Thought experiment

[traciloudin]

Hello! I'm new the forums, and I had a thought experiment I've been playing around with. Please note that I'm a science fiction and fantasy writer, so this really has nothing at all to do with Earth's atmosphere. So please indulge me in a moment of whimsy. 

 

 

Let us postulate that there is a similar-sized planet with a similar atmosphere and axial tilt to Earth that's a similar distance from a similar sun, etc. However, let's assume the occupants of this planet aren't big polluters. 

 

What would happen if there were giant walls surrounding each of the continents? Let's say the walls extend all the way up through the stratosphere, such that nothing could fly over them unless it were practically in space. 

 

Normally the rotation of the Earth causes a jet stream, but if there were walls, the jet stream wouldn't work. What would happen to the air inside those walls? Let's say there's a giant wall around the North Pole, another around Africa, another around North America, etc.

 

Would the air still move in a circular pattern inside those walls? Would rainfall still be similarly distributed? Would storms be fewer and weaker? Would temperatures fluctuate? 

 

Thanks for any help you can provide! I hope you've enjoyed this thought experiment.

 

If you'd like to contact me privately or outside these forums, go to www.traciloudin.com/contact 

[Sophisticated Skeptic]

[HailMan06]

Interesting hypothetical but this thread would probably be better off in either OT or the General wx forum.

[donsutherland1]

Hello! I'm new the forums, and I had a thought experiment I've been playing around with. Please note that I'm a science fiction and fantasy writer, so this really has nothing at all to do with Earth's atmosphere. So please indulge me in a moment of whimsy. 

 

 

Let us postulate that there is a similar-sized planet with a similar atmosphere and axial tilt to Earth that's a similar distance from a similar sun, etc. However, let's assume the occupants of this planet aren't big polluters. 

 

What would happen if there were giant walls surrounding each of the continents? Let's say the walls extend all the way up through the stratosphere, such that nothing could fly over them unless it were practically in space. 

 

Normally the rotation of the Earth causes a jet stream, but if there were walls, the jet stream wouldn't work. What would happen to the air inside those walls? Let's say there's a giant wall around the North Pole, another around Africa, another around North America, etc.

 

Would the air still move in a circular pattern inside those walls? Would rainfall still be similarly distributed? Would storms be fewer and weaker? Would temperatures fluctuate? 

 

Thanks for any help you can provide! I hope you've enjoyed this thought experiment.

 

If you'd like to contact me privately or outside these forums, go to www.traciloudin.com/contact 

Traci,

 

Those are some big assumptions. One might see a situation where the Arctic region is colder, because the coldest air would be trapped. In response, the temperate and tropical zones would be warmer. The Polar Region would also likely be much drier. It's difficult to be sure what might happen in, for example, Africa or North America. Rainfall distributions would probably change, but the added heat might also increase evaporation and expand desert regions. There would be second order effects, but those would be highly uncertain. 

 

In the end, if you're working on a science fiction piece that concerns such a world or considering doing so, leaving things to the imagination is probably a good approach.

[donsutherland1]

She's a legit writer: https://www.amazon.com/Last-Ageless-Post-Apocalyptic-Adventure-ebook/dp/B012JAFGSO?ie=UTF8&keywords=the%20last%20of%20the%20ageless&qid=1463358634&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

[chubbs]

Traci,

 

Those are some big assumptions. One might see a situation where the Arctic region is colder, because the coldest air would be trapped. In response, the temperate and tropical zones would be warmer. The Polar Region would also likely be much drier. It's difficult to be sure what might happen in, for example, Africa or North America. Rainfall distributions would probably change, but the added heat might also increase evaporation and expand desert regions. There would be second order effects, but those would be highly uncertain. 

 

In the end, if you're working on a science fiction piece that concerns such a world or considering doing so, leaving things to the imagination is probably a good approach.

Some quick thoughts to add to Don's. The planet's climate and ecosystems could be significantly disturbed depending on the number and placement of walls/regions. Jet streams could be disrupted. Would expect fewer and weaker storms. Ocean currents could also be weakened. With enough walls mixing of the ocean may be slowed enough to deplete oxygen perhaps causing mass extinction, similar to the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM)

[traciloudin]

Interesting hypothetical but this thread would probably be better off in either OT or the General wx forum.

 

Sorry, newbie mistake. I don't know how to move it now... Maybe only mods can? 

