Things Eldrae Might Appreciate

As ways to walk off into the sunset go, this seems like one of the better ones

Re my earlier reply on another thread about Imperial admirals being well-versed in pop-culture, there may be hope for humanity yet.

Amaury Guichon is a pastry chef who makes his living teaching other people to be pastry chefs. But as his hobby, he’s a chocolate smith. He makes edible sculptures out of chocolate, and unlike many people who do this, he actually makes sure most of his pieces are delicious too. Especially the smaller and more delicate pieces, like the oozing gold-caramel bars inside the functional chocolate safe, or the ‘bleeding’ jam-filled roses.

I don’t think he sells his artworks or works on commission any more (he DID participate in a Netflix series judging other chef’s work and demonstrating his techniques), but this is definitely the sort of craftsmanship that an Imperial would appreciate and want to hire for a formal event.

Especially when he’s willing to use things like a CNC router as part of his engineering, or can turn chocolate into a functional skateboard. Form is one thing. Function-with-form is another.

(I haven’t linked directly to his Instagram, because you cannot browse the videos there without following him. The tumblr links work without a log-in and each has a direct link to the relevant Instagram video.)

1 Like

Excellence in technical mastery, innovation, product development, with a dash of opportunism? Yes please, and pass the Logitech salt

Now this (whole thread) -

Is something that might attract that highest of accolades.

Worthy.

1 Like

And get turned into a competitive sport overnight?

1 Like

Having just watched the LOTR trilogy for the first time last week, I think this clip would probably be played on repeat at Bright Shadow ICC HQ post-contact

Power metal and its associated art style. I’m currently listening to 🇸🇪 Swedish POWER METAL Hotlist 🔥 [ All 2021 SONGS ] - YouTube, and this is the art on the video:

To put it another way, if we must have war, we should at least get Sabaton.

I seem to recall a snippet about an in-universe band that used nukes for percussion. If that isn’t literally power metal I don’t know what is

Pelorus Jack, the delphin ship pilot.

He was a risso’s dolphin who I suspect would have hit the Eldrae standards for proto-sophency at the very least, and also demonstrated a proper understanding of reciprocity:

While Pelorus Jack was leading ships, only one ship was known to have run aground in the pass- the SS Penguin , or perhaps better known as the ship that had shot Pelorus Jack several years earlier. Jack recovered from the shooting, but ever-after refused to guide their ship.

3 Likes

A version of an ancient Egyptian shipwreck tale, sung in ancient Egyptian, to the tune of “The Wellerman” sea shanty. I think they’d appreciate the skilful blending of cultures, and also the narrative of an encounter with a powerful spirit who appreciated their offer, politely declined it, and told them to go hug their family.

Wellerman in Ancient Egyptian! :snake: Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor

1 Like

This is worthy.

2 Likes

Freedom from Necessity of much Sleeping exemplify’d by the Operations of Tea and what happens in Mad-Men.

reflexively clutches esklav pot

1 Like

18th Century Tall Sailing Ship Performs Rescue

Well, alright, from the perspective of maritime law and also being a good person “the other ship was in trouble so of course we helped” is normal and expected behaviour. But they’d appreciate that 1) others appreciate the magnificence of tall sailing ships and want to keep those shipbuilding and sailing skills alive, and probably 2) agree with the crew that accidentally causing the rescued sailors to question if they’d slid into a temporal rift was a bit funny.

The arrival of the Götheborg on the scene was rapid and surprising, as we did not expect to see a merchant ship from the East India Company of the XVIII century. This moment was very strange, and we wondered if we were dreaming. Where were we? What time period was it?

