October/November Lite Challange Entry: Post-Boson

[jbgibson]

You say "how could some later arrival from distant stars know details of the planet's implosion?" Sad story, that. You see, the last Earthlings were not those secreted in some underground hideaway, consumed finally by the crumbling crust and spastic magma. No, the last Earthlings were the six who were on something called the International Space Station. See, a typical boson-started planetary implosion doesn't attain sufficient gravitational pull to grow much beyond its original planetary mass. Rather, the original planet just shrinks down to an infinitesimal point, still bound by the laws of celestial mechanics. Terra's singularity continued to orbit its star; indeed it still does. This primitive orbital facility the Earthlings had put up continued to circle the tiny hole in space long after its few denizens had expired. The recordings they had made showed us the progress of the implosion - a seldom-recorded event, since its cause usually wipes out the people who cause it. They likewise recorded the extinction of the human species some eleven months later. Four of the six chose their own death, stepping out the station's airlock. The final two, as their last writings testify, succumbed to a failing air factory - fixable, but to what end? At most they could have recycled air and water until their limited food ran out. For this was not a self-sufficient orbital colony, but a mere foothold. A shame really - according to material translated from the long-cold station, this human people were on the verge of stepping out to colonize a neighboring world. That further-out orb would have been a harsh home, but you can bet it would NOT have harbored high-mass physics experimentation!

[jbgibson]

What do I mean "antipodal point of emergence?" Well, the original microsingularity was created having a significant downward velocity. Unstoppable as it was by the planet's rock and iron, it punched not one, but several holes as it oscillated about the center of Earth's mass. Really, the first few were pretty insignificant, sized at a mere few billion protons' accumulation. It was perhaps the sixth or eighth oscillation that finally rooted out a big enough hole to start the geologic activity that resulted days later in a crumbling planet. And yes, I know the planet was rotating all the while - it just so happened the big-enough-for-lava-vent "orbit" had precessed back around close to the start point.

I suppose in a bow to real physics, I should calculate how long that would take. If such a singularity were quietly placed at earth's center it would take a while to cause big trouble - material might collapse in at a rate moderated by the stiffness and structure of the metal. Hmm - liquid core, but exposed to low pressure of an expanding cavity.... just don't know how that would play out. I just assert it would end badly, so there's my catastrophe scenario. Not as final as RDan's I admit, but slightly more personal, given it "could" happen in human-scale time.

[jbgibson]

Btw, I had been dissatisfied with my results at trying to make earthlike continents from scratch. SO I took one of the NASA blue marble views where they subtracted the clouds (by day 3.5 most of the atmosphere has drained down the boson hole, so no clouds). I generated a bunch of ragged randomness with whacko vertical exaggeration, stuck it beneath the blue marble layer, and faded out the surface under oceans to get a bit of bare mud ocean bottom. A bit of warping to sink in Rutgers, and thar she goes.

Ten geek points to the discoverer of the pun/ cultural reference.

[Lukc]

I can't find it ... unless you meant 3.5 and D&D or thar she goes and the typical Moby Dick story.

Anyway, a great background!