Life on the Worldtree.

[Logos&Eidos]

My Science-fantasy(because I am not choosing between sword and blaster) project takes place on a literal world tree. A Dyson tree adrift in the aether, in this cosmos space is no vacuum it is filled with a silvery white aether. This Worldtree and it's spawn orbit a helion. An energy geyser that has erupted into "this"dimension from the maelstrom beneath the skein of the cosmos;stellar scale nuclear fusion is simply not a natural occurrence here.

The worldtrees moves from the outer most edges of the life-zone towards the hellion. Soaking more and more engery and particles of matter, then moving away before the heat and baleful emanations(radiation) became to intense. This cycle last an vaguer of ten earth years. And the seasons of that year last 2.5 five years each.

Where I really need a little help is in ironing out some of the kinks related to the weather and the ecology; mostly the weather. Help on other stuff would be fine to, it's why we're all here after all.


During the depths of winter and the height of summer planetary temperature move far outside the range of humans and related species could find tolerable. During deep winter the temperature drops below -100 degrees Fahrenheit. And high summer it will far exceed 145 degrees Fahrenheit. Those temperatures were not chosen at random according to an article/webpage that I read, at -100 and 145 degrees, death from hypo and hyper thermia will occur in minutes.

So how do people survive these extreme conditions, magic helps like a lot, as dose living in climate controlled citadel like cities that were constructed deep inside mountains; they are the only truly safe places to build settlements. Surviving winter is really just a matter of staying warm and not being eaten! Summer is so much worse. Once the ocean reaches a temperature of 122 degrees hypercanes form. They ravage the land for months on end. And during the very zenith of summer it gets even worse! The oceans at least partially boil away, and massive steamstorms encircle the planet sterilizing all but the hardiest of life-forms.

So comments,critiques, real world metrological and planetary science so that I might handwave as little as possible;after all truth can be stranger than fiction. And why make up an explanation if a real one already exists.

Why yes, Dark Sun and The Stormlight Archive did influance my ideas about worlds where the weather and eccology were as dangerous if not more than the "monsters".

 

[kirai]

Those are some extreme environmental conditions. With that in mind, how did life begin? Or did the life come from elsewhere? The concept is very interesting, but it doesn't seem friendly to living things. While magic and climate controlled areas can help, when do they take the time to build these structures? If they did settle there, why?

If by "people" you mean human, then I doubt they could survive these conditions. We're not what you call hardy.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

Those are some extreme environmental conditions. With that in mind, how did life begin? Or did the life come from elsewhere? The concept is very interesting, but it doesn't seem friendly to living things. While magic and climate controlled areas can help, when do they take the time to build these structures? If they did settle there, why?

If by "people" you mean human, then I doubt they could survive these conditions. We're not what you call hardy.

Have you ever heard the term extreamophiles, it's not something that one might get arrested for being. It refers to life forms that can survive conditions that would kill anything else!

Life began almost the same as it did on earth. Over the eons enough material accumulated on the shell of the world-tree to create a surface. From there nature took it's course, life finding a way to survive and eventually thrive. There are very few pure species. Most combined elements from two or more genera; thus reptile-mammals, insect-fish and the like are common.

As are planimals which I think are one of the most common forms of life. To survive the radical climate temperature shifts, many life forms undergo a radical physical metamorphosis. Other barrow deep underground, or lay their highly resilient eggs in the most secure location that they can find then die when they can longer survive the conditions. Summer as I mentioned before is far more dangerous than winter. Many life forms survive the summer storms by literally rising them above. Bio-gravitation, the biological generation and manipulation of gravitational fields. Is a trait shared by many species on the world-tree;which use Bio-gravitation to fly through the aether. For most of the creatures with trait it simply lets their bodies function as though they were far lass massive;and let's me tell the Square-cube law to suck it! And have gigantic animals, many of which fly!

For a small percentage of the creatures Bio-gravitation enables levitation. In this instance trees, well tree like planimals. Some of which are the sizes of sky scarpers. The retract their roots and float high above the storms, only descending when the autumn rains have ended. Certain shrubs follow suite flying into their, creatures that could already fly develop the capacity to survive high altitudes, And roots among the floating forest. Many sea and even deep creatures under go a similar metamorphosis and take to the sky; while the oceans begin to boil.

As for how the humanoids survived long enough to develop to the point where they could build their citadels. As I said before magic helped a lot. Shield spells to protect against the whether, for those living on the ground. Or to keep heat,oxygen and air pressure, for that lived on and or in the great-trees. When survival is on the line one learns real quick.

