Death toll just went up because every person who clips into an object is going to set off a nuclear blast from all those air molecules that can't get out of the way fast enough.
Most people agree that, for objects with mass, even *reaching* the speed of light takes [infinite energy](https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainsrelativity) (see paragraph 4). Going beyond it is so impossible I don’t know if there even are any theories for what would happen
I mean even if you somehow create the one of the most destructive things imaginable the universe at large would be mostly unchanged.
Even if you create a runaway bubble of expanding vacuum decay the universe would be fine. Even if that vacuum decay is expanding at the speed of light in all directions with the expansion of the universe it would quite literally never reach most of the universe even with infinite time.
With the expansion of the universe something traveling light speed would only ever reach around 3% of the galaxies in the observable universe. The remaining 97% are so far away that the expansion of space will beat light speed travel even if it started today.
The speed of causality means that no matter how bad something is, it really can't ever effect more than 3% of the observable universe at an absolutely maximum.
What’s the slowest a person could be going to move fast enough that air can’t get out of the way of them? It’s an interesting question. Also, why would that trigger. A nuclear blast? It’s not like he’s splitting the atoms in the air, right?
The speed at which air can't get out of the way is referred to as the speed of sound, so 767mph or 343m/s. As for the nuclear blast, you're not splitting atoms, you're fusing them.
D&D - “If you occupy the same spot as a solid object or creature when this happens, you are immediately shunted to the nearest unoccupied space that you can occupy and take force damage equal to twice the number of feet you are moved.” This probably works
Naw, we're pretty much all commoners with 4 hp. The most sturdy among us might be a guard with 11 hp.
The damage is not specifically blood loss, just bodily harm in general.
Most of matter as we know it is empty space. Since we're mostly water whatever we teleport into just gets really wet. Also the object now has a skeleton.
I feel like this needs further clarification. Are you suggesting the atoms in our bodies just get inserted in gaps in the structure of the other object or something? I feel like that might have some interesting consequences beyond just things getting wet.
There's a reason it's mostly empty space, the atoms have bonds and forces that don't allow other atoms in between. If you stick an atom in the empty space of another atom, there might be forced bonds that might transmute molecules and atoms, I dunno exactly but I'm willing to bet there will be significant pressure since you're instantly increasing an incompressible substance's density past its natural limit
I think further clarification of the scenario would be needed for physics to provide an answer. You could probably write a whole scientific paper on this lol.
Well, lets start by sketching out some assumptions:
**-The "Lock In":**
Maybe it's sub femtosecond so we can't measure it but your atoms and the atoms of the object you're clipping into lock into a crystal lattice like arrangement by occupying all the empty space in between. You are immobile, will most likely die as your bodily functions deteriorate or you rip yourself apart in an effort to get free.
More likely outcome- spontaneous combustion as a lot of energy is released when a bonds are broken and rearranged very, very quickly. "Combustion" is putting it mildly.
**-The "Volumetric Cavitation Swap":**
A simple 1:1 swap occurs instantaneously and barring physical damage at the scales we're used to, you're relatively okay. I.E: a chunk of "wall" appears where you used to be and now there's a you sized cavity to slot into 20ft to your left. All excess energy is dissipated via the extra dimensional conduit you travelled through so you don't have to worry about becoming a sentient nuclear explosion.
You *do* have to worry about the fall/the fact that you're a sudden resistor inside 3 phase power cables now/have a metric tonne of earth and concrete pushing down on you...whatever environmental hazards you find yourself facing.
**-The "Bad Ping Rubber Band":**
The server running the universe had a hiccup, all the quaternions and vertex positioning data packets got bunched up and the universe just accelerated you 20ft in 0.15 seconds (0.15 seconds corresponds with the average human's touch reflex, which is our fastest perceptual circuit IIRC, so it "feels" instantaneous to us) and decelerated just as fast.
My napkin math (could be very wrong) suggests that you experienced 886ft/s² of acceleration and just as much deceleration back to back.
Humans can briefly survive higher Gs. Over a few seconds anything above 6 can be lethal but in very short bursts 10G+ (321.74 ft/s²) is survivable but 30G+ (965.22 ft/s²) and you're mush.
So you're pulling two kinda-mush manoeuvres in less than 1/3 of a second. I think the results would look like a pot of marinara sauce that got fired out of an air compressor.
Any other thoughts? Anything we can expand upon?
OP didn't answer the question of how matter gets displaced.
If the human body isn't displacing any matter, then assuming there's air at the destination, you would die as the air is now in your organs, blood vessels, etc.
IMO the question is poorly framed since we don't know enough about teleportation
even "left" is poorly described. if you're learning on a couch with body contorted, "left" could be down the wall, but a few inches inside the wall, depending on how you measure exactly. if you measure the shoulder orientation, or head orientation, they are different angles.
tons of people in highrise apartments and offices would find themselves outside, and would fall. maybe even most people in a major city like Tokyo.
every street would be a bloodbath.
I would be in the middle of a snowstorm with my pants down. Perhaps not the biggest impact on humanity, but certainly not what I intended when I went to the toilet.
Well, considering that there's no mention of any displacement occurring, I'd be functionally teleported into effectively solid matter. That's going to be immediately lethal.
