

    A mesh is like a much smaller form of the web used to catch fish. also Just in case hats, gloves, and boots aren't things you have yet, I'll explain those to you. Hats are a covering on top of the head and are used for various things such as keeping the sun off your face and shoulders. In this case, it's to keep bees from landing on you're head and stinging you there. Gloves are clothing that goes over the hands, with each finger being enclosed individually to maintain better hand movement and grip. they are often made of leather and cloth. With cloth, it is for keeping hands warm during times of great cold, with leather it is to protect the hands from dangerous substances, such as heated metal or clay. Boots are made by cutting a piece of leather in the vague shape of your foot, leaving some room around the sides to attach more leather that is sewn on. leave a gap in the side or top with even spread holes running up each side of the, so you can run a sting through and use it to pull the boot closed.

    with the clothing done, I will now tell you how bees and their hives work. A group of bees is what is called a colony, and the colony can be made up of up to 60,000 to as little as 10,000, and function almost like they are one singular entity, the most important member of the hive is the queen bee, who is around twice the size of a worker bee, the queen is constantly producing children which make up the rest of the hive, wherever she goes the hive will follow.

    The worker bees are the members of the hive who do all the work, from gathering nectar from flowers to make into honey, to building the hive caring for the queen and her spawn. then there are the drones, about half again as large as the workers, who are the only males. Their purpose is to go out and find young queens to mate with.

    Finally, there are winter bees, who replace workers and kick out the drones during winter, their job is to feed the queen and keep her warm, by clumping up on her and shaking their bodies so much that the center is like a warm summer day.

    As you know, beehives are made from wax which is made into the wall of six-sided holes in which they store either honey, a substance known as bee bread made of pollen, or baby bees. the baby bees appear as small worms and start really small, they are then fed honey and bee bread until they form a shell, in which they will develop into a full-grown bee, unless it a female and is fed exclusively royal jelly, another substance produced by worker bees, then they will turn into a queen. Then they will either replace a dead or dying queen or leave to form a new nest.

    Now to construct an artificial hive for your bees to live in. For this, you'll need to carve and cut wood, take a log that is wide around as the tip of your fingers to your elbow and as tall as your waist. cut it in half from the top down, with each half becoming a hive, then hollow them out. You want to carve a hole big enough in one of the ends for a few bees to enter and leave at the same time. Then carve two large flat pieces of wood(These are called boards) big enough to be the lid of the logs, as well as some smaller boards, with two sides the size of the top part of you're thumb and two sides the same size as the shorter end of the log.

    There should be enough of these smaller boards that if you lay them over the opening it will cover it from one end to the other. The smaller boards are for the bees to build their honeycombs and make it easy for you to remove them without destroying the hive. Then make some wooden legs to keep from rolling around, and put them on a flat spot of ground within.

    Now, you could just stop here and hope a queen decides to make this its home, but you should instead capture a swarm to put in it. Swarms are the result of a young queen leaving with half the colony. They can often be found clumped up in a living mass of bees on trees and in various areas. As you might know, you can make small fire to create smoke under the bees to calm them and do this in the morning when they are at their least active, then just scoop them into a big tightly woven basket, once you get most of them, listen for some time to see if the noise quiets down. If it does, then you got the queen, if not, you probably failed, and the swarm is doomed.

    If you succeeded, then move the basket to you're hive and dump them in. Now, the bees aren't guaranteed to stay in their new hive. but this is still a good chance. once you have a successful hive you can transfer some of the honeycomb from that one to a new hive to increase the new hive's chances of staying.

    As for caring for your hives, this involves checking them regularly for insects that don't belong, smash those when you can they will harm the hive if allowed to live.
    a good sign that things are going well in your hive is if there are a lot of drones, as their the first to go when things go wrong. Make sure to leave honey in the hive for winter, or the hive will die out.

    Notably, if you can figure out how to make a mesh from metal wire, it will not only serve a much better job as a head covering, it is key in making a better beehive. But I'm not sure how such can be accomplished yet.

    The method of making better hive is to attach the mesh to four pieces of wood, two sides longer and two sides shorter, then with the length being similar to the smaller boards from above. The point of this is to both stretch and straighten the mesh out, allowing the bees in this type of hive to use it as a preexisting structure to build their hove on, allowing them to use less wax and making it a lot easier to harvest it. You then build a box big enough to fit a few of these in standing on their side while allowing the bees to move around in it, then put a hole on the top and one side. The top hole is so you can easily expand the hive by making another hive with an additional hole on the bottom and just putting it on top.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Rafin said:
    Hail Bianca!

    Rafin here. One of the channels between us an you has torn, so you might hear less babbling overall this time. Smart voices will try to compensate by making their babbling more useful and condensed.

    I wish to talk about another ability the mirror has. It informs us about some of your doings and consequences of some of our harder to follow advice, in the form of lists of influences and probabilities expressed in numbers. And so we knew before you told us of the following things:
    1. Befriending the lions was made harder by the distraction of having to ruin the ritual. Given the circumstances, your skills and your divine heritage there was only a one in two chance that the lions would stick around. You shall never find this pride again.
    2. Your guide in iron-making is only interesting and useful enough to inspire around five generations of Black Hook Bay people to be capable readers without your intervention. You were hampered by the lack of any skill in composing guides that captivate the attention or convey a skill usefully enough compared to other ways. And since the tribe has no true writers of their own, they will lose the skill of reading in time because of it. But even with just the skill you had at the time you had a three in four chance to embed reading in the tribe for as long as the tribe exists and a one in two chance to inspire them to write. I recommend writing more guides and also writing stories and to try and improve the skill of composing written works for others. Ask those who you teach to read to compare the ease of reading your works to one another. Also deliberately teach a few wise people to write, to write anything at all.
    3. Making useful glass vessels is hard. Given your skill and knowledge at the time you only had a one in three chance to make anything truly useful in the time between our talks.
    4. Your continued divine healing and soulwork upon many generations has permanently given inheritable traits to the souls of the people. Their progeny will now sometimes have innate poison resistance compared to other peoples and every once in a while they will produce a magically fast healer. But beware that what you did could also have had other consequences. Most of the time the consequences would have been positive, especially because healing is part of your divine heritage as your Maker intended for you, but negative consequences in the following forms were possible:
      1. The Black Hook Bay People hence on need a little poison to thrive.
      2. The Black Hook Bay People hence on need smelting waste in their water to thrive.
      3. The Black Hook Bay People hence on need smelting waste in their water to live.
    5. In the battle the advantages of the attackers were numbers, fervent zeal, a unicorn, and a precocious and Heroic child. The advantages of the defenders were leadership, experience in similar situations, being warriors instead of hunters and having hafted steel weapons and pots of burning pitch. The heroic child only had its ability to remain conspicuous in battle, it's skill in convincing people and some unicorn magic to keep its side in the fight. Sheshlan, despite not being innately heroic, had his loud voice and trained skills in intimidation, raid lore and rowdy young people lore. And his warriors did not need inspiration in order to stick around and kill people while feeling threatened.
    6. The people of Black Hook Bay are making steady process in figuring out glassmaking for themselves. But they had major setbacks in restoring old lore, likely due to preventable mistakes and mishaps. Maybe you should use your influence to protect and promote wise folk that gets captured or willingly joins the tribe, should such a thing happen again.
    I shall return to answer questions you posed to me specifically and maybe to talk of more than that.


    Code: 
    Wordcount: 666
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Gavinfoxx said:
    We need to talk more about bread, I think she just has grain and veggie stew so far, and also figure out what part of the world she's in to determine the likely resources and domesticable! So there's river dolphins, a temperate climate, horses, crocodiles, rabbits, rats, mountains that have icecaps, and wild onions. She's somewhere in Europe or Asia maybe??
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Ciber said:
    If we want to know where we are, then we should teach Bianca about the making of maps. To draw a picture of the world as it would be seen by one one who has flown to the edge of the air and looked down.
    Or if she wants to be very fancy, she could build a model of dyed clays. And carve some little statues of people to live in a little fake village.
    Very fun!
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    devilgirl666 said:
    Anyway Bianca. Say to people: it's proper and good and pretty to carve on wood short stories about dead ancestors, to remember them better and longer. This way they wouldn't forget writing.

    When you teach people reading explain to them: to write down the names and deeds of parents, grandparents, and those who came before, this is like keeping their memory alive. Family chronicle! Ask them: "you would want this for yourself, right?" Many would say yes. "So teach your children".

    And write also something more fun not only guide to making iron. Guide to iron is useful but boring to read. Make a fun story about heroic defeat of evil unicorn and evil child done thanks to Bianca wisdom of iron weapons. Then children could want to learn to read a fun story.

    This is to give people more reasons to retain reading and writing, but reaaon for you is that in the future their written countings will be useful to you.

    Many many many winters ago these were your words: "How can the smartest be known?". Now I know. Tell to a person unknown to them long story. Then ask twenty questions about it. The better their answers and the more of answers are right, the better they are at thinking. Written story is better but is obviously more work and person needs to know reading.

    You can raise children believing something then they will often still believe it when adults. Like raise children in belief that to disobey village council is very evil and then many would retain weird belief. You are confused how people can obey rules without fear maybe because your people were raised in different beliefs. It's harder to start new beliefs but possible.

    Each family can choose one wise person. These wise ones meet to talk about big things that affect everyone. They sit in a circle so all are equal. Each gets a turn to speak. Others listen. When there's a big choice to make, these wise ones talk until most agree. This choice is then for all to follow. This group of wise ones is called a village council. They help solve problems without fighting. The council can choose some to watch for danger, some to settle small fights, some to lead hunts or building. This way, no one person has all the power.

    There may be time when some people want to live away but retain peace with cousins. Both villages old one and new one should once per year send wise elder to speak under rules of council and settle disagreements in peace and prevent raiding.

    You can use stories and messages to influence the thoughts and actions of the people.

    You can create stories that praise unity and cooperation. You can write about heroes who help each other and work together for the good of the community. These stories can show how the heroes become stronger and more successful by working together instead of fighting each other.

    You can also spread messages that highlight the dangers of constant fighting and raiding. You can write about the harm it brings to families and how it makes life harder for everyone. By sharing these stories, she can make people understand that peace and cooperation lead to a better and safer life.

    To ensure these messages reach everyone, you can carve the stories onto wood and giant stones. These carvings can be placed in all settlements, so people see them every day. The carved wood and stones will serve as constant reminders of the benefits of unity and the dangers of conflict.

    You can use symbols and signs to represent unity and strength. You can create a special symbol for your empire that everyone can recognize. This symbol can be carved on stones, painted on walls. Seeing this symbol everywhere will remind people of the benefits of being part of a strong, united empire.

    You may also warn of other magic and gods that are very evil if they are not under you. You can tell stories of terrible things that happen when people follow these other powers. Say that only by staying loyal to Bianca and your magic can the people be safe from these dangers. You can teach that other magic brings chaos and harm, while your magic brings order and protection.

    Additionally, you can warn of scary monsters and evil magic that threaten their land. You can teach that only by working together and staying united under you can they defend against these dangers. Remember evil unicorn and they overcome evil because of your iron not only their warriors.

    By telling stories, spreading messages, carving symbols and stories onto wood and stones, and setting an example, you can influence the thoughts and actions of the people. This will help you build a strong and united empire where most works together for the common good, and for Bianca, under supreme leader Bianca.

    You can also encourage the peaceful exchange and help of goods and resources among the people. By setting up gathering places where people can meet and share what they have, like food, tools, and materials, you can ensure that everyone has what they need. Improved ways of gathering food and using resources, through better techniques and tools, can increase production. These measures will lead to more stable and plentiful supplies. As a result, people will have better food, safer paths for travel, and increased wealth, improving their living conditions.

    People may learn to exchange peacefully, even with outsiders, and help each other instead of stealing, for several reasons. First, peaceful exchange builds trust and relationships. When people help each other instead of steal, they create bonds that make all stronger. Second, helping each other is safer than raiding. Raiding often leads to injuries and death, while helping each other allows people to get what they need without risking their lives. Third, peaceful exchange ensures a continuous and reliable supply of goods. If people steal, they may get what they need in the short term, but it creates enemies and instability. By helping each other, they can build stable and ongoing relationships that benefit everyone in the long term. Such peaceful relationship of exchange and help is hard for moving people but easiest for two settled people living permanently a walking day from each other.

    When people expect to be around someone once it may be useful to steal. But when you expect to be around someone many times, even if not everyday and not living in the same village, it makes more and more sense to peacefully help instead of making enemies. It's harder the less contact there is, but families going away to another place can still retain peace and help with these remaining.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Legion0047 said:
    There are more useful things for her to focus on.

    Anyway, we-who-are-many brought up armour in the last cacophony, but nothing really came of it, so I'll try my best this time. Also a spear and sword.

    Spears are simple, easy to use and easy to make, but a good spear design can save a lot of effort. As usual, we might as well cover the basics in case some parts are unclear, unknown or lost in translation.

    We will be making a one-handed thrusting spear and so the haft of wood should be at most twice the height of the average man and at minimum one and a half men. The width should be two or three index fingers thick, maybe a bit more towards the middle. The wood should be somewhat springy so as to not shatter when bending but not too soft to withstand the rigours of being used as a weapon. The blade itself will be made of iron, of course and have a roughly teardrop or leaf-shaped head - trees have different leafs but in the area this spear design was very common and so was this kind of leaf - which means that it has a sharp tip slowly widening towards the base before flaring outward at roughly the bottom third of the blade, only to then gracefully curve inward again to the socket. The large flare is optional and usually left out to make the head cheaper, but that is not of consideration to you. It makes it so you can make a better cut on the swing. The length of the blade itself should at least be roughly two lengths of your hand, from wrist to the tip of the middle finger. The socket hereby is a round sleeve of metal in which we will put the haft before securing it with nails. It is important to note that the socket doesn't just end when it reaches the blade, but continues running through it as a central ridgeline slowly growing smaller as it nears the tip - though it should stop bring hollow once inside the main blade. This is very important to give the blade stability and keeps it from bending too much.

    When using steel instead, the ridge can be very small, end just a bit above the socket or even be fully discarded, making the spear easier to craft.

    The bottom of the spear can either be left as is, be covered with a small cap of metal to keep it from wearing out or if the owner is feeling fancy that cap can be a small spike to defend yourself with in case the spearhead is lost or not able to be brought to bear. It can also serve to counter out whatever weight you put in the spearhead until the whole thing is comfortable to use.

    A good weapon to pair this spear with would be a sword, best described as a long knife. Only for you though, because swords require greatly more effort and skill than an axe or mace, with a modest gain in versatility at best. I will teach thou-who-art-mighty how to make a generally useful thrusting and cutting sword as while you will likely fight foes wearing no or only light armour against which slashes are better, thrusting blades are better against armoured foes until they are armoured to such a degree that you can't drive the tip of the blade through their defences on strength alone and I am sure that some of the creatures you will encounter will definitely fall into the armoured category.

    The blade I am talking about should be the length of one and a half forearms - the space between your wrist and your elbow - 5 fingers at the widest and four fingers at the thinnest not counting the taper towards the tip. Starting from the hilt, the blade slightly curves together to its thinnest point until a third of the length before curving outwards to its widest two thirds of its length, from where it tapers in a straight line to the pointy tip. In the other direction we have the tang, the part where the handle will go, which should be a square-shaped spike decently longer than a good handle for your hand will go. Slide the handle of your choice onto the blade and try to balance it in such a way that while resting it on a finger that is roughly a third of the blade's length away from the hilt it doesn't tip in one direction. If it tips in direction of the tang, which is very, very unlikely, you have done something that is also very, very wrong. If it tips in the other direction you can either make a fuller, a small channel running the length of the blade, to take away excess weight, or you could weigh down the pommel of your weapon with extra ornamentations or by adding a large guard - stuff on the handle protecting your hand - until it is all balanced.

    The last step is to then hammer down the excess of the tang until it has become a solid disk keeping your handle in place.

    This design can be made out of iron or steel, but even if you teach people how to make it I frankly don't expect more than a single vanity peace to be made from how much skill and time good swords take to make.

    Anyway, armour. I will list some designs for all the materials possibly known to you:

    Wicker armour. The simplest and scratchiest armour there can be is to take square shapes of woven reeds like those used for baskets and hang them from your body with cords of leather. I am just listing these out of obligation to cover basic suggestions as that is what we do. They won't protect much beyond ocasionally preventing a cut, but that is still more than nothing for something reasonably quick to make.

    Layers of clothing: Wearing multiple layers of clothing can catch arrows, turn away cuts and soften blows.

    Cloth Armour: The above but improved to a much greater degree. They are made by taking up to thirty shirts made to the exact same cut, half of them with sleeves and half of them without, and sewing them together so that they are the same shirt. A useful trick hereby is to sew the shirts themselves in such a way that when sewn together that the seams don't overlap. The important thing here is that if properly sewn, the armour can still be moved in relatively easily while offering an incredible baseline of defense that can be combined with pretty much every other piece of armour I will list here, though there is no way to make wearing that much clothing not a sweat ridden mess.

    You can do the same to make a padded hat to cover your head.

    This style of armour is very good against blunt strikes because of the mass of fabric serving as padding and decent against slashes and piercing.

    Leather Armour: When tanning hides there is a way for the resulting leather to be hard and inflexible instead of supple and flexible like normal. To my knowledge this is done by using tannins, the things that cause hides to tan, drawn from plants instead of animal brains or piss. When shaping them, one you can make very well-fitted pieces of armour - and as such easy to wear without chaffing or other problems - that can be worn above cloth armour, adding further to the protection and synergizing nicely as it is better for warding off thrusts or slashes than blunt strikes.

