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Stars and elves
Oct. 12th, 2012 06:23 pmSome more thoughts on my flat-like-a-penny world.
I've mentioned at one point or another the three major kinds of rational beings that I know of for this world: humans, elves, and stars.
As I mentioned in my post on flat world astronomy problems, stars are rooted in the sky like trees, but are thinking, speaking beings. They are extremely long-lived, but not immortal; their lifespans are probably thousands of years long. They have two major methods of communication, both fairly foreign to humans; one is more like telepathy, and another is more like speech. Stars are rooted in the sky; I think they reproduce by runners. So their roots are intertwined with their ancestors. But I think also, stars that grow near one another may come to entwine their roots even if one didn't spring from the other. Stars are able to communicate basically telepathically through the root system, but only to a star that they are directly connected with. For a telepathic message to be transmitted to a non-root-adjacent star, the intermediate stars would have to pass the message along. And the message may get garbled in transmission, like a game of telephone. So telepathic communication is usually only used with near neighbours.
For more distant communication, stars use a language. Their language is based on the shining of their light; it is encoded by the different colours that a star can twinkle, and their durations/speeds. Essentially, stars twinkling is (or can be) their speech. (I say "can be", because it may be like humans making sounds, or even like signing humans speaking sign language - the basic bodily mechanisms that we use for producing language are also used for other non-speech purposes.)
Stars have extremely keen sight, and can see considerable detail of things that happen on earth, both in humanland and in elvenland (probably enough to recognize different individuals, but probably not enough to be able to be able to read a book with ordinary-sized letters.) However, they can only see things that happen at night; during the day, the sphere of the day sky is lit by the sun and becomes opaque to them. They also can't hear anything that happens on earth. (They may very well have no sense of hearing at all, even for things that happen in near them.) And even at night, their view is sometimes blocked by clouds.
As a result, they have a very different perspective on what happens on earth than anyone on earth does; they can perceive both more and less at the same time.
I am beginning to suspect that elves are nocturnal and have vision that works best at night. Their eyes work well enough in low-light conditions that they can see well enough to get around even under starlight with no moon; they see most clearly, however, under a bright moon or at mid-dark twilight. They do not see particularly well in daylight. Bright sunshine is not painful to them, but it dazzles their vision, and they can't see well in the overwhelming brightness; it's actually comparable to being too dark - as things get brighter, their vision is more and more overwhelmed with light and they have a harder and harder time seeing, until in fully-bright daylight they may be able to see very little or nothing (but still without pain). When elves do venture out during the daytime, it tends to be on darkly clouded, often stormy days. Thus, when humans encounter elves, it's usually either at night or in storm.
Because humans are mostly diurnal, while elves are mostly nocturnal, stars see much more of elven activity than they do of human activity.
Regarding the night sky and the day sky:
The outside of the universe is a hard boundary. Coating that is the material - I'm not sure exactly what it is, but light permeates it - that the stars grow in. Covering the sky-soil is a layer of dark stuff - I'm not sure if it's turf-like small sky vegetation, or if it's a flexible skin/cloth like material. But it's dark and thick enough to prevent any of the light from coming through, except where the stars poke through and drink up the light through their roots and release it out to the world through their branches.
The sun and moon go around the world considerably closer in than the night sky. Outside the course of the sun is a crystal sphere; the sun lights it up during the day, making the blue day sky. This is what blocks the stars' view of the world during the day.
I've mentioned at one point or another the three major kinds of rational beings that I know of for this world: humans, elves, and stars.
As I mentioned in my post on flat world astronomy problems, stars are rooted in the sky like trees, but are thinking, speaking beings. They are extremely long-lived, but not immortal; their lifespans are probably thousands of years long. They have two major methods of communication, both fairly foreign to humans; one is more like telepathy, and another is more like speech. Stars are rooted in the sky; I think they reproduce by runners. So their roots are intertwined with their ancestors. But I think also, stars that grow near one another may come to entwine their roots even if one didn't spring from the other. Stars are able to communicate basically telepathically through the root system, but only to a star that they are directly connected with. For a telepathic message to be transmitted to a non-root-adjacent star, the intermediate stars would have to pass the message along. And the message may get garbled in transmission, like a game of telephone. So telepathic communication is usually only used with near neighbours.
For more distant communication, stars use a language. Their language is based on the shining of their light; it is encoded by the different colours that a star can twinkle, and their durations/speeds. Essentially, stars twinkling is (or can be) their speech. (I say "can be", because it may be like humans making sounds, or even like signing humans speaking sign language - the basic bodily mechanisms that we use for producing language are also used for other non-speech purposes.)
Stars have extremely keen sight, and can see considerable detail of things that happen on earth, both in humanland and in elvenland (probably enough to recognize different individuals, but probably not enough to be able to be able to read a book with ordinary-sized letters.) However, they can only see things that happen at night; during the day, the sphere of the day sky is lit by the sun and becomes opaque to them. They also can't hear anything that happens on earth. (They may very well have no sense of hearing at all, even for things that happen in near them.) And even at night, their view is sometimes blocked by clouds.
As a result, they have a very different perspective on what happens on earth than anyone on earth does; they can perceive both more and less at the same time.
I am beginning to suspect that elves are nocturnal and have vision that works best at night. Their eyes work well enough in low-light conditions that they can see well enough to get around even under starlight with no moon; they see most clearly, however, under a bright moon or at mid-dark twilight. They do not see particularly well in daylight. Bright sunshine is not painful to them, but it dazzles their vision, and they can't see well in the overwhelming brightness; it's actually comparable to being too dark - as things get brighter, their vision is more and more overwhelmed with light and they have a harder and harder time seeing, until in fully-bright daylight they may be able to see very little or nothing (but still without pain). When elves do venture out during the daytime, it tends to be on darkly clouded, often stormy days. Thus, when humans encounter elves, it's usually either at night or in storm.
Because humans are mostly diurnal, while elves are mostly nocturnal, stars see much more of elven activity than they do of human activity.
Regarding the night sky and the day sky:
The outside of the universe is a hard boundary. Coating that is the material - I'm not sure exactly what it is, but light permeates it - that the stars grow in. Covering the sky-soil is a layer of dark stuff - I'm not sure if it's turf-like small sky vegetation, or if it's a flexible skin/cloth like material. But it's dark and thick enough to prevent any of the light from coming through, except where the stars poke through and drink up the light through their roots and release it out to the world through their branches.
The sun and moon go around the world considerably closer in than the night sky. Outside the course of the sun is a crystal sphere; the sun lights it up during the day, making the blue day sky. This is what blocks the stars' view of the world during the day.