What does Felarya look like from space?

Does it look anything like this dream sequence Remus is having? http://nickinamerica.deviantart.com/art/SS-Is-this-Felarya-209079622

What does Felarya look like from space you ask. Well the answer is it doesn't.

The all knowing Wiki wrote:

The next main feature of the Felaryan dimensional plane is the sky itself. Felarya has no “space” around it like a normal world would. There is no way to view it from space.

Here is a link to the article containing the physics behind the Felaryan plane.

All righty then. Just keep in mind that this is a dream Remus is having, and since he doesn't really know much about this world, this is how he'd imagine it. It's his best interpretation, not canon. Even so, I surrounded it with a layer of clouds all around and that weird pink energy, hoping to make it look more imaginative than just outer space. I still messed up, but that's okay.

Nickonaquamagna wrote:

All righty then. Just keep in mind that this is a dream Remus is having, and since he doesn't really know much about this world, this is how he'd imagine it. It's his best interpretation, not canon. Even so, I surrounded it with a layer of clouds all around and that weird pink energy, hoping to make it look more imaginative than just outer space. I still messed up, but that's okay.

I wouldn't worry too much. No one on Felarya would actually know that there is no space, or that the world is "flat". The properties of Felarya's plane and sky mimic the appearance and function of a normal world. You COULD look at Felarya from really high up. Earth's atmosphere goes up for many, many miles before you hit space. Felarya may not have "space" around it, but its atmosphere does have different layers, and go up quite a way.

A lot of things in the wiki fall into this same trap, that the readers and authors know much more about the world than the people who live there. Many of the facts in the wiki that we take for granted would be nothing more than myths, theories, rumors or complete unknowns to the people who live in Felarya. That isn't something a lot of people really explore, that even people who have been in Felarya their entire lives really don't know all that much about it.

Nah, I reckon someone would have stood on some really tall mountain with a telescope and ended up staring at the back of their own head. Plus the mages would have figured it out at some point.

well, it's a kind of a tricky subject; after all, there are still events like the silvery night that involves the appearing of two moons.
How can we really explain this event?

Anime-Junkie wrote:

Nah, I reckon someone would have stood on some really tall mountain with a telescope and ended up staring at the back of their own head. Plus the mages would have figured it out at some point.

Not really. It isn't like you can see forever in Felarya. Just because the world is spherical doesn't mean that it doesn't have some kind of curvature to it. Not to mention the environmental factors, like mist, clouds, and just extreme distance. Not to mention, Felarya is huge.

I doubt the mages will know. Its not like anyone would ever be able to circumnavigate Felarya, given its size and danger. Felarya mimics a normal world, its residents wouldn't know any different.

I reckon the mages will.
All they have to do is send some sort of magical sight up really high. When they don't see the curvature that comes with a planet, they can make the reasonable judgement that it's not.

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Just because the world is spherical doesn't mean that it doesn't have some kind of curvature to it.

Huh..?
Felarya is flat.
Quote from the physics page of the wiki a part that rcs619 wrote:
"The easiest way to picture Felarya is to think of it as a massive, flat "
It is physically flat, but it doesn't have to be dimensionally flat.

Which residents are we talking about? A significantly advanced technological society would definitely be able to do it.

Even if they don't necessarily have the resources to fly up there (Miratans, Delurans) they'd be able to realize something wasn't quite right when the skies above them shifted into something else. I do imagine that even without sufficient technology to fly up there (since Miratans don't have/were just getting into space flight) they would have the technology to launch probes (maybe not the Delurans given their issues with steel). Even if their probes didn't have the sensor/technology to analyze what was happening around them they'd realize they were losing them.

Also, in WowandWas' story involving the Jungle Bowl, didn't they reveal advanced technology hidden away there? It has been a while since I read it...

Moreover, the Vish were a highly advanced technological society that consisted of thousands of worlds across a galactic map once upon a time. I would daresay they have some idea of what is going on above their heads.

I would also imagine that any creature or magi with an affinity for dimensional magic would be able to tell that something was going on with the sky. They might not know what precisely, but they would have their own ideas/beliefs (which probably involve a 'don't go up there warning') and in the case of lower-ranking scientific developments would have devised some other explanation.



