{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1012", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "whorl", "thread": { "id": 1012, "subject": "vampires make bootstrap lift off", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2000-09-05T12:48:45+00:00", "last": "2000-09-06T12:18:11+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at sirius.com" }, "date": "2000-09-05T12:48:45+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) vampires make bootstrap lift off", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "wombat wrote:\nWe know the inhumi can fly on Blue. If the inhumi can spread themselves\nthin enough to drift down in the atmosphere of Blue, then they don't need\nheat shielding. Our space vehicles need serious heat shielding because on\nre-entry they are basically falling through atmosphere, not flying or\ngliding.\n\nOne engineer I know described the Space Shuttle's reentry as being \"as\ngraceful as a falling brick\". Compare this to the flight of a low-orbit\nairplane like the U-2--the U-2 didn't have much in the way of heat\nshielding, because its descent was controlled flight.\n\nI agree that the problem of launch from Green is by far the more puzzling,\nunless the inhumi can somehow teleport (because of residual Neighbor blood\nmaking distance less certain?)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yay, we are on the same thought here: I was meaning to mention the limited\nteleport option. Limited to once in a while, spawning-run, short jaunts\nfrom atmosphere to Lagrange Point. (Trick here is to avoid vampires having\nteleport on demand capability, which does not seem supported by the texts:\nalthough it would give another infusion to alga's heresy that \"Pike's\nghost\" in the manteon really was Q himself; since the \"aquastor\" dissolve\ncould then be a teleportation effect.) Then they \"fly\" across the\ndistance, exposed to vacuum, and do the long glide in. (I hadn't even\nthought to tie-in the Neighbors, with their clear and obvious\nastral/teleport powers [Horn into Silk]; nevermind the seeming\nteleport-link between Horn/Silk and an inhuma for all of his \"astral\nprojection\" jaunts.)\n\nI was going to prep it by saying, \"Look, when the undines of Urth say they\ncan swim through space and/or the corridors of time, we don't spend any\ntime working out the escape velocity, etc., because (while at first we\nthink they are speaking metaphorically and later, when we see that it is\nreal . . . ) we see it as technology so advanced that it is magic to us.\nSome form of teleportation (through space) and/or time travel (itself\nmagic). We don't argue about the possibly implied differences between\n`walking' the corridors and `swimming' the corridors.\"\n\nFWIW digression: The time-travel in Severian's narrative seems to have\nelements of pseudo-momentum or pseudo-inertia involved: when the power\nstops, the traveler doesn't necessarily stop immediately. Hence in URTH\nwhen Sev was leaving the deluge by `running' back into the far past, he\nreached the endpoint (light of the white hole reaching Urth) and was\ncatapulted (a hundred years?) beyond, presumably by the pseudo-velocity of\nhis `running.'\n\nThen I was going to say, \"So while I'm toying with this in a light-hearted\nfashion, I'm not really too concerned, myself, with the mechanics of it.\nNot to criticize anybody who is pondering it more seriously.\"\n\n(Then again, wombat: don't wings and lifting bodies have an atmospheric\nlimit? That is, they have no value in a vacuum, and as the object comes\ninto the gravity well it picks up some speed before the atmosphere is\nsufficiently thick enough to provide the lift? I guess I'm saying there's\nenough atmosphere for re-entry friction, but not enough for lift, until the\nobject gets to a certain critical level which is relatively deep into the\ngravity well: but I'm just wondering around.)\n\n=mantis=\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alastair Reynolds", "address": "areynold at estsa2.estec.esa.nl" }, "date": "2000-09-06T07:19:46+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) vampires make bootstrap lift off", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Then again, wombat: don't wings and lifting bodies have an atmospheric\nlimit? That is, they have no value in a vacuum, and as the object comes\ninto the gravity well it picks up some speed before the atmosphere is\nsufficiently thick enough to provide the lift? I guess I'm saying there's\nenough atmosphere for re-entry friction, but not enough for lift, until the\nobject gets to a certain critical level which is relatively deep into the\ngravity well: but I'm just wondering around.)\n\n=mantis=" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No; you're right, Mantis - if the inhumi \"fall\" from the lagrange point\nbetween\nGreen and Blue, then they're essentially going to hit Blue's atmosphere\nwith speed on the order of escape velocity. The only thing they can\nmodify,\nassuming they don't have a way to slow down in vaccum (stolen PM modules\nfrom the Trivigaunti fliers?) is their angle at which they brush the \natmosphere. And even with the optimum approach angle (not too steep so\nthat they burn up, or too shallow so that they bounce off), there'll\nstill be an enormous amount of friction. Somehow or other the kinetic\nenergy they've accumulated during their fall has to be converted to\nheat, and the only variable is whether this happens slowly, in a\ncontrolled\nway (like a space shuttle re-entry) or in a quick burn-up. Barbecued\ninhumi, anyone?\n\nRe: the orbital mechanics of Green/Blue - wasn't the best explanation,\nas worked out by someone here, that they're analogous to our moon and\nits small satellite partner Cruithne? It was pointed out that this\nhad been written up (in Nature I think) early enough for Wolfe\nto have incorporated it into the series. Or was there some\nfatal flaw in that idea?\n\nAl\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at ungames.com" }, "date": "2000-09-06T12:18:11+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) vampires make bootstrap lift off", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 09:19 AM 9/6/00 +0200, Alastair wrote:\nNo; you're right, Mantis - if the inhumi \"fall\" from the lagrange point\nbetween Green and Blue, then they're essentially going to hit Blue's\natmosphere with speed on the order of escape velocity. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Agreed. I've been assuming that they don't fall from that distance. There\nare three basic possibilities, as I see it: \n\nThe inhumi move from planet to planet via traditional ballistics, which\nrequires them to reach some high percentage of escape velocity from Green\nand absorb that kinetic energy at Blue; \n\nThe inhumi are under some sore of controlled flight for the entire trip\nfrom Green to Blue and vice versa, but with an unknown mechanism; or \n\nThat they teleport most of the distance via some gift from the Neighbors\nand only fly within the atmospheres of the two planets. \n\nI'm actually most inclined to believe the third. I have a suspicion that\nthe Neighbors evolved on Blue, the inhumi on Green, and they only came into\ncontact with each other after the Neighbors tried to conquer Green,\nrelatively recently. The Neighbors do not perceive distance the way humans\ndo. The inhumi gained a great deal from the Neighbors, as Horn has; the\nevidence in _Green_ is that some of that difference can be communicated to\nhumans and almost certainly to inhumi as well. \n\nThis scenario also helps explain how Quetzal and his kindred came on to the\n_Whorl_ despite its tremendous distance from Green. \n\nI don't think that the inhumi can teleport at will. Fava's surprise at\nIncanto's ability demonstrates that. But I think they might be able to slip\nfrom place to place. " }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at ungames.com\nKitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction\nhttp://www.nyrsf.com\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }