np NP Monday, Apr 8, 2019

[hkmaly 490]

http://egscomics.com/egsnp/fantasywasteland-01

Ok, I like Grace playing games ... but those are games I not only didn't played but probably wouldn't play and wasn't fallout already shown twice? (ok, not 1 and 3, but still ...) Actually, wasn't SKYRIM shown already?

... ok, hopefully the jokes will be fun enough ...

Are there really nuclear dragons in any game or was it just combined by Dan?

[ijuin 572]

If there can be gold and silver dragons then why not plutonium dragons?

[hkmaly 490]

27 minutes ago, ijuin said:

If there can be gold and silver dragons then why not plutonium dragons?

Because plutonium is RARE, and I mean even compared to gold and silver. As is anything else with half-live in mere thousands of years. Also, the critical mass of plutonium is 9kg (238) to 100kg (242), which means the dragon would contain more than critical mass of it.

If anything, there may be uranium dragons. Uranium is more common than silver, tin, cadmium or mercury, and there are bacteria living in it. Of course, uranium is also considerably less radioactive.

In any case, this doesn't answers the question: was there nuclear dragons in any of mentioned games?

 

[ChronosCat 155]

8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

In any case, this doesn't answers the question: was there nuclear dragons in any of mentioned games?

No idea, but based on the comments on Twitter & Patreon, it's not an uncommon idea.

The games mentioned so far are Wild Arms 2, Final Fantasy XIV, and Fallout 76. Also mentioned is the movie Reign of Fire. (Note that I've never played/watched any of these, so all I have to go on is the comments and Wikipedia. Wikipedia mentions dragon apocalypses in FFXIV and Reign of Fire, but nothing about the dragons being nuclear. It says nothing about the supposed nuclear dragons in Wild Arms 2 and Fallout 76.) Oddly enough no one has mentioned my favorite nuclear-fire breathing reptile yet, Godzilla.

We know Dan has played Fallout 76, so it's possible he got the idea from there, though in that case I would have expected him to mention it in the commentary.

[Scotty 1,061]

I know in Final Fantasy, the dragon Bahamut has attacks that can cause nuclear levels of destruction.

[Don Edwards 548]

11 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Because plutonium is RARE, and I mean even compared to gold and silver. As is anything else with half-live in mere thousands of years. Also, the critical mass of plutonium is 9kg (238) to 100kg (242), which means the dragon would contain more than critical mass of it.

If anything, there may be uranium dragons. Uranium is more common than silver, tin, cadmium or mercury, and there are bacteria living in it. Of course, uranium is also considerably less radioactive.

In any case, this doesn't answers the question: was there nuclear dragons in any of mentioned games?

The critical mass is the smallest amount that can go critical. Its concentration also matters - if all you have is the critical mass, it needs to be pure and in one spherical lump. A dragon whose scales are made of plutonium might merely need to be sure it never curls up in a tight ball; if the scales are of compounds that include plutonium, it might be incapable of going critical (in the radioactive sense - try raiding its horde and you'll find it's quite critical of your efforts).

A uranium dragon is rather more probable though, in a logical universe. Of course, in a logical universe dragons in general are improbable.

I haven't spotted any nuclear dragons in any games I've played, but then I haven't played many so that isn't saying much. (I do remember some titanium elementals and chlorine elementals in the webcomic Order of the Stick).

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

Background radiation assures that nearly every living thing on Earth has trace amounts of radioactive materials within it at any time.  Mostly the heavier isotopes of carbon.  Although potassium is sufficiently radioactive to fuel atomic banana conspiracy theorists.

The question to me is what biological advantage would an organism gain from having a level of radioactive material within them that would be hazardous to other life forms around them?

 

[Don Edwards 548]

38 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

The question to me is what biological advantage would an organism gain from having a level of radioactive material within them that would be hazardous to other life forms around them?

A top predator, such as a dragon, that's a really difficult question.

A defenseless creature, such as a butterfly, it's easier. Monarch butterfly larvae mostly eat stuff that renders them - and the adults they change into - sickening to many insect-eaters. Of course, the monarch that gets eaten doesn't benefit from this - but most insect-eaters who share an environment with them have learned to avoid them, so the benefit to the eaten ones' siblings and descendants is clear.

[hkmaly 490]

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

A uranium dragon is rather more probable though, in a logical universe. Of course, in a logical universe dragons in general are improbable.

Despite logic generally being binary, the "logical universe" is not ; you can have three universes, A, B and C, such that A is more logical than B and B is more logical than C.

Also, there is nothing illogical about dragons in general. Sure, there are various issues, like the fact that dragons bigger than bats needs to use magic to fly ...

2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

3 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

The question to me is what biological advantage would an organism gain from having a level of radioactive material within them that would be hazardous to other life forms around them?

A top predator, such as a dragon, that's a really difficult question.

You are thinking ADULT dragon. It's quite possible that being radioactive is advantageous for young dragons and dragon eggs. Perhaps nuclear dragons, unlike their non-radioactive counterparts, don't care about their kids and rely on the radioactivity for protection ...

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

A defenseless creature, such as a butterfly, it's easier. Monarch butterfly larvae mostly eat stuff that renders them - and the adults they change into - sickening to many insect-eaters. Of course, the monarch that gets eaten doesn't benefit from this - but most insect-eaters who share an environment with them have learned to avoid them, so the benefit to the eaten ones' siblings and descendants is clear.

There are also trees with leaves which poison ground around them to prevent other plants growing near.

And, obviously, back when all life was single-cell, there was bacteria which started producing extremely toxic poison which killed almost all other lifeforms: oxygen.

 

[ijuin 572]

10 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

The question to me is what biological advantage would an organism gain from having a level of radioactive material within them that would be hazardous to other life forms around them?

Fungi have been discovered living inside the reactor building of Chernobyl that have developed the capacity for "radiosynthesis"--i.e. they can use the radiation as a source of energy analogous to photosynthesis. Given this, it is possible that any organism that is able to amass a sufficient quantity of radioactive material might use it as an energy source, becoming in essence a living low-efficiency nuclear reactor.