 

Those are some big assumptions. One might see a situation where the Arctic region is colder, because the coldest air would be trapped. In response, the temperate and tropical zones would be warmer. The Polar Region would also likely be much drier. It's difficult to be sure what might happen in, for example, Africa or North America. Rainfall distributions would probably change, but the added heat might also increase evaporation and expand desert regions. There would be second order effects, but those would be highly uncertain. 

 

In the end, if you're working on a science fiction piece that concerns such a world or considering doing so, leaving things to the imagination is probably a good approach.

 

Thanks for the advice, Don! I do plan to leave most of it to the readers' imaginations by keeping weather in the background of the story (where it normally is in most stories, after all). But I also wanted to make sure I wasn't about to leave any giant plot holes in the story, either. If you want to go into more detail about what some of the second-order effects might be, even though they're highly uncertain/debatable, I'd love to hear them. After all, this will be a work of fiction, not a scientific paper. I'm sure some reviewers will complain about the phenomenon I'm postulating regardless of how conservative or liberal I am with the science behind it. 

 

The planet's climate and ecosystems could be significantly disturbed depending on the number and placement of walls/regions. Jet streams could be disrupted. Would expect fewer and weaker storms. Ocean currents could also be weakened. With enough walls mixing of the ocean may be slowed enough to deplete oxygen perhaps causing mass extinction, similar to the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM)

 

Thanks! I hadn't even thought about what effect this might have on the oceans! Good call. I should probably also think about a divergence in evolution for certain species separated by these rifts. I haven't played around with the flora/fauna much in the worldbuilding yet. Hmm.

 

Do you think tropical regions would only grow hotter and hotter over time since they wouldn't receive polar air/ocean currents to cool them? 

 

She's a legit writer: https://www.amazon.com/Last-Ageless-Post-Apocalyptic-Adventure-ebook/dp/B012JAFGSO?ie=UTF8&keywords=the%20last%20of%20the%20ageless&qid=1463358634&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

 

Thanks again, Don. In The Last of the Ageless, I had help from the community on a few lines of Spanish. They're credited in the Acknowledgments, which you can read (without buying the book) here: http://www.traciloudin.com/books/ageless-acknowledgments (see 4th paragraph from the bottom) 

 

This thought experiment is for a new epic fantasy series with science fictional elements. I plan on crediting anyone who provides helpful insight, so if you want to be listed in the Acknowledgments by something other than your forum username, do let me know.

 

If you happen to like reading science fiction and fantasy, I'm always looking for beta readers to help me spot any other inconsistencies, plot holes, etc.

 

 

Thanks again for all your help, everyone! Looking forward to any other insights the community may provide. 

[chubbs]

Thanks! I hadn't even thought about what effect this might have on the oceans! Good call. I should probably also think about a divergence in evolution for certain species separated by these rifts. I haven't played around with the flora/fauna much in the worldbuilding yet. Hmm.

 

Do you think tropical regions would only grow hotter and hotter over time since they wouldn't receive polar air/ocean currents to cool them?

As the tropics warmed more heat would be lost to space, until a new equilibrium was reached. The warming would be fast at first, with 50% of the adjustment in 10 years or so, then slower and slower for roughly a thousand years. The land and surface ocean provide the initial relatively fast warming, but it takes a long time to warm the deep ocean. Warming of the deep ocean would be even slower with reduced winds and storms. Similar timing would hold in regions that were cooling. Specifics would be different in each region though depending on the amount of land, fastest to change, and on the depth of ocean.

[Sundog]

I'm curious if these walls in the story were put up within the book's present day or well before whatever separated societies would exist in the book's timeline. 

 

That would be interesting to read about as well. I can see a situation where civilizations are fighting over resources, namely, water, especially if they can't come and go as they please (due to the walls obstructing free movement.) 

 

I would think the windward side of the wall would have prolific rainfall due to the vertical obstructions. This should in turn cause extreme dry conditions within the walls, unless there is a very large body of water within the walled continent as well. 

 

This sounds like something I would read if it had a dark enough, edgy style to it. 

 

Let us know how it goes, Traci.

[skierinvermont]

If you had walls around continents they would almost assuredly become desert wastelands without evaporation from the oceans. A wall around the arctic would likely make it much colder especially in winter. You might also find that the pressure increases in some walled off areas especially the oceans as the increase in water content in the atmosphere would actually lead to a taller and denser atmosphere. This could lead the walls to bend or require pressure redistribution systems.

[ORH_wxman]

The tropics/subtropics would almost certainly warm while the polar regions significantly cool due to the lack of heat transfer. It would be difficult to sustain the upwelling colder ocean currents like we see in the ENSO region off South America.