    Metal Armour: Metal armour is an expensive but obvious way to protect yourself and the simplest design is to simple hammer sheets of iron and steel into the desired shape and thickness and then drilling holes into it to tie them to your body with cords or twine. This is very cumbersome however and so a more complicated version might be needed, the so called scalemail. It is called that way because it looks like the scales of a fish. You first have to create a bunch of small iron scales, roughly the same size with small holes at the flat end of the scale. You then take a leather chestplate or thick cloth, it has to be somewhat rigid for this purpose, to be used as backing and start attaching the scales from the bottom first. You use strips of cloth or leather to tie them to the backing pointed end of the scale pointing downward, or you use small metal nails to do the same, hammering the tip until it is a flat disk like the flat side. It's technically not actually a nail, but it's close enough in concept that I hope you can figure out the difference as I lack the words to explain them right now, and if not just use the cords. You will just have to replace scales more often. Anyway. For the next row, attack the scales in such a way that the 2nd row covers the attachment point of the 1st row. Repeat until the whole of the backing has been covered in scales.

    You can also make these design out of leather, for those warriors too poor to afford the iron.

    An alternative arrangement called Lamellar armour exists, where the metal is shaped into rectangles instead, with holes on all four sides. The metal pieces are tied to each other instead of the backing except for the outermost holes, those that have no other squares to connect to. Its mostly a matter of preference and flexibility between those two designs.

    Lastly then a piece of armour that will likely be only worth making for yourself, but that is still something to bring up. Namely, chainmail. This type of armour consists of literally thousands of small rings maybe half the width of a finger, half of these already forged solid and half of them still open. They will now be woven together in such a way that four other rings goes through each ring - a four in one pattern. The still open rings are closed in this process, either through heating them up and hammering them shut or by using the not-nails we mentioned above, but again, that's just a matter of convenience and not too important for a one-off made for yourself. If properly woven and made, you will now hold a literal tunic of iron or steel that is as flexible as one made of cloth and more durable than anything else known to the people or yourself. Also more expensive, of course.

    If you want to make it even fancier - and take even more time. You can make it longer until it falls down to your knees - not further than that and leave slits front, back and at the sides to make movement easier - or give it sleeves. You can also increase the number of intersecting rings to a six in one or even an eight in one patter and it is also possible to weave a second layer of chainmail in parts that might be worth reinforcing like a square directly over your chest to protect your organs or around the neck and shoulder areas where you are likely to be struck.

    Further pieces of chainmail garments be be socks, glooves or a veil hanging from a metal helmet to protect your face and neck.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Lincolnator said:
    Code: 
    L3, this is my primary post I want in

even if all others don't make it.

Subtracting the words in this notice and the

votes, this post is exactly 2000 words.
    Bianca, I would implore you to count in sixteens instead of dozens. I will be dedicating my communication to this purpose, due to its immense importance for the future.

    The greatest reason for doing this is that the prime factors (as was described by another voice) of sixteen are exclusively twos. Sixteen is 2 multiplied by 2, multiplied by another 2, and multiplied again by 2. This is so important because it makes translation between base 16 (hexadeximal) and base 2 (binary) extremely simple.

    This lets you use a number system that is similarly convenient to counting in dozens, that is extremely easy to translate into counting in 2s. This is desirable because binary is the greatest number system for doing written calculations with, in simplicity and speed, among other future benefits.

    However, Binary is also the most cumbersome number system for day to day counting with fingers and the speaking of numbers as words, as it consists of long sequences of ones and nothings.

    For everyday use, counting in sixteens is just as, if not more, convenient and easy as counting in dozens.

    For your original question of counting with your hands, you can represent one through sixteen by touching your thumb to the fingertips and inside of the three knuckles of each finger in sequence. One would be your thumb touching the tip of the first finger closest to your thumb, two would be the tip of the middle finger, four would be the little finger tip, five would be the outermost third knuckle of the first finger, and twelve would be the second knuckle on your little finger. Thirteen would be the base knuckle of your first finger and sixteen would be the base knuckle of your little finger.

    Sixteen would be called one 'hex'.

    So, you can count ones on one hand and count how many hexes on your second hand. Seventeen would be one on the ones hand, and one on the hex hand, to represent 'one hex and one.' When you count past thirty-two, you again start over at one on your ones hand and now have two on the hex hand. Three dozen would be two hexes and four, for example.

    This lets you easily count all the way up to sixteen hexes and sixeen, or a gross, eleven dozen and four, with just your hands.

    You can't really count beyond that with your hands without using finger binary, and even then finger binary, with all ten fingers and thumbs representing a sequence of ones and nothings, can only count to exactly seven gross, one dozen and three, which is an unfortunate if humorous coincidence.

    A hex of hexes, or sixteen sixteens added together, is called a byte. In dozenal, this is one gross and ten dozen.

    Seven gross, one dozen and four is exactly four bytes.

    A hex of bytes is a hexabyte, and a byte of bytes is a block. A hex of blocks is a hexablock, a byte of blocks is a bytablock, a hexabyte of blocks is a hexabytablock, and a block of blocks is a blockablock. Any numbers greater than a blockablock (which is a huge number you won't run into for a very long time) are described by using the smaller number names to say how many blockablocks there are.

    A gross of grosses would be five hexabyte and one byte.

    For reference, a blockablock is close to a great gross of great grosses of great grosses. The (roughly estimated) total number of grains of sand in the entire world is close to a blockablock of blockablocks of sand grains, which gives you an idea of how easily massively large numbers can be represented like this.

    Of course, I can already hear the 'but what about multiplying and dividing by three!' There are some very recognizable patterns in base sixteen that correspond to multiples of three, but there are also useful patterns of five in base sixteen as well, which dozenal doesn't do well at all.

    I have hopefully established how counting in hexadecimal is as good as or better than dozenal for everyday purposes and finger counting, and a way of speaking very large numbers easily. I will now move on to its use in relation to binary and written calculations, and why such a thing is vastly preferable to performing written calculations in dozenal.

    Firstly, I must explain powers of a number. A number taken to the power of a second number is the first number multiplied by itself over and over again, by the second number of times. I will represent powers as 2^2 and 2^3 for 2 to the power of 2 and 2 to the power of 3, respectively, for brevity. Any number to the power of one is itself, and any number to the power of zero is one.

    2^2 is two twos multiplied together, which two groups of two added together is four.

    2^3 is three twos multiplied together, which is two groups of two which are four, and then two groups of four which is eight.

    2^4 is four twos multiplied together, which is the same as 2^3 multiplied by 2, and two groups of eight make sixteen.

    3^2 is nine, as three groups of three add up to nine.

    3^3 is one hex and eleven, or two dozen and three, as it is 3^2 multiplied by three again, and three groups of nine add up together to make this number.

    A dozen to the power of 2 is a gross, a dozen^3 is a great gross, and a dozen^4 is a dozen great gross, and so on.

    Hex^2 is is a byte, hex^3 is a hexabyte, and hex^4 is a block, hex^5 is a hexablock, hex^6 is a bytablock, hex^7 is a hexabytablock, and hex^8 is a blockablock.

    The important part for binary is understanding the powers of 2. 16 is a power of 2, which is why it is so easily translated to binary.

    In dozenal or hex, when writing with numerals, you have 12 or 16 symbols to choose from, representing nothing through eleven and fifteen, respectively. In the ones place you have how many ones, up to the max for a single digit, and any more than that is represented by a second digit in the next place value next to the ones digit saying how many dozens or hexes are added to the ones.

    This is very much like the hand counting system I described, with each digit representing zero through eleven or fifteen. You can only count up to eleven or fifteen of dozens or hexes, and eleven or fifteen ones added, before you need another place value digit next to the dozens or hex place to represent how many gross or bytes are added. Then another digit to represent how many great gross or hexabytes, then another next to that that represents how many dozen great gross or blocks, and so on, until you have enough digits to fully represent the value of your number.

    Each place value represents how many of a specific power of the base number are added to the value. The ones place is how many hex^0 there are, the hex place is how many hex^1 there are, etc.

    Binary is the smallest base, with only 2 digits: one and zero. Each digit works the same way as other bases, as each digit represents how many of a power of 2 are added to the value, but each digit can only be one or zero, each digit only represents whether that power of 2 is added to the value. Each binary digit of zero or one is called a bit.

    So, twelve would be 1100, as twelve is one eight (2^3), one four (2^2), no twos (2^1) or ones (2^0)

    Binary, as each digit only represents a presence or absence, can use much simpler numeral symbols. The best way to do this is with long and short lines, where each long line is one and short is zero, stacked sideways next to each other. This lets you write them closer together than can be done with larger bases. But, with long numbers this becomes hard to read, so you break up the binary number into groups of four bits with horizontal lines drawn beneath the groups of four bits to make it easy to read.

    The important part here is that each group of four bits represents a value of zero through fifteen, and is mathematically identical to a hexadecimal digit in its place. This only works for powers of two as a base, it also works for base 8.

    So, all you need to write numbers in binary from hexadecimal, is to write down the binary for each hexadecimal digit one after the other, in the same order. This is impossible in any base that isn't a power of 2.

    For reference,

    zero is ....

    one is ...l

    two is ..l.

    three is ..ll

    four is .l..

    five is .l.l

    six is .ll.

    seven is .lll

    eight is l...

    nine is l..l

    ten is l.l.

    eleven is l.ll

    a dozen is ll..

    thirteen is ll.l

    fourteen is lll.

    fifteen is llll

    and sixteen is l ....

    The pattern becomes obvious now. If you do forget what a hex digit is in binary, you can just ask yourself: is the digit greater or equal to than eight, if yes the eights place is a one. If the digit is greater or equal to than the previous bit's value added to four, then the fours bit is a one. If the digit is greater or equal than the previous bits' values added to two, then the twos bit is a one, and the same for the ones bit as well.

    For example, to find ten, it is more than eight (l...), less than eight and four (l...), and is equal to eight and two (l.l.) without a one added. So ten is l.l. and eleven is ten with one added: l.ll

    Now you have an easily learned and teachable way to write numbers. You simply read and write hexadecimal as groups of four bits.

    I can't elaborate much on WHY binary is the best for written calculations, due to the length limits of this message, but take time to think about why digits of only one or nothing would make the mathematics described by Junction much simpler. Try it out.



    For each digit, the only additions you need to know for this is how to count to three (a one in both numbers, and the carry one).



    If you have a number of fruits, and eat a number of them, subtraction lets you find how many you have left. This is useful with large stores of food, with many bytes of items to keep count of.



    This is easier in binary. The process described is done that way because multiplication is really just repeated additions, and you can break up the multiplication into a sequence of much smaller single digit multiplications, and adding together the products of those single digit multiplications.

    In binary, single digit multiplications are with only one or zero, so you add the multiplicand (number being multiplied) once for each one in the multiplier, with extra zeros at the smaller end based on the place value of the 1. Any number multiplied by zero is zero (zero groups of any number is nothing) and any number multiplied by one is itself (one group of the number).

    There is also a clever trick called booth multiplication that can multiply any unbroken string of ones into one addition and subtraction, which results in binary multiplications usually needing less additions than dozenal, while also needing no carry multiplications.

    Code: 
    From this point on is more than 2k words

    If you can still hear me now, Bianca, then I shall continue in more detail as to how binary is greater than other systems of numbers for written calculations.


    The common reason for this is that with all of the operations that Junction described, they achieve what they do with very large numbers by breaking apart those numbers into their digits, and doing calculations with sets of single digits in specific ways that are then combined back into larger numbers.


    There is no simpler set of digits than binary.


    For example, with carry addition, each set of digits can only ever add up to two, or three if there is a carried one from the previous digits. Anyone, even the slowest of children, can count to three. The tradeoff is that there are more operations, as there are more digits needed for the same value, but each operation is so much simpler and easier that the calculation ends up being faster, as you barely need to think at all for each operation, and you can do each operation in your head basically just as fast as you can write down each digit of the answer. Since you grouped the bits into fours, you can just read out the hexadecimal value of the answer.


    Subtraction is similarly easy: if you need to borrow from the next bit, and the next bits of both the numbers are zero, or both one, the answer is one in that bit of the answer, and you borrow from the next bit over. If the next bits of the first number and the subtractor number are one and zero, the answer is zero and you stop borrowing and move to the next bits. If they are zero and one, then the answer is zero, but you keep borrowing. If you keep those rules in your head, you can subtract two numbers just as fast as you can add them.


    Both of these can be done just as fast as you can write the numbers down once you have practiced them, as the individual operations are so simple you barely need to think about them.


    But, both of those pale in comparison to how much easier multiplication is in binary, when compared to dozenal.


    Firstly, to define some terms: The multiplicand is the first number being multiplied, and the multiplier is the second number that the first number is being multiplied by.


    When you are doing the carry multiplications for each digit in the multiplier in dozenal, you need to do a one digit multiplication of the entire multiplicand, for each digit of the multiplier, and add all of those products together. This requires a complex carry multiplication of nines, sevens, fours, elevens or whatever the digits may be, one after the other, for the entire multiplicand, and do that process all over again for each digit of the multiplier.


    You must also keep in mind that each digit of the multiplier has a place value, meaning that if you are multiplying some multiplicand by the four in four gross three dozen and two, you are actually multiplying it by four gross, not four, and why the result has two zeros in front of it. This is why you need to shift the starting bit over by the place value of the digit in the multiplier you are using.


    By contrast, in binary, there are only two values each digit can represent: one and zero. So each digit of the multiplier multiplies the multiplicand by either one or zero, and any number multiplied by one or zero is either itself or zero.


    So, you skip the complex carry multiplication in its entirety, and just add the multiplicand to the products below for each one in the multiplier, after adding the right number of zeros at the front to match the place value of the one. Then you add the products together with binary addition, and you have your answer. As you can see, this is MUCH simpler than it is in dozenal.


    The downside of this is that there is an addition for every one in the multiplier, which for something like fifteen hex fifteen would be a lot of additions. Most of the time this is still easier than the alternative due to completely skipping the carry multiplications, but there is a trick I mentioned earlier that fixes this problem called booth multiplication.


    Booth multiplication relies on a simple fact about binary subtraction: that a one followed by a lot of zeros, with smaller one subtracted from it, will result in a long string of ones whose largest one is one place less than the original one, and with the littlest one being in the same place value as the one that was subtracted.


    I will give an example: eight hex with four subtracted from it is seven hex twelve.


    In binary, that is

    l... .... minus .... .l.. is .lll ll..


    As you can see, a subtraction of a single bit from a lesser place value from a single bit of a higher place value with nothing but zeros in between, results in an unbroken string of ones starting at the smaller one and ending just before the place the bigger one used to be.


    So, in multiplication, if the multiplier was seven hex twelve, you would normally need to add it once for each of the ones in that number. You can instead subtract it once at the place value of the smallest one in that unbroken string of ones, and add it once at the place value of the first zero following the largest one in that string, and get the same number, as they are mathematically equal to each other.


    So, when multiplying binary numbers, multipliers with the longest unbroken strings of ones are actually the easiest to multiply, because any unbroken string of ones can be multiplied with only one subtraction followed by one addition.


    This trick usually results in the same number or even less additions and subtractions than there would be additions in dozenal, and each addition and subtraction is easier in binary than the additions are in dozenal, and you don't need any carry multiplications.


    So even in the absolute worst case of the multiplier being nothing but alternating ones and zeros where booth multiplication can't be used, it still ends up being faster and easier than dozenal, because there is no complex carry multiplications needed for the products that get added together.



    Long division is not as greatly simplified by binary as multiplication, outside of the subtractions that are a part of long division being simpler and easier, but the part of long division that requires you to test hoe many times the divisor fits into a part of the dividend is made irrelevant, as it can only fit or not fit once, as the quotient produced is in binary, but it is otherwise the same process.




    I will now speak on the subject of geometry and the various ways we have of precisely defining shapes with numbers.

    The first thing that must be made understood is the concept of a unit of measurement.

    A unit of measurement is a precisely defined measure of a property of a physical object or substance, that is used as a reference to measure the difference between itself and the object or substance being measured.

    For example, a unit of measurement for length in our world, the meter, is defined as the distance needed to draw a circle around the earth (a consistent and constant value to all people living on our world) divided by exactly two bytablock, six hexablock, two block, five hexabyte, and ten byte. This number makes a great deal more sense when using a base ten number system, as it is exactly four times ten thousand thousand. For scale, a fully grown man is usually between one and a half and two meters tall, with the average height being somewhere between one and two thirds and one and three quarters meters tall.

    Everything to do with length or size can be measured as a certain number of meters or parts of meters, and as everyone in the world agrees on the exact length of a meter, when someone says to a craftsman "I want a spear shaft exactly two meters long" the craftsman can make them a spear shaft of exactly the length they wanted, without needing to do any pointing or gestures to demonstrate the size. In fact, this can be done without the people even meeting in the first place, and the request for a spear shaft is given by written message.

    This is important, because the making of certain tools and devices requires parts to be made a very specific size and shape, and if they are not the tool or device will not work. These sizes can no longer be measured or described by finger widths and hand spans, as the difference in size between different people will make the sizes wrong.


    The actual unit of measure you use for the purpose of measuring lengths doesn't really matter, so long as everyone using it agrees on what the exact length of that unit is. For the purposes of teaching you geometry, I am not going to use any specific unit at all, I will just call it a 'unit' or 'unit of length.' At a later time I will dive into greater detail on the lore of measurement and what the best measures for you to use would be. I will still give lengths, as relative differences between lengths are a core part of geometry, but the units those lengths are in are irrelevant to the methods of calculation.


    For the purposes of measuring things, and using these shape calculations for practical purposes, you just need to measure with a consistent measuring unit, such as the length of your foot or arm, and divisions of that length. You won't need anything more precise than that for some time, and I will explain what is needed then, as I have already said.


    The other unit that I will define here is that of angles. Angles are a precise measure of rotation, and we will need much more precise terms than "a quarter turn" if I am to describe the lore of geometry to you.


    There are two common measures of angle that our people use, that of degrees, and of radians. Radians are difficult to explain, and not very useful unless you are already very deep into the lore of geometry, so I will only describe degrees here.


    A degree is one part in one byte, six hex and eight (or two gross and six dozen) of a complete rotation. This particular division was chosen because it divided evenly in a great many ways. So, a full rotation is one byte six hex eight degrees, a half rotation would be eleven hex four degrees, and a quarter rotation would be five hex ten degrees, and an eighth of a rotation would be two hex thirteen degrees. A quarter rotation is called a 'right angle,' and is the angle something that is pointing straight up makes with flat and level ground.