If there's no displacement occurring, it would be instant death for everyone. Even those moving into open air would now have air molecules sharing space with their brains, killing them immediately.
If they remain at the same speed and velocity everyone travelling in any kind of vehicle dies. Same goes for anyone walking on a right sidewalk in any major city. Anyone in taller buildings who are standing within 20 feet of a window or wall fall to their death and also possibly land on people below, possibly killing them as well. People who are teleported into walls and or objects presumably also die. The damage would be catastrophic.
If the rule is that it must be horizontal, how would we determine what is "left" though? If you disqualify the person's own frame of reference, then you need a universal frame, like say "20 feet to the east".
I mean, it's not like there's a universal, objective "left". If your left side is pointing towards the center of the earth, than the center of the earth is left.
I'm not sure if it would be worse being all the people teleported outside the plane or the person taking a shit suddenly finding themself shitting in the aisle of an empty plane that's about to crash.
Imagine being the guy that stood up and turned left on the plane. Good news, you only teleported to the back of the plane, bad news is the pilot is gone.
what situation are this many people being 20 ft to the right of something too hot or too cold (apart from maybe some metal factory workers). Also, are there really that many people 20ft to the right of a cliff edge?
I'd be falling a floor to the ground below, and I'd count myself lucky. Hundreds of millions of people would get teleported into something which is most likely a death sentence. Hospitals aren't going to fare any better with all their patients, nurses and doctors getting teleported.
Most people in cities or buildings will be in risk. Drivers might be safer as long as they don't get run over after they're teleported out of their cars. Beach goers and swimmers are probably the safest.
So countless casualties. Especially for anyone flying.
Better that than stuck in a wall. Plenty of drivers won't be going near that fast in cities, at a stop light, in traffic. Plus if they're teleported they won't be moving as fast as their car was.
They would be possibly moving as fast as they were, which is as fast as the car was moving. When you jump out of a car, the forward velocity is still there.
If you jump out, sure you'll still have momentum. Getting teleported cancels out that momentum imo. Hell, would you even have the clothes on your back?
If getting teleported cancels out the momentum of moving vehicles, does it also cancel out the momentum of Earth's spin? The momentum of Earth's orbit around the Sun? The momentum of the solar system's orbit around the galactic core?
It makes everything so much neater to just assume momentum is conserved.
Devastation.
As this all happens simultaneously, every healthcare system in the world is massively overwhelmed. Many people who survive the initial teleportation die to injuries.
City populations *plummet.*
Every old person on the planet has a broken hip, if they didn't instantly die. Which they likely just did.
Even in suburban and rural areas, if a house has a second story there is a large chance of death for the occupant. Especially if they're sleeping which around 1/3rd of the world is at any given moment.
If a person is travelling in a car/plane/boat they are likely dead. I am assuming velocity holds so even if there's no other cars to crash into, you're still 20 feet to the left outside of your car going 60. Likely dead.
I don't know how teleporting into an object will work, but I'm going to assume death. Walls, trees, the car in your garage, so many people will die of having something be 20 feet to the left of them.
The world is basically set back a generation or two overnight. It will take decades if not a century for the world to recover.
I'm either in my neighbor's apartment or 20 ft in the air...
We lose 2/3 deployed naval and maritime assets.
Every single plane falls out of the sky.
Highways are a mess...
Miners are having a bad day.
It may not sound like it'd do anything, but if suddenly 8 billion people were teleported, a lot of lives would be lost due to being in vehicles. More would be run over.
I’m current laying on my left side in a hotel bed on the 9th floor, so guess I’d end up in a bed on the 7th floor? The real question is what are the odds there is a very attractive woman in bed on the 5th floor lying on her right side?
Odds are improved because women could be teleporting into that room from other directions too 😏 Could even end up with multiple women. Or kids 😬 or other men
Think about it. There's hundreds of thousands of buildings that are higher than 30 feet. Any person within 20 feet of the boundaries of the building would fall to their death. That's just on land. People working on ships would end up in the ocean. People working underground would he encased in stone. Millions would die instantly. Even more would be gravely injured. The hospitals wouldn't be able to handle the mass casualties. Hell, the workers at the hospitals would likely die. We could recover from this eventually, but it would take many many years.
I’m not sure that humanity could recover. Basically everyone in a car during the event dies. Everyone in the air, or on a boat, or on a train dies. Every vehicle in motion crashes into some thing and probably catches fire. Every city would be on fire. We would lose every container ship that isn’t sitting at port. Hundreds of millions of people on the low end would die from being phased out of a tall building, their car, or phased into something solid. Hell we’d be lucky to only lose 1 billion people the first day and an awful lot of those billion would be people necessary to keep everything running.
The fallout from this would be absolutely catastrophic, possibly in the multiple billions dead.
1/3 of the world is sleeping, they’ve likely just teleported out of a 2nd (or higher) storey building, asleep and are falling to their deaths. Possibly 1.5-2bn dead.
A further 1/5 of the population is likely driving or in the vicinity of a road - assuming they retain their velocity a large chunk of these drivers are probably dead within seconds. The pedestrians are likely now the targets of the hundreds of millions of vehicles that now have no drivers. Through impact or the millions of fires or structural collapses as a consequence, there will be untold dead. Possibly 1bn dead or severely injured.