[donsutherland1]

Sorry, newbie mistake. I don't know how to move it now... Maybe only mods can? 

 

 

Thanks for the advice, Don! I do plan to leave most of it to the readers' imaginations by keeping weather in the background of the story (where it normally is in most stories, after all). But I also wanted to make sure I wasn't about to leave any giant plot holes in the story, either. If you want to go into more detail about what some of the second-order effects might be, even though they're highly uncertain/debatable, I'd love to hear them. After all, this will be a work of fiction, not a scientific paper. I'm sure some reviewers will complain about the phenomenon I'm postulating regardless of how conservative or liberal I am with the science behind it. 

 

 

Thanks! I hadn't even thought about what effect this might have on the oceans! Good call. I should probably also think about a divergence in evolution for certain species separated by these rifts. I haven't played around with the flora/fauna much in the worldbuilding yet. Hmm.

 

Do you think tropical regions would only grow hotter and hotter over time since they wouldn't receive polar air/ocean currents to cool them? 

 

 

Thanks again, Don. In The Last of the Ageless, I had help from the community on a few lines of Spanish. They're credited in the Acknowledgments, which you can read (without buying the book) here: http://www.traciloudin.com/books/ageless-acknowledgments (see 4th paragraph from the bottom) 

 

This thought experiment is for a new epic fantasy series with science fictional elements. I plan on crediting anyone who provides helpful insight, so if you want to be listed in the Acknowledgments by something other than your forum username, do let me know.

 

If you happen to like reading science fiction and fantasy, I'm always looking for beta readers to help me spot any other inconsistencies, plot holes, etc.

 

 

Thanks again for all your help, everyone! Looking forward to any other insights the community may provide. 

Traci,

 

The walls would disrupt the jet stream, frontal passages, etc. , creating a patchwork of relatively-closed climate systems. The hydrologic or water cycle would be altered. One possible second order effect or feedback might entail drier regions becoming increasingly dry and wetter regions becoming even wetter. The long-term impact might be larger deserts in parts of Africa and North America, for example, along with wetter areas having rainfall amounts that approximate what one sees in the Tropics. More rain would fall in those areas. An increased number of systems would “rain themselves out” due to the loss of the jet stream. Overall rainfall across the closed-off land masses would not vary substantially on a total rainfall per land mass basis, but it would become much more concentrated. Most of the world’s moisture resides over the oceans and would not be able to be transported to the landmasses.

 

Agricultural yields would probably diminish in this new world. Then again, if a civilization could construct such walls, it almost certainly would have the capability to apply technology to some of these issues e.g., massive desalination of salt water and transport of that water to where it is needed. An alternate scenario would entail the weather-related outcomes having been unintended and increasing hostile to the requirements of maintaining civilization.

 

Tropical regions would grow hotter with smaller temperature variation, but a new equilibrium would be reached at which the warming process ends.  A smaller warming tied to the evolution of the planet’s star would continue (assuming that the star ages in a fashion consistent with what is known about stars today), but that’s a very slow process.

 

One would not be dealing with the case where a planet becomes tidally-locked (one side gets locked facing the star and the other side is in permanent darkness). The side locked to the sun would become unbearably hot and inhospitable to life. The other side would become frigid and inhospitable to life. There might be some possibility that life could survive in the narrow “twilight zone” that separated the illuminated and dark sides of the planet.

 

On a biological front, should the population featured in your story not suppress ecological systems, evolution would lead to the development of new species (allopatric speciation) from those that have been separated by the walls (imposed geographic separation).

 

Finally, if you need some beta readers, you can feel free to let me know (either in this thread or via private message).

[chubbs]

Having some fun with this. You might imagine each region trying different methods of geo-engineering to mitigate their fate with a range of unanticipated consequences. Geo-engineering would be much more feasible in a smaller region. Some may paint surfaces black/white, other release cooling sulfate aerosal, while a third could try to warm using a potent greenhouse gas like SF6.

[skierinvermont]

Don - I think it may be even drier over landmasses than you are suggesting if the continents were actually walled off. Actually I think just about every landmass that was walled off apart from a significant ocean would become bone dry with zero precipitation.

 

This would be especially true if the walls allowed water to pass under them. The net flow of water would be constantly from the walled off landmasses back under the walls and into the oceans. There would be zero water, never mind rainfall, in the walled off landmasses.

