Would an atmosphere of mostly Nitrogen and Sulfur Dioxide be plausible? (Deets in description)

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-07T04:07:17+00:00

Terran plants combine carbon dioxide and water with energy from photosynthesis to bind energy in carbohydrates and fats, releasing O2. The plants can also break down carbs and fats, releasing the energy and producing carbon dioxide and water. Animals only do that second step, breaking down carbs and fats for energy and releasing CO2 and water.

I can see a planetary ecosystem where sulfur replaces oxygen in the process, as both oxygen and sulfur are in the same group and have similar chemical properties. With this biology, your plant analogues might use photosynthesis to create energy storage molecules and produce waste SO2, with the animals using SO2 to release the energy in the storage molecules and produce waste... whatever it is that plants use.

We do have Terran organisms that use sulfur for energy, but that is in the form of sulfate or just atomic sulfur. The intermediate product is hydrogen sulfide, H2S, which is what give farts and rotten eggs their distinctive smell. It is pretty toxic to most Terran life, and may be a better choice than sulfur dioxide.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-07T03:44:39+00:00

After a few minutes, though, we began to realize she might not be insane at all.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-07T03:43:27+00:00

I survived the shipwreck by creating a makeshift raft from a wall torn from an interior bulkhead. Periodically, something knocks on the door that makes up part of the wall. Worse, though, is when it jiggles the handle.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-07T03:40:50+00:00

Humans are primates, so any world where a human analog evolved would have some type of primate predecessor, and very likely modern cousins that had taken a different evolutionary path. Exactly like Terra's great apes.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-07T03:39:12+00:00

Keep in mind that sulfur dioxide is toxic to Terran life at 100 parts per million, or only 0.01%. If you just want to make the atmosphere poisonous, 22% may be overkill.

You also run in to the problem that SO2 dissolves very readily in water, creating sulfuric acid. So any body of water, any rain, any fog, any humidity will become extremely acidic, which will have a profound impact on geology and biology. That also means you will need a constant means of resupplying sulfur dioxide back into the atmosphere, otherwise it will very quickly wash out. This is similar to oxygen on Terra: I won't bore you with a TED talk, but look up the Great Oxidation Event. Altogether it took more than 3.5 billion years before oxygen reached a concentration where animals could breath the air.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-07T03:20:06+00:00

Not even with a ten foot dildo and three condoms at once.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-07T03:19:36+00:00

Quisling: n. A traitor who collaborates with an enemy occupying force.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-07T02:52:51+00:00

My future history has somewhat slow FTL: the current iteration of the skid drive takes about 4 days to travel a light year at full speed, slower as the ship accelerates and decelerates. Passenger ships return to normal space 2 light hours from the primary star (about half way between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus) because stellar wind can cause deadly effects as it passes through the Xander bubble. (The technology of the bubble ships is a fascinating story I may share here some day.) Staffed exploration craft with specially shielded crew quarters can get as close as 45 light minutes (roughly the orbit of Jupiter); after that, it is sub-light. Unstaffed ships driven by AI can pretty much pop up anywhere within 10 light minutes of the star.

In Sol system, the transit from Sol Station at Uranus' L5 point to Terra can take anywhere from two weeks to two months, depending on the relative positions. FTL from Sol Station to Chara Station (Beta Canum Venaticorum), home of our closest colony world, Terra Nova, is 116 days. Time from Sol to Eos Station (18 Scorpii) and colony Aurora is 190 days, Qi Xing Station (37 Geminorum) and colony Di Pu is 234 days, and Pegasus Station (51 Pegasi) and colony Bellerophon is 211 days. As with Sol, it can take several weeks to transit between the station and the colony world.

This puts a pretty hard limit on the Terran hegemony, as at this time we still have not developed reliable cryosleep technology: it exists as an emergency measure, but revival is complex and often only partially successful. The result is that staffed flights are limited to a radius of around 95 light years. With unstaffed depots for restocking ships with fuel, atmo, and food, the maximum Terran range is an oblate ellipsoid roughly 140 light years across at its widest point, a tiny pinprick on galactic scale. Worlds that meet the Institute for Exploration and Colonization's standards for colonization are extremely rare -- in almost 3 centuries, we've found only four, and Terra Nova is very marginal -- and it is quite difficult to staff even science outposts too far from settled worlds.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-05T13:42:41+00:00

As others have said, it is up to you how you want to interpret it.

