SD.Net in The Sea Of Time

[Alferd Packer]

Speaking of natural refrigeration, does anyone know if Nantucket has caves? If so, then one of the winter jobs will be packing caves with snow and ice, so that we can refrigerate food in the summer months.

[PeZook]

In the absence of caves, this can be done with holes dug in the ground. That's the original purpose of cellars, after all.

[Coyote]

Caves would save us a buttload of digging, though!

Given the history of Nantucket, it is entirely possible that a lot of the houses may already have cellars. In fact, my grandma's old farm, in Idaho, was built in the early 1900's and for years they didn't have electricity out there, so they had a small shack, partially buried and lined with stone, that they used as a "cool storage" if not entirely a "cold" one.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Something else just occurred to me regarding long term food supplies and storage. If we can secure a supply of apples, i.e. plant an orchard, we can store the apples in sealed barrels at the bottom of lakes. They used to do that before refrigeration so that fresh apples were available year round to help fight off scurvy and the like.

Since we're being dropped into a town we can presumably get plenty of seeds from the grocery stores and houses when we scrounge for apples to eat and dry.

Preserving the apples and their seeds is a good idea. It turns out, though, that Nantucket has established orchards, even if they are small ones. Oldest House, the oldest house on Nantucket, one of the sites maintained by the island's Historical Association, is maintained with a fully stocked kitchen garden from the 1700s, with herbs, vegetables and a small orchard of old apple varieties. I've also found references to private apple orchards at other locations.

Given the fact that we're not going to be simply throwing out the various lidded glass jars we empty out, apple sauce, apple jellies, and even jars of sterilized apple juice should be a good option.

And then there's sauerkraut...

[Patrick Ogaard]

It turns out that there is, in addition to a fair number of smaller wind power units and photovoltaic systems throughout the island, a 500 kW wind turbine recently installed on Bartlett Farm.

[Darth Wong]

It turns out that there is, in addition to a fair number of smaller wind power units and photovoltaic systems throughout the island, a 500 kW wind turbine recently installed on Bartlett Farm.

Now that's convenient. Mind you, you're not actually going to get 500 kW out of it under typical conditions. But still, it's a potentially huge amount of power for a community that's strictly rationing. Mind you, we'd have to reconfigure an electrical grid to distribute this power. There's some serious potential for people to get killed if they don't know what they're doing.

[Solauren]

Reworking a power grid is extremely dangerous work.

Do we have anyone on the board that has electrical experience of that level?

[LadyTevar]

It turns out that there is, in addition to a fair number of smaller wind power units and photovoltaic systems throughout the island, a 500 kW wind turbine recently installed on Bartlett Farm.

Now that's convenient. Mind you, you're not actually going to get 500 kW out of it under typical conditions. But still, it's a potentially huge amount of power for a community that's strictly rationing. Mind you, we'd have to reconfigure an electrical grid to distribute this power. There's some serious potential for people to get killed if they don't know what they're doing.

We keep getting luckier and luckier...

I think I see now why the author chose Nantucket in the first place.

[Darth Wong]

Reworking a power grid is extremely dangerous work.

Indeed. High-voltage lines can be very bad mojo.

Do we have anyone on the board that has electrical experience of that level?

I know I don't. We would always just tell the sparkies to do it. However, we do have a few sparkies on the board, IIRC.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Reworking a power grid is extremely dangerous work.

Indeed. High-voltage lines can be very bad mojo.

Do we have anyone on the board that has electrical experience of that level?

I know I don't. We would always just tell the sparkies to do it. However, we do have a few sparkies on the board, IIRC.

Will we have the capacity to maintain these, and the grid, over the long term?

[Darth Wong]

Will we have the capacity to maintain these, and the grid, over the long term?

Perhaps, if we cannibalize. But these components do wear out and fail over time; that's a serious concern, and we won't be able to replicate them. That's another reason to leave most of the power grid dormant, and restrict ourselves to small-scale operations.

