Quick Fire Questions (A Place to Ask and Answer)

[Mouse]

I don't think a spine is rigid enough to beat someone to death with. You'd just be flailing around with it, surely.

 

[Warren_Paul]

If you were some strong demon and say you had the power to rip someone's spine out from the neck (that would be the handle) would it stay together as you beat people to death with it?

I'm by no means an expert, but I'd imagine no.

Isn't it something like a bunch of joined together bones with discs inbetween? Knew I should have paid more attention at school.

I think the spine would shatter pretty quick.

 

[Pyan]

Dontcha just love this forum!...

 

[Interference]

Darn right, Py. I just shared the foregoing with my brother and he's still chuckling

 

[Colbey Frost]

Right... so it might stay together and then as soon as you started hitting people with it then it would break apart... hmmm might have to use the torso... rip the head, arms and one leg off and use the other leg as the handle. Enough weight to stun people maybe, or even if the figure was armoured? I still like the idea of a spine though...

Depending on what kind of demon, I suppose it could use its own spine, returning it to its body after haha (inserts explanation as to how it could do that and everyone looks around impressed.)

And I say demon, but I really mean MC... what or who he is after that is not yet clear.

 

[RJM Corbet]

A head-but or two would save all the trouble? Even without horns? Like Hellboy ...

 

[TheDustyZebra]

See, now, I picture the head coming off with the spine when it's ripped that way, and you could beat people to death with that. You'd probably have to get a better grip on the skull after all the squishy bits disintegrate and the spine falls off, though.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

The skull does come with all those handy holes, just like a bowling ball. Demon just has to poke its fingers in through the squishy bits ("eyes"). I think the spine would be more like a rapidly-disintegrating whip, but have the demon try it and see.

Magic could always stiffen the spine enough for your purposes.

And if the reluctant donor is a demon, too, then holding the spine by the pointy-tail end might give you a horned morningstar (one of those spiky-ball-on-a-chain mace thingies).

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Two sets of questions regarding a post apocalyptic scenario:

1) How hard would it be to make glass for windows? If it was beyond the abilities of the survivors, what would be used instead of glass (I have a vague idea oiled parchment may have been used way back when)?

2) How long would canned food last? I'm looking at a ten-to-twenty-years after the End of the World scenario.

 

[hopewrites]

2) there is some canned food in our pantry that my grandfather bought "encase of emergencies" and we inherited. 25 years after (and 10 years ago) it was stale but edible and nominally nutritious. We opened a can of it the other day and found it to be usable.

Flower, sugar, rice, wheat, and dried beans are mostly all that is still usable. The powdered milk and butter were a bit iffy after 25yrs. The dried fruit is still decent and if the vegetables get soaked over night they can go into a soup well enough.
The 50 year old canned grapes had gone a bit whine-y and were thrown out. (15 years ago)






you know, maybe the reason i'm not intimidated by adventurous eating is because of the inherited food i had to endure in my youth and teens. which would also explain why i'm a bit picky about what i chose to eat.

 

[Esfires]

I believe people used to use processed animal hide for window coverings too, at least on the frontier. It was scraped thin and stretched so that it became hard and slightly translucent.

 

[chrispenycate]

From what I have read (no experimental evidence), greasy foods like corned beef or sardines can go over a century in cans without important degradation. Acid foods, like anything that contains vitamin C, slowly leach heavy metals from the walls, and are better stored in glass jars as our grandparents did (sorry, my grandparents, your great greats). Better not to eat canned pineapple more than six or eight years old. Heavy metal poisoning is long term cumulative, and causes hallucinations and delusions.

If you have light you can get vitamins from sprouting seeds - assuming they knew this was possible. Otherwise they're going to have to rely on vitamin supplement pills, and I don't know how well those are packaged for long term storage.

Grapes? The best way of keeping their essence is in bottles - and we know some of them are still good after well over a century.

believe people used to use processed animal hide for window coverings too, at least on the frontier. It was scraped thin and stretched so that it became hard and slightly translucent.

Scraped interior hide is parchment. Oiled silk has been used, too, but while they keep the wind out neither is particularly good for thermal insulation - and double glazing gets quite gloomy.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Glass would be tricky to make from scratch, simply because of the temperatures required to produce it. Post apocalyptic, though, would scavenging of already produced glass be more likely?
In terms of the food, it does come down to how it's stored/prepared. Curing meat and fish extends that (next to an old smokery would be a good postapocalytic positioning, memo to self), canned stuff should keep well past its useby/bb (although Chrispy is right about citrus fruits, and preserves keep easily a year or two if they're not opened.)

