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[Septus]

So Neal Stephenson came out with a book last year, Anathem. It's a thousand pages, but a rough summary is that it's a different world, one where a kind of non-religious order of knowledge monks guard and store and build up all the information (and I mean ALL) of every civilization that had ever existed in their world, through seven thousand years of various empires rising and falling, from stone age up to atomic manipulation and back to stone age.

So tall walls, safe little monks scuttling around building and brewing and growing and digging and working. Kind of like DF (although what isn't), with the occasional siege when the outside world turns against them for any one of a hundred reasons.

The idea is that there are four layers, each increasingly gated and protected, to each Concent (the monk-fortresses): The Annuary, Decenary, Centenary, and Millenary Gates. Each gate opens only when the appropriate year is begun, for ten days - so for 3586 only the Annuary gate would open, but for 3590 the Annuary and Decenary gates would open, and in the year 4000 all the gates would open.

When a gate opens, the inhabitants recruit for that particular section of the Concent, collected knowledge from each section is relayed inward, then the gates close again.

So of course, I want to build this.

The systems in the book are all automated, tied to a huge well-maintained clock system. Thus I would need the same - four nested internal layers of fortress, each self-sufficient, each increasingly well protected against interlopers. I would need a clock system, automated, that would trigger the four drawbridges once every one, ten, hundred and THOUSAND years for a period of time.

The nesting is easy. The self-sufficiency and increasingly elaborate traps are easy. The clock is hard. I've seen gate-level logic implemented, but building such a thing with NAND gates makes me want to die. If I can derive a frequency from the oscillator circuit described on the wiki, it may be a starting point. But how to implement a counter?  And since bridges can only be tied to levers, is there any way for machines to trigger levers? I'm rudimentary with respect to mechanisms in DF, mostly limited to lever-make-floodgate-work-ooga-booga.

Logic follows:
Counter=0;
foreverloop{
   Counter increases;
   if (Counter indicates a year has gone by){
      open Annual gate;
      if (Counter DIV 10==0) open Decade gate;
      if (Counter DIV 100==0) open Century gate;
      if (Counter DIV 1000==0) open Millenium gate;
      wait (some time);
      close all gates;
   }
}

Hopeless to automate completely? Or just hopeless?

[Taritus]

The best solution I've ever heard is using a freeze-thaw cycle as a means to determine if a year has passed or not.  (Been considering starting this myself.  I got the book for Christmas.)

[TKGP]

You might be able to retain a count by the amount of water in a series of holding tanks, although that would presumably be easiest to do in base 7 (or 6, depending on how you look at it), which you may not be familiar with, and you'd run into evaporation problems if you didn't do it just right.

Edit: or rather, base 3 might make more sense than base 6.
Double Edit: The way I'm thinking of would presumably be pretty inefficient if the only level of granularity you're looking at is years, but it seems decent for finer amounts of time, and is scalable. Which is not to say that there aren't some other issues inherent in it.

[smjjames]

I know there is at least one fort that went to 200 years and there are a handful that are 100 or something.

It would take ALOT of dedication to continue a fort for a thousand years.

Unfortunately, the mechanics involved are possibly more complex (lots of things needed), not to mention murphys law has a higher chance to happen as a fort gets older.

If technological era wasn't an issue, using some sort of atomic clock would work.

Having something trigger annually and every 10 years should be easier, but for the other two, you're going to have to use math to see if they would in theory, work.

Too bad theres no way to accellerate time or have a fort stay as it is in DF so it can be visited in adventure mode.

The whole concept sounds cool, but theres so many limitations.

Also, how do the automated clocks work in the book?

Edit: I think a clock with a massive spring would work, as long as it was wound regularily or something. Except.... there aren't any springs in DF

[Septus]

You might be able to retain a count by the amount of water in a series of holding tanks, although that would presumably be easiest to do in base 7 (or 6, depending on how you look at it), which you may not be familiar with, and you'd run into evaporation problems if you didn't do it just right.

Edit: or rather, base 3 might make more sense than base 6.

I'm a trifle sketchy about using water-based systems, since due to the viscous nature of the stuff and oscillations and whatnot, the timekeeping would be prone to jitter and lag. I agree with using different numeric bases, although I'm partial to 2, 8 and 16.

