(urth) Wall of Nessus

[David Stockhoff]

So it's truly a Big Object.

But how Dumb is it? That's the question ...

Ryan Dunn wrote:
> Mmm. A sooty drumstick sounds delicious. So does an ice cream drumstick.
>
> Sorry to bounce back for a moment here, but...
>
> I've always felt the wall, as described in UotNS, was quite implausible as well.
>
> Using UotNS's quote as canon, Wall of Nessus = 9 miles high by 9,000 miles long.
>
> The stratosphere is about 12 miles up. So 9 miles up is consistent with birds not being able to fly over it (highest bird flight on Earth was a vulture recorded at 7 miles up), but makes for a really hard sell visually.
>
> Also, at 9,000 miles in length, if the Wall were unwrapped it would encompass more than 1/3 of our Earth at the equator.
>
> Another reference... the entirety of Texas's border equals only 3,800 miles.
>
> And here's the quote, which was referenced earlier...
>
> "...just as that smallest and uppermost sail was an entire continent of silver, compared to which the mighty Wall of Nessus, a few leagues in height and a few thousand long, might have been the tumbledown fence of a sheepfold..." (Urth of the New Sun, Chap. XIV "The End of the Universe")
>
> ...ryan
>
>
>
> On Jun 15, 2010, at 11:38 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>
>   
>> On 6/15/2010 1:42 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>     
>>>> Then again , there are some number of hungry folk who come into possession of energy weapons in the course of any number of wars,
>>>>         
>>> There's more than one war?
>>>       
>> Between the Age of Myth and Severian's time? Probably at least 2-3.
>>
>>     
>>>> and their line-of-sight range may indeed make high flight a survival liability.
>>>>         
>>> I don't think high flight would ever be a liability for waterfowl.  It just wouldn't help anywhere near as much against energy weapons as against bows.
>>>       
>> It's the same math as the wall's height vs sight distance; the higher they fly, the more acres of hungry infantrymen, impoverished dimarchi, or mounted dwarves can draw a bead on them.
>>
>>     
>>> It's not clear to me that the poor could recharge ex-military energy weapons enough to use for much hunting, or that the weapons would leave much edible meat on a bird.
>>>       
>> There seem to be any number of places where still-running machinery indicates the presence of electrical power, assuming the weapons require it. Meanwhile, the low edible yield encourages more to be killed to produce a given amount of food, and even a sooty drumstick is a feast to someone who hasn't eaten in days. Besides, they might be anpiels posing as geese while spying for the enemy.
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
>> IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
>> < http://ieeetamut.org >
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