 

[Aspasia]

I don't know much weather or climate science, but I do know quite a bit of biology

First, water temperatures are very stable. The ocean changes temperature slowly and is a huge influence on the temperature of the land / atmosphere. It steadies out climate. So I don't think your ocean would hit 122 degrees F or boil away that fast. Also salt in the ocean increasing the boiling point, so it is even slower to hit boil. Salt also lowers the freezing point of water. There's a lot of stuff other than salt, too, in the ocean. Your extreme weather is still possible, but I would say the cycle would be very slow (which I see you have ... I would possibly do research on if that is slow enough but it seems okay) if you want the ocean to participate as much as it is in your summary. What's really important is that the change is gradual, to allow life a chance. The safest places (temperature speaking) to be in extreme conditions is deep in the ground or deep under water, because these places are so stable and change slowly.

As for sterilization by steam storms, autoclaves use 121 degrees C to sterilize equipment which kills everything, just as a random fact. Obviously you don't want the steamstorms to do that.

According to google, the coldest temperature recorded in Antartica is -128.6 degrees F. Maybe look up how the research institutes there manage the cold? This town is apparently the coldest inhabited place on earth, with the lowest temperature being -90 degrees F. Just some info, maybe it will be of use .

Extremophiles! Awesome organisms. Unfortunately, they are all archaea and some bacteria (prokaryotes, single celled organisms, microbes, whatever you want to call them). However, in comes evolution. Life on your extreme world may have selected for these extreme organisms. All organisms would have evolved to be able to cope with this crazy climate. Thus, you can handwave away exactly how humans are able to survive here. Earth humans would certainly die. But here we're not talking about earth humans. These "humans" have presumably evolved from a lineage that selects for organisms that can survive these conditions. There will be significant differences in the physical appearence and metabolism of these people probably. But maybe the ability to do magic let them stay more ... human-like.

The main trouble is probably not the individual highs and lows, but rather the fact that the climate switches violently from extreme heat to extreme cold. Extremophiles are generally adapted to one or a few insane conditions. Put an extremeophile adapted to high salt in an environment with high radiation, and it will probably die. And this is science fantasy, blame magic for stuff. Perhaps that is how magic arose, in order to deal with the madness of the climate, as a protective measure.

 

[chrispenycate]

I'm going to make some (totally unjustified) assumptions. The first is that the laws that regulate orbital dynamics (principally Newton's) govern in your universe too. And, as I'm here under false pretences (in reality I'm an unfrocked mathematician who is much more SF than fantasy) I'm going to ensure the evolution and survival of your species without magic (never trust magic; lets you down at the worst of time, more Murphy than engineering).

So, your tree swarm (orbital thicket?) is in a basically cometary orbit round its helion. This makes for a long year, but has the advantage that the hot bit is quite short, probably no more than a couple of days. Which is good, because that's the difficult end; I can get unmodified humans to survive the -100°C with quite primitive technology. Organisms evolved for it, a doddle.

The tree is a living organism, based on an Earth-type metabolism, yes? Therefore it cannot survive temperatures of +145°. Therefore it will have evolved a cooling system for the regular passages. This will probably involve the evaporation of water, but we don't actually care how it's done, just the result; the leaves will shrivel and fall away, the bark will desiccate and char, but a short distance into the wood will be a region that never reaches even 80°C, partly due to the time required for the heat to soak in, through the insulation of the outside tissue, partly due to steam evaporating, and quite possibly partly due to ice crystals which haven't had time to melt on the dash in.

Short lived organisms (what do I mean, short? A cometary orbit can last a century) can develop heat resistant spores or eggs, possibly also autocooling, and most species will estivate. Quite a lot will hibernate, too, and get all their living dome in the short period each side of the bath of fire.

I must protest against the 'silver-white aether'. Aether is supposed to be the medium in which cosmic vibrations are transmitted; it shouldn't diffuse the light. Your universe is going to exist in fog, without a glimpse of the stars (assuming these are not perforations on the dome holding up the helion).

I assume your aether is breathable? Are there bodies of water/ice orbiting, too, or are all resources concentrated in the trees? And is there aether friction? Unless the helion is spitting out matter as well as energy, and this contains a wide range of elements, not just hydrogen, there is going to be difficulty concentrating enough matter to make a new tree when ultimately the orbit of the big one decays, and it is torn apart by tidal forces even while burning up and steam exploding.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

I don't know much weather or climate science, but I do know quite a bit of biology

First, water temperatures are very stable. The ocean changes temperature slowly and is a huge influence on the temperature of the land / atmosphere. It steadies out climate. So I don't think your ocean would hit 122 degrees F or boil away that fast. Also salt in the ocean increasing the boiling point, so it is even slower to hit boil. Salt also lowers the freezing point of water. There's a lot of stuff other than salt, too, in the ocean. Your extreme weather is still possible, but I would say the cycle would be very slow (which I see you have ... I would possibly do research on if that is slow enough but it seems okay) if you want the ocean to participate as much as it is in your summary. What's really important is that the change is gradual, to allow life a chance. The safest places (temperature speaking) to be in extreme conditions is deep in the ground or deep under water, because these places are so stable and change slowly.

