#Advancements in Civil Engineering & Technology

[rotzaprachim]

btw america has some kind of fucked cw supernatural esque view of the "working class" and who counts like it loves the idea of "small family businesses" and petit bourgeoisie small business owners at the same time it shits on all kinds of service sector jobs like mcdonalds fry guys and the pink-collar and often more highly educated jobs like teachers, nurses, and civil servants. (it does not like to do things to support small and medium sized businsses against mass corporations though - that would be bailouts and gov money!)

it also has a fundamentally whacko idea of "blue collar" professions like farmers, plumbers, and electrical engineers while remaining totally unaware of the fact that with modernity and rising technological advancement a lot of those jobs require more training and sketchy urban liberal college degrees and little computer things. and it totally ignores the undocumented mass labour force in the country.

like that's the thing about all these political back and forths about "the working class" and what it is and what jobs they contain- they're for an idea of america that never existed and certainly doesn't exist now

[testingmoloch]

Round two of going through your blog and taking note of really interesting posts.

So my first thought is that I think this scenario would lead to a lot of more divergent populations than convergent ones, primarily due to artificial selection of gametes. I think a vaguely "autistic" population on a generation ship would have massive practical and emotional drift towards deliberate genetic tampering. I get the impression that a lot of cultures with this leaning have much more sympathy to various forms of eugenics and transhumanism than is typical among the general population, and living on a generation ship seems to strongly imply a need for active intervention in the gene pool due to smaller genetic diversity and, in lower tech variations, possibly radiation damage. The possible need for population control to keep a steady state (plausible but not certain depending on strategy and technology) also seems to suggest a general cultural push in this direction.

Given this kind of pressure, I think the actual cognition of the populations would actually diverge from each other relatively rapidly as contingent factors and small shifts in starting conditions embedded themselves into the population, and modified genotypes began to iterate with their own children. I have a very vague thought of an end state thematically similar to pre-modern Japan, where the various cultures of spacers think of themselves as incredibly diverse due to this kind of variation, but miss the ways that they converged due to the bottleneck and lack an appreciation for just what kind of possibilities there are. I think first contact with cultures without that bottleneck, such as far future Earth, modern Earth, or an alien race might be incredibly disorienting to this culture, as they might have a strong narrative that combined the ways the bottleneck shaped them as basic parts of cultural progress they assume would repeat in any advancing civilization.

I do think the largest conceptual issue here is that I would expect that any civilization capable of sending out a generation ship would likely have technology that would overwhelm the proposed genetic bottleneck, with advanced AI and genetic engineering leading to biological immortality and significant cognitive enhancement of the population. Avoiding this seems particularly difficult in this scenario, as the kind of cultural taboos that would seem to suggest an aversion to human enhancement or AI dominance would almost certainly decay in the bottleneck scenario. I think you might need something rather strange, such as a caretaker AI with very particular boundaries for intervention, for the genetic bottleneck factor to be a primary influence on subsequent societies.

Thought living rent free in my head:

The future of space travel belongs more to the person with the 50 Bad Dragon dildos than it does to anyone resembling a midcentury test pilot.

The person who can live in 24/7 HVAC while staring at a screen, *that* is what golden age writers couldn't envision when they imagined that generation ships would just fall into disorder.

It's gooners that are optimized to be the middle generation on a gen ship.

Gooners are the future.

[kimludcom]

Lost Technologies of Ancient Civilizations: Uncovering Pre-Egyptian Innovations ‪@Kimlud‬

[civilengineering-crimson]

Long-term Data–the Key for Evaluating Runoff Peak Discharge Estimation Tools and Parameters for Watersheds on Forest Lands_Crimson Publishers

Abstract

The SCS-CN (curve number) and the Rational Method are widely used for quantifying direct runoff and peak discharge rates for designing road cross-drainage and water management structures in agricultural and urban landscapes. However, the studies applying and evaluating these methods are very limited for forest lands. Here we suggest that validating and possibly improving these tools and their parameters using long-term hydro-climatic and high resolution LIDAR and imagery data from US Forest Service experimental forest watersheds and similar other sites in varying ecoregions can help fill that knowledge gap for sustainable management of infrastructure, particularly forest roads in the face of climate change.

Read more about this article: https://crimsonpublishers.com/acet/fulltext/ACET.000584.php

For more articles in our journal:https://crimsonpublishers.com/acet/

[pilot4008]

Take Flight with the MD 500E Helicopter

Let's watch

[nnctales]

A Technical Exploration of Diverse Housing Structures in Civil Engineering

Introduction: In the realm of civil engineering, the design and construction of various types of houses encompass a myriad of structural considerations, each tailored to meet specific needs, environmental conditions, and aesthetic preferences. This article delves into the technical aspects of different housing structures, providing insights into the engineering principles that underpin their…

[rockyy133]

The Secrets Behind the Most Advanced Construction Technology

In this video, we will show you the world of advanced construction technology and the groundbreaking innovations The Secrets Behind the Most Advanced Construction Technology that are shaping the future of the industry. In this captivating journey, we dive into cutting-edge technologies and techniques revolutionizing the way we build and construct.

