Timeline for Feasibility of body armour for mer-people [closed]
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
23 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 16, 2022 at 19:29 | history | closed |
sphennings SurpriseDog UVphoton Mathaddict user81881 |
Needs details or clarity | |
| Jul 15, 2022 at 10:00 | answer | added | Starfish Prime | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 22:10 | history | edited | Monty Wild♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 118 characters in body
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| Jul 14, 2022 at 18:05 | answer | added | Daron | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 16:15 | comment | added | Starfish Prime | @MontyWild ...is unlikely to be enough by itself to maintain a 20+ degree difference in a humanoid bodyplan. Real world organic examples manage a few degrees for a rather smaller body and less demanding metabolism. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 15:26 | comment | added | Monty Wild♦ | @StarfishPrime, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countercurrent_exchange | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 15:20 | comment | added | Starfish Prime | @MontyWild I hope the sea is lovely and warm too, cos those big gills are going to be excellent heat exchangers. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 15:07 | comment | added | Monty Wild♦ | @Trioxidane, gills on the neck like Abe Sapien from Hellboy wouldn't actually work. It takes a lot of surface area to absorb enough oxygen fast enough to supply a warm blooded creature. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 15:03 | comment | added | Trioxidane | Why have the gills on the chest? It seems better to use the gills like most fish close to the intake point. This is also great for the lungs. They can be water free when surfacing, making them immediately ready for use. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 14:56 | comment | added | Monty Wild♦ | @Vesper, it's complicated... the mermen came from another world where their adaptations made more sense. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 14:52 | comment | added | Vesper | Even if no land, there is still a possibility to make a raft off fish bladders, filled with volcano gasses if needed, and such a device could be used to at least dry up whatever skin they have managed to acquire, by putting it on top while pulling the raft downwards, then releasing and waiting for the sun. There would be issues with the wind, without land to stop winds they could have accelerated to tremendous speeds, so yes this is quite a separate question. Hmm hmm. But then your merfolk would have no need for lungs... | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 14:47 | comment | added | Monty Wild♦ | @Vesper, making leather underwater would be a whole new question, and doing it above water for themselves isn't an option for my mermen... there is almost literally no land... for most of them. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 14:42 | comment | added | Vesper | Hmm. What about other ocean fish leather? This question worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/121846/… says shark skin could be used as leather, and sharks are natural enemies for these merfolk, as it seems. So they could adapt to using shark skin as protection, and potentially even make deep sea leather in some odd environment used instead of treatment for land-based leather. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 14:31 | comment | added | Monty Wild♦ | @Vesper, whaleskin doesn't make good leather. Age of sail whalers used to tan the only good bit of skin on a whale for use as overalls: a blue whale's penis skin. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 14:23 | comment | added | Vesper | IMHO and from what I've read about baleen, baleen armor looks like it could be feasible, provided merpeople would be able to hunt down a baleen whale. However, I'd opt for the same whale's skin treated on the dry land under constant watch of alternating groups of merpeople, as a replacement for common leather armor, with about the same effectiveness vs knife/spear as leather. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 14:08 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jul 16, 2022 at 19:29 | |||||
| Jul 14, 2022 at 14:00 | comment | added | Monty Wild♦ | @sphennings, I've cut down the number of questions. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 13:57 | history | edited | Monty Wild♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
deleted 1 character in body
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| Jul 14, 2022 at 13:51 | comment | added | sphennings | Please remember that we have a strict one question per post policy. You seem to be asking about feasibility of construction, effectiveness, how common each would be, and for us to make up cheaper or more effective alternatives. That's a lot of questions to have in one post. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 13:35 | comment | added | Vesper | In case your merpeople go out to the surface, do they completely leave water so that they crawl on their lower body like say a naga? If yes, they should develop scales on the tail, and these scales could be fashioned into armor for body (or plain grow on upper side as well). | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 13:35 | comment | added | Escaped dental patient. | Related, possible duplicate, but not necessarily. They even come-up with the idea of blubber as armour. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 13:30 | comment | added | shawnhcorey | "How effective might each type of armour be?" Against what weapons? Looking at the natural world, most weapons used by marine animals either stab or are sound weapons. I don't think any type of armour would stop sound weapons. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 13:22 | history | asked | Monty Wild♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |