Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26173711-20200204212304/@comment-27745396-20200208062312

Sentry 616 wrote: A closed system will eventually fail. It's just a question of which link in the system goes first, and when. Not if.

1 The farms have no more land, so the soil will probably lose nutrients, barring unknown Earth Dust and Plant Dust uses.

2 These farms get no support, they have to support everyone once any stockpiled food is used up, and there are more people in Atlas, and they will be panicy, especially if the population grows.

3 Circulating enough water without being able to melt snow in large quantities to add fresh water to the system.

4 No. More. Dust. If they need something that they can't get safely from the staff or something else inside the city without Dust, well touch luck, it's going to be rationed AF, and  once it's gone, it's gone. Never. coming. Back. Not unless they repurpose equipment and drop it into Grimm range. Then the screaming starts. I mean, Atlas could just start working with same sci-fi logic as all space colonies. Meaning that as long as the writers ignore the possible problems, they won't exist.

But still. At first Atlas would definelly suffer and people would without no doubt die. They have had no time to create the systems they need to survive, but like every population, they would learn to adapt.

1. Nutriens are easy fix, you just use manure as fertilizer. And yes, after purificating it from some bacteria, human manure can be and is already used as fertilizer.

2. Yes, that might end up becoming problem. It's likely that Atlas would start controlling the sice of their population though (one child policy or something similar). It's also likely that soon people would start growing some of their own food at their homes. Places like Schnee Manor surely have space for more than just a small garden plot.

3. In theory, they could go and take extra water from space. Of course they would have to invent space travel first. At first they might have been able to use Penny for these missions (if she hadn't ran away) or the android soldiers.

4. Dust would definitelly end up becoming a huge problem for Atlas. Then again, they would probably try and adapt. Solar panels are pretty good source of energy in space where clouds arent a problem so their basic energy need should be taken care of (assuming Remnant has solar panel technology...). Assuming that Atlas manages to invent space travel, it could also be possible that they would start sending small teams down to Remnant to buy or mine that dust. Sure, it gives Salem a way in, but desperate times as for desperate needs.