As for sterilization by steam storms, autoclaves use 121 degrees C to sterilize equipment which kills everything, just as a random fact. Obviously you don't want the steamstorms to do that.

According to google, the coldest temperature recorded in Antartica is -128.6 degrees F. Maybe look up how the research institutes there manage the cold? This town is apparently the coldest inhabited place on earth, with the lowest temperature being -90 degrees F. Just some info, maybe it will be of use .

Extremophiles! Awesome organisms. Unfortunately, they are all archaea and some bacteria (prokaryotes, single celled organisms, microbes, whatever you want to call them). However, in comes evolution. Life on your extreme world may have selected for these extreme organisms. All organisms would have evolved to be able to cope with this crazy climate. Thus, you can handwave away exactly how humans are able to survive here. Earth humans would certainly die. But here we're not talking about earth humans. These "humans" have presumably evolved from a lineage that selects for organisms that can survive these conditions. There will be significant differences in the physical appearence and metabolism of these people probably. But maybe the ability to do magic let them stay more ... human-like.

The main trouble is probably not the individual highs and lows, but rather the fact that the climate switches violently from extreme heat to extreme cold. Extremophiles are generally adapted to one or a few insane conditions. Put an extremeophile adapted to high salt in an environment with high radiation, and it will probably die. And this is science fantasy, blame magic for stuff. Perhaps that is how magic arose, in order to deal with the madness of the climate, as a protective measure.

Thank you, I'd been thinking of attributing the existence of human like life to either the whim of a god with a rather nasty sense of humor or the natural process of evolution gone horribly awry, perhaps both? As for thee climate, autumn and spring are perfectly tolerable. As are the early parts of winter and summer, it's just that at the high points of both seasons that we get the extreme temperatures.

When it comes to the sentient races i am rather torn, I love the fantasy classics...however there is a voice in the back of my mind that says go really weird. If I go weird, I am thinking about using the weird-ones as kind of contrast between them and the human likes. Because the weird ones are truly adapted to conditions while the human likes really just endure them, with determination and magic; at least until engineering became advanced enough for climate controlled cities to be built.

I'm going to make some (totally unjustified) assumptions. The first is that the laws that regulate orbital dynamics (principally Newton's) govern in your universe too. And, as I'm here under false pretences (in reality I'm an unfrocked mathematician who is much more SF than fantasy) I'm going to ensure the evolution and survival of your species without magic (never trust magic; lets you down at the worst of time, more Murphy than engineering).

So, your tree swarm (orbital thicket?) is in a basically cometary orbit round its helion. This makes for a long year, but has the advantage that the hot bit is quite short, probably no more than a couple of days. Which is good, because that's the difficult end; I can get unmodified humans to survive the -100°C with quite primitive technology. Organisms evolved for it, a doddle.

The tree is a living organism, based on an Earth-type metabolism, yes? Therefore it cannot survive temperatures of +145°. Therefore it will have evolved a cooling system for the regular passages. This will probably involve the evaporation of water, but we don't actually care how it's done, just the result; the leaves will shrivel and fall away, the bark will desiccate and char, but a short distance into the wood will be a region that never reaches even 80°C, partly due to the time required for the heat to soak in, through the insulation of the outside tissue, partly due to steam evaporating, and quite possibly partly due to ice crystals which haven't had time to melt on the dash in.

Short lived organisms (what do I mean, short? A cometary orbit can last a century) can develop heat resistant spores or eggs, possibly also autocooling, and most species will estivate. Quite a lot will hibernate, too, and get all their living dome in the short period each side of the bath of fire.

I must protest against the 'silver-white aether'. Aether is supposed to be the medium in which cosmic vibrations are transmitted; it shouldn't diffuse the light. Your universe is going to exist in fog, without a glimpse of the stars (assuming these are not perforations on the dome holding up the helion).

I assume your aether is breathable? Are there bodies of water/ice orbiting, too, or are all resources concentrated in the trees? And is there aether friction? Unless the helion is spitting out matter as well as energy, and this contains a wide range of elements, not just hydrogen, there is going to be difficulty concentrating enough matter to make a new tree when ultimately the orbit of the big one decays, and it is torn apart by tidal forces even while burning up and steam exploding.

More Info.

The shape of the world-tree is a rough spheroid with a pair of miles in diameter shafts emerging from the north and south poles. They reach from the surface to a little beyond the atmosphere, branches extend from the these shafts and from them leafs grow. which creates a thick canopy shadow the arctic circles;making them colder than the arctic circles of earth. The leafs main purpose is the collection of energy and particulate matter from the Helion;which does indeed release matter as well as energy. The Helions are one of the sources of the building blocks of life.

