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Here’s a stupid idea that I can’t shake.
Let’s say that, from the earliest times, people could “tunnel” through the Earth. Build a henge, do some rituals and bloop, you’re at the antipode of the place you left.
What would that mean for world history?
(here's MY answer, anyway) www.thekingdomsofevil.com/?p=4…
Fellow Tetrapod
Alright, here we go! My speculative-evolution serial novel Fellow Tetrapod is finally live on Royal Road. Go check it out. If it looks like your sort of thing, follow the story. It updates every weekday. (if you want to know more…) Koenraad Robbert Ruis used to be a paleontologist, but now he’s a cook at the United Nations embassy to the Convention of Sophonts. His bosses must negotiate with intelligent species from countless alternate earths, and Koen must make them breakfast. It turns out, though, that Koen is rather better at inter-species communication than any other human in this world (all nine of them). Everyone loves to eat (certain autotrophs excepted). Fellow Tetrapod is an speculative-evolution office comedy about food preparation, diplomacy, and what it’s like to be a talking animal. Serialized every weekday on Royal Road (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/59198/fellow-tetrapod) and (one week earlier) Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/danielmbensen) Cover art by Simon
The Cicada
So, there I was, stalking the East Aegean cicada*. Its insistent, gearbox cough rose out of the electric pulse of the other insect life on the hillside behind the restaurant in northern Greece. When the buzzing stopped, I knew I was close, but it still took me another minute of looking before I picked it out against the bark of a sycamore**. The bug's spotted olive-gray shell matched the tree perfectly, but its symmetry gave it away. I called over Maggie and her cousin and pointed the cicada out to them. They went off to find a half dozen cast-off molts. I showed them the folded, piercing mouth-parts, telling the girls how the nymphs suck sap from tree roots until they climb out of the ground and molt into adults with wings but no mouths. If that's a metaphor, I don't want to use it. And I don't have to! Doing research for this newsletter, I found out that at least some adult cicadas do feed. Anyway, so do I. The reason we were at this restaurant in the first place is because I was
Doing Good
So there we were, giving this stranger 200 leva. "What? Are you serious?" He wasn't being sarcastic. He really wanted to check that what he thought was happening was actually happening. His face scrunched up, trying not to cry. That was when I was finally sure this wasn't all a scam. read on
Congratulations, Your Nightmare Came True
(see posts like this a week earlier on my Patreon for $1 a month) Our little blue car emerged from the tunnel and hummed up Botevgradsko Boulevard. To our left: a mural of chains melting off someone's forearms. The kids were looking out the windows, there was nobody to interrupt us and nothing that needed cleaning, and I relished the ability to complete a thought. "Ha!" I said. "What?" asked Pavlina. We stopped at a red light. "Congratulations," I said. "My nightmare came true. I've been called a racist on the internet." "Well, not exactly," said Pavlina. "Okay, I was called – " I corrected myself, " – my work was called 'problematic' in an email. That's like halfway there. That's a benchmark." "Yeah, okay. Congratulations." She wasn't being sarcastic. We turned and headed south toward Mount Vitosha, and I burned with joy. (see pictures and good formatting here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63082454 ) In Man's Search for Meaning, psychologist Viktor Frankl talks about his brand of
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Sounds interesting, but messy too.
I imagine the military applications would be somewhat limited, since the henges don't sound two-way.
They might be fine for inserting agents or assassins, but you don't want to dump an army through when you can't retreat without erecting a few monoliths.
Something else to consider is how the Mesoamericans should have a bit more of a buffer than they did in reality. It's a long walk though thick jungle and swamps from China to Coatzacoalcos, even if you start in Sumatra/Colombia.
I'd guess it would take a hundred years or so for people to really start to understand the implications of henges, and longer than that for someone to have the will to actually start conquering, after all there plenty of China to conquer first.
All the time people will be trading of course, inoculating the locals to Old World disease and spreading new ideas.
One thing to consider though is that Boliva is sitting on a mountain of tin and the Andes aren't really short of copper either. This could turbo-charge the Bronze Age but delay the Iron Age. Bronze is better in every way than early iron. The only reason iron caught on is that iron is everywhere while copper is rare and tin is rarer.
I'm guessing the Arctic Marine Mammal Hunters would be having a great time. Once winter starts coming the just walk though to the Antarctic summer. I wonder what the long-term effects of a people who never experience night unless they want to would be?
I imagine the military applications would be somewhat limited, since the henges don't sound two-way.
They might be fine for inserting agents or assassins, but you don't want to dump an army through when you can't retreat without erecting a few monoliths.
Something else to consider is how the Mesoamericans should have a bit more of a buffer than they did in reality. It's a long walk though thick jungle and swamps from China to Coatzacoalcos, even if you start in Sumatra/Colombia.
I'd guess it would take a hundred years or so for people to really start to understand the implications of henges, and longer than that for someone to have the will to actually start conquering, after all there plenty of China to conquer first.
All the time people will be trading of course, inoculating the locals to Old World disease and spreading new ideas.
One thing to consider though is that Boliva is sitting on a mountain of tin and the Andes aren't really short of copper either. This could turbo-charge the Bronze Age but delay the Iron Age. Bronze is better in every way than early iron. The only reason iron caught on is that iron is everywhere while copper is rare and tin is rarer.
I'm guessing the Arctic Marine Mammal Hunters would be having a great time. Once winter starts coming the just walk though to the Antarctic summer. I wonder what the long-term effects of a people who never experience night unless they want to would be?