I also disagree with the circumnavigation thing. While it wouldn't be danger free, there are plenty of technologies or... environmental aides in Felarya that would allow for some degree of success with such an event. I couldn't find details but if the 'airships' of Shatterock Kaldera can 'fly' to other regions I'd say they'd stand a really good chance of circumnavigating a good chunk of the main continent. The Vish probably have or had such technology in the past, and my own settlement definitely has such technology. Of course, I know my own stuff is not canon and I don't believe the Kaldera is either, which just leaves the Vish.

Anime-Junkie wrote:

I reckon the mages will.
All they have to do is send some sort of magical sight up really high. When they don't see the curvature that comes with a planet, they can make the reasonable judgement that it's not.

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Just because the world is spherical doesn't mean that it doesn't have some kind of curvature to it.

Huh..?
Felarya is flat.
Quote from the physics page of the wiki a part that rcs619 wrote:
"The easiest way to picture Felarya is to think of it as a massive, flat "
It is physically flat, but it doesn't have to be dimensionally flat.

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All they have to do is send some sort of magical sight up really high. When they don't see the curvature that comes with a planet, they can make the reasonable judgement that it's not.

The atmosphere only goes up so high, and that's assuming this magical thing could get to the edge of the atmosphere, and Felarya is very vast. What's to keep them from assuming that Felarya is just really big?

Why would they care about the shape of the world, when mapping the nearby area is much more useful?

Who's to say the Magiocrats would even know about the concept of a spherical world? They aren't exactly scientists. They're mages/politicians/interdimensional traders. Most of them are native Felaryans, and the only times they would have been offworld is to visit briefly with their trade partners. I doubt they'd care what a world is shaped like, so long as its there.

I wrote that article. I meant that its "flat" in the sense that it is not spherical. I used that because it was a simple way to explain a strange concept. That does not mean that Felarya may not have some kind of curve to it. All we know is that the ends of Felarya do not connect to eachother, the actual shape of the plane itself is unknown.

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Even if they don't necessarily have the resources to fly up there (Miratans, Delurans) they'd be able to realize something wasn't quite right when the skies above them shifted into something else. I do imagine that even without sufficient technology to fly up there (since Miratans don't have/were just getting into space flight) they would have the technology to launch probes (maybe not the Delurans given their issues with steel). Even if their probes didn't have the sensor/technology to analyze what was happening around them they'd realize they were losing them.

Only probes I could see being used are UAV-like craft to map out the surrounding area. I don't see anyone having any reason to start trying to launch rockets into space.

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Also, in WowandWas' story involving the Jungle Bowl, didn't they reveal advanced technology hidden away there? It has been a while since I read it...

That is more of an isolated case. The main character was the pilot of an interdimensional exploratory vessel, and wound up stranded. He cannibalized parts of his ship, and other technologies that "washed up" on Felarya over the decades.

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Moreover, the Vish were a highly advanced technological society that consisted of thousands of worlds across a galactic map once upon a time. I would daresay they have some idea of what is going on above their heads.

They'd probably know something wasn't quite right, but there's really no way for anyone to know Felarya has no space. All they would know is that if they launch anything straight up, they always lose contact with it at the same altitude. It could just as easily be some kind of wierd, high-altitude magnetic field, or other anomaly. The shifting sky is wierd, but there's actually no way for anyone living in Felarya to know that it isn't a "real" planet.

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I would also imagine that any creature or magi with an affinity for dimensional magic would be able to tell that something was going on with the sky. They might not know what precisely, but they would have their own ideas/beliefs (which probably involve a 'don't go up there warning') and in the case of lower-ranking scientific developments would have devised some other explanation.

I never said they'd be completely oblivious. People would know that something wasn't right with the sky, and other aspects of Felarya's nature, but there would be no way for anyone to actually figure out the way things actually are. The world is a mystery, even to the people who live there. There'd be all kinds of theories, rumors, and just plain educated guesses.

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I also disagree with the circumnavigation thing. While it wouldn't be danger free, there are plenty of technologies or... environmental aides in Felarya that would allow for some degree of success with such an event. I couldn't find details but if the 'airships' of Shatterock Kaldera can 'fly' to other regions I'd say they'd stand a really good chance of circumnavigating a good chunk of the main continent.

The part we can see on the map is just a tiny part of Felarya. Its obvious that the known map is just one part of a much larger continent, and we know for sure that there is at least one other continent on the other side of the Topazial Sea (which is supposed to extend much, much further than we can see on the map). I think it is extremely likely that the total surface area of Felarya exceeds that of the Earth, probably many, many times over. There is no way to circimnavigate it. Something would get you, or (much more likely) any vehicle you tried to use would run out of fuel long before you even came close.

