Hello all and welcome back a brand new chapter of Back Office!
Damn…the world sure did go to hell during the break, didn’t it? I promise that Gary isn’t behind these lockdowns, but frankly it is his style. I’m really sorry about having the mid-chapter hiatus right when people could do with some distractions. Hopefully some new comics will help with that.
Right now we rejoin the story with Sam and Karen back on a topical island. If you’ve been reading through this comic…you’ll know that this island isn’t exactly a good place for a sun holiday.
Much like the previous chapters of Reverse and Rewind this chapter has a theme. It’s not Flash Gordon anymore, but I don’t want to reveal the theme until a little later. Will anyone guess it before the reveal. (…a lot of you are really smart…I’m probably not going to manage to keep this theme secret for long…)
Ah, Sam, how can you be so down being back at a place with such great memories? Being forced to participate in survival games, watching your best friends being turned into mind controlled slaves, being hunted by those same friends… So much fun!
Hmmmm, guess the theme, huh? Well, it is a deserted tropic isle, so I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say Gilligan’s Island. So the only question is whether or not Professor Tantrum can build a nuclear reactor out of bamboo and coconut shells? I wouldn’t rule it out.
Nuclear reactor out of bamboo and coconut shells? That’s probably some reference to the mentioned Gilligan’s island which I’m not familiar with, but allow me to talk some materials science anyway.
Bamboo is an excellent material for many structures. Given some cutting boards that I’ve seen it might even be suitable for a giant water cooker. But – and this is a big but – I think any organic material would be quickly broken down by the radiation. The simple truth is that pretty much all modern technology needs metals, or even worse, semiconductors.
And even if he could make some reasonably radiation resistant steel, it is very very unlikely that a random island is going to have enough uranium for that to be a good idea. Better spend any easily used energy source (such as waterfalls, coal or oil) on going straight for the end goal. If that happens to be long-term energy supply, go for solar if the island does not have enough high ground for a water dam. Using the waves sadly isn’t quite working out just yet.
But what could Otto reasonably build on this island? One page said that Greg were mining rare earths, but that doesn’t make much sense since those are rare not due to being hard to find but due to being hard to refine. It’s a long way (lots of chemistry and lots of energy) from mineral to element, from rock to metal, for those elements. Therefore there is not much money in mining them – and not directly useful even if the mine is right there. It makes more sense that they would be mining precious metals or gemstones, there the money is in the mining.
If they have precious metals then sure Otto could make something interesting. He won’t be making electronics or nuclear reactors in any reasonable timeframe when starting from scratch, but some basic electrical machinery is doable. If there is, say, Iron and silver in the mine then you can make some charcoal and cook up some basic carbon steel, use the silver for conductors and you’re in pretty good shape tech-wise.
On the other hand, I’m fairly sure that this comic does not limit itself to what is physically possible. Still, I do expect it would simply take too much time to start from scratch. Better leave it to Rod, starting from whatever old tech can be found. An army of moonwalking cyborgs may not be a realistic result but with the starting point of a VW bus and an 8-track recorder it is a LOT more realistic to reach a somewhat high-tech result than when starting from the raw natural resources.
There’s a generator in there, hook it to a waterwheel. Electricity in a couple of hours rather than many months. If the car battery is not too dead you can make some use of the starter motor. There’s bearings and linkages and driveshafts and a gearbox. Electronic components that can be used to build other electronics, but what you want is a radio, and the car hopefully has one – some modifications are needed in order to send but you don’t need to start from scratch. Various kinds of steel for various uses (leaf springs make for a good tool steel). Plastics are harder to reuse, but you generally don’t need them. Bamboo is indeed very useful!
(posting this in two parts [or more?] because for some reason the comment system won’t accept the full thing)
Nuclear reactor out of bamboo and coconut shells? That’s probably some reference to the mentioned Gilligan’s island which I’m not familiar with, but allow me to talk some materials science anyway.
Bamboo is an excellent material for many structures. Given some cutting boards that I’ve seen it might even be suitable for a giant water cooker. But – and this is a big but – I think any organic material would be quickly broken down by the radiation. The simple truth is that pretty much all modern technology needs metals, or even worse, semiconductors.
And even if he could make some reasonably radiation resistant steel, it is very very unlikely that a random island is going to have enough uranium for that to be a good idea. Better spend any easily used energy source (such as waterfalls, coal or oil) on going straight for the end goal. If that happens to be long-term energy supply, go for solar if the island does not have enough high ground for a water dam. Using the waves sadly isn’t quite working out just yet.
@O8h7W: My bad with the comment blocker! The way this thing is built I have to manually approve any comment that WordPress thinks is suspicious. If I don’t log in for a while (like during a summer break :P) then those comments get trashed without warning me. I’ve restored them now. Sorry about that!!
Gilligan’s Island? I’ve never actually seen it. I have seen it referenced a lot and I get the impression that it is well seated into American TV culture. It was not aired on Irish TV to my knowledge, or at least I don’t remember seeing it myself 🙂 That all said…your analysis is pretty dead on. However…no one has guessed right yet 😛 The big reveal is coming….