While randomising alien names, the website generated the Antimatter Magicians Of The Metal Galaxy and my brain suddenly properly kicked into gear and had a
conversation much like this with itself...
Q: Metal Galaxy?
A: Yup.
Q: How does that work then?
A: Basically, this galaxy got attacked quite a lot so every race within it communicated and decided to build a massive metal wall surrounding the entire
galaxy.
Q: Wow, that's a pretty big job isn't it?
A: Yes, it was the biggest building job ever attempted in the entire history and future of the universe.
Q: So did they do it?
A: Yeah, they completed it and everything. The whole galaxy was encased in the metal from the planets within the galaxy.
Q: So then what happened?
A: Well, it required so much metal they found they'd depleted the resources from every single planet, moon and comet within the galaxy that their planets
all died, taking them with it.
Q: So what you're saying is that now there's just this empty galaxy surrounded by a metal wall? Why has no one gone back? Is it inpenetrable?
A: No idea, but why would they go back? There's nothing inside it so there's no point.
Q: Oh. *pause* Hey, do you wanna go get breakfast?
A: Yes please.
So yeah, there's todays random thinking. What do people think?
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 Ablean Buckslinger |
The Strange Things My Brain Thinks |
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Posts: 3110 (05/06/08 23:27:11) |
Some people move in lesbian circles. I move in bisexual dodecahedrons. |
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Wolfgang Kaiser |
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Posts: 485 (05/07/08 11:48:12) |
Here comes some gross math to ruin your vision. I sincerely apologize in advance.
The average galaxy is about 100,000 light-years in diameter, and roughly 2000 light-years thick. I don't know enough geometry to calculate the surface area of the whole galaxy, but it would take 2.73 x 10^35 square miles of metal just to cover one horizontal slice. That's more metal than could conceivably exist in a single galaxy, given the amount of empty space you'd get between (and even within) solar systems. Even if you squashed every star, planet, moon and asteroid into pancakes an atom thin, you still couldn't cover that whole area - and if we restrict the building materials to just metals, you'd get an even less adequate sum. My point is, you could take apart every celestial body in a galaxy and still come up vast quantities short of the staggering amount of metal required to make a shell around the whole thing. There's just not enough matter. I'm sorry. 
"Kidnapping Nubile Victorian Ladies Since 1867" |
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Ablean Buckslinger |
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Posts: 3116 (05/07/08 12:39:36) |
Oh yeah, I completely know that. It was just for the sake of science fiction. C'est la vie. Maybe it was a tiny galaxy.
Some people move in lesbian circles. I move in bisexual dodecahedrons. |
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Wolfgang Kaiser |
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Posts: 488 (05/07/08 12:41:31) |
Maybe it was. Tiny, and with a ton of really big planets really close together, all made of pure iron.
"Kidnapping Nubile Victorian Ladies Since 1867" |
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Ablean Buckslinger |
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Posts: 3117 (05/07/08 12:42:43) |
Yeah! See, perfectly plausible. Haha.
Some people move in lesbian circles. I move in bisexual dodecahedrons. |
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anacharis |
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Posts: 917 (05/07/08 13:45:37) |
maybe they turned pirate for a couple hundred million years beforehand, you know, plundered other galaxies for their resources?
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anonymouse21 |
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Posts: 394 (05/07/08 19:56:15) |
Or they'd been stocking up on metal, perhaps taxing people with it?
"I'm sorry! I couldn't create so much metal this year because I'm not a blacksmith and it's taking over all our planet!" "It'll be gone the sooner we have more of it. Off to prison you go for not paying your taxes." and it could happen! |
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Ablean Buckslinger |
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Posts: 3118 (05/07/08 22:55:21) |
But the prisons would have to be made of paper or rock or something. No metal - it's all being used to build the wall.
Some people move in lesbian circles. I move in bisexual dodecahedrons. |
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Wolfgang Kaiser |
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Posts: 489 (05/07/08 23:33:20) |
Moving out of the realm of massive implausibility for a minute (I know, I'm as loath to do it as anyone else), there is actually a small-scale concept
that's fairly similar to this in current sci-fi - called a Dyson Sphere, it would
encase a star system instead of a whole galaxy, for feasibility reasons, and could theoretically provide power to the system as well as protecting it. If one
was concerned about the still enormous amounts of metal required, one could go the clever route and use interspersed satellites in a grid system instead,
hanging around at intervals of a light-year or so and guarding everything in that vicinity like a very fast, very lethal watchdog with a very long leash. Less
mysterious, though, because you would be able to know what went on within, instead of having a massive opaque sphere with who-knows-what on the
inside.
I have this odd feeling we've discussed the Dyson Sphere before in the Sanctum - or at the very least made a passing remark. I could've sworn I heard it here first. "Kidnapping Nubile Victorian Ladies Since 1867" |
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 Lord DragonFang |
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Posts: 1689 (05/08/08 00:30:41) |
A passing remark was indeed made on this page here (thank you search
function.)
Less grand than a Dyson Sphere but still cool would be a ringworld of the Larry Niven kind. |
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Ablean Buckslinger |
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Posts: 3120 (05/08/08 00:30:59) |
The Dyson Sphere has almost certainly cropped up in the Sanctum before. I think it was at the back of my mind when my brain ticked over the idea of the metal
galaxy.
Some people move in lesbian circles. I move in bisexual dodecahedrons. |
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