The idea of the people of Felarya knowing exactly what their world is like, and how it works, is just absurd. Most of these people are living in pre-industrial revolution levels of technology and thought.

rcs619 wrote:

Only probes I could see being used are UAV-like craft to map out the surrounding area. I don't see anyone having any reason to start trying to launch rockets into space.

You really see no reason why an intergalactic society of advanced peoples looking to restore their empire have no reason to explore the outer regions of the planet/realm that they're on? C'mon now. Especially the Vish. They're going to want to know every way they can be attacked so as to prevent their future empire from being destroyed as the past was.

rcs619 wrote:

That is more of an isolated case. The main character was the pilot of an interdimensional exploratory vessel, and wound up stranded. He cannibalized parts of his ship, and other technologies that "washed up" on Felarya over the decades.

Hmm, like I said, the story is something I haven't read in a while so I was just throwing that one out there.

rcs619 wrote:

They'd probably know something wasn't quite right, but there's really no way for anyone to know Felarya has no space. All they would know is that if they launch anything straight up, they always lose contact with it at the same altitude. It could just as easily be some kind of wierd, high-altitude magnetic field, or other anomaly. The shifting sky is wierd, but there's actually no way for anyone living in Felarya to know that it isn't a "real" planet.

Except the majority of Vish in Felarya are the political/thought types. If something doesn't work once, they're not going to give up on it - they'll keep trying until they figure it out in order to determine the value of said item in their long-term plan. Knowing that Felarya can't be attacked from space is a major major point, and saying that the Vish could not figure this out is, quite frankly, absurd to me.

Yes, the first one or two probes they sent would vanish, but if they always vanish at around the same altitude then they'll just make probes that only go so high before falling back down again. If conventional sensors aren't able to determine what's out there, they start using unconventional. Perhaps even techno-magical with the help of the Magiocrats. They would definitely figure it out, and once learned it would be a major strategic asset.

rcs619 wrote:

I never said they'd be completely oblivious. People would know that something wasn't right with the sky, and other aspects of Felarya's nature, but there would be no way for anyone to actually figure out the way things actually are. The world is a mystery, even to the people who live there. There'd be all kinds of theories, rumors, and just plain educated guesses.

For normal residents or those that live in the outlying/less advanced regions, absolutely. Hence why I mentioned it. I'm not sure if the Felaryan rumors page has anything on it, but one would imagine there were some colorful rumors regarding why the sky behaves as it does. Especially given the way it behaves in particular regions.

rcs619 wrote:

The part we can see on the map is just a tiny part of Felarya. Its obvious that the known map is just one part of a much larger continent, and we know for sure that there is at least one other continent on the other side of the Topazial Sea (which is supposed to extend much, much further than we can see on the map). I think it is extremely likely that the total surface area of Felarya exceeds that of the Earth, probably many, many times over. There is no way to circimnavigate it. Something would get you, or (much more likely) any vehicle you tried to use would run out of fuel long before you even came close.

Any Gen V and up Brayton Cycle Fast-Fission-Fuel Reactor design from our own Earth scale would be more than capable of providing a near limitless fuel supply. They are nearly a decade more efficient than current Rankine cycle designs and they won't have run out of fuel until the metal around them is decaying away. Not to mention being smaller while still providing similar power outputs. The Vish probably have or had a series of technology akin to this, if not moreso advanced (personally I'd lean to the latter, given their empire's previous stature).

With appropriate stealth technology or weapons, a suitable airship could definitely explore a vast majority of Felarya. I'm not saying it would be something completed in any short order of time, nor would it be 'safe'. There is always the potential for equipment failure, and then of course curious predators - mix the two together and you have a quick end to your glorious voyage.

Also, in the previous example the 'stealth' technology wouldn't be able to fool everything - sight, sound perhaps, but taste, touch? Any advantage is worth seeking though. Moreover, sight is also not a guarantee since certain creatures would be capable of seeing in more than one field; thus 'cloaking' your ship to visible light doesn't hide its heat signature or displacement of space/air.

While the vast majority of Felarya is not technologically advanced, it does have such elements upon it. Those sects would be able to do this, and to some extent I know they would have mapped out the area around them, if for nothing more than strategic-defense purposes (in the case of societies from worlds where this would be an issue). Probably not more than local vicinity (to include regions of several hundred miles, potentially - range of strategic weapons + significant defense counter time at a bare minimum in order to 'protect' themselves), but they would have done so.