[monicascot]

The Secrets Behind the Most Advanced Construction Technology

In this video, we will show you the world of advanced construction technology and the groundbreaking innovations that are shaping the future of the industry. In this captivating journey, we dive into cutting-edge technologies and techniques revolutionizing the way we build and construct.

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #34

Sep 13-20 2024.

President Biden announced $1.3 billion in new funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The Biden-Harris Administration has already invested a record breaking $17 billion in HBCUs since the President took office. HBCUs represent an important engine for making black professionals. 40% of all Black engineers, 50% of all Black teachers, 70% of all Black doctors and dentists, 80% of all Black judges, and the first black Vice-President, Kamala Harris, are HBCU graduates. HBCUs have also been proven to be far better at boosting the long term economic prospects of graduates than non-HBCU colleges. The bulk of the new funding will go directly to supporting students and helping them pay for college.

The Department of Transportation celebrated 60,000 infrastructure projects funding by the Biden-Harris Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This landmark is a part of the Biden-Harris team's effort to address America's long neglected infrastructure. From major multi-state projects to small town railway crossings every project was lead by a local community in need not a make-work project dreamed up in Washington

The Department of Energy announced over 3 billion dollars to support the battery sector. The 25 projects across 14 states will help support over 12,000 jobs. Advanced battery technology is key to the shift to a carbon energy free economy. The move is meant to not only boost battery production but also shift it away from China and toward America.

Maine and Rhode Island both launched a partnership with the federal government to help save low income families money on their utility bills. The program offers low and moderate income households aid in updating wiring, switching to energy efficient appliances, and installing heat pumps.

The EPA announced $156 million to help bring solar power to low-income New Mexico residents. This is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s "Solar for All" project aimed at helping low-income people afford the switch over to solar power. It's expected that 21,750 low-income households in New Mexico will benefit from the money. New Mexicans can expect to save over the next 20 years $311 million in energy costs.

The Department of The Interior announced the first ever leases for wind power in the Gulf of Maine. The leases for 8 areas off the coast of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine will be sold in late October. The Department believes that once developed the wind power from these leases could produce 13 gigawatts of clean offshore wind energy, enough to power 4.5 million homes. When added to the 15 gigawatts already approved by the Biden-Harris team it brings America close to Biden's 30 gigawatts of clean offshore wind power by 2030.

The Senate approved the appointment of Kevin Ritz to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. The Senate also approved Mary Kay Costello and Michelle Williams Court to district court judgeships in Pennsylvania and California respectively. Costello is the 12th LGBT judge appointed by President Biden, making him the President to appoint the most LGBT people to the federal bench more than during Obama's 8 years. President Biden has also appointed more black women, such as Judge Court, to the bench than any other President. Judge Court also represents President Biden's move to appoint civil rights attorneys to the bench, Court worked for the ACLU in the mid-90s and was a civil rights expect at HUD in the early 2000s. This brings the total number of judges appointed by Biden to 212.

[txttletale]

Can you elaborate on what you think would be the minimal needed changes to fix what you see as an issue in Civ? Civ has done fairly large shifts in some mechanics before, and "civ like" is still an interesting game space that can scratch certain itches

yeah i mean as i said, the baked-in racism arises from a certain set of core assumptions that i think lock it into that position, which are that civ is a

1) symmetrical

2) 4X

game about

3) 'real world civilizations' (deeply loaded terms ofc but that's how civ envisions them)

4) trying to 'win the game'

5) with a global

6) and transhistorical

scope

so, in its role as a symmetrical (1) game with victory conditions (4), civ as a text has to take positions on what constitutes a 'successful civilization'. as a (2) 4X game this definition also has to include some variation on the profoundly loaded eponymous Xs, 'explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate'. furthermore, as a (1) symmetrical game with a global, transhistorical (5, 6) scope, it has to necessarily create a model of what 'a civilization' looks like and apply it to every 'civilization' it wants to include, at all points in their history.

this all kind of naturally leads into civ being a game in which the colonial european imperialist powers are the default 'civilizations' and all other cultures are basically just like them -- a game where technology progresses linearly and innovations are made in the order they were in european imperial history -- a game where all cultures fundamentally work in the same way and hold similar values, a game where all religions are based on christianity (i mean, just look at civ vi's system, where every religion has a 'prophet', 'apostles', 'missionaries' and 'inquisitors'), a game where not only do cultures have teleological overarching 'goals' but where these goals are shared and these goals are fundamentally based on imperialist visions of 'victory'.

to drill into some specific examples: you can't play a game of civilization without founding cities. you will constantly be founding cities. when you're playing as 'the mongols' or 'the cree' or 'scythia', this makes no sense! these were peoples who historically had rich culture, science, arts, and certainly a notable military history, but were (to varying degrees, at varying times in their history, i don't mean to create a new and similarly heterogenous absolutist category here) nomadic!