The aether that fill the cosmos is by no means breathable. It's there by because I like the nebula look, and to latter help justify certain tropes common to space opera;inter world travel is beyond the tech level of the current story. The aether is a near vapor when hot, and when cold darkness and condenses into a highly viscus fluid but it never actually solidifies.

In an earlier post I mentioned Dark Sun, it was the first truly exotic fantasy world that I had seen. Savage world where the climate and the native ecology where as much of a threat as the evil-overlords and their minions.

An idea that I had meant to crib from Dark Sun was the scarcity of mental, which was going to be used as an excuse to have all kinds of exotic materials for weapons and armor. Especially as an in-universe explanation for why the inhabitants had all kinds of advanced polymers and ceramics; through material science not simply magical transmutation. The lack of metal is something that I am dropping because it's no longer making any since to me; but I am keeping the exotic materials.


As for magic there are three(technicaly four kinds of magic)

Well I actually have three coexistent Magic systems.

1.Is granted by having a strong enough connection/sympathy/devotion to a god or compatible/ group of allied. That you can tap into their Numen. Which is really rare and subtle, it "mostly" takes the form of intuitive insight/aptitude in areas that fall under a given gods domain. Imagine being able to out macgyver,macgyver, because of your connection to the gods of artifice.

2. Are Psychic/Ki powers. Which are seen as a discipline that anybody can learn with enough effort. In fact no soldier could get through basic training with out learning how to read "battle's rhythm" and attain "Oneness" with their environment. precious few actualy get good enough for these skills to really count as superpowers. The most they give the average practitioner are slightly better reaction times and situational and environmental awareness than the average person.

3.Is fueled by chaos, not chaos as in destruction and or disorder. but chaos as in the primordial substance from all sprang. Reality is nothing more than a densely layered pattern of vibrating strands of chaos. Those who are attuned to raw chaos that pervades the cosmos. can manipulate it to effect existing patterns(everything that is and ever will be). Albeit in an incredibly limited manner. The mind of any one being could never fully understand the musics-univeralis; to bend reality you have to understand it nor could any body ever possess the capacity to channel enough chaos to effect everything, Or have the dexterity to arrange chaos finely enough effect the cosmos at the deepest levels

 

[Logos&Eidos]

After doing quite a bit of research I've had quite break through on the nature of this world tree of mine.

First their is a 22 degree difference between the average globe temperature and the average ocean temperature.
To bring ocean water to a boil you'd need the oceans to reach at least a 212 degrees f. That high of an ocean temperature would require and average global temperature of at least 234 degrees. If hypercanes will form at 122 degrees oceans , one can only imagine that with oceans at boiling point the entire planet would be covered with a single massive storm system; one that blows flesh pealingly water vapor!

The only truly safe places to live on such world for people, and many other kinds of life would be deep underground. So everybody is living in subterranean citadels...rather than just dwarfs as is common to fantasy; one could also imagine a great highway network connecting all these settlements.

The next logical consequence of the weather is the flooding of biblical proportion. once summer ends and world begins to cool all that water vapor will condense back into liquid and rain down flooding canyons. The land scape from all the flooding and the trenches dug by the annual formation and recession of glacier. must riddled with canyons and lakes.

Feed-back is welcome and well necessary.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

World-building is an interesting process, you start out with an idea then try to work out the logical consequences of those ideas. While working out the details for the story the world ttat was supposed to be almost pure fantasy has wound up being much higher-tech than I'd originally intended... because logic that's why.

A question to ask to my fellows is, what are your thoughts on the role of magic users(kaotics on the world-tree) in society. In most fantasy stories the magic-user are just kind of there, present but not properly integrated into the fabric of society; even with magic guilds they are still on from fringe. Which is not what would happen realistically, because society finds a place for every one.

The examples of "integrated" magic-users that I've seen are.

The Jedi

The Aes Sadi( especially as they were doing the age of legends)

The Shugenja

These examples are all a class of noble civil servants and protectors.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

Looking for a little help for a plausible societal structure for the world.

After the world's third apocalypse civilization reverted from a global Empire to the predominate form before the rise of that Empire. The problem is I'm having difficulty figuring out what that form was. The Idea that keeps coming to mind is something similar to the Hellenic city-states era. Given the world's apocalyptic weather, the only place where permanent settlement could be built would have been underground. Loosely connected Subterranean citadels in my mind don't really lend them selves to forming massive empires;An alliance of occasionally feuding neighboring settlements feels more likely.

The conditions in which this world's people live might make them clannish, distrustful of outsider,and jealous hoarders of resources; Or it good have the opposite effect. Making a society that was open sharing putting great value on hospitality;their is some real world president for that.

Thought?