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Friday, July 9, 2010

The Still Earth


This seems perfect for Mutant Future/Gamma World DMs. What would happen if the Earth stopped rotating? Check out this great article. It lays out the process, explains the year long nights that would result, and gives some nice maps.

Megacontinent!

Via Metafilter.

3 comments:

  1. Cool idea! I've often thought about an "equatorial world" similar to this, where only a small strip of land along the equator is habitable, with the rest of the planet being underwater, desert, or filed with toxic storms.

    Also, it's funny you found this on Metafilter. I had never heard of the site before today, but this morning my Cyclopeatron post on Fantasy Van Art popped up there and I've been getting thousands (!) of hits.

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  2. Oh, dude, I was going to mention that to you. Congrats, Metafilter pulls almost 7 million page views a month. Its a big site.

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  3. There was a documentary entitled "Aftermath" with a similar premise (the rotation of the Earth grinds to a halt over ten years) on NatGeo recently.

    The oceans and atmosphere flowed away to the poles; most plants and animals died off; humans tried to migrate to the (newly uncovered) depths of the Pacific to farm mud.

    Bleak as all hell, but it definitely passed the 'QI' test.

    Tidal locked rotation (an eternal day/twilight/night at point X) vs. one planetary rotation/year (Earth spinning only in time with its orbit, resulting in a year-long day) would produce wildly different outcomes. The doc wrongfooted me by going for the latter.

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