similarly, to advance in civilization you must invent 'the wheel'. 'the wheel' is necessary to many later innovations, while of course the andean peoples represented by the playable 'inca' never made significant use of the wheel because the lack of suitable pack animals and environmental factors meant that it did not, in fact, prove a suitable tool for transporting large quantities of heavy goods. for an even more glaring example, a lot of early military technology is locked behind 'horses', which is pretty absurd considering that several of the game's playable civilizations, in the real world, developed plenty of military technology despite living on a continent without any horses!

so having established what i mean by 'the issue', which is that the game's core assumptions lock it into imposing a eurocentric, imperialist vision of 'civilization' onto cultures where it doesn't make sense, here's a few different jenga blocks you could pull out to resolve it:

SID MEIER'S EUROPE

the pillar you knock out here is #5. keep the game engine and core assumptions just as founded on eurocentric imperialist societies as they are now, and just make it about european empires doing imperialism. now, i think we can immediately spot some problems in there -- how are we going to represent the rest of the world? after all, this kind of just creates a situation where, either as NPC factions or as outright exclusions, all other cultures in the world are deprived of any meaningful agency in "history". this one just kind of gives you a new problem and also from a gameplay standpoint results in a game that just Has Less Stuff On It. i think this is a bad one

SID MEIER'S ELYSIUM

now here's one you can get if you knock out pillar #3. keep the same assumptions and gameplay and transhistorical global narrative scale, but remove the 'real-world' aspects. you can get real silly with it and add fantasy stuff to it, or you can be a relatively grounded 'our-world-but-to-the-left' situation. now to some extent this already matches a lot of the features already in civ games: after all, unless you specifically load in a 'true start location earth' map, you're usually playing on a strange parallel world with semiplausible but wholly original continents! now, you also need to get some fucking Nerds and Geeks working at your company to build out your fictional world, or you'll just end having pointlessly pallette swapped a bunch of factions that are now just Schmance, Schmina, and the Schoman Schempire, and not really have avoided the issue. but if you do that, and invent a deep and rich fictional history to riff on, then you could create something really cool and incorporate alt-tech or fantasy or retrofuturistic elements or all sorts of cool shit.

the downside of this is that it makes your game less accessible and appealing to a lot of people. a big part of (at least the initial) appeal of civilization is pointing at the screen and saying 'hey i recognize that thing!'. it is instantly more accessible to someone who isn't super invested in strategy or fantasy dork shit to say to them 'you can be BRAZIL and nuke FRANCE while at war with CHINA and allied to BABYLON'.

more importantly than that, i think some parts of the historical theming (because let's be honest, it is ultimately theming, i don't think civ is interested in 'history' in any serious way) serve a pretty load-bearing role in the game's information economy. it's a pretty tall order to ask a player to remember the unique abilities of dozens of factions and unique wonders, and the historical background makes it a lot easier. e.g., it is a lot easier for a player looking at wonders to remember 'the pyramids need to be built on desert' or 'broadway will help me make more culture' than it would be for them to remember the requirements/effects of 'under-eusapia' or the 'wompty dompty dom center'. i think this is one of the number one things that, if subtracted, would meaningfully create something that is no longer 'sid meier's civilization'.

SID MEIER'S ALPHA CENTAURI

now if you cut out #3 and #5 and #6 on the other hand... sid meier's alpha centauri is not technically an entry in the civilization franchise, but i think most people correctly consider it one. it has similar 4X gameplay to the series, and its (very bad) spiritual successor beyond earth was an official entry. instead of 'civilizations', the playable factions are splinters from a colony ship that fell into civil war as soon as it landed, each one representing a distinct ideology. now, y'know, this doesn't mean it's free from Some Problems (the portrayal of the Human Hive in particular is some of the worst apects of 90s orientalism all piled together) but i think they're problems it's not at all locked into by its design!

SID MEIER'S THERMOPILAE

by cutting out #5 and #6 -- making a civ game about a particular time and place in history you could achieve something much more richly detailed in mecahnics while also being able to handwave a lot more homogeny into it. giving the same basic mechanics to, say, every greek city-state in the peloponnesian war is far less ideologically loaded than giving them to every 'historical civilization' someone who watched a few history channel documentaries once can think of. it also lets you get really into the weeds and introduce era-and-place-specific mechanics.

the scale needs to be smaller conceptually but it doesn't really have to be smaller in terms of gameplay -- just make maps and tech trees and building more granular, less large-scale and more local and parochial and specific. this also gives you the advantage of being able to do the opposite of the last two options and really lean hard into the historical theming.

if this sounds like a good idea to you, then good news -- old world does something pretty similar, and it's pretty good! worth checking out.

SID MEIER'S LOVE AND PEACE ON PLANET EARTH

what if we take an axe to #2 and #4? instead of putting all these civilizations into a zero-sum game of violent expansion, make it possible for several civilization to win, for victory goals to not inherently involve 'defeating' or 'beating' other factions. now, that doesn't mean that the game should be a confictless city-builder -- after all, if you've decided to be super niceys and just try and make your society a pleasant place to live, that doesn't mean that the guy next to you isn't going to be going down the militarist-expansionist path. hell, even if all you want to do is provide for your citizens, a finite map with finite resources is going to drive you into conflict of some kind with your neighbours in the long run.

to make this work you'd have to add a bunch of new metrics -- 'quality of life', for example, as a more granular and contextual version of the 'happiness' mechanics a few games have had, or 'equality', game metrics that you could pursue to try to build an egalitarian, economically and socially just society where everyone is provided for. after all, why shouldn't that be a goal to strive for just as much as going to mars or being elected super world president or whatever?