 

 

Even if the walls went deep down into the earth and kept water "locked" within the system it started in, I think you'd just end up with all the remaining water left in the groundwater. There would be little surface or atmospheric water remaining. 

 

 

Right now most water/precipitation over land comes from the oceans. It is returned to oceans by rivers.

[ORH_wxman]

Don - I think it may be even drier over landmasses than you are suggesting if the continents were actually walled off. Actually I think just about every landmass that was walled off apart from a significant ocean would become bone dry with zero precipitation.

 

This would be especially true if the walls allowed water to pass under them. The net flow of water would be constantly from the walled off landmasses back under the walls and into the oceans. There would be zero water, never mind rainfall, in the walled off landmasses.

 

 

Even if the walls went deep down into the earth and kept water "locked" within the system it started in, I think you'd just end up with all the remaining water left in the groundwater. There would be little surface or atmospheric water remaining. 

 

 

Right now most water over land comes from the oceans. It is returned to oceans by rivers.

 

 

Yeah larger freshwater bodies like the Great Lakes would just drain into the ocean with no precip to replenish them.

 

Each landmass would basically become like death valley for precip...except even more extreme. The walls just act like mountain ranges except 5 to 10 times as tall.

[traciloudin]

The plan in the story is for each walled off area to have both ocean and landmass, though in inconsistent amounts. (The walls aren't separating land away from water.) In some cases, the walls may appear in the middle of the ocean, sometimes in the middle of a continent. In any case, they don't allow anything to pass underneath.

Sent from my LGLS992 using Tapatalk

[traciloudin]

I'm curious if these walls in the story were put up within the book's present day or well before whatever separated societies would exist in the book's timeline.

That would be interesting to read about as well. I can see a situation where civilizations are fighting over resources, namely, water, especially if they can't come and go as they please (due to the walls obstructing free movement.)

I would think the windward side of the wall would have prolific rainfall due to the vertical obstructions. This should in turn cause extreme dry conditions within the walls, unless there is a very large body of water within the walled continent as well.

This sounds like something I would read if it had a dark enough, edgy style to it.

Let us know how it goes, Traci.

The walls go up at least a millennia before the story begins, but thanks for bringing up the time aspect! It's helpful for me to know because I'm considering a major plot point in the third or fourth book where the walls come down. Probably not all at once, maybe over a decade or so.

Any other thoughts you have around timing will help me develop the later books.

Sent from my LGLS992 using Tapatalk

[ORH_wxman]

The plan in the story is for each walled off area to have both ocean and landmass, though in inconsistent amounts. (The walls aren't separating land away from water.) In some cases, the walls may appear in the middle of the ocean, sometimes in the middle of a continent. In any case, they don't allow anything to pass underneath.

Sent from my LGLS992 using Tapatalk

 

 

Depending on where the walls are in the ocean, then you would most certainly get some big sea level rise in spots along the coasts where a more moist region flows into a walled-off section of the ocean and a lower sea level in other areas. Eventually this would reach some sort of equilibrium (probably before your story begins)...but I'd imagine for example, if you had a wall that was several hundred or even a thousand miles off the coast of the eastern seaboard that wrapped around Florida and into the central gulf of mexico and met back with land again near Texas, you'd have a new equilibrium sea level along the east coast and gulf coasts. All the drainage there goes into a smaller portion of ocean. In this scenario I am assuming there is a wall several thousand miles out into the Pacific as to keep the North American climate fairly moist....but that assumption of a moist climate may not be great since it's hard to know how the jet patterns would look with huge walls in other areas of the world.

[downeastnc]

Would all the walls be connected or intersect in some way or are there areas that are not walled in?

[Jonger]

I'm a terrible writer, but I love sci-fi.

 

I'd work a central plot into the story where the walls were built eons ago and inhabitants evolved within each eco system.

 

I know there are several similar stories like this, but none due to engineered climate change by subdividing the population.

 

As for the weather, you would have stagnant patterns without precipitation and extreme temps. I think everyone agrees with this idea here.

[traciloudin]

Depending on where the walls are in the ocean, then you would most certainly get some big sea level rise in spots along the coasts where a more moist region flows into a walled-off section of the ocean and a lower sea level in other areas. Eventually this would reach some sort of equilibrium (probably before your story begins)...but I'd imagine for example, if you had a wall that was several hundred or even a thousand miles off the coast of the eastern seaboard that wrapped around Florida and into the central gulf of mexico and met back with land again near Texas, you'd have a new equilibrium sea level along the east coast and gulf coasts. All the drainage there goes into a smaller portion of ocean. In this scenario I am assuming there is a wall several thousand miles out into the Pacific as to keep the North American climate fairly moist....but that assumption of a moist climate may not be great since it's hard to know how the jet patterns would look with huge walls in other areas of the world.