The real problem with circumnavigation is what happens once you get to certain points on the plane. As discussed and previously agreed to, Felarya is not a world, so the idea of traveling around the world in the traditional circumnavigation sense wouldn't work. Depending on the nature of these affects, your ship/exploratory vehicle might also never return, lending more credence to the desire not to explore.

That said, any regulated society is going to have these exploratory vehicles making regular reports of status and development as possible for their technology base; so even if one no longer has the desire to go out with more exploration units that probably won't return they will still have a wealth of cartography knowledge at a bare minimum.

rcs619 wrote:

The idea of the people of Felarya knowing exactly what their world is like, and how it works, is just absurd. Most of these people are living in pre-industrial revolution levels of technology and thought.

While I agree with the latter as supposed to the former, I whole-heartedly disagree with the overarching stature of the former given the nature and technology some sects have. Too many assumptions are based on the current map as it is, and the 'desire' to keep Felarya a 'mystery'. Another case of solving the symptoms instead of the problem.

While I agree with the general idea of keeping Felarya a 'mystery' overall (since the world loses so much of its romanticism by being known) I do not agree that technological advanced present societies with Felarya would be incapable of doing so with enough time and resources; particularly given that certain societies have every reason to desire such knowledge given their past.

That always confused me, how it lacks space but it borrows space from others.

Guess it's just a plothole that will never be filled with anything besides "lolmagic"

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Except the majority of Vish in Felarya are the political/thought types. If something doesn't work once, they're not going to give up on it - they'll keep trying until they figure it out in order to determine the value of said item in their long-term plan. Knowing that Felarya can't be attacked from space is a major major point, and saying that the Vish could not figure this out is, quite frankly, absurd to me.

Im not saying they can't figure it out, Im saying that it is impossible to figure out, given Felarya's conditions.

What do the Vishmitals know?
- They've fled to a very strange world, that seems to have some very wierd dimensional properties
- Every probe they've tried to launch into orbit has disappeared at the same altitude

They don't know Felarya can't be attacked from space. From the surface of Felarya, it looks like a normal planet. They probably think they're on a regular world floating in space, they have no reason to think otherwise. The problem is, they can't get any probes, or any signals out, because something in the sky prevents it.

The logical conclusion most people would come to is:
- There's some kind of high-altitude anomaly that keeps messes with our signals, and also makes us lose contacts with our probes

I doubt anyone knows that they are in a pocket-dimension, and that the idea of that would seem silly to most people. There's just no way for them to be able to figure out what the world of Felarya really is, from their place on it.

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Yes, the first one or two probes they sent would vanish, but if they always vanish at around the same altitude then they'll just make probes that only go so high before falling back down again. If conventional sensors aren't able to determine what's out there, they start using unconventional. Perhaps even techno-magical with the help of the Magiocrats. They would definitely figure it out, and once learned it would be a major strategic asset.

I really doubt any sensors could make heads or tails of the rift in the sky beyond "something wierd is going on here". Either way, all they know is that they lose contact with probes that go too high, and there's some wierd readings coming off from the sky. Nothing in that says "you're in a pocket dimension and there's a huge rift in the sky".

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Any Gen V and up Brayton Cycle Fast-Fission-Fuel Reactor design from our own Earth scale would be more than capable of providing a near limitless fuel supply.

There are no nuclear reactors on Felarya, and no way to make them.

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With appropriate stealth technology or weapons, a suitable airship could definitely explore a vast majority of Felarya. I'm not saying it would be something completed in any short order of time, nor would it be 'safe'. There is always the potential for equipment failure, and then of course curious predators - mix the two together and you have a quick end to your glorious voyage.

No, nothing is ever 100% safe on Felarya. A voyage around Felarya is going to last at least decades, maybe up to a century. Something is going to break, or go wrong along the way. Not to mention having to constantly resupply food and water along the way, which means stops, where more things can go wrong. A circomnavigation is just impossible. It'd be like someone today trying to build a ship that could go to Jupiter and back.

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The real problem with circumnavigation is what happens once you get to certain points on the plane. As discussed and previously agreed to, Felarya is not a world, so the idea of traveling around the world in the traditional circumnavigation sense wouldn't work. Depending on the nature of these affects, your ship/exploratory vehicle might also never return, lending more credence to the desire not to explore.