SID MEIER'S DIVERSE HISTORICAL CONTEXTS

ultimately, all cards on the table, if i was made god-empress of The Next Civ Game, this is the option i'd go for: jettison #1 as much as practically possible, introduce as much asymmetry into the game as you can. some civilizations keep the established settler-city model -- others are nomadic, building their units in movable 'camps' -- maybe the 'colonial' civilizations, your USA and Brazil and so on, can be like the alien factions from the alpha centauri DLC, only showing as NPCs at the appropriate point in the timeline when other civs are colonizing other continents, or putting you into an accelerated-forward version of the game if you choose to play as one.

you could combine this with a more interesting version of humankind's civ-choosing system, where you lock certain civilization choices behind specific gameplay events. this would let you do crazy shit with the balancing -- imagine an ostrogothic kindgom civ with crazy strong abilities and units that you could only choose to play as if your capital is overrun by barbarians, or a hungarian civ that requires you to have started as a nomadic civ and invaded somewhere, or a soviet union civ that requires you to lose a revolution, or a usamerican civ that requires you to split off all cities on a foreign continent from your original civ -- you could add so much variety and so many new and bizarre strategies into the game with this!

as for the universal aspects of tech and the narratives of linear progression contained within, there are lots of approaches that already solve this! stuff like stellaris' semi-random branching tech paths, or endless space 2's circular tech web, could allow civilizations to take tech paths that make sense for them, rather than imposing one single model of 'technological progress' on the wole world.

obviously there's limits to this, right -- civilization isn't going to be a detailed historical materialism simulator any time soon. but i think abandoning the idea that every faction has to play fundamentally the same and introducing some severe asymmetry as well as choices that you can make after starting the game would work wonders to wash out some of the racist and colonialist assumptions built into the game's foundation, while also (imo) creating a more fun and interesting game.

[palindrome-alt]

Digital Stars on The Wall

|| Kieran x Reader ||

Your new dorm room in Blueberry Academy is outfitted with all sorts of futuristic technology. You still haven't wrapped fully your head around the fact that you're physically stranded in the middle of the ocean in a giant submerged dome, but hey, whatever they did to make these screens, the night sky looks almost how it'd be if you were camping out in the wild on a cool night.

||Mild Spoilers for the Indigo Disk DLC!||

Everything about Blueberry Academy feels like it came out of a separate, futuristic world. The chromatic metal that never corrodes, the blue... substance, that flows through the artificial veins in the walls and keeps the place running... Out in the middle of the ocean, it's sort of like the whole megalithic building itself is somehow... alive.

Despite that, there's no electrical interference, no static hiss at the back of your ears as you rest your head against the artificial glass sky displayed on the 'window'. How the director managed to even design the illusion of depth in these screens is beyond you, but instead of square pixels, gentle pinpricks hang above you in the false distance. The fact that they aren't plastered flat to a screen is a mini engineering marvel in itself despite the slightly visible panels if you look closely.  Hand shifting out from underneath deep blue sheets, you run your palm over smooth, slightly grooved glass. It feels like touching a bunch of small bathroom tiles, and though you logically know that there's really only a deep dark ocean stretched out for miles, you almost forget just how far you are from the home you've carved out in Paldea.  You're still somewhat scared of the scientists of this world. Somehow, you don't remember civilization being this... technologically advanced.  Cool air blows through the vents above you, tasting nothing of the slightly salty expanse of water above. With their filtration systems, this might be some of the cleanest air you've ever breathed. It's sterile, much less handmade and aged than your dorm room back in Mesagoza. But somehow, this place has started to feel so comfortable, as if it weren't ever foreign in the first place.  The sound of rustling next to you shakes you out of your thoughts, and you shift back onto your back to get a closer look at Kieran, who you almost forgot was there.

He's stiff as a board, his arms folded on top of his chest, his eyes wide and staring straight at the ceiling.  Aside from his shoes, he's still wearing his full school uniform, and his hair has only just started to slip from the tie he's put it up in. He popped in rather unexpectedly, and must not've thought you'd let him stay, so he didn't think to change into more comfortable clothes. Small frazzled black bunches drape onto the extra pillow you pulled from the closet, and the off-color purple no longer remains the dominant color. 

You shift again, this time gaining his attention by curling against his side and nuzzling into the mattress a little more. He stiffens under the touch, but you can feel his sharp eyes flicker from the ceiling to you, a little more of an edge to him than before that he might not ever let go of. 

