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>English, largely through conquest and trade, has become the de facto language of technology and science 250 years ago you could have said similar things about

by krisgee 12y ago

>English, largely through conquest and trade, has become the de facto language of technology and science 250 years ago you could have said similar things about French. These things are fleeting at geological timescales. I'm not really sure we could do anything that would stop humans from trying to bust in and honestly the more elaborate our warnings the more people will want to see what we were trying to hide. I mean consider the (false but useful) Curse of King Tut. Big letters say "Sickness and death will come to all who try to enter this place" what's your first reaction? To try and get in there and see what the ancient people were hiding. Anyway all this does give some excellent ideas for a sort of D&D-esque game where everyone dies at the end of the dungeon because all the warnings were true and it was just a really old toxic waste dump.

ejr 12y ago
That's a very bleak and, unfortunately, accurate observation. Our curiosity that has given rise to such greatness may well be the double-edged sword of our undoing. As horrible as this may sound, the best we can hope for is the radiation will act quickly so those venturing in will provide ample examples to those that didn't.
- krisgee 12y ago
  >As horrible as this may sound, the best we can hope for is the radiation will act quickly so those venturing in will provide ample examples to those that didn't. Oh man so this crazy ancient tomb has this magical force that kills everyone that goes in. I heard the last team made it further than everyone else before it and the last guy stumbled out with all these ancient artifacts!
thenduks 12y ago
Some people might be too curious to leave it alone, as in a few determined explorers won't be deterred, but maybe they'll avoid settling right on top of it at least? Personally my first reaction to the Curse of King Tut would be "well, better safe than sorry" as I turn right around :)
Karellen 12y ago
I read a different news article along these lines a few years ago, and ran a game based on the premise of a dump like this being cracked open thousands of years in the future by a massive earthquake and contaminating the water supply to a town, which they, in a "standard" medieval-ish technology culture, had to investigate. Was fun trying to figure out who'd get sick first (shrimp fishermen, I figured, as their catch would concentrate the contaminants the fastest) and the timescale for water to start leaching out of the site and cause an effect (a few months, so I had to put in a bunch of other stuff for them to do between the earthquake happening and the "real" plot beginning), having clues that the players wouldn't immediately recognise on-sight when they got down there (like a non-standard periodic table[0] - I used the Janet Left Step), figuring out which elements they'd be able to translate with "speak any language" spells, and which they couldn't because they didn't have the words to translate into (basically, they got any element known before we started recording discoveries[1], and I threw in bonus partial tranlations for Hydrogen (water-ish), Oxygen (fire-ish), Nitrogen (air-ish) and Silicon (sand-ish)), and a whole bunch of other details too. It was fun watching the players' "eureka" moments occur, and then even more fun watching them try really hard not to use their player knowledge in-character! Edit: Just remembered, I also put a Rosetta Disc[2] into the chamber, as I didn't know when I designed the game that they'd have a magic user capable of translating anything. Even though they didn't need it, it was a nice touch to leave in. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_periodic_tables http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_periodic_tables [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoveries_of_the_chemical_elements http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoveries_of_the_chemical_ele... [2] http://rosettaproject.org/disk/concept/ http://rosettaproject.org/disk/concept/

by krisgee 12y ago

ejr 12y ago

That's a very bleak and, unfortunately, accurate observation. Our curiosity that has given rise to such greatness may well be the double-edged sword of our undoing. As horrible as this may sound, the best we can hope for is the radiation will act quickly so those venturing in will provide ample examples to those that didn't.

krisgee 12y ago
>As horrible as this may sound, the best we can hope for is the radiation will act quickly so those venturing in will provide ample examples to those that didn't. Oh man so this crazy ancient tomb has this magical force that kills everyone that goes in. I heard the last team made it further than everyone else before it and the last guy stumbled out with all these ancient artifacts!

thenduks 12y ago

Some people might be too curious to leave it alone, as in a few determined explorers won't be deterred, but maybe they'll avoid settling right on top of it at least? Personally my first reaction to the Curse of King Tut would be "well, better safe than sorry" as I turn right around :)

Karellen 12y ago

I read a different news article along these lines a few years ago, and ran a game based on the premise of a dump like this being cracked open thousands of years in the future by a massive earthquake and contaminating the water supply to a town, which they, in a "standard" medieval-ish technology culture, had to investigate. Was fun trying to figure out who'd get sick first (shrimp fishermen, I figured, as their catch would concentrate the contaminants the fastest) and the timescale for water to start leaching out of the site and cause an effect (a few months, so I had to put in a bunch of other stuff for them to do between the earthquake happening and the "real" plot beginning), having clues that the players wouldn't immediately recognise on-sight when they got down there (like a non-standard periodic table[0] - I used the Janet Left Step), figuring out which elements they'd be able to translate with "speak any language" spells, and which they couldn't because they didn't have the words to translate into (basically, they got any element known before we started recording discoveries[1], and I threw in bonus partial tranlations for Hydrogen (water-ish), Oxygen (fire-ish), Nitrogen (air-ish) and Silicon (sand-ish)), and a whole bunch of other details too. It was fun watching the players' "eureka" moments occur, and then even more fun watching them try really hard not to use their player knowledge in-character! Edit: Just remembered, I also put a Rosetta Disc[2] into the chamber, as I didn't know when I designed the game that they'd have a magic user capable of translating anything. Even though they didn't need it, it was a nice touch to leave in. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_periodic_tables http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_periodic_tables [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoveries_of_the_chemical_elements http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoveries_of_the_chemical_ele... [2] http://rosettaproject.org/disk/concept/ http://rosettaproject.org/disk/concept/