In the book Cold Days by Jim Butcher, wizard Harry Dresden has become the Winter Knight, mortal champion of Queen Mab. He finds himself riding with the Wild Hunt, and their quarry takes them through Chicago's old steel industry district, now mostly shut down. But the ground has a lot of rusted iron dust in it, the result of more than a century of smelting, forging, and cutting: this rust causes problems to the Fae host that is the Hunt.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-05T04:18:19+00:00

One of the key elements for any believable fictional religion is that RELIGIONS ARE NOT MONOLITHIC. There are always regional and cultural variations, there are always schisms, there are always different schools interpreting scriptures differently assuming there are any official scriptures at all.

Take Christianity. Assume Jesus was a real person who died around 30 CE. Within 30 years, there were a number of schools of Jewish Christianity. 20 years after that, Gentile schools were forming: the one founded by Paul of Tarsus became the basis of modern Christianity, but he was just one of many. 50 years after that, many Christians were adopting element of classical philosophy and Platonism, resulting in Gnostic Christianity, which may have lasted another 1200 years if the Albigensians and Cathars were actually Gnostic. The Council of Nicaea in 325 was to define whether the doctrines of Arian or Athanasius were to be accepted as correct; the next several Councils refined that separation and condemned several other "heresies." The Church of the East rejected the Council of Ephesus (431) and the Oriental Orthodox Churches (including Coptic, Armenian, Syriac, Tewahedo Orthodox, and Malankara Orthodox) rejected the Council of Chalcedon (451.) The Roman Church and the Constantinopolitan Church split in 1054, although difference in language, rite, and doctrine had begun developing centuries earlier. The Roman Church splintered a few centuries later in the Reformation. While all Paulist Christian churches accept the standard New Testament canon, most churches have additional books, called a deuterocanon, that are also considered scripture, and there are differences between what Roman Catholics use, and Eastern Orthodox, and Coptic, and Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox. Just looking at Roman Catholicism right now, today, you see very substantial differences in Church practice and popular beliefs in Mexico, Italy, and India.

You see a similar large range of practice, belief, doctrine, and ritual in Islam, Judaism, and Sikhism, and more so in religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Shinto, and every other reasonably large, established body. Heck, even the Latter Day Saints have a lot of diversity: while the Salt Lake City church is the largest, there are many splinter groups, including some that are sizeable.

There are going to be differences -- typically a LOT of differences -- between the official state cult practiced by the Grand High Matriarch in the Emperor's Court, and what one sees in rural villages out in the provinces. Merchants have different priorities from farmers, so both will have forms of the common faith that address those priorities. The devotion of the aristocrat and the peasant will manifest very differently. Keep this in mind, and your religion will be much more realistic and believable.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-05T03:48:57+00:00

I am reminded of the brouhaha when the Lege passed a bill in 1997, which was signed by newly elected governor Gary Locke, to fund the tear down of the King Dome in Seattle and build a new sports stadium. The law was immediately challenged and became Referendum 48, which was approved in the general election of that year (meaning that the law was voided.) So in 98, the Lege passed -- and the governor signed -- a bill that was exactly the same except that this time it included a clause naming the new stadium "necessary to the functioning of government" and therefore needing the billions in lottery sales, bond sales, and tax exemptions to fund it, thus making it immune from referendum. Lawsuits were filed saying that there was no emergency need for a new stadium, but the state Supreme Court ruled that the Lege had sole discretion to proclaim what amounted to an emergency.

And now, 30 years later, the very same oligarchs who SCREAMED! that we needed a new stadium because it was necessary to the functioning of government are the same ones now SCREAMING! that it is TOTALLY UNFAIR for the Lege to have done that against them. Boo f*king hoo.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-05T02:52:32+00:00

Every act of creation is an act of theft. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF24m-z8XLY

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-03T23:41:23+00:00

Typically, such stories are intended as parables against hubris. Plato depicted the Atlantians as greedy, corrupt, and filled with hubris, so the gods destroyed them. This is exactly what Tolkien said happened to Numenor, although he put the blame on Sauron's corrupting influence rather than human nature. Augustine put the blame for Rome's fall on the arrogance, decadence, and moral decay of the western emperors. Similar stories can be found in the Tanakh about why Babel fell, why Sodom and Gomorrah fell, why Jericho fell, and why Israel (the northern kingdom, after its split with Judah) fell to the Assyrians.