You don't move, and he must think you're asleep with how you catch his eyelashes gently lulling, spine slowly losing its tension. He must be so sore from all the clenching he's been doing, if not from how he's been pushing himself up until recently. The events that transpired between you are probably still haunting him, even now. With a fresh set of new skin-deep scars, you know it has to be hard on him. Up until last week, it wasn't even certain if you were both still friends.  He sighs beside you, head sinking into his pillow. Unclasping his hands, he slowly reaches over, testing the waters. He hesitates, looking conflicted over whatever thoughts are running through his head. Whatever he was going to do, he must've decided otherwise as his hand drops just short of you.

His eyebrows furrow, pupils dilating a little when they land on yours.  "S-Sorry." He flinches away, shifting his gaze.  You don't say anything, but the following silence between you isn't entirely comfortable like before. Inhaling deeply, he stiffens back up a little, pretending to look around the room though his focus is still on you. He can't seem to pay attention to anything else right now.

He's been so consumed with thoughts of you for so long that he's a little scared that he can't be normal about it.  You can't know that.  He tries forcing his eyes shut.  He won't be getting any sleep tonight. 

[thewertsearch]

Familial Determinism

Or: let's make wild, uninformed guesses about the troll Ancestors, based solely on the lives of their descendants!

As a bearer of the lowest blood on the hemospectrum, Aradia’s ancestor was probably as poor as she is. She may have been an archeologist like her descendant, assuming the field existed in her era, but I'm much more interested in her potential necromancy.

On the instruction of your ANCESTORS, you have recovered MYSTERIOUS TECHNOLOGY from the ruins, and convinced a friend to adapt it into a GAME THAT WILL BRING ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF YOUR CIVILIZATION.

See, due to her bloodline, Granny Megido is the most likely ancestor to be behind the Voices. She's the only one who can claim a direct relationship to Aradia, and I think she was probably still around in the modern era - as a ghost, of course - guiding her young protege, as she worked to trigger the apocalypse.

What's your story, Granny Meg? How did a lowblood medium discover the secrets of Sgrub, centuries before it arrived? How much did you know back then - and how much influence do you still have, even now?

If Alternia's past is anything like its present - and it certainly seems to be - then I can't see Tavros's ancestor surviving there for long. If he survived to adulthood, then it was probably as a peaceful nomad, or perhaps some sort of ranger.

Either way, I don't think he'd involve himself with other trolls, instead preferring to spend time with his planet's wildlife. Basically, I'm picturing Snow White with a mohawk.

Sollux’s ancestor is undoubtedly still a techhead. I know it's centuries in the past, but this is proto-Sollux we're talking about. He'd invent technology if he had to.

Actually, that might have been his role. He could have been one of Alternia's first engineers, leveraging his Sgrub foreknowledge to contribute to Alternia's technological advancement.

Congratulations, Sollux Senior - you helped turn a nation of pirates into a space empire.

Karkat's an interesting one. In a more primitive society - ie, one without Imperial Drones - it might have been easier for him to hide his blood color.

...actually, he might not even have Karkat's blood color. It's possible that Karkat's candy red mutation is unique to him, and the other Vantas has yellow-green blood, like his Trollian position implies he should. That would result in an ancestor with a very different social position to Karkat, and the two could be substantially different as a result.

Nepeta’s current lifestyle would translate perfectly to a primitive Alternia. Her ancestor could easily still live in a cave – and since shipping is probably her calling, too, I'm picturing her as an accomplished matchmaker.

Kanaya’s situation is rather unique. Jadebloods are rare, and inextricably linked to the Mother Grub, so her ancestor has some of the strongest ties to her counterpart.

We're actually aware of an ancient Mother Grub, who may have been alive in the time of the ancestors - which hints at a relationship between Kanaya's ancestor and the next troll on our list.

That would be Terezi's ancestor, whose symbol adorns the Doomsday Scale. This device was probably a collaboration between the Pyrope and Maryam ancestors. Its purpose is unknown, but the Gate symbol is proof that someone had Sgrub foreknowledge. Curious.

Anyway, aside from this side hustle, Pyrope was probably a legislacerator. I wonder if the Alternian legal system was as broken then as it is now?

Equius... well, I don't really know, actually. He certainly feels like the kind of guy who’d model himself off his ancestor, so he was probably a pro-hemospectrum horse enthusiast.

Gamzee’s ancestor could have gone one of two ways. If Sopor Slime existed back in early Alternia, he might have been as docile as his descendant used to be. If it didn’t, he was probably the exact kind of bloodthirsty monster that Gamzee is currently regressing into.

I know which option I'm putting my money on, and it's the one that would make Gamzee proud of his 'Subjugglator' ancestors. Can you guess which?

Eridan’s ancestor is the Orphaner, which makes me think he has a similar role as a slayer of lusi. My best guess is that he killed the custodians of adult trolls.

Feferi is an odd case, because her ancestor would probably be an extremely famous historical empress. Fuchsia blood is so rare that Feferi is literally the only modern troll who has it, so I wouldn't be surprised if her ancestor was revered in her time.

What did you do to Alternia, Pexies? Did you help make it what it is, or - like your descendant - did you try to make it better?

[late-draft]

I want to know all of the details of the scifi au like right now, I'm so hooked instantly

Okay let me set the stage!