Let's face it, that windmill will break down sooner or later too, and we will have absolutely no assurances of being able to maintain it. Any power grid would have to be small, and probably offer seriously inferior performance to a modern system. We would definitely avoid spreading power out over a large geographic area.

[Coyote]

Probably concentrate power at... the hospital, perhaps.

[Darth Wong]

Probably concentrate power at... the hospital, perhaps.

Or use early 20th century methods, and place critical facilities right next to generation facilities, thus solving the problem of transmission distance by simply getting rid of the distance.

[Academia Nut]

I can see any power grid we do establish being for things like powering up pumps so that everyone can get clean water from the aquifiers easily, maybe a few other big ticket items necessary for public health. I can't really think of anything else that might actually require even a fraction of that output that couldn't be run off wood gassifiers or the like. People getting enough juice for personal lighting is pretty much out of the question.

Of course, for moving things, we can't really move the windmill or any item that would actually need the output from the windmill. For that windmill, is it already tied into the local grid in any way, because exploiting existing infrastructure would be pretty much the only way we could get much use out of the damn thing. The guys trying to work with it would probably all fry themselves if they had to even rewire the local grid in any way other than shutting off already existing lines. And even then...

[Knife]

Well, to be fair, and for a medium to long term goal, we should probably plan a community custom build with recycled material at a specific location. Whether that is next to a windmill or a water plant, I'll leave to others. Sure, hospital or highschool works for the first couple years if not decade, but we would need to downscale and optimize what we do have. Deconstruction crews for houses has already been brought up, might as well use those materials to make a town to our needs with all the common sense, down to earth, easy to maintain technology we can build into them.

[Patrick Ogaard]

The farm is a major power consumer on the island, and should be adjacent to another working farm, so the windmill is right where it can do some good. The actual power output (as opposed to the rated output) of the windmill can be found at:
http://www.solrenview.com/cgi-bin/CGIha ... site_ID=74

Given the fact that most of the cars on the island are going to be more valuable as sources of spare parts, fuel and lubricants than as transport, it might be a good idea to consider using the various otherwise unused parts to fabricate additional wind power units. A large supply of car batteries, axles, drum brake rotors, gearing systems and alternators should allow mechanically inclined board members to fabricate working power generating systems. The cars would also provide a supply of 12V lighting systems, to supplement scavenged low voltage accent and garden lighting. Better a frankensteined dome light at the bedside than a candle, or some oil-burning contraption.

A longer-term source of fuel for a small steam plant might be a digester gas system, along with the capture of landfill gas from the old, capped landfill on the island. A digester system, using concrete as the primary building material, should be within the board‘s capabilities. Worst case, the resulting gas is vented and directly torched to heat water. It would also be a neat way to get rid of organic wastes. A similar system might be possible with the existing landfill.

The island has a composting and waste processing facility, with a composting digester, so some of the necessary hardware would already be available.
http://www.wasteoptions.com/nantucket.htm
The compost itself would be useful for farming purposes, especially if polyethylene sheeting and construction materials are used to produce numbers of improvised greenhouses, in which case raised planting beds would benefit from the compost.

[Coyote]

Isn't there a way to burn the methane in animal poop? Or would it be better to use the poop for farm fertilizer or burn it (phew!) to run a steam boiler or something? (shades of Mad Max...)

We want to be careful with what we do with all the poop, since too much will endanger our water supply and we don't really want to just dump it in the sea.

EDIT- Ahhh, this is what Patrick Ogaard just said, about the digester system.

[PeZook]

Dried bison dung was actually used for fire by great plains indians. So, uh, yeah. You can use poop for power

[Patrick Ogaard]

Another idea for longer-term power generation, nutrition and cordage production is to have foragers keep an eye out for hemp plants. The island's law enforcement does sweeps to eradicate illegal plantings, so it's likely that there are still some plants out there.

