Happening Right Now 2015-02-10

[DilyV]

I'm having trouble with a couple of issues...

1. This is Mapimi, right? Silent Zone... no signals can enter or escape Mapimi?

You know...

2. Nuclear meltdown, high radiation field Mapimi?

How is the signal escaping and how much radiation is Atsali and Nadette being exposed to?

current theory is that the crystal complex that Thup caused to be destroyed BY the meltdown had various devices in it to prevent the emission of said emergency beacons... and ANY OTHER electromagnetic fields as well... when the complex was destroyed, that also destroyed those devices, therefore the signals can get thru now. HOWEVER... don't forget that Thup did NOT EXPECT TO BE CAPTURE by a team-up of Bud and Katherine (and the *other* four women from the prophesy)... she/it fully expected to STILL be in control of Brandi, and therefore she/it WOULD have a plan for this eventuality... the reason WE (and the current comic staff) are even AWARE of this signal, is because Thup is NOT there with her plans to prevent it, or to spin the data to something that was even worse. i would imagine that there will be other things like this popping up in the future where plans that Thup made are falling apart because she is no longer there to *correct* things and get them BACK on track... and Brandi isn't even AWARE of those plans to do anything about them even if she wanted to!

i have no explanation for the Radiation, and or apparent LACK of same... then again, they may be getting massive amounts of it right now, as we speak and DON'T KNOW IT!!, that also being one of the reasons that MIB DIDN'T want her going there... at least until they could assess the counts to see if it was safe enough for her to go in under escort...

I brought up the radiation problem because we've lived through one radiation death, here: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/done-here/ I don't want to live through two more (Atsali and Nadette)

[Gyrrakavian]

grammar mixed up it is , in the first pane... Yoda hand he is giving???

"are they moving away?"

Heh!

"are they caused by us moving?"

Prety sure that's grammatically correct. And it looks like the text has been changed anyways.

[Sidhekin]

grammar mixed up it is , in the first pane... Yoda hand he is giving???

"are they moving away?"

Heh!

"are they caused by us moving?"

Prety sure that's grammatically correct. And it looks like the text has been changed anyways.

Before the change, it was "are they from us moving". While I'd argue it was grammatically correct, it was awkward enough that it could easily (and demonstrably) be misread as Yoda-speak.

[Gyrrakavian]

Heh!

"are they caused by us moving?"

Prety sure that's grammatically correct. And it looks like the text has been changed anyways.

Before the change, it was "are they from us moving". While I'd argue it was grammatically correct, it was awkward enough that it could easily (and demonstrably) be misread as Yoda-speak.

Ah. My brain must love comma splicing because it wants to seprerate the "from us" with a pair. Either that or the comma separation is correct. For example: "It was her, Bob's girlfriend, Dot."

[Dave]

I brought up the radiation problem because we've lived through one radiation death, here: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/done-here/ I don't want to live through two more (Atsali and Nadette)

Agreed (that incident was "where I came in" but I can imagine how it must have affected long-term readers).

The risk to Atsali and Nadette would depend on a lot of factors. If they're down below the area of the Mapimi radiation-flare incident, and if there aren't any open passages between these two areas, they they may be fairly safe. A few meters of solid rock is enough to attenuate gamma radiation quite effectively; alpha and beta won't go anywhere near that far.

The big hazard would be if they come into direct contact with fission products, resulting from the actual breakdown of U-235 or a similar fissionable. These (e.g. CS-137, SR-80, etc.) are the dangerous things to contact, as they are often in the form of (or attached to) small particles that can be ingested. They have short half-lives and are thus quite radioactive. Think "fall-out".

[DilyV]

I brought up the radiation problem because we've lived through one radiation death, here: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/done-here/ I don't want to live through two more (Atsali and Nadette)

Agreed (that incident was "where I came in" but I can imagine how it must have affected long-term readers).

The risk to Atsali and Nadette would depend on a lot of factors. If they're down below the area of the Mapimi radiation-flare incident, and if there aren't any open passages between these two areas, they they may be fairly safe. A few meters of solid rock is enough to attenuate gamma radiation quite effectively; alpha and beta won't go anywhere near that far.

The big hazard would be if they come into direct contact with fission products, resulting from the actual breakdown of U-235 or a similar fissionable. These (e.g. CS-137, SR-80, etc.) are the dangerous things to contact, as they are often in the form of (or attached to) small particles that can be ingested. They have short half-lives and are thus quite radioactive. Think "fall-out".