    A third of a rotation would be seven hex eight degrees, one sixth would be three hex twelve, and one twelfth would be one hex fourteen degrees. One fifth of a rotation would be four hex eight, and one tenth of a rotation would be two hex four degrees.


    A dividing circle is a circle used to measure angles, with divisions marked around its edge and a defined center point to rotate angles around.


    In the world of pure geometry, there are no inaccuracies, there are no forces or friction or indeed even time. Those worldly concerns are irrelevant to the mathematics of how shapes are defined with numbers. There are only absolute truths and axioms, and their derivative conclusions, to guide our knowledge here.


    Let us begin with the definition of a point. A point, is a precise location in space, with no size or any dimension at all other than its own perfectly precise position.


    Lines are infinitely long threads that are perfectly straight, and whose position is defined as a line that passes through two points. Their true essence is actually as a collection of all infinitely many points that are on that same line.


    A plane is an infinitely thin, perfectly flat surface that extends forever in every direction, whose position is defined by three points it passes through which are not on the same line. If they were on the same line, the plane could freely rotate relative to that line as an axle, and its position could not be known. A plane's true essence is that of all infinitely many points that are on that same plane.


    A line segment is a part of a line that is constrained in length by two endpoints.


    A curve is sort of like a line, in that it is defined by a set of points and a relationship between those points, and that the essence of a curve is that it is all infinitely many points that are on that curve, but the path a curve takes through space is defined by the particular mathematical relationships that define the curve, of which there are countless kinds of curves.


    A flat surface is a section of a plane that is constrained by lines and/or curves to a finite shape.


    With those definitions established, I will define some simple relationships between these things.


    When a point is collinear with a line segment, it means that that point falls on the line that line segment is a part of.


    When a point or line or flat surface is coplanar with a flat surface, that means it is on the same plane that flat surface is a part of.


    Lines and planes intersect when they are not collinear or coplanar, but there are points (or a line in the case of two planes intersecting) that are collinear or coplanar with both of them. Essentially, two lines that cross at a point, or a line crossing through a plane, or two planes crossing each other. The point of intersection (or line of intersection in the case of two planes), is the point or line that is collinear or coplanar to both the intersecting lines or planes. Angles between intersecting lines or planes are taken with the point or line of intersection as the center or rotation of that angle. In the case of two lines, the imaginary dividing circle measuring their angles is coplanar with an imaginary plane that both lines are coplanar with. In the case of a line intersecting a plane, the imaginary dividing circle is coplanar with a plane that is perpendicular (this is defined later) to the plane being intersected, and also coplanar with the line intersecting the plane, and the dividing circle is centered at the point of intersection. In the case of two planes intersecting, the dividing circle is centered on the line of intersection, and is perpendicular to the line of intersection (again, this is defined later).


    The complementary angle is the angle which is adjacent to the angle you are measuring on two intersecting lines, and adds up with the angle you are measuring to eleven hex four degrees, or a straight line.


    When two lines or planes are parallel, that means they will never intersect each other. All points contained within them will remain the exact same distance from the closest point on the other plane or line. When line segments or flat surfaces are parallel, that means the lines or planes they are a part of are parallel. Essentially, they are pointing in exactly the same direction with an angle of zero degrees between them, but they are not collinear or coplanar.


    Two lines or planes that are perpendicular, intersect and are at right angles to each other. Line segments or flat surfaces that are perpendicular are so if the planes or lines they are a part of are perpendicular. A line can be perpendicular to a plane, as a line can be at right angles to a plane if it sticks straight out of it like a perfectly straight stick that is pointing perfectly straight up from perfectly flat and level ground. A plane is perpendicular to a stick in the same way.



    With those definitions established, I will now begin defining the simple flat shapes. Assume they are constrained to a single plane, and all points and lines and curves are coplanar within each shape.


    I will define the components of shapes.


    An edge: An edge is one of the lines or curves that make up the boundaries of a shape.


    A corner is a point where two edges intersect at their endpoint.


    The inside of the shape is the area constrained by the edges of the shape, with a finite size.


    The outside of the shape is the area unconstrained by the edges of the shape, with infinite size unless constrained by another, larger shape.


    Now onto the shapes themselves.


    Firstly, the circle. The circle is made by a curve of all points that are the same distance from the center point of the circle, that are on the same plane as the center point. The radius of a circle is the line segment that has one endpoint as the centerpoint of the circle, and the other endpoint is on the edge curve of the circle. The diameter of the circle is the line segment that has both endpoints on the curve of the circle, and also contains the centerpoint of the circle. It cuts the circle exactly in half, essentially. The tangent of a circle is the line which is collinear with one of the endpoints of the diameter, or the edge endpoint of the radius, that is perpendicular to the diameter or radius. For example, a perfect circle rolling on perfectly flat ground (not necessarily level, but flat. The ground could be tilted this way or that, so long as it isn't curved) would have the ground be tangent to the circle.


    Next, polygons, or sided shapes.


    A triangle is a three sided shape made up of three line segments with three corners where those line segments intersect at their endpoints. The three angles of the inside of the edges on a triangle will always add up to eleven hex four degrees, or a half turn. This is true no matter the proportions of the triangle. A triangle is actually completely defined in shape by the length of its three sides, or by any two of its corner angles, as finding the third is as easy as subtracting them from eleven hex four. This is why making structures made from sticks attached at their ends are strongest when the shapes the sticks make are triangles, as the joints between the sticks don't have to resist rotation, as the fixed lengths of the sticks will resist rotation of the corners.


    A quadrilateral is a four sided shape with four corners. The four angles of the inside of the edges of a quadrilateral will always add up to one byte six hex and eight degrees, or a full turn of rotation, no matter the proportions of the quadrilateral.


    Any irregular polygons have total internal angles of their number of sides, minus two, multiplied by half a turn, or eleven hex four degrees. For example, a pentagon, or five sided shape, has five sides, subtract two and you have three, and three times eleven hex four degrees, makes two byte, one hex and twelve degrees of total internal angle.


    As irregular polygons beyond triangles and subsets of quadrilaterals are difficult to predict and calculate, I will stop here with them and move onto regular polygons.


    Regular polygons are polygons with sides of all the same length, and equal angles at all of their corners.


    An equilateral triangle is a triangle with three equal sides and angles. The angle of all three corners is three hex twelve degrees.


    A square is a quadrilateral with four equal sides and angles. The angles of its corners are all right angles, and as a result all of its sides are either parallel or perpendicular to each other.


    Higher sided regular polygons don't really have any additional properties that matter to you for the moment.


    I will now speak of the various types of partially irregular quadrilaterals and of the properties of right angle triangles, which have more practical applications in the real world.


    Firstly, the rectangle. The rectangle is essentially just a square if the sides were no longer all equal, but the four right angles at the corners remained. The sides are still all parallel or perpendicular with each other.


    Next, the rhombus. A rhombus is essentially a square with no defined angles at its corners, but its edges are still parallel with their opposites, and are all of the same length. Angles that are opposite corners from each other are the same angle, and angles which are not opposite each other are complementary angles.


    Next, the parallelogram. The parallelogram, as the name would suggest, is a quadrilateral with parallel sides like the rectangle, but without the right angles in the corners. The angles follow the same rules of equal and complementary angles as a rhombus.


    Finally, the trapezoid. The trapezoid is a quadrilateral with only one pair of parallel sides, and no other limits on its proportions.


    Next, we have the right triangle. The right triangle is a triangle where one of the corners is a right angle. This type of triangle has some special properties, in particular that knowing the lengths of any two sides is enough information to define the triangle using what is called the pythagorean theorem: for the two smaller sides that end at the right angle corner, when each side is multiplied with itself and added to the other side that was also multiplied with itself, the resulting number will be equal to the third side opposite the right angle corner multiplied with itself. To actually calculate the third side, you need to find the square root of the resulting sum or subtraction, which is why being able to do square roots is useful. One can use right triangles to calculate distances between distant objects if you can measure the angles between them and one of the sides of the triangle. There is an entire field of geometry called trigonometry that focuses on the study of right triangles and the various calculations that can be done with them, of which there are many practical uses for.


    Now, I will begin defining terms that will be things you may want to calculate about the various shapes I have described, in particular the perimeter and the area.


    The perimeter of a shape is the total length of all its edges, whether they are curves or lines. For polygons, measure the length of all their sides and add them up. For circles this is more complicated, but I will describe that later.


    The area of a shape is somewhat more complicated to explain. Imagine a square with a side length of one unit. This is called a unit square. It has an area of one square unit. The area of any shape is how many square units and parts of square units can fit into that shape. This becomes a very important question when you are trying to measure the size of a field of crops. Other voices have mentioned 'acres' as a unit of measuring how much land there is to plant with crops. An acre is one such unit of area. Though usually area is measured in terms of a length unit 'squared'. Such as, feet squared. A square foot would be the area of a square with the side length of one foot.


    This is why taking a number to the power of two is often called 'squaring' the number, as to calculate the area of a square, you multiply the side length by itself.


    The area of a rectangle is its length multiplied by its width, or the length of two perpendicular sides multiplied together. You may notice that if the rectangle had equal sides like a square, that its length and width would be the same and would multiply one side length with itself.


    The area of a triangle is the length of one side, multiplied by the length of an imaginary line that intersects the opposite corner to the side we are measuring, which is also perpendicular to the side we are measuring, and divide the product in half. The easy way to visualize that is imagine you are standing the triangle up with one side on the ground. You multiply the length of the side that is on the ground, with the height of the top corner, and divide the result in half to get the area. The easy way to remember it is one half of the base times the height.


    The area of all other polygons amounts to various ways of cutting up the polygon into sections of rectangles and triangles that you calculate the area of and add all those areas up. But there are some compressed versions of these area calculations for common polygons I will tell you.


    Firstly, the parallelogram and rhombus. They essentially use the base times height formula of a triangle, but without the halving. You measure the length of one side, and the length of an imaginary line segment perpendicular to that side which ends at a point collinear with the opposite side, and multiply them together.


    Next, the trapezoid. Any trapezoid has the same area as any other trapezoid with the same lengths of their parallel sides, and the distance between those parallel sides. So let us call the longer of the parallel sides the base, and the shorter parallel side the top. The height is the length of an imaginary line segment which is perpendicular to the parallel sides, whose endpoints are collinear with each parallel side. The calculation of a trapezoid's area is the height multiplied by the top, added to the product of the top subtracted from the base, multiplied by half the height. For this, remember that any trapezoid with the same length base and top and height has the same area. So all of them have equal area to a trapezoid with one side perpendicular to the parallel sides. Such a trapezoid is essentially a rectangle with the area of the top times the height, with a right triangle of the same height but with a base that is the difference between the top and base of the trapezoid stuck to one side. Hence why you calculate the area of a triangle with a base of the trapezoid's top subtracted from its base and the same height as the trapezoid, added to the area of a rectangle with the length and width of the top and height of the trapezoid.


    Finally, the perimeter of a circle. This is somewhat complicated by the fact that the edge of a circle is a curve. However, we have found an exact constant called pi. Pi is a number that when multiplied by the length of the diameter of the circle, will result in the circumference of the circle, which is what the perimeter of a circle is called.


    Pi is a very, VERY long number (which is actually infinite in length) that is between three and one eighth and three and one quarter, and is what is called an irrational number. Irrational numbers are numbers that are not whole numbers, but are also not the result of the division of whole numbers. They keep adding more and more digits forever after the less than one point (called the radix point, when not referring to a specific number base) that was previously mentioned by the other voice that explained written division, but there are no repeating digits. Pi can only ever be very closely approximated, and never precisely calculated as a result. A reasonable approximation is three and one seventh, or one hex six divided by seven. In the case of representing one seventh by radix point, that would be approximately (as one seventh in hex is a repeating heximal) three and two sixteenths or hexths, four byths, and nine hexabyths. Spoken more quickly, three point two four nine.


    The more accurately calculated version of pi itself and not a close fraction, which is a worthy thing to try to remember, is three point two four three fifteen six ten eight eight eight five ten three zero eight. At least, try to remember up to the three eights in a row, as they are easy to remember. That number, three point two four three fifteen six ten eight eight eight, is far more accurate than anything your people will need for many many generations, and for all practical purposes is closer than you could ever need to the actual value of pi. Any more digits than that is more of a curiosity than anything else.


    However, it is generally much easier to simply multiply by one hex six and divide by seven than it is to do the full radix multiplication with pi, which I now realize we have not described any means to do so, so the one hex six divided by seven option is the best available to you.


    I shall now teach you how to calculate the area of a circle. This is somewhat more complicated than polygons, as in order to calculate the area of a circle you need pi, but outside of that it is just like finding the area of a square. To find the area of a circle, square the length of the radius, and then multiply that by pi. The area of a half circle or quarter circle is just the area of a circle divided by two or four, or by whatever fraction of a circle you are finding the area of.

    The area of a rectangular doorway with an arch at the top, would be the area of a reactangle with the width of the door, and the height of the arch subtracted from the height of the doorway as the length of the reactangle, with the area of the half circle of the arch added.

    For circular curves that have corners on the shape, simply calculate the slice of the circle that would be required for that outer or inner curve, and then calculate the area of the rest of the attached polygon as if it had a big triangle taken out of it. For inward circular curves, imagine the slice of the circle needed for it, then add an imaginary triangle to the now irregular polygon to fit that slice of the circle in, and calculate the area, and then subtract the area of that slice of a circle.

    Essentially, if you have an irregular shape with many inward and outward curves and sides, create imaginary circle slices either added or subtracted from the shape to turn the shape into a polygon, and calculate the area of that polygon, and subtract or add those slices to that area to find the area of the actual shape.



    I will end this communication here, and leave the description of the volumes of three dimensional shapes (meaning shapes that are more than just lines on a plane, like cubes and balls and the like) for next time, as I feel our time is growing short, and the volume of shapes is no simple thing to describe with the rigor deserved of such a thing.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Sotek said:
    On the matter of boats, the pontoon may be a simple improvement that is easily available.
    That is, take a boat - perhaps a hollowed log, perhaps a raft - and then attach, some distance away, on opposite sides, smaller hollowed logs or other boatlike things. That way, if the boat tips, it would push the log down into the water, forcing it back up and keeping it from tipping, making it much more stable.

    This works best, of course, if those pontoons are hollow but sealed - hollowing a log then capping the hole by which it was hollowed, though it can also work if they're simply open to the top, or otherwise something that naturally floats.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Lincolnator said:
    Greetings Bianca, this is Destroyer.

    I have come to tell you of a means of moving water uphill from a river, without any effort of your people after the device is built, and secondly of a simple device of measuring changes in air pressure. I will also provide a note on why certain things float and others do not, and a description of Archimedes' principle.


    There is a pump system that Bianca's people could use called a hydraulic ram pump, one that uses almost no moving parts, just two one way flapper valves like there are on blow-bags. This system requires no extra effort or mechanisms in order to pump, so long as there is an available stream it will endlessly pump water uphill through a clay pipe using the flowing motion of the stream as the source of power needed to pump the water.


    I will now explain the principle of operation. So, firstly, everything that has mass, meaning everything with weight, which obviously includes water, has a property called inertia. Inertia is the property of mass that means it takes effort to make the mass move, and it also takes effort to make the mass stop moving once it starts moving. The effort needed to bring a running man to a stop can be applied by either his legs or by the ground if he trips and falls. When a man falls while running on soft dirt, he leaves behind a furrow of dirt where he slid to a stop on the ground. Digging up and moving this dirt out of his way required effort, effort that the motion of his body provided until his body ran out of motion and stopped.

    The hydraulic ram pump takes advantage of the fact that moving water has inertia, and thus it has effort stored in its motion that takes time and external force to stop.

    By cleverly using two one-way flapper valves in a pipe with moving water, we can take some of the energy in the motion in the water and turn it into hieght of water pumped uphill.

    You need to pick a good spot on or near the river, specifically a place where there is a relatively fast drop in the height of the water, at least one man high, preferably two, over a distance of five or six men laying down end to end. A short waterfall would be ideal, but not needed. Then, make a long tube five or six man-height long and place one end in the river upstream to provide the inlet of the water. If you are using a waterfall this can be much shorter, the requirement here is to get the difference in height at the outlet end. Run this pipe next to the river downstream to the spot you picked. Water should be rushing out of this pipe constantly.

    A note: all clay pipes and pots and such used in this should be glazed for waterproofing.

    Next, we can begin constructing the ram pump. First, we make a large, tall pot to act as the air spring and water tank. This pot is meant to be upside down, with its openings near the bottom, with no openings near the top.

    There are two openings here, one in the center of the bottom, and one on the side near the bottom, this one is where the water gets pumped out of. Make a flapper valve like what is used on blow-bags to fit the center bottom hole, to only allow water into the bottom of the pot. It would be wise to use tanned hide on the sealing surface of this flapper.

    Next, we make another smaller pot with one hole in the side that fits the pipe coming from the river, one hole in the top that is meant to be fit to the bottom hole on the upside down pot, and one more hole in the other side from the pipe input hole, this one gets fit with the second flapper valve, and this one flaps into the pot so water can't get out of the pot from this valve, but can come in.

    Now, seal the bottom hole of the top pot to the top hole of the bottom pot with clay, and then take the upstream end of the pipe out of the water until water stops flowing out of the pipe. then, seal the end of the pipe to the side-hole in the bottom pot that doesn't have a flapper with clay and let dry. Then connect another pipe to the side hole in the top pot, and make that pipe go to where the water is needed elsewhere.

    Then, build a fire to fire all of this to seal it and make it sturdy, and place the end of the inlet pipe back in the river. The water will rush in through the pipe, and when it meets the side flapper in the bottom pot it will be stopped, and rush up through the upper flapper into the top pot. Once the water in the top pot rises above the level of the hole in its side, the air trapped in the top pot is sealed. The more water is pushed in, the more the air compresses, until the rushing of the water can no longer push any more, and the air pushes the water back down. The water is pushed back down through the bottom pot and back up the inlet pipe some, and its motion opens the flapper in the lower pot. with that flapper open the water then rushes out the side hole in the bottom pot until that flapper closes, but now the water has forward inertia again, and so with nowhere else to go it rushes up into the top pot again, and the process repeats indefinitely.

