The Second Apocalypse
Earwa => General Earwa => Topic started by: NinthAcolyte on April 20, 2017, 06:57:28 pm
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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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Damn, that's a good question!
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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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Magic, obviously.
But seriously, I doubt there is a very practical way, besides them having carved out many vent holes along the perimeter. The Medial Screw, for example, would probably be sufficient ventilation for the higher pressure generated by all the breathing, but you need somewhere for it to equalize from.
Then again, I recall having read that if Westeros has a higher air density, it is actually plausible that dragons could fly there. So, perhaps the same is true of Eärwa...
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Well, if you haven't read TGO, do that.
There are mention if light shafts and such there.
The screw in Cil Aujas would help tremendously .
And thirdly, magic. The nonmen infused magic into everything, both for form and function. I'd guess that they would have had a sophisticated network of mechanical, magical, and mechano-magical means of such things.
Also, if they hollowed out enough of the mountain, they'd largely be just in a reallly big house, right?
Those are the justifications I can come up with :)
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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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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 firmly grounded though, with firmly established rules, not the kind of thing you simply use to hand wave something.
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.
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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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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!
Since you just finished TJE, you may remember the early chapter which describes the logistical difficulties of even creating the Great Ordeal. IIRC, Kellhus needed ten years to build enough granaries, etc. for the Great Ordeal to even get started. And Sakarpus is a critical launch point, which adds to Sorweel's importance. It's a great section.
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There are some instances of mechanomagical entaglements in WLW. Can't remember if you see much elsewhere.
Wracu may or may not be another example that you have seen. The descriptions are always very... Artificial? Whenever the descriptions come up they seem very much wrought from steel and mechanism rather than pure biology.
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There are some instances of mechanomagical entaglements in WLW. Can't remember if you see much elsewhere.
Wracu may or may not be another example that you have seen. The descriptions are always very... Artificial? Whenever the descriptions come up they seem very much wrought from steel and mechanism rather than pure biology.
That dragon in the Dragons of Babel was like that. Neato too.
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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.
Bakker might be of a mind to just pass the buck--he does so much fulfilling and breaking Tolkien's mold that his main reason that nonmen live in mansions is because elves lived in underground homes in the silmarillion--the nonmen have whatever ventilation the elves had
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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.
WELCOME NinthAcolyte!!!
YOU'VE GOT SOME AWESOME STORY AHEAD OF YOU! NO LONG WAIT FOR TUC AFTER TGO, NICE!
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WELCOME NinthAcolyte!!!
YOU'VE GOT SOME AWESOME STORY AHEAD OF YOU! NO LONG WAIT FOR TUC AFTER TGO, NICE!
Cheers!
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The trick, NinthAcolyte, is not minding the details ...
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The trick, NinthAcolyte, is not minding the details ...
LOL THAT IS TRUE BUT IT MUST BE HARD TO WRITE BECAUSE DIFFERENT READERS MEANS DIFFERENT CONCERNS ABOUT REASONABLE DETAILS
I DON'T MIND THAT THE MAGIC EXPLANATION STOPS AT "METAPHYSICS" BUT I THINK IT DRIVES SOME FOLKS WILD
I WOULD REALLY LIKE MORE ABOUT THE TUSK--THE ACTUAL DOCUMENTS BUT I GET IT THAT BAKKER WANTS IT TRAILING OFF INTO MYSTERY
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My point is at some point I think it's reasonable for the author to follow the rule of cool and let it be that. Any author drilling down to the minutiae of everything could well make his work his life ( and unfortunately ours as well ) and nothing else. Better works will have some poor math ( i.e. errant detail not adding up ) in that the author is mindful of the reader, not dragging him/her along to explain every spec of dust in the room. All of Bakker's detail in my opinion is simply a near perfect balance with rich scenery and movement in the story. Don't reggae with this balance by trying to drag him down into the mud of ensuring EVERYTHING makes sense ( not that he would be so weak to submit, but just saying ).
To contradict myself, it is fun to point these things out - nice catch in this case - but not as criticism, but simply to drive interesting conversation and learning - it did not occur to me underground dwellings require ventilation, but seems obvious now that it's brought up. It does seem that the posts here are mere that - something cool to talk about - which is good. To throw in, could be non-men have tolerance for higher CO2 levels and their human slaves adapted over time. Could be air conditioning technology they received from the aliens ( think I recall impressive amounts of machinery laying about in the mansions, but could be a made up memory on my part ).
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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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All true - but remember, Non-man ashe consumption provides impressive ( though addictive ) powers to humans - hint of magic at play here.