StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Guardsman Bass wrote:Christ, that means more Elvis, assuming he's not a gibbering wreck when they pull him from the muck . . .

Considering how much of Hell is actually on fire, it sort of gives a whole new meaning to "hunka, hunka burning love", doesn't it . . .

Ed.

Darth Wong wrote:That's why I posted my FedEx "We'll go through Hell to deliver your package on time" idea a while ago. Unfortunately, it also opens up doors for terrorists to be a lot more dangerous than they are now.

Not just terrorists; nation states on earth and in hell will all be very interested in this unblockable, near-untraceable delivery mechanism. It opens up a lot of strategic options. This is why Dr Kuroneko's group have Unlimited Funding (tm) - and there are certain to be many more groups studying aspects of the phenomenon that haven't been seen in the story. The US (and to whatever extent they share the data, NATO) wants to be at the forefront of portal technology (including whatever countermeasures are technically possible).

EdBecerra wrote:

JN1 wrote:Btw, guys 'Paki' is generally used as a racial slur in the UK and may be seriously offensive to some people who visit this board.

Ah. Didn't know that. I'm from the USA, Colorado to be precise, and it's not really seen as an insult where I live.

Out here, we chop words as short as can be, simply because we don't feel like going to the extra effort of pronouncing two syllables over one. But now that I know, I'll refrain from using it here.

Ed.

No worries, mate. AFAIK most British Asians would see it as being as offensive as the 'N' word, even though it translates into English as pure - Pakistan - Pure Land (IIRC). Some Asians do use it amongst themselves as some Black Americans use the 'N' word.

Wyrm wrote:

EdBecerra wrote:You'd be surprised... watch what Paki gun and bladesmiths can do with 18th and 19th century gear.

There isn't an excess of pumice and hydrogen sulfide floating around the air to fuck up the steel with impurities on 18th-19th century Earth. You need an environment reasonably sealed against the Hellish ambience to forge good steel.

Perhaps more to the point, we have steel. The Pakistani smiths of all sorts use steel, either from the steel yard, or from scrap. There's a lot of scrap out in our invironment, in the formm of automobile and truck frames, scrap structural, and other junk.

Once you have the steel, the facilities needed for smithing are pretty basic, and modern industrial cleanliness isn't one of them.

Guardsman Bass wrote:the "planet" (assuming it actually has a planet-like shape, and isn't something really weird like a disc or a torus) isn't too bad. That raises some questions - is Hell a "round" world? Or, for that matter, do the planes that fly high enough to get into the clear air over the dust layer covering Hell's surface see anything like a "sun" in the sky, or is it simply omnidirectional red light?

Neither Hell (nor any of the realities that exist in that plane) are planets. They're self-contained entities that form a bubble in space-time and there is literally no way out of them except by a portal. In shape, they are actually klein bottles. No matter which direction somebody goes, eventually they end up back where they started. That includes up and down as well as left/right/forwards/backwards etc. Climb straight up and the line leads you back to your launch point, dig straight down and the tunnel brings you out where you started. Every straight line leads you back to where yout started. Just to make life really fun, its the same distance fto get back to the original starting point no matter which direction one starts in. We'll touch a little on the problems this causes in due course.

The light is an omnidirectional red light that waxes and wanes on a set cycle. A mystery yet to be solved. The key point here is that the humans are laughing at the baldricks because the baldricks simply don't understand earth-style physics and chemistry; they're stuck at a bronze age level of science. However, the humans don't understand the physics, chemistry and biology of Hell (and by implication Heaven since heaven exists in the same space-time continuum as hell - its just another klein bottle bubble) any better than baldricks understand human science, In Hell terms, humans are at a bronze age level of understanding as well. They're inventing work-arounds for the problems but they haven't even begun to understand why the problems are problems yet

The chemistry and physics can't be that much different in Hell, or else humans would die the moment they set foot in the place. We are biochemical machines after all, and we don't have much tolerance for changes in the rules governing those biochemical reactions.

Darth Wong wrote:The chemistry and physics can't be that much different in Hell, or else humans would die the moment they set foot in the place. We are biochemical machines after all, and we don't have much tolerance for changes in the rules governing those biochemical reactions.

This is true, which puts an upper limit on the differences. However, we do note that there are drastic differences between native Hell life-forms (including humans reborn into that environment) and us. So, while the commonality is high enough to make interaction possible (otherwise the whole idea of anybody from that dimension intercting with us at all goes out of the window - a very powerful anti-theistic argument because if the conventional Christian God exists, the mutuality of interaction means we can shoot him) there are big areas of difference that will take humans time to understand.

