Editing 1114: Metallurgy
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| titletext = This exotic blade was wrought from a different fallen star. The meteorite was a carbonaceous chondrite, so it's basically a lump of gravel glued into the shape of a sword. A SPACE sword! | | titletext = This exotic blade was wrought from a different fallen star. The meteorite was a carbonaceous chondrite, so it's basically a lump of gravel glued into the shape of a sword. A SPACE sword! | ||
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
| − | The comic explains how weapons would really behave if they were made out of unusual materials. In fantasy stories, using unusual materials for weapons traditionally makes the weapons more powerful and cooler despite limited explanation for exactly why materials of extraterrestrial origin are so superior to their | + | The comic explains how weapons would really behave if they were made out of unusual materials. In fantasy stories, using unusual materials for weapons traditionally makes the weapons more powerful and cooler despite limited explanation for exactly why materials of extraterrestrial origin are so superior to their earthen counterparts. The salesman in the comic is [[Beret Guy]] which appears with a beard for only this comic. |
The first panel is a reference to a fairly common fantasy trope: the use of iron meteorites for making weapons and armor (for example the sword "Brisingr" of the Inheritance cycle, "Anglachel" in the Tolkien Legendarium, the sword of Martin in Redwall or the panserbjørns' armor in Pullman's Northern Lights). The quality of such metal can be rather hit-and-miss. On one hand, iron from meteorites was often mixed with "terrestrial" iron in the early stages of human development to create relatively high quality steel for swords. Undeveloped metalworking techniques at the time meant that extraterrestrial metal was often more refined and plentiful than man-made metal ingots. With that in mind, however, [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0016703767901408 research] has shown that meteorites have an abundance of the chemical element Antimony (Sb) which by itself is a very brittle metal and therefore swords forged from metals harvested from meteorites may not be as strong as lore would have one think. | The first panel is a reference to a fairly common fantasy trope: the use of iron meteorites for making weapons and armor (for example the sword "Brisingr" of the Inheritance cycle, "Anglachel" in the Tolkien Legendarium, the sword of Martin in Redwall or the panserbjørns' armor in Pullman's Northern Lights). The quality of such metal can be rather hit-and-miss. On one hand, iron from meteorites was often mixed with "terrestrial" iron in the early stages of human development to create relatively high quality steel for swords. Undeveloped metalworking techniques at the time meant that extraterrestrial metal was often more refined and plentiful than man-made metal ingots. With that in mind, however, [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0016703767901408 research] has shown that meteorites have an abundance of the chemical element Antimony (Sb) which by itself is a very brittle metal and therefore swords forged from metals harvested from meteorites may not be as strong as lore would have one think. | ||
