Bay 12 Games Forum

Finally... => Forum Games and Roleplaying => Topic started by: Xvareon on March 24, 2022, 05:34:06 pm

Title: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Xvareon on March 24, 2022, 05:34:06 pm: You are a Von Neumann machine—an artificial intelligence specifically capable of producing more of itself exponentially, given the appropriate resources and span of time. You were created, like any machine, to solve a problem. However, it's not necessarily a problem that affects you... Or is it? You have been sent deep into outer space, careening between stars, searching for planets... but not necessarily those already bearing life. A machine of your caliber is capable of terraforming even dark and dead worlds, seeding them with life and turning them into perfectly habitable ones, by virtue of self-replicating and adapting to solve practically any problem.

Now, you're alone. You're countless millions of miles away from your creators, whoever they might've been. You feel hard earth beneath the landing gears of your probe, your computers having found a suitable site. Your deployment hatches open, your backup solar absorbers begin to refill, and you look out...

_ _ ____________.--.
|\|_|//_.-"" .' \ /| |
|.-"""-.| / \_/ | |
\ || /| __\_____________ |
_\_||_/_| .-"" ""-. __
.' '. \// ".\/
|| '. >()_ |()<
||__.-' |/\ \ |/\
| / "| \__________________/.""
/ // | / \ "-.__________/ /\
___|__/_|__|/___\___".______//__/__\
/|\ [____________] \__/ |\
//\ \ | |=====| | /\\ |\\
// |\ \ | |=====| | | \\ | \\ ____...____....----
.//__| \ \ | |=====| | | |\\ |--\\---"""" . ..
_____....-//___| \_\ | |=====| | |_|_\\ |___\\ . ...'
. .//-.__|_______|__|_____|_|_____[__\\_____|__.-\\ . . ...::
// // / \ `-_\\/ \\ .....:::
-... // . / / /____________\ \\ . \ \ . .
// .. .-/_/-. . \\ .-\_\-. .
/ / '-----' . \ \ '._____.' .
.-/_/-. . .-\_\-. ...
'._____.' . '._____.' .....
. ...... ..
. . . .
... . . . .
.... . . ....
JRO ...... . .. ......'
....... '... ....
'''''' . .
Spoiler: Art (click to show/hide)
From: spupette@hotmail.com (Soque (Enjoque) Pupette). Art not mine, will remove on request.

But where have you settled? And what form do you take?
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: King Zultan on March 25, 2022, 01:46:29 am: We are on top of a mountain over looking vast areas of nothing but rock.

We take the shape of a small wheeled rover.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Xvareon on March 25, 2022, 09:42:55 pm: You deploy from a bottom hatch on your ship, lowering on a pole to the rocky surface below. The terrain is rough, but your frame is more than capable of handling the steep climes with its powerful wheels and solid all-terrain clearance. The first thing you notice is the wind; here on this rise, with heavy gusts scouring the barren land at an appreciable average of 50 to 65 kilometers per hour. Only your ship's powerful vernier thrusters and your own frame's stability prevent everything from just blowing over and crashing on the rocks. There are no signs of life to be seen anywhere, not even a sprig of grass.

Cursory scans reveal that the area has suffered repeated impacts from dangerous meteor strikes; the planetary atmosphere doesn't appear to be strong enough to repel them, and it certainly posed little obstacle to you. You can still see the shattered remnants of meteorites and comets around, some of them quite tough, typically nickel-iron amalgams that managed to withstand the impact in some form.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: King Zultan on March 26, 2022, 01:49:31 am: Given the possibility of being hit by meteors it might be best if we create a bunker underground from where we can start planing our next moves.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Xvareon on March 26, 2022, 07:04:01 pm: Thankfully, your ship's standard kit includes plenty of standardized heavy machinery modules for large-scale terrain manipulation; not for a worldwide scale, but enough to start up general operations. You find a decent spot to dig a hole and (reasonably) flat path into the mountainside, and slave a handful of automated mining drones (of similar wheeled make to your primary frame, with simple drills and planers) to the task while you see about disassembling your ship; it wouldn't do to have it struck by an errant meteorite, after all. Of course, even if it were, you could reasonably repair the most important modules, such as the automatic assemblers, laser cutters, and more.

It takes some time, during which the wind hardly lets up; one of the mining drones is nearly knocked off a cliff during the process, though you manage to halt its fall with quick use of a manipulator-arm before disaster strikes. As soon as you have a large enough area carved out and stabilized, you order the immediate salvaging of critical components, and set about reinforcing your erstwhile home. The whir of industrial machinery replaces the wind this deep in, and the air inside is constantly cloudy with dust and rubble.