Being former military, I'm quite knowledgeable about radiation and its insidiousness... From what we've been lead to believe this meltdown was centered around a natural deposit of uranium... Now I'm sure that natural uranium deposits are no where near compact enough to achieve critical mass... which leaves one wondering just how advanced the Ethetians were... I mean think about it... we were only able to achieve critical mass by purifying U235 uranium ore into U238 (fissile) and firing one mass into another (Little Boy) and Surrounding a sub critical sphere of U239 (plutonium) with High Explosives and imploding the plutonium into a critical mass (Fat Man). Every other weapon since has had one of those two triggers or variations of them. Not sure just how much rock the detonation would vaporize but gee... those crater fields north of Las Vegas show some pretty big craters... the crater from the Sedan shot being the biggest I think. Were the Ethetians that advanced, did they have help from outside sources, or was the self destruct device emplaced by the Chess Master in more modern times?

[jwhouk]

...Or was it?

It's entirely possible that SDO (aka Nu Gui) lied to the Etheitians about what actually was below that complex.

[AnotherFairportfan]

From what we've been lead to believe this meltdown was centered around a natural deposit of uranium... Now I'm sure that natural uranium deposits are no where near compact enough to achieve critical mass... which leaves one wondering just how advanced the Ethetians were... I mean think about it... we were only able to achieve critical mass by purifying U235 uranium ore into U238 (fissile) and firing one mass into another (Little Boy) and Surrounding a sub critical sphere of U239 (plutonium) with High Explosives and imploding the plutonium into a critical mass (Fat Man). Every other weapon since has had one of those two triggers or variations of them. Not sure just how much rock the detonation would vaporize but gee... those crater fields north of Las Vegas show some pretty big craters... the crater from the Sedan shot being the biggest I think. Were the Ethetians that advanced, did they have help from outside sources, or was the self destruct device emplaced by the Chess Master in more modern times?

Okay - actually, there is one recorded instance of natural uranium deposits going critical.

The thing to remember is that bombs don't just go critical - they go super-critical.

"Critical" is the point at which the Great God K (the ratio of atoms triggered to fission by neutrons emitted by other atoms) reaches 1.0, at which point the reaction is self-sustaining. All fission power reactors are critical - otherwise they wouldn't have a self-sustaining reaction.

From Wikipedia:

The existence of this phenomenon was discovered in 1972 at Oklo in Gabon, Africa, by French physicist Francis Perrin. The conditions under which a natural nuclear reactor could exist had been predicted in 1956 by Paul Kazuo Kuroda. The conditions found were very similar to what was predicted.

Oklo is the only known location for this in the world and consists of 16 sites at which self-sustaining nuclear fission reactions took place approximately 1.7 billion years ago, and ran for a few hundred thousand years, averaging 100 kW of thermal power during that time.

{snip}

The natural nuclear reactor formed when a uranium-rich mineral deposit became inundated with groundwater that acted as a neutron moderator, and a nuclear chain reaction took place. The heat generated from the nuclear fission caused the groundwater to boil away, which slowed or stopped the reaction. After cooling of the mineral deposit, the water returned and the reaction started again. These fission reactions were sustained for hundreds of thousands of years, until a chain reaction could no longer be supported.

Fission of uranium normally produces five known isotopes of the fission-product gas xenon; all five have been found trapped in the remnants of the natural reactor, in varying concentrations. The concentrations of xenon isotopes, found trapped in mineral formations 2 billion years later, make it possible to calculate the specific time intervals of reactor operation: approximately 30 minutes of criticality followed by 2 hours and 30 minutes of cooling down to complete a 3-hour cycle.

A key factor that made the reaction possible was that, at the time the reactor went critical 1.7 billion years ago, the fissile isotope U-235 made up about 3.1% of the natural uranium, which is comparable to
the amount used in some of today's reactors. (The remaining 97% was non-fissile U-238.) Because U-235 has a shorter half life than U-238, and thus decays more rapidly, the current abundance of U-235 in natural uranium is about 0.7%. A natural nuclear reactor is therefore no longer possible on Earth without heavy water or graphite.

The Oklo uranium ore deposits are the only known sites in which natural nuclear reactors existed. Other rich uranium ore bodies would also have had sufficient uranium to support nuclear reactions at that time, but the combination of uranium, water and physical conditions needed to support the chain reaction was unique to the Oklo ore bodies.

Another factor which probably contributed to the start of the Oklo natural nuclear reactor at 2 billion years, rather than earlier, was the increasing oxygen content in the Earth's atmosphere. Uranium is naturally present in the rocks of the earth, and the abundance of fissile U-235 was at least 3% or higher at all times prior to reactor startup. Uranium is soluble in water only in the presence of oxygen.
Therefore, the rising oxygen levels during the aging of the Earth may have allowed uranium to be dissolved and transported with groundwater to places where a high enough concentration could accumulate to form rich uranium ore bodies. Without the new aerobic environment available on Earth at the time, these concentrations probably could not have taken place.

