How would you contain the St Louis rift?

[Dr Megaverse]

Title says it all. Lets limit this to resources that can be provided by Rifts Earth. What do you think?

[Mech-Viper Prime]

Title says it all. Lets limit this to resources that can be provided by Rifts Earth. What do you think?

like the coalition did , build around it and slaughter anything coming out of it

[Nightmask]

A custom ritual of a collection of mages could maybe craft a specialized ritual version of the Close Rift spell to permanently close/destroy it. While we generally don't see rules for such things there are plenty of NPC 'off panel' rituals of this nature, such as the one race whose planet was even more rift-dangerous than Rifts Earth. They crafted a ritual using everyone on the planet's magical potential to seal all the rift access on their planet permanently.

[Nightmask]

Isn't it in the St Louis arch.. Why not build an iris, like in Stargate SG1.

Because Palladium Rifts don't work like Stargate Wormholes where you can just block someone at the door and they'll instantly disintegrate. It's just an opening between two points you can look through like a window and step through, so while you might put a shutter over it someone on the other side can just bash it down.

[Mallak's Place]

Our Groups Techno-Wizard has managed to get his hand on a copy of the original plans for the Arch. His plan is to build a large Stone Pyramid that incorporated the arch into its structure. The pyramid can then be used to control the rift that is inside the arch. while it may not be able to permanently close the rift, it may be able to make it lock on a more benign dimension.
Our techno-Wizard has sent a letter to the Coalition High Command, laying out his plan in great detail including the handing over of the Pyramid and arch back over to the Coalitions control when the work is done. The answer he got back in unprintable in these forums.

[Shark_Force]

bury it.

last i checked, rifts earth has plenty of dirt.

[Nightmask]

bury it.

last i checked, rifts earth has plenty of dirt.

I think the pyramid would work better, the arch is way too tall to just go and bury and many creatures can get through such a mound fairly quickly.

[Mallak's Place]

bury it.

last i checked, rifts earth has plenty of dirt.

Problem would be that any dirt that came into contact with the rift would probably be suck into the rift. This would crate a endless sinkhole effect.

[Shark_Force]

bury it.

last i checked, rifts earth has plenty of dirt.

I think the pyramid would work better, the arch is way too tall to just go and bury and many creatures can get through such a mound fairly quickly.

1) there is no limit to the height of a pile of dirt apart from the amount of dirt you have, and the width of the base.

2) who's going to dig through it? if you opened a random door, not knowing what was on the other side, and saw dirt covering the entire thing, would you step through the door and start digging under the assumption that there must be something super-exciting on the other side, or just shrug, walk away, and ignore it? it's dirt, which is not hard to find. just pile more on. better yet, make it sand, which won't support a tunnel.

edit:

Problem would be that any dirt that came into contact with the rift would probably be suck into the rift. This would crate a endless sinkhole effect.

nonsense. you'd first fill up the other side of the rift if that happened, then no more dirt would pass through. this would be even more ideal, since at that point stuff on the other side wouldn't even see the rift.

[Mallak's Place]

bury it.

last i checked, rifts earth has plenty of dirt.

I think the pyramid would work better, the arch is way too tall to just go and bury and many creatures can get through such a mound fairly quickly.

1) there is no limit to the height of a pile of dirt apart from the amount of dirt you have, and the width of the base.

2) who's going to dig through it? if you opened a random door, not knowing what was on the other side, and saw dirt covering the entire thing, would you step through the door and start digging under the assumption that there must be something super-exciting on the other side, or just shrug, walk away, and ignore it? it's dirt, which is not hard to find. just pile more on. better yet, make it sand, which won't support a tunnel.

edit:

Problem would be that any dirt that came into contact with the rift would probably be suck into the rift. This would crate a endless sinkhole effect.

nonsense. you'd first fill up the other side of the rift if that happened, then no more dirt would pass through. this would be even more ideal, since at that point stuff on the other side wouldn't even see the rift.

The Rift in the Arch shifts from world to world randomly. when it switched to another world the dirt start to slide again.

[Nightmask]

bury it.

last i checked, rifts earth has plenty of dirt.

I think the pyramid would work better, the arch is way too tall to just go and bury and many creatures can get through such a mound fairly quickly.

1) there is no limit to the height of a pile of dirt apart from the amount of dirt you have, and the width of the base.

2) who's going to dig through it? if you opened a random door, not knowing what was on the other side, and saw dirt covering the entire thing, would you step through the door and start digging under the assumption that there must be something super-exciting on the other side, or just shrug, walk away, and ignore it? it's dirt, which is not hard to find. just pile more on. better yet, make it sand, which won't support a tunnel.