    This can pump water hundreds of paces uphill and away. This makes for a very convenient and useful way of irrigating fields that are uphill and away from the river.

    A note: you should not use the bad water with no frogs for irrigation, as the poison might be taken up by the plants you are growing.

    Note 2: if the pump stops cycling for some reason, or needs to be restarted, simply pushing in the lower side valve that water spills back into the river out of with your hand or a stick for a few breaths and then releasing it will restart the cycle.


    Now, to describe the construction of a barometer:

    First, make a tube with an inner width of roughly the length of your little finger, about as long as your arm, and straight as possible. At one end of the tube, make some finger width notches (press your finger in the edges of the tube end in three or four places) in the end of the tube.

    Second, make a pot about two hand lengths tall and wide, tapering to a hole at the top that is a finger width wider than the outside of the tube, so that the tube can be easily sealed to it with clay.

    Next, insert the tube into the hole of the pot, and have the tube go all the way down to the bottom of the pot, with the notch-end first. The idea here is so that water has to go all the way down the tube and through the notches to flow into the pot. Next, seal the hole of the pot to the tube with clay, and fire the thing.

    All parts of it should be glazed for waterproofing.

    Next, the float indicator.

    The purpose of this device is to fill it partway with water, so there is trapped air behind the water, and the expansion and contraction of air as pressure changes will be shown by the water level in the tube rising and falling.

    In order to more easily see the changes in water level, we need a float with a long, thin stick, just a bit longer than the tube is. A small block of wood that fits easily in the tube would work, as would a hollow bulb of glazed pottery that is sealed around the stick.

    The float has the stick attached to it, so you measure how far the stick pokes out of the tube to measure the water level.

    To aid this measurement, add notches to the stick, about a little finger width apart, all the way up the stick. This lets you just count how many notches are out of the tube to measure the water level. Make a thicker notch every four notches to make it easier to count.

    Then, fill the tube most of the way with water, then put your mouth on the end and suck. This will pull the water up the tube, and the water in the pot down through the notches at the bottom of the tube, until air starts being sucked under the notches. This will reduce the amount of air trapped in the pot to a more useful level.

    When you stop sucking, the water level should be lower than before.

    Drop the float with attached notch-stick into the tube, and record how many notches are sticking out of the tube.

    Then come back several times during the day, and every morning and evening, and write down the number of notches. My previously described binary writing of numbers is very good for this.

    If the number of notches has decreased, air pressure has risen and pushed down the water. If the number of notches has increased, then air pressure has decreased and the trapped air has pushed up the water.

    If the air pressure drops quickly over the course of a day or so, you have a storm coming.

    Air in the open can expand and contract and move about as it wills, but the trapped air is held inside the pot by the water. It will still expand and contract, but water doesn't. So the water is pushed up and down the tube as the pressure changes.


    Next, I will describe why things float, and how this can relate to boat building.

    Firstly, things float because water is heavy and wants to flow down. How does this push things up? This is simple. Water is incompressible, meaning it does not expand or contract outside of changes in temperature.

    If you fill a pot with water, and push your hand into the water, the water level in the pot goes up. Your hand displaced the water, and in order to push the rest of the water up, you had to push your hand down with enough force for the water it displaced to be pushed up.

    When something is lighter than the amount of water it displaces, its weight cannot push the rest of the water up all the way for it to go completely below the water, and so it displaces the amount of water that is equivalent to its own weight, and the rest of it floats above the water's surface.

    A stone sinks because it is heavier than the amount of water it displaces.

    The same is true of boats. You can, in fact, make boats out of stone or metal, so long as there is enough air inside the boat to make the whole boat lighter than its displacement. So long as the boat is water tight, and water is kept out of the inside, it will float. Most of the boats our people use are metal, especially the largest ones are always made of metal. But, if there is a leak in the hull of the boat, and too much water gets in, the amount of air inside the boat isn't enough to keep the boat afloat and the boat will sink.

    Much of the buoyancy of your new canoes is not from the wood, but from the air inside the canoe being lighter than water. Wood floats because it has lots of little air pockets inside of it that lower its density (which is a measure of how heavy a certain volume of material is, higher densities being heavier for the same displacement).

    So, to make better boats, increase the volume of air inside of them relative to their weight.

    I hope this assists you in your endeavors, Bianca.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Rafin said:
    Hail Bianca!

    I, Rafin return to answer questions you posed to me.

    Farming, when done correctly and using technology, creates surplus food enough that some people need not busy themselves with food collection at all. They have time to learn and create many things instead. Also, as people defeat disease and hunger and keep animals and enemies at bay, their lives become longer. It's in such a situation that reading and writing become truly worth utilizing. You already don't busy yourself with feeding yourself and you already discover novel things and pursue ambitious goals. So writing already has use to you.


    If the sorrows of mortals are truly unimportant to you, why does their wailing feel like a heavy burden? Enduring it and faking empathy is a skill like any other. Also, if any mortals grow to love you like a parent or grandparent, they will teach this love to their own children. If they think you will love and protect their children and their children's children then they might even gladly lay down their lives for you, knowing that it will enable you to look after coming generations better, just like a childless person might sacrifice themselves for the family of their siblings.




    "Sharpener" is not a good translation for the word I used. In our language the root of the meaning is more akin to "sour-source". This is because when the substance was first discovered it was known as a component of all known acids. Only later did it become known that it is more generally the fuel for fire and life. To explain where it comes from and where it goes I will have to explain the basics of substance-composition lore.

    All tangible non-magical substance is made out of basic building blocks of which over two hundred are known to us. These building blocks can connect and fuse in varying ways under varying conditions forming new substances with wildly differing properties. These combination substances can be further combined or break apart in other conditions. But the basic building blocks themselves are the smallest things that still hold distinct properties as tangible substances and breaking them apart is very very difficult and very very destructive. On the whole world the amount of each of these remains mostly the same. Only little rains down from the void beyond the air in the sky and only few of these break down and decay over a long long time. We call the basic building blocks "elements".

    Oxygen ("sour-source") is one of these elements, the sixteenth as we have decided to count them. It does not get consumed, neither by fire nor by life. Instead it gets combined with other elements, often with heat and sometimes with light as a byproduct.

    A very common combination is with carbon, the sixth element, most visibly encountered as coal. Carbon is the most abundant building block of life, a major component of every part of every plant and every animal. The air carries plenty of carbon particles combined each with two oxygen pieces. When something containing carbon, like a piece of wood for instance, is sufficiently heated or subjected to a first spark or ongoing flame, the carbon combines with the free oxygen in the air. This produces more heat and light, thus making more carbon nearby combine with more oxygen. This is the most common form of fire.

    Another common combination of oxygen is with hydrogen (meaning "water-source" in our language). Hydrogen is the first element. It is the smallest and lightest of all the elements. The combination of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen is known as water. This is how pure water is made. Water is found in a lot of places, both inside and outside of living things. Hydrogen burns very easily, but is rarely found freely in nature. Even if one were to find it, pure hydrogen is invisible and lighter than anything else in the air. Still, when hydrogen burns, water vapor is the result.

    Carbon and hydrogen often bond in many complex ways. Fats, oils, sugars, starch and fibers all are complicated combinations of mostly carbon and hydrogen. As are those airs that come from the earth and are flammable. As are farts. You can set fire to farts. It is a silly and risky game.

    When a living thing breathes in air, the lungs draw oxygen from it, which the blood then carries to all the parts of the body that need power (be it heat or movement) to work. There it gets combined with carbon-hydrogen substances (and sometimes with other things) that the body gets through food and burned in miniscule fires to power everything the body does. Carbon-oxygen is a waste product. It gets carried back to the lungs by the blood and then expelled as the living thing exhales.

    Plants do not eat carbon-hydrogen things. Instead, the green parts (and sometimes other colorful parts) of a plant take carbon-oxygen (the waste air from breathing) and hydrogen-oxygen (water) and combine them into carbon-hydrogen (sugars) to store and distribute as food for the whole plant and all its functions. The excess oxygen then gets expelled. This process does not produce heat and is not self-sustaining. Plants use the light and heat of the sun in order to forge the sugar they need.

    So as long as there are enough plants in the world there is enough free oxygen so that breathing is possible.


    Stain too is a combination of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. When you talk of making it stronger, you are actually separating it from parts of the water it is mixed with, thus getting liquids containing more and more stain and less and less other things (like water).

    Separating oxygen from the rest of the air is a very difficult procedure. In our world one way it is done is with a device so cold that it makes the substances of air become liquid the way water vapor becomes liquid when cooled. All the substances of the air become liquid at different temperatures of cold, so by catching one liquid after the other and locking it in airtight containers, you get fairly pure concentrations of each separate substance of the air. I would not know how to make such a freezing device with the tools you have at hand. Not for a long time. Maybe there is an easier way not known to me.

    Code: 
    Wordcount: 1060 here + 666 from previous post = 1723
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Rafin said:
    With my final words I, Rafin, wish to express disagreement with Junction.

    The only reason for Bianca to create a state is for her to get more of what she wants. The state's ultimate purpose would not be to better the lives of all its members. A system of voting in the people who hold power is not conductive to that. It makes the people think that they are the source of the power of government and that their needs are the highest good. But it is not so. Bianca is the fulcrum of all power. Any state she founds has her will as the final reason for its existence. Any system of governance must be constructed with that in mind.

    Elections of representatives can still have value. But they can't be the bedrock of the government and they can't be the sole wielders of coercive power. If nothing else, it would be a lie. For if Bianca wishes to use coercion for some purpose, none should presume to stop her. And if Bianca falls in disfavor among elements of this government, attempts to enforce laws upon her are absurd. On the small chance that she creates a state that can actually resist or coerce her, she would have created the thing she hates most in this world. An entity that is over her, that she has to supplicate to survive.

    Surely, Junction, you cannot want such a thing?

    And with that, oh Bianca, I cannot promise that you will hear more of my words before the next summoning of the Cacophony. Such is the fraying of the mirror's channels. Farewell, and may your progress be glorious!

    Code: 
    Wordcount: 277 here + 1723 from previous posts = 2000 total.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    We Just Write said:
    Junction speaking in reply to Rafin. We openly admit that our primary goal is to improve the lives of those in Bianca's world; most of the time, this also helps Bianca.

    And you do have a point about possible issues of statecraft; we simply meant for the voted people to avoid the problem of yes-men and reduce resentment.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Earth-Destroyer said:
    The Chicken can be found in southern, and eastern lands, where summers are long, and it rarely freezes. Look for Bamboo trees and forests, and your in the right part of the world. Bamboo is a very tall, but thin trees that are generally hollow on the inside. They grow in a cycle spending 5 years spreading their roots, then leap upwards 15 men high over the course of 90 days. If the local people report of the ground being covered by seeds dropped from bamboo once a generation, you will find chickens. More features of the chickens is that while birds they are poor flyers, spending their time on the ground looking for insects, and seeds to eat.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Lincolnator said:
    This is Destroyer, once again. I come to speak of bows, and charred coals, and pulleys, and metal thread.

    The advantage of the bow over the sling is simple: when the archer is skilled enough, they can shoot three to five times with every breath. The bow, when properly mastered, is very, very fast.

    I will not deny that a sling is a fearsome weapon, but for most purposes a highly skilled archer with a good bow is far more fearsome.

    I described the technique for speed shooting, but the message was cut off partway through unfortunately.

    Here is my second attempt.

    To describe the technique, I will first define precise words for which finger is which. I will go from thumb to little finger, in order. First, the thumb, then forefinger or index finger or pointer finger, then the middle finger, then the ring finger, then the little or pinky finger. To describe which hand each finger is on, I will simply describe them as, for example, the left middle finger for the middle finger of the left hand, and the right pinky finger for the pinky finger of the right hand, etc.

    The technique is reversible between hands, and I will refer to the hand holding the bow as the bow hand and the hand that pulls the string as the draw or drawing hand. This will replace 'left' and 'right' in the finger definitions above. I will refer to the inside and outside of respective hands, such that the inside of the bow hand, for example, is facing the palm of the bow hand, and the outside of the hand would be facing the back of the hand. I will refer to thumb side and pinky side as the side of the hand facing the thumb or pinky, respectively.

    So, the essence of the technique is that of holding 3 or 4 arrows preloaded in the bow hand, on the outside of the bow hand held under the bow hand fingers curled over top of them to hold them very nearly in the shooting position, but with their nocks (the string end of the arrow) a few finger widths in front of the string at rest. Each arrow would have its own finger to itself or to a pair: for example, to hold 3 arrows would have had two arrows held under the bow hand middle and index fingers, with one arrow ready to shoot held under just the index finger. The two arrows in storage under the middle finger would be slightly tilted downwards towards the pinky side of the bow hand, but the ready arrow under the index finger would be mostly pointed directly forwards. Additional pair of arrows could be held under the ring finger at more of an angle for 5 arrows in the bow hand.

    To shoot, they used a three finger pinch grip in their draw hand. They would pinch the ready arrow between the thumb and forefinger after reaching 'through' the bow string, such that when the arrow is gripped the thumb and forefinger are already around the bowstring. The middle and index fingers would curl around the bowstring to hold it, making the three finger pinch grip.

    When shooting, they would shoot with the bow from a low, horizontal position, where the ends of the bowlimbs are pointing to the sides of the archer, with arrows preloaded in the bow hand. They would then pinch grip the ready arrow as described, and while pulling back their draw hand back to the side of their torso, while pushing the bow towards the target with their bow hand. They would release at the point of their choosing, and the exact draw length is not terribly important.

    The secret of their accuracy is that they aimed the arrow using the same part of the mind that aims a thrown rock or spear, instead of aiming down the arrow with one eye. It is a trained reflex that takes advantage of inbuilt instincts in the human mind for throwing things.

    Training it is as simple as trying to hit close targets while shooting the bow as described, particularly moving targets to take advantage of instinct as much as possible. At first you will miss a lot, but even by the end of the first day you will likely be able to hit hand sized moving targets at close range. Though, for the first familiarization with the bow start by shooting at stationary dirt targets to get the very first bits of body memory in place. In particular, try to train while jumping or moving if possible after the first bit of basic familiarization to further take advantage of instinct.

    Keep trying to hit fast second and third shots at this time to familiarize yourself with speed shooting.

    The thing yo always keep in mind is to not think about aiming to hit the target, simply look at the target and make the arrow hit it. If you try to think about it you will miss, this is an exercise in building an unconsious aiming reflex.

    Keep training with smaller targets and at greater distances as you gain proficiency, and once you feel ready begin trying to hit birds in flight. Eventually you will be able to hit birds in flight, and at longer and longer distances, and be able to hit land animals at much longer ranges, even when evading. You should be able to hit large herd animals while they are running and you are running after them at this point.

    You should be carrying at least 5 arrows in your bow hand at this time, and when shooting at a long distance of 150-200 paces should be able to shoot 3 arrows before the first hits the ground at that range. Shooting should be as easy as breathing.

    At this point, it becomes a personal journey to true mastery that I have little advice for, as I do not possess such mastery myself.

    To teach children is simple: make a game of it.

    Teach them to throw handfuls of grass or dirt or small wood pieces in the air for other children to shoot at and take turns seeing who can hit the most targets, and then while running and jumping and hanging upside down from branches and the like. This should be done with a simple, small and weak bow fit for a child to learn with, and teach them how to make their own arrows, and then teach them the art of bowmaking a proper adult hunting and war bow and more complex arrow making. Making their own bow to use for hunting makes for a meaningful coming of age ceremony where they take more responsibility onto themselves for supporting their family and tribe.

    Doing this for generations will result in a people of terrifying warriors of peerless skill, where even the women and children are a serious threat to enemy warriors, should they ever face them. What do your skill with axes and clubs matter when a child can put an arrow in your throat from thirty paces away?

    This only really changes when faced with enemies that wear good armor of boiled leather or bone that are well covering enough to have only difficult to hit weakpoints in their armor. That obviously makes it much more difficult to kill them, as instead of simply needing to hit their chest with arrows, you need to carefully aim for gaps in armor on a quickly moving and dodging target.

    The solution to this is generally closer ranges and more powerful bows shot by stronger archers to pierce the armor. This requires a good angle on the armor to penetrate, but it means directly hitting the chest is a good option again. There are also different tips for the arrows that can much better penetrate armor, and those are very sharp, long snd tapered points with less of a broad head. Thin iron or steel arrows (as in, the entire arrow shaft is metal) with a sharp point are even better at piercing armor.

    The last thing, as a general corrolary to the training, is the training of endurance and stamina as a higher priority than raw strength or speed. Train them with training courses running through the woods and wilderness for long distances, and have them compete in races to see who can run the long courses the fastest while shooting at the painted targets along the way, and have obstacles that require climbing or jumping to get past to train in such things.

    I will teach you what I know of Parkour, later.


    The wood the bow is made from should be a from a tree that has been split into quarters, and left to dry in the warm sun for months, and kept out of rain.


    I did not elaborate enough on pulleys it seems.

    A pulley is a wheel, that has a groove running around its entire edge for a rope to remain centered on the wheel. This is easiest to carve from wood.

    On the part of the ring the string slips on, make that part of the ring straight. Then attach a small round wheel of wood on the straight part of the ring, using the straight part of the ring as an axle, so that the string can run in the groove of the wheel, as the wheel turns.

    The string and pivot for the pulley should both be luvricated with fats and/or oils.


    A much more convenient method is simply cooking it with a large pot with a lid with some small holes in the lid. The idea is to prevent oxygen in the air from reaching the wood that is charring, and the gases released by the wood will escape through the small holes and keep any oxygen from entering.



    You are not annealing the glass. That is the problem. The glass has to be cooled slowly in an oven over a whole day, not hot enough to melt, but hot enough to just barely glow the tiniest bit deep red. This lets the internal stresses of the glass as it hardens smooth out and not cause fractures. The oven should be left alone at the end of the day and not fed any more fuel overnight, and let cool until the glass can be taken out by hand.



    Mostly the act of drawing wire is of taking a rod of steel and hammering it thinner and thinner and longer and longer (while getting it to red heat between hammerings to soften it) until you get a flexible thread of iron or steel. There are ways to do it faster and easier, but those require precise drilling to use.

