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[Girlinhat]

It's recently come to my attention that supports can work from above, and allow things to hang from them.  This has subsequently brought to mind the idea of hanging empires, danging from the cavern roof by tentatively paced supports.  This then made me think of how to weaponize it, and stalactites came to mind.  How difficult and effective would it be to isolate a 1x1 piece of cavern roof, hang it from a support, and make it available for dropping?  Made out of natural wall, it would hit the ground solid, but could be reloaded with constructed wall that would leave a stone on the ground.  Made into a minefield, or carpet bombing, this might prove a very capable, and very dwarfy, defense strategy, as well as letting you shell your enemies from a distance.  If the crush doesn't kill them, the dust should throw them halfway across the map.

[ZetaX]

You should note that you can only build pillars when the floor is there. Thus you would need to build stable floors (or mine them out), then buy the pillar, then remove anything that supports that floor/wall. I've thought about this myself, as it is somewhat funny, but it's probably not worth the effort. You could, with the same effect, just build normal cave-in traps 
Things are different through for special occasions (like fortresses hanging there, like you mentioned; then it's just awesome^^).

[Brandstone]

Hehe, I'm thinking of a floating highway held up with a support in the middle. If it's long enough then you could get the elf caravan and goblin ambush with just one lever pull. For repeatability, multiple highways would be useful so while one is being rebuilt you have extras to use. A bit less lethal than a ceiling falling on them so your military can still get some practice as well. Just don't send them in too early. This could be fun.

[ext0l]

Sometimes caverns have natural stalactites, though its hard to notice. I've accidentally broke these while building my pump stacks. 

[Poindexterity]

quite a few have these already.
i entered a cave from the ceiling, and lacking a military, i feared to go to the ground.
but i desperately wanted those gems i could see in the stalagtites, so i built bridges to them and even a jewelers workshop inside one of em.

felt VERY dwarfy to me.

[Girlinhat]

What's dwarfy about fearing to go lower?

[kilakan]

well I've used 'stalagtites' connected to a support to make a wall I can drop to seal off my entrance, very useful when you want to literally split a siege in half, since both sides get blow around alot, or crushed.

[BigD145]

I had some science to do along these lines, but it got delayed as I wanted to do some drops on open ground and in an artificial water tank. The water tank was a year in and probably wouldn't be full for another 3-4. Then I got distracted by something else.