 

They way I'm envisioning it, I don't think there'd be a jet stream, due to these fragments. Like you said, this would likely cause each area to equalize long before the story begins. But what you're mentioning is helpful, because of what might happen when the walls disappear... so if one side has had an increase in sea level compared to the other side... massive tsunamis? It's going to be terrible.

I'm thinking this catastrophic event is going to need to occur "off screen" in between Books 2 and 3 so that I don't have one random book in the middle of the series that's entirely a disaster novel.  

 

Would all the walls be connected or intersect in some way or are there areas that are not walled in?

 

I think they all intersect at some point along the way.

 

Here's what I'm planning so far:

• 1) A north polar area (no land and probably uninhabitable anyway based on what I hear you all saying).

 

On one hemisphere, I'm planning:

• 2) A fragment in a similar size/location to North America with a decent amount of land, sea, and inland lake. So mostly temperate area, but the bottom wall runs just south of the equator. It's wider than it is tall. A large portion of the story would take place here.
• 3) A large portion of the story would also take place in Fragment #3. It's east of Fragment 2 (so think "Atlantic Ocean") and follows the meridian far north and south across the equator. This area also encompasses the south pole. It's taller than it is wide. It has a large continent in it, though part of it is cut off by another wall. 
• 4) That cut off piece is in a smaller walled-off fragment. This area is mostly ocean with a few islands. It's south of the North American-ish Fragment  2. Nobody journeys here in the story so far.
• 5) Another smaller fragment that's a little south of the North Polar zone. It's got a small island in it. This area wraps into the other hemisphere, which I haven't really given much thought to yet. People in Fragments 2 & 3 tell legends about the people living in Fragment 5, but I haven't planned to put any of the story there (yet). 

 

I'm thinking 9 or so total walled-off areas encompassing the entire planet. 

 

I'm a terrible writer, but I love sci-fi.

 

I'd work a central plot into the story where the walls were built eons ago and inhabitants evolved within each eco system.

 

I know there are several similar stories like this, but none due to engineered climate change by subdividing the population.

 

As for the weather, you would have stagnant patterns without precipitation and extreme temps. I think everyone agrees with this idea here.

 

Glad to find a fellow scifi fan here! The people cross from fragment to fragment on the hemisphere I've described above. But I will definitely be thinking about how to make the flora/fauna diverge on each fragment to better to survive their environment. 

 

 

 

Based on the fragments I've outlined above, any further thoughts you can give around what the temps and weather patterns might be like on each of the fragments would be awesome. I'm particularly concerned with how different the temp/patterns would be when my characters cross back and forth between Fragment 2 and 3.

 

Or if you think they're totally not feasible and would need to stretch closer/farther from the equator/poles to help equalize temps, let me know. Fragment 2 has no polar air/currents, but Fragment 3 does. They both have equatorial regions. 

[FallsLake]

You will also have to add self repairing capability to the walls (maybe even integrated AI). Earthquakes, volcanoes, extreme pressure differences, and continental drift would constantly be attacking the integrity of these walls.    

[traciloudin]

Good call about continental drift. I hadn't thought of that. These particular walls will withstand anything else you mentioned. Let's talk weather!

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[FallsLake]

traciloudin, on 17 May 2016 - 07:48 AM, said:

Good call about continental drift. I hadn't thought of that. These particular walls will withstand anything else you mentioned. Let's talk weather!

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I have read somewhere that latitudes of ~37 N & S represent the zone where equal amounts of energy received and lost by the sun occur. As others have stated above, walled areas splitting areas exclusively within a positive or negative zone would encounter excessive heat or cold.

You would definitely want to run the walls north and south providing the enclosures equal amounts of sun energy received and lost. At that point you could use "imagination" to create unique weather patterns within each area that would be acceptable to science geeks. And of course some could still be colder, warmer, and wetter than others.      

