Timeline for Are "Midas" swords useless for warfare?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
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| Aug 1, 2018 at 16:49 | comment | added | Aziri | @ShadowRanger: Well... yes, you may be right about that. I concede that it would definitely wreck havoc on the economy if people were running around turning corpses into gold. I must say though, I would be perfectly pleased to find some El Dorado whose economy runs on silver because they once had a magic sword and a big war. And might I add, you know an impressive amount about the economy of colonial Spain. | |
| Aug 1, 2018 at 14:32 | comment | added | ShadowRanger | Especially since, unlike the Spanish, who were producing both gold and silver, and therefore left no real alternative (all other metals being impractical to extract in sufficient quantities to serve a global economy), you'd leave an easy fix of switching to silver as a value store, with gold rapidly becoming useful only for decoration and anti-corrosive plating, with no monetary value. | |
| Aug 1, 2018 at 14:28 | comment | added | ShadowRanger | Using figures from this answer, each gold corpse would weigh around 1.8 metric tons; kill 3 people with your Midas weaponry, and you've instantly exceeded the height of annual Spanish colonial gold production (and w/o the attendant risk of piracy in transporting it thousands of miles). In a small war, only 2000 deaths, you'd end up with far more gold tonnage than the Spanish produced in gold and silver combined, in their most productive decade. You might get away with it for a decade or so, but gold will quickly become worthless. | |
| Aug 1, 2018 at 14:22 | comment | added | ShadowRanger | @Aziri: I don't think you understand just how few gold corpses it would take to wreck the value of gold worldwide. With modern tech, our total worldwide gold extraction produces about 1500 metric tons per year, but that's modern, and distributed worldwide; in a medieval setting, compare to early colonial Spain, where they managed to bankrupt themselves in the space of ~55 years, never having produced more than 5 metric tons per year, but enough to trigger heavy inflation in Europe. | |
| Jul 30, 2018 at 5:18 | comment | added | Aziri | I think you'd still be pretty rich. I mean, sure, value depends on scarcity, but it also depends on a stable system of currency anyway, so even if gold remained scarce it would have little value in the immediate aftermath of a big battle. The value comes from melting it into transportable ingots and selling it elsewhere. Yes, if the sword works on corpses you could very well use those instead of your companions, though that's much less dramatic. | |
| Jul 29, 2018 at 17:57 | comment | added | jamesqf | No, you would not be rich after a good slaughter. Gold's value depends on its scarcity. You've just created a lot of gold, it's no longer scarce, and hence commands little value. | |
| Jul 29, 2018 at 16:49 | comment | added | Aethenosity | @nzaman OP said " yes can turn corpses into gold. " | |
| Jul 29, 2018 at 16:26 | comment | added | Erik | @nzaman according to the comments it works on corpses. | |
| Jul 29, 2018 at 11:40 | comment | added | nzaman | @Erik: I think the question requires that they actually be killed with the weapon rather than poking carcasses | |
| Jul 29, 2018 at 8:37 | comment | added | Erik | Why butcher your companions? It's a siege. People are going to die anyway. You'll have plenty of gold to pour over your enemy. Or, you know... you could bribe them to go away. | |
| Jul 29, 2018 at 6:25 | comment | added | The Nate | That dude defending from a siege would get great mileage by killing dudes on ladders. Turning a body to gold would be heavy to block when it fell and awkward to navigate around if it clung. | |
| Jul 29, 2018 at 5:20 | history | answered | Aziri | CC BY-SA 4.0 |