1 Chirreb 4385: Learning to Fly

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

This Morning's Second Nightmare

Kijji possessed Paraffa and tried to seduce Studies-Too-Hard by changing into Rassimel studyform, which does not exist in the real world but in the dream Rassimel changed shape when they were studying into small four-legged forms that looked like the raccoons Gavinfox showed me from his world. Studies-Too-Hard was cuddling with the studyform Paraffa-Kijji when I came in. I tried to warn him but the Green Velvet Quietroom kept shushing me every time I spoke, and then Paraffa-Kijji leapt on me and started chewing on my mind and I woke up because Purrzhon was dragging me out of bed by the scruff again.

I think I'm going to give up on naps for the foreseeable future.

Learning to Fly

This time I got dressed properly for an adventure, wearing my leather armor and carrying my spear-staff and my meng sword. And feeling weighted down. I don't know people who wear metal armor manage to move.

Purrzhon had the pilot on duty slow the ship down so that we wouldn't have any trouble keeping up with it. But he didn't tell them to stop. "It is the good practice, to maneuver around the moving target."

We climbed a ladder to the back of the airship, which was better designed to look like a charger's back than to be a deck for walking around on. There wasn't a railing but the shiphands said we needn't worry about falling: "The airship has an I Didn't Really Fall enchantment on it, so if you do fall off it'll put you right back on."

Trust proved the existence of the enchantment by climbing up on the airship-charger's rump to enjoy the view and then slipping off. He flailed for a few moments in empty space, and then reappeared standing on the airship again.

"Rrai! You are the very eager for flying lessons, that you are not even waiting for the flight spell first," Purrzhon said. "I give it to you first then." Trust tucked his tail between his legs and waited meekly while Purrzhon fished the amulet from a pouch and floated it to him.

The flight talisman was a little bird with six pairs of wings all carved from a single glirry. It was hung on a thong of magically reinforced leather and was called The Little Bird of Many Wings. The amulet allowed the wearer to cast Fly Like a Bird. This is handier in some ways than the other typical flight enchantment, which would allow the wearer to fly for as long as she's wearing the enchanted item. For one thing, when you use The Little Bird of Many Wings to make yourself fly, you can hand it to your friend and let her use it to make herself fly. For another, if your friend gets distracted at some crucial moment and forgets to attend to his flight spell, you can use the talisman you're still wearing to cast Fly on him again. That last isn't quite as useful as it sounds because if I cast Fly Like a Bird on you than I'm the one who's controlling your flight and generally we'd all much prefer if it were you. (Although that would be a useful sort of attack spell if the resist weren't automatic, which it is unfortunately).

Trust invoked the flight spell on himself and passed the Little Bird back to Purrzhon. While the Sleeth was giving it to Mirhandrax. I cast The Raven's Beak on myself and Mirhandrax gave me a funny look. "Why did you cast that?"

"Because we're on an adventure and I want to learn everything faster?"

Mirhandrax rumbled a laugh. "I don't think we're quite to the adventure part yet." He used the talisman and handed it to Nightbloom.

"We're on the back of a giant flying charger carrying us off towards terrible danger and from which we're learning to fly ourselves for the first time ever!" I threw out my arms as Nightbloom passed the talisman to me. "This may not be an adventure to you but it is to me!"

Then I clutched the amulet in my hand and dove off the side of the airship-charger. "Wheeeeeeee!"

... and reappeared on the back of the charger a moment later because I'd forgotten to invoke the flight spell first so the airship's enchantment caught me. Oops. I cast Fly on myself, hung the talisman 'round my neck, and took to the sky.

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Ooh, and when Cani get Affan they can change into giant wolves! And sleeth could shrink into cute little kittens while napping.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I always have felt sorry for other Primes that they don't get ANY other shapes naturally. If I wasn't an Orren I'd have to graft Cloak of Another God for sure!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

But sleeth always look like cougars and leopards and stuff...

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Maybe they need an alternate bipedal form!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Maybe they do! Is there any nonprime on the tree that you can think of that looks sleethy would be a good template for that?

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

There's prolly one somewhere but I can't think of it. I'm not really that good with natural science ....

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

I'm sure if you ask the monsters here for help, they'd be able to come up with ALL SORTS of drawings of various different (sometimes more fanciful, sometimes less!) ways that a bipedal sleeth could look? It just seems that, I don't know, a few folk around here might have drawings kind of like that lying around for some reason...

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Really that's a very strange thing to have pictures of when you don't even look anything like that!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

*Takes a deep breath*

Okay...

First, lets talk about the idea of 'self selection'. Take, for example, if you mailed out an interview about shell collections and the best types of shells to collect and what to do with them and such to everyone in your city, with an easy way for them to reply to you. You would wait a while, and start getting replies, but you would PROBABLY only get replies from people who generally like the idea of collecting shells in the first place, right? That's the power of 'self selection'.

