As a possible non-nuclear explanation for the changes in the world, consider this:
What if an asteroid hit the atmosphere at a near tangent, broke into pieces, and rained down upon the thickest sections of the Antarctic ice cap? The cap is miles thick in sections; asteroid impacts there would vaporize and liquify huge amounts of ice, and much of it would rain into the oceans and southern hemisphere outside Antarctica. The thick masses of ice and narrow angle of incidence could keep smaller asteroidal bits from impacting or puncturing as much of the bedrock and crust as a high angle, and impact areas would be spread, shallow, and oval, rather than narrow, deep, and circular. This would put lots of water into the atmosphere rather than splashed rock.
This would drastically and suddenly raise sea levels for a time. The shock effects could trigger some volcanic activity for a time, and Mt. Fuji's transformation could be a result. This disaster could have caused a massive recuction in population because of weather and food production and distribution problems without the long-term destruction that a nuclear winter would have caused. It would be a disaster, but recovery would have been faster.
Please feel free to shoot holes in this, because there are definite flaws in this idea.
- Greg Crider
Thursday, February 3, 2005
Howdy,
Interesting thoughts. On of the beauties about YKK is that there is plenty of elbow room for such speculation.
Best,
Dave
- dDave
Thursday, February 3, 2005
Well, that would not cause volcanism. To get significant melting, the impact would be so violent that would start a nuclear winter. It doen not make a lot of sense.
The climatic effects in YKK are very in line with standard global warming models. People make a big deal of the eruption on Fujisan, but it does not seem that large. The damage shown in the manga is not that big. Lots of local destruction (Tokyo would suffer a lot of damage), but it would be nothing compared to Krakatau, Pinatubo, etc.
My guess is that all problems in YKK are anthropogenic: Global Warming (sea level rise, warm climate), pollution (low fertility), genetic engineering (weird animals and plants).
There are several models that predict that the world economy will collapse if it ever stop growing ("The Zero Growth Challenge"). That would explain the collapse of the economy.
These things explain enough of the YKK world to me. Of course, the author may have a completely different concept, and that's very fine with me : -) .
- Z
Thursday, February 3, 2005
There is only one idea about serenity and decline of the YKK's world that I can came up with. What if humanity have met unfriendly super-civilisation and all efforts were proved fruitless. The spirit of humanity is crashed and now people aren't able to believe in future.
It would be like change from active to passive defense that occur when ginea-pig is given too much punishment.
Now enemies put into effect sterilization and extermination of humanity, though by rather mild means.
Even if there is some resistance it's kept in secret.
That would explain also strange phenomenons, like stony gods and impossibility of landing Taapun.
- Vashu
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
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