Very odd question about Silt

[Malifaxis]

Okay...

Silt, more specifically, the silt sea, is a place where you can asphyxiate, correct?  The silt is fine, as soft as water, and even more deadly if you fall in it (as far as I've found out).

My question, and I would love to hear from player and staff alike, if possible, are there tides in the Sea of Silt?  Does the silt form actual waves reminiscent of water, or does it merely sit there and respond to the wind?

From what I have found out about silt, I believe there would be waves and tides, as it seems to respond in a very liquid fashion, except it is less molecularly coherent (hence the need of skimmers, and the way they are built, as opposed to boats) then water is.

Please, discuss and explain... I would love to hear your input so I can finish solidifying the concept within mine mind.

[ashyom]

Well...That's an interesting question.  Tides on Earth are caused by the moon's gravity.  Silt sea isn't liquid, as much as it might look like that.  It's more like quicksand, in my mind.  However!

It isn't too far fetched that waves could form, through either natural occurrences or dare I say, unnatural ones too?  Magic, seaquakes, large animals turning over in their sleep...
Ashyom

[Vositus]

I am -so- buying the first silt surfboard. :wink:

[DrunkenSalarr]

I am -so- buying the first silt surfboard. :wink:

You mean I got to sell mine?

~Drunken Salarr, First Zalanthan Surfer

[COGATO]

There would be no waves or currents in the sea of silt, if you want to base those waves on the same reason our oceans have waves and currents. The reason for this is because silt and water are entirely different in molecular makeup. They are different in the fact that water is polar, meaning it has a posative charge on one end of its molecule and a negative charge on the opposite end of its molecule. So try to imagine each molecule of water as a teeny tiny magnet, when these magnets come close together they pull and push at each other just like any other magnet and they line up,,,this is why water droplets bead together when they come close and form larger droplets of water. Silt on the other hand does not bead together to form larger droplets of silt so to speak, the entire sea of silt is composed of billions of tiny grains of silt packed closely together, while our oceans are what you could imagine as one giant drop of water. So try to imagine our oceans as one huge freakin magnet, and the moons gravetational pull is also magnetic, that is why our moon has the affect on our oceans that is does. The moons on zalanthas would have no affect at all on the sea of silt because its just a bunch of individual no polar grains packed together.

Hope this helped in some way,,,but I really would like to see currents and waves in the sea of silt, perhaps due to magical enchantments or something along those lines.

[creeper386]

Hmm.. Hehehe.

I have no clue about the silt sea though...



Creeper

[Sephiroto]

It was my understanding that the oceanic currents were caused by convection currents and partially by the wind, and that the tides were caused by the gravitational pull of the moon.  If it were the case of electromagnectic forces I'd imagine that there would be some significant effect on electromagnetic waves crossing the earth while the moon is out.

While I'm fairly sure about water, I'm not all too sure about silt or it has a specific heat (how it absorbs heat) that would call for convection currents or even if it has the properties to move or flow (not cohere) like water.

So....that's just my 2 sids.  Hope you can make sense of it.

[Anonymous]

Was I that obvious with my intentions, Vositus?

*grin*

PM me when you're between chars... a d-elf silt surfer tribe, baybay!

-Mali who forgot to log in.

[spawnloser]

I'll agree with some of what COGATO said, but like Sepherito, I'll have to discount one thing.  Tides ARE caused by gravitational pull from the moon and sun as well.  Tides are very possible in the silt sea.

Now, about waves, they are caused by wind in a standing body of water.  The reason the water doesn't all go spraying away is due to molecular cohesion...silt doesn't have this.  It'd get blown around like...well, like dust in the wind.

As far as currents?  That I couldn't say...I don't know my earth sciences that well.

Backing up to what ashyom said, though, quakes and the like could cause waves, but they'd act more like a sonic wave travelling through the air, disturbing and deflecting things that they intersect with.

[Rindan]

I am almost positive that the descriptions on the edge of the sea of silt describe waves.  Is it scientifically plausible because they are not polar?  I have no clue.  For all I know they could be charged molecules.  Whatever the case, generally when what the game says and what nit picking science says are two different things, the game wins.  If you really want to nitpick I imagine that silt skimmers probably are not plausible.  The silt would have to be damned fluffy and light in order for a boat to plow through it.  I would tend just to go with what the game says.

[spawnloser]

Silt skimmers have large wheels that go through the silt to the ground below...they are otherwise shaped like boats, but they are more like large wagons on HUGE wheels.

