(urth) Hard SF

Daniel Petersen danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com
Wed Nov 28 14:59:23 PST 2012


Ah, helpful.  That's part of what I was wondering too - whether the story
itself suggested or allowed for the 'commingled atmosphere theory'.  Sounds
like we need to discard it (imaginatively beautiful though it is).

-DOJP

On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 PM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>wrote:

> Well, the cited Jahlee reference has them burning up on reentry if they
> are dead. So the commingled atmosphere theory is not part of the story.
>
>
> On 11/28/2012 5:48 PM, Daniel Petersen wrote:
>
>> Yep, that's what I was worried about, but I have no scientific training
>> so I didn't know if there were some exquisitely rare scenarios where this
>> might be just barely plausible.  (It's such a breathtakingly awe-inspiring
>> thought:  worthy of a fantasy at least - if no one has written such a
>> thing, someone needs to!)  But come to think of it:  doesn't the passage
>> say rather explicitly that they fly through /space/?  (Does anyone have a
>> page number reference for this?)
>>
>> -DOJP
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 4:21 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com<mailto:
>> danldo at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Not really -- they both seem to have about one G of surface
>>     gravity, so getting close enough that their atmospheres
>>     meaningfully touched would involve massive tidal effects up to and
>>     including immense tsunami and disastrous earthquakes.
>>
>>
>>     On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Daniel Petersen
>>     <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.**com<danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>
>>     <mailto:danielottojackpetersen**@gmail.com<danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>         That's a wonderful thought, Antonin!  Is this feasible?  (Both
>>         generally and in the text?)
>>
>>         -DOJP
>>
>>
>>         On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Antonin Scriabin
>>         <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com <mailto:kierkegaurdian at gmail.**com<kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>
>> >>
>>         wrote:
>>
>>             Do we have any idea just how close Blue and Green get
>>             during conjunction?  I seem to remember that from Blue,
>>             Green is more of a spec than a moon, but perhaps they are
>>             close enough, or have unusually expansive atmospheres,
>>             such that during conjunction their atmospheres merge and
>>             allow the Inhumi to fly from one to another.  If they are
>>             this close though, they would most definitely fall under
>>             the sway of one another's gravitational field, which
>>             doesn't seem to be the case.
>>
>>
>>
>>             On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Lee Berman
>>             <severiansola at hotmail.com
>>             <mailto:severiansola at hotmail.**com <severiansola at hotmail.com>>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>                 >David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here.
>>
>>                 Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree.
>>                 Perhaps Wolfe isn't diamond-hard
>>                 but I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale.
>>                 I think he makes a
>>                 sincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote
>>                 below illustrates.
>>
>>                 Where fantasy writers are content to give us shape
>>                 changers without explanation,
>>                 Wolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for
>>                 Tzadkiel and flexible bones
>>                 and muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.
>>
>>                 If the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more
>>                 than the skimpy evidence we
>>                 are provided (and less evidence for their lying nature).
>>
>>                 >Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the
>>                 godling be constructed so as to
>>                 >walk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine
>>                 giantesses] cannot?
>>
>>                 >Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go.
>>                 First, get rid of the notion that
>>                 >the godling is going to be proportioned like a human
>>                 being. Changes in size always mean
>>                 >changes in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man
>>                 fifty feet tall, proportioned like
>>                 >you or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had
>>                 you thought of that? Take a look at
>>                 >the really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be
>>                 increased, and the legs and pelvis made
>>                 >more massive, and so on
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>>
>>         --         Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
>>
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>>
>>
>>     --     Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
>>
>>
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-- 
Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
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