[Isotherm]

Since this will be a fiction novel, If I were writing it, I wouldn't be too strict with the science: A) It's difficult to ascertain the resultant weather patterns with much certainty given the proposed scenario never has and never will occur; and, B] The story will be rather boring from a weather related standpoint if you attempt to "abide by the rules" too much. I'd envision regimes with areas of both extreme arid conditions and severe flooding - thus necessitating completely different infrastructures depending upon the climate of that area. Patterns of stagnation seem reasonable, and extreme weather can still coincide with that fact. Slow moving, stalled T-storms, maybe hurricanes that become extra-tropical, occlude, and diminish over the course of days/weeks in the same region, exceptional diurnal temperature ranges in the arid regions (say 100+ by day and sub zero at night), super-cells that form multiple tornadoes contemporaneously and subsequently rain themselves out. Areas with almost constant snowfall, and the corresponding infrastructure as a result (tunneled roadways?). In essence, a "day after tomorrow" type of world. Arid regions would need either desalinization or pipe-lined water from the region(s) of extreme rainfall (200"+ annually). Tropical cyclones that become snowstorms - another idea. I'd be very liberal with the weather phenomena. I'm not sure the degree to which weather will be a factor in your plot, but maybe humanity is suffering for having erected these walls long ago (destroying the natural flow of climate), and there is now no conceivable way to destroy the walls without provoking a catastrophic, multi-faceted global disaster (e.g., cue earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, rogue waves, etc.).

[donsutherland1]

Don - I think it may be even drier over landmasses than you are suggesting if the continents were actually walled off. Actually I think just about every landmass that was walled off apart from a significant ocean would become bone dry with zero precipitation.

 

This would be especially true if the walls allowed water to pass under them. The net flow of water would be constantly from the walled off landmasses back under the walls and into the oceans. There would be zero water, never mind rainfall, in the walled off landmasses.

 

 

Even if the walls went deep down into the earth and kept water "locked" within the system it started in, I think you'd just end up with all the remaining water left in the groundwater. There would be little surface or atmospheric water remaining. 

 

 

Right now most water/precipitation over land comes from the oceans. It is returned to oceans by rivers.

That would be a possibility. However, Traci has since provided more details that would tend to mitigate that kind of risk.

[traciloudin]

You would definitely want to run the walls north and south providing the enclosures equal amounts of sun energy received and lost. At that point you could use "imagination" to create unique weather patterns within each area that would be acceptable to science geeks. And of course some could still be colder, warmer, and wetter than others.      

 

Makes sense, thanks. 

 

Since this will be a fiction novel, If I were writing it, I wouldn't be too strict with the science: A) It's difficult to ascertain the resultant weather patterns with much certainty given the proposed scenario never has and never will occur; and, B] The story will be rather boring from a weather related standpoint if you attempt to "abide by the rules" too much.

 

Right. SFF writers in particular love Hemingway's iceberg quote because worldbuilding is so important to our genre of fiction, and yet we generally try not to let too much info bog down the story itself. 

 

If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.

 

 

I appreciate all your help and it's good to know that this idea is so wild no one really knows what this world might look like. 

 

Remember, I'll add your names into the Acknowledgments, so if you'd like your real name added, feel free to send me a message here or by contact me through other channels. If you want to be notified when the book's out, join the new releases newsletter (you can choose how infrequently I email you). And if you like reading SFF and want to give me feedback about the book (though I expect much less focus on the walls/weather in the story itself), you can join the beta readers. 

 

 

In any case, I think I have enough info to make this idea seem reasonably feasible in a science fictional/fantasy world. Thank you for your contributions, everyone! 

[donsutherland1]

Makes sense, thanks. 

 

 

Right. SFF writers in particular love Hemingway's iceberg quote because worldbuilding is so important to our genre of fiction, and yet we generally try not to let too much info bog down the story itself. 

 

 

 

I appreciate all your help and it's good to know that this idea is so wild no one really knows what this world might look like. 

 

Remember, I'll add your names into the Acknowledgments, so if you'd like your real name added, feel free to send me a message here or by contact me through other channels. If you want to be notified when the book's out, join the new releases newsletter (you can choose how infrequently I email you). And if you like reading SFF and want to give me feedback about the book (though I expect much less focus on the walls/weather in the story itself), you can join the beta readers. 

 

 

In any case, I think I have enough info to make this idea seem reasonably feasible in a science fictional/fantasy world. Thank you for your contributions, everyone! 

Good luck with the work. As noted earlier, if you would like me to beta read the book, feel free to let me know.

[nzucker]

As long as Mexico pays for the walls, it's all good.

[WinterWxLuvr]

Maybe it's been mentioned but here's a couple.....nobody laugh.

One is structure. Even in the most fiction of fiction wouldn't we expect bending from the walls due to the motion of the earth?

Two, would there not be small time differences between the top and bottom of the wall?

LOL....maybe you can weave those into the story.