Re: Earthquakes and Arcologies

Brian Davis wrote:
On Apr 30, 5:09 pm, D_M <don.middend...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


I can't think of any reason to build them any stronger than buildings
currently, unless there's some reason the characters like wasting
resources.

Because an Arcology is going to last a LONG time. That's one good
reason to build it a lot stronger and more survivable than we might
currently think is important.


Actually that's a good argument for maintenance, and an easy structure
to maintain. You only build things to mil-spec if survivability is
much much more critical than cost... and in practice, that's not the
way things go, especially when your life doesn't depend on them.


Also I have a theory (That I pinched from Larry Niven) that as time,
technology and the standard of living move forward and higher, people
become more averse to risk.


"Safe at any speed" is a great story - and it's a great example of how
you can drive something to an extreme by ignoring (and making the
reader want to ignore with you) all other constraints on a problem. I
don't think it's a realistic way to deal with problems where something
is limited. If you are assuming unlimited wealth, unlimited power, and
unlimited resources, then I agree that over-engineering everything is
a likely solution. But I've yet to see any civilization go that way,
and such a civilization would be so incredibly different than ours it
would make a great story in and of itself.


Also the thing is incredibly expensive, it's a whole city
more or less.


So are whole cities. Which aren't all rebuilt to resist an 8.5
magnitude earthquake even in california, where the frequency of such
events isn't low. But in the great plains? Do you think the arcology
is also going to be designed to resist meteor impacts, tsunamis, etc.?

I would certainly hope an arcology in a coastal area is designed for the possibility of hurricanes and whatever sort of historical tsunamis threats might be expected. Bit large to be rebuilding them every century or two when the Sumatra faults (or any of the other major fault zones around the Pacific) let loose with another 9.2 event and send large waves your direction. Or when that volcano in the Azores falls apart again and inundates a significant portion of the East Coast.
As far as impacts, I'm sure they would be designed to withstand at least an airliner-equivalent without catastrophic failure. Local damage and destruction, certainly, but you wouldn't want the entire habitat to be destroyed as a result.

Jim

It's not impossible. But I'm pointing out where my suspension of
disbelief really starts having trouble. And there's a number of points
in this scenario. That doesn't kill the scenario... but it does say
they might need to be addressed.

--
Brian Davis

.

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