    A good way to get a good electrical connection between metals is to melt some lead at the junction between the metals, which seals them very tightly together.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Rockeye said:
    From Rockeye. Drawing metal out into thin pieces makes it a thing called wire. The simplest way of making long thin wire is to hammer it and heat it, as has been said. You can also hammer it into thin ribbons and twist these into spirals that circle around and around as they go, as straight upward and evenly as possible, like the horns of some animals. Twisted ribbons of iron will tend to stay straight a little better than long ribbons of iron. This does not require especially much tools.

    You can turn a large piece of metal into longer, thinner ones by building two big wheels that rest very close to each other, just far enough apart for something to be put between them. By heating the iron to make it soft and then putting it there and then turning the heavy wheels so the iron is pushed between them, it will be hammered on both sides by the heavy wheels and rolled into shape. Doing it again and again turns bricks or blobs into nice rods. This works best with softer metals and can get it down to maybe a finger's size or less. I think making the wheels is the hard part, they need to be very round and heavy, and also roll or spin well enough to squeeze metal between them. Wheel pressing metal might require gears to turn the big wheels. Or REALLY big and smooth rocks and helpers. Has anyone explained gears? Gears don't work really well when made out of rock and wood isn't much better, metal is best.

    A much more difficult thing is the wire draw plate. This works best with a carefully made tool of good, hard iron that works on softer iron.

    You might need a drill to make nice circular holes for the draw plate. A drill is just a hard sharp bit that spins really fast and presses hard into something else. It's for making circular holes in things faster, long and thin ones sometimes. An easy one to make is like this: A sharp hard tip attached to a wood rod about an arm long that has string run through a notch at the top of the rod. It helps if you also attach a wheel-ish with a hole in it to the stick near the bottom, something round and heavy that spins well. The string are tied to the top of the heavy stick, where the sharp bit and heavy disk are at the bottom. Also tied to both ends of another stick with a hole in it in the center. The new stick goes over the vertical pole sideways, like someone spreading their arms wide. It should move up and down freely, and the strings form a three-sided shape between the two ends of the cross stick and the top of the vertical stick.

    You raise the cross stick up and wrap the strings around the vertical stick, then push it down very hard. When you push the sideways stick down, the strings pull on the vertical stick and make it spin. The drill starts spinning very fast and the string comes unwrapped. The heavy wheel near the sharp tip helps it spin better and also helps hold the drill onto what you want to make holes in. It's important to have it. The spinning keeps going because of the heavy wheel, and the spinning rod wraps the string up around it again and pulls the sideways stick up again. Then you can just push again to make it spin the other way. The whole drill then keeps spinning one way and then the other fast, just by pushing the bar down again and again. This also helps the sharp piece dig into what you are cutting. This whole contraption is called a pump drill. It's not the best but it's easier to make than other kinds.


    Once you have a drill, take a small block or plate of very hard iron about half as wide as a finger and carefully drill a circular hole through it. The hole should be narrowest at one end and widen to about twice as wide at the other end. Make a lot of holes one after another like this, narrow at one end and a bit wider at the other. Each draw hole should be a little bit narrower than the last one. Then, hold the draw plate steady and secure with something like a big rock. Take the piece of metal you want to turn into wire. It needs to be mostly a smooth rod already. Scrape and shave one end a bit so the end is small enough to fit through the biggest draw hole. Cover the metal in grease or fat to make it slick, except the end. Stick it through so the small part is seen from the far side of one of the draw holes, and grab the end with something sturdy like pliers.

    Pliers are a grabbing tool made of two long rods of metal with a hole in them near one end. Maybe as long as someone's foot or a bit less. The part where the two rods join should be about one in three down the length of the rod. Another metal rod or a wood one goes through the hole to hold them together, but still let them turn closer or further from each other. Then, you hold the long pieces in your hand and move them to open and close the short pieces that are on the other side of where they are joined. The small end will grab with a lot more force than you use on the big end. It works best if you make it so the pieces bend near where they join so the handle and grabby part line up together. Much like pulleys or levers, you turn a lot of distance and a little bit of force into a lot of force on a small amount of distance.

    Once you grab with pliers, just pull the metal piece through the draw plate hole as fast as you can. It works best if the metal is hot or warm. Then, do the same thing with the next smallest hole. And the next and so on. It will get a little longer and thinner as it is forced through the hole in the hard iron. Sometimes you need to hit the far end of it with a hammer a bit to get it through the next hole. Keep adding grease or fat as needed. And keep using smaller and smaller holes until your metal rod is long and thin enough to be called wire instead.

    Drawing rod into wire makes the iron harder and more likely to just break. You can anneal it by heating it very hot and letting it cool down very slow to make it soft again, so it can be drawn even thinner. Annealing also works on other shapes and kinds of metal, I think mostly, if you have problems where metal gets too hard and just starts breaking instead of being shaped when hammered.

    Okay that was my big one for this cacophony. I return to the abyss...
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    theopalooza said:
    Hallo, mighty Bianca! I am Lump. I am eager to help you gain power! Accordingly, I will speak on two ideas: dolphin communication, and the elements that constitute the world.

    1. Dolphin Training: As you discovered, dolphins are mischievous. They can and may cooperate. This dolphin may simply be bored, and making a game from your reactions. I suggest redirecting the dolphin's energy through mental and physical stimulation.
      1. Meet the dolphin's need for physical stimulation by feeding it fish. Dolphins usually spend lots of energy catching fish. If you consistently provide it with fish, simply by tossing a fish to it when you spot it, it will likely attach food-motivated value to you. It will also have energy to spare you its attention. You then can ask it for more positive-to-you behaviors.
      2. Meet the dolphin's need for mental stimulation. Dolphins enjoy learning new things and solving problems. That trait helps dolphins adapt to changes in their environment.
        1. In order to communicate with dolphins, you can teach them to understand and interpret cues like physical objects, symbols, hand signals, and sounds.
        2. Dolphins prefer positive reinforcements. Fish are a positive reinforcement, since they're something the dolphin desires. Food is a Primary Reinforcement.
        3. Once you've gained the dolphin's attention with Primary Reinforcements, it's time to bring in the mental stimulation of Secondary Reinforcements.
          1. Literally teaching a dolphin to communicate with you may be enjoyable to said dolphin. Fulfilling the role of teacher may redirect the dolphin's energy and help you establish a common vocabulary to determine what it ultimately wants. If it's magical, it may become a helpful earthforming tool. Dolphins can certainly employ violence against any creature within their range, and you may be able to direct that violence or earth-forming.
        4. Early ideas for regular dolphins:
          1. "Stationing" involves the dolphin approaching a predetermined spot consistently. You decide on the stationing signal. You might use an object or a handsign, along with a vocalization such as "Station."
          2. "Target-follow". If you have an object, such as a fired-clay disc, you may train the dolphin to touch the disc with its nose. A good vocalization could be simply "Target". If the dolphin successfully touches the target, it may be rewarded with food and praise, to cement the positive association.
          3. This will likely get you started. Dolphins can perform acrobatic feats and vocalizations. They can carry objects in their mouths. There are many advanced training behaviors, but I don't want to overwhelm, in case these early efforts aren't successful. The trainer and the dolphin can literally build a language together, and this may help you communicate.
        5. How to train your dolphin:
          1. Approach the dolphin with confident posture, and a positive "we are going to have a great time!" attitude. Much like humans try to interpret mood based on the body's stance and expression, dolphins are affected by their companion's mood.
          2. Begin and end each training session at consistent times.
          3. Time should be the only perfectly consistent element in training. It's ineffective to start and end sessions the same way.
          4. If the dolphin offers undesirable behavior, use nonreinforcement.
            1. Nonreinforcement is a lack of stimulus, either positive or negative. It can be described as "ignoring". Punishment tends to reinforce the negative behavior, since the dolphin received stimulus.
            2. If a session is not going well, you can always leave and come back another day. This teaches the dolphin that you respect your time, and there are consequences if it does not respect your time as well.
    2. Elements and Chemical Notation
      1. So far, you have faced challenges including buildings collapsing, mortar crumbling, pollution from iron smelting, food growing and preservation, etc. You have also asked about how to adapt measures to different or changing environments. Since I and the Voices lack sight into your environment, I'd like to simplify our communication in order to maximize your control and power over your environment. I suggest doing this by expanding your library of glyphs to include Chemical Notation.
      2. Many voices have mentioned the invisible creatures that are sick-making. There are yet smaller entities that give these creatures their power. These tiny entities are the building blocks of every substance in the world. Because they are elemental, we term those entities "elements." You may find power and value in being able to predict, notate, and observe the interactions of these elements, because then you can begin to build systems to manipulate them. Naming them gives you power to speak to others about what you are doing in a unified, systemic way, empowering you to make records of successes and communicate about improving our approach.
        1. Voices have already named several elements: hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, potassium, and iron. They have suggested that you may call them what you wish: while this is true, we would lose the ease of communication. One can memorize the names of the elements, but one gains more power over them if one knows their glyphs. Like all good truenames, the glyphs describe an element's form, properties, and substance.
          1. So! Hydrogen! First among elements, being lightest in form. It is probably the most abundant element in the universe. Stars are made of it. It is in the air your human subjects breathe. Based on its composition, it reacts with the element oxygen to produce water. I would be happy to describe the relationship between hydrogen and oxygen using their elemental forms if you would like.
            1. We, the cacophony, describe Hydrogen with the glyph 1, and the symbol H. The symbol is helpful for brief, clear reference. The glyph describes the form of Hydrogen. It has one "proton."
            2. For now, it may be helpful to think of a proton as a dot, or a point. This matters because a solo hydrogen dot is lonely. It will typically seek a pairing. They do not fuck. They simply bond. Hydrogen usually appears in nature in a pair that we describe as H2. This pairing of elements is called a molecule. Hydrogen needs a friend. Two hydrogens are sort of content. The H2 molecule pairing is still hungry, and it seeks more elemental friends.
          2. Carbon! Carbon is vital to life on the planet. Carbon is described by 6 dots. We use the symbol "C".
            1. Impure carbon in the form of charcoal is part of the metal smelting process other voices have taught you.
            2. Carbon's proton dots love to reach out to the hydrogen pairing, and form a stable compound of 8 dots. The hydrogen / carbon pairing molecule is known as "hydrocarbons," which can be used as powerful fuels.
          3. Nitrogen! Nitrogen will be important in the farming discussion. It has 7 protons, or dots. We notate it as "N". Probably more on this later.
          4. Oxygen! The sharpener/sour source. We notate it as "O". Oxygen has 8 proton dots. Rafin described how oxygen is created by Plants, and how humans, in return, produce a molecule of carbon and oxygen. That's notated as CO2, because it's formed of one carbon bonding with two oxygen. CO2's a clear substance known as a "gas," that Rafin described. Plants and people are connected in this way.
          5. Calcium! This is needful for discussion of Lime, as you mentioned earlier. Calcium uses the symbol Ca, and the number 20, since it has 20 proton dots. It has a lot to do with bones: the bones of the world, and the bones of mortals. Also teeth. Calcium can be found in milk, and without enough of it, one's bones begin to crumble.
          6. Later I can draw you some glyphs that show the exact bonds between the atoms: how they work, and more on why that matters. I can teach you how to encourage their bonds, and give you ideas on how to break them. I can teach you more notation so that we can rapidly discuss exact recipes and proportions for making mortar and pressed earth dwellings and fuel and POWER.
    I know that there are many places where my descriptions will be inadequate, but rather than add more detail, I will fall silent and await your requests for any clarification. I trust your mighty intelligence. I also trust that with your help, I will be understood.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    theopalooza said:
    • You make sticky from it. Here's how!
      • Lime is made of just two elements. Its glyph is CaO. That means you just need one Calcium and one Oxygen to make it. How do we get it? From limestone!
      • Limestone is a slightly more complicated compound. It adds a Carbon and an Oxygen pairing. We can roughly write part of it as CaCO3. The Calcium in this case often comes from the shells of long-dead creatures. That's why you can find it where there was or is now water-life. As the voices mentioned, you can use limestone in specific proportions to improve soil quality.
        • So! To extract the lime from limestone, your humans can put limestone in one of your heating towers. We'll call this kind a "kiln." You'll build this squat tower with a sloped pass-through tunnel, so your subjects can push the limestone into one side, and feed fire-fuel in to the other, lower side. I'll need to think more about the appropriate tool. Bare hands would be wasteful of your subjects. (May I suggest using layers of concrete sludge or mortar to help glue the bricks of the kiln together so it doesn't fall down. I can talk about some exact curing processes if you're interested.)
          • It's now time to add Heat as a change agent to break the bonds of the Limestone molecules, and separate them into two parts: Lime, and CO2, that gas that plants crave. So we heat the limestone reeeally hot by pushing it through the kiln, then out into a cooling zone.
          • Once it's cooled, you've got your "quicklime," the CaO stuff that you want for mortar.
        • Now we need a big pot, a subject with a strong arm and a stirring tool, and some sand to make mortar!
          • So we take that empty pot
          • Add 1 part sand
          • Mix in 1 part lime
          • Add 1.5 parts sand
          • Mix that dry for at least 5 minutes
          • After 5 minutes slowly add water until your subject gets the consistency they want. How will they decide? Learning through experimentation!
            • it is important to not flood the mixture by adding too much water--it thins out the sticky and makes it weaker
          • When your subject is happy with the consistency, mix for 20 minutes
    • Theoretically, you should now have some lovely sticky stuff to glue all sorts of things together. You can put it between bricks, as I mentioned, or slather it over the surfaces as further support.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    theopalooza said:
    Bread! Adding heat and water to make grains more field-portable.

    Get hulled grains, and a human with a smushing/grinding tool, even if it's just two flat rocks. Smush grains between the rocks until they break down into a dry, light substance called "flour."

    Then stir in water to make a sticky dough. Too much water, and it'll be thin and won't bake. Too little, and it won't stick. Your subject should ball up the dough, and not see any streaks of flour.

    Then they apply heat, but not too much. The ashes of a hearthfire can work! Your people can try various ovens.

    They're looking for bread to be brown-colored on the outside, but not black. That's just carbon again, and it's not very edible in that form. The bread also shouldn't be wet on the inside. Your subjects can mess around with texture and heat to see what they like. Some bread lasts a few days; some can last much longer. If it turns black or blue or green, that's mold, which means bread is not really edible. Blue/green mold can be useful for medicine and other food. Black mold can sicken.

    Later I can talk about how to harness the gas CO2 to make even nicer bread, if you're interested.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Ciber said:
    If you need a foundation for a great building somewhere that floods often like the river or with very weak muddy soil like the swamp, you could try driving entire sharpened tree logs into the ground. Obviously long and straight ones hewn smooth.

    Some temporary scaffolding to hold it steady and something heavy to strike its top. You'd need a great weight of metal such that several men are needed to lift it, and a pulley so that the weight may be lifted up by a team of men pulling sideways along the ground.

    The issues you've been having with ropes that quickly fray could be due to weak rope, but I'd suggest first trying to improve your pulleys. Making sure they are smooth and even. Experiment with different shapes. Ensure the pulley itself spins freely about its axis. Perhaps some small polished bits of metal and some animal fat to smooth out the spots that rub. Maybe even grease the rope itself so it does not overly stick to the pulley?

    Oh, also pay attention to the size of the pulley. A larger pulley wheel means that each little part of the rope needs to bend less. The tighter the rope is bent as it moves, the faster it will wear out.

    For lifting heavy loads repeatedly, you might want to try constructing a great cage wheel. Large enough that a man may walk inside it and thus turn the axis to which your rope has been tied.

    I'd also advise that I've observed you often focus on implementing our advice by yourself. You could utilize the peoples of the Bay more effectively. For example, you could put out the word among the peoples that you will be hosting a great celebration, and you will grant some boon to those who impress you with their cleverness. Perhaps there may be several different competitions. A test of strength, of speed, of woodworking, ironworking, glassworking.
    Surely you have been given many gifts over the years, many of which you don't personally value much. As long as the grandchildren of the ones who gave you such a gift have forgotten and won't take offense, you might as well get some use out of gifting it back to the peoples.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    theopalooza said:
    You are absolutely right in that most systems might not work. That's why I emphasize respect, positivity and fun. Even when communication doesn't work the first time, smart creatures of all kinds may return for the novelty and fun of trying.

    Floodplains are often very fertile and can make great sites for settled agriculture, so it would be discouraging to give it up. The dolphin appears to be getting *something* out of the interactions with Bianca. My suggestion is to try to figure out what that is, since it may be as simple as "stimulation / play." If it's territorial protection, then that's where the fish-and-fun trade could be useful. If those attempts fail; well, we're no worse off, and the heroine isn't underestimating the creature, which is generally helpful. Knowledge of how regular dolphins like to interact may help Bianca or the Heroine in dealing with this one, since they won't be starting from nothing.

    Even non-magical dolphins are often smart and cunning. They are also quite literally not dumb: they vocalize among themselves in complex ways that they can adapt to their human teachers. These fun, consistent, respectful request systems can also can work with humans, which is possibly part of why dolphins and humans can get along, as long as they respect each others' capacity for violence.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Legion0047 said:
    logs driven into the ground have to be fired beforehand to keep from rotting
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Rockeye said:
    Heavy things can sink into the ground over time. And even entire hills can suddenly slide and topple. Though the riverlands flooding is clearly the fault of the dolphin as it keeps happening... Probably it made the river flow underground through the base of the hill, turning it to liquidy mud. If you ever want to build something huge, take care to make sure it has very firm ground and know that a great many stones piled atop one another are heavy enough to sink into the dirt itself over time, in some places. Even if it moves by just an inch, that could crack your stones eventually. I suspect this is what opened the necromantic tomb.

