Questions tagged [preservation]
For questions about preservation of physical or non-physical artefacts for an extended period of time.
30
questions
202
votes
24
answers
26k
views
How might modern humans leave a message for 50,000 years?
I recently played my way through the Mass Effect game series, and one of the ideas I found most intriguing was the emphasis placed on "time capsules" sent from one cycle to the next: not only did ...
71
votes
28
answers
19k
views
How can I prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union?
During the era of the Soviet Union, Russia was a much scarier nation: The Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Space Race. No one can deny these were major events in Russia's history. Let's say ...
60
votes
18
answers
9k
views
Million-year-old records
The universe is brutal on information. I'm looking for ways to preserve about an exabyte of information for a million years. I'm looking for answers rooted in reality without any lucky circumstances ...
48
votes
14
answers
10k
views
How to preserve electronics (computers, tablets and phones) for hundreds of years
Let's say you wanted to preserve some electronics for 500 years or more in a museum. What could you do to preserve them in working order for hundreds of years? Deep freeze? Lead lined vaults? Vacuum? ...
41
votes
18
answers
8k
views
How could a book be constructed to last forever?
The Clock of the Long Now is a clock designed to mark time for 10,000 years. That's a really long time for humans, but what if there existed a species that would see such a clock as "a bit short lived"...
38
votes
14
answers
4k
views
Safely preserving a manuscript for 700 years [closed]
The problem: My time travelling hero has travelled from the present, back to 14th century France (think 100 years war) to retrieve the mcguffin, a manuscript. He cannot take any physical objects back (...
29
votes
15
answers
5k
views
How to share knowledge to a future human civilization who doesn't know our languages?
Consider that I want to let an object to share knowledge to a civilization living in a far future (~10.000 years after today). It can be a book or any object which can store information, must be ...
26
votes
19
answers
6k
views
Everyone is sent into the future via regularly scheduled timejumps. How can I make sure I survive?
One day every human on earth capable of understanding a language gets has the same thought in their respective language repeated 3 times over the next three hours:
"In order to reduce human ...
26
votes
6
answers
4k
views
A 500 years vault for books?
I love books,
This love brought me to gather hundreds of books of all different types. When I disappear, like all old men's belongings, these will be scattered, thrown away, sold, burnt.
Let's ...
25
votes
4
answers
4k
views
How quickly would a wooden treasure chest rot?
Suppose a wooden treasure chest is placed in an underground dungeon in a medieval European climate. The chest is as sturdily built as is practical, but isn't protected by any kind of magic or advanced ...
19
votes
11
answers
5k
views
A food item only made possible by time-freezing storage?
Premise: It's the modern day, and humans have various magical abilities through a runic magic system. One of these abilities, which I'm currently trying to visualize the implications of, is called ...
19
votes
8
answers
6k
views
Would "new" clothes from 40 years ago be readily wearable?
Background
This question is set in a story where the Yellowstone supervolcano exploded 40 years ago (possibly others, doing research on it) during "The Mining Incident," and following this ...
18
votes
11
answers
7k
views
What kind of materials can survive for millennia?
Imagine an alien race. They are the creators of Unspecified Advanced Alien Technology™. One day they lose one of their ships. The crew had to evacuate, and the ship kind of crashed on a random planet. ...
17
votes
7
answers
3k
views
Quick solutions to a modern warning placed on the surface of a planet for future generations
In response to Write once perpetual storage, is such a thing possible? Separatrix pointed me at How could an ancient race warn the future in a universally understandable way? and How might modern ...
17
votes
8
answers
953
views
How do you circulate cryoprotectants through the human body?
Context if you're interested
The main problem with freezing living things is that the cold tends to damage tissue. Ice crystals form between cells, dehydrating and shrinking them, and preventing ...
12
votes
4
answers
4k
views
How long could a Kraken's carcass survive if preserved in salt?