After a long period of work, nighttime is approaching. How do you wish to proceed?
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: King Zultan on March 27, 2022, 02:23:59 am: Well now that we have a safe place to store all our gear I suppose the next course of action should be to start looking into what kinds of useful minerals are around us and how we can exploit them to enable us to start fulfilling our goal.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Xvareon on March 28, 2022, 07:03:11 pm: The basic kit of every terraforming droid like yourself comes with a proper autolab, plus minerology and atmospheric testing suites. You isolate mostly bare rock, especially andesite; an intriguing find that indicates that this region, or at least the planet, has experienced its own volcanic activity.

A. Lot. Of volcanic activity.

You find scattered but numerous traces of iron, aluminum, lead, gold, small diamonds, and other minerals among your regular excavations. During regular operations to dump the rubble down the mountainside, you notice thick particles of ash floating on the heavy wind; some of it even collects in 'holes' tucked away between rock formations. Full analysis is beyond your current scope, but it is likely you've arrived at the post-turbulent stage of a world that has properly gone through the crucible of fire.

Your home base is growing slowly. Full drone complement dedicated to excavation and mining. You have enough base capacity to produce simple machinery and modules with your assembler. How do you proceed?
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Demonic Spoon on March 29, 2022, 12:35:04 am: Re-check database for target terraforming parameters. Contrast and compare to current planetary parameters we picked up while approaching our target as well as what we've noticed on the ground so far.

Begin building more mining drones to dig out mining tunnels to expand our areas of operations while netting us resources, and not going outside in the extreme windy conditions.

Dig down to harness geothermal energy, and put up some securely fastened solar panels to keep everything up and running. Keep an eye out for heavier elements.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: King Zultan on March 29, 2022, 02:34:33 am: Quote from: Demonic Spoon on March 29, 2022, 12:35:04 am
Re-check database for target terraforming parameters. Contrast and compare to current planetary parameters we picked up while approaching our target as well as what we've noticed on the ground so far.

Begin building more mining drones to dig out mining tunnels to expand our areas of operations while netting us resources, and not going outside in the extreme windy conditions.

Dig down to harness geothermal energy, and put up some securely fastened solar panels to keep everything up and running. Keep an eye out for heavier elements.
+1
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: EuchreJack on March 30, 2022, 09:04:55 am: Quote from: King Zultan on March 29, 2022, 02:34:33 am
Quote from: Demonic Spoon on March 29, 2022, 12:35:04 am
Re-check database for target terraforming parameters. Contrast and compare to current planetary parameters we picked up while approaching our target as well as what we've noticed on the ground so far.

Begin building more mining drones to dig out mining tunnels to expand our areas of operations while netting us resources, and not going outside in the extreme windy conditions.

Dig down to harness geothermal energy, and put up some securely fastened solar panels to keep everything up and running. Keep an eye out for heavier elements.
+1
+1
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Magmacube_tr on March 31, 2022, 11:10:11 am: [OOC] Getting in fluids and reshaping the ground will not be all that difficult. We will just have to gather some comets, or melt down polar caps for the water.

Atmosphere is also not complicated. We can just generate CO2 with chemical burning of rocks. The rest can be supplied with comets made of more superfluous ices.

Magnetic field will be the tricky part. Any ideas on how to activate a planetary magnetic dynamo?
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Demonic Spoon on March 31, 2022, 11:41:34 am: Controlled detonation of nukes in deep boreholes
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Magmacube_tr on March 31, 2022, 01:42:44 pm: Quote from: Demonic Spoon on March 31, 2022, 11:41:34 am
Controlled detonation of nukes in deep boreholes

Those boreholes will have to number up in hundreds and will also have to be deep enough to go through the molten mantle.

Bu I guess this is the only viable option. I'd suggest we made a single borehole on a geographic pole used a concentrated sun laser to slowly heat up the core. But that'l take like, a millenia and that is too long.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Demonic Spoon on March 31, 2022, 02:16:57 pm: No part of terraforming an entire planet is particularly trivial.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Naturegirl1999 on March 31, 2022, 11:02:29 pm: I’m thinking first we’d need an atmosphere, burning the rocks to generate gasses sounds like a way to do that, that way any water we do make doesn’t just turn into a gas because of the low pressure, an atmosphere would allow for the water to remain liquid, maybe gasses are trapped in some of the rocks?
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Demonic Spoon on March 31, 2022, 11:06:59 pm: I think there is already an atmosphere, since there are winds?
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Naturegirl1999 on March 31, 2022, 11:34:56 pm: Oh whoops, in that case, cancel previous action and focus on finding water
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: King Zultan on April 01, 2022, 01:35:09 am: Shouldn't we have some kind of equipment to find out weather there's a Magnetic field so we don't have to spend a bunch of time digging a massive hole.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Xvareon on April 01, 2022, 07:04:40 am: (( Our planet Mars has no appreciable magnetic field; at least, not a self-generating one. But enough to sustain wind. ))

Your unit's prime directive is overall the same as any android's. You are to find a suitable candidate for terraforming, settle there, build up an infrastructure, harness energy and develop resources, and if possible, seed it with life. There are likely hundreds or thousands of you scattered around the galaxy right now, perhaps produced by a wandering mothership and sent out to repeat the process, or made by one another exponentially. Your specific mission is hardly different—only your coordinates are unique, as you believe you are the only one of you currently in this sector of space...

