Reinventing science
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Nope, going to keep in miles and use “humans” or short “orks” as the baseline. Since they and their ability to walk are more likely to be invariant than other factors such as Planck’s constant or c or G or any other “fundamental unit” that can be used for distance.
Also can’t use parsecs, or rather we could, but it would have to be based on Gormegast and the distance from its star which I’d then have to calculate…and that would not do any good since I still wouldn’t have any underlying measurement unit.
Of course, Mount Doom time looks a lot like Court Time, which oddly, looks a lot like Astlanian time.
I suspect that’s because so many demons come and go from Astlan so it makes some sense. After all, Astlan is one of the largest suppliers of demons in the multiverse, and if you look at history, they seem to be poaching them all from Earth.
Sort of like Europeans & Americans with Africa I guess.
So, had been working on ITW and Doom’s Day, but my mind keeps be drawn longingly to OOOA:ITN (Into the Night) [i] tentatively.[/i] or maybe Black Skies at Dawn or something on that line. (Sailing reference and the fact that the sky is black in space–mostly–unless you are staring into a nebula or a star, and if you are in a star cluster–well…I’m getting off topic
The problem, I am realizing with this book is that when you have a completely different measurement of time, lots of things have to change.
Most all science fiction sort of ignores this, assumes “Terran Normal” time. However, for a civilization that has spent thousands upon thousands of years in outer space, and are not from earth, that doesn’t cut it.
In particular when you have a metric calendar (and since Orks (well, physically intact Orks) have 10 fingers and 10 toes, metric/decimal would make sense.
10 Galactic Time Units/Galactic Hour
10 Galactic Hours/Galactic Day
10 Galactic Days/Galactic Week
10 Galactic Weeks/Galactic Month
10 Galactic Months/Galactic year
10 Galactic years/Galactic Decade
10 Galactic decades/Galactic Century
10 Galactic Centuries/Galactic MillenniumSo now, how far is a Galactic Light Year? What is the speed of light in these units, and then what are the rules for FTL in the new universe depending on your technology?
The point being is that it’s very easy dreaming story lines up, and you sort of forget all the intrinsic world building, or in this case galaxy building that’s required. Particularly since I’ve lived in the Astlan/Abyss part of the multiverse for so very long, all that stuff is done, written down, somewhere.
You forget how much has to go on behind the scenes. Of course, while time consuming, that’s some of the stuff I love the most I think. As a teenager I spent hour upon hour with paper and pencil (pre-computers) designing worlds, empires and medieval trading companies and trade routes. Eeesh
Even today, half the reason some of my other books aren’t finished is I spent all sorts of time in Visio designing buildings for the characters in SF stories, or plotting out journeys on Google Maps in a post apocalyptic world. It’s always something….
Oh, yeah, then there is distance.
That’s why I like leagues. A league is the distance an average human (or similar) can walk in 1 hour. Doesn’t matter the time, doesn’t matter the circumference of your planet.
Doesn’t work in space, you can’t walk very far in space, in a Galactic Hour.
However, if you were then it’s the distance one can walk in a Galactic Hour (1/10 of a day)
So if we arbitrarily say that 1 GD is 25 Earth hours (for simple math) then a league is the distance you can walk in 2.5 hours which 7.5 earth miles (assuming a mile is 1/3 of a league)
On the other hand maybe they use klicks, that makes more sense…
But, what is the definition of a meter (and thus kilometer and klick)
Today, on earth it is: The meter is the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second. Which seems a bit obscure, but it comes from the older definition as being the wavelength of radiation emitted by krypton-86, but that was taken because it was close to the older yet definition which was derived using a pendulum in Paris
None of this is likely to be the same in another universe or even other culture in this one.
See, fantasy is much easier because nobody cares what the speed of light is…
Well, prior to Doom uniting the orcs they probably all had different standards of time and measurement. Once they were united would they have been put on a standard system for all works regardless of plane and planet?
If yes, then shouldn’t it be based on some measure of time and space in the Abyss?
Interesting, good point.
However, historical events are such that, nope.
[biggrin]
As Trig reveals early on, while people like his grandfather (from whom he inherited the stone) liked to tell tales of “The Doompire” and people know about it. It’s considered to be a myth.
The current consensus is that was a myth generated during the ‘interregnum” when the E-Corps and H-Corps invaded the Antilles Cluster trying to steal the cluster’s resources (think Avatar, but the Orks could fight back but not very effectively at first) It was a very brutal period starting a few hundred years after the fall of Doom and lasting a good thousand years before the Orks were able to finally able to begin evicting them during “The Cleansing”
It is believed to be a rallying myth to gather the horde back together and restore pride and honor. It’s very different than what many of the other Orc clans are dealing with, say in Astlan’s localverse. In Gormegast, the orks were able to restore their own glory, albeit at the cost of history.
The cleansing was over fifteen hundred years ago, and since then the Gormegast Horde has rebounded to great success (Gormegast is the planet of origin for all the Orks in the Antilles Cluster). They are not religious, although they are spiritual, with a form of rational ancestor worship and veneration (part of the shamanic traditions)
So, by and large, the Orks don’t believe in gods and supernatural beings. They know of them from myths and the Doompire is an important “myth” to them.
They are about to get a wake up call.
[quote=Iume;6794]Well, prior to Doom uniting the orcs they probably all had different standards of time and measurement. Once they were united would they have been put on a standard system for all works regardless of plane and planet?
If yes, then shouldn’t it be based on some measure of time and space in the Abyss? [/quote]
This was my thought as I was reading the posts……Mt Doom and the Abyss would be the one constant for all the Orcs – whether in space or on a world…..we already have a form of time – based on the day / night cycle that Mt Doom has just re-established….and I remember some mention of the radius of the radar(?) tech that the space D’Orcs were trying to get back online in Mt Doom…..I would think that would be the default measurement for distance.
Is the factor limiting speed in vacuum going to be mass?
Perhaps in your universe, antimatter mass has a *minimum* speed, while mass has a maximum speed?
Actually, it’s more straightforward, the speed of light in the the material realm is a limit, just as it is here.
They actually have both “gate travel” and hyperspace, however, hyperspace is actually the ӕthereal realm. In the ӕthereal realm 1) the speed of light is much higher and 2) matter and mass work much differently–see Gadius & Gaius story line–and the energy needed to accelerate a body is far far less 3) the big energy cost is in taking a large metal ship into the ӕthereal realm, once you are there, surpassing the material realm’s speed of light is relatively easy (again if you know what works for propulsion)
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