2010-07-31: Saturday Filler Infodump: Tsuiraku

[The Comment Golem]

Discussion thread for Saturday Filler Infodump: Tsuiraku

[Forrest]

Wow, this is a remarkably relevant infodump. I mean, it answers a lot of questions we've been wondering about for a rather long time.

So now we know what happened to the elves and half-elves of Tsuiraku. The elves died off, and the (few remaining) half-elves interbred. So it's reasonable (given 2000 years of such isolation) that the human population of Tsuiraku today really do all have a small amount of elvish blood in them, as we've suspected.

Also, very interesting that the same sort of magic can create antigravity, pocket dimension, and cloaking effects. It makes sense though, if what it's doing is basically warping space in some way.

Also interesting that the Tsuirakuans didn't intentionally run away from the Errant War (at least, that wasn't the initial cause for the city's disappearance), which I'd always figured was the case. Also interesting that their true history is hidden from the rest of the Tsuirakuans. And, now we know that they could leave the cloaked city, if they were building secondary hover thingies and mining and fishing and such before the Lumixplosion forced them to say Hi to the rest of the world. So I wonder if they were watching the rest of the world all that time...

[Rakshasa Taisab]

I am left wondering... If you loaded up a levitating mountain top full of Bags of Holding and entered the void, what will happen?

[Viking-Sensei]

I'm not sure, but I bet Ian did it at one point.

[SkArcher]

So is the high council of Tsuiraku's ban on Time Magic in place because that type of magic is dangerous, or is it because the high council were worried that using it could reveal some secrets from the cities past?

[wrog]

they quietly built a second levitation device deep under the ocean

Wait, what happened to the lake? Granted, they clearly don't have much trouble moving around, so I suppose the lake could have come later, perhaps even after they lost their cloak.

To be sure, I'm going to guess it's easier to keep people in if (1) the city is out in the middle of the ocean where there are no easy landmarks to reference and (2) it's known that if you sail away too far, the city disappears and you'll never get back.

However, it still seems really strange that they'd be able to maintain the general education-level/technology needed to keep the floaters working, while at the same time forgetting how to do navigation (trig + good clocks are pretty much all you need). Never mind that somebody needs to be remembering where all of the various resources (mines, fishing grounds, loggable forests) are located. Which then gives me trouble with

their last acts were to seal away much of the cities real history from the succeeding generations, to discourage the growing population from leaving.

since I really don't see how this works without some kind of elite actively maintaining things, i.e., keeping an eye out for and ready to co-opt or kill the various intrepid explorer-types that you're always going to have (those who would otherwise be inclined to go see what's Out There and maybe do a bit of stirring the shit). At which point I'd wonder why the elite would want to be keeping secrets from itself

[DatDude]

Well that explains why everyone in that town takes to magic so well. i wonder if their elvish blood is completely diluted or if they all live a bit longer the average .

Still this brings up something important the half elves are all gone and no families remember having a elf in their gene pool so Half elves are going to vanish sooner or later.

I wonder if the reason Meji turned out ok health wise is that her mom was just a tad elvish.

[Boss Out of Town]

Of course, this all begs the question . . . why build a floating city in the first place? It makes utilities, trade, and logistics much harder, it's a horribly expensive capital investment, and if you get more than a couple of hundred feet off the ground, you are creating major wind-turbulence problems. So what's the point?

[Drannin]

Of course, this all begs the question . . . why build a floating city in the first place? It makes utilities, trade, and logistics much harder, it's a horribly expensive capital investment, and if you get more than a couple of hundred feet off the ground, you are creating major wind-turbulence problems. So what's the point?

*Shrug* Showing off? Building a floating city just to show that you can?

[Michael Poe]

they quietly built a second levitation device deep under the ocean

Wait, what happened to the lake? Granted, they clearly don't have much trouble moving around, so I suppose the lake could have come later, perhaps even after they lost their cloak.

To be sure, I'm going to guess it's easier to keep people in if (1) the city is out in the middle of the ocean where there are no easy landmarks to reference and (2) it's known that if you sail away too far, the city disappears and you'll never get back.

The lake came later, by that point Tsuiraku had pretty much developed their floating city disc as much as technologically possible and they wanted to expand beyond that, so they moved the city inland and abandoned the ocean device. 'Cause what's the point of having a floating city if you can't pretty much move it around wherever the hell you want?

However, it still seems really strange that they'd be able to maintain the general education-level/technology needed to keep the floaters working, while at the same time forgetting how to do navigation (trig + good clocks are pretty much all you need). Never mind that somebody needs to be remembering where all of the various resources (mines, fishing grounds, loggable forests) are located. Which then gives me trouble with

their last acts were to seal away much of the cities real history from the succeeding generations, to discourage the growing population from leaving.

since I really don't see how this works without some kind of elite actively maintaining things, i.e., keeping an eye out for and ready to co-opt or kill the various intrepid explorer-types that you're always going to have (those who would otherwise be inclined to go see what's Out There and maybe do a bit of stirring the shit). At which point I'd wonder why the elite would want to be keeping secrets from itself

All the original builders of the city did was obscure the origins and early history of the city. They didn't do anything to lose any scientific or magical know-how, because they weren't trying to create a prison or anything, just make the city sound like a better home than anywhere else. People left the city all the time, but the point was that they usually came back. The average citizen of Tsuiraku believes that the city was created by a group of ancient advanced human mages wanting to seclude themselves from what was then a savage world.