2 Likes

Hm…

  • The Prolongation of Life.
    We’re working on it.
  • The Recovery of Youth, or at least some of the Marks of it, as new Teeth, new Hair colour’d as in youth.
    Dentures and hair dye. We’re working on better ways.
  • The Art of Flying.
    Airplanes! Helicopters! Drones! We’re fairly good at flying machines nowadays.
  • The Art of Continuing long under water, and exercising functions freely there.
    Scuba diving, sort of. You could quibble the “freely”.
  • The Cure of Wounds at a Distance.
    Alas, this is difficult enough that no-one is working on it at the moment. Unless you count telemedicine. I don’t.
  • The Cure of Diseases at a distance or at least by Transplantation.
    We’re doing pretty well in terms of transplantation, but the distances thing doesn’t really apply yet.
  • The Attaining Gigantick Dimensions.
    Er, I suppose we could build large things? I don’t know what you’re wishing for here…
  • The Emulating of Fish without Engines by Custome and Education only.
    Alas, you shall have to content yourself with scuba for now.
  • The Acceleration of the Production of things out of Seed.
    Yes - fertilizers and the green revolution!
  • The Transmutation of Metalls.
    Eh, in theory, sure, but it’s a pain and not currently useful for anything.
  • The makeing of Glass Malleable.
    Would you accept plastics as a glass substitute?
  • The Transmutation of Species in Mineralls, Animals, and Vegetables.
    Re. minerals, go consult a geochemist, but I think we don’t do much of that. For animals and vegetables, do GMOs count?
  • The Liquid Alkaest and Other dissolving Menstruums.
    Alas, alchemy has died out. Would you like some fluoroantimonic acid instead?
  • The making of Parabolicall and Hyperbolicall Glasses.
    Yep. We’re pretty good at making these.
  • The making Armor light and extremely hard.
    Well, steel metallurgy has come a long ways, and we do have kevlar and ceramic armours.
  • The practicable and certain way of finding Longitudes.
    Ooh, yes - GPS, or, if you’d rather not use external devices, digital chronometers.
  • The use of Pendulums at Sea and in Journeys, and the Application of it to watches.
    Heh. Quartz oscillators, and ye olde mechanical chronometers.
  • Potent Druggs to alter or Exalt Imagination, Waking, Memory, and other functions, and appease pain, procure innocent sleep, harmless dreams, etc.
    Alas, not potent, but we do have such drugs. Just, not commonly in use.
  • A Ship to saile with All Winds, and A Ship not to be Sunk.
    A ship to steam with all winds, yes, but a ship not to be sunk must be a ship most small.
  • Freedom from Necessity of much Sleeping exemplify’d by the Operations of Tea and what happens in Mad-Men.
    Alas, coffee is the best we’ve got so far.
  • Pleasing Dreams and physicall Exercises exemplify’d by the Egyptian Electuary and by the Fungus mentioned by the French Author.
    I think we do have such drugs? I’m not sure exactly what is being wished for…
  • Great Strength and Agility of Body exemplify’d by that of Frantick Epileptick and Hystericall persons.
    Well, everyone does tend to be quite healthy these days, and there are power-assist suits in the works…
  • A perpetuall Light.
    While electric light isn’t quite perpetual, I think it’s close enough to count.
  • Varnishes perfumable by Rubbing.
    Er, I’m not quite sure what’s being asked for here, but varnishes and perfumes seem to be pretty much reduced to chemical engineering and cost at this point.

I think we’re doing pretty well on the list.