This is a sci-fi AU, leaning onto (what I've read) the first idea of ATLA; however unlike how it had Aang be from an ancient technologically advanced civilization waking up in a technologically regressed world(?), here the tech that Air Nomads had was forgotten and new one was created and it proliferated.

An important thing to keep in mind is that I intended this AU to be literally made up of iconic, primeval tropes of young audience's shows. I'm currently in a phase where I test how well I'm able to incorporate tropes and make the best use of them, so for this AU, expect it to feel EXACTLY like the thrill of running at 10 PM up to your grandma's CRT TV to watch that amazing series on Jetix you can't get enough of!!!!

~~~

First thing to notice here, the world has a Key Holder for every bending type. Keys are your magical symbols. It's the standard trope in these types of shows, think of them as kids who represent the absolute core traits of their element. Because Aang has to find specific individuals now rather than arbitrarily choosing a teacher, we have a tighter narrative although more trope-y. Aang is the Key holder for Air - every Avatar is always a Key holder for their native element, but can be taught other bending types only by respective elements' Key holders.

As expected, the world is ruled by the Fire Nation's strongest corporation, led by Emperor Ozai. Most of the setting is skyscrapers, huge power cables and mazes of pipeworks. Hakoda is the leader of resistance but he had disappeared two years ago, leaving his two children with a warning to stay hidden and safe below ground. Their secret hideout is pretty safe and cozy. Of course Sokka and Katara would not sit idly forever! Wandering through the underground they discover an ancient cryo pod, the only active one left. When he comes to himself, Aang realizes that he's the last airbender in the world for the past 1000 years.

The Avatar is able to operate ancient spiritual machines that the Air Nomads tended to. Once he learns all bending types, he'll be able to return airbending to the world through a Harmonic Convergence event by activating a huge lionturtle machine. The problem is - nobody knows where this machine is, but the Avatar is able to "listen" for signs of keyholders and machines through an ancient leftover network. Katara and Sokka swear to aid Aang in achieving this goal and restoring balance to the world. Ever since airbenders disappeared, there had been heavy dissonance in the spirit world, creating terrible natural disasters that altered the face of the planet. They're having difficulty finding the Key holder for Water.... the first one they find is Toph for Earth! She joins the gaang in late season 1 :)

In this AU, there's a tradeoff where the element of kungfu fights is reduced in favour of high-speed chases through the metropolis. Aang (14) moves quickly through the city using only his airbending, by running or speeding on his air sphere. The only piece of new equipment he wears are clear plastic goggles that Sokka (18) gave him. And while you might expect Zuko (19) to be chasing them on a red motorbike, no! It's in fact Katara (17) who's a super-skilled bike driver while Zuko and his entourage are on ROLLERBLADES SKATING ACROSS WALLS AND PIPES. Propulsion via firebending! (same thing Azula does in canon, just elevated to skating). Iroh waits for his nephiew to fail each chase and offer him tea, he's just wearing black dress pants. XD Sokka is Katara's genius engineer brother who constantly grumbles and throws sarcastic remarks because he has to fix her bike after every. single. chase! In this setting, Ozai is specifically looking for the Avatar because he could, using unethical means and technology on a trapped Avatar, be able to grant all bending types to whoever he chooses. This would spell disasteeeer. However, it's also implied that in a similar way, he could "fix" anyone...

Some notes:

You can probably feel the conclusions of many things I left blank. This is on purpose.

Zuko absolutely must have to be motivated by a desire to win his father's approval and love, this must not change. I'll introduce Azula in a later post.

The lionturtle as a concept and its effects are made clear and setup from the get-go. The spiritual machines are just a background element that doesn't affect the plot, it's just a goal.

Aang still has a crush on Katara! And it would be brought up a bit more frequently, in order to serve the plot.

Ozai is doing something concrete that's directly related to Avatar's bending, tying him closer to the Avatar as his antagonist.

This AU's setting is as you may have sensed, more mellow at first. It doesn't have a currently active war.

The characters are older because that feels more fitting to me. (I was investigating W.I.T.C.H. show and saw they were basically all 13 and dating and I was like. "Yikes. No")

Help me dig out any VISUAL references you might remember, from shows of the similar vibe. The goal is not to mimic but to add to the characteristic genre.

These screenshots are from OBAN: STAR RACERS and are what I'd associate with the old Air Nomad technology!

Shape Da Future from Jet Set Radio is precisely what aligned perfectly with this AU.

I'll be sharing more details about this AU in future posts, and everyone is welcome to add their ideas and thoughts on it! I wonder what I forgot to mention here…

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Poop Crystals

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)  

The pace in which human technology progressed over the millennia was rather standard for a class 4 species. Even when accounting the periods of scientific degradation which resulted from natural plagues or religious persecution; it was expected that humans would not achieve advanced space travel until another 2-3 thousand years had passed.

Scientifically speaking human scientists were well more advanced than the society they lived in, but due to the technological limitations of the human race they were held back from implementing their designs. A primary limitation was the lack of a sufficiently powerful power source. They did have many different forms of power generators ranging from solar to nuclear, but to power larger machines often required equally large energy sources. To power their ships alone around a third of their vessels were dedicated to the power cores.   

With these restrictions in place travel between stars for humans often relied on decade long journeys in cryo sleep; which ironically required even more power generators to maintain. Their large size made them easy targets for natural disasters such as space debris or prowling space pirates seeking an easy profit margin at the slave markets. These dangers became a standard for human travel until the Terran civilization encountered the planet Nolla 987 and the species that called it home.