Next, consider a world where there is only one type of sapient species, and lots of animals. When they look at these animals, they see behaviors that involve things like "digging burrows" or "running away from things in fear" or "loving lots of types of food" or "always wanting to hunt" or "being solitary" or "loving to associate in groups". These creatures make good storytelling archetypes. So, if you are writing a story, and don't want to make anyone upset with the things you say, or you just need there to be large amounts of people who follow a certain archetype, it can be useful for storytelling purposes to use Sapient, Bipedal animals in the place of people.

Now, consider the process of self selection, and the existence of stories where the main characters look like bipedal folk that look like 'cute fuzzy animals'.

And then consider how likely it is that a good chunk of your journal MIGHT be enjoyed by people who HAPPEN to like stories about folk that have traits associated with animals, because you have, by being you (and sooo energetic!) totally, if accidentally 'dinged' a Major Rassimel Style Interest.

And consider that folks with that particular interest MIGHT ALSO have access to a lots of pictures of, to them, fictional creatures, because of said interest?

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

So ....

You're saying that there are lots and lots and lots of extradimensional people who *could* have read what I wrote but because I'm from the World Tree it turns out that most of the extradimensional people who read me are people who like the way World Tree Primes look? And there's a connetions in your minds between a bidpedal Sleeth and oh an Orren or a Rassimel? Which makes sense I guess if you didn't know Primes you might think that Taptet or Scawn looked like us only smaller.

That's still soooo strange that you have people who are interested in Primes even though you don't have any on your own world I wonder if I asked around if I could find people who thought that humans looked especially neat?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Well, I would say that the people who would want to read things that humans write because we are humans MIGHT be more interested in reading about a world that has no innate magic system in it, and no beings 'meddling' with how the world was created? Surely THAT sort of thing is useful for storytelling on the World Tree?

Remember, think of it more in a 'liking storytelling' sort of way. What sorts of stories can you think of are more difficult to do with primes or on the World Tree, that might be easier on Earth? I came up with the idea of 'what if there were no obvious gods?' and 'What if there were no obvious magic, but that all the elements and such behaved more predictably and with fewer things intelligently messing with them, so natural science could do the sorts of things that we can only imagine magic doing', but do you have any ideas for stories from your end of things?

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Ohhh that sounds like the Water Tree stories maybe those are about an alternate-dimensional World Tree (that probably doesn't exist) with different natural laws. And lots of water. Some people really like them.

Lots of people who visit the Temple are interested in extra-dimensional research so they'd probably be interested in your stories.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Sure! I'd be glad to answer their questions, maybe they could write an entry in your journal to us monsters sometime? If you manage to stumble across a group of folk who would want to hear about how our world works, I'm sure I'd be glad to talk to them!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I'll let you know if I fidnd any although it might be faster for them to just go to all the other journals for extra-dimensional people that I can already find with my scroll.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

That assumes they are linked into the network in the first place! There are a few world tree folk who ARE linked to the same journal network thing, but few world tree folk who realize that linking as well as you do!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Yes but if they can talk to me in order to write in my scroll then they can probably look at my scroll so they can see the stuff extra-dimensional people have in it too.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Remember, people liking the way Primes 'look' isn't the ONLY possible 'rassimel style interest reason' for folk to read your journal. Another one could be that they simply have a rassimel style interest in the... method of storytelling that our (no doubt QUITE flawed) guide to your world was written as. That's another one. It seems that, when getting the idea of strange worlds across to people, sometimes you have to be careful about HOW that world is presented! And certainly, the presentation that gave us an idea of how your world works took shortcuts that help us understand things, in it's quest to tell stories!

Please don't ask for too many more details on the specifics of this. Please. But I will answer basic questions as best I can!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

*reads the whole entry*

That was absolutely adorable!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I'm not really enjoying the nightmares much but even so I have to admit that the Rassimel studyform my dream came up with was *awfully* cute.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Also the "Wheeee!" part! You have such glee and enthusiasm to you! :)

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I was flying though I mean if I couldn't have fun flying what could I enjoy?

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Technically you weren't flying yet...

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Whee! ^_^

Aren't you supposed to pass the talisman back? Or are they expecting that you will need to cast the spell on yourself again relatively soon because you might forget to pay attention to it? };)

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Everybody else already had it cast so I didn't think about giving it back to Purrzhon right away although I probably should've. I gave it back to him later though so it's fine.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Rassies should have studyforms!