Plenty of monsters come through the random rifts that open up, and there are creatures that can burrow through earth just fine and wouldn't have problems at all digging their way through. Plus there are plenty of places were dirt is indeed hard to find, same with sand, and would be seen as a valuable material on the other side to acquire.

edit:

Problem would be that any dirt that came into contact with the rift would probably be suck into the rift. This would crate a endless sinkhole effect.

nonsense. you'd first fill up the other side of the rift if that happened, then no more dirt would pass through. this would be even more ideal, since at that point stuff on the other side wouldn't even see the rift.

Not nonsense. You can't fill up the other side of the rift because the rifts are random and open to a nigh-infinite number of random locations making a relatively infinite amount of fill space on that other side making it impossible to fill up the other size. The rifts aren't active all the time either so even if you buried the Arch eventually it'd open a rift that would suck out enough dirt to collapse the mound.

Meanwhile you construct a special Pyramid you've a stone, MDC structure to help contain what might come through and maybe regulate the gate helping to restrict its portal openings or force it to want to go to a particular location that would be safe.

[Shark_Force]

The Rift in the Arch shifts from world to world randomly. when it switched to another world the dirt start to slide again.

not once it's packed down it won't.

edit:

Plenty of monsters come through the random rifts that open up, and there are creatures that can burrow through earth just fine and wouldn't have problems at all digging their way through. Plus there are plenty of places were dirt is indeed hard to find, same with sand, and would be seen as a valuable material on the other side to acquire.

you can choose to deal with every monster that can walk into a rift leading into a room, or every monster that can tunnel through the ground. the second group is substantially smaller. and is likely to include a lot fewer predators, most likely, since the main critters that will live in the ground are going to be those that need to hide from predators (and are therefore not predators themselves), and those that consume stuff that is in the dirt... and are typically not predators themselves.

[Mallak's Place]

The Hight and Width of the Arch (At its base) is 630 feet

[Nightmask]

The Rift in the Arch shifts from world to world randomly. when it switched to another world the dirt start to slide again.

not once it's packed down it won't.

Sorry but dirt doesn't work like that. packed dirt is going to collapse just fine once what it's being held up by goes away. Especially if the environmental conditions on the other side are really good for eroding the dirt.

edit:

Plenty of monsters come through the random rifts that open up, and there are creatures that can burrow through earth just fine and wouldn't have problems at all digging their way through. Plus there are plenty of places were dirt is indeed hard to find, same with sand, and would be seen as a valuable material on the other side to acquire.

you can choose to deal with every monster that can walk into a rift leading into a room, or every monster that can tunnel through the ground. the second group is substantially smaller. and is likely to include a lot fewer predators, most likely, since the main critters that will live in the ground are going to be those that need to hide from predators (and are therefore not predators themselves), and those that consume stuff that is in the dirt... and are typically not predators themselves.

Plenty of predators live in the ground, like badgers and foxes and that's not even counting supernatural monsters like the Xixlix (or however their name is spelled). So as much as you'd like to dismiss the risks just burying the thing isn't a useful solution. You need far more to really reduce the risk from the Rift than just a big pile of dirt.

[Shark_Force]

they live in holes in the ground, not in the ground. they're no more likely to randomly start tunneling through the dirt in the rift than you or i are likely to just randomly start climbing trees or digging holes in the ground for no reason, even though those are things we could do. the badger is going to dig a hole most likely once in it's life, at which point it will already have a hole. the minute chance that a predator will be digging a hole at the exact moment that a rift opens up in the dirt where it is digging is going to drastically decrease the amount of stuff you get coming through.

also, there's the fact that the st louis rift appears to be impermeable to stuff that isn't deliberately passing through, to all appearances. that is, no alien atmospheres come through, to my knowledge, nor do rivers of alien water. each rift has it's own characteristics, and since occasionally having water, lava, poisonous gas, extremely powerful winds, etc, would be significant information about the rift and aren't mentioned... i'm left to conclude that those things don't pass through the st louis rift.

[Nightmask]

they live in holes in the ground, not in the ground. they're no more likely to randomly start tunneling through the dirt in the rift than you or i are likely to just randomly start climbing trees or digging holes in the ground for no reason, even though those are things we could do. the badger is going to dig a hole most likely once in it's life, at which point it will already have a hole. the minute chance that a predator will be digging a hole at the exact moment that a rift opens up in the dirt where it is digging is going to drastically decrease the amount of stuff you get coming through.

also, there's the fact that the st louis rift appears to be impermeable to stuff that isn't deliberately passing through, to all appearances. that is, no alien atmospheres come through, to my knowledge, nor do rivers of alien water. each rift has it's own characteristics, and since occasionally having water, lava, poisonous gas, extremely powerful winds, etc, would be significant information about the rift and aren't mentioned... i'm left to conclude that those things don't pass through the st louis rift.

And you think it's just impossible for such a rift to cut across a tunnel in some other dimension? Or that trying to bury a rift in SDC, ordinary dirt will qualify as a better method than sealing it in MDC stone with a magic pyramid locking it down and containing it?

