Bay 12 Games Forum

(IronyOwl, remind me to sig that.)

Head into the jungle. Look for a vine. Tie it to the bucket and lower it into the well.

Undergo...puberty. With real superpowers this time!

((Whaty di I need to PM, again? The charts, but anything else?))

((i find it amusing that none of us are targeting the large creature))

((I am, just not specifically. And why would I be crazy enough to antagonize such a beast directly?))

This is set in the future, it stands to reason that a certain amount of methodology exists that does not exist in 2012.

Okay, a chimpanzee trying to rewrite Shakespeare.

If I were going to biologically create carbon fibres then I would probably have proteins that bond to a carbon, bond carbon-first onto a long carbon chain, and then release the carbon and let someone else take a turn. This would probably require multiple proteins acting on concert in a favourable medium.

I'm a little doubtful about this, especially due to lack of biological precedent. Life doesn't tend to work in units smaller than amino acids, certainly not as small and reactive as lone carbon atoms.

Bones do more than just provide structure, so you would be looking at the carbon-fibre being used as reinforcement rather than the primary substance.

Well, duh.

Getting the fibres to bond to the bones in an efficient fashion would provide further difficulties. And the manufacturing process would likely require significant space and energy. Energy seems to be in short supply given the current fauna, although it seems reasonable to expect that there is abundant sunlight. Space on the other hand would be a problem, as you are likely going to want to produce the fibres inside the substance of the bone, as the inherent fragility of something with a micro-scale width and macro-scale length would preclude transport of the fibres, and then there is issue of getting the fibres effectively implanted into the bone if they are not manufactured there.

Quite true problems.

I am all in favour of pursuing carbon-fibre bones, and carbon-fibre sinews and carbon-fibre, diamond-studded skin and whatever else, but I don't think it would be time-efficient for this project. Although we could look into buying it. What sort of biological features are for sale? Oh, right, we are sort of broke(As far as buying use of major design patents is concerned) until we get this job done...

I dunno. While it would rock if we could do all that, I don't think we can.

Oh! Hey! I want wings! Gliding could be a great way to travel long-distances. Although the gravity could be an issue, it would depend on the weather, enough convection and it might be viable...

Yeah, gravity's a big issue. That and size. Just use airplanes or automobiles.

Are you implying that it's impossible to modify or create enzymes that aren't denatured at (what was it? 350c?)? Because that appears to be what you're saying is completely unrealistic.

I don't get where I would have said that.

Both. Explaining is good but links are best.

Well, I'm not good enough at link-fu to link paper books, so I'll just explain.
Brain size: Should be obvious. Smaller means smaller head. To a point, we can just keep more neotenic proportions, but once we get shorter than a meter or so we'll have issues.
Coordination: Depending on how much of this is learned and how much is instinctual (we really don't know), the much smaller mass and size would screw up coordination. Just to provide scale: They could probably jump as far as normal humans. Not proportionately as far, as far. Oh, yeah, the nerve signals are going a lot faster. If there's an instinctual component, the small people are going to be clumsy.
Senses: Sight would be negatively affected due to smaller pupils. Our pupils are massively larger than visible waves of light, so interference from the edges of the pupil would be minimal, but that would get more severe if we made the pupils smaller. As for hearing, the eardrum's reduction in size would change sounds roughly the same as changes in the voice box would change the voice. I don't remember how small it was, but one book I read suggested that it would render the small guy effectively blind, deaf, and dumb.
General: Proportions would need to be adjusted across the board, most likely.
Those come to mind first.

I contend that incorporating carbon fiber into our bones is perfectly feasible with advanced genetic manipulation, and assuming that the rule of awesome is in effect I challenge you to explain why it isn't.

Assuming it is, there's no point to this argument.
Assuming it's not, how would the carbon fiber even be produced?

Who says? Maybe in this hyper advanced society they've already discover the Avatar carbon fiber gene. And again, I contend it's not impossible. Therefore it's possible. Therefore it might be worth a try in a forum game where we don't have to worry about actually writing the code ourselves.

And maybe they've made unicorns that poop puppies.
More seriously, that same argument could be made for anything. Maybe it's technically possible for us to make that, but it sure ain't happening because we don't know how. You're asking a monkey to make a copy of Shakespeare's works without having read one.

Here's an interesting question: Do we even know if the passwords are programmed in yet?