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Vavatch isn't Culture. It's within Culture influence but during the Idiran war was initially neutral. The Culture evacuated it and wasted it after the Idirans were going to claim it and take control of it to use it as a military base and they couldn't stop them. IIRC the epilogue mentions that Unaha-Closp applies to join the Culture after the book. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Feb 26, 2025 |
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Feb 25, 2025 23:13
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| # ? Nov 16, 2025 06:35 |
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That whole part definitely felt weird, like it would make sense if the Culture had abandoned the orbital for a decade or more, but they seem a lot more on top of poo poo to not let a cannibal cult form on their poo poo. I think you’re right in that it was just early writing and also Banks trying to make the orbital seem huge in the post-Ringworld but pre-Halo days or “wow a ringworld would be pretty big and pretty easy for poo poo to get lost and forgotten in.” Also gently caress the Halo series for somehow making orbitals seem like tiny. I don’t know why but those seem always like way smaller than they should be, probably just the skyboxes having the horizons curve up sharply for a cool set piece view and not a realistic one. Edit - good catch on Vavatch being neutral. I forgot all about that
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Feb 26, 2025 05:10
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jeeves posted:Also gently caress the Halo series for somehow making orbitals seem like tiny. I don’t know why but those seem always like way smaller than they should be, probably just the skyboxes having the horizons curve up sharply for a cool set piece view and not a realistic one. Halo rings are smaller across than Earth, they're tiny compared to Culture orbitals. The horizon curve is still too sharp though.
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Feb 26, 2025 05:19
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I know the answer is "Sci-Fi Handwavium" but sometimes I wonder how Orbitals deal with erosion.
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Feb 26, 2025 11:24
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It’s not explicitly said but the newer orbitals seem to be full of young thrill seekers who love to climb mountains while the thousands-year-old orbitals are full of comfortable hobbits who love their split level homes on the plains where they sip brown liquor with their ceramic-shelled antique drone friends. So maybe it’s a problem that solves itself in a way.
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Feb 26, 2025 19:10
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Player of Games has a character who works on architecting nature on orbitals. Her opinions showcase that different people have different ideas of how dynamic or fluid the environment should be. Presumably some orbitals build in plans for erosion on purpose, and others prevent/resist/replace the erosion.
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Feb 26, 2025 20:20
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If you have a water cycle (or an atmosphere) and any kind of rock or soil, then there needs to be systems in place to deal with erosion. Otherwise everything eventually ends up in the sea.
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Feb 26, 2025 20:30
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The system is called Hub.
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Feb 26, 2025 20:53
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Hub will also tell you if the thing in your hand is food or an elaborate piece of art.
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Feb 26, 2025 21:53
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MikeJF posted:The system is called Hub. the real answer is fields, it's always fields
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Feb 26, 2025 22:20
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I believe the shellworld in Matter has a system to address this, there's some form of high-tech dirt-and-stone rain that happens every now and then, to stop things from getting too evenly distributed
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Feb 26, 2025 22:45
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| # ? Nov 16, 2025 06:35 |
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The fact he thought about erosion and how that would be dealt with and that the answer was "nanites" is pretty funny. What a real one, RIP. I'm also worried about the Amazon series being back on the table but I posted about it in the Foundation thread cause for all its faults, that show makes me believe that it's possible to depict all the crazy poo poo like GSVs for TV. Plan B are producing and they did Mickey 17, which had the same VFX studios as Foundation (Framestore, DNEG) so I think they can pull it off if they use those again. I wonder if the estate simply didn't like the direction the last writing team were suggesting. BastardySkull fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Nov 2, 2025 |
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Nov 2, 2025 02:23
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