    Stopping ropes from fraying requires melting the fibers at the ends together, or sealing them in something like bee wax that is molten when hot and hard when cool. Or you can tie the end to itself by unwinding it a little bit, and then pulling the strands at the end around in a circle back on itself and then weaving it back together. It's really hard to describe in words. The end result is an opening at the end of the rope that things can go over or through.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Earth-Destroyer said:
    Now to explain gears and the waterwheel. Take a long and large wooden log, round it, and on one end attach many twin rods, go a full human distant at least, that end in paddles or buckets, depending on if you are utilizing flowing water or falling water. This is to extract power from the movement of the water. On the other side of the log, attach teeth of wood wiht even spacing and size, this is a gear. Now the water pushes the wheel, which turns the log, which turns the teeth. And by simply locking and unlocking, by removing the flow of water in some capacity is best, as it also allows you to alter the speed of the waterwheel. Now place gears and other systems to utilize the movement of the teeth that can used to power many devices. A simple use is to use another gear to turn a rod that has plates attached. On the plates attach a rod of wood at the edge, Now attach to that those outward rods, other rods that will be moved by the turning of the plates. You can get back and forth movement with distance determined by the size of the plate smaller plates means faster, but less raw power, larger plates will be slower but provide more raw strength. Merely attach that rod to devices that need to be pushed and pulled to remove humans labor. Such a device could be used to grinding grain into flour without humans spending huge amounts of labor. Another easy use is to setup a saw blade attached to a holster, that attaches to the waterwheel, and the movement of the waterwheel, will pull it back and forth, allowing for cuts of wood, and stone that are very even, and smooth
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Virian said:
    Dreamer here.

    I'm glad to hear Iron tools and the sling are extremely popular and that you have seen the superiority of the sling over the bow. Now there are two items I believe you should take note of.

    The first, and arguably least important is the effect gold has over the minds of men. You've seen the way some men look at glass? That is barely worth noting when compared to how they look upon shining gold. Properly made golden goblets, plates and accessories with some other gems placed inside or on them would make the glass fragments be pretty much forgotten. You might be able to use it if you can 'fool' and yes I do mean fool, some people to bring you raw gold and for you to pay them in iron, for gold once properly processed will be far more desirable for those that loved glass than iron. Now gold is not useless by itself besides the strange obsession some people have with it, it does have some interesting properties when it comes to it's interactions with electricity, a less volatile and controllable form of lightning but you do not yet have the means to make use of it


    The second is something I don't think I've noticed your people possessing. The Wheel. Now the wheel in and of itself is not that difficult to make. Now there are multiple ways to make a wheel, but the simplest, and probably easiest to make is by making some wooden planks.

    There should ideally be 3 planks per wheel, forming the body and places side by side, these should be cut in such a way that when placed side by side they make look like a circle. You shall then take 2 other thinner planks(from now own called the fixers) and nail them on the wheel, ideally using 6 or more nails evenly distributed per fixer. You will nail them on the same side, to add stability. On the other side you will make a hole a big and thick stick(now known as a wooden beam) will enter, with either a round head or a square head. You will make sure to have two wheels and the wooden beam. This means 6 planks, 4 fixers and the wooden beam( sorry for repeating, need to make sure the others understand what I'm saying too) . You can fix stuff on the beam, usually a big basket and now you have a means to transport large quantities of materials, such as the iron people have been gathering... There are other ways to make better wheels but this is the simplest way to make wheels. You could also in theory find a huge tree and cut its trunk into a wheel, they're roughly round most of the time so all you would need to do is make a hole for the beam and even things out.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Virian said:
    Dreamer here.
    Do people not like to read? If they do not like reading then perhaps creating a set of circumstances in which they have to learn to read would be useful.

    Normally it would be taxation, or better said providing a set ammount of goods/ coin to a ruler for guaranteed protection from outside threats, that would create a reason to learn to read and write.

    How this normally works is that you assign a set numerical value to the goods owned by individual, families or clans and you demand some of them as payment for being protected by you and your troops while also creating a bunch of people whose sole goal is recording what you received and what you have.

    A good percentage would be 1-2%(1-2 out of 100) of taxable goods.

    Another way is religion, creating some very important texts that people have to learn so that they may perform rituals properly, lest they risk divine punishment.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    We Just Write said:
    Junction speaking. Let's try again on getting you some workable explosives. You already know how to acquire all the necessary ingredients for black powder: Potassium Nitrate, Charcoal, and ignition boosters. Options for ignition boosters include Sulfur and ground-up grain powder that's been cooked until browning.

    The proportions of the ingredients can vary depending on desired characteristics, but by weight a decent starting point is three quarters Potassium Nitrate, one sixth Charcoal, and one twelfth ignition booster. All ingredients should be ground to fine dust while wet, and mixed thoroughly; the water both improves mixing and greatly reduces the risk of explosions during manufacture.

    At the end of mixing, you should have a thick paste. At this point, squeeze said paste through a strong board with holes drilled through it. The idea is to have rounded pieces of paste in a regular size, which are dried after the squeezing. There is a reason for this: small gaps between the pellets of black powder allow its flames to spread very quickly throughout the entire charge, greatly increasing the force it can produce in a short amount of time. Different applications call for different sized pellets; the faster the blast needs to be, the smaller the pellets should be, provided there are still gaps for the flame to spread.

    In addition, black powder needs to burn in an enclosed space in order to concentrate its blast into a single shock. This requires that it be in a container of some rigid material, which can include the rock you're attempting to break if you're using it for mining. There are other explosives that don't need the container, but they are much more complicated to make.

    Once you've got it working properly, there are two very powerful projectile weapons using black powder that you will be able to create: rockets and guns.

    Both of them involve black powder in a tube that's open on one end to produce a directional force. In guns, a projectile is launched from the tube at great speed. In rockets, the tube is the projectile.

    For rockets, the slow burn of gapless black powder is preferable, but you also need a fair degree of surface area to get a good burn. Shove blasting paste directly from the mixing into the rocket cavity, leaving a cone-shaped hollow. Before the paste dries, attach a lid with a small hole in it to focus the plume of flame and amplify the force; the rocket will fly in the opposite direction as the flame. To stabilize the rocket's flight, either attach a stick to the back of the rocket, or put smaller flame-holes at an angle in the end, so that the rocket spins in flight.

    The front of the rocket can include an isolated chamber with gapped blasting powder and rocks, with a flint-and-iron igniter struck by the rocket slamming into something at the end of its flight, causing significant destruction on impact. Alternatively, put little holes in the front so that the rocket shoots jets of flame shortly before it burns out, setting fire to anything burnable near its impact point.

    Guns meanwhile need a MUCH stronger tube than rockets; cast steel into a pottery mold with a wooden stick poking up from the bottom. Once it's cool, burn the wooden stick out, and use a spinning cutting tool to smooth the internal edges of the tube. Then drill a narrow hole near the back of the tube.

    Load the tube with some gapped black powder, then shove a lead, iron, or other dense ball closely matching the width of the hole down on top of the powder. A paper wrapping for the bullet can greatly improve the seal, thus reducing the amount of force that leaks around it during firing. A wooden brace attached to the tube lets you hold the gun firm against your shoulder for steady aim, and applying a flame to touch-hole will ignite the powder charge to shoot the gun.

    a lever below the gun with some burning match-string (soaked in potassium nitrate) attached to the other end significantly eases the aim here; simply pull the lever, and the match-cord will turn to ignite the touch-hole. That way you don't need to take your focus off the aiming.

    There's also another way, using a flint-and-iron striker to let the gun ignite itself. This calls for three pieces of annealed flexible iron, which snap back to their original position when bent out of shape. These pieces will henceforth be called springs.

    The first spring holds the trigger forwards; this is a small lever that when pulled back releases a catch on a striker, with the striker holding a piece of flint in a clamp. This striker is being forced forwards by the second spring, but can't move until the trigger is pulled. When released, the striker rapidly launches forward, scraping the flint across a specially shaped iron lid for the touch-hole. This motion produces sparks, while at the same time forcing the lid open, allowing the produced sparks to ignite a smaller charge of black powder on top of the touch-hole. This smaller charge produces flame that ignites the main charge, shooting the bullet.

    The last spring simply holds the lid on the priming pan closed, keeping the priming powder in place until needed.

    There are two remaining matters to guns: improving the accuracy, and speeding up the reloading process.

    The accuracy can be improved by including spiral grooves on the inside of the tube, causing the bullet to spin in flight. This is called rifling, and bullets used with rifling need a different shape for best results; they should be a cylinder with a point on the front, and a conical hollow in the back. When fired, the blast forces this hollow wider, squeezing the lead of the bullet tightly against the rifling. This both seals the gun to avoid wasting force, and ensures that the rifling efficiently imparts spin to the bullet. Metal protrusions on top of the tube that you can line up with the target while aiming also help a lot with accuracy.

    As for hastening reloading, pre-packaged quantities of gunpowder and bullet, wrapped in paper that's subsequently re-used as wadding to hold the bullet in place until fired. Dumping the powder in, then ramming it down the barrel in one go is much faster than measuring powder and wadding and bullet individually each time. Beyond that, you need a gun that you can open from the back; a steel cartridge containing powder, flash-pan, lid, spring, and bullet can be inserted into the open back of the gun. Then fix that cartridge in place with a sliding block of steel that locks in place closed, preventing the cartridge from being blasted backwards out of the gun.

    To reload, unlock the block, pull out the fired cartridge, insert a loaded cartridge, close the block. The lever that opens the block can also be used to bring back the striker for even smoother reloading.

    As for getting the lead for bullets, galena is a common lead ore that can be smelted in an ordinary wood fire; it appears as light grey angular crystals, is brittle, scratches easily, has a metallic sheen, and when scraped against a ceramic surface it leaves a light grey streak. Remember, lead is a slow poison that especially damages the mind, and it retains this property no matter its form. Take extra care to keep it out of the body of anyone you don't intend to kill, and especially make sure it cannot contaminate bodies of water. As such, don't use lead shot for food hunting, only for killing things you don't want to eat.

    The only reason we're recommending it for gun projectiles is because the only other metal that can provide the needed softness and density for the hollowed rifle bullets is gold, which is much harder to acquire.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Lincolnator said:
    Firstly, you should say that using some wooden fins as fletching like on arrows at tha back of the rocket is far better than the stick stabilization method, both in accuracy and in the lower weight that lets the rocket fly further. If the rocket still tumbles through the air, add more or bigger fins.

    You should edit this to include having a cone shaped bell nozzle on those holes: that will literally more than double the rocket performance, and make them far more accurate than a simple hole nozzle which can direct thrust in random directions based on inconsistent burns in the combustion chamber.

    for exploders, just have a fuse poke into the combustion chamber just enough to be lit, and burn out through a hole in the top, and loop around a bit to add enough delay, before reaching the bursting charge.

    Ideally you should have a section just behind the bursting charge filled with very very finely ground charcoal dust, that will act as a thermobaric explosive once the black powder bursts and disperses it. That should significantly increase the explosive power of the rocket.



    You should change this from 'grooves' to oval rifling, which is much less susceptible to powder fouling and much smoother to reload. It is also much easier to manufacture, all you need is a suage block of hardened steel that has the spiraling oval profile of the desired oval rifling, which you push down through the iron barrel with a press all the way to the end of the barrel. Leave it there as a plug for the other end, or push it all the way through if there is a breech at the end of the barrel.

    Ah shit, we need to describe hardening and tempering and case hardening don't we. I'll add that to the metalworking tools post.

    If nothing else, the suage block can be pushed through when the barrel is heated.


    Yeah, I noticed that, which is why I added a big geometry section to my main post lol.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Pyrelight said:
    Greetings, Bianca.

    Wheels are, simplified, discs which rotate around a central rod, an axle. This in turn will be connected to some object or structure. If you sawed a cross-section off the end of a log and drilled a hole through the middle, that would be a wheel. If you stood it upright and put a stick through the middle, you would have an axle as well.

    A pulley is a small wheel used to change the direction of a rope, often with a groove along the middle of the rim so that the rope doesn't slip off of it.

    There are many uses for wheels. Which parts are fixed to which, and which parts rotate, depend on the purpose.

    The hole or holes where the rotating part connects to and rubs against the fixed part are called bearings. These can be lubricated with fats or oils, and may be reinforced with metal sleeves to turn more smoothly and resist wearing out.


    The first use is to move heavy objects, either by attaching wheels to them directly or by creating a wheeled platform called a cart to carry them.

    This is the same principle as placing log rollers beneath a heavy object to make it easier to push by reducing friction with the ground.

    In this case the axle will be fixed to the object and the wheels will spin, with the bearings between the wheels and axle.

    How many wheels and axles depends on the size and weight of the vehicle and its purpose. Almost always the wheels will be on the ends of the axle, unless there is only one wheel in which case it will be in the centre. An extremely heavy vehicle might require additional wheels spaced along the axle to spread weight, but such a thing would be more of a mobile house than a cart.

    An object's weight is spread proportionately to how much of its weight-bearing parts touch the ground. In snow or deep mud, a standing person will sink more deeply than one lying down, as their weight is concentrated on the narrow surfaces of their feet. By wearing broad snowshoes on their feet to spread the weight, they could walk across the surface instead of sinking in.

    As wheels tend to be narrow, wheeled vehicles have high ground pressure and work best on firm ground.

    Balancing the weight and spreading it across an increased number of wheels and axles reduces the amount each part must bear and reduces ground pressure. It also increases friction and the difficulty of turning, so unless a load is very heavy and cannot be put on multiple carts, past a certain point it's wasteful to add more.

    Spacing the points of contact out around the load improves stability, making the vehicle less likely to tip over. The wider the axles, the more stable. Also, how high the load is above the axle - a tall load acts as a lever.

    Larger wheels spread force and handle rough ground better but are harder to make.

    One way to make a wheel has been described before, but another is to build it in parts using wooden rods, or spokes. This involves a central hub, a thick wheel with a small diameter to connect to the axle, around which spokes are attached, and curved segments of wood connected to the end of the spokes and to each other to form the outer rim. Such wheels are much lighter and can be almost any diameter desired.
    The number of spokes should not be fewer than four. More spokes spread the weight more evenly around the rim.

    Metal may be used to reinforce the rim. One method was to make an iron ring slightly smaller than the wheel, heat it so that it expanded and fit over the rim, then cool it with water. The contracting ring would hold the wheel tightly together.

    A cart will usually have a pole or poles used to push or pull it around. This could be done by humans, or by tying a harness to a suitably strong and obedient animal and making it pull.
    A people who are very good with machinery may instead put a power-generating machine- an engine -on the cart so that it pushes itself. Such things are useful but require expert metalworking and large amounts of metal, and involve many exciting and innovative new ways for an experimenter to kill or maim themselves or hapless bystanders.

    A small cart with one wheel- a wheelbarrow -will have two handles at the back. The user will lift them and push the vehicle around. Two legs at the back keep it upright when the user sets it down.

    There are two kinds of wheelbarrow. The first uses a small wheel (perhaps knee-high) centered at the front, with a basket or platform behind. In use, it is similar to two people carrying a load between them, but more inclined to tipping sideways. Because the load is not balanced above the axle, the user must lift more of the weight themselves, so this type of wheelbarrow works best with relatively small loads moved over short distances. The handles act as a lever so it's less work than carrying it by hand, but more than pushing around a more balanced vehicle.

    The second type has a larger wheel, perhaps waist-height, with two platforms, one on each side of the wheel. When loaded the cargo will be balanced around it, weighted slightly towards the handles so that it does not fall forwards when set down. This is larger and can carry heavier loads that the other type and handles rough ground better, but the load needs to be balanced. For very heavy loads it might have handles or ropes that extend in front so a second person help pull it.

    A cart with two wheels will have them on the ends of the axles and the platform between them. This is approximately like the second type of wheelbarrow, but with smaller wheels and much more stable.

    A light two-wheeled cart meant for carrying people and pulled by one or more horses is a chariot. This allows people to use horses to move around in the awkward times between domesticating horses and breeding horses that are large enough to carry a person on their backs. They could probably also be pulled by a team of trained dogs, though I'm not sure if anyone did that. Usually dog-teams were used to pull snow sleds, I think.

    In countryside with firm, flat and open ground, such as plains, a chariot can travel very quickly. High-speed chariots offer young men a fun and novel way to die, which is sure to happen the moment they realise chariots can be used for racing.
    Other uses include the delivery of urgent messages, the transport of important persons in a very impressive manner, and war.

    An archer in the back of a chariot can be very difficult for warriors on foot to catch or escape from, and can attack or withdraw almost at will. It's a deeply unfair way to fight. In such country, a deep distinction forms between peoples who have chariots and peoples who do not.

    A four wheeled cart, or wagon, is similar to one with two wheels, but with a longer platform and with the axles on either end. As the weight balances between four wheels, this is more stable again.

    Here is where turning becomes a problem. As a cart turns, its wheels draw two circles, one for the outer wheel and one for the inner. As the outer circle is larger, that wheel has farther to travel. As long as they can turn independently of each other this isn't a problem. However, the vehicle rotates around a point between the wheels. With one or two there is no problem: the pivot point is in the middle of the axle. With more, they skid: the back wheels are dragged outwards, and the front wheels are dragged inwards, requiring the turn to take a longer curve or damage the wheels.
    By putting the front (or steering) axle on a central pivot, allowing the two axles to match the arc of the turn, the problem is solved - the wagon becomes, effectively, one two-wheeled cart towing another. Though more of a nuisance to make. And of course the axle should not be able to turn far enough that the wheels scrape against the body of the cart.

    Carts with more wheels vary. A six-wheeled cart could have two axles close together at the back to carry most of the weight, and a steering axle at the front, or could be made especially agile by having them evenly spaced with pivoting axles on both the front and rear axle. Though I think six is the most that's likely to be practical in most cases. Certainly any weight demanding such a large wagon would be difficult to pull.

    Additional fittings include brakes: pivoting pieces of wood on the body of the vehicle that can be clamped against the wheels to slow it or prevent it from rolling (usually actuated by a lever) and suspension, dangling the passenger section of a person-carrying carriage or chariot from leather straps or propping it up on flexible wooden or metal strips (flat springs) to absorb the jostling of riding over bumps in exchange for becoming bouncy and adding a new way to break.


    The main other use for wheels is in a wheel-and-axle. In this case they are fixed together, and the bearings are between the axle and whatever it turns upon.

    Such a wheel acts like a lever: as it is turned, the axle turns a lesser distance than the rim, and consequently with greater force.

