Earth Bond Chap 12 Discussion...

[Belgarion213]

In MY opinon at least I cant see the dragon's selling their blood.

I mean bathing somebody in it who YOU find worthy? It might happen, but actually giving blood away? By the First of the Class's view there is Name Based Magic, which while having no backing in the story leads me to believe that using Sympathetic based magic (aka parts of one effects the whole, aka use blood to target the dragon in question) might be possible.

[Mizriath]

My take on it....

ED has gifted their magical powers to the other dragons and that is why the other dragons was very protective and giddy with power over it. ED has a heraty respect for magic but no reliance on it. But Ed is the channel for those magical powers. But with ED having come from the Earth (the ALL) and channelling the magic instead of using it actively by themselves. GAIA powers has been reduced and almost induced to sleep. Similar to what has been talked about.

And Kell has accidentally activated his magic powers when he uses all his spikes since the spikes is the foci/channel of magic. To use all the spikes, the magic no longer has any channel but to go into Kell himself. And same for Ferroth, he has used it all before, thus Ferroth knows about magic and i believe that is how he knew of happenings in the outside world on the island since he has access to magic but he kept it a secret.

Since Kell and all the ED has burrowed themselves into the Earth, GAIA has woken up since he came without his spikes and full of ambient magic, and together with Ferroth. There may be others. But as they are ED, their magic is Earth magic, more like Druid magic. The magic of creation.

Well Kell will be a magic user (ala Tarrin) and also a fighter. And he will have 3 women, ehem... kammi, saella and the first in class. Hey Tarrin have 3 too.

[ANTIcarrot]

Since Kell and all the ED has burrowed themselves into the Earth, GAIA has woken up since he came without his spikes and full of ambient magic, and together with Ferroth.

Which begs the question: What is gaia?

Though I'm also curious as to how the Earth Dragons stopped being vegitarians. And what caused the cromies to stop being one kind of racist jerk and become a completely different kind of racist jerk. Why oh why do I get the impression that they caused this whole mess in the first place?

[Belgarion213]

Because you can recognize patterns?

However yeah I'm thinking that somehow the Cromatics fucked it up for everybody, which lead to the dragon's hiding, the Earth Dragon's being discriminated for a thousand years etc.

[Fel]

Since Kell and all the ED has burrowed themselves into the Earth, GAIA has woken up since he came without his spikes and full of ambient magic, and together with Ferroth.

Which begs the question: What is gaia?

Though I'm also curious as to how the Earth Dragons stopped being vegitarians. And what caused the cromies to stop being one kind of racist jerk and become a completely different kind of racist jerk. Why oh why do I get the impression that they caused this whole mess in the first place?

Actually, to be strictly fair about it...the earth dragons created the circumstances that brought things to where they are now, when they razed Camelot to the ground and did it in front of people they let go. Had they been heartless monsters and completely wiped out the entire population, things wouldn't have happened the way they had. But their "punishment of only the guilty and those protecting the guilty" had drastic repercussions, most of which they didn't intend. Yes, both sides misconstrued what they did and why they did it, but it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle once the story spreads across the civilized world that the pacifistic earth dragons went insane and destroyed one of the greatest cities of the first millennium.

As to exactly what is Gaia, think of her as the sentient life force of the entire planet itself. Since she is, well, the planet, she sees time as the planet does, living in an entirely different temporal reference than other creatures. Because of that, the lifespan of the average person, or dragon for that matter, goes by so fast in her eyes that she never even notices them. Only by making a nuisance of one's self does one attract her attention, cause her to look outside of her temporal reference and "slow things down" to the point where she sees time as other life forms do.

[Seastallion]

Actually, to be strictly fair about it...the earth dragons created the circumstances that brought things to where they are now, when they razed Camelot to the ground and did it in front of people they let go. Had they been heartless monsters and completely wiped out the entire population, things wouldn't have happened the way they had. But their "punishment of only the guilty and those protecting the guilty" had drastic repercussions, most of which they didn't intend. Yes, both sides misconstrued what they did and why they did it, but it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle once the story spreads across the civilized world that the pacifistic earth dragons went insane and destroyed one of the greatest cities of the first millennium.

As to exactly what is Gaia, think of her as the sentient life force of the entire planet itself. Since she is, well, the planet, she sees time as the planet does, living in an entirely different temporal reference than other creatures. Because of that, the lifespan of the average person, or dragon for that matter, goes by so fast in her eyes that she never even notices them. Only by making a nuisance of one's self does one attract her attention, cause her to look outside of her temporal reference and "slow things down" to the point where she sees time as other life forms do.