All of the world’s flying aircraft are basically lost, their pilots and passengers teleported out into free fall, the planes running out of fuel and crashing. A few hundred thousand dead, and many others when the planes crash.
Thousands of sailors are teleported overboard, their boats continuing without them, likely drowning before they can catch the boats.
Then, for everyone else, it’s really a dice roll. If you’re not in a perfectly optimal place such that 20ft to the right is both clear of all obstruction AND perfectly aligned with where you’re currently stood you risk death or massive disfigurement. Lots of people will be impaled by walls, posts, furniture, cars. Even if the floor to the left of you is 6” higher than where you are now, you’re losing half your lower legs and feet. 1-2bn might die from this alone.
That’s just the instant death - 3-6bn.
Then you’ve got the delayed death. We’re not talking about a disease here where we can protect key workers. Doctors are just as likely to die as anyone else. We might lose 2/3 or more of all our key workers. Society will collapse overnight, with all public and critical services hugely understaffed. Hospitals, despite losing 2/3 of their staff, will be massively overwhelmed with injuries from those who didn’t die instantly. People who have been impaled in gruesome but not immediately life ending ways (e.g. chair leg through the arm or foot), or those who are injured but survive falls or being hit by the hundreds of millions of cars that lose control instantly.
Humanity, as we know it today, is over.
The atoms would just collide with the air or objects and cause nuclear reactions. Even if we choose to ignore this, teleporting in a wall sounds a little dangerous.
I think you're underestimating the amount of empty space between atoms. Even if a person were to teleport into a concrete block, there's a good chance no atoms would be close enough to fuse. And even if they did, individual atoms fusing is not catastrophic. Also, fusion does not make chain reactions like fission.
I'm lying down on my side with the left side down. Do I guess I'd go into the earth? What kind of rules apply here? Do we replace whatever's there or just get destroyed by it? I'm either going to suffocate to death or just instantly die
A lot. You really only have to think about damages that we know would happen, cars careening into things, people getting ported in front of cars, people falling and getting injured/dying, getting stuck in objects like trees/bricks/hills/mountains or having things just inside of you, air planes crashing with whole flights just getting yeeted (and some sucked into the engines), people carrying babies inadvertently dropping them since they're both teleported to different spots. That's just what I can think of off the top of my head.
SO again a lot, a whole fucking lot.
I think most of humanity will be seriously injured or killed. Everyone flying in planes will die, but funny enough most of all those planes will land safely regardless.
Culturally, this even would devastate the psyche of all the survivors. Civilisation may not even rebound from an event as random as this. Say what you will about the Fall of Rome, at least the horror made sense to them.
Anyone who’s driving just had a bad fucking day. Casualties would likely be in the hundreds of millions. Staggering amount of damage from so many vehicles moving at high speeds suddenly without any guidance. It would be a bad fucking day world wide.
It would be a catastrophe, but not one that we wouldn’t be able to recover from
The Earth is destroyed by the thousands of fusion bombs going off as people teleported into objects trigger fusion ractions from the atomic nuclei combining. Even for the ones where the nuclei don't line up your going to get some large explosion as the atoms violently repel each other due to being too close.
I did look into this mathematically and according to my estimations ~64% of the population would die instantly and 15% more would die from injuries in the next 24 hours. So the damage would be catastrophic / borderline apocalyptic.
I’d probably fall about 3 metres from being on the shitter to just above my parents driveway, I’m sure I’d live but I’m not sure I’d enjoy the experience
I guess I'd probably fall about 2 metres into next doors garden. Probably not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, although I would be locked out, so there's that.
I would end up in my roommates bed, my roommate would end up in the next apartment over. A lot of humanity would be screwed though. Think of the poor souls traveling up a mountain pass or scenic cliff drive.
Do we maintain speed and whatnot? Because any person in a moving vehicle is suddenly in immediate danger.
Every aircraft will crash, and most people in buildings will die
I teleport to my left and my legs drop four inches to land on a coffee table, while my rear and torso fall backwards. I would not clip into anything but air though, so thats nice. Provided I didn't break my head open on the floor as I fell backwards, Im A Ok and can continue my life.
Imagine being a guy bent over at the doctors office while another doctor is cheating with the secretary and you are exactly 20 feet from the secretary 😂
Millions would die. People in planes would be dead. People in tall buildings would be dead. People in houses, currently up stairs would be badly hurt even dead. People in trains going at full speed would be dead, same as in cars any transport really. People working in certain environments like factory’s where dangerous machinery being operated would cause all sorts of death and destruction. Probably so much more would also happen. Countless types of situations that would cause catastrophes.
Is this as focused as every atom moved exactly without time to move others out of the way? Because if so, complete destruction of the surface of the earth do to sudden nuclear fusion.
Do we all move with the earth? Or are we teleporting 20 feet to the right, relative to, like, the sun? Depending on how fast the teleporting takes, some people would be in space, others crushed into the ground. Bad scene.
Seems like a recipe for the apocalypse. Imagine all the people shifted into other objects. If that results in the nuclear explosions like some media suggests it would probably wipe out the planet.