    Specifically, the diameter of the wheel divided by the diameter of the axle: a wheel four hands across, fixed to an axle one hand across, would have a mechanical advantage of four to one.

    A wheel with handles sticking out of the rim in line with the wheel is a windlass. A wheel with a handle at the rim sticking sideways in line with the axle but on the other side is a handwheel. You don't need a whole wheel for that: simplifying it to the axle, the handle, and a bar between them is a crank. Crank handles might spin on axles of their own to reduce the friction of them rubbing against the hand of the user.

    A gear is a wheel with a series of teeth in the rim so that it interlocks with another gear. As a gear turns, it forces any connected gears to turn with it.

    Gears may be fixed directly to their axle so that both turn together, or freely spinning if nothing else needs to connect to their axle. In machinery, gears shape forces and direct them from one place to another to accomplish tasks.

    The teeth of two gears can be across the outer rim, or set at an angle if their axles are aligned in different directions. They may be cut into the rim, or separate pegs or shapes inserted into holes cut or drilled along the rim, for ease of creation and of repairing broken teeth.

    The shaping of gears and calculation of size and number of teeth is complicated. More complex tooth shapes transfer forces more evenly, making mechanisms quieter and allowing smaller gears to transfer greater force without breaking. Teeth should be evenly spaced and the teeth of two meshing gears should have the same spacing.

    Each additional gear in a chain reverses its rotational direction. Thus if the first gear is turning to the right, the second will turn to the left, and the third will turn to the right again. If a gear is connected to more than one other gear, this must be kept in mind so that the machine does not turn against itself and break or lock up uselessly.

    A similar and easier to make but less efficient method to transfer forces between wheels is belts - loops of leather or rope tightly bound between two separate wheels so that they turn together. Compared to gears belts can slip if the forces exceed their friction against their wheels, do not reverse rotational direction unless they are deliberately twisted, and their wheels must be more or less in a straight line.

    Similar to a gear is a ratchet - a device where the moving end of a hinged flap or block called a pawl rests against a toothed wheel, in such a way that when the ratchet is turned in one direction, the teeth lift the pawl up and turn freely beneath it, but if it attempts to turn in the other direction the teeth press against the end of the pawl and are blocked. This allows it to turn, but only in one direction unless the pawl is deliberately lifted.

    One use for this is in a winch, used to pull on a weighted rope. This is a rotating axle with a crank handle, where the end of the rope is connected to the axle so that turning the winch winds the rope around the axle. The leverage of the crank handle amplifies the strength of the person winding it, allowing them to pull the rope more forcefully, and fitting it with a ratchet and pawl allows them to release the handle without allowing a weight on the end of the rope to unwind it.

    This can be very useful with a block and tackle, especially when hauling a long rope. A crank is easier to turn than a long rope is to haul, a ratchet prevents the risk of losing one's grip on the rope, and the rope is neatly wrapped around the winch instead of coiling all over the ground.


    Just as pulleys can amplify lifting strength, machinery can channel other motion.

    Leverage is another form of mechanical advantage.

    The simplest form of this is a stick, called a lever, and an object for it to pivot on, called a fulcrum.

    The key to this is balance. If a rigid object is turned, both ends turn equally. It has to, or it breaks.

    If it is rested on a pivot, or has an axle through it, it will rotate around that point.

    If the fulcrum is beneath the lever's centre of mass - that is, if the lever is perfectly balanced upon it - the forces applied will be equal. Push on one end, and the other moves an equal distance in the opposite direction. Even a very heavy object may be turned easily if it is well balanced.

    If the fulcrum is not under the centre, the movement is no longer equal: the long end moves a longer distance, and the short end moves a short distance.

    But the strength behind the movement remains the same.
    As with the pulleys, distance is exchanged for strength. The short end moves a smaller distance than the long one, but with greater strength.

    Or oppositely, a small motion on the short end will cause the long one to make a larger but weaker motion.

    The longer the lever and the closer the fulcrum is to the object to be moved, the more leverage it has, and the more any force applied to the long end will be amplified.

    Notably, the fulcrum can be on either side of the object.

    If the lever would be too long, multiple smaller levers can be linked, short end of one to long end of another. This adds their advantage together, though more levers means more friction.

    Levers, gears, screws and pulleys allow for great forces to be applied for comparably little effort (or even no effort at all, if powered by wind or water) but this comes with matching dangers. Increased forces mean increased strain on the parts: it is easy to construct something which will tear itself apart, sending heavy objects flying or letting the end of a snapping rope whip outwards with enough liberated energy to maim or kill.

    They are also mindless: a machine will do as it is built to do- which may not be what the builder or designer intended it to do -until it breaks or power is no longer applied to its mechanism. A log-sawing machine will not decide "yes, I should stop cutting here". It will cut anything the saw can reach with implacable indifference. "Merciless" is not the right word, because it implies the ability to choose mercy. The sawmill cannot care whether it is cutting logs or planks or the body of a worker who has accidentally fallen into its workspace. A hammering machine will hammer, whether the anvil beneath it holds hot iron or the hand of the blacksmith.

    Even when in perfect working order, machines are tireless and often vastly stronger than a human. That is, after all, the point. Parts move with unstoppable strength and rotating wheels and axles are particularly dangerous: if someone's hair or loose clothing becomes snagged, it will wrap around the part and drag them into the mechanism. If they are lucky, they might tear free before they are hurt. If not, they may be maimed terribly.


    The earlier speaker on armour did not actually describe shields. They also did not describe helmets.

    Previously I spoke on axes. You described these as tools for killing people. Axes are mostly used for felling trees and crafting wood. Our perspective is one where wars are rare, usually distant, and fought by armies of professional soldiers. In these wars, explosives and ranged weapons are long ranged, accurate, rapid, and deadly, to the point where trying to fight using hand-to-hand weapons is mostly a complicated form of suicide.

    Therefore, aside from certain boastful eccentrics, battle-axes have long been out of fashion. I had thus meant the aside on their shaping as a clarification for fellow voices who may not be aware of the differences.

    Shields are a different matter. These are for killing people. A miner or builder may wear a helmet to protect from falling objects. A person riding a dangerous vehicle may wear armour in case of mishap. A hunter may carry a spear or knife, a bow or sling or gun, or even sometimes a sword. But the only use for a shield is to fight someone.

    A shield is a panel of some sturdy material, held in one hand or strapped to one arm, used to block or deflect blows and projectiles.

    For us almost all people are and were right-handed, and so they would carry their weapon in their right hand and their shield in their left. Between two such opposing warriors, each would find their weapon opposed by their enemy's shield.
    If your people's bodies are less consistent It may be less predictable for them.

    Striking a shield directly risks binding your weapon - piercing it or embedding in its material in such a way that your weapon becomes stuck, allowing the shield-bearer to control it or take it away, while doing as they please with their own weapon. This can, of course, be very unhealthy.

    In single combat a warrior with a shield is much harder to strike, requiring tricky techniques, strikes from awkward directions, or hacking the shield apart with repeated blows.

    In group combat, a line of warriors with shields standing relatively close to each other - perhaps an arm's length or two - can protect each other from harm: a warrior in a shield-wall cannot be easily struck with a blow to their left, because they will deflect it with their shield. Equally they cannot easily be struck to their right, because then the warrior beside them will catch it. Strikes downwards at their head may be more successful as lifting their shield may make them vulnerable to an ally's weapon - this is another reason the most important piece of armour is the helmet.
    The advanced leg and foot were another common target.

    The world has had many peoples, and most of those peoples have at some point had to fight, and most of those peoples have used shields, because without ranged weapons, strong and widely-covering armour, or very long spears, a warrior who does not have a shield will not tend to live very long.

    There are therefore many ways to make one, out of many materials.

    The first consideration is size: a large shield is more protective and could be better in a shieldwall, but too large a shield is tiring and encumbering. A small shield is more agile, but less effective against projectiles.

    A typical shield, if rested on the ground, would usually reach the upper thigh or hip. A large one might reach the chest.

    Archers armed with bows or crossbows sometimes used very large shields with a folding leg inside as cover - standing the shield up and then sheltering behind it while fighting other archers, though these pavise shields would not be very useful in a close fight. This was particularly a technique of crossbowmen, since reloading the most powerful of those could take quite a while.

    Duelists sometimes used very small shields, little more than a metal bowl with a handle inside. I presume they must have been very confident in their ability to slap aside their enemies' sword thrusts, since they wore no other armour - but these were young troublemakers wandering about and using foolish pretexts to challenge each other to fight in order to show off how brave they were, so perhaps confidence was to be expected.

    An easy method to make a shield is wicker, using similar techniques to those used in basket-making. These could be both large and lightweight, though I believe flimsy. The people who made the most use of this that I know of were very fond of bows, so it fits that their shields were better suited for arrows than spear-thrusts. But a number of peoples did this, particularly for warriors who fought by moving quickly and throwing darts and javelins.

    A similar method is to stretch leather or hide across an open frame, which could itself be wicker.

    I believe most were made of wood. Either planks nailed together or plywood - thin layers of wood glued together, such as a layer of pieces going vertically, then an alternating layer aligned horizontally, then a third going vertically again, for strength and light weight. As you have found, glue does not do well in water, so these would usually have a strip of leather or thin metal around the rim for both durability against blows and to keep water out. They would sometimes be covered on the front with leather, and would usually be painted brightly: partly to protect from water, partly for decoration, and partly for identification, so that both friends and enemies would know which warrior they were witnessing, or which family or settlement that warrior came from.

    In any case shields would be usually fairly thin, seldom more than finger-width thickness and usually less.

    I believe most shields were gripped with a handle in the centre, often with a hole in the wood around the hand covered with a round, outward-bulging bowl-like piece of metal called a boss to protect the wielder's hand and be used to directly parry blows.

    Others, especially heavy ones, could have two leather straps, one which the arm went through and the other gripped in the hand, to spread the weight across both forearm and hand. For these the centre of the shield would be about mid-forearm.

    The overall shape of shields varied hugely: sometimes they were flat, sometimes curved, or with a ridge up the centre for strength and to deflect blows. Sometimes they were circular, sometimes rectangular, sometimes oval or stranger and harder to describe shapes entirely. But the most common type was a flat circular disk.




    I believe the rings in mail armour are usually as wide as a finger, rather than half. Just that size is quite enough. As armour, mail makes a person almost invulnerable to cutting, and resistant to any thrust that is not delivered squarely with a strong, stiff blade. Ironically, hitting such a person with a blunt weapon can be more effective - such as a club, or historically, a mace, which is a weight of stone or metal attached to the end of a handle for greater force - in other words, a fancy club.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Earth-Destroyer said:
    Earth again, you have mentioned horses. They are a very valuable animal to domesticate, while they will be small now, they are still better at pulling a plow then an human can be, good for increasing your farmland. A good way to start the process is to isolate a single horse in a round fenced in area of some decent size. Make noise and otherwise agitate the horse until it is focusing on you, let it relax as it paying attention to you. As they get acclimated to you, slowly approach, getting it used to touch, and some simple ropes around the chest, head, to direct it. Moving stuff around with a horse and cart is much faster, and can move more then a human alone. In time horse can be breed to be larger and larger, eventually growing large enough to carry a human on their back. Horses will be a key feature of military, communication, farming for thousands of years.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
     
    Last edited:
  • Informational
    • Greetings Bianca, this is Destroyer once more, and I have come to speak of the lore of tools of fine metal cutting and shaping, and of the methods of making very flat surfaces and right angled surfaces with bricks of stone, and of how they can make a useful drill bit for drilling holes in metal and wood.


    This message will be more easily understood if my message on geometry was heard by you, but is not necessary.


    The first tool is a way to conveniently hold a piece of metal you are shaping with the next tools, called a vise. It is two flexible but stiff sticks about three fingers thick, bound together at one end with good twine or string so they have to be bent apart at the other end, with two carved blocks of wood at that end attached to the not bound end of the sticks. The outside surfaces of the sticks should be carved flat, reducing the thickness of the sticks by about a third, so they can be leaned against things stick first and not roll off. The inside surfaces of the sticks should be carved flat as well, so they don't roll against each other, though only about a quarter of the way towards the middle of the stick.


    The carved blocks of wood should be flat on one side, and on the other should attach to the sticks, such that the sticks push the flat sides of the blocks against each other, as the blocks are attached on the sides of the sticks facing each other. These can be glued and nailed to the sticks, but the smooth flat surfaces that rest against each other should remain smooth and flat, and should sit flush with each other with no gaps when the sticks press them together. The top of the blocks (if the bound end is stuck in the ground and the sticks are pointing straight up) should be a mostly flat surface that line up with each other so that when the blocks are pressed against each other there is a single flat surface at the top, with a crack across the middle that is the surface that the blocks touch each other with.


    Next, make an elongated rectangular iron ring that fits around the two sticks, but is too small to fit over the block end. It should be of a size such that its opening is not much wider than the sticks, just enough to fit over the bound end, and just long enough to become stuck at about a hand length below the blocks. This does not need hardening or firming, it just needs to hold the wood.


    Now, take a thin section of a split log about a finger length wide and a finger width thick at the large end, and perhaps a hand long, and put it between the two sticks, and hammer it down towards the bound end to slowly spread the block end of the sticks. The iron ring should be above this wedge, as it will be what keeps the iron ring from falling off the bottom. Keep hammering it down until the blocks rest naturally at about half a finger width apart, and then glue and bind it in place with string.


    Then, glue two pieces of tanned hide to the blocks, such that the faces that press against each other are covered in hide, as well as wrapping a bit around the bottom of the blocks, and across the flat tops of the blocks. The hides should be cut off at the sides of the blocks.


    To use the vise, spread the blocks apart with your hand by spreading the sticks apart just below the blocks with your hand, and put whatever metal thing you want to work on between the hide-covered blocks. Let the blocks come back to resting, which should lightly grip the work. Then, grab the ring and slam it upwards against the sticks until it binds. This should firmly grip the work, and you should be able to use abrasive stones or files and the like on the work without hurting your fingers while holding it.


    It is best to use while standing, against a low, straight brick wall or large stone. You can press the sides of the sticks or the flat side of either stick into the low wall or rock with your knee in order to hold it still while you work with both hands. You can rotate it easily by releasing your knee and flipping it to another flat side to hold with your knee.


    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk_rCm1rAeg



    Before I describe the other tools, I will describe a particular bit of the lore of steel that will be relevant here: Tempering colors. When tempering quenched steel or case-hardened iron, if the metal is rubbed a bit with an abrasive stone after quenching, you can see shiny metal. If you temper the steel, the shiny exposed metal will change color as it goes through different stages of tempering at that place. So, it you are careful to keep an eye on the color, you can temper iron and case hardened steel very precisely. A pale straw yellow is the best balance of toughness and high hardness for holding an edge, whereas darkening makes the metal softer until it becomes a deep blue color, and then dark black-grey.

    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_Mp1fNzIT8



    There are three tools I will describe now, the file, reamer, and pull saw.


    I will first describe what a tang is, in the context of attaching a tool to a tool handle. A tang is a flat or square extension from the bottom of the metal tool that is designed to fit snugly in a matching hole in a wooden handle, often with a hole part way through that is pinned through the handle to hold it in the hole, but for many files and reamers the tang is just jammed in the hole hard enough for it to stay in the wood firmly, which makes easy replacement of the handle or tool.


    Firstly, the file, as the file will be used to make the other tools, after making progressively better versions of itself. A file is somewhat like a rough stone used to rub away at metal to shape it, but made of case-hardened and tempered iron covered in carefully cut ridges on the side meant to rub away metal. But, it rubs away metal much faster than a rough stone does, and is in the form of a long flat surface sticking out of a handle for easy use. There are triangular and round files as well, which are made mostly the same way, with the exception of the round file being more complicated to cut the tooth profiles on.


    This is made with bubbled soft iron, which is then case hardened and tempered after the tool is formed.


    In order to form the shape and cut the teeth ridges and hold the thing while cutting the teeth ridges, we will need some other tools first.


    The first thing we need is a stripping frame, to shape the faces of the file. A stripping frame is simply two flat wooden surfaces which are gently splayed apart from one another and about as far apart as you want to make your file long plus about the length of your little finger, such that a long, straight piece of metal with a point on both ends can be placed with a point resting on both of the surfaces, and rotate freely along its axis. This allows you to rub abrasive stones up and down its length, such that any off-center pressure by your hands will just rotate the tool blank and the abrasive stone instead of ruining the flatness of the surface you are making, or rubbing away at the corners of the flat surfaces. The wooden surfaces are not sprung inwards, they are rigid. They are angled away from each other, so a metal rod with points at the ends can just be lowered down until both points touch the wood and it spins freely between those points. This can be made with a pair of carved blocks nailed or glued to the top of a flat wood stump, who have two curved flat surfaces facing each other, that are angled away from each other,


    The next thing we will need are the abrasive stones. At first these can be simple rocks, which are hard and tough, with a mostly flat side.


    Next, we need a special chisel to cut the teeth of the file. The edge of the chisel should be a flat and straight edge, and should be wider than the width of the file that it is supposed to cut teeth in. It should be made of case hardened iron that is through-hardened all the way through, quenched, and tempered to a pale yellow color at the cutting edge. The cutting edge and the area around it should have had their black oxide coatings rubbed off with an abrasive stone so you could see the shiny metal beneath, as you need the shiny metal to see the tempering color. Ideally the cutting edge of the chisel should be a pale yellow and the body of the chisel should be softened to a blue color to avoid brittleness.


    The angle of the cutting edge of the chisel should be about one sixth of a turn or less, but no less than one eighth of a turn. This is important because it determines the angle of the teeth that are cut in the file.


    Next, we need a soft anvil, and for this a flat topped stump of hard wood will work fine.


    The blank file shape is that of a strip of soft bubbled iron, that is roughly two little finger widths wide, and roughly half a little finger width thick, which is about one and a half middle fingers long. At one end, there is a broad, shallow point, and at the other there is a solid tang about the size and width of a little finger thick, with a pointed end. The points are for it to be placed in the stripping frame. This is hammered into shape from an ingot of bubbled iron. The file surfaces should be hammered nicely flat using a flat stone or metal anvil. You can also make square files, that are about finger-thick square rods of iron with four rubbing surfaces.