I have a bay of water containing several Krakens. One day, due to the efforts of a magical organization, all of the water disappears. The Kraken fall and die on the bed of salt that is left behind. ...
11
votes
5
answers
2k
views
Cooling Question: How can I integrate a low tech freezing system into my world?
I'm trying to design a culture that has access to cooling as a primary source of food preservation.
This culture is set in the desert. They will have access to a magical stone that has the ability to ...
8
votes
11
answers
5k
views
What is a writing material that persists nearly forever or for a long time? [closed]
I'm designing an alien society with a low population density. I intend for them to have 1 book per topic per place; books update annually as new information arises. I call them books, but they can ...
6
votes
7
answers
2k
views
Humans get knocked back into the stone age; would archeologists from 10,000 years in the future be able to tell that we existed?
I am inspired by Dr. Robert Schoc's hypothesis that the Great Pyramid and Sphinx date back to a lost civilization from 10,000 BCE.
The Question:
Suppose an asteroid/mega solar flare/etc. reduced ...
6
votes
3
answers
228
views
How to redesign modern weapons in order to make their indefinite storage easy?
As usual useful TVTropes:
Superweapon Surprise
[...]
Comes in at least six flavors:
Break Out the Museum Piece: It doesn't matter that there hasn't been
any fighting for a long time. Their weapons ...
6
votes
3
answers
19k
views
How can I preseve a small sample of blood for centuries?
I have a race of carnivorous mammals (the same from this question) for whom blood plays an extremely important role in cultural rituals. For complex cultural reasons, a member of this race (call him ...
6
votes
2
answers
169
views
How long would a creature the size of an argentinosaurus' bones last in a scrubland?
The basic idea is that a massive organism with a bone structure similar to a tortoise's dies in an open area. Then, once only bones are left, they become an open cavern with fertile soil layered on ...
5
votes
5
answers
352
views
Preservation of knowledge in the event of apocalypse [duplicate]
I am trying to think of a good way for an effectively all-powerful organization to preserve humanity's knowledge for when the inevitable apocalypse happens so that, when the time comes for survivors ...
4
votes
5
answers
1k
views
What is the best-case-scenario for farming in the post-apocalypse?
Following the "Generic apocalypse-causing event" most of Earth's population is wiped out in a matter of days. The several hundred survivors of Metropolis City salvage canned food from ...
3
votes
3
answers
179
views
How long would a gramophone record made of vinyl remain comprehensible when played?
A gramophone record made of vinyl is stored under cool conditions in a sealed envelope. How long would it remain comprehensible when played after it was manufactured (assuming that the record was ...
3
votes
2
answers
155
views
How would an extremely thigmotropic plant store enough energy?
Clingy Vine eats animals when they come in contact with it by rapidly growing over them and killing them - a bit like a strangler fig.
The main problem I’m running into is that it would need loads of ...
2
votes
4
answers
284
views
How could written materials be preserved after 3000 years of history? [closed]
Premise
Grandmaster Fredrietch Kalven, a researcher of lost arts, was tasked by the king to find and record all written histories of their world since the earliest writings.
After many years of ...
1
vote
2
answers
92
views
How does trophy hunting helps in conservation of rare "Poop Bomber" dragon?
In the modern days, World Wildlife Fund has promised a donation of a lump sum of $100 million to save a certain endangered dragon species found only in the Sahara desert.
The adult dragon weights 1.5 ...
0
votes
1
answer
135
views
Live Body Preservation.....A way to live for many centuries? [closed]
I was thinking that if there was a machine which preserved live human body without aging would that be a way/solution to live for many centuries?
ex- A person at age 40 sleeps in that machine & ...
-1
votes
2
answers
120
views
How long could a crashed spaceship and/or alien ruins last at the bottom of Europa's oceans? [closed]
What factors would be working to damage or erode them and how long could they conceivably last? Would making them airtight help in any way, or would the contents last longer in a vacuum (assuming you ...