During a long duration colonization trip the human ship “Midas” was struck by the trail debris of a rogue comet and knocked off course. The robotic caretakers tried their best to maintain the course, but with the damage done to the ship their primary programming to maintain the lives of the crew kicked in and diverted the ship to the nearest habitable planet for debarkation. Nolla 987 was the closest planet with a stable atmosphere. Originally charted several years earlier but deemed unsuitable for colonization or industrial expansion, it was not ear marked for either and left alone; until the Midas incident that is.

The landing was not a smooth one. Several engines had been damaged and multiple hull breaches resulted in portions of the ship being shredded away during the entry process. It would be safer to say that the Midas crash landed during the final stretch of the maneuver, but with a 73% survival rate of the crew a rather acceptable crash landing.

One by one the crew and colonists were unfrozen to find the ship a burning wreck and only a handful of robotic assistants still functioning. The industrial printing machines were relatively undamaged but without the ships power core they could not be used to print components or tools needed to make the necessary repairs. The crew was then forced to ration its remaining power supply and divided into two teams. The first team would comb through the wreckage and salvage what they could of the wreck while also building shelter. The second group would scout the surrounding area for anything of use and then report back.

It did not take long for the second team to stumble upon a nest of the dominant species of the planet. An insectoid called the “Sectar” which ranged from the size of a house cat to as large as a two story building. These insects digested their food and excreted the waste into a dense crystalian substance that they then used to build massive hive like complexes.

The occupants of the hive had been driven from the hive by the crash landing of the Midas leaving it almost completely empty save for a few eggs and new hatchlings who were not strong enough to flee on their own. Several of the second team members had been scanning the crystal structures while interacting with the newborn Sectar’s. To quote a journal entry of one of them, “They were like insect golden retrievers. Extremely derpy with at least four times as many sets of eyes. They followed us around on their legs like we were their mothers and clung to our legs when we began to return to our ship for the night.”

At least one of the second team was confirmed to have brought a hatchling back to their camp. There was a debate amongst the survivors on if they should try and eat it, but the notion was quickly squashed as they still had food reserves and no one was brave enough to see how the alien’s bio matter would react inside the human digestive system.

The same human who had brought the hatchling back offered it a portion of food which it eagerly ate. Not long after the hatchling excreted a hardened crystal roughly the size of a thimble. When the human made to pick up the seemingly beautiful gem they recoiled as an electrical discharge shocked their hand. This immediately drew the attention of the rest of the crew who began carefully examining the crystal substance. After some rather rough jury-rigging, the crystal was wired into one of the printer machines and to the surprise of everyone powered the machine. The crew quickly learned that the older Sectar’s would produce larger crystal excrements but were extremely hostile and territorial. Smaller Sectar’s were deemed more desirable for the time being as they were easier to train and harvest crystals from.  

Within a matter of days the crew had not only collected enough crystals to power all of their machines and send out a distress signal, but also used the new found crystal power to create a full settlement on the planet complete with water filtration, crop fields, and a sizeable wall to keep out the native wildlife.

It would not be for another thirty years before a passing human shipped picked up their distress signal and went to investigate the planet. When they arrived on Nolla 987 they were astonished to find a fully functioning colony complete with limited orbital facilities. Nearly every human settler and their descendants had a Sectar in their household that they would take care of and feed and in exchange use their crystal excrement to power nearly everything they needed to live.

From there it was only a matter of time before the entirety of human space was aware of the events of Nolla 987 and the Sectar species. Within the decade the colony on Nolla 987 became the capital for a fully settled world with dozens of cities and communities. The Sectar species were transported throughout human space and began being implemented in all aspects of society.

There was initial resistance to the new power source by existing power blocks which realized Sectar power would be far more efficient than nuclear powered engines, but unlike other power sources they had squashed in development the Sectar power option had thirty years of trial and error to back it up with research as well as a fully functioning model with the planet of Nolla 987.

Sectar’s became a common sight on every human planet and were treated like common pets. It was even studied that when introduced to different food sources the energy output of crystal excrement could be increased resulting in certain food industries booming overnight. The composition of spices, cooking technique, and flavoring became an entirely new and highly prestigious academic field with the most successful of its practitioners being highly sought after by companies.

The technological capabilities of humanity experienced a massive surge in advancement within fifty years to the point humans no longer needed cryo ships to travel between stars. Those who had been studying humanity found themselves now being introduced to them as humans winded up on their doorstep with a Sectar on their shoulder and a perverse obsession with collecting its bodily waste.    

[civilengineering-crimson]

Preparation of Low Energy Cement Clinker from Paper Industry Waste Materials_Crimson Publishers

Abstract