[Shark_Force]

And you think it's just impossible for such a rift to cut across a tunnel in some other dimension? Or that trying to bury a rift in SDC, ordinary dirt will qualify as a better method than sealing it in MDC stone with a magic pyramid locking it down and containing it?

your method leaves an open entrance into a room, where you will have to deal with every creature that comes through. you will have to deal with all the stuff that is in tunnels, plus everything else.

my method means that any rift which doesn't pass through a tunnel is not likely to be a concern.

furthermore, if there is enough dirt, it is quite possible the creature will not even get through the rift before the random rift closes, since as has been noted, the portal is not permanent, but random. and even those creatures which can dig, generally speaking do not dig instantly (unless you're in the splicers world, but that's another topic).

[Nightmask]

And you think it's just impossible for such a rift to cut across a tunnel in some other dimension? Or that trying to bury a rift in SDC, ordinary dirt will qualify as a better method than sealing it in MDC stone with a magic pyramid locking it down and containing it?

your method leaves an open entrance into a room, where you will have to deal with every creature that comes through. you will have to deal with all the stuff that is in tunnels, plus everything else.

my method means that any rift which doesn't pass through a tunnel is not likely to be a concern.

furthermore, if there is enough dirt, it is quite possible the creature will not even get through the rift before the random rift closes, since as has been noted, the portal is not permanent, but random. and even those creatures which can dig, generally speaking do not dig instantly (unless you're in the splicers world, but that's another topic).

That's someone else's method, I've simply pointed out the usefulness of it. In your suggestion the rifts run free with nothing but a wall of SDC dirt to keep out random alien creatures. In his method you reduce or eliminate the rift events completely so you never have to fear something coming through. If just reduced you can contain them more easily in an MDC structure and unlike the dirt method you can monitor the rift so that things don't slip through you've no idea about. Since in the dirt method something could burrow in and end up setting up a network underground growing in power for years or decades without discovery until too late.

[Shark_Force]

so, your concern is that something might happen in the st louis rift that would allow some theoretical creature that may or may not exist, to get into the world through a rift (which it would already be able to do through the pyramid rift anyways) and set up shop over the long term? ie, what could already happen with the pyramid?

and again, this even assumes the whatever-it-is decides it wants to start tunneling around in the dirt on the other side of that random rift for no apparent reason.

frankly, i'm having a hard time getting particularly terrified of the infinitesimally small chance that <insert name here>, conqueror of dirt piles, is going to march into my dirt pile and establish a base of operations from which to conquer all the dirt piles in the world. i'm especially not convinced that he/she/it/whatever will manage to do so without causing massive alarm bells to ring in the heads of every psychic on the planet, since that's what pretty much every other major threat has caused to happen.

[Incriptus]

How bout we build a pyrimid over our giant mound of dirt!

[FuduVudu]

630ft tall and wide arch is going to be hell to fill with well packed and stable dirt especially when its on so many ley lines and a powerful uncontrolled Nexus. Its open to all the hell that goes on during ley line storms one storm that has the effect of strange rains or levitation on the environment during the construction would render it near impossible to get going let alone finish. It would be even worse if the project lasted long enough to feel the effects of a Summer Solstice on such a large uncontrolled Nexus. Not to mention the amount of your own workers you would have to Exorcise or kill because of the entities that always hang around ley lines.

[Lenwen]

Place a huge 15ft thick metal slab large enough to cover the entire arch way directly against the side of the arch that has the gate way open ..

place a huge nearly skin tight container around both .. the arch and the 15 ft thick metal slab ..

Line the entire site with wards ..

Then bury it under hundreds of thousands of tons of dirt ..

Compact the dirt ..

Line the compacted mound of dirt , with nuclear weapons. designed to detonate inward .. for maximum amount of damage to anything that could get threw .

[Balabanto]

Just dump all your sewage there. If no one wants to come through it because it's nothing but pee and poop, and it's the garbage dump of Rifts Earth, you win. You'll have to deal with the occasional infestation of slurmphs and the like, but most intelligent creatures don't like wading through giant mounds of dung.

[Giant2005]

I'd use the Rift as a power source to power a TK device that casts an impenetrable wall of force over the Rift. It is going to last as long as the Rift does.

[wyrmraker]

Build pyramids on the ley lines feeding the mega-nexus point. No power, no random rifts.

[keir451]

I think the Pyramid Idea has merit, the only caveat is that (technically) only the True Atlanteans are the ones who "supposedly" know that (barring Splynncryth and a few Gods).
My idea is similar to both the pyramid and covering it with dirt, I'd seal it in reinforced Megacrete to the thickness to the Great Pyramid.

[Rallan]

Nuke St Louis repeatedly and poison the remains with a broad spectrum of chemical weapons. Most things that don't just keel over and die will take one look at the place and decide this dimension's an uninhabitable dump.