One of the ideas I was playing with is that our life forms depend upon one of two mirror-isomers (dextro- and laevo-rotatory) . I was thinking that hell life depends on the other one. So Hell creatures can eat our food and vice versa without gaining any benefit from it.

Stuart wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:The chemistry and physics can't be that much different in Hell, or else humans would die the moment they set foot in the place. We are biochemical machines after all, and we don't have much tolerance for changes in the rules governing those biochemical reactions.

This is true, which puts an upper limit on the differences. However, we do note that there are drastic differences between native Hell life-forms (including humans reborn into that environment) and us. So, while the commonality is high enough to make interaction possible (otherwise the whole idea of anybody from that dimension intercting with us at all goes out of the window - a very powerful anti-theistic argument because if the conventional Christian God exists, the mutuality of interaction means we can shoot him) there are big areas of difference that will take humans time to understand.

One of the ideas I was playing with is that our life forms depend upon one of two mirror-isomers (dextro- and laevo-rotatory) . I was thinking that hell life depends on the other one. So Hell creatures can eat our food and vice versa without gaining any benefit from it.

How would that be reconciled with Memnon, who had derived sustenance by eating living humans on Earth?

so wait, are heaven and hell bubbles between our plane of existance and the next - hence why they don't have a whole universe - or are they the next full on plane of existance? Because the massive change in size from a gull universe 30 billion lightyears across to a Klien bottle with a surface a few times that of earth is a pretty big step down.

Ender wrote:so wait, are heaven and hell bubbles between our plane of existance and the next - hence why they don't have a whole universe - or are they the next full on plane of existance? Because the massive change in size from a gull universe 30 billion lightyears across to a Klien bottle with a surface a few times that of earth is a pretty big step down.

Maybe planets with substantial life on them somehow create these bubble universes, which are attached to them in some way. So there could be millions of them, but we might not encounter them.

Darth Wong wrote:

Stuart wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:The chemistry and physics can't be that much different in Hell, or else humans would die the moment they set foot in the place. We are biochemical machines after all, and we don't have much tolerance for changes in the rules governing those biochemical reactions.

This is true, which puts an upper limit on the differences. However, we do note that there are drastic differences between native Hell life-forms (including humans reborn into that environment) and us. So, while the commonality is high enough to make interaction possible (otherwise the whole idea of anybody from that dimension intercting with us at all goes out of the window - a very powerful anti-theistic argument because if the conventional Christian God exists, the mutuality of interaction means we can shoot him) there are big areas of difference that will take humans time to understand.

One of the ideas I was playing with is that our life forms depend upon one of two mirror-isomers (dextro- and laevo-rotatory) . I was thinking that hell life depends on the other one. So Hell creatures can eat our food and vice versa without gaining any benefit from it.

How would that be reconciled with Memnon, who had derived sustenance by eating living humans on Earth?

Was Memnon actually deriving sustenance from the matter of humans, or from their 'life energy', or was he just draining them for the hell of it?

Darth Wong wrote:How would that be reconciled with Memnon, who had derived sustenance by eating living humans on Earth?

I dropped the exclusive isomer idea very early on; there were just too many problems associated with it. I've still got a possibility that we can only use one isomer while next-dimension up can use both but I haven't decided yet.

so wait, are heaven and hell bubbles between our plane of existance and the next - hence why they don't have a whole universe - or are they the next full on plane of existance? Because the massive change in size from a gull universe 30 billion lightyears across to a Klien bottle with a surface a few times that of earth is a pretty big step down.

Imagine it this way, our plane of existance (dimension, call it what one will) can be equated toa suspension of sand in water, we live on the grains of sand and look outwards at the universe around us. The next dimension up can be equated to a glass of soda with the inhabitants living on the inside of the gas bubbles looking inwards. We live in an open environment, they live in a closed one. In their space-time, there are many, many bubbles with their own existances but they are utterly unable to contact each other directly except under very specific and unusual circumstances. On the other hand, the inhabitants of those bubbles can open portals to our dimension so the only easily-available way to get from one bubble to the next is to go down into our dimension and then back up again.

That explains why a war between heaven and hell was destined to be fought on our insignificant little planet.

Darth Wong wrote:How would that be reconciled with Memnon, who had derived sustenance by eating living humans on Earth?

Possibly demons don't qualify as 'hell life' - they're derived from humans after all. It would be logical for them to have enzymes for both stereoisomers of chiral nutrients. Thus demons can digest humans and orcs, but humans can't digest orcs and orcs can't digest humans.

