Subject: Re: 6 months days.. and is majik a ball in space.
From: McDuff (mcduff@iname.com)
Date: Sun Jul 04 1999 - 15:48:46 EEST
>I think 6m day/night idea isnt so good. But yes, we are creating a whole
>new world here, and we dont have to go by ordinary rules. But that 6m
>day/night just seems so contrived.. many many logical problems come up
>from those long periods of light/warmth and darkness/cold.. all species
>living in majik would be very alien to earths similar to be able to
>survive.. too contrived.. lets drop it.
OK. I still think it could work, but I appear to be coming up against a lot
of competition here. Let's persue other lines of thought...
>..instead.. how about.. Majik doesnt need to be a globe in space, or not
>even a flat world. what if we would make majik to be inside a dyson's
>sphere? :) that would simply rock, and would show that gods have nice
>sense of humor. Now, inside dyson's sphere there is always day, so all
>nights are artificially created. What if we'd make day and night change
>every 2 hours.. rapid rotation instead of slow one.
I also thought of a Dyson Sphere, but I think that that idea is a bit pants
from a graphical/modelling perspective - eg there is no such thing as a
horizon in a Dyson Sphere.
>Inside dyson's sphere there also isnt any seasons.. since the sun
>and the spheres inner surface are at the same place and distance at all
>times. but seasons could be artificially created with ease. This would
>make the world seem normal and all.. but would be a nice suprise for
>anyone who'd find out the real nature of the world of majik.. that they
>are inside a dyson's sphere =)...
It would take as much work to make a Dyson Sphere work as a 6 month
day/night situation
>Ok thats too much science fiction, and even i didnt take that seriously
>=P.. but do drop the 6m day/night idea, crap. Or if you like it so much,
>why not go for something even more contrived and do it with dyson's
>sphere. Or why not with Dirac's ocean? =).. now that would be something.
SF and Fantasy are natural bedfellows. If we can hoik an idea from SF and
integrate it, there is no reason at all why we couldn't make it work.
>id like the idea of using a few oddities from physics in majik. Why not,
>makes it more exiting. and magic evidently bends the laws of reality
>itself.. anything can be done. and gods are one other thing then..
This is what I keep saying - make new physical laws. Enchanted weather
which is always sunny, or rains on demand. Light which moves as slow as
sound. Remember that we can adjust stuff to make it fit. An example is
Pratchett's iconograph. He took the idea of a camera, but instead of a
complex lense/film mechanism he stuck an imp inside with a sheet of paper
and a paintbox. We have stuff like that we can work on, as well as deities
which really do exist. That makes atheism really interesting ("you can't
get around me that easily! Just because you exist doesn't mean I believe in
you"). If we make "magic" as common as air, then it will affect things,
even if not everyone has the training or skill to take it out of the air and
make a fireball or a frog or something.
What we shouldn't do, though, is try too hard to make it completely alien.
Let's stick, for now, with a standard 24 hour long day, with 4 seasons. We
can figure out the mechanics of it later on, and if we have an idea which
people like, then we can adjust the way the world works to stuff it in.
Don't restrict ourselves to being too normal, or too creative. Just do
what's right for Majik.
McDuff
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