So did the Earth Dragons destroy Camelot because of the whole "San Gral" thing? Also called, the Blood Stone, the Philosopher's Stone, the Holy Grail, etc. Which I would then guess that the San Gral in this case would be Earth Dragon blood? I could see a bunch of Knights going out and slaughtering young Earth Dragons, and that ticking them off enough to wipe out Camelot. I say young dragons, because I figure they'd be hard pressed to kill full grown Drakes, let alone Wyrms.

As to Gaia, if she noticed Kell, makes one wonder where she stands on humanities collective effect on the Earth. I'd guess she hasn't written us off just yet, if she still allows humans to have access to magic. Maybe.

[Lochar]

As to Gaia, if she noticed Kell, makes one wonder where she stands on humanities collective effect on the Earth. I'd guess she hasn't written us off just yet, if she still allows humans to have access to magic. Maybe.

Considering how things are going, humans may be going to the top of the reincarnation food chain.

[SYED]

You know what will really cause issues and fights, if the dragons have records of a dragon at the crucification?

[GBLW]

You know what will really cause issues and fights, if the dragons have records of a dragon at the crucification?

There have been thousands of crucifixions in the past and since the dragons are so insular by nature, why would any particular crucifixion be important to them?
(Just so you know, the easiest way to start a flame war on the internet is to start a discussion on religion, politics or philosophy, so in many cases such discussions are frowned upon, especially in open forums. I'm sure you can imagine what would happen if a writer were to take a controversial view of anything of that sort in a story. I know exactly what happens, because I wrote such a story and suffered the controversy for years afterward.)

[ANTIcarrot]

Actually, to be strictly fair about it...the earth dragons created the circumstances that brought things to where they are now, when they razed Camelot to the ground and did it in front of people they let go.

Hang on, wait... I'm confused. Who are the good guys again?
Ah, screw it. On this world I'm just going to start rooting for North Korea.
아래 사악한 드래곤 마귀와!

As to exactly what is Gaia, think of her as the sentient life force of the entire planet itself. Since she is, well, the planet, she sees time as the planet does, living in an entirely different temporal reference than other creatures. Because of that, the lifespan of the average person, or dragon for that matter, goes by so fast in her eyes that she never even notices them. Only by making a nuisance of one's self does one attract her attention, cause her to look outside of her temporal reference and "slow things down" to the point where she sees time as other life forms do.

You're kidding me. So she really is that woman from captain planet?!

But that doesn't answer the question, just bait-and-switches it for another one. What exactly is lifeforce? Does life on this world 'lose' energy somehow that contempory physics can't track down?

[imthejman85]

Actually, to be strictly fair about it...the earth dragons created the circumstances that brought things to where they are now, when they razed Camelot to the ground and did it in front of people they let go.

Hang on, wait... I'm confused. Who are the good guys again?
Ah, screw it. On this world I'm just going to start rooting for North Korea.
아래 사악한 드래곤 마귀와!

As to exactly what is Gaia, think of her as the sentient life force of the entire planet itself. Since she is, well, the planet, she sees time as the planet does, living in an entirely different temporal reference than other creatures. Because of that, the lifespan of the average person, or dragon for that matter, goes by so fast in her eyes that she never even notices them. Only by making a nuisance of one's self does one attract her attention, cause her to look outside of her temporal reference and "slow things down" to the point where she sees time as other life forms do.

You're kidding me. So she really is that woman from captain planet?!

But that doesn't answer the question, just bait-and-switches it for another one. What exactly is lifeforce? Does life on this world 'lose' energy somehow that contempory physics can't track down?

"Life Force" could be the energy in and of itself of any kind of bio-organic process. It could be the energy of life itself, seeing as all biological chemistry produces energy from various fuel sources to self-sustain itself. Then again, the view could be expanded to include the fuel sources themselves, IE the sun itself, or if you wanted to go far enough back to the Big Bang itself. So in theory, Gaia could not be limited to just the Earth, but to the whole universe as well. Gaia could be one of a collection of planetary-scaled beings in a collection of tens of trillions of such beings(the planets throughout the universe), or just a piece of a much larger Universal being much like the dragons, humans, plants, and whatnot on Earth are to Gaia. Either way, why are people arguing it one way or another? It's a story, read it, enjoy it, and be glad Fel graces us with such wonderful works of literary art.