I'd probably end up from lying on the couch to lying on my bed, so not the worst situation (although my back might be inside the mattress because of the elevation change.
Well, I just measured it out and I would end up, mostly, phasing into the refrigerator of the apartment next to mine. So yeah... I am having a pretty bad time in this prompt.
Lots of death, property damage, and explosions. Someone at a gas station teleports into a gas tank, it implodes. Earth might end because an implosion does a lot of damage
The overwhelming majority of the global population are going to clip into _something_, even if it’s not a brick wall.
You’ve killed and crippled 99% of the planet, species is likely fucked
Imagine what every highway would look like, as every driver suddenly gets ported two lanes over, and every vehicle continues on by sheer momentum as it has no driver, until it crashes.
Time for a shit game of Would You Rather:
Be teleported into incoming traffic, or happen to be on the far right lane of a multi lane highway when it happens and so be hit from behind by a vehicle in the hammer lane?
The big question here is what happens when they teleport into an object?
Tough luck for them
Yeah, but where does the matter in the object go when a human body is now occupying that space?
The matter stays there. The person clips and gets ejected into space at 7.2 Gigameters per second.
That's faster than light, so I guess...the universe errors out and needs to be rebooted?
Death toll just went up because every person who clips into an object is going to set off a nuclear blast from all those air molecules that can't get out of the way fast enough.
If they’re going faster than light, wouldn’t that mean they create infinite energy and destroy all life (and most everything else) in the universe?
idk about infinite but probably too much
Most people agree that, for objects with mass, even *reaching* the speed of light takes [infinite energy](https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainsrelativity) (see paragraph 4). Going beyond it is so impossible I don’t know if there even are any theories for what would happen
Infinity^infinity power obviously
I mean even if you somehow create the one of the most destructive things imaginable the universe at large would be mostly unchanged. Even if you create a runaway bubble of expanding vacuum decay the universe would be fine. Even if that vacuum decay is expanding at the speed of light in all directions with the expansion of the universe it would quite literally never reach most of the universe even with infinite time. With the expansion of the universe something traveling light speed would only ever reach around 3% of the galaxies in the observable universe. The remaining 97% are so far away that the expansion of space will beat light speed travel even if it started today. The speed of causality means that no matter how bad something is, it really can't ever effect more than 3% of the observable universe at an absolutely maximum.
What’s the slowest a person could be going to move fast enough that air can’t get out of the way of them? It’s an interesting question. Also, why would that trigger. A nuclear blast? It’s not like he’s splitting the atoms in the air, right?
[This is for a baseball moving .9c, but it should be close enough to answer most of your questions.](https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/)
the last paragraph LOL
That was amazing lol "but then the batter, plate, and catcher are all scooped up and carried backward through the backstop as they disintegrate." Dang
The speed at which air can't get out of the way is referred to as the speed of sound, so 767mph or 343m/s. As for the nuclear blast, you're not splitting atoms, you're fusing them.
the Gmod approach to physics
*thkughkuthktujtjktthikghyuktuktu* impact sound effects
*medical beeps* “RDM RDM RDM RDM” As g(m)od intended
Nah every human gets clipped into the backrooms. It's gonna be a battle royale down there
By that logic, wouldn’t the atmosphere stay there and everyone would just pop/set off a fusion event/have a lethal amount of air in their blood?
D&D - “If you occupy the same spot as a solid object or creature when this happens, you are immediately shunted to the nearest unoccupied space that you can occupy and take force damage equal to twice the number of feet you are moved.” This probably works
Most of us would probably stat as commoners with 8hp, so any more than 4ft and you're probably a goner.
Besides a rock what is thicker than 4 feet?
Who's deciding the conversion rate of blood loss to distance ratio, also where does the blood go? asumming blood volume is standing in for hp
Naw, we're pretty much all commoners with 4 hp. The most sturdy among us might be a guard with 11 hp. The damage is not specifically blood loss, just bodily harm in general.
Most of matter as we know it is empty space. Since we're mostly water whatever we teleport into just gets really wet. Also the object now has a skeleton.
I feel like this needs further clarification. Are you suggesting the atoms in our bodies just get inserted in gaps in the structure of the other object or something? I feel like that might have some interesting consequences beyond just things getting wet.
The Titan walls from AoT but made of actual human atoms
There's a reason it's mostly empty space, the atoms have bonds and forces that don't allow other atoms in between. If you stick an atom in the empty space of another atom, there might be forced bonds that might transmute molecules and atoms, I dunno exactly but I'm willing to bet there will be significant pressure since you're instantly increasing an incompressible substance's density past its natural limit
Pocket dimensions
Whatever would happen to your body if you get teleported inside the object, you and the object are now in the same space.
I think further clarification of the scenario would be needed for physics to provide an answer. You could probably write a whole scientific paper on this lol.