DNA testing on the baldricks was already performed (and showed that they are close to being human). Having enzymes for two stereoisomers would likely double the genetic content of DNA, which would have been detected. Having twice the amount of DNA (one set for each stereoisomer) would have also been detected.

tedisbest wrote:Having enzymes for two stereoisomers would likely double the genetic content of DNA

It isn't necessarily every single chiral molecule in the body. For example hell life could just have flipped carbohydrates. That would impact on only a small fraction of the body's proteins.

I just took a look at the picture of a Klein bottle on Wikipedia (since it is wikipedia, if it's the wrong image, feel free to point it out), and it's totally fucked up. The implications are mind-boggling; if you fired a sufficiently powerful laser, would the damn thing go all the way around the universe and hit you in the back? Or a bullet for that matter? That's not mentioning the bizarre appearing and re-appearing omnidirectional red light that's warm enough for the "world" and sufficient for some of what I hope is photosynthesis (aren't plants of some sort described as being near the rivers in Hell?) - it'd be real interesting to find out what the source of that is. Maybe the "soda" between the "soda bubble" universes?

Guardsman Bass wrote:I just took a look at the picture of a Klein bottle on Wikipedia (since it is wikipedia, if it's the wrong image, feel free to point it out), and it's totally fucked up.

That's correct. We have one of those (or rather, a 3D glass version) - it was a birthday present for my partner.

Guardsman Bass wrote:I just took a look at the picture of a Klein bottle on Wikipedia (since it is wikipedia, if it's the wrong image, feel free to point it out). The implications are mind-boggling; if you fired a sufficiently powerful laser, would the damn thing go all the way around the universe and hit you in the back? Or a bullet for that matter? That's not mentioning the bizarre appearing and re-appearing omnidirectional red light that's warm enough for the "world" and sufficient for some of what I hope is photosynthesis (aren't plants of some sort described as being near the rivers in Hell?) - it'd be real interesting to find out what the source of that is. Maybe the "soda" between the "soda bubble" universes?

It's the right picture but remember its a 3-dimensional projection of what is a four-dimensional structure (five-dimensional if one includes time as a dimension). It's correct about the laser, fire it off and if its powerful enough, it'll shoot you in the back. Have to be hellishly powerful though (Hee hee horrible pun) since the dust in the atmosphere will absorb laser power very quickly. The light source is a mystery and one that needs an explanation humanity will be working on, possibly for decades. until it gets an answer. Plants do use photosynthesis but its photosynthesis-plus just the way animals are animals-plus.

I wonder if it's possible that the light came from somewhere else, and was trapped by natural means of forces that govern the spatial plane. Which is to say, did the light come through with the demons?

tim31 wrote:I wonder if it's possible that the light came from somewhere else, and was trapped by natural means of forces that govern the spatial plane. Which is to say, did the light come through with the demons?

It wouldn't circulate forever. It hits objects and then gets converted into other forms of energy. Something has to keep emitting new light.

True. So what other sources of visible radiation can be thrown into the ring?

I had thought we were seeing the glowing lava underside of the rock everyone in hell is standing on, reflected by the odd topography. But I have no idea if that is workable or not.

Darmalus wrote:I had thought we were seeing the glowing lava underside of the rock everyone in hell is standing on, reflected by the odd topography. But I have no idea if that is workable or not.

Would that be on-and-off glowing like the "days" in Hell, though? I'll admit that's kind of a cool idea, although weird to think - Conservation of Energy must be rather interesting in a universe only several Earth's size.

tim31 wrote:True. So what other sources of visible radiation can be thrown into the ring?

Whatever it is, it would have to be generated very high in the sky, in order to simulate the effect of sunlight (remember that Satan's mount cast a shadow on Belial as he flew over him). However, since there is no mention of a Sun, it may be a much more diffuse effect.

Thinking of interior lighting, you can light a 3x4 metre room with a single 50 watt fluorescent bulb, albeit rather dimly. If that's the ambient light level in Hell, you would only need 4 watts per square metre of illumination: a miniscule fraction of the 1.4 kW/m^2 bombardment we get from the Sun at the equator (of course, we would have to assume some other heat source in order to keep the environment so warm and provide energy to plant life; this light source would be strictly for illumination).

Darmalus wrote:I had thought we were seeing the glowing lava underside of the rock everyone in hell is standing on, reflected by the odd topography. But I have no idea if that is workable or not.

That was another good idea that didn't make the cut. It doesn't really work out I'm afraid. You see, there is no underside to the rock layer Hell is built on since the Hell Klein bottle only has a single surface. Beyond the rock is non-existance except for the other bubbles in the non-existance. So the light is caused by some sort of energy interaction that nobody quite understands yet (probably some variant of piezoelectricity). By the way the strain in the rock layer caused by the klein bottle effect is why Hell is so volcanically active - the same effect provides Hell with its warmth.