It is estimated that nuclear reactions in the uranium in centimeter- to meter-sized veins consumed about five tons of U-235 and elevated temperatures to a few hundred degrees Celsius.Most of the non-
volatile fission products and actinides have only moved centimeters in the veins during the last 2 billion years. Studies have suggested this as a useful natural analogue for nuclear waste disposal.

So, no - these days it can't happen, because the U-235 occurs in too small a percentage of total uranium in existence.

OTOH, i could postulate some form of magical enrichment due to an unanticipated side effect of the Ethieatans' careless application of bafflegab to a naturally-occuring alloy of unobtanium and bolonium...

[DilyV]

Or Salamium? LOL

[zachariah]

Being former military, I'm quite knowledgeable about radiation and its insidiousness... From what we've been lead to believe this meltdown was centered around a natural deposit of uranium... Now I'm sure that natural uranium deposits are no where near compact enough to achieve critical mass... which leaves one wondering just how advanced the Ethetians were... I mean think about it... we were only able to achieve critical mass by purifying U235 uranium ore into U238 (fissile) and firing one mass into another (Little Boy) and Surrounding a sub critical sphere of U239 (plutonium) with High Explosives and imploding the plutonium into a critical mass (Fat Man). Every other weapon since has had one of those two triggers or variations of them. Not sure just how much rock the detonation would vaporize but gee... those crater fields north of Las Vegas show some pretty big craters... the crater from the Sedan shot being the biggest I think. Were the Ethetians that advanced, did they have help from outside sources, or was the self destruct device emplaced by the Chess Master in more modern times?

It is more likely extreme compression. If Bud can compress a Styrofoam cup into a diamond with her hands why can't they have had fields that could match, or exceed that compression. Even U235 under that can hit a fission point. Under enough compression a reaction can occur, be it fission, or fusion. One thing not shown with Bud is there must be significant heat involved in making her diamonds. The pressure and the heat can start the reaction. The explosive trigger in the bomb is to create the sub-critial mass by compressing two masses together under extreme pressure. So I think it is only a matter of scale as to what is compressed. Water if compressed enough to push atoms together could reach fusion. A trigger could simply be a very strong golem, with very big hands full of tons of uranium waiting for the command to make what it is holding into a very small diamond.

[Warrl]

Now I'm sure that natural uranium deposits are no where near compact enough to achieve critical mass...

Not necessarily true... although the known instances predate the Ethetians somewhat...

Also, the CANDU reactor design can operate off ordinary unenriched uranium, although it does require heavy water to do so.

[Dave]

Seems to me that interesting things might be done with a natural mix of uranium (a little bit of fissile U-235, and mostly "fertile" U-238) if it were possible to "reflect" neutrons and gammas efficiently. One might be able to increase the rate of spontaneous fission, and utilize the energy which normally escapes via gamma rays to further destabilize some of the nuclei...

... and we know, from what was seen of the Artifact, that somebody knows how to mirror gamma rays, and that this particular tech might well have been Lanthian.

So, it seems entirely plausable to me, in-story, that the Mapimi "eruption" involved somebody giving some sort of technological assistance to a natural ore deposit. If so, no telling what the radioactive byproducts might or might not have been.

Ever hear about metastable nuclear isomers? I hadn't until fairly recently. Quite fascinating! They can sit around quietly for months or years, and then release a whole lot of energy from the nucleus (in the form of gamma rays) without changing from one element to another (unlike fission and unlike alpha- or beta-particle radioactive decay).

[DilyV]

Seems to me that interesting things might be done with a natural mix of uranium (a little bit of fissile U-235, and mostly "fertile" U-238) if it were possible to "reflect" neutrons and gammas efficiently. One might be able to increase the rate of spontaneous fission, and utilize the energy which normally escapes via gamma rays to further destabilize some of the nuclei...

... and we know, from what was seen of the Artifact, that somebody knows how to mirror gamma rays, and that this particular tech might well have been Lanthian.

So, it seems entirely plausable to me, in-story, that the Mapimi "eruption" involved somebody giving some sort of technological assistance to a natural ore deposit. If so, no telling what the radioactive byproducts might or might not have been.

Ever hear about metastable nuclear isomers? I hadn't until fairly recently. Quite fascinating! They can sit around quietly for months or years, and then release a whole lot of energy from the nucleus (in the form of gamma rays) without changing from one element to another (unlike fission and unlike alpha- or beta-particle radioactive decay).

