Gravitational Scarcity

A conventional wisdom…

When he realized that his brothers had taken his satchel, Patahaya became angry, and threw the hammer into the winds. That night, Patahaya's father asked him for his hammer, and Patahaya became afraid, for he could not fashion a new one, for not any stone like it, nor any shaft of its kind were before him. Patahaya confessed that he had thrown it away in anger and told his father, “Father, I am sorry. I was angry with my brothers because they had taken my satchel, and threw the hammer into the winds.” His father, although angry, knelt down in front of him, placed his hand on Patahaya's shoulder, and said to him, calmly, “It is okay to be angry, my son. Only in your anger, be careful not to deny your own sons a hammer.”

—Excerpt from an Incan proverb.

The Risk of Misplacement

If you had a tool that served a purpose once, but had lost its usefulness in the function it had, would you discard it if you would never see it again? If your friend has something they don't want, but you do, and there's a chance that they may cause it to disappear forever, would you not seize upon the opportunity to ask them for it? Such is the case in a world where there is no "final" ground upon which something can be at rest, redeemable, and retrievable. When there's nothing below you but a great expanse, everything that falls into it is lost forever. It's no surprise that the early forebears of all who live today practiced careful preservation to ensure that they made the most out of what they had, for waste can be a fatal mistake.

Disciplines Affected

Tools & Toolmaking

Particularly in the case of ancient societies, the amount of energy that went into making a tool would be wasted disproportionately if a tool was discarded before its full usefulness in all possible capacities was explored. Tools which became obsolete in their function were adapted for another function. Once that function was no longer met, it would either be discarded or be adapted again, until the tool would become ultimately unusable. Several implications arose because of this:

1. Because tools were ground down and dulled before either being discarded or ground to dust to be used in masonry, the number of surviving fragments of early Post Calamitatem tools are very low.
2. Tools that lasted were highly prized, and good tool-makers were respected in virtually all ancient societies. It wasn't uncommon for good tool-makers to be elevated to rulership positions, even deified.
3. Very often the spoils of war were both good tools and good tool-makers, whether conducted on a single island or after travel became possible between multiple islands.
4. Good tool-makers were also generally spared in conquests if they submitted to the new rule, as they were seen as the keystone to the next conquest.
5. By the time that wars begin to be waged over increasingly talented tool-makers, enough population had come to exist to support increasing specialization. This specialization would eventually kick off the first efforts at travel between islands, though it would be centuries until then.

Architecture

Architecture as Shelter

Adaptive Alterations Because matter as it exists is scarce, and the likelihood that someone, their society, or their descendants would have need for something, containment structures were an early innovation for land improvements. Structures such as storage wells and goodwill wells were dug out early on to ensure, in simple terms, that things one wanted to keep would not roll away off the island.

Locations for Construction Because edges of islands tended to be hazardous places prone to collapse over time, buildings were less likely to be constructed at edges of islands, but instead more commonly constructed near the center, or at least a reasonable distance away from the edge. As humanity began to understand edges of islands over time, they began to recognized what formations could withstand construction and continual use.

Hewn Structures Particularly in societies which had the benefits of the below circumstances were able to carve apart hills, boulders, and mountains for cave dwellings, if not expand existing caves.

• Access to pre-Upheval excavation tools
• Able to fashion good or great quality tools post-Upheval
• Soft rock which is easier to hew apart
• Sizable labor force able to accomplish the task
• Extreme weather conditions which encourage temperature-moderating homebuilding practices, such as burrowing.
• Cultures which view the extraction of a large volume of rock as an opportunity to fashion tools from the extracted material.
• Experience a significant occurrence of Island Sway.

Trapezoidal, Pyramidal, and Dugout Structures Settlements which experience a significant occurrence of Island Sway but did not create hewn structures often erected structures with walls leaning inward to the interior chambers to distribute the forces caused by sway to the ground through the walls as opposed to exposing the walls to lateral stress, risking damage. In more extreme forms of trapezoidal structures, these structures might be entirely pyramidal, where most if not all of the profile of the building would be dedicated to rooftop, conjoining at some peak in the relative center of the building. In order to create more space inside of the structure while still maintaining a low profile, the floor would often be dug down.

Architecture as a Means for Resource Gathering

Anthropologists discovered from what few Ante Calamitatem rooftops survived that many were designed merely to shed rainwater off from it. We don't know exactly why, but most of the evidence points to rain being in such abundant supply that it was a nuisance to them. Despite the apparent luxury of our far ancient forebears, it's important to preserve what we have. Since water is vital to life, and since island runoff tends almost always to fall into inaccessibility, it's also vital to capture it when it falls, keep if for when it doesn't, and clean it so that you, your family, and your livestock can drink it, you can clean with it, cook with it, even perform industrial tasks with it. Not only are basin-and-spillway type roofs commonplace today, but erosion and sediment patterns left behind on islands occupied by ancient societies seem to indicate that a dozens of different designs were used to try and preserve water.

Type

Natural