In theory, it would work just fine. The rift encircling Felarya's "rim" connects to itself at every single point. It gives the illusion of a spherical world. Its like the rift in the sky, it is invisible, and transitions seamlessly. You'd never even notice it. No one would ever be able to tell that Felaya isn't spherical.

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While I agree with the general idea of keeping Felarya a 'mystery' overall (since the world loses so much of its romanticism by being known) I do not agree that technological advanced present societies with Felarya would be incapable of doing so with enough time and resources; particularly given that certain societies have every reason to desire such knowledge given their past.

I don't mind more of the world getting mapped out in the wiki, but Felarya is vast, and dangerous, and SHOULD be a mystery to the people that live within it. It adds to its mystique and to its atmosphere. Even the people who have lived there all their lives really don't know much about the place.

rcs619 wrote:

They don't know Felarya can't be attacked from space. From the surface of Felarya, it looks like a normal planet. They probably think they're on a regular world floating in space, they have no reason to think otherwise.

The curve of the earth can be seen when you stand on shore and look out to sea, it's even more obvious if you watch a tall sailing ship approach, it appears to "emerge" from the horizon, but that could mean Felarya's just much MUCH bigger, however if it was bigger gravity would increase alot, so with a bit of knowledge and just you eyes, you could tell it was flat.

You'd be able to tell Felarya is flat also with good observation and with fairly primitive tools and a bit of math.

The sun would rise at exactly the same moment across all of Felarya, first of all, and with accurate timekeeping devices you could find that out fairly easily

Shadows would follow identical lines at any latitude or longitude, also pointing out that felarya is a plane.

Any device with an accurate giroscope and accelerometer could serve as a primitive gravimetric sensor and would plainly show that no matter how far you move it, gravity remains along the same axis, indicating Felarya is flat.

As for the exactly nature of the sky, well that I think would be very, very hard yes. Impossible? maybe.

But I think you could guess it wasn't "normal" just by the fact it changes, and the fact signals can't come back from space could give you a clue that it isn't really there, and if signals can't come back maybe weapons fire cant either? It would be a sketchy guess at best I suppose.

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that could mean Felarya's just much MUCH bigger, however if it was bigger gravity would increase alot

The laws of physics are wierd on Felarya. Its obvious that gravity is not completely the same as it is on a real world, since the giants can exist and move around just fine. Something in Felarya's nature causes it to mimic the functions of a real planet, eventhough it has no space around it, no planet core below it, and so on.

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The sun would rise at exactly the same moment across all of Felarya, first of all, and with accurate timekeeping devices you could find that out fairly easily

The issues with timezones has not been addressed yet. Personally, that's why I vote for a slight curve in the Felaryan plane. Could just be some other wierd force in play that allows them to happen, even if the world is flat.

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Any device with an accurate giroscope and accelerometer could serve as a primitive gravimetric sensor and would plainly show that no matter how far you move it, gravity remains along the same axis, indicating Felarya is flat.

You would need to travel around and cover great distances to get the measurements to prove that, something that none of the factions advanced enough to have those kinds of instruments would ever do.

The fact is, some things need to remain obscured to the people in Felarya. It adds to the mystery, and the sense of isolation. Take Negav for example. As far as they know, they are the only large human settlement in the world. They probably know of a couple small, hidden settlements in the forest, but they don't know about the Jungle Bowl, or Chiotia City, or probably even Safe Harbor. To them, its Negav agaisnt the world. A lot of other civilizations would fall in the same boat, they don't know about other large human groups.

If everyone knew about everything, then Felarya would not seem nearly as vast, isolated, or inpenetrable to the people who live there.

Good points, but you only need about a kilometer or two with a sufficiently accurate accelerometer/giroscope, heck, in a lab on earth you only need a few meters.

I don't think we need to mess with gravity to make giants stand up, alot of stories have giants coming in from other worlds, I know nagas are inherently magical, maybe the way the giants intereact with gravity might be a better solution?

For time zones you could have the dimensional "window" above Felarya being distorted showing a different angle of the host solar system depending on physical position underneat the the sky.

Such a system would leave multiple day/night cycles on a wide enough plane, wouldn't that be interesting

I think Felarya should remain flat for one, it allows infinite possibility

And as or the mysterious factor, 20% of Americans still think the Sun orbits the Earth, so even if quite a few people in Negav knew everything there was to know about Felarya's physical properties, it's safe to say ignorance would still prevail amongst the general population.