[SYED]

I remember someone saying that ED are the source of the stories about dwarfs, so I wonder what other stories they started and what really happened?

[Seastallion]

"Life Force" could be the energy in and of itself of any kind of bio-organic process. It could be the energy of life itself, seeing as all biological chemistry produces energy from various fuel sources to self-sustain itself. Then again, the view could be expanded to include the fuel sources themselves, IE the sun itself, or if you wanted to go far enough back to the Big Bang itself. So in theory, Gaia could not be limited to just the Earth, but to the whole universe as well. Gaia could be one of a collection of planetary-scaled beings in a collection of tens of trillions of such beings(the planets throughout the universe), or just a piece of a much larger Universal being much like the dragons, humans, plants, and whatnot on Earth are to Gaia. Either way, why are people arguing it one way or another? It's a story, read it, enjoy it, and be glad Fel graces us with such wonderful works of literary art.

Sort of like the celestial beings in Andromeda. Trance Gemini was the avatar of a sun (star), and there was even an avatar of a black hole that fell in love with the captain. These avatar beings had powers that would otherwise be attributed to gods, and in some cultures were considered gods. In any case, there really are complex energy patterns that span the globe, not only in the form of the magnetic field, but also in actual Lay lines that criss-cross the Earth. In addition, our understanding of physics is truly at an infant stage. When you start combining zero point energy, dark matter, dark energy, multiple dimensions, and other unknown exotic factors you leave huge gaps in what we actually know.

Here's some interesting factoids to consider. In one square centimeter, there is enough energy (Zero Point Energy, aka Vaccuum Energy) to boil off the entire world's oceans. 4% of the known universe is made up of what we consider "ordinary matter" (the stuff we are made of), 26% is made up of dark matter (matter that doesn't seem to interact with the visible light spectrum, but still has a detectible effect on ordinary matter), and 70% of the universe is made up of dark energy, which we really don't understand, but is necessary to make our current physics models work. As to dimensions, there are several different models, one of the more popular ones having 11 dimensions, but others having even more or less. It is theorized by some that there may be several spatial dimensions coexisting with one another, bound together by the 4th dimension of time. That of course, is separate still from the theories on parallel realities or universes, tied together with ideas of multiple time streams. So, yeah. As much as we've learned, we still know squat in the grand scheme of things.

[Belgarion213]

Also remember, as to qoute Duglas Addams: "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

The Universe is so mind boggling huge that it simply is near impossible to measure it. Not just because the best we can do is see area's where light has traveled the incomprehensible distance to reach us, but simply put the human mind struggles to just understand the distances involved. Just think about this for a second. There are an estimated 170 Billion+ galaxies in the universe (that we have been able to see via light traveling the near incalculable distances between them and earth) and galaxies can range from having as LITTLE as ten million stars to having upwards of a trillion.

Just think about that for a moment, then you get into the stuff like dark matter between them, or the Great Accelerator, or the giant gravitational force behind THAT that was recently brought up...


Really, the universe is a freaky place. Just have a look at this image. http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/g ... /hkwef.jpg

That's some pretty humbling stuff there.

No wonder the Total Perspective Vortex was so scary. The actually PERCEIVING the mind boggling bigness of it and seeing the absolutely TINY 'You are Here...'

[ANTIcarrot]

Right now, where are those cat girl transport trucks with the missing exhaust pipes...

But that doesn't answer the question, just bait-and-switches it for another one. What exactly is lifeforce? Does life on this world 'lose' energy somehow that contempory physics can't track down?

"Life Force" could be the energy in and of itself of any kind of bio-organic process. It could be the energy of life itself, seeing as all biological chemistry produces energy from various fuel sources to self-sustain itself. Then again, the view could be expanded to include the fuel sources themselves, IE the sun itself, or if you wanted to go far enough back to the Big Bang itself.

Um, let's solve the small issues first before speculating on things that haven't come up in the story yet. On the assumption that this world works 'as the real world does, except when stated otherwise', then thermodynamics is still a foundation of reality, and Life still maintains chemical and thermal homeostasis, which is basically organised and regulated energy exchange. In RL life, we can account for 100% of energy exchange 100% of the time. There is nothing left for life force, and since energy can't come from nowhere, then...?

My point is that RL physics and biochemestry work the way they do because souls and life force don't exist IRL. Since in this world they seem to, the physics and biochemestry are going to be different from our world; obviously so. I'm just speculating, and fishing, as to what those differences would be.