Just for the record ... normally one takes off trying to go up. Leaping wildly from a height is possible, but occasionally turns out to be more of an adventure than is strictly necessary. This even applies to walls, rafters, and mantlepieces; I regularly wind up entangled in someone's hair or parasol when I try that. Or, once or twice, I fall to the ground, having forgotten that I was in Herethroy shape.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

If you are using WINGS to fly, doesn't it take more energy to get lift if you are starting from a stop and going upward, than starting with forward and slight downward momentum and then curving upward? What with generating lift and such?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I rarely use just wings. Khtsoyis and Sleeth never do. So why does that matter?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Ah, thats a good point. There aren't many situations where a Prime would be able to more efficiently or easily get a flying spell that had limitations like that sort of thing?

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Noooo of course not how would you be able to fly just using wings? They're only for guidance and maybe speed it'd be like I dunno trying use a rudder and a sail as if that were a whole boat.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Well, in water, as long as the vessel FLOATS, a rudder, a sail, and some wind is all you need to move any way you want, right?

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

But that's what I meant the sail and the rudder don't make a boat float! If you put a rudder and a sail on a chunk of meng nut it's going to sink not sail and if you put wings on a person he's going to fall not fly.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

...True, people are too heavy to fly using just wings. You would need something to DRASTICALLY reduce their weight, like to that of a flying bird, who DOES use just their wings to fly!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

That's silly birds don't float in the air with their wings or at least they don't HERE maybe it's different where you're from. And it's not because they're heavy either any more than a meng nut sinks in water because it's heavy a meng nut's a lot lighter than a full-size boat and they float!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Well, here birds FLY because their wings create enough lift (upward air pressure, due to airflow and the bird flapping their) to overcome their weight which is forcing them down. Birds here don't 'float' in air, they use air to PUSH themselves up and forward.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

*flapping their wings

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

That's a really weird way to fly!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Yup! It requires a very specialized creature to be able to do that with their wings, and birds here only do that because the payoffs -- being able to fly when things that want to eat them CAN'T -- is so good! :)

Of course, our flying machines do that, but they don't have to flap their wings and use special feathers to push the air -- they have other devices to push the air the way they want.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Also, here, and I would PRESUME where you are, boats, wood, or ANYTHING floats in water because of *displacement*. In other words, if you made the shape of a boat out of meng nuts, and it displaced (takes the place of) enough water, it would float, because that weight is sooo spread out over the water. So yes, you can get things where a dense sphere of a material (like meng nut) would SINK, but if you got all that material and spread it out into the right shape (like a flattened thin little boat hull), they would float. Try some Mutoc Herbador on changing the shape of a Meng nut to get it to float.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Gavin has some very strange ideas about flight! I guess it's different in his dimension?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Well, there are a few forces working on any flying object: Drag, Thrust. Lift, and Weight. Drag is the force that slows something from moving forward. Thrust is what pushes something forward. Lift is what pushes something upward. Weight is what pulls something downward. Floating is a matter of simply overcoming Weight with Lift, and FLYING is simply overcoming Weight with Lift and Drag with Thrust.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Well think about your orren waterform. Why is it so sleek? That Reduces Drag. Why does that side to side swimming motion work so well? It Increases Thrust.

These four forces -- Lift, Thrust, Drag, Weight -- work on ANYTHING that moves through a medium that flows, like water or air. With our understanding of these forces, we know *the only way* that anything on our world can fly. To fly, something HAS to generate enough lift to overcome weight. To move forward, in something that flows, it HAS to generate thrust to overcome drag.

Think of it this way -- in our world, there isn't anything that 'arbitrarily is able to float', like a Khtsoyis. If we want to fly, we need to build something that makes enough lift in air to push itself off of the ground. Now, an airplane (A device that flies that people get in to go places) has to use these forces to work, and if one of our airplanes was on your world, it would probably be able to fly quite well.

My best guess for the reason you all don't make airplanes is a.) Its cheaper and easier to use spells to do what you want, and b.) An airplane would be totally and completely vulnerable to an air elemental playing with it, which it would totally want to do.

However, one thing one of our flying device that DOES use these traits to fly that your flying craft CAN'T do is fly fast. Really, really, really, really, really, really, really fast.

Mind bogglingly fast. So fast that, if you had an enchantment to do line of sight teleporting from one place to another, that you could use all day long, and were using it to do so, one of our airplanes could keep up with you by the simple expedient of *moving forward that quickly*

Let me show you an image of one of our fastest machines that flies through air, that could PROBABLY keep up with Vae teleporting forward with her tailtip, as long as she did so in a straight line, by simply moving REALLY REALLY fast.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

But Vae can teleport like a hundred miles a SECOND how could anything POSSIBLY fly that fast? O.O

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Lots, and lots, and lots of thrust, and very, very, very little drag, of course! :)

And if Vae wanted to teleport to a place in a straight line that might not be familiar with her, she'd have to look around with all her weird senses and stuff, and that would take a while, slowing her down.