bookkeeping

[truepenny]

DL(2) Ch. 5: 1070 words

And you're stopping because ... ? I need to come up with a fatal booby-trap that would still be working hundreds of years after it was rigged. (What? Doesn't everybody have this problem?) My grasp of basic physics seems not to be up to the task. *grumble*

But a good day, nevertheless.

Comments

[redbird]

Hmmm. How certain would the rigger need to be of its lasting? That is, is it okay if it's something rigged however long ago, that happens to still be working for plausible reasons even though it was designed for a shorter-term need?

Then we can get into things like what climate and how long various materials, like different kinds of rope, would last under different conditions.

I don't have any answers, I'm just playing with narrowing the question.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

No, the people who rigged it meant it to last. Definitely.

The basic material is stone; it's underground, near a river, so 55 degrees all year round, but dampish. I know the trap needs to be extremely simple, but also something that has to be triggered, i.e., not just a surprise left for ANYONE who happened to walk down this particular hallway, only someone who stepped in the wrong place.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

A hole is always good.

Dig a deep hole. However deep, however rigged, depends how fatal the original setters meant it to be. Before you start digging the hole, remove a slice of pavement above the hole: thick solid stone. Drill through the stone at the balance point (that is, from edge to edge, piercing it like a ice-lolly (popsicle?), not like a spinning-top). A hollow tube through the stone. Polish the sides of the tube. Run a polished bar through the tube, almost as big as the tube. Fasten the bar securely to the walls of the hole.

I think you should then have a trap that if the passer-by steps on it at the wrong place, will deliver the passer-by neatly into the hole below, and should continue to work - depending what you make the bar of - for centuries, if necessary. Of course the hole itself can be rigged to make the fall lethal if the depth itself isn't sufficient, but in fact it would be a slow death from starvation and thirst, since the hole could easily be too deep to get out of unassisted.

Depending when the story is set, the bar could be: 1. seasoned wood (oak lasts for centuries, though it's true that even the best wood swells in the damp - still, you could have the makers of the trap allow for that) 2. stainless steel 3. that old standby, a Substance Not Known To Science 4. that old standby, a Substance Not Invented Yet.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Well, it does have to be instantly fatal. But wouldn't the stone swing back up into position? That's the other caveat: he has to be FOUND, or there's no point.

But thank you. Except for the pieces of information you didn't have *g*, that's a very elegant solution to my problem.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

1070 words! Wow!

As for traps, you could look up pyramids. I don't know the mechanism, but they would sometimes arrange for big blocks of stone to slide down and block passageways as a protection against thieves. I think it was a matter of balance, so if you had an earthquake, that might set them off.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I'd thought of the pyramids, but the thing is that the hallway has to remain passable, which was exactly what the pyramid builders intended to prevent.

And earthquakes aren't as infallible as one might think; the ancient builders knew their stuff. That's why COLUMNS from Greek temples are still standing--there's one, at Nemia, that's balanced on half its original base, and it's still standing like a rock. The archaeologists I met in Greece were unanimous in their opinion that the Greek government was fixing something that wasn't broken by enclosing the temple of Apollo at Bassae in that ludicrous scaffolding. What's most likely to happen apparently, in the event of an earthquake, is that the SCAFFOLDING will fall down, and take the temple with it.

Whoa. Sorry. Clearly you hit an infodump button.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Ah, they have to be able to get through. I see.

The Parthenon's columns survived having the roof blown off, too.