(urth) Shape of the Whorl

[David Stockhoff]

And yet ... the Whorl is "made" of "shipstone," I thought. That's what 
we are told early on in LS. Could the ambiguity of this term hide 
"asteroid matter," as well as perhaps "concrete made from asteroid 
dust"? I suppose it could. And if so, that means the hollowing was done 
much as we would blast and bulldoze a mountaintop, or with plasma 
energies. It also was probably done by robots, since we know Typhon had 
them. In that case, there may be room for fundamental irregularity in 
the base or foundation layer---so how would you ensure that all the 
mountains/hills point precisely "up"? By sighting on the LS, which 
presumably would have been installed ASAP? Or were the mountain ranges 
simply the remains of blasting? In that case, they would be irregular 
from the get-go. It would be extra work to grind the floor smooth only 
to introduce nice, neat perpendicular mountains again. Is Larry Niven 
available for a consult? ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: 
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:37:37 -0600 From: Matthew Groves 
<matthewalangroves at gmail.com> Subject: Re: (urth) Shape of the Whorl To: 
The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net> Message-ID: 
<39ed084f0901211637i62491c1br9459689411004710 at mail.gmail.com> 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 I don't know if it had been 
revealed previously, but a Neighbor confirms that the Whorl is a 
"hollowed-out asteroid," (In Green's Jungles 381). On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 
at 6:03 PM, Craig Brewer <cnbrewer at yahoo.com> wrote:

> > All this talk reminds me: I never can remember if the Whorl itself is actually cylindrical or if it's more oblong. As I recall, one of the inhumi calls it a "hollowed-out asteroid" at one point, and that made me try to remember if there were any descriptions of its exterior apart from the view from Blue/Green. If it is in fact an asteroid, I would imagine it would be more oblong. But if the entire thing was artificial, a more pure cylinder might be appropriate. I've always imagined the interior as looking like a pure cylinder, but the asteroid comment made me rethink that. (I'll try to find the inhumi quote when I get home...)
> >
> > To take this even further, if it's oblong, valley shadows might be more probable since the Long Sun wouldn't always be *directly* overhead, but at more of an angle. (Assuming, of course, that the interior curves along both axes...but I get the feeling that I'm starting to think too much.)
> >
> > Craig
> >
> >
> >
> >
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