[DhAkael]

Rallan's got an idea there...
It's not CONTAINMENT containment, but it'll do for deterant.

[Shark_Force]

Nuke St Louis repeatedly and poison the remains with a broad spectrum of chemical weapons. Most things that don't just keel over and die will take one look at the place and decide this dimension's an uninhabitable dump.

don't forget to set up a TW machine to launch constant ley line storms. you wouldn't want anyone to think it's not also magically contaminated

[Grinning Demon]

Title says it all. Lets limit this to resources that can be provided by Rifts Earth. What do you think?

Floopers. Lots and lots of Floopers.

[Athos]

Put a giant pyramid over it to harness all that power, then when bad guys come through, the over-confident mage will find out how truly pathetic most magic is in Rifts as the monsters quickly overcome and eat him.

[Killer Cyborg]

Isn't it in the St Louis arch.. Why not build an iris, like in Stargate SG1.

My thought as well.

It couldn't automatically kill incoming creatures/enemies/whatever like it does in Stargate, but it'd be a good first line of defense.
Also, not everything that comes through a rift is evil.
A lot of stuff would simply turn around and go back if it ran into a locked door.
And even if it IS demonic hordes or something that show up, it'll take TIME for them to bash down a good enough door... and Rifts don't stay open forever.

[Killer Cyborg]

Nuke St Louis repeatedly and poison the remains with a broad spectrum of chemical weapons. Most things that don't just keel over and die will take one look at the place and decide this dimension's an uninhabitable dump.

So, basically, turn it into East St. Louis?

[TechnoGothic]

Find a Mulka. Ask him to close the Rifts forever.

[Rallan]

Rallan's got an idea there...
It's not CONTAINMENT containment, but it'll do for deterant.

It's totally containment. It'll probably cut back on the amount of incursions you have to waste time shooting at by well over 90%

[Rallan]

Plant a Millennium Tree on it. That sucker will close it pretty quick.

That would make canons collide, since you'd be planting a Nexus-capping object over an uncappable Nexus.

[Giant2005]

How would the CS feel about a Millennium Tree? Would they consider it a DBee and cut it down or just consider it a tree and let it be useful?

[Shark_Force]

we don't actually know much about the growth of millenium trees. we do know that they must grow relatively quickly (they're bigger than a redwood, and grew to that size entirely within the timeframe of a few hundred years) and my personal suspicion is that they grow almost instantly (likely within a few weeks, months at most).

that said, it might shut down the rift... and it might not. we have examples of millenium trees that have been co-opted by evil beings, and at least one which has permanent rifts attached to it, iirc.

[Dr Megaverse]

How the CS reacts will probably play a big role in whatever solution was used. Somehow I can't see Prosek being ok with the idea of a "sentient tree". It just smells too much of D-Bee.

[The Beast]

like the coalition did , build around it and slaughter anything coming out of it

I'd use the Rift as a power source to power a TK device that casts an impenetrable wall of force over the Rift. It is going to last as long as the Rift does.

I'd combine those two ideas.

[Nether]

630ft tall and wide arch is going to be hell to fill with well packed and stable dirt especially when its on so many ley lines and a powerful uncontrolled Nexus. Its open to all the hell that goes on during ley line storms one storm that has the effect of strange rains or levitation on the environment during the construction would render it near impossible to get going let alone finish. It would be even worse if the project lasted long enough to feel the effects of a Summer Solstice on such a large uncontrolled Nexus. Not to mention the amount of your own workers you would have to Exorcise or kill because of the entities that always hang around ley lines.

Simple, Utah has lots of dirt, so much dirt in fact that they had a mountain or two that were a mile high above sea level and now they are 2 miles below sea level. So dirt aplenty.

Good ol promise land.

[Khord - Lizard Mage]

Cover the Arch in paper mache with silver runes!

[Shark_Force]

630ft tall and wide arch is going to be hell to fill with well packed and stable dirt especially when its on so many ley lines and a powerful uncontrolled Nexus. Its open to all the hell that goes on during ley line storms one storm that has the effect of strange rains or levitation on the environment during the construction would render it near impossible to get going let alone finish. It would be even worse if the project lasted long enough to feel the effects of a Summer Solstice on such a large uncontrolled Nexus. Not to mention the amount of your own workers you would have to Exorcise or kill because of the entities that always hang around ley lines.

Simple, Utah has lots of dirt, so much dirt in fact that they had a mountain or two that were a mile high above sea level and now they are 2 miles below sea level. So dirt aplenty.

Good ol promise land.

Except that Utah and Missouri are nowhere near each other.

conveniently, i hear that missouri also has dirt.

[Giant2005]

Cover the Arch in paper mache with silver runes!

Whatever mechanism is holding the paper there is still vulnerable.