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Messages - NinthAcolyte

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General Earwa / Re: Anasûrimbor Ahab
« on: May 17, 2017, 06:34:26 am »
It's my favorite. I was just thinking generally about similarities in theme, but then I noticed that last bit in bold and thought that just maybe Bakker worked in a deliberate homage or two.

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General Earwa / Anasûrimbor Ahab
« on: May 16, 2017, 10:47:45 pm »
From Moby-Dick:

"Hark ye yet again—the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no confines."

First of all... IS NOT TRUTH INFINITE?

Secondly, Ahab's hatred of the inscrutable motive forces of nature seems more than a little akin to the Dunyain rebellion against cause and effect. I see more than a little of Ahab in Kellhus. I think it's likely that the series will end with Kellhus waging war against the Outside, against the Gods themselves... And unlike poor old Ahab and his Whale, I'd lay good odds on his success.

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General Earwa / Re: Nonmen Mansion Ventilation
« on: May 03, 2017, 07:18:00 pm »
It occurred to me, Tao, that Nonmen might respirate differently (or not at all). I think that's a less-likely explanation because they metabolize the same food amd drink humans do. Drugs even appear to affect them the same way.

Even if it turned out that they didn't need to breathe at all, though, Cil-Aujas housed tens of thousands of human slaves.

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General Earwa / Re: Nonmen Mansion Ventilation
« on: April 26, 2017, 05:26:52 am »
WELCOME NinthAcolyte!!!

YOU'VE GOT SOME AWESOME STORY AHEAD OF YOU!  NO LONG WAIT FOR TUC AFTER TGO, NICE!

Cheers!

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General Earwa / Re: Nonmen Mansion Ventilation
« on: April 20, 2017, 08:02:34 pm »
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (i.e. the ancient Three Seas Board), I asked Bakker about the practicality of supplying all of the Fanim's horses in the desert.  Water would be a huge issue, let alone the fodder necessary.  He pointed me to a fantastic little book called Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army, but ultimately he said he takes a "mana from heaven" approach.  I think a bit of the same would be applicable here too.

That's probably the correct answer - "they can breathe fine because huge mountain cities are badass!" Nothing wrong with a few judicious applications of the Rule of Cool. Still fun to hypothesize, though!

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General Earwa / Re: Nonmen Mansion Ventilation
« on: April 20, 2017, 07:43:23 pm »
Haven't got to TGO yet. Finished Judging Eye last night, starting WLW when I get home tonight.

"Really big house" isn't by itself an adequate explanation - if your house was literally the size of a mountain, you would need to ventilate the interior. Ordinary big houses can get very stuffy in the inner rooms, and we're talking orders of magnitude bigger - and made of rock, not porous materials.

"Magic" is certainly the convenient short answer especially if, as you seem to imply, they used techno-magical apparatus extensively. I haven't seen that yet so I will have to keep reading to evaluate the hypothesis. The Magic in Bakker's books appears to be very well grounded though, with firmly established rules, not the kind of thing you simply use to hand wave something.

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General Earwa / Re: Nonmen Mansion Ventilation
« on: April 20, 2017, 07:10:57 pm »
Thank you, I thought so too. I considered that it might have something to do with the Great Medial Screw, but even considering wind moving through that, you would have half a mountain's worth of rock between you and the gates. Awfully tricky to get air to move that far, through irregular systems of rooms and tunnels. Not impossible, just tricky, and doubly so without electricity.

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General Earwa / Nonmen Mansion Ventilation
« on: April 20, 2017, 06:57:28 pm »
So here's a logistical question - How did Nonmen ventilate their Mansions? Providing a supply of breathable air is one of the major challenges when designing a bunker. How did an entire city's worth of masters and slaves avoid suffocating? The absence of light in the depths indicates the absence of shafts, and even if there were ducts carved in - you need a way of agitating the air, making it circulate. Modern complexes like Cheyenne Mountain have ludicrously power-hungry air conditioning systems to move stale air out and bring fresh air in. It's actually one of the major vulnerabilities of such fortress-bunkers. No matter how huge it is inside, eventually all that air will get used up and replaced woth carbon dioxide unless it's circulated through the outside.

This is a doubly important problem for Cil-Aujas (and any other Mansion carved into a volcano) because volcanos are full of ridiculously toxic gasses.

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Introduce Yourself / Never Mind the Fanim, Here's the Sex Demons
« on: April 20, 2017, 06:39:43 pm »
Hi ho, folks. Been quietly lurking and leeching off y'all's accumulated insight for a while. A question I can't  find nor figure an answer for just presented itself, though, so I figured I'd finally register. Nice ta meet'cha, I'll be around.

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