03-19-2016, 12:19 AM
(03-18-2016, 08:39 PM)YDH Wrote:(03-18-2016, 07:51 PM)RobinhoodtheFletchling Wrote: The thing with fire is that it does require oxygen specifically, it requires an oxidizer. Theoretically they could use something like chlorine or maybe even fluorine as an oxidizer. Maybe using some sort of process to remove chlorine from salt. Then to pump it into an airtight chamber full of flammable material and to have a crucible directly above that. One should be capable of looking up a list of oxidizers and go from there. Keep up the good work.Hmm, I didn't know that. See, now we're getting deeper into molecular chemistry than my knowledge reaches.
What I do know about oxidizers is they don't stick around for very long. They are by nature very reactive (which is why they burn), so any free oxidizers quickly react with other things to form more stable molecules. The only reason we have so much free oxygen in our atmosphere is because plants are constantly pumping it out when they respirate. That's also why astronomers look for oxygen on exoplanets--if there's a lot of free oxygen, there's something alive on the planet producing it.
Similarly, in order for there to be free chlorine or fluorine on Avalon, you'd need some sort of large-scale (most likely biological) process that constantly produces it. Oxidizers also tend to be poisonous (oxygen is a deadly poison if it gets places it shouldn't), again because they're so reactive, but at this point most Earthly life is adapted to handle oxygen, so adaptations to survive other oxidizers are well within the realm of possibility.
While you talk about extracting chlorine and fluorine, I don't know if that would be possible for a stone-age civilization--you need science and technology to extract chlorine or flourine to make a fire, but how do you get technology without fire? My general theory is that the Avali's environment placed them in sort of a catch-22 with regard to technological development, and they would have been stuck in the stone age forever had they not received technology from the malefactors to skip the intervening steps.
I suppose that, given sufficient time, they would have figured out a clever way around these problems, but only if they had large, stationary, interacting settlements where people had time to do things other than find food, and given their nomadic, predatory nature that seems unlikely. No farming=no civilization=no advanced technology.
Humans had to pass a ton of hurdles to get to where we are, and I'm inclined to speculate that those same hurdles may be almost impossible on an ice moon without outside help.
Yeah I have to concede that it would be almost certainly impossible to achieve this as a nomadic predatory species.
As a though though it would be interesting to just say that Avalon has natural gas pockets of some form underground created through geological means, and a few packs simply stumbled across one said pocket in a cave. The leaking oxidizer spontaneously combusting with the atmosphere as it breaches the surface, and the avali just happening to figure out that they can for tools with such.
Honestly now that I think about that possibility, It could seem to fit with there nomadic nature as while not only hunting for creatures but also hunting for these burning gashes in the land, forming almost beacons. Yet as awesome as it sounds hunting for the glowing cracks in the land in order to form your tools, I digress to the fact that it is highly unlikely that even then they would be able to do farm effectively in large amounts.
But hey, you never know, and it doesn't matter to much anyways as they did get the technology of that alien race. And now look where they are now. As I have said before, and I can't say this enough, keep up the good work.