...or, perhaps, just the only one who's managed to make it this far.

At any rate, the planet you're on seems to fulfill most basic criteria. It's further than ideal from its parent Class G star, meaning that in addition to life being more unlikely, it also receives less solar radiation. However, the presence (or history thereof) of high volcanism is a dead giveaway for the generous presence of iron, nickel, and other heavy base metals. Several times, now, you've recorded temperatures several degrees higher than expected, given the general lack of sunlight; this is almost certainly a combination of geothermal activity and greenhouse gases forming a thick black shell over the sky, locking in what heat does accumulate here.

Throughout the night, production continues apace. You currently lack a more sophisticated infrastructure, but it's enough to make several new mining drones. And with them all tasked to the same general mode—dig deeper—the mountain you've burrowed into becomes a constant strip of moving lights and the tumbling avalanche of dropped-off rock and rubble.

What you are lacking in, however, is energy. You hardly need to make solar panels—your ship came with several backups—but gaining any appreciable power even during daylight cycles is a slow and daunting slog. You're also quite a bit further up off the ground than ideal to reach far enough down to tap geothermal energy, and even then, you will need a source of water or an equivalent medium to actually utilize the heat.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Demonic Spoon on April 01, 2022, 07:12:27 am: Create heavy-bottomed tracked scout drones, sufficiently steady and large to not get blown around by the external wind conditions, and send them out to begin scouting around for potential open air deposits of uranium and water, they will likely need to stop frequently to slowly recharge if equipped with some solar panels, but should hopefully get the job done eventually.

Continue expanding our solar panel coverage and making more mining drones until such a time as we locate either of those.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Naturegirl1999 on April 01, 2022, 10:47:20 am: Let’s try making wind turbines, we know that winds are very powerful, let’s also make some drones to collect gasses from the atmosphere and look for and condense water vapor into liquid water
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: King Zultan on April 02, 2022, 01:37:03 am: Quote from: Naturegirl1999 on April 01, 2022, 10:47:20 am
Let’s try making wind turbines, we know that winds are very powerful, let’s also make some drones to collect gasses from the atmosphere and look for and condense water vapor into liquid water
+1 Wind power sounds like it might be our best bet for right now.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: EuchreJack on April 02, 2022, 02:35:02 am: I sort of wonder if the wind might be TOO powerful for us to harness, but +1 to the attempt.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Maximum Spin on April 02, 2022, 03:14:08 am: Quote from: Demonic Spoon on March 31, 2022, 11:41:34 am
Controlled detonation of nukes in deep boreholes
Quote from: Magmacube_tr on March 31, 2022, 01:42:44 pm
Quote from: Demonic Spoon on March 31, 2022, 11:41:34 am
Controlled detonation of nukes in deep boreholes

Those boreholes will have to number up in hundreds and will also have to be deep enough to go through the molten mantle.

Bu I guess this is the only viable option. I'd suggest we made a single borehole on a geographic pole used a concentrated sun laser to slowly heat up the core. But that'l take like, a millenia and that is too long.
I'm pretty sure that was a joke since it is the plot of the movie The Core and also would not really work. It's impossible to be precise because there's so much we don't know about planetary cores, but the amount of energy you would need to deliver would be on the order of billions of the most powerful nuclear weapon humans have ever designed. This would also destroy the planet's surface, kicking it back to the Hadean. If you're going to destroy the planet's surface anyway, bombarding it with meteors to significantly increase its mass and temperature until the core has enough internal energy is way more efficient. And also almost impossible, but a hell of a lot more feasible than the other thing.

Wind power is an interesting case study because it turns out, based on results observed on Earth, that the amount of energy you can extract from the wind before local wind patterns become too distorted to maintain that extraction (because airmasses get bogged down by the loss of kinetic energy, forcing incoming air to go a different way) isn't even that high. In other words, we very likely won't be able to run any substantial installation on wind power for long.

