Treskri - help needed

[Zireael]

I think you're right about seasons.
Right now, I'm reading an interesting timeline with a Venus planet in place of Mars and I think the problem with Treskri is that we can't talk about landmasses and oceans when the world is underground... or can we?

 

[wordwalker]

If you want oceans, sure, though it would take divine action or one complex ecosystem to rationalize them. (Or did they form Above and spill down; is there an Above?)

The question then is, what's the real shape of your caverns and things, and how would "sea level" spread out across it? Tunnels (like lava tubes) now miles underwater? Would an ocean-sized gathering of the water have land masses that poked above it, or just high ground on the edges?

 

[mbartelsm]

I don't think continents is the right name, but you could have large areas where big cave systems are common, and these areas (the size of a real life continent) are surrounded by not so accessible regions where travel is very hard, often, a cave or two would lead into another 'continent' with the same characteristics.

 

[DTowne]

great wall of vietnam cave - Google Search

This goes along with mbartelsm's suggestion.

Maybe your peoples would know of landmasses from occassional collapses where seawater floods caves as well as having to travel long distances to reach certain areas of the world by descending to the suboceanic cave systems.

 

[Zireael]

Wow, love the great caves in Vietnam, thanks!

Somehow related - what do you think for using a stylized font for chapter titles? I've found several neat-looking quasi-Arabic fonts. Or I could use Intellark and type the names in real Arabic (yes, I've started learning the language)...

 

[DTowne]

I think I'd go quasi-arabic if you can find one that is readable in english.

And to wordwalker you wouldn't need divine intervention or whatever for oceans. I believe its jupiter that has a moon with an underground ocean.

 

[wordwalker]

And to wordwalker you wouldn't need divine intervention or whatever for oceans. I believe its jupiter that has a moon with an underground ocean.

Fair enough. Although, that mainly applies if you have a complete ecology including a surface, the one thing we haven't been talking about. Is there an Outside?

 

[DTowne]

Good point, something I wondered myself and for some reason never thought to ask.

 

[Zireael]

Well, for geological reasons, if the Inside is completely closed up, you have an Outside. But the inhabitants do not know about it and it's irrelevant.

I'll have to look up this moon with an underground ocean...

 

[DTowne]

If I remember correctly. The moons surface is frozen solid for something sixty miles deep and the tidal pull of (saturn/jupiter?) along with passing moons keeps the core warm enough for liquid water to exist.

 

[Zireael]

About skin color - I wondered earlier about changing each house's skin color. However, that might pose a problem in the story - readers will automatically assume the character is Eurasian white unless I repeatedly state otherwise...

 

[Saigonnus]

If you want oceans, sure, though it would take divine action or one complex ecosystem to rationalize them. (Or did they form Above and spill down; is there an Above?)

I would think a water world (like 90+ percent water) would be kind of cool, with only a handful of islands above ground. Perhaps that could explain having water beneath the ground.

Another option would be a chemical reaction (via some catalyst [crystals, plants or whatever] that turn the ordinarily unbreathable atmosphere (perhaps hydrogen based) to oxygen. Imagine having a bed of fungus or something like that and as the lowest layer of "air" along the ground interacts with the crystals it absorbs the trace gases (argon, helium etc) and as a waste biproduct produces oxygen that mixes with the hydrogen in the air to make water which drips to the ground and eventually makes it's way down to the aquifers below ground.

A second chemical reaction below ground could separate some of the oxygen from the flowing water of the aquifers for air to breathe for the denizens below ground.

 

[Zireael]

I just found these two:

Hollow Earth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Subterranean fiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anything worth looking into?

 

[DTowne]

I think some mixture of Hollow-earth theory and this would help. Europa (moon) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Zireael]

Yeah, I looked Europa up and the warm underground ocean theory sounds brilliant!

 

[Zireael]

The introduction to Treskri has been revised.

A friend suggested I make a PDF, but I feel too much is missing - for example, half of the noble houses are not described.

 

[DTowne]

I don't know if you'll see this in time, but in 3 hours from my post so at 5 p.m. American central standard time. On the channel history 2 (don't know if you get that in poland) but theres a show coming on called Journey to the earth's core. I think it would really help your world.

Maybe you can find it online.

 

[Zireael]

I'm baack.
I've been thinking about it some more and I think the inhabitants could give off light in various ways (chemosynthetic, photosynthetic).
Which one do you think would work better?

Looking into various modes of vision right now. Due to the fact that it is mostly dark - I imagine the lighting level roughly equal to a perpetual twilight (polar night/midnight sun) - (photosynthetic plants notwithstanding) do you think we'd have any di- or trichromatic life? Or would they be monochromatic all, since color wouldn't be necessary? Or maybe they'd be tetrachromatic in order to be able to pick up IR?

 

[DTowne]

Are you still working on this story. I just saw you posted this now.

I personally would go chemosynthetic seeing as photosynthetic needs the sun.

Humboldt squids have a very interesting way of communicating with each other that may work for you with a little tweaking.

Seeing into IR or UV would be great with your tetrochromatic idea.