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don't think we need to mess with gravity to make giants stand up, alot of stories have giants coming in from other worlds

I blame that on bad writing, personally, and try to ignore it.

Giants shouldn't be able to exist outside of Felarya, since only Felarya's wierd dimensional properties allow them to exist.

But some people need giant people to eat humans, and want to give them some stupid sci-fi/fantasy/offworlder backstory, so I guess they'll keep doing it. Like I said, I just try to ignore it. My list of bad ideas to be ignored keeps growing and growing, come to think of it.

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For time zones you could have the dimensional "window" above Felarya being distorted showing a different angle of the host solar system depending on physical position underneat the the sky

Certainly a possibility. It could be some kind of distortion that spreads out from the centerpoint of the plane.

Lots of ways to go with it though, we've just never sat down and picked a definative one yet.

You're just debating for the sake of keeping the defining point you want at this junction, which isn't wrong but means we won't be getting anywhere since you see learning about the realm as a danger to the maintenance of keeping Felarya's secrecy.

rcs619 wrote:

Im not saying they can't figure it out, Im saying that it is impossible to figure out, given Felarya's conditions.

What do the Vishmitals know?
- They've fled to a very strange world, that seems to have some very wierd dimensional properties
- Every probe they've tried to launch into orbit has disappeared at the same altitude

They don't know Felarya can't be attacked from space. From the surface of Felarya, it looks like a normal planet. They probably think they're on a regular world floating in space, they have no reason to think otherwise. The problem is, they can't get any probes, or any signals out, because something in the sky prevents it.

The logical conclusion most people would come to is:
- There's some kind of high-altitude anomaly that keeps messes with our signals, and also makes us lose contacts with our probes

I doubt anyone knows that they are in a pocket-dimension, and that the idea of that would seem silly to most people. There's just no way for them to be able to figure out what the world of Felarya really is, from their place on it.

Except, y'know, the Vishmitals were an intergalactic empire spanning a vast swathe of space. I think they might notice and become slightly suspicious when the astral bodies above them suddenly change. 'Normal planets' do not exchange moons, suns, stars, or other spacial bodies. By process of elimination alone one could argue they could figure out what is happening above their heads.

rcs619 wrote:

I really doubt any sensors could make heads or tails of the rift in the sky beyond "something wierd is going on here". Either way, all they know is that they lose contact with probes that go too high, and there's some wierd readings coming off from the sky. Nothing in that says "you're in a pocket dimension and there's a huge rift in the sky".

Except they also have a large amount of experience dealing with dimensional travel. They hop-skipped from world to world after the fall of their empire, and maintained a technological and military presence. There are only two ways they could have done that given the nature of Felarya... oh wait, only one way, since they can't use starships.

rcs619 wrote:

There are no nuclear reactors on Felarya, and no way to make them.

Did you know that the first nuclear reactors on Earth were not made by humans? True fact. Scientists are still studying them to this day to figure out why the soil in that region is so special. Somehow the chain reactions were contained such that no contamination leaked out - learning how this is accomplished would be a revelation in the field of nuclear waste disposal.

The point for this discussion, however, is that given Felarya's nature there is definitely a way to make them. The indigenous population may not be aware of it, but the probability that such areas exist is high.

rcs619 wrote:

No, nothing is ever 100% safe on Felarya. A voyage around Felarya is going to last at least decades, maybe up to a century. Something is going to break, or go wrong along the way. Not to mention having to constantly resupply food and water along the way, which means stops, where more things can go wrong. A circomnavigation is just impossible. It'd be like someone today trying to build a ship that could go to Jupiter and back.

Nothing is ever 100% safe anywhere, and I definitely covered this area already. Someone today trying to build a ship that could go to Jupiter and back? If only Earth actually had advanced alien civilizations living upon it that had been starfarers for longer than humanity had existed. Ah, right, Felarya has those. You like overusing the word impossible - the word you're looking for is impractical. I agree, the civilizations on Felarya have no desire to circumnavigate the realm because as far as they're concerned they have more pressing troubles in their current regions of control. Without such limitations the technology and ability does exist.

rcs619 wrote:

In theory, it would work just fine. The rift encircling Felarya's "rim" connects to itself at every single point. It gives the illusion of a spherical world. Its like the rift in the sky, it is invisible, and transitions seamlessly. You'd never even notice it. No one would ever be able to tell that Felaya isn't spherical.