But if I make the concept a bit more flexible and have the triggers be at every 1, 16, 128 and 1024 years, it makes it much more compatible with a binary, mechanism-only system, yes?

The crux is having a constant, annual (or set-number-of-times-per-year) system that increments the counter. Using the instant of winter freeze-over is not a bad idea, and it happens at the exact same time every year.

[Halceon]

Wiki says: A drawbridge can be connected to a lever or pressure plate.

So that's not the real problem. The problem would be providing enough cistern space to make your clock work on the year scale, not to mention millenial. Even counting 300 steps (The time between a floodgate open trigger and the same floodgate closing) as your base unit of time and using binary arithmetics.

[Septus]

I know there is at least one fort that went to 200 years and there are a handful that are 100 or something.

It would take ALOT of dedication to continue a fort for a thousand years.

Unfortunately, the mechanics involved are possibly more complex (lots of things needed), not to mention murphys law has a higher chance to happen as a fort gets older.

If technological era wasn't an issue, using some sort of atomic clock would work.

Having something trigger annually and every 10 years should be easier, but for the other two, you're going to have to use math to see if they would in theory, work.

Too bad theres no way to accellerate time or have a fort stay as it is in DF so it can be visited in adventure mode.

The whole concept sounds cool, but theres so many limitations.

Also, how do the automated clocks work in the book?

Edit: I think a clock with a massive spring would work, as long as it was wound regularily or something. Except.... there aren't any springs in DF

The Concent at the center of the book had a multiton hanging rock that as it dropped drove the system by a series of stone clockworks, each massively over-engineered to ensure long-term durability. As the main rock falls, the rocks that control each of the four gates rise bit by bit, and when a given rock reached a set point (which always happened on the first day of the year), levers were tripped and the appropriate gates would open.

The main drive rock had a backup in parallel, so that when the MDR was being hoisted upward, the backup would keep things running.

But what if the system breaks down completely, and a gear needs replaced, and you need to keep track of how much time has passed since the clock broke down? No worries - that's what the tiny atomic clock in deep storage is for, along with the designs for antimatter weapons, gray-goo nanotech, etc.

Why would they use this giant mechanical system when they could just as easily use hand cranked gates, timed by a thumb-sized perfect mechanism? Because deep down they are Dwarves!

[TKGP]

You might be able to retain a count by the amount of water in a series of holding tanks, although that would presumably be easiest to do in base 7 (or 6, depending on how you look at it), which you may not be familiar with, and you'd run into evaporation problems if you didn't do it just right.

Edit: or rather, base 3 might make more sense than base 6.

I'm a trifle sketchy about using water-based systems, since due to the viscous nature of the stuff and oscillations and whatnot, the timekeeping would be prone to jitter and lag. I agree with using different numeric bases, although I'm partial to 2, 8 and 16.

But if I make the concept a bit more flexible and have the triggers be at every 1, 16, 128 and 1024 years, it makes it much more compatible with a binary, mechanism-only system, yes?

The crux is having a constant, annual (or set-number-of-times-per-year) system that increments the counter. Using the instant of winter freeze-over is not a bad idea, and it happens at the exact same time every year.

Well, the point of using base 7 (or 3) is because that corresponds to water amounts in a tile. For a moment, lets assume that tiles hold 10/10 and there is no evaporation. Also assuming you have a system that feeds in 1/10 water every however often, probably from a river or something. The water goes to a pressure plate that triggers at 10/10, opening a floodgate. Then you find a way to remove 9 water units and move the remaining one to the next tank, which again counts to 10 with the input from the first, incrementing yet another cistern when it reaches 10. In this manner you can simulate digit places. The same thing would work with 7/7, only in base 7, but evaporation would ruin the whole thing, so using base 3, inputing 2 water units at a time, dumping at 6/7, and moving only 2 units to the next digit tank would solve evaporation issues.
So, lets say (again with 10/10, no evap.) that you just want it to trigger a bridge every 100 time units, but still continue counting afterwards (so you can still have a trigger at 1000, or whatever). When the 2nd tank (10s place) gets to 10/10, move the single tile of water to an intermediate tank that has a pressure plate linked to the bridge and to another gate that leads to the third cistern (100s place). In this way you can keep the rooms 1x1 while still keeping your count accurate. Convert to base 3 so that it works with the 7/7 model, use pumps to ensure no water is left behind, and voila!
I think that makes sense, but feel free to ask if you have any questions.

