@JasonClyde Ah, that it makes the scenario way way worse.

If they could plan for it, it'd be fine else, it's gonna go bad, real bad.

@Green basically, a U shaped drilling path

you start drilling down, then do a big sweeping U turn once you get into the bearing formation a bit and drill up to your destination

(or 2 90s, if you need to go sideways for a while before you go back surfaceward)

@Shalvenay Conceptually, yes. My understanding is that fracking goes down straight for a while then turns horizontal to access a shale layer. It would take some doing but I don't see why you couldn't turn again to vertical. Aiming would be tricky.

@Green There are ways to prepare the power grid for a week of neglect?

@JasonClyde Sure. it's expensive but conceptually possible. In the 1980s, Erickson built telcom switches based on Erlang that basically never went down only very rarely. it took a lot of planning and work but they built bomb-proof hardware.

@Green yeah, you'd need some seriously good IMUs at the drillhead to be able to know what your bit is doing

If you know that equipment isn't going to be attended for a week, you either gracefully shut it down, build/retrofit it to gracefully shutdown if something goes wrong, or build/retrofit to be resilient for long period. If you know that a piece of gear absolutely can't be touched for a week in two months then you do all the prep work to make sure it's okay for that week.

Huh. That could be useful info. I'm trying to strike a good balance between chaos and fixability. I don't want to cause an apocalypse immediately after the black runes start. Hence why I'm looking into how bad it can get first.

most parts of a power-grid are self-regulating-ish AIUI anyway

So if I threw a softball black rune at earth first, something that was more of a nuisance, but made them realize bad runes exist, they'd be able to safeguard the system in time for the first major one around 3 months later?

@JasonClyde If there's a long history of weeks of terror, then everyone will know that everything needs to be more resilient.

@Green also, how would the defenders defend against such an attack, or even deal with its consequences if it hit?

@Shalvenay Move to a different place? The price of setting up a U shaped drill like this is really high.

@Green eheheheh. yeah, its definitely the kind of thing you'd want to use on a fixed target

@Shalvenay Yep.

@Shalvenay A castle attack would work really well.

What's in the pressurized area? Super heated oil? Steam?

@Green oil, gas, and/or steam/hot water

oil's probably the best choice for an attacker if they can get it though

the thought of having your courtyard turn into the next Conroe, TX....

@Shalvenay Find some way to ignite that and your target castle is no...more. BOOM!

@Green eheheheh

@Shalvenay If there's any kind of obstruction that spreads the oil around then it's a radical fire storm.

ouch.

@JasonClyde But are the new runes pretty regular as to when they'll show up? Like, "Ok, it's 2:00 Tuesday, the next rune will be in an hour, lets get things battened down, just in case."

Most people probably wouldn't do much, but I can see critical infrastructure and other sensitive things having a 15 minute scheduled downtime at that time, just in case all their bones turn to jelly, or whatever

@AndyD273 Once they learn that black runes exist? Probably. But until then would there be enough cause to get enough support for preparing for hypothetical bad runes there's no evidence exist?

@JasonClyde So is this event the first black rune?

Hmm, just thought of another twist... They get to replace runes after it fills up... but what about the people who just turned 13 a couple weeks ago, and only have a few runes...

In this scenario yes. But it looks from the answers I'm getting that I'll have to change the story to give them a softball black rune first before I turn gravity sideways.

Yes that did occur to me too actually. I've been debating how black runes work with them.

I would say, considering there is an actual report/plan that the pentagon wrote for when the zombie apocalypse happens, someone somewhere is getting paid to think of worse case scenarios...

Maybe.

Getting funding for them based on a hunch though?

Granted that would be ideal if it is plausible.

I'm pretty sure there is someone who is paid by the government to black sky everything.

I don't remember what book it was, but there was an agency who employed certified paranoids to look for the worst outcomes of every possible scenario. It was an interesting concept

Huh. Interesting.

@James Thoughts on the C-Suite rules?

Plus, rocks don't normally burn, so if something is on fire then there is more evidence for biological life. At least, before it caught fire...

@Green Interesting...I think I need to play it to get it though.

But that's just how I learn.

@James agreed

Hey

hey there @Green

@Green Yo, thanks for your help the other day