Aside from its illicit uses, it has much more important uses for the board. One is the production of cordage, since the high tech synthetic ropes will run out soon enough, and hemp rope will have to substitute soon enough. The fibers that can be processed into rope can also be processed into a coarse but durable fabric, such as for sails or sacking, or into extremely durable paper. It's just going to take experimentation to redevelop the techniques. Also, the seeds are edible, and can be pressed to yield an oil that could be used as feedstock for biodiesel. That could, after a likely ramp-up period of several years, yield enough biodiesel to stretch existing diesel fuel stocks and eventually replace them, at least for the smaller boats and smaller diesel-powered generators.

Another plant to look out for is common flax (Linum usitatissimum), since crops of flax would, eventually and with a good bit of work, provide linseed oil and linen. Linen as twine, rope, fabric or sailcloth would be a good thing to have a steady supply of, and linseed oil has plenty of uses.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yeah, that was one thing that was scaring me. I may be confident about our ability (after years of rigorous training) to handle the Eagle anywhere in the world, and the hull will probably last for another 70 years with good maintenance, but the rigging and sails will need constant maintenance. I mean, it's pretty damn normal if you get slammed into by a severe storm to lose a couple sails, even if it was the mark of a good captain to avoid it, and we need multiple sets for different conditions.

One thing I'd like to look into, seeing as we have a screw and shaft and so on already, is that if we can't produce enough diesel-equivalent fuel for the Eagle then maybe we can fabricate a steam engine to drop in place of the diesel. But it would be a hell of a lot easier to just keep the diesel, so fuel production would be nice. It's having the auxiliary engine for extreme weather situations which really makes long distance sailing 'safe' in the context of the scenario.

[Patrick Ogaard]

If the immediate survival of the colony is assured, and the tall ship can be operated safely and reliably, then it might actually be a good idea to go on an expedition to stake claim to various islands and archipelagoes in the Atlantic. The Azores, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha, Saint Helena, Iceland, all should be empty of humans. That means that they could be used as secure havens, though with some safeguards against completely screwing up their ecosystems. Some disturbance is going to be inevitable, though, and it might as well be us doing the disturbing.

Taking along the important crops, such as flax, hemp, and perhaps a few grape vines for the Azores, observation stations could be established on the islands, each staffed with a small crew that will stay in touch over radio and work on converting portions of the islands into flax or hemp plantations, or vineyards. In addition, they would be busy tending their own gardens, fishing, building better housing than the prefab shelters they'd be left with, and exploiting local resources, such as they may be. Iceland might be worth a larger garrison.

At the time, 1250 BC, the Phoenicians may still have three centuries or so to go before they hit Gibraltar, so a garrison and trading post on Gibraltar might be another good idea. That could eventually provide access to the Balearic islands and their olive trees. And then there's the proximity to Portugal, with its cork oaks, and all the other commodities one could extract from Europe. Hops would be nice, for one thing, for sustained beer production. The question would then become one of trade goods, but delicacies like regular vodka, cranberry-flavored vodka, maple brandy, and cranberries preserved in vodka should be effective and compact (and flammable) trade goods.

In return, we could certainly use grains, olives and their oil, sulfur, cinnabar, and metal ingots. Also, the Greeks and Romans, and possibly the Phoenicians as well, customarily exposed unwanted infants, especially female infants, so in addition to the occasional slave offered in trade, how about shipping a boatload of unwanted infants to Nantucket? Those that survive would be adopted and raised as full citizens, and given as much education as we can give them. Slightly older slaves would go through the same procedure, right through to high school graduation. Slaves too old to be fully assimilated into our mad version of modern culture could be freed and given small land grants and set up as farmers and artisans near where they were acquired, with the offer of as much education as we can give them and they can assimilate. A corps of askari might also be a good idea, in order to provide troops in numbers the New Nantucket population can't. Armored troops armed with crossbows or, if our industry allows, single shot rifled muzzleloaders or breechloaders, should be able to beat their own number of period infantry, especially if they deploy in two or three lines and use coordinated volley fire.