What do we have in terms of energy storage? It might be prudent to build something simple like flywheels so that we can use all our solar panels at once. (We aren't going to be able to make more any time soon, without extensive mining operations.)
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: EuchreJack on April 02, 2022, 08:45:46 am: I'm pretty sure one of the more viable plans to add an magnetic field to Mars involves many cables stretching from pole to pole. I think they're electrically charged or something?
It's too late to do this:
https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-wants-to-launch-a-giant-magnetic-shield-to-make-mars-habitable
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Maximum Spin on April 02, 2022, 08:56:49 am: Quote from: EuchreJack on April 02, 2022, 08:45:46 am
I'm pretty sure one of the more viable plans to add an magnetic field to Mars involves many cables stretching from pole to pole. I think they're electrically charged or something?
My god, the resistive heating alone...
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Magmacube_tr on April 02, 2022, 01:35:38 pm: Quote from: King Zultan on April 02, 2022, 01:37:03 am
Quote from: Naturegirl1999 on April 01, 2022, 10:47:20 am
Let’s try making wind turbines, we know that winds are very powerful, let’s also make some drones to collect gasses from the atmosphere and look for and condense water vapor into liquid water
+1 Wind power sounds like it might be our best bet for right now.
+1 Lets get that wind.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: EuchreJack on April 02, 2022, 03:02:17 pm: Quote from: Maximum Spin on April 02, 2022, 08:56:49 am
Quote from: EuchreJack on April 02, 2022, 08:45:46 am
I'm pretty sure one of the more viable plans to add an magnetic field to Mars involves many cables stretching from pole to pole. I think they're electrically charged or something?
My god, the resistive heating alone...
Ooh, so it's self-powered!
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: King Zultan on April 03, 2022, 01:50:45 am: Do we actually need a magnetic field to live on the planet?
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Magmacube_tr on April 03, 2022, 09:18:42 am: Quote from: King Zultan on April 03, 2022, 01:50:45 am
Do we actually need a magnetic field to live on the planet?

Yes. How else will we able to keep the atmosphere we are gonna place.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: King Zultan on April 04, 2022, 01:17:43 am: Shouldn't we find out if there is a magnetic field before we spend a bunch of resources on making one?
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Demonic Spoon on April 04, 2022, 01:26:09 am: Quote from: King Zultan on April 04, 2022, 01:17:43 am
Shouldn't we find out if there is a magnetic field before we spend a bunch of resources on making one?
+1 Check for Magnetic Field.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: EuchreJack on April 04, 2022, 09:56:33 pm: Quote from: Demonic Spoon on April 04, 2022, 01:26:09 am
Quote from: King Zultan on April 04, 2022, 01:17:43 am
Shouldn't we find out if there is a magnetic field before we spend a bunch of resources on making one?
+1 Check for Magnetic Field.
Yes, of course +1. But we can harness the wind at the same time?
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: King Zultan on April 05, 2022, 12:42:31 am: I don't see why we couldn't do one while the other's going on.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Maximum Spin on April 05, 2022, 05:15:36 am: Quote from: King Zultan on April 05, 2022, 12:42:31 am
I don't see why we couldn't do one while the other's going on.
Union regulations.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Xvareon on April 06, 2022, 09:19:08 pm: It only takes a few simple tests to confirm that the planet does, in fact, possess a magnetic field. Quite a significant one, in fact. With the presence of high volcanism, it's a given the planet must have some form of molten core, which on its own—perhaps combined with the presence of certain heavier elements—generates the field. It's... slightly weaker than expected, though; weaker, but not so far as to severely and adversely affect viability. It's unknown yet whether this is the median reading, or if you're simply experiencing the field during a downward fluctuation point.

Of other importance is the fact that, despite the ash clouds and the greater distance of the planet's primary star, there's still so much wind. The best hypothesis your computers are able to draw so far is the planet's own heat, pushing air currents over your region and likely countless others, depositing ash and silt as they go.

You have time to consider all of this while your fabricators figure out the extremely complex issue of developing a resilient, effective wind turbine generator for these conditions. Making it good enough to withstand such conditions for any length of time is a challenge, although not one you're unused to, seeing as how your own ship is made of materials that've withstood far worse. But over a couple days of solid work, interspersed with general growth of your base, your proof of concept is ready.

A base, a turbine, three blades, cabling, monitoring equipment—all for one installation, dug into the rock in a spot facing the incoming winds. All that work is worth it, though, to see the thing lurch to life, flipping in the air currents, and steadily turning the electromagnets residing within its body.

Unfortunately... after installation, a pair of construction bots performing close monitoring and maintenance work wind up pulled over the cliff during an errant gust, tumbling over rock and CRUNCHING into ashen graves at the mountain base. The conditions are too dire outside to make it safe going to get them; and this is likely to be a constant threat, so long as you must deal with the outdoors.
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: Demonic Spoon on April 07, 2022, 12:41:28 am: Design heavy bottomed drones capable of handling the windy conditions?
Title: Re: Von Neumann Terraforming Androids [SG]
Post by: King Zultan on April 07, 2022, 03:18:59 am: What about a anchoring system that tethers them to the ground?