1 Like

And in-universe, so as to avoid being off topic…

  • The Prolongation of Life.
    The Greater and Lesser Immortalities.
  • The Recovery of Youth, or at least some of the Marks of it, as new Teeth, new Hair colour’d as in youth.
    Ditto, plus custom shells and such.
  • The Art of Flying.
    Dirigibles! Aeronefs! Starships! They’re very good at flying machines.
  • The Art of Continuing long under water, and exercising functions freely there.
    Scuba, and the underwater clades.
  • The Cure of Wounds at a Distance.
    I don’t think they’ve got this either - Boyle is probably asking for something very difficult.
  • The Cure of Diseases at a distance or at least by Transplantation.
    Likewise.
  • The Attaining Gigantick Dimensions.
    They certainly can build big things, yes.
  • The Emulating of Fish without Engines by Custome and Education only.
    Alas, custom and education reserved for the underwater clades, or anyone who uses an engine to become one of the underwater clade.
  • The Acceleration of the Production of things out of Seed.
    Yes - fertilizers, vat foods, and all sorts of biotech!
  • The Transmutation of Metalls.
    Yep - orichalcium; not really worth it for much else, apparently - hey, is orichalcium the only synthetic high-Z material they use?
  • The makeing of Glass Malleable.
    Alas, a key property glass is that it isn’t malleable… what is used in-universe in place of flexible plastics?
  • The Transmutation of Species in Mineralls, Animals, and Vegetables.
    Still not really for minerals, but definitely for animals and vegetables
  • The Liquid Alkaest and Other dissolving Menstruums.
    Alas, alchemy has died out turned into chymistry. Would you like some fluoroantimonic acid or dry nanotechnology instead?
  • The making of Parabolicall and Hyperbolicall Glasses.
    Presumably also achieved
  • The making Armor light and extremely hard.
    Sure, kinetic barriers are pretty light and difficult to defeat armouring, and there also do exist light and hard physical materials for use as armour too
  • The practicable and certain way of finding Longitudes.
    Huh, that’s an interesting one. How does pre-GPS navigation work on a flat world, anyways?
  • The use of Pendulums at Sea and in Journeys, and the Application of it to watches.
    And how do time zones work?
  • Potent Druggs to alter or Exalt Imagination, Waking, Memory, and other functions, and appease pain, procure innocent sleep, harmless dreams, etc.
    More common there - nootropics of all sorts abound
  • A Ship to saile with All Winds, and A Ship not to be Sunk.
    Definitely still the former, but probably not the latter with the same caveats that a small enough ship can be made unsinkable through use of lighter-than-water materials
  • Freedom from Necessity of much Sleeping exemplify’d by the Operations of Tea and what happens in Mad-Men.
    Possibly… we’ve never seen anyone in-universe tell their muse to disable the need for sleep.
  • Pleasing Dreams and physicall Exercises exemplify’d by the Egyptian Electuary and by the Fungus mentioned by the French Author.
    They can probably synthesize a drug or a nano-drug with many effects, so sure.
  • Great Strength and Agility of Body exemplify’d by that of Frantick Epileptick and Hystericall persons.
    Ah - alpha-baseline upgrades
  • A perpetuall Light.
    Huh. They’re still using electric lights over there (is that self-powering precursor library lamp sufficiently perpetual to really count for this one?)
  • Varnishes perfumable by Rubbing.
    You can probably order a can from your local chemical-engineering-to-order company.
1 Like

LSD. The mentioned fungus is ergot, which produces a very similar compound. However, due to other elements of it ergot poisoning also has physical effects, mostly muscle spasms. If you’re unlucky, the physical effects include “feeling like you have been set on fire”, which presumably Boyle wished to avoid.

An ‘electuary’ is when you powder a herb or medicine and mix it with honey to form a paste. It’s not really done these days since we’ve figured out how to put bitter medicines into capsules instead, but electuaries were held to have alchemical properties. It turns out that some substances ferment inside the honey and this changes the properties, and fungi are especially prone to it.

Probably a whole lot of dead-reckoning and cross-checks against islands. See Polynesian navigators. Lighthouse builders probably made bank.

I would think since most horizons at any location on the disk are more or less aligned with the plane of the disk itself, they basically didn’t need any timezones unless someone was feeling contrary.

And in a sense, forced-growth cloning.

There are various other post-transuranics in use, but none quite so prominent or useful, which is why they haven’t come up.

Flexible glass isn’t actually unknown on Earth; consider fiber optics. Or, announced relatively recently, Corning Willow Glass.

While there are several answers, incidentally, probably the best one is “arrangements of laminae where the layers can slide over each other; depending on time and place, the thickness of individual laminae can vary from the macroscale to the nanoscale”.

