Rebuilding Science in a Magic World

Before starting on another long endeavor, I thought it would be a good time to check in on the solar and temperature observation team, to see how data collection has been going, and take a few days looking over their observational data.  Interestingly, there were quite a few other factors that I hadn't considered, which seemed to be contributing to the seasonal temperature changes, and there were quite a few trends that I'd really failed to notice.

First, while the eclipses occur every month, some months they aren't visible from our part of the planet, but we still notice the mana effect at night.  As it turns out, they occur at the same part of the day in each month every other year.  So, for example, the eclipses that occur around summer time happen near dawn and dusk on alternating months, and the next year, they've switched whether they occur at dawn or dusk.  So while it might seem somewhat unpredictable, it's actually somewhat regular.

I do appear to be on the right track about solar and lunar eclipse coincidence rates for seasonal effects to some degree.  The summer months experience two overlaps of lunar eclipses with solar eclipses, and the two other eclipses seem to occur at solar minimal output.  During winter, however, there are back to back eclipses just before, and then just after, the larger star gets eclipsed by the smaller one, leading to a much larger drop in overall solar heating.

Interestingly, however, I failed to notice that throughout any month, the temperature slowly climbs until the eclipse occurs.  If the eclipse occurs during the daytime for us, the temperature generally stays low throughout that day, and falls again at night, resetting the cycle.  If the eclipse occurs over a different part of the planet during our nighttime, there is usually a steady fall or stagnation of temperatures over a three to ten day period.

Surprisingly, there actually appears to be very little solar activity in the form of sunspots.  Of course, solar cycles can take a long time, so perhaps it's just a coincidence that we've recorded almost no sunspots on either star.

After spending five days looking over the temperature and sun data, I was approached by Zeb.  In short, now that excavation has ended on the ore deposit, we have too many people working in the tunnel.  Previously, we had two teams excavating the deposit, a team working on the expanded tunnel, and a team working on the scouting tunnel.  Now, we have three teams working on the expanded tunnel.  Two teams is basically already pushing the available work space, and if we weren't filling in the mining pit, it'd definitely be overkill.

So, we discussed what to work on next.  The mining tunnel has access to mana crystals, meaning anyone working in there is working at a faster pace than they otherwise could be.  To continue expanding our ranks of stoneshaping goblins, we've had one team that assists on expanding the reservoir every year since we lost the surface crystals while a handful of goblins manually break rocks to expand the reservoir itself.

During the off season, we haven't been having those goblins do any manual rock breaking, since it's hard for stone-shaping goblins and dwarves to keep up with the sheer volume of rock being made.  Instead, those construction teams have gone on to expand and build the jetties around the island for fishing.  I haven't really taken the time in a few years to see how those projects have been coming, but Zeb has informed me that pretty much all of the jetties we had originally planned have been built out.  There is a little work left to do on one jetty on the far side of the island, but that's about it.

All in all, it means that we'll soon have five construction teams that need new assignments.  I have a few ideas for projects that would basically be just as difficult with or without surface crystals.  Any project that requires a lot of movement, like road construction, tends to benefit very little from large surface crystals, since you need a facility to properly provide mana for recharging.  So, on a crude map, I discussed plans for a new road.

This road will go around the other side of the island, through the craggy terrain.  Though, there are a few changes between this road and the other road.  The other road is meant to be only that, a road.  For this road, I also want it to be built in parallel to an aqueduct.  Currently, any time it rains, all that water runs quickly down the craggy terrain and into the ocean, wasting precious freshwater.  Due to the slopes, those sharp valleys experience flash floods during rainstorms, making harvesting that water difficult.

So, on the map, I laid out my plans for how this road and aqueduct will be built.  It's basically an upward sloping road, with the aqueduct running beside it.  We'll tunnel through the ridges to keep a constant slope, intersecting with the centers of valleys.  Along the valleys, I'm going to have the goblins in charge of rock dams begin building them wherever they can.  I'm even going to have them hire on more goblins, just to make sure that all the dams are well maintained.  For quite a few years now, they've simply been doing maintenance on the rock dams in the two valleys on this side of the island, with no new workers.  Despite that, our population has grown greatly, so they could do with having a few more workers, and expanding their work area.

The aqueduct and road will actually be begin their path above the dam, allowing all the flow that runs down the aqueduct to be collected in the dam, which should also prevent any accidental flash flooding due to potential failures in the other valleys.  Overall, this should increase out water supply for our city by a decent amount, while also giving us easier access to any natural resources we might find in any of those craggy valleys.  For good measure, we'll also be coating the aqueduct in a layer of lightstone, to hopefully help prevent erosion.  The slope of the aqueduct is planned to be 1/200, and travel about eight miles around the edge of the island.  As a whole, this project probably won't take more than a year or two, considering how many construction teams will be working on it.   Though they won't all work on it year-round.  Some will still spend part of the year expanding the reservoir area.

So, after the aqueduct and road are done, I've also laid out two other roads that I thought would be nice to have.  One is a road leading up to the mountain peak, continuing on from the road leading up to the cave.  The other is a road designed to run along the coast along the bottom of the craggy valleys.  That road in particular will actually be built with a raised platform with paths for water to flow under it during rainstorms because, as mentioned before, those valleys are prone to flash flooding.  If we include both of those road projects, we'll probably be set for five years of work, even after factoring in the increasing number of stoneshaping and improved stoneshaping goblins and lesser earth demons.

As for what I'll be doing while I wait for next spring, I'm going to resume trying to grow fluorite crystals.  Tiberius is nearing the end of his current research, and this seems like it would be right up his alley.  Though if I succeed in growing a fluorite crystal, I'll need to make sure that the area where they're grown is deep underground and mana shielded.  The last thing I want is him experimenting with random inclusions, and causing a nuclear explosion by growing a crystal too large with some particular inclusion material.