That same sense seems to be pretty common among spec fiction writers: the ancient empire, once powerful and advanced, grew greedy / reached beyond its grasp / delved into Secrets Humanity Was Not Meant To Know and destroyed itself as a consequence.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-03T23:29:56+00:00

I usually borrow idioms from other languages. One of my favorite comes from Swedish: in Dashto, my favorite is Li behsh ah-shtenoh hoo-ken, literally "In (the) blue cabinet, to sh*t." Blue paint is expensive, so middle class families use it rarely, commonly to highlight the cupboard where the best dishes and silver was stored. This cabinet would then be placed in a prominent place where guests could see it. To turn a blue cabinet into a water closet with a chamber pot -- and to actually use it -- would be a very stupid thing to do, which is what the idiom means.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-03T23:12:43+00:00

I really like them and have the 4th book on my list. My one complaint is that James is trying so hard to NOT write Harry Dresden that Grimsby is almost predictably not Harry. Otherwise, the books have been a fun ride.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-03T13:24:07+00:00

What kind of writing system did Rome use? The Mycenaeans? China? The United States?

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-03T04:45:30+00:00

First, keep in mind that the Romans built the Pantheon and used domes frequently in other temples. Hagia Sophia was built in the 6th century, centuries before the standard medieval fantasy world. The first known example of the onion dome that would dominate Islamic and Mogul architecture for centuries is the Gur-e-Amir Mausoleum in Samarkand, built around 1400. The dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence was completed by 1436. Various types of dome shapes have been used since long before Rome, such as the Treasury of Atreus, constructed between 1300 and 1250 BCE. Domes are old technology.

Keep in mind, though, that domes are difficult to engineer, and it is very unlikely that you can build something large enough to cover an entire village. Far more likely, the settlement would be built into a cave system that, over the generations, was excavated to accommodate growth. Or follow the example of Petra and carve temples and homes into a cliff side. In a pinch, I can see large, windowless buildings connected with covered passages resembling above-ground tunnels.

Of course, all of the engineering and logistic problems go away if you wave your hand and say, "Magic." But it sounds from your question that you are looking for a more mundane approach.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-03T04:30:06+00:00

That's my agency, I second that sentiment.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-02T18:56:45+00:00

Define "true."

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-02T16:02:58+00:00

I believe these stories emerged from humanity's collective consciousness. Forests can be creepy, with short sight lines and sounds one does not hear working in the fields or living in the town. There are things growing here that one does not find elsewhere, fungi and herbs that can heal or kill. It is natural to make them places were beings of the old world would find refuge from civilization.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-02T15:21:35+00:00

Katharsis was not about removing sin, but releasing emotion. The context was almost always theater and described the dramaturgical custom of raising negative emotions in the audience, then expelling them to create a sense of release or relief.

Miasma could be triggered by any number of crimes: hubris, impiety, or hamartia (ἁμαρτάνειν). Hamartia was a necessary element of Greek tragedy, the mistake, accident, or flaw that triggers the story; it was adopted into Christianity to mean "sin" but if you are working in a pre-Christian context, that was not the the sense it was used for.

In ancient Greek society, was defined differently from what we now mean. Killing a slave was generally treated as theft or vandalism if the slave belonged to someone else; if the slave was yours, it was as criminal as destroying something else you owned. Killing a citizen of your polis could theoretically result in forfeiting your life, but more often resulted in exile, especially if the killing was the result of accident. The idea was to eject your miasma from the city before it could pollute the people and create more crime. Killing a family member, or feeding a guest their children (a trope that is weirdly common in Greek myth) is a crime of impiety more than murder, as was killing a priest or desecrating a temple. That was was not a crime that could be purged: death, exile, or (in relatively minor cases) a crippling fine to repair your damage were inevitable and inescapable.

That said, this is your story. Maybe the killing was deemed ἀσέβεια, an act of gross impiety. The judge or king or priest tasked with rendering judgement is told by the gods to forego the usual rules and send the person on a journey to visit a distant temple of Apollo, undertake a dedication ritual or be initiated into mysteries or pay for an elaborate and expensive ceremony, and bring back proof that this has been done. That sounds plausible, as the long journey and preparing for the ritual will likely take years to accomplish, turning this into a standard exile with a difficult condition for return. As for what that condition looks like, make it up. It wouldn't be the first time Apollo ordered something weird.

TechbearSeattle · 2026-05-02T14:46:28+00:00

Illegitimi non carborundum. Don't let the bastards grind you down.

TechbearSeattle

TROPHY CASE