Well of Souls Forums

Apparently Beryl does not find all things fascinating.

That is also contradictory to the whole of the first book since everything hinders on the workers and warriors stopping dead in their tracks when their Queen dies. The second Formic invasion was won because of this and the humans claimed the former formic territory because the workers died because ...

Regarding the Formics: While most of Orson Scott Card's more recent works are utter garbage (in my opinion), in Shadows in Flight he introduces some interesting new facts. Specifically, the Formics have a Ark in orbit over a habitable-zone planet in which the Queen died and the Drones attempted to k...

Hiding behind Neptune sounds generally safe-ish. Assuming the Neutron star hasn't already eaten Neptune of course.

One thing I think we're missing in this discussion is that the Umiak appear to already have something resembling Lotai. I don't think it makes any sense for the Loroi to fear Humanity being used by the Umiak quite so much in this context.

Theoretically one could also argue, supposing the inventors of Trade had human-like hands, that they didn't use their thumbs for counting.

As an example of such logic, in Slavic languages the transition from paucal to plural is between 4 and 5 (rather than between 5 and 6).

How barbaric

How is the radiation and heat supposed to go around the shielding pusher plate in space?

Well, depending on the cause of the disaster, you could potentially use the disaster to your benefit. A nova could provide a lot of delta V if you had an appropriately shaped pusher plate. :) That is good lateral thinking. I approve. That said, such a pusher plate might be more expensive than launc...

Well, depending on the cause of the disaster, you could potentially use the disaster to your benefit. A nova could provide a lot of delta V if you had an appropriately shaped pusher plate. :) That is good lateral thinking. I approve. That said, such a pusher plate might be more expensive than launc...

Arioch wrote:

GeoModder wrote:Now, I wonder if, in case she 'graduated' there, Beryl would make cheeky additions with Mezan's year.

Nah, Beryl is not nostalgic in any way about her time on Mezan.

That sounds... potentially sad.

For the sake of argument, suppose the Neutron Star is set to collide with the Sun.

1827 is decimal, right? The Standard Year of Unification is counted in standard years (based on the Perrein year, 0.7033 Earth years) since the Deinar scouts first arrived at Perrein in 850 CE. Ah? Would have thought the 'standard' would've been derived from Deinar's year, since its the most powerf...

Zakharra wrote:Wouldn't a star, neutron star or a normal one, do one hell of a number on the planets and their orbits?

Yes. Even without it going exactly along the plane, it would perturb the hell out of everything.

I have to say, a Neutron star coming through exactly along the plane of the solar system is pretty absurdly over the top.

For anyone who doesn't want to do maths, that's 1284.9 earth years -- from 850 CE to 2135 CE, which is indeed 25 years before 2160 CE. <_<

I think translating "eiren nestas geit dinos geit mizii eiren" (?) as 1827 for the reader rather than as EGGE or 03443 is fine.

Edit: I do wonder what years that's in. Deinar's?

It's actually a bit surprising that Tempo would admit that the Loroi fired first, albeit while being pushed into it by the Umiak. The lack of survivors from the battle certainly muddies the waters, and while she does characterise the war as a primarily defensive one, there's no way in hell it would...

hi hi They're really going to go with the Avogadro's constant route? Last I heard, they were going to try to revise the kilogram using Planck's constant. Proposed definition: The kilogram, kg, is the unit of mass; its magnitude is set by fixing the numerical value of the Planck constant to be equal...

hi hi There is nothing unlikely, odd or random about it. The second is defined by humanity by the oscillations of the cesium 133 atom, today. The second is the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of ...