Well, at least in Dark Sun, which Armageddon is based after, that's what they are like.

[Tlaloc]

In regards the silt-skimmer:

You should really find out IC. There are various sources in-game which have seen, been on, and even use Silt-Skimmers every day. Perhaps you should go find out for yourself?

In regards to everything else:

The only way to ever, *really* understand the nature of Silt, and the Silt Sea on Zalanthas will be to explore and experiment in-game. You can post hypotheses about its molecular structure all you want, but in the end, its just a theory untill you prove it. Unfortunately, I doubt molecular science has been invented on Zalanthas (or if it has, nobody's being really vocal about it), so...it might be difficult to explain away the reasons for why silt or water act the way they do.

Zalanthas in not Earth, and so, some things might act differently than they expect you to. I've seen alot of interesting ideas of how it might work on Zalanthas...but I haven't seen a single one character yet actually spend time experimenting with the stuff.

As for Tides:

I think its safe to assume that Zalanthas would have some odd tidal effects, what with having two moons, and a very large sun. However, as I stated earlier...feel free to experiment and explore in-game. It could be really rewarding.

[Stroker]

Wow .... I didn't know there were silt-skimmers in game - time to change my char's objective IC based on what I've just heard OOC - yay! No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding .... I would never do that. *shifts his eyes back and forth suspiciously*

[Angela Christine]

I think it would also depend on what the silt was composed of.  I'm on a 486 with a stupid dial-up modem so I'm not going to do a search to see what real silt is composed of, but there is little reason to think that the silt sea is composed of ordinary silt.  I've seen cotton, linen and silk with no sign of cotton plants, flax or silk worms, so I assume those fabrics are similar to but not necessarily the same as the Earth fabrics of the same name.  Likewise our elves are somewhat similar to "classic" elves, but also significantly different.  Why not the silt too?  
There seems to be some connection between the silt and the Spice, and as far as I know regular silt don't generally contain grains of psycho-active substances.  But it might be mere coincidence that Spice is found near the silt sea, and not a connection at all.  Corralation doesn't prove causation.

The silt could contain the powdered remnants off all the metal missing from the world: shattered and exiled to the sea so that no one could challenge the might of the sorcerers with metal weapons.  In which case over time it might become magnitized by the planets magnetic field and react in a tide-like fashion to magnetic changes.

Or it could be composed largely of magical ash.  Tektolnes and the former Sorcerer-King of Stinal (prior to the fall of Stinal) must create HUGE amounts of ash powering all their personal magick and the magick of their templars.  (Unless they are preservers, but that is pretty unlikely).  And yet 'Nak isn't filled with ash.  Where does it all go?  Into a magickal "trash shute" that dumps it in the Sea of Eternal Dust?  Perhaps.  Now defiler ash might be identical to regular fire ash, or it might retain some magickal sensitivity.  Not enough to be noticable when there is just a thin coating of it,  but in large ammounts it might react to magickal currents and disturbances in those currents, creating waves and tides.

Or it might just be what was left behind when a water sea/ocean/lake/puddle that formerly occuppied the basin boiled away.  It used to be a muddy lake bottom, but withtout the water it just blows around in the wind.

If you've ever gone near the silt sea, or accidentally stepped in the shallow end, you'd notice that it is often "completely dark over there" in even a light breeze, so it isn't nearly as cohesive as water.  However, we also know that Red Storm was destroyed by a big silt wave that escaped the sea and burried the town (the current Red Storm was rebuilt later).  So it isn't just the light dust it appears to be at the surface, it has mass, destructive power, and can form large waves in some circumstances.  

So perhaps the sea has layers, and the dark dusty stuff we usually see is just the fluffy top layer.  Lower layers might be composed of other materials, and be prone to tides, currents and waves, we just don't see it because we are blinded by the dusty top layer.

There is no way to tell without further investigation, and I have trouble imagining a Zalanthian character that would have the lesuire, will and intellect or education to investigate the physical properties of the Sea of Eternal dust.  A noble might have the time, money and education, but it unlikely to leave his cushy city life and risk being eaten by silt beasts to do the fieldwork.  Maybe some crazy magicker or obsessed dwarf . . . but even that is unlikely.

I guess we'll never know.