It is to be noted that the Myrmidonic Amalgam of Nanoscale Engineers keep the alkahest in the lobby as a demonstration of what their profession can achieve. (It’s stored in a bottle of their self-regenerating glass.)

Longitude is easy, since Eliéra spins like a flipped coin parallel to its orbit and is slightly convex (just enough so that it looks flat, as a purely flat disk would look concave in our atmosphere). As long as you have a good timepiece set to time at the meridian, the vertical angle of the sun will give you longitude. It’s a much more delicate measurement than on Earth, but it works.

Meanwhile, since this rotation means that the sun rises in the “east” and sets in the “west” at the line of latitude drawn through the center of the disk, travel north of this will give you an apparent sunrise/sunset to southeast/southwest and travel south of it will give you one to northeast/northwest. Measure that angle, draw the appropriate reverse lines, and where they intersect your longitude, that’s where you are.

(Of course, to do that, you have to know where east/west are, too. Let’s just say that a lot of practical astronomy is also involved. The sky tells you no lies. Places like the Starspike do a lot of work in this area.)

There are two. Upperside and Underside. When one has day, the other has night, and vice-versa.

(Specifically, according to the Harmonious Calendar, the Upperside has a Day, then a Night. The Underside has a Night, then a Day. Either way, it’s the same nth-of-the-month on the calendar.)

The somnolence modulator is a thing. Of course, it you use it for more than a few days, you’ll go insane and eventually die, so people don’t generally flip the damnfool switch on that one.

1 Like

I don’t think celestial navigation on a (almost) flat world is going to be quite so easy - the shape of the Earth does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of navigation.

Er… I think the convexity causes trouble for the longitudinal component - if it were perfectly flat, then rays of light that are normal to the surface and parallel starting at the surface would converge on some focal point after ascending through the atmosphere; correcting for that means that rays of light that diverge because of the convexity (but are still normal to the surface) would be curved so as to be parallel after passing through the atmosphere. Given that optical systems are reversible, parallel rays of light travelling through the atmosphere would be curved so as to converge and also end up normal to the surface. (And the suns are far enough away that their light is effectively parallel.) That is, at noon, the effects of the atmosphere should make the sun appear to be directly overhead everywhere.

(Also, doesn’t the spin axis being perpetually tangential to the orbit cause trouble vis-a-vis conservation of angular momentum? I guess you could cite the “Mystery Matter”…)

I think you’re still in trouble here - ignoring any atmospheric distortions, the angle difference between due east and where the sun sets is pretty tiny, even at the “north pole” - WolframAlpha says arcsin(5000 miles/1 AU) = 0.003 degrees, which I’m going to suggest is a bit too small for practical navigation, certainly pre-electricity, and quite possibly still impractical up until the first satellites. Using the closer of the two moons doesn’t work too well either - the angular difference between moonrise and moonset between the hub and the north pole is just one degree

I think you might want to try out a more natural way of specifying coordinates on a circular disk - polar coordinates. You know, with very good precision, which way is east (since the sun sets in that direction), and you can then figure out your angle around the hub if you had a magnetic field such that the hub is considered the north pole of the field. You’re going to get 10 miles of accuracy with a tenth of a degree precision (out at the very edge of the disk). Radius from the center is going to be a bit harder… I don’t think there’s anything you could do with celestial observations to give you that data; perhaps some magnetic field strength meter? A scratch calculation shows that it only needs to be good to about 4 parts in 1 thousand of the strength at the hub to give 10-mile accuracy near the edge of the disk - which is enough to put you in visual range of a thing on Earth. Presumably since the curvature of the world is a lot less, you’d be able to get away with reduced navigational accuracy since you can see further.

And one last thing - you can know your cardinal directions using non-parent stars, but you’ll need to know the date too; the view of the stars changes as the year changes since the axis of rotation changes so as to be tangential to the orbit. Of course, given how far from the sun the disk is, you can more easily find your cardinal directions using just the parent star and waiting for sunset or sunrise…