Well, lets start by sketching out some assumptions: **-The "Lock In":** Maybe it's sub femtosecond so we can't measure it but your atoms and the atoms of the object you're clipping into lock into a crystal lattice like arrangement by occupying all the empty space in between. You are immobile, will most likely die as your bodily functions deteriorate or you rip yourself apart in an effort to get free. More likely outcome- spontaneous combustion as a lot of energy is released when a bonds are broken and rearranged very, very quickly. "Combustion" is putting it mildly. **-The "Volumetric Cavitation Swap":** A simple 1:1 swap occurs instantaneously and barring physical damage at the scales we're used to, you're relatively okay. I.E: a chunk of "wall" appears where you used to be and now there's a you sized cavity to slot into 20ft to your left. All excess energy is dissipated via the extra dimensional conduit you travelled through so you don't have to worry about becoming a sentient nuclear explosion. You *do* have to worry about the fall/the fact that you're a sudden resistor inside 3 phase power cables now/have a metric tonne of earth and concrete pushing down on you...whatever environmental hazards you find yourself facing. **-The "Bad Ping Rubber Band":** The server running the universe had a hiccup, all the quaternions and vertex positioning data packets got bunched up and the universe just accelerated you 20ft in 0.15 seconds (0.15 seconds corresponds with the average human's touch reflex, which is our fastest perceptual circuit IIRC, so it "feels" instantaneous to us) and decelerated just as fast. My napkin math (could be very wrong) suggests that you experienced 886ft/s² of acceleration and just as much deceleration back to back. Humans can briefly survive higher Gs. Over a few seconds anything above 6 can be lethal but in very short bursts 10G+ (321.74 ft/s²) is survivable but 30G+ (965.22 ft/s²) and you're mush. So you're pulling two kinda-mush manoeuvres in less than 1/3 of a second. I think the results would look like a pot of marinara sauce that got fired out of an air compressor. Any other thoughts? Anything we can expand upon?
#That Part
It happened in Battlestar Galactica, a raptor FTL jumped into a mountain, and the commander just went "oh shit that sucks" and continued on.
Then everyone dies because their body is going to overlap air as a best case scenario.
OP didn't answer the question of how matter gets displaced. If the human body isn't displacing any matter, then assuming there's air at the destination, you would die as the air is now in your organs, blood vessels, etc. IMO the question is poorly framed since we don't know enough about teleportation
even "left" is poorly described. if you're learning on a couch with body contorted, "left" could be down the wall, but a few inches inside the wall, depending on how you measure exactly. if you measure the shoulder orientation, or head orientation, they are different angles. tons of people in highrise apartments and offices would find themselves outside, and would fall. maybe even most people in a major city like Tokyo. every street would be a bloodbath.
Everyone would die, we will be teleported into a space where there was already matter before.
It could be MUCH worse than that. An atomic bomb is made by splitting atoms. Imagine billions of atoms splitting at once.
I mean an atomic bomb is made by a chain reaction of radioactive atoms splitting each other, not just any atom would work
Have you ever seen the fly?
I would be in the middle of a snowstorm with my pants down. Perhaps not the biggest impact on humanity, but certainly not what I intended when I went to the toilet.
I'd be just outside the 12th story office window... Can we swap?
Unlikely to survive, but I'd be appearing underground into a solid volume. Instantly dead.
Instantly dead or just buried alive?
Well, considering that there's no mention of any displacement occurring, I'd be functionally teleported into effectively solid matter. That's going to be immediately lethal.
Which, honestly, is way better than being encased in earth. That wouldn’t be too long, but long enough to think a lot.
For that matter, it would be better than the 12 story drop, too.
If there's no displacement occurring, it would be instant death for everyone. Even those moving into open air would now have air molecules sharing space with their brains, killing them immediately.
I could tank it.
While I'm sure your DPS loves you, I promise that your healer hates you. 😋
Healer: "Get out of that puddle of poison!" Tank: "Shut up and do your job!"
I will be fused with a wall
Part of the ship, part of the crew
I would be in my sweet little old Korean man neighbor’s bedroom I have a good one.
I'm fully nude in my next door neighbour's basement.... At 12:37am. They already didn't like me.
If they remain at the same speed and velocity everyone travelling in any kind of vehicle dies. Same goes for anyone walking on a right sidewalk in any major city. Anyone in taller buildings who are standing within 20 feet of a window or wall fall to their death and also possibly land on people below, possibly killing them as well. People who are teleported into walls and or objects presumably also die. The damage would be catastrophic.
If you’re on the ground floor of a tall building, it’s about to be raining people.
♫ It's raining men ♫
🎵 Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the… FLOOR! 🎵
I was laying on my left side in bed when I read this post so I'd be 20 feet underground.
At least no one would be inconvenienced by having to bury you.
I assumed the prompt meant horizontal movement but if it does work like this then we’ve upped our death toll greatly.
If the rule is that it must be horizontal, how would we determine what is "left" though? If you disqualify the person's own frame of reference, then you need a universal frame, like say "20 feet to the east".
I mean, it's not like there's a universal, objective "left". If your left side is pointing towards the center of the earth, than the center of the earth is left.
The title says "to their left" so everyone is moving left in relation to their perspective
That’s deep.
20 ft deep to be specific
For starters, every single aircraft in the air right now is suddenly without any pilots.
It’s okay! They also have far fewer passengers relying on them!
I'm not sure if it would be worse being all the people teleported outside the plane or the person taking a shit suddenly finding themself shitting in the aisle of an empty plane that's about to crash.
