In our previous discussions we have looked at practical ways to stop garden gnomes taking over the world. It has to a certain extent been taken for granted that world domination by gnomes is undesirable. However, if the world being dominated by gnomes was not the same world we inhabit there is, in theory if not practice although perhaps also in practice and theory, or perhaps in practice but not in theory. the undesirable elements of world domination by garden gnomes are eroded.
So what other worlds are possible candidates for domination by garden gnomes. The requirements are thus:
No oxygen since gnomes can not breath.
No water since gnomes do not drink.
No organic life forms since gnomes do not eat.
Solid ground to stand the gnomes on.
Gravity so the gnomes don’t float away.
Luckily for us there are several suitable worlds in our solar system: Mercury, Mars, The Moon, certain moons of Jupiter and Saturn, as well as countless large asteroids. However, the most suitable destination is Pluto, for the following reasons:
It’s very far away so the little bastards won’t make it back in a hurry.
It’s very small therefore perfect for gnomes which are also very small.
It should be apparent that sending all the world’s garden gnomes to Pluto is a major undertaking. There are some 500 million garden gnomes on earth. With an average weight of two pounds each this makes 1 billion pounds of gnome to be sent to the far reaches of the solar system, a far greater load than any sent so far. This is an undertaking of the grandest scale requiring co-operation between nations the likes of which has never been seen before.
There is yet another problem. With our current rocket propulsion technology a billion pounds of gnomes is simply too heavy to propel into space at one time, requiring many times more propellant. However, there are solutions to this problem.
1) A gnome elevator.
Once we have a ship in space we can use a really long rope to pull gnomes up into space perhaps even cleverly using a spinning asteroid like a giant fishing reel to reel the gnomes in. Once the gnomes are in space they become weightless and thus require much less fuel to get them to Pluto.
2) Individual rocket propulsion systems for each gnome
While I haven’t the faintest idea whether this would actually use any less fuel than sending the gnomes all at once it does distribute the fuel load more evenly between gnome bearing countries. Each gnome will also require a simple guidance system but since it only took the computing power of a pocket calculator to send men to the moon this shouldn’t be a problem as there are literally millions of pocket calculators that we could use for this purpose. In addition, the shape of garden gnomes is so well suited to being blasted into space it seems a shame not to take advantage of it and the sight of a vast armada of garden gnomes thrusting into space towards their new home would be spectacular to say the least.