As others have covered, there are ways to tell if a world is spherical or not. This is also why the thought of using a railgun as a surface-to-surface weapon is absurd - a projectile moving at relativistic velocity is not capable of ballistic arcs in our system of influence (the realm itself, or in the case of Earth the planet's surface). The bullet would only be useful over a short distance, a percentage of the area known as arc of the earth. On open ocean, this is about 12 miles - so the surface-to-surface ability of a railgun would probably be limited to about 6 miles. Ground-to-air, or air-to-ground, is a completely different story, as we are no longer concerned about these phenomena.

Archville covered this with the sea demonstration - this is one of the proponents to ocean-based travel. They might not be able to tell where Felarya 'ends' given the transition logic in place of the realm, but any society with a boat and a spyglass has the technology to prove the concept of surface arc.

The actual mechanism for this has never been extrapolated, and when you start bringing science into it things fall apart; hence why we tend to look the other way regarding certain facets of ability. Things like magnetic fields, arc of the earth, et cetera have never and probably never will be sufficiently explained away in a 'believable' fashion.

Random case in point, assuming you had a warship with deck guns (ie WWI/WWII battleship type) in Felarya, would they have to adjust azimuth and sight glasses when crossing the equivalent of Felarya's equator? This may seem like a simple question but it was a problem that caused the British quite a bit of concertation during their South American involvements.

rcs619 wrote:

I don't mind more of the world getting mapped out in the wiki, but Felarya is vast, and dangerous, and SHOULD be a mystery to the people that live within it. It adds to its mystique and to its atmosphere.

As I said previously, this is the sole point of why you're against this and as such we won't be agreeing on the presentation of the effects.

rcs619 wrote:

Even the people who have lived there all their lives really don't know much about the place.

Which people? Because depending on which groups we're speaking of, I would probably agree.

aethernavale wrote:

As others have covered, there are ways to tell if a world is spherical or not. This is also why the thought of using a railgun as a surface-to-surface weapon is absurd - a projectile moving at relativistic velocity is not capable of ballistic arcs in our system of influence (the realm itself, or in the case of Earth the planet's surface). The bullet would only be useful over a short distance, a percentage of the area known as arc of the earth. On open ocean, this is about 12 miles - so the surface-to-surface ability of a railgun would probably be limited to about 6 miles. Ground-to-air, or air-to-ground, is a completely different story, as we are no longer concerned about these phenomena.

Minor technical quibble: most railguns don't fire anywhere near relativistic speeds (or at least all the ones on Earth that they are talking about using as shipboard weaponry) and thus their trajectory curves quite a bit in the "system of influence". In fact, said railgun projectiles don't even reach orbital velocity, so their trajectories are guaranteed to be parabolas that start and end at points on the Earth's surface.

Now a laser on the other hand...

Oldman40k2003 wrote:

aethernavale wrote:

As others have covered, there are ways to tell if a world is spherical or not. This is also why the thought of using a railgun as a surface-to-surface weapon is absurd - a projectile moving at relativistic velocity is not capable of ballistic arcs in our system of influence (the realm itself, or in the case of Earth the planet's surface). The bullet would only be useful over a short distance, a percentage of the area known as arc of the earth. On open ocean, this is about 12 miles - so the surface-to-surface ability of a railgun would probably be limited to about 6 miles. Ground-to-air, or air-to-ground, is a completely different story, as we are no longer concerned about these phenomena.

Minor technical quibble: most railguns don't fire anywhere near relativistic speeds (or at least all the ones on Earth that they are talking about using as shipboard weaponry) and thus their trajectory curves quite a bit in the "system of influence". In fact, said railgun projectiles don't even reach orbital velocity, so their trajectories are guaranteed to be parabolas that start and end at points on the Earth's surface.

Now a laser on the other hand...

If you're speaking of the Naval Railgun Project (NRP) then I would agree. The NRP however is not designed to be a railgun and only falls under the classification due to the technicality of its construction. Realistically the NRP is nothing more than an attempt to make a weapon with the range of a missile and the refire/reload rate of a gun by firing it to higher velocity than can be achieved with current kinetic rounds and chemical propellents and capitalizing on the fact that railguns don't use propellent thereby allowing for faster reloads, nor does a railgun projectile require explosive since it is essentially the same as a chemically propelled kinetic energy round.