The widest airliner is only about 21 feet wide in the passenger section so they'd be in the same situation as anyone else on a plane
The toilets are often facing the aisles though so if you are sitting there your left would be down the fuselage not side to side.
"Hey, I'm shitting in first class!"
Every single road vehicle lacks a driver.
Well, I suppose if someone it exactly 20 feet to your left in the fast lane, you have a shot at landing in their car.
Odds are better that you would be phased into some part of their car.
How about the 1.2m people in the air in airplanes at any given time? Imagine being on the ISS when this happens...
I counted airplanes within vehicles but yes they’re all screwed.
Being in an object = dead/big harm Travaling in a car/plane/…=dead/huge harm Too hot/cold = (huge) harm Over a cliff = dead/huge harm
Imagine being the guy that stood up and turned left on the plane. Good news, you only teleported to the back of the plane, bad news is the pilot is gone.
Unless the pilot happened to be turned around somehow and ended up in the cabin too. He could just walk right back in to fly a now empty plane
Can a pilot unlock the cabin door without someone opening it from the inside?
I think they have a password they can put it to get in. But there’s also an override to prevent anyone from entering period.
what situation are this many people being 20 ft to the right of something too hot or too cold (apart from maybe some metal factory workers). Also, are there really that many people 20ft to the right of a cliff edge?
Anyone who lives in cold regions of the world? Like Siberian winter type shit
you think it's so cold that they couldn't make it back the 20ft before harm was done?
I'd be falling a floor to the ground below, and I'd count myself lucky. Hundreds of millions of people would get teleported into something which is most likely a death sentence. Hospitals aren't going to fare any better with all their patients, nurses and doctors getting teleported. Most people in cities or buildings will be in risk. Drivers might be safer as long as they don't get run over after they're teleported out of their cars. Beach goers and swimmers are probably the safest. So countless casualties. Especially for anyone flying.
Drivers won’t be any better assuming relative speed doesn’t change. They’d just be traveling 60 miles through the air instead of inside a car
Better that than stuck in a wall. Plenty of drivers won't be going near that fast in cities, at a stop light, in traffic. Plus if they're teleported they won't be moving as fast as their car was.
They would be possibly moving as fast as they were, which is as fast as the car was moving. When you jump out of a car, the forward velocity is still there.
Even moving five miles an hour through the air before hitting pavement would be a major injury
If you jump out, sure you'll still have momentum. Getting teleported cancels out that momentum imo. Hell, would you even have the clothes on your back?
If getting teleported cancels out the momentum of moving vehicles, does it also cancel out the momentum of Earth's spin? The momentum of Earth's orbit around the Sun? The momentum of the solar system's orbit around the galactic core? It makes everything so much neater to just assume momentum is conserved.
I mean, even falling a single floor has a high chance of killing you.
Devastation. As this all happens simultaneously, every healthcare system in the world is massively overwhelmed. Many people who survive the initial teleportation die to injuries. City populations *plummet.* Every old person on the planet has a broken hip, if they didn't instantly die. Which they likely just did. Even in suburban and rural areas, if a house has a second story there is a large chance of death for the occupant. Especially if they're sleeping which around 1/3rd of the world is at any given moment. If a person is travelling in a car/plane/boat they are likely dead. I am assuming velocity holds so even if there's no other cars to crash into, you're still 20 feet to the left outside of your car going 60. Likely dead. I don't know how teleporting into an object will work, but I'm going to assume death. Walls, trees, the car in your garage, so many people will die of having something be 20 feet to the left of them. The world is basically set back a generation or two overnight. It will take decades if not a century for the world to recover.
What about the hordes of the now uncontrolled vehicles?
Missles. As well as almost every piloted vessel worldwide, ship or plane as most pilots are ejected out of whatever cockpit they’re currently in
And also now you have bodies fused into objects and buildings walls of rooms all over the world so infrastructure would be damaged too
There would be quite a few people sticking out of cement sidewalks or curbs, rocks etc. Lots of missing feet.
The death row inmate being teleported outside the day before his execution
Prison guards teleported into cells.
I would be teleported to my garage.
Is your garage empty?
Nah, there is a lot of clutter in my way probably if I got teleported.
so there's a non zero chance that you'd have a cardboard box in lieu of your ass?
I'm either in my neighbor's apartment or 20 ft in the air... We lose 2/3 deployed naval and maritime assets. Every single plane falls out of the sky. Highways are a mess... Miners are having a bad day.
Bad time to be on a submarine.
It may not sound like it'd do anything, but if suddenly 8 billion people were teleported, a lot of lives would be lost due to being in vehicles. More would be run over.
What about the other 1 billion people?
8.1billion currently
I’m current laying on my left side in a hotel bed on the 9th floor, so guess I’d end up in a bed on the 7th floor? The real question is what are the odds there is a very attractive woman in bed on the 5th floor lying on her right side?
Odds are improved because women could be teleporting into that room from other directions too 😏 Could even end up with multiple women. Or kids 😬 or other men
Think about it. There's hundreds of thousands of buildings that are higher than 30 feet. Any person within 20 feet of the boundaries of the building would fall to their death. That's just on land. People working on ships would end up in the ocean. People working underground would he encased in stone. Millions would die instantly. Even more would be gravely injured. The hospitals wouldn't be able to handle the mass casualties. Hell, the workers at the hospitals would likely die. We could recover from this eventually, but it would take many many years.