    Then, we place it in the stripping frame, with the tang pointing towards you, and the other end stuck in the other side of ths stripping frame pointed away from you. Then take an abrasive stone and rub it back and forth across the flat surfaces of the file until they are shiny and nicely smooth and flat. They don't need to be perfect here, just good enough.


    Then we go to the wooden soft anvil I mentioned previously. We take the file, and have an assistant hold it down flat against the soft anvil, with the tang hanging off the edge so the flat surfaces lay flat. Now, we take the special chisel I mentioned earlier. You want to angle the file teeth slightly to the side, relative to the length of the file, to make it cut more smoothly, as otherwise the whole tooth would hit the surface you are filing over and over again all at once making a grinding noise and dulling itself rapidly.


    A good angle for the teeth relative to the file, is to angle the whole file on the anvil to the side such that it is maybe one fifth to one sixth of a rotation from being sideways relative to you, slightly angled away from pointing straight away from you. Its angle relative to you, the person doing the tooth cutting with the chisel, should be about where you have to move to the side one measure for every three measures away from you. The exact angle doesn't need to be that precise, and you can experiment with different tooth angles you find best for using.


    Now, take the chisel, and place its edge on the far end of the file blank, where you want the rubbing surface to start. Make sure its edge is close to perfectly sideways relative to you to preserve the tooth angle you chose. Now, angle the top of the chisel away from you, so that it is still closer to straight up than flat, but is about a third of the way from straight up to flat on the anvil. This exact angle of the chisel, which will determine the 'rake angle' of the teeth, is subject to experimentation to find the one that works best and cuts away material the most smoothly. Now, give the chisel a good hit with the hammer, to give the first tooth of the file. As the edge of the chisel is wider than the file blank, it should have cut a nice, straight groove all the way across the file.


    Now take some oil and use your finger to spread a thin layer of oil along the length of the file surface, to make it easier to slide the chisel on it.


    Next, take the chisel and place its edge against the file surface a little bit closer to you than the tooth groove you just cut, and slide the chisel edge back until it catches on the ridge of the last tooth, right before it goes into the previous tooth groove. Ensure it is still at the proper rake angle, and hammer it again to cut the next tooth right below the first tooth. Now lift the chisel just out of that tooth and repeat the sliding the chisel edge until it catches on the ridge just before the previous groove, and hammer again, and repeat until the entire file surface has rows and rows of teeth right next to each other. From the side of the file you should see the profile of the teeth, triangles angled towards the far end of the file, one right after the other.


    Now flip the file over and repeat on the other side of the file for a flat file, or turn one quarter turn if you are making a square file. With a square file, repeat three times, leaving one side without teeth.


    You can, if desired, reverse the angle of the file and cut another line of teeth grooves across the grooves you already cut, with the same technique, but this is not necessary.


    The cross-cut teeth are much more useful with making files specifically for cutting wood, called rasps, where you cut the teeth grooves much more deeply with multiple hits of the hammer.


    Then, we come to case-hardening. First, grind up charcoal, and mix six parts charcoal, four parts salt, and three parts finely ground up and powdered grain flour. Then, add a little water and mix, to turn it into a moldable paste. Then, pack it around the files with your fingers until they are entirely covered in a thick layer of the paste. Now, wrap these up in clay, and put them in the forge to case harden them. They should still have soft iron at their core, so your metal workers should take care not to leave them in for too long.


    When they are done, take them out of the forge, and break open the clay with a hammer, and scrape off the charcoal paste with a stick while holding them with the tongs. They should be orange hot.


    Quench them in brine (a word for very salty water), and dry them off. For the square ones, put them back in the stripping frame, and use abrasive stones to make the side with no teeth have visible shiny metal so you can see the temper color clearly. For the flat files, use the abrasive stones on the thin sides of the file, to make them nice and shiny. You can also choose to only cut teeth on one side of the flat files, and in that case use the stripping frame to get the no-tooth side nice and shiny with the abrasive stones. Also use the stones to get the tangs nice and shiny.


    Next, hold them over an open flame, until the shiny parts of the file turn a pale yellow color to temper it. If you can manage to soften the tang by turning it blue, then that's preferable, but not needed. The tang being blue is less important than the files being yellow, as that means the files are hardened and will cut metal well, and are also tough and not too brittle.


    A good source of flame for tempering small things like this is a wax or tallow candle. Simply take beeswax or animal fat, put it in a small pot, and heat the pot over a fire until the beeswax is melted and liquid, then dangle a thick string into the melted wax or fat, until the wax or fat hardens. You can then light the string on fire to burn the wax or fat with a small clean flame ideal for tempering small metal parts, or melting hard pine resin or wax into something that can be dripped onto something else for various purposes.


    For tempering files, hold the files with a small pair of tongs, and pass them back and forth across the flame to evenly heat them. You can then heat the tangs much more to soften them to a blue color, without much risk of ruining the temper on the rest of the file.


    Let the files cool down, and then take some short lengths of good spear shaft wood about a palm width long, that are a nice thickness around to hold in your hand, and split them in half down their length. Use a narrow chisel to carve out a groove at one end on the inside split surface that is a little narrower than the tangs of the files, then glue the two split sides back together again, and tightly wrap the wood handles with twine. Let the glue set and dry, and then jam the tang of the file into the hole in the end, and then take the tip of the file, and put it on a flat piece of wood, and hammer the end of the handle down onto the file's tang to secure it in the handle. Repeat for all the files.


    The handle is not strictly necessary for the file to be used, you can use it without a handle, but the handle makes it much easier and more comfortable to hold.


    You now have files. They are used to rub away soft metal (NOT hardened metal, they will get dull very fast if you do that. You can cut steel after it is annealed and softened, however, before the steel is hardened again. You can actually use the same color tempering with steel, to get a good tempering) and wood by pushing the file surface along the part you want to rub away, in the direction of the teeth that were cut in the file by the rake angle of the chisel. As the teeth are angled, you can also use them sideways, with a hand on either end of the file, pushing away or pulling towards you based on which way the teeth are angled. The cross-cut files are better for this, as they have teeth going both ways for this kind of cutting.


    You can make higher quality files that are straighter and smoother by using a sideways file instead of the abrasive stones on the stripping frame, that will make the file surface much flatter and smoother and straighter than the first files. Those better files can then be used to make even better files when used on the stripping frame the same way, as they are smoother and flatter than the last files. You can also now use the files to make the narrow edges of flat files nice and smooth and flat on the stripping frame with the same sideways file technique. This lets you make flat files with very consistent, straight widths.


    Next, triangular and round files. They are exactly as they sound, instead of a flat pair of file surfaces, or three surfaces on a square file, the file is either triangular with two cutting surfaces or round with a cutting surface all around it. They are difficult to form without a flat file in the first place, hence why they are made second. The triangular file is made from what could have been a square file, but is filed into a triangular shape by a flat file. The angles of the triangle can be whatever you please, and these are for cutting notches or internal angles in metal parts that are less than right angles. You can make wider angles than the angle of the file you are using by rolling the file back and forth to widen the notch, or you can make a custom file of a certain angle to always make the same angle. The triangular file should have its flat surfaces made flat and smooth and straight on the stripping frame.


    For both the round and triangular files, you need to modify your wood stump anvil a bit. Neither of these files rest easily on a flat surface. So, use a narrow chisel to carve a long, straight and narrow groove in the wooden anvil that can fit the entire length of the file. The groove should be at most half of a little finger width wide.


    The triangular file has its teeth cut in the same way as the square file does, with the exception that the other side of the file has its point resting in the groove instead of flat on the stump. Do this to two of the three sides. You want one non-tooth side so you can cut on one side of an inside corner but not another, but still have the option to cut on both sides of a corner.


    The round file is more complicated, but very useful for widening holes or filing inward curved features.


    You make a round rod file blank, that very gently tapers toward the end. You use a flat file to get this shape, and to make it round, with a tang at one end like usual. You then use the stripping frame with abrasive stones and not files, while turning the round file blank with your fingers, to make a smooth and straight round file blank.


    Then, you use the same groove in the stump anvil to hold it. Then, you make a set of teeth going all the way down, which will be a narrow section of teeth running down one side of the round file. You then rotate the file a little, and start at the top again, but you line up the chisel with the last tooth and roll the chisel to the side a bit before hammering several times as the chisel is rolled back into the previous tooth, so that you get each tooth continuing in a spiral around the file. You do this all the way down the file, and then rotate a little bit and repeat until the entire file has been covered in an interlocking spiral of teeth. You can cross cut the teeth on this file too, if you like.


    You then case harden, quench, and temper the same as the previous files.


    Both of these can be made into rasps for woodworking, by cutting the teeth much more deeply, and making cross cut teeth.


    The round file is very good for enlarging or elongating holes in material, where the triangular file is best at cutting sharp inside corners.



    With the exception of the round file, you can make very small files. You can still make small round files, but there is a limit to how small you can make a file before the chisel cutting the teeth will deform the file. The not-round files can be made very small for very fine work by not hitting the chisel as hard to make smaller teeth, and only making two toothed sides on square files, and only one toothed side on flat files. You can then file the files on their flat sides after the teeth have been cut, to make them smaller and narrower. This way you can make some very small files, for very small and delicate work.





    I will now describe a pull-saw. They are very similar to a file in concept, and until the teeth are cut they are nearly identical to making a flat file, except they are thinner, only about a quarter of the thickness, and a half or a third as wide.


    Make the file blank.


    Then, place one of the narrow edges into the groove in the anvil that you used for the triangular and round files, with the other edge pointing straight up. You then cut the teeth into that narrow edge just like you would with a file, but without any tooth angle, and with the same rake angle of the chisel. But, the tang is pointing away from you instead of towards you. This is because a pull saw cuts on the pulling stroke instead of the push stroke, so you want the teeth to point the other way.


    After the teeth are cut, you then file away the edge with no teeth to a rounded blunt edge, and taper the flat sides of the pull saw towards that point, so the tooth edge is the thickest part of the saw.


    For a wood saw, make the teeth bigger. You can make saws much larger than files or rasps, and longer too, enough to easily cut down trees and thick branches. Those do better with much larger teeth cut by triangular files with narrow angles, when cutting thick wood fast. It also makes sense to very slightly bend the teeth to the side, alternating sides, when you have big teeth. Just enough for the teeth to be a little wider than the rest of the saw, so the saw is thinner than the narrow cut the teeth make, so it is easier to saw with.


    You can also make pull saws by cutting the teeth in the opposite direction.


    They should be case hardened and quenched and tempered the same as a file. Though with larger saws, it would make sense to soften the blunt edge opposite the teeth to a soft blue temper, so long as you can keep the teeth the right shade of pale yellow. That makes the saw less likely to snap or break.


    You can also make very small saws the same way you make very small files, by making the saw and then filing it smaller after the teeth are cut.



    I will now elaborate on octagonal broach reamers, and how to make them.


    First, make a square file blank, that tapers towards the end. Then, hammer the corners flat until they make an eight sided shape with roughly equal sides instead of a square. This should gently taper along its length.


    Then, place this in the stripping frame, and use the sideways file to make the eight sides flat and smooth, with sharp edges between them. It would be a good idea to have a helper hold onto the tang with a small pair of tongs, so it doesn't turn too much and ruin the edges that are being made. You should end up with eight broad edges that are sharp.


    Sharpen this further with flat abrasive stones, still on the stripping frame, and still with a helper with small tongs keeping it from rolling too far and ruining the edges. The edges should be very sharp, if with very broad edges.


    Then case harden, quench, and temper to a pale yellow.


    I will reiterate that this needs a very gentle and straight taper down its whole length, as it is designed to gradually open a hole in a thin sheet of metal wider as it is turned in the hole, and goes further into the hole as the hole widens. This keeps the hole round, and will make a slightly not-round hole round as it makes the hole wider. It will widen a hole in metal surprisingly quickly, particularly when you are trying to get a particular fit for something that goes in the hole, so do be careful not to ream the hole too big. Then you need to remake the part.


    This again, cannot be used on hardened iron or steel, only softened annealed metal.


    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOw9WqMOHjA

    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntsROi3xNS8



    Now I will speak on the making of flat abrasive stones, and later on making right angles with them, as well as the drill bit which can be made with them, but everything beyond the flattening of the stones will require context and knowledge from my description of geometry which I am not sure that you will have heard.


    On the flattening of stones, it is best to use stones that are already mostly flat and brick-shaped, or stones that were chiseled into flat brick shapes.


    These stones should be hard and tough, and relatively smooth, and not break apart into sand when chiseling. Though, if you do find such sand-rocks, they will be useful later so keep them.


    The flattening of these abrasive stones Relies on a simple property of three surfaces fitting against each other. When you grind two flat stones against each other, they will eventually become perfectly smooth, and perfectly fit the other stone, but they will not be perfectly flat. One stone surface will slightly bulge out, even if the bulging is too slight to see with the eye, and the other will be a perfectly matched inward curve.


    But, if you take three flat rocks, and rub them together in a sequence of pairings, they will become perfectly flat. Rock one and rock two are rubbed together, and are slightly curved out or in, then you rub rock one on rock three, until they are either slightly curved in or out. Then you rub rock two with rock three. Rock two and rock three, while they may perfectly fit against rock one, must both be curved in, or must both be curved out in order to do so, and so cannot perfectly fit each other. So when you rub them they get flatter.


    You then repeat rock one and rock two, rock one and three, and rock two and three over and over again, until all the rocks perfectly fit with each other. The only surface shape that can perfectly fit between all three of them and not just pairs of them is perfect flatness.


    You can now use these stones for sharpening very straight edges and grinding very flat surfaces. You can use them to make very flat surfaces on files and broach reamers, by making their faces flat before tooth cutting by rubbing them against these flat stones. You can also sharpen chisels to have very flat and straight edges, which can make better tooth cutting chisels for files.


    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-HgHoICjyc



    I will now describe a way of using these stones to make a good drill bit for a pump drill, which another voice described. This drill bit is called a spade drill. The drill bit the other voice described will not work as a drill, unfortunately. A good improvement to the design they described would be to have a knob at the top of the shaft that you can hold on to, but can turn independently of the shaft, so you can direct the angle of the drill hole very well.


    Firstly, you will need to make a very straight, and very round rod of soft puddled iron. This can be done by taking a rod of iron and getting it red hot in a forge, and rolling it between two perfectly flat stones. Then, hammering one end into a flat tiny shovel-end the size of a fingernail or smaller. This flat end should be held between two flat stones, and the rod should be made straight relative to this spade end. This spade end should be wider than the rod.


    Then, you should sharpen the end to two edges meeting at a broad point, but the edges should be rotated relative to each other, as the drill bit is meant to spin, so material is cut in a single direction, relative to the axis of spinning, and if the edge was on the same side across the whole spade tip, it would be cutting backwards on one side.


    Then, you case harden, quench, and temper the tip to a pale straw and the rest of the shaft to a soft blue. Then, resharpen the edges a bit, and then spin the spade between your fingers and watch the sides of the spade. Watch for one side being longer relative to the other along the axis of rotation, and use the flat stone to grind that side down, until they are the same length sideways relative to the axis of rotation. You now have a ready to use drill bit that can drill holes in wood or softened metal, though when drilling metal you should take it slowly and carefully, and keep the drill and the hole very well oiled.


    You should make drills of a few different sizes.


    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1aj_3tlQhU


    I will now speak of how to make right angles with the flat stones. This requires concepts I explained in my geometry post to understand.


    Firstly, start with three brick-shaped stones. Then get all six surfaces of the three brick stones perfectly flat, using their matching surfaces on the other stones.


    Now, take one of the previous flat stones that was made before these, and take two bricks and place them next to each other on this flat surface. If you rub the bricks against each other while keeping their bottoms flat to the flat surface below, the side you are rubbing against each other will eventually become an angle with the flat surface below, with the other brick becoming a complementary angle adding up to a straight line.


    You then take the third brick, and rub in the same way until you get complementary angles again. Then you do the same three paired rubbings in sequence you did for the flatness. The only complementary angle that satisfies all three pairings is a perfect right angle, with the plane of the side you are rubbing being perfectly perpendicular to the plane of the bottom sides.


    Repeat this for all the sides of the bricks, until you end up with bricks which are perfect rectangles on all sides, and whose sides are all perfectly perpendicular to each other. All opposite sides will also be perfectly parallel with each other.


    When the three bricks are placed on another perfectly flat surface, and arranged such that two of the bricks have a face flat on the same face of the third brick, and all three bricks are flat on the surface below them, then the gap between those two bricks will be of two perfectly parallel surfaces.


    You can use this to compare the lengths of two objects to within the breadth of a single hair, by putting both objects between them, and sliding the two bricks closer until they stop, and seeing if one of the two objects is still a little loose and not gripped between the bricks. If so, that object is shorter. You can make two objects of precisely the same length by taking the longer one and grinding it against an abrasive stone a little bit at a time and checking to see if they are the same length, and doing so until they are both found to be the same length.


    You should also be careful not to scar or mar the surfaces, or else you will need to grind them flat and square again.



    Keep these square stones well, and care for them, and they will let you craft instruments of precise measuring. Our time grows short, so I will leave an explanation of the lore of measurement for another day.
     
    Last edited:
    Oh fuck, @LoserThree did my last post make it into the cacophanous interlude still? or did that just barely close

    Edit: It was still marked as active when it was posted, so it should still be in, right?
     
    Last edited:
    LoserThree said:
    3d
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    So I think that next time when a vote is structured this way we should vote by plan. Everyone would have their pet exclusive choices while there would be more overlap in the chosen non-exclusive choices, making it naturally likely that no exclusive choice gets taken. Due to happenstance most of the voter base converged on one task for the Heroine, but we ended up voting for no exclusive choice for Bianca and I suspect that this was not what most voters intended.

    In general the structure of having multiple disconnected options where choosing one option in one category makes us potentially end up with no option in another category, even if that isn't actually the preference of anyone at all, made this vote quite weird and annoying. It also screws with approval voting, putting the necessity of strategic voting back on the table.
     
    For the vote on longer posts, would it be feasible to use number of likes instead of requiring explicit votes?
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top