The railguns of scifi is not what we're currently trying to build, for the exact reasons I mentioned above. A weapon at relativistic velocity cannot be used as a practical surface-to-surface weapon except over short distances. The NRP is merely trying to overcome the limitation of chemical propellent through the means of the rails. Generally when someone talks about a scifi railgun, they envision it firing projectiles that make laser-lines (ie red line effect of relativistic motion) and not a beefed up version of a normal cannon. Not to mention - at least from the theoretical PoV - that railguns are generally inefficient and lower-grade than coilguns anyway.

Given that the NRP's highest rated speed was still under 10000 ft/s, which they claim is only 1/3 of the potential of the gun, even if the gun was capable of firing at its highest rated potential the projectile leaving the bore would only be travelling around 25000 ft/s, or 7620 m/s, which is only ~0.003c. IE, not relativistic at all. The NRP and militarized project railguns of right now are merely an upgrade to current chemical propellents which are maxed out with kinetic rounds - ie, they are horizontal evolution, not vertical.

We actually had a railgun at my college. I never had the fortune of seeing it fire but I've definitely seen the damage it can do. The barrel was three meters long and the projectile was the size of a enlarged beebee. It would still put a gaping hole right through 4" of steel plate. At the time of my attendance (back in 2002-3) I remember that it had achieved higher velocities than the NRP, but I can't for the life of me remember how fast it was. Granted, it was firing a much smaller projectile and still had a beast of an electrical system, whereas the NRP is a life-scaled model.



Masers/Lasers/Rasers/Grasers are an entirely different subject altogether. The biggest/largest output assemblies I know of happen to be mounted at NiF, and aren't used for any weaponized purposes - indeed they typically take a few hours between shots to cool down all the assemblies. I think the largest weaponized ones are those in the Star Wars project on that modified USAF/NASA airliner. The research currently being conducted at NiF is opening some doors to better 'laser' weapons for use in shooting down short-ranged missiles, artillery, rockets, mortar fire, UAV, et cetera. The TACL and SSHCL projects still had not made it into prototype weaponized forms though, last I read anything about them. DPAL was on the 'fast track' some time ago but once again I haven't heard anything about it.



Edit: Also, funny story from the past -

"So, over in this room is the HTFF simulator, and here is the pit where the previous reactors were encased but has now been modified into a classroom auditorium. If you'll proceed with me we'll walk up to the next level and visit the railgun room and electrical/capacitor bank room."

"Excuse me, did you just say railgun room? Like, actual railgun?"

"Yes."

"Located in the same building as the prototype reactor?"

"Yes, seems like a good enough place for it, doesn't it?"

"Reactor... railgun... same building... my classes are going to be here..." *nerdgasm*

Karbo is both creative and tricky. It's easy to say Felarya has no space it's just not there. But if you really try to get in depth into it you just end up getting your brain in a knot. What would that be like to see past the atmosphere of Felarya? Good grief just trying to picture no space there is unimaginable. It's like, what are you looking at then? It's an setting that makes sense but more so no sense. You get somewhat of a glimpse at how it works but you can never truly understand it.

Primeval Hunter wrote:

Karbo is both creative and tricky. It's easy to say Felarya has no space it's just not there. But if you really try to get in depth into it you just end up getting your brain in a knot. What would that be like to see past the atmosphere of Felarya? Good grief just trying to picture no space there is unimaginable. It's like, what are you looking at then? It's an setting that makes sense but more so no sense. You get somewhat of a glimpse at how it works but you can never truly understand it.

Its not really that there is "no space", its that the sky is a massive rift that links up to a point in real space. If you flew straight up, you'd transition from an atmosphere into space just like on Earth...but if you looked back the way you came after you enter space, all you would see behind you is more space. The rift in the sky only goes one way.

rcs619 wrote:

Its not really that there is "no space", its that the sky is a massive rift that links up to a point in real space. If you flew straight up, you'd transition from an atmosphere into space just like on Earth...but if you looked back the way you came after you enter space, all you would see behind you is more space. The rift in the sky only goes one way.

I mean I knew that but I was just saying how it can be somewhat complicated to think about

1st no need to quote an entire post to reply to it unless you are breaking up the post into segments replying to each segment individually.

There isn't much to over think the plane that separates Felarya from space allows matter to travel out into space and photons to travel from space to Felarya.

I guess not, but the first time I read about it I understood it, but at the same time I didn't. You ever had one of those moments?