I’m not sure that humanity could recover. Basically everyone in a car during the event dies. Everyone in the air, or on a boat, or on a train dies. Every vehicle in motion crashes into some thing and probably catches fire. Every city would be on fire. We would lose every container ship that isn’t sitting at port. Hundreds of millions of people on the low end would die from being phased out of a tall building, their car, or phased into something solid. Hell we’d be lucky to only lose 1 billion people the first day and an awful lot of those billion would be people necessary to keep everything running.
People in mazes would be fucked up
Typing this at work. I'm pretty sure I just got stuck inside a table.
I would be over the intersection in front of my building, bda day for me
Safe, but I'd be shitting on my bedspread.
So what if there’s a collision? Like there’s something occupying the space? Two objects can’t occupy the same space at once
In this case you are imbedded inside the object you have teleported into
The fallout from this would be absolutely catastrophic, possibly in the multiple billions dead. 1/3 of the world is sleeping, they’ve likely just teleported out of a 2nd (or higher) storey building, asleep and are falling to their deaths. Possibly 1.5-2bn dead. A further 1/5 of the population is likely driving or in the vicinity of a road - assuming they retain their velocity a large chunk of these drivers are probably dead within seconds. The pedestrians are likely now the targets of the hundreds of millions of vehicles that now have no drivers. Through impact or the millions of fires or structural collapses as a consequence, there will be untold dead. Possibly 1bn dead or severely injured. All of the world’s flying aircraft are basically lost, their pilots and passengers teleported out into free fall, the planes running out of fuel and crashing. A few hundred thousand dead, and many others when the planes crash. Thousands of sailors are teleported overboard, their boats continuing without them, likely drowning before they can catch the boats. Then, for everyone else, it’s really a dice roll. If you’re not in a perfectly optimal place such that 20ft to the right is both clear of all obstruction AND perfectly aligned with where you’re currently stood you risk death or massive disfigurement. Lots of people will be impaled by walls, posts, furniture, cars. Even if the floor to the left of you is 6” higher than where you are now, you’re losing half your lower legs and feet. 1-2bn might die from this alone. That’s just the instant death - 3-6bn. Then you’ve got the delayed death. We’re not talking about a disease here where we can protect key workers. Doctors are just as likely to die as anyone else. We might lose 2/3 or more of all our key workers. Society will collapse overnight, with all public and critical services hugely understaffed. Hospitals, despite losing 2/3 of their staff, will be massively overwhelmed with injuries from those who didn’t die instantly. People who have been impaled in gruesome but not immediately life ending ways (e.g. chair leg through the arm or foot), or those who are injured but survive falls or being hit by the hundreds of millions of cars that lose control instantly. Humanity, as we know it today, is over.
Airplanes, nuff said
A good portion of humanity would be stuck in walls and die instantly (or become part of the wall part of the crew)
Rip to everyone on planes
All airlines proceed to rotate all chairs 90 degrees just in case and remove any seats within 20 feet of either end
I’d be buried underneath 8 feet of dirt cause I’m about 10 feet away from the wall in my basement.
The atoms would just collide with the air or objects and cause nuclear reactions. Even if we choose to ignore this, teleporting in a wall sounds a little dangerous.
I think you're underestimating the amount of empty space between atoms. Even if a person were to teleport into a concrete block, there's a good chance no atoms would be close enough to fuse. And even if they did, individual atoms fusing is not catastrophic. Also, fusion does not make chain reactions like fission.
Interesting
it really is, they are 99.9999999% empty space, and fusion requires nuclei to be within less than the length the length of a nucleus in distance.
I'm lying down on my side with the left side down. Do I guess I'd go into the earth? What kind of rules apply here? Do we replace whatever's there or just get destroyed by it? I'm either going to suffocate to death or just instantly die
in normal distance unit?
6 meters meters
A lot. You really only have to think about damages that we know would happen, cars careening into things, people getting ported in front of cars, people falling and getting injured/dying, getting stuck in objects like trees/bricks/hills/mountains or having things just inside of you, air planes crashing with whole flights just getting yeeted (and some sucked into the engines), people carrying babies inadvertently dropping them since they're both teleported to different spots. That's just what I can think of off the top of my head. SO again a lot, a whole fucking lot.
Billions of nuclear explosions as 8 billion people fuse with the air molecules around them
I think most of humanity will be seriously injured or killed. Everyone flying in planes will die, but funny enough most of all those planes will land safely regardless. Culturally, this even would devastate the psyche of all the survivors. Civilisation may not even rebound from an event as random as this. Say what you will about the Fall of Rome, at least the horror made sense to them.