You learn something new every day... I had never heard of natural nuclear reactors... I knew that U-235 had to be enriched to be usable as fissile material and it stood to reason that known deposits couldn't have achieved critical mass or we'd have a rather large radiation problem if life existed at all under those conditions. As has been stated before, there are instances where scientists working with radioactive materials have caused a critical mass by having too much too close together. Here is a listing of criticality accidents from 1945 through 1968L http://www.abomb1.org/accident/critical.html

There was one I remember reading about that happened during the 1944-45 time frame where a scientist was working with materials and had a prompt criticality. He scattered the materials after the blue glow flash and the criticality ceased. He reportedly died a few days later. I'm thinking it was the two demon core incidents (the same core element was used in both accidents resulting in the loss of the lives of Harry Daghlian (aug 45) and Louis Slotin (may 46). Daghlian survived for 25 days before dying and Slotin lasted only 9 days.

[scantrontb]

I brought up the radiation problem because we've lived through one radiation death, here: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/done-here/ I don't want to live through two more (Atsali and Nadette)

no, no.. it's quite alright, i was just saying that i don't have an explanation either way... but in the intervening day, i had a thought ... do "We" put high energy power supplies of whatever type (IE, nuclear reactor, and coal plants) RIGHT NEXT TO the places that are going to be USING that power?? no, no we don't*, they are placed in remote, to marginally out-of-the-way, places in order to minimize after effects of any potential accidents, as well as to provide security... thus my epiphany... wouldn't the Ethitians have done the same? What if the crystal storage area (and the resulting high-rad area**) was located well AWAY from where the girls are right now?... we have no way of knowing WHERE they ACTUALLY are... last time Atsali was "here" they came in via Anasazi Stargate, and OUT via Bud... this time they Vorped in via the Library portal system, and WE, nor do they, REALLY "KNOW" where they are, just where they THINK they are......

ps: * I'm ignoring Nuclear aircraft carriers as they are MOBILE... land bound nuke plants are not...

** again... we only THINK it's in a high rad area... but what if the explosion was only "conventional" explosives tricked up to FAKE a "natural nuke plant going kabluie" like SDO TOLD the army guys... remember, Nu Gui's are a very manipulative, capable of lying thru their teeth, type of entity so i wouldn't put it past SDO to have planted "ordinary" bombs in order to keep the REST of the Mapimi base more or less intact, in order to further her plans whatever they may have been... we're only finding out about it because Thup is no longer here to prevent it

[jwhouk]

Of course, there's the thought that whatever energy it was was "dispersed" by Acacia.

It's possible the site where they are is safe, but the upstairs area - where the Stargate "led" Atsali and Kath - is quite destroyed and uninhabitable.

[DilyV]

I brought up the radiation problem because we've lived through one radiation death, here: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/done-here/ I don't want to live through two more (Atsali and Nadette)

no, no.. it's quite alright, i was just saying that i don't have an explanation either way... but in the intervening day, i had a thought ... do "We" put high energy power supplies of whatever type (IE, nuclear reactor, and coal plants) RIGHT NEXT TO the places that are going to be USING that power?? no, no we don't*, they are placed in remote, to marginally out-of-the-way, places in order to minimize after effects of any potential accidents, as well as to provide security... thus my epiphany... wouldn't the Ethitians have done the same? What if the crystal storage area (and the resulting high-rad area**) was located well AWAY from where the girls are right now?... we have no way of knowing WHERE they ACTUALLY are... last time Atsali was "here" they came in via Anasazi Stargate, and OUT via Bud... this time they Vorped in via the Library portal system, and WE, nor do they, REALLY "KNOW" where they are, just where they THINK they are......

ps: * I'm ignoring Nuclear aircraft carriers as they are MOBILE... land bound nuke plants are not...

** again... we only THINK it's in a high rad area... but what if the explosion was only "conventional" explosives tricked up to FAKE a "natural nuke plant going kabluie" like SDO TOLD the army guys... remember, Nu Gui's are a very manipulative, capable of lying thru their teeth, type of entity so i wouldn't put it past SDO to have planted "ordinary" bombs in order to keep the REST of the Mapimi base more or less intact, in order to further her plans whatever they may have been... we're only finding out about it because Thup is no longer here to prevent it

I don't think this was a power source... I thought the source was a naturally occurring deposit that was forced into super-criticality as a self destruct device.