[Academia Nut]

At the time, 1250 BC, the Phoenicians may still have three centuries or so to go before they hit Gibraltar, so a garrison and trading post on Gibraltar might be another good idea. That could eventually provide access to the Balearic islands and their olive trees. And then there's the proximity to Portugal, with its cork oaks, and all the other commodities one could extract from Europe.

The Phoenicians have yet to reach Gibraltar by 1250BC, but that is quite possibly because there was already a civilization there. While the details were likely fictional, SM Stirling did bring this up in that there were people living in Iberia, in the city of Tartessos. Since this is just before the dawn of the Iron Age in Europe, that means that Gibraltar is likely an important trade area because tin was still in large demand, and one of the big sources of tin for the Mediterranean at the time was Cornwall in Britian, and had been for centuries. Of course, we could probably accidentally produce a short term crash of the local economy simply by introducing steel tools at a time when iron was still worth more than gold because of the difficulty of working it.

In return, we could certainly use grains, olives and their oil, sulfur, cinnabar, and metal ingots. Also, the Greeks and Romans, and possibly the Phoenicians as well, customarily exposed unwanted infants, especially female infants, so in addition to the occasional slave offered in trade, how about shipping a boatload of unwanted infants to Nantucket?

There are no Romans at this time, and the Greeks aren't the Greeks that we would think of them. These are still the Bronze Age Greeks, before the invasion by barbarians from the north and the collapse of the tin trade. The infamous Spartans are haven't arisen yet, and the culture is Mycenaean rather than Classical. Not that I'm arguing that we couldn't get unwanted children easily from cultures that expose them, its just that the Classical World that most people think of with regards to antiquity is still nearly a thousand years off. The Egyptians are still in their heyday and probably amongst the most powerful civilizations at the time.

All of that said, I'm mostly just quibbling with details. I still support the idea of trade with the greater world. Aside from our own goods, we can bring Olmec goods to the Mediterranean and vice versa, and once we start building our own oceanic ships in a generation or two, we could also round the Cape of Good Hope to bypass Arabia to get to India. Our soldiers will also have a major advantage in not just material quality of weaponry and armour, but because this would still be the age of warriors and effective discipline would still be a foreign concept to the armed forces of this time.

[Patrick Ogaard]

The Phoenicians have yet to reach Gibraltar by 1250BC, but that is quite possibly because there was already a civilization there. While the details were likely fictional, SM Stirling did bring this up in that there were people living in Iberia, in the city of Tartessos. Since this is just before the dawn of the Iron Age in Europe, that means that Gibraltar is likely an important trade area because tin was still in large demand, and one of the big sources of tin for the Mediterranean at the time was Cornwall in Britian, and had been for centuries. Of course, we could probably accidentally produce a short term crash of the local economy simply by introducing steel tools at a time when iron was still worth more than gold because of the difficulty of working it.

There are no Romans at this time, and the Greeks aren't the Greeks that we would think of them. These are still the Bronze Age Greeks, before the invasion by barbarians from the north and the collapse of the tin trade. The infamous Spartans are haven't arisen yet, and the culture is Mycenaean rather than Classical. Not that I'm arguing that we couldn't get unwanted children easily from cultures that expose them, its just that the Classical World that most people think of with regards to antiquity is still nearly a thousand years off. The Egyptians are still in their heyday and probably amongst the most powerful civilizations at the time.

All of that said, I'm mostly just quibbling with details. I still support the idea of trade with the greater world. Aside from our own goods, we can bring Olmec goods to the Mediterranean and vice versa, and once we start building our own oceanic ships in a generation or two, we could also round the Cape of Good Hope to bypass Arabia to get to India. Our soldiers will also have a major advantage in not just material quality of weaponry and armour, but because this would still be the age of warriors and effective discipline would still be a foreign concept to the armed forces of this time.