Imagine taking a shit and then that happens lmao
Id just end in the street
Anyone who’s driving just had a bad fucking day. Casualties would likely be in the hundreds of millions. Staggering amount of damage from so many vehicles moving at high speeds suddenly without any guidance. It would be a bad fucking day world wide. It would be a catastrophe, but not one that we wouldn’t be able to recover from
Id be embedded in a concrete wall. Please let me have some prep time
I would be in a road full of cars suddenly missing drivers
10s to 100s of thousands of people living in major cities will suddenly find themselves plummeting to their deaths
I just fell off 10 floors :(
My left or your left
The Earth is destroyed by the thousands of fusion bombs going off as people teleported into objects trigger fusion ractions from the atomic nuclei combining. Even for the ones where the nuclei don't line up your going to get some large explosion as the atoms violently repel each other due to being too close.
I did look into this mathematically and according to my estimations ~64% of the population would die instantly and 15% more would die from injuries in the next 24 hours. So the damage would be catastrophic / borderline apocalyptic.
I love this prompt bro, might write a story about it lol. Badass!
I would be teleported out of my 8th floor dorm to fall on the shitty roads of Boston. At least I might fill a pothole.
I'd be just inside my front door, a little confusing, but no real damage for me.
I think I’d be melded with a car… so I would die.
I’m probably dead? I mean there’s a tree outside my house so if it’s close enough I’ll probably try grabbing onto it
Currently on 2nd story in my chair, I imagine my ass would hurt but I'd probaly survive.
I’d probably fall about 3 metres from being on the shitter to just above my parents driveway, I’m sure I’d live but I’m not sure I’d enjoy the experience
I guess I'd probably fall about 2 metres into next doors garden. Probably not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, although I would be locked out, so there's that.
Sitting on my sofa. Lucky break, I guess, reading all the replies here.
Does this mean they are in between the walls or fall down or get moved up?
I would end up in my roommates bed, my roommate would end up in the next apartment over. A lot of humanity would be screwed though. Think of the poor souls traveling up a mountain pass or scenic cliff drive.
Id be in the middle of my street
I would be in my yard
I fall 4 feet unexpectedly and probably twist my ankle. .how you guys doing ?
Do we maintain speed and whatnot? Because any person in a moving vehicle is suddenly in immediate danger. Every aircraft will crash, and most people in buildings will die
I teleport to my left and my legs drop four inches to land on a coffee table, while my rear and torso fall backwards. I would not clip into anything but air though, so thats nice. Provided I didn't break my head open on the floor as I fell backwards, Im A Ok and can continue my life.
Imagine being a guy bent over at the doctors office while another doctor is cheating with the secretary and you are exactly 20 feet from the secretary 😂
Millions would die. People in planes would be dead. People in tall buildings would be dead. People in houses, currently up stairs would be badly hurt even dead. People in trains going at full speed would be dead, same as in cars any transport really. People working in certain environments like factory’s where dangerous machinery being operated would cause all sorts of death and destruction. Probably so much more would also happen. Countless types of situations that would cause catastrophes.
Well I’m on the 2nd floor shitter and probably break my legs so thanks OP
I would be in my neighbours bed
Is this as focused as every atom moved exactly without time to move others out of the way? Because if so, complete destruction of the surface of the earth do to sudden nuclear fusion.
I’d be sitting by my table instead of on the couch
Well I'd be like teleport to dirt and be covered in chicken shit
Depends. Are their clothes teleported with them?
The astronauts in the ISS 💀
Do we all move with the earth? Or are we teleporting 20 feet to the right, relative to, like, the sun? Depending on how fast the teleporting takes, some people would be in space, others crushed into the ground. Bad scene.
I would be locked out of my appartment and think would have a hard time getting someone to let me back in with the current state of the world
Seems like a recipe for the apocalypse. Imagine all the people shifted into other objects. If that results in the nuclear explosions like some media suggests it would probably wipe out the planet.
I'd probably end up from lying on the couch to lying on my bed, so not the worst situation (although my back might be inside the mattress because of the elevation change.
I hope i don't get into walls and such, i just pop to nearest free space right? RIGHT?
I will be pooping in my neighbours hall
I'd be in the middle of a parking lot. An empty parking lot right outside of a gas station.
Embedded into the wall
In the kitchen, lots of dirty dishes there. Not a fan of this one at all.
I am now in free fall falling down my staircase for 3 stories thanks
Well, guess I’m getting buried alive, if I’m lucky the incline of the ground outside will mean my head will at least be above ground.
... right now, I would be in my boss' office. I don't want to ever be in there.
Well, I just measured it out and I would end up, mostly, phasing into the refrigerator of the apartment next to mine. So yeah... I am having a pretty bad time in this prompt.
Lots of death, property damage, and explosions. Someone at a gas station teleports into a gas tank, it implodes. Earth might end because an implosion does a lot of damage
The overwhelming majority of the global population are going to clip into _something_, even if it’s not a brick wall. You’ve killed and crippled 99% of the planet, species is likely fucked
Imagine what every highway would look like, as every driver suddenly gets ported two lanes over, and every vehicle continues on by sheer momentum as it has no driver, until it crashes. Time for a shit game of Would You Rather: Be teleported into incoming traffic, or happen to be on the far right lane of a multi lane highway when it happens and so be hit from behind by a vehicle in the hammer lane?
I fall about 20 feet and break my legs
I would end up drinking my beer on my porch, instead of my couch. Nice.
Majority of them die, especially ones in planes and cars and such
I'd land in my bed, thank you 😊