 

[Abernovo]

Cans of corned beef from the First World War have been often found to be fit for consumption. Considering that's nearly a century ago, twenty years should be fine.

Some of the stocks in old air raid shelters and nuclear bunkers from the 50s and 60s have also been examined with similar results. The key factors are dry, stable environments and undamaged tins. If they get wet, they will eventually corrode. If there's anydamage, it again provides an entry for corrosion. Not sure how far back it goes, but 'tin' cans are anodised on the inside aren't they, separating the contents from the metal with a thin inactive layer. If they're dented, this layer gets damaged and any acids, alkalis, etc. in the contents causes corrosion on the inside, thus contaminating the food. Not a problem if they're consumed soon after the dent, but any length of time, the food would probaby spoil.

Glass is made out of sand. Cleaner, finer, purer sand makes better, clearer glass, but basic glass can be produced in makeshift kilns. It might not give you a clear view, but it would let light through and stop the wind. For making drinking vessels out of glass, you'd want someone who knew what they were doing and they would need to make a more specialised oven, but it's far from impossible. I saw some very nice 14thC Venetian glass goblets a couple of years back. Definitely require a craftsperson, though.

Oh, and Chris? I still preserve fruit and veg in glass jars here. It's a good way of keeping it for the winter without freezing it.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Thanks guys.

I thought about glass as a character examines a building with windows that are apparently made of dirt. He discovers all the windows are intact, if dirty, glass. That alone could make his fortune as a scavenger, if he could just get the glass out of the frames and back to the frontier town without breaking it.

Then he discovers the building is an unlooted supermarket. Full of all the treasures of a lost world. Some of them even (hopefully) fit to eat.

Then he discovers why no one ever looted this particular supermarket...

 

[The Judge]

Making glass isn't difficult. Making sheet glass for windows is. Glass for bottles etc pre-dates the Romans, but it was only at the Renaissance that the necessary techniques were developed to make large flat sheets --before that you had small panes which looked like the bottoms of bottles, but stretched a bit (bulls eye glass). Utilising scraps of recovered plate glass might be easier -- cutting the glass itself needs to be done carefully, but using lead to join pieces is a skill which is easily picked up, albeit the joins would be rough at first.

As Chris says, oiled cloth was used, particularly silk in the absence of glass. Easier by far, though, is to revert to old fashioned ways -- wooden shutters which can be opened to let in air and light and shut to keep out the weather and animals.

 

[Gumboot]

Glass would be tricky to make from scratch, simply because of the temperatures required to produce it. Post apocalyptic, though, would scavenging of already produced glass be more likely?

Humans have been making glass for over 5,000 years so I can't see why a post apocalyptic society would be incapable of making it. While modern glass furnaces operate at around 1,500 degrees, the glass-transition temperature for soda-lime glass is less than 600 degrees which is well within the range of even a primitive furnace.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

That's what I was thinking, Your Honour. There would still be plenty of empty bottles lying around, too. Just loot a recycling centre. But windows? I'm assuming the easiest way for the first looters to access a building was to break a window.

I'm assuming the survivors were the ones who moved out of the cities (all those dead bodies rotting in the streets mean all sorts of diseases and the apocalypse means no functioning hospitals) and into the countryside. Farming communities where the oldest homes might still have glass windows, but the new homes would have what could be produced or scavenged.

I'm considering whether the character might dream of one day owning a home made from them fancy new-fangled mud-bricks.

Edit: @ Gumboot -- I'm wondering more about their ability to make glass windows. Which would make an intact scavenged window quite valuable, and our hero reluctant to break a window just to gain access to what might well be an empty building.

 

[Warren_Paul]

If a land is ruled over by a queen, should it be called a Queendom, even if her son will be the one to inherit the throne? Before the queen it was a king that ruled.

If so, should I be calling the land in my book: the Queendom of Westland, instead of Kingdom?




P.S. Why is Queendom not recognised as a word in spell check?

Google it, the term exists!

 

[RJM Corbet]

Humans have been making glass for over 5,000 years so I can't see why a post apocalyptic society would be incapable of making it. While modern glass furnaces operate at around 1,500 degrees, the glass-transition temperature for soda-lime glass is less than 600 degrees which is well within the range of even a primitive furnace.

It's quite a tricky process, especially plate glass for windows. I think they'd be more likely to scavenge it ...