The Kraft process-based paper production generates considerable amount of waste. The chemical recovery section produces lime sludge while fly ash is being generated in the boiler through combustion of biomass for electricity production. The final utilisation of such waste materials is significant concern, since landfilling is becoming less effective destination due to strict environmental regulations. Determined by this scenario, industries are considering more sustainable solutions, such as application of waste material in manufacturing of distinct products. In this work, the lime sludge and fly ash tested as raw materials for cement clinker synthesis and mortar preparation from synthesised cement clinker. Firstly, the detailed characterisation of waste materials was performed, on the basis of characterisation distinct mixtures of materials were prepared. The formulated mixtures then fired at 1000 ºC and 1100 ºC to get cementitious clinkers. The clinker was processed at relatively lower temperature than generally used in the industrial synthesis of clinker due to the presence of mineralising impurities in fly ash and lime sludge. The cement was prepared from the synthesised clinker and applied to produce the mortars that advanced in adequate mechanical strength and did not divulge signs of deterioration or durability weaknesses.

Read more about this article: https://crimsonpublishers.com/acet/fulltext/ACET.000583.php

For more articles in our journal:https://crimsonpublishers.com/acet/

[essektheylyss]

We can presume, based on the fact that this is a story, that what the Hells are seeing in Aeor's surveillance footage is largely complete and true, at least to the extent of whatever particular story the audience is about to be told. In universe, they're viewing something externally recorded, not reading or hearing someone's account, and while it is unclear if it has been edited by either the Aeorians or Ludinus's tampering, we can take this complete arc largely at face value.

With that being said, I do actually think the conservation of this area of Aeor is worth noting and considering for what it suggests in the context of Exandria, in that this is essentially the control center for the entire floating city. It would probably have significant structural support, even more than the rest of the Genesis Ward. Even the fact that Dominox was only allowed some leeway to cause issues after the Solstice suggests that the engine room was very well-built to take a hit. This is the nucleus of the city, likely something of a black box as well, and the mechanisms by which it stayed flying. It stands to reason that if nothing else, this would remain intact.

Also, a lot of the reason that Aeor is as well-preserved as it is is that it crashed in the Arctic. Zemniaz, which came down in the fields named for it, has basically been overtaken by the civilization that succeeded it, and we can imagine that it was both picked clean by survivors and travelers and that its ruins were subject to significant environmental decay.

Though even in reality, discoveries of conserved archeological finds in the Arctic are significantly better preserved than most, some of Aeor's preservation of course goes beyond what would be expected for ruins of its ilk, which we can attribute to magic and, as mentioned earlier, suspension of disbelief.* But Aeor's overall preservation, state of structural collapse, and position as an in-universe source of significant technological rediscovery makes it very interesting as an exploration of digital preservation in a technologically-advanced society, and what might be dug up long after such a society is gone.**

In our society, where this kind of question is still very much open, there's plenty of discussion around digital decay, which we have of course seen. But our digital technology is so incredibly nascent in the grand scheme of things, and we simply do not yet have the timescale to say for sure what might remain a thousand years on; most of it will be gone, yes, but we have found remarkably well-preserved relics of many different kinds.*** So it's entirely possible that some of our digital footprint will remain.

This campaign overall has been a long discussion about what stories are told about history, and how are they preserved, and I think that there is a lot to be said about Aeor being the best-preserved record of the Age of Arcanum. We know that it was, even in the eyes of its peers and probably a good portion of its own populace, a monstrous example of the abuse of both magical and institutional power in that era. We know that it drew such divine ire that its downfall was the product of a brief truce in the most destructive war in living memory. We know that the discoveries that come out of it speak of blatant ethical and moral violations against other cultures, mortals, and nature itself.

These are things that have been conveyed in historical record, through the memories and histories of both FCG and FRIDA, and in the discussions within Avalir, one of Aeor's most powerful contemporaries and seemingly one of few other cities of the age that came close to the same level of advancement, which Aeor only seems to have surpassed via the aforementioned lack of ethical and moral qualms. What discoveries are made in Aeor already paint an incredibly skewed picture of the era, one that seems as though it would more likely inspire more apprehension about mages, arcane technology, and by extension, the cause that Ludinus wants to convey. The fact that Aeor placed significant intrinsic value upon the conservation of the product of extensive and long-running mass surveillance, to the point that it remains intact for us and the Hells to see now, only feeds further into the idea that, even when a discovery is seemingly complete****, we cannot ever know how representative the stories of the past actually were.

(Footnotes under the cut)

* Plenty has been written about time scales in fantasy, but in general this tends to be true of any dungeon crawling. In fact, it's probably a lot of the reason magic items are explicitly noted as being breakable only via other magic, and otherwise remain in good condition.

** I was going to have a fun quote to pull from the last chapter of Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane which is relevant to this discussion but unfortunately my mother has yet to give my copy back and it is on hold at the library so I am giving you all a summer reading assignment. Please go read this book right now. It is my number one nonfiction book of all time.

*** The oldest known intact shipwreck, aged somewhere over three millennia, was actually found recently.

**** For instance, based solely on fossilized bone, even a complete skeleton, it would never have become clear that dinosaurs had feathers!