AC

[creeper386]

In RL... Silt is really fluffy and everything... Kind of like flour... and at times both of those things move somewhat like liquid... I'll have to see if I can find a good deposit of Mt. Saint Helen's ash... lots of that stuff is floating about still. Anyways, I don't know anything in the subject by I'm sure there are ways that it could be magnatized... Even not it could be so fine that the particles cling to each other and hold themselves together. Not even to make it solid, or to really hold it together... But enough to give it properties of a single body.


Creeper

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

First of the all, the best, no-effort answer would be "find out IC". But, as AC pointed out, it's pretty darn impossible to do so... Maybe a curious noble needs to go out and hire some scientists, or something?

Anyways, others touched on the idea of the Sea of Silt not being entirely made out of silt, and containing other things on futher on down... Similarly, others have said it may be 'like' quicksand... Maybe it is, eh?

Personally, I wouldn't be suprised to find that the Sea of Silt is actually a sea with silt on top of it... For example, if you were to go down to the depth of a mile, you might come into contact with a muddy, silty water? Just a thought, and I have no evidence to support the idea whatsoever.

I will say this, however... With my extremely limited contact with the Sea of Silt, I can confidently say that it -might- possess wave-like or tidal characteristics... It's not impossible, and a bit of evidence does exist for the observant character to find... (trying not to give away too much here...)

Anyways, as long as we're on the subject... I've had incredibly little contact with the Silt Sea, but each time I did, I was rather hesitant to interact with enviroment, mostly because I didn't know what it was supposed to be like most of the time... Is it a stormy, turbulent area, with biting winds of sand and silt obscuring your vision everywhere you look? Or is it calm, looking every bit like the desert floor... Until you try and step on it? Are there choppy waves? Huge waves? Are there islands where full giants play dwarven tennis and relax by a massive waterfall (wouldn't that be cool!). Anyways, my point is this a good thread... I like hearing discussion about such an odd place. And on a completely unrelated note... If we have silt, and a Sea of Silt... Can we have siltstone? Please? Pretty pretty please?

Anyways, to go back to my original bull-shit answer of 'find out IC'... You probably should. Granted, it'd be hard to find a reason to do so with most characters... But that's what dwarves are for, right? :lol:

[Hade]

-----SNIP-----
They are different in the fact that water is polar, meaning it has a posative charge on one end of its molecule and a negative charge on the opposite end of its molecule. So try to imagine each molecule of water as a teeny tiny magnet, when these magnets come close together they pull and push at each other just like any other magnet and they line up,,,this is why water droplets bead together when they come close and form larger droplets of water.
-----SNIP-----

Hmm.  I think you confused magnetic poles and electrical charges.  Magnetic poles are North/South while electrical poles are Positive/Negative.  Thus, the oceans of Earth are not magnetic.  They are held together by electrical bonding of the partially ionized hydrogen and oxygen on the H20 molecule.

So maybe, just maybe (I don't understand the silt, myself) there could be tides in the silt.  But with the wierd gravitation of Zalanthas (What is it, one sun, two moons?) the tides would either not exist or be really bizarre.

Hade


Snip-Snip

I snogg you!

[5 day lifespan]

I think theres something right queer about that sea of silt.  Think about it: on therock scale, silt is about the smallest you can get, its finer than dust.  If it were merely 12 feet deep so skimmers could get into it as was described, one good sand storm would whisk it all away.  For the Sea to still be there, it would have to have a huge supply of silt in that location, so likely the size of an ocean.  I think those big wheels some one saw on a skimmer were just to get it to the sea.  It says in the help files that, based on the size of silt horrors seen, the sea would have to be at least a kilometer deep in spots.  Thats freakin deep.  By the way, does anyone else think that Silt horrors are like Arakin Sand Worms with tentacles?  Maybe Desert elves ride them into battle...  :g:

5DL

[Carnage]

In regards the silt-skimmer:

You should really find out IC. There are various sources in-game which have seen, been on, and even use Silt-Skimmers every day. Perhaps you should go find out for yourself?

Sorry to bring up a finished thread, but I've just got a couple of questions regarding this. Are these in-game sources PCs that use silt-skimmers every dayish or NPC? I wouldn't mind being a silt-sea sailor. Seems fun and different.

[Tlaloc]

Sorry to bring up a finished thread, but I've just got a couple of questions regarding this. Are these in-game sources PCs that use silt-skimmers every dayish or NPC? I wouldn't mind being a silt-sea sailor. Seems fun and different.

Go find out IC

Conversely, you could always email the mud if you have an uncommon character concept.

-Tlaloc