EDIT: Okay I went back and found this: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/self-destruct-device/

It would seem that the Ethetians were much MUCH more advanced than anyone gave them credit for. The compact Uranium deposit was indeed a power source... but it still doesn't explain why the Ehtetians themselves weren't irradiated out of existence... You're looking at an ancient civilization. It took man until 1942 to figure out how to create a sustainable nuclear reaction (Squash court at the University of Chicago I believe was the first "reactor" though it was nothing like what is in use today see here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/en ... p42fe.html ) and 1944 to figure out how to use the atom for a weapon. I suppose it is important to remember that the first sustained chain reaction was conducted in what was referred to as an "atomic pile". For good reason. The first "reactor" was nothing more than a pile of graphite bricks with cadmium rods to temper the chain reaction.

[Sgt. Howard]

Totally different tack here- 'Sali has 'refocused' Nadette by looking into her eyes- always dangerous ground here. Let's play with that....

Scene goes in and out of focus, but in refocus Nadette is in full bear form. In a slow, smoky, sultry voice she starts off with
"Im... age... in... me and you... (she kisses the tip of 'Sali's nose, 'Sali blinks and does a small flinch from this) "
Nadette's tone turns low and confessional- "I do"
she goes back to a capella rendition, slow and smoldering-
"I dream about you day and night- it's only right, to dream about the girl you love, who holds you tight- so happy together...
(drums kick in with a slightly faster tempo, heavy-duty, industrial 'bump and grind'- bass drops in suite)
"I ought to call you up- invest a dime- hear you say you belong to me, and ease my mind, imagine how the world would feel, so very fine- so happy together...
(full band with brass- Nadette starts belting like Janis Joplin)
"I can't see me lovin' nobody but you for all my life- Baby when you're with me the skies will be blue, for all my life..."
('Sali joins in, harmonic fifths soprano)
"Me and you, and you and me- no matter how they tossed the dice, it had to be... the only one for me was you, an you for me- so happy together,
(SPLIT)
Nadette; "I ought to call you up, invest a dime, hear you say you belong to me, and ease my mind, imagine how the world would feel, so very fine, so happy together
'Sali :.................."spend.......a.........dime...........................ease.......my..............mind.......................ver-...............y............fine so happy together"
Nadette: So happy together.........so happy together...........so happy together............we're happy together....
'Sali:........................... I love you....................I want you.....................I need you
(fade out-fade in focus-return to scene as it was before interlude... Nadette is zeroing in on 'Sali's lips again. 'Sali has a moment of impatience register on her face and gives Nadette a nose flick. Nadette gives a quick yelp)
Sali- "You dweeb! C'mon, we have stuff to do..."

[AnotherFairportfan]

"I dream about you day and night- it's only right, to dream about the girl you love, who holds you tight- so happy together..

I point out that that is actually a song about a guy who's been friend-zoned trying to convince himself otherwise - according to the guys who wrote it:

Despite what the title implies, this is not a song about a couple in love. According to Gary Bonner, who wrote the song with Alan Gordon, the song is about unrequited love. Our desperate singer wants the girl to "Imagine how the world could be so very fine," proposing what would happen "If I should call you up." The line in the fadeout, "How is the weather?" is when he realizes they will never be more than passing acquaintances, and he resorts to small talk to keep from bursting into tears.

========
The original line is "...and hold her tight..."

(...and i found an online collection that contains sixty-plus versions of the song...)

[Sgt. Howard]

"I dream about you day and night- it's only right, to dream about the girl you love, who holds you tight- so happy together..

I point out that that is actually a song about a guy who's been friend-zoned trying to convince himself otherwise - according to the guys who wrote it:

Despite what the title implies, this is not a song about a couple in love. According to Gary Bonner, who wrote the song with Alan Gordon, the song is about unrequited love. Our desperate singer wants the girl to "Imagine how the world could be so very fine," proposing what would happen "If I should call you up." The line in the fadeout, "How is the weather?" is when he realizes they will never be more than passing acquaintances, and he resorts to small talk to keep from bursting into tears.

========
The original line is "...and hold her tight..."

(...and i found an online collection that contains sixty-plus versions of the song...)

... and I am presenting the interlude as something that happens in Nadette's head while she is gazing into 'Sali's eyes (fade out/fade in), so THAT only works out perfectly. The final fade in/fade out is where she comes back to reality and Atsali wants to get things moving. RE "... and hold her tight..."- yea, it's been a few decades and I got lazy and shot from the hip rather than look it up.
... unrequited love? Really never knew that... back when it came out, we though it was a cool love song and I have crooned it to many girls about Atali's age with excellent results... of course, I was the same age myself back then. It was in fact one of many songs of that era that I dedicated time to on guitar, and the way girls responded inspired me to master guitar.

[jwhouk]

Unrequited love. Millions of stories have had successful runs with that trope.

Right, Charlie Brown?