Edit: It gets a little more complicated when you have to trigger at weird amounts that are not determined by a single digit, so you may have to expand the cisterns to 2x1, 3x1, etc. to put in extra triggers, but you can just input and move 2 or 3 times as much water to compensate.

[Septus]

Ahh, makes more sense now. Much more reasonable than building a 10-bit adder, I should think...

[Mokomakin]

Hey guys! I wonder if you could use caravans in this scheme.
Dwarf caravans come every autumn. You shouldn't have access to other trading civs ofc.
Then you would make a path that no one else but the caravan would take and let them trigger your pressure plate. (guarded by weapon traps and restricted zone)
Pressure plate would let the water flow. Water would trigger your gate.
While leaving, your traders would reset this all.

Every wagon visit could count you years too, couldn't it? 

Only problem I find here is that the wagons may not be exact enough. AND Im not sure if this is mechanic enough for you.

AND this is my first post to this epic forum.
Hello guys!

[Septus]

Only problem would be the carvans not coming during siege years. 

[TKGP]

Ahh, makes more sense now. Much more reasonable than building a 10-bit adder, I should think...

Not that my concept isn't retardedly complicated in the first place, but it might at least be workable.

Hey guys! I wonder if you could use caravans in this scheme.
Dwarf caravans come every autumn. You shouldn't have access to other trading civs ofc.
Then you would make a path that no one else but the caravan would take and let them trigger your pressure plate. (guarded by weapon traps and restricted zone)
Pressure plate would let the water flow. Water would trigger your gate.
While leaving, your traders would reset this all.

Every wagon visit could count you years too, couldn't it? 

Only problem I find here is that the wagons may not be exact enough. AND Im not sure if this is mechanic enough for you.

AND this is my first post to this epic forum.
Hello guys!

Grats on first post and all that! However, I don't think the caravans come at exactly the same time every year, and no matter how many safeguards you place, there's always the chance of some dorf or goblin or whatever triggering the system. Also, if you make the traders angry for some reason, they'll stop coming and screw up the whole cycle. Interesting concept, though.

[Mokomakin]

Only problem would be the carvans not coming during siege years. 

You would be locked in your little fortress anyway so you could turn invaders off.

 Ten days is kinda small time in df. It would be fun to have some dwarves left outside when the gates get closed! Starvation, dehydration and death!

[Mokomakin]

Ahh, makes more sense now. Much more reasonable than building a 10-bit adder, I should think...

Not that my concept isn't retardedly complicated in the first place, but it might at least be workable.

Hey guys! I wonder if you could use caravans in this scheme.
Dwarf caravans come every autumn. You shouldn't have access to other trading civs ofc.
Then you would make a path that no one else but the caravan would take and let them trigger your pressure plate. (guarded by weapon traps and restricted zone)
Pressure plate would let the water flow. Water would trigger your gate.
While leaving, your traders would reset this all.

Every wagon visit could count you years too, couldn't it? 

Only problem I find here is that the wagons may not be exact enough. AND Im not sure if this is mechanic enough for you.

AND this is my first post to this epic forum.
Hello guys!

Grats on first post and all that! However, I don't think the caravans come at exactly the same time every year, and no matter how many safeguards you place, there's always the chance of some dorf or goblin or whatever triggering the system. Also, if you make the traders angry for some reason, they'll stop coming and screw up the whole cycle. Interesting concept, though.

Failure is ALWAYS possible.
It would be of course so much cooler to make a machine that would be the most complicated dwarfy thing in the universe dwarfverse.

edit: Sorry for doubles.

[TKGP]

<quoted stuff>

I'm imagining a clock fueled by elves being sacrificed in a pit of lava. Then you encase their corpses in obsidian and, I don't know, use the obsidian blocks to crush invading goblins. Your clock is incremented by the accumulation of 'narrow giant cave spider silk socks'.