I should have written more carefully, since now it looks like backpedalling and ignorance on my part: the cultural pattern of population control by means of exposure of infants, especially female infants, was almost certainly established centuries before the actual, recognizable Greeks and Romans of sword-and-sandal fame hit the stage. I shouldn't post just before turning in for the night, I guess.

The idea of Gibraltar is, in part, to secure unrestricted access to the Mediterranean, and it's far enough from the real centers of power, such as Egypt, that raids and military expeditions against us should be sharply limited in scope. The Egyptians would also be a potentially less suitable source for infants and for slaves to be freed and recruited, since I believe they may have already had a tradition of wall-to-wall genital mutilation going at the time, and the Egyptians were noted, albeit a thousand-odd years later, as being unusual because they did not routinely expose their offspring. Their habit of taking the genitals of defeated enemies as trophies also fails to fill me with warm fuzzy feelings. Of course, having to evict or recruit whatever local population Gibraltar may already have is another thorny issue.

To expand on my idea of bases in or near Europe, I figure the best idea would be to have well-fortified coastal enclaves at appropriate spots. A trading enclave on the Cornish coast would be one option, and places like Mont Saint-Michel and the Channel Islands might be additional choices. The fjords of Norway could also provide secure places of refuge, since many of the areas would be practically unreachable except by boat in that period.

In the Americas, one big item to put on the wish list is latex. Combine with sulfur and heat and multiple false starts and the resources of a high school chemistry lab, and we might be able to eventually manufacture rubber seals, gaskets, o-rings etc. in time to replace those that will inevitably be wearing out. The simplest route would probably be to establish a string of fortified trading posts in likely areas, and then try to get the locals to trade latex from the interior for what we can give them. Knife blades, spear and axe heads of bronze or iron should do nicely as trade goods there. Farther south, a fortified settlement in the pampa might work out, especially for farming and flocks of sheep.

Which brings up another important plant to look out for and to trade for: opium poppies. The hospital will need something to replace the used up or expired pain medications, after all, and willow and birch bark teas aren't going to cut it when Mr. Friendly Guy is sawing through some poor shmoe's mangled leg.

[Crayz9000]

Regarding latex, we may not have to venture into the Amazon jungle to obtain it. Guayule grows in the American Southwest and northern parts of Mexico and the shrubs can be crushed to extract latex. It also has the added benefit of not containing the allergens present in normal rubber tree (Havea) latex. However, it produces a lower yield -- but traveling roughly 2,000 miles might be easier than ~4,000 (especially when you have to deal with jungles and the issues associated with them).

[Academia Nut]

Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that there weren't cultures that dealt with excess population via exposure of infants, just that we're so far back in time that many of the cultures we think we are familiar with culturally simply don't exist yet. And there are many most of us wouldn't have heard of that exist and have yet to disappear, such as the guys who have no doubt turned Gibraltar into their own New Orleans.

As for where to set up our bases, it should be pointed out that any ship worthy of blue water sailing is basically a space ship for these people. Navigation during this time is still mostly 'Keep the shore on your left going out, and on your right going home'. Venturing out past the sight of the shore is only done if you know that there is a short route where you can orient using the sun and you can reach another shore within a day. Unless of course we want to go for the Indian or Pacific Oceans and the skilled navigators there, but that's a rather long trip. Anyway, the point is that with our ship we can literally set down in places the locals won't have even heard of even if they are practically on their doorstep.

For trading with Egypt, getting excess population probably won't be that successful because the output of their farmland is such that they don't worry about having too many mouths to feed. That's the primary reason the Greeks and Romans practiced infant exposure: their farmland wasn't productive enough to support large families. The Egyptians on the other hand could get in three harvests in a good year and had a climate that meant that clothing was optional a lot of the time. Egypt was repeatedly fought over in the Classical period simply because its economic output was so great that it was the prize of the Mediterranean. And that was with the use of farming methods that were outdated by the Hellenistic era.