Open thread

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Bored, the demon walked over to the lake to see who was around...


((Crowley really, really wants to do some bastardly things to people. If you'd like him to do something nasty to your character, leave me an OOC note in your reply, otherwise he'll be good. Marginally. No promises, really...))

Comments

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"Perhaps!" replied Carrot brightly. "Is it also called the Roundworld? Susan told me a lot of people here are from the Roundworld. I haven't really heard of London, England, I'm afraid."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"Round is also a good description of it, taken as a whole." The demon blinked. "Am I to assume, then, that your world is flat?"

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

Carrot nodded. "Yes, it's flat. It rests on the back of five elephants, who travel through space on the back of a giant turtle. Well. So I've heard; I've never seen the Rim for myself."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

He'd heard similar stories in India, but Crowley wouldn't be that helpful. "So it could be a cylinder, or the underside of a cone for all you know."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

Carrot shrugs. "I suppose so. Although a cone wouldn't rest so easily on the backs of the elephants. A cylinder would work, though. But a Disc is really just a very thin cylinder anyway, isn't it?"

Dwarfs are, by nature, very rational, despite certain superstitions some groups have. Carrot is more than willing to accept that he might be wrong about this, but he isn't going to worry too much about something that is unlikely to affect any of the things he really cares about.

((Also, pretend he said four elephants, I'm tired XDDDD))

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"I'd think a cone would fit better," the demon mused, "if the point of it rests in the space between the elephants, on the turtle's shell. Be more secure, right? Less chafing, too. Course, then you run into the danger of it starting a fire on the turtle's shell, supposing that the cone is turning, which would become a vast inferno that consumes your entire world, but I shouldn't worry about that, really..."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"Then I guess a cone wouldn't work better," he replied. "Although I doubt it'd catch fire, since it would be rock on shell. It might spark, but there wouldn't be anything to burn. Still, it's an interesting idea! I wish now I knew more of astronomy! So, tell me, how does the Roundworld work? How can the sun brighten all of it? You must have very long nights. And how do all the people and the water and things stay on? Wouldn't they fall off the sides?"

Carrot has an expression of polite fascination.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

((I'm so, so sorry for the delay on this. First LJ didn't notify me that there was a reply and then I couldn't think of anything to say. Got it now, though. XD))

"Those are good questions," said Crowley, perfectly seriously. "I can tell you're a thoughtful man, Captain. Your world is carried by elephants standing on a giant turtle, right? Well, we don't have the turtle. Our elephants are all in the center of the sphere. One points up, one points down, one points right, and one points left and they're all sucking through their trunks all the time; sucking so hard that everything stays on the surface of the sphere. We call that gravity. Of course, we live in fear of the day that they'll have to breathe out, but Christians call that the Rapture and figure that it won't be so bad to drift into the dome of Heaven that surrounds the Earth."

The demon continued on earnestly. "Also, our sun is twice the size of our planet, so as it revolves around us, it can illuminate half the globe at once. It's pretty efficient so far as that goes. Bit warm, of course, but you get used to it."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

((Hey, no worries! I had my own delays upthread, after all XD))

Carrot nodded, taking in Crowley's every word quite seriously. "Your world sounds like a difficult place to live!" he replied, thankful for the simplicity of a world travelling on the backs of four elephants and a turtle. "I suppose the elephants could take turns breathing out, though," he added reassuringly. "If you figured out when they were going to do that, you could go to another side of the planet. Also, it might help with the heat if you didn't wear such dark clothes."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"Well, yeah, it's tough. But it's home, you know? It's not like we can go anywhere else. So we adapt." It wasn't terribly easy to keep a straight face, but Crowley had had lots of practice.

"And our world is too large for quickly going to the other side. I mean, I suppose we could fly, but there are five billion people on Earth and only a few hundred airplanes. That pretty much leaves two billion people to die if any one of the elephants stops."

The demon shrugged and continued lying out his teeth. "Dark clothes are stylish. Only the strongest can stand to wear them, so it's something like a badge of honour."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"Ah," Carrot replied. That made sense to him. "It isn't so different in Ankh-Morpork there. Black is the colour assasins wear, and most of them are pretty powerful. And I don't think I've ever seen the Patrician wear any other colour. But it doesn't have anything to do with heat. What's an airplane?"

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Inordinately and irrationally pleased to be grouped with the cool and powerful people of Carrot's world, Crowley smiled. "It's a metal vehicle; a tube, about two hundred feet long with giant wings and a tail. About two hundred people can fit inside. And it flies at around five hundred miles an hour at a height of 30,000 feet in the air."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"What an astounding invention!" exclaimed Carrot. It sounded a bit like a dragon, only it'd be a bad idea to ride one of those.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"You'd be surprised at what useful things have been invented in the last century, Captain. A plane, for instance, can make a transatlantic flight in a matter of five hours or so, as opposed to a week or two by ship, depending on the weather. But telephones, faxes, and computers can make communicating with someone that far away an instantaneous process."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

Carrot stared throughout this speech in incomprehension. After a few seconds (in which he could be seen mouthing some of the words to himself), he said "...like the Klacks?"

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"What the fuck's a Klacks?" asked the demon.

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"They're towers that transfer information over them. They can go all the way from Ankh-Morpork to Uberwald. The work through a series of sounds that sound like klacking, so they're called the klacks. The Watch uses small versions of the Klacks to communicate with each other, too."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"You guys are still stuck with the telegraph?" he asked, bemused and condescending. "Hey, maybe in a few decades you'll make it up to the internal combustion engine!" added Crowley sarcastically.

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"What's an internal combustion engine?" he asked.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"I'm not going to explain everything in the world to you," said Crowley sharply. "It's the Prime Directive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive) or something. And don't ask what that means. If you don't know, there's a reason."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"...All right, then," said Carrot somewhat blankly. He didn't know what Prime Directive was, but he wasn't going to ask. "Well, I'd say I hope I'll get to see your world someday, but I'd really rather just go back to mine. We have a lot of interesting technology, too. Does your world have iconographs? Or Dis-organizers?"

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"Iconograph," muttered Crowley. "Greek for image writing? Is that like painting or calligraphy or something? And no, we don't have disorganizers. Or rather, we have organizers that just make people more upset and stressed out when they forget to use them or don't use them properly." That had been rather a good idea, in hindsight. And the best part was they brought it entirely upon themselves.

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

Since there's no such thing as Greece on the Disc, most of Crowley's comment goes over Carrot's head. "Sort of? It's a little box with an imp inside. And you point it at things and it paints a picture of what you just pointed it at. Very interesting, and especially useful for detectives as I'm sure you can see! And Dis-organizers...seem to do the same thing, actually." At least from the way Vimes had used most of the ones he'd ever owned. "It's another box with an imp in it, but in this case the imp reminds you of your appointments and keeps track of things for you. And the latest version also runs messages to the Klacks! It's quite an astounding invention!"

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Crowley looked horrified. "You enslave imps?!" So far as he knew, imps were evil elementals that were actually quite good at menial tasks, but would be more trouble than they were worth for humans. Demons could barely contain an imp's chaotic nature. Humans had no chance. So either these humans were more powerful than he knew or their imps were less so. Crowley tended not to take chances like that, so he began to treat Carrot carefully.

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

Well, when you put it that way, it did sound a bit cruel. "Uh, maybe? It might just be a job, they don't seem to mind except when you make them work too hard. Like golems. Except-- well, some golems did mind, I guess." He frowned. The ethics of imp slavery were not something that Carrot had ever really considered, especially since imps were so unpleasant. But...Vimes had been quite cruel to some of his Dis-organizers.