The Sky

[[b]The[/b] Anonymous Kank]

At one point I set out to write a description of the sky for each hour of the day, but became confounded.

What does the daytime sky look like? There's a mention of it being blood-red in at least one spot in the world. Is it layered, such as red at the horizon, then sort of whitish red toward the apex? Is there any blue?

During sandstorms it would be yellowish-brown. Presumably a murky dark brown from lack of light for the greater sandstorms.

I remember a staff member mentioning that there are stars at night, but how much of a spectacle is the Zalanthanian night-time sky? Are they more or less like Earth's stars, or do they stand out in a brilliant night-time display? I suppose they can't be too bright, otherwise a moonless night wouldn't be truly dark. Sirius, which is the brightest star in Earth's sky, actually casts a perceptible shadow. It's possible to see quite well on a moonless night if the ground is snow-covered and the sky is clear.

[path]

I also ask these questions sometimes. Yes, it turns out the sky -is- red. It's super red, all the time. Red. Now, as to the other colors it goes.. I sort of imagine it as taking on a lavender cast toward evening and in the mornings, but maybe it just gets bloodier and bloodier... So when you see a room description that says anything about blue... typo it.

Originally stars weren't supposed to exist. Long story short - they do now, but they're sort of downplayed.

[Sholdyn]

I think I once saw a dress that was refered to as Midnight Blue and included the night sky in the discription. I didn't know what to make of it at the time, so I just ignored it.

I might have been imagining things though. My memory sucks.  

[Larrath]

Midnight blue is just a color name.  As I understand and imagine it, Zalanthas' sky is a pale blue at pre-dawn and it gets redder as Suk-Krath rises.  From dusk, it becomes a purplish red and darkens until it becomes completely black.

In Tuluk and the north, the sky is a little more orange than red, I think.

Thankfully, I don't believe the sky ever becomes the overused shade of blood red.


EDIT: If you see an object, an NPC or a room that refers to the color of the sky as blue, typo it.

[Delirium]

I don't believe the sky ever becomes the overused shade of blood red.

I think it does.. visit Allanak sometime.

And sunsets even on earth can be a brilliant shade of red when there's a lot of dust in the atmosphere.  Now take Zalanthas' red silt and dust and you have sunsets that could be remniscent of ... blood.

[Sephiroto]

When I went through Egypt the skies were brown most hours of the day.  This is not to say that it was never blue.  But it was brown all the times I saw it.  Even when I was on open water off the coast, the sky was brown.  It was strange to me, but I think it was the sand.  It was a tannish brown.  Like the background of the GDB, only less opaque.

[Anonymous]

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/BlueSky/blue_sky.html

[mansa]

Sky is red.  Like a Dying World in every SCI FI book and movie.

[Tamarin]

I think it depends on the time of day.  High sun = browny yellow.  Dusk/dawn = more reddish.  Night = black, probably.

[Anonymous]

When did you hear that there are stars?  I have always heard "there are no stars in Zalanthas" said in the same tone of voice as "there is no hope in Zalanthas..."

White/Yellow/Brown/Red, more red near the silt, more white over the forest would be my guess.

[Vesperas]

The question has come up more than once with me.

I dunno, maybe I'm just NOT sci-fi enough, but I find it extremely difficult to swallow there being no stars.  It's not like Zalathas cities are lit up like Christmas trees.  One would dare to say they would make an integral part of navigation between Tuluk and Allanak at night (for those who would dare such a thing).

I dunno, maybe I just feel there being no stars is sort of a blah sort of thing.

[davien (too lazy to login]

Ok, there are no stars when it's rainy outside, right?

On a planet that is supposedly enshrouded perpetually in dust and sand - to the point where normal atmospheric operations (like rain) don't occur, why would it be so hard to believe that there are clouds of dust (or whatever) so perpetually shrouding the sky that there are no visible stars?

You could still see the sun (and moon) through it, much as you can when it's cloudy outside on earth, but probably not stars...

This is another thing people have argued about for years "I want it to rain! yay! LOL!!1!1! party!" and I've always just prayed that these people will lose interest and go somewhere else.  

In my eyes, Zalanthas is a harsh place, predominantly ruled by desert because of the abuse of life-stealing magickal forces.  The life that has survived here has done so because it has become more brutal than the other life competing for the limited resources that exist.

I choose not to exercise my escape from reality on a happy-go-lucky perfectly earth like place.  It's what gave it its appeal to begin with.

You don't cut the nuts off the gwoshi before you send him into the arena.  It's just not as entertaining.

[marko]

To answer the stars question follow this link.

http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6022&highlight=stars

[Vesperas]

Good thread, and solves my problems.

[Stroker]

One would dare to say they would make an integral part of navigation between Tuluk and Allanak at night (for those who would dare such a thing).

The humanoids of Zalanthas could also use light to navigate (specifically, the various ways in which the light is polarized as it penetrates the atmosphere). That, however, still does not reflect the methods of navigation in the night time. It is also possible that they may be able to sense the magnetic field of Zalanthas, and use it to navigate.

On a side note, humans possess tiny magnetite crystals in the brain, which correlates with other animals on Earth that are capable of sensing magnetic fields and navigating thusly.

Has anyone considered harvesting human blood for iron, on Zalanthas?
I have... meet my next character.

[Synthesis]

Why harvest blood, when there's so much elemental iron lying around in various easily accessible compounds?  Blood has a pretty low iron/volume content.  Obsidian on the other hand....

Of course...you'd have to come up with a good IC explanation for your advanced metallurgy skills and knowledge of chemistry...

Is this a derail? Whoops.

That's what I get for replying to a damn commie.

[Stroker]

That's what I get for replying to a damn commie.

The hammer, sickle, and I take offense to that.

Seeing as the magical Suk Krath is a red giant (I would venture to guess, based on nothing in particular), or possibly a bulbous root, it would be radiating extensively in the infrared as well as the visible spectra of light. As such, the scattering of the visible light in the atmosphere would depend on the components of the atmosphere. If we assume that the sky is akin to that of Earth, then we can suggest that the atmosphere would polarize light in the same manner as on Earth; and, because Earth's atmosphere scatters mostly blue light, Zalanthan sky should reflect this. Deviations from this would occur based on the high conentration of red dust in the air. It's magical, don't think about it.

Semper Pax,

Dirr

[Packersfan]

This would all be assuming that Zalanthan humans view the same spectrum of light that Earth humans do.


Careful people, more discussion like this and the truth that Zalanthas is nothing more then Iraq after the US leaves will come out.