Timewaster's Guide Archive

Quote from: Inkthinker on September 10, 2010, 10:29:10 PM

Heh... I should know better than to re-edit a post after I post it, but yeah. I don't think vertical variance is a huge factor in crossings... a gap that was 20 feet wide and 10 down would be make a heck of a slope, but it would only require 22 feet of bridge to traverse. A drop of 15 feet seems extreme.

Yeah, that would be a 45 degree angle, which, i think, is still walkable, but difficult. Beyond that, it's gonna start becoming a "happy fun slide into battle!" situation.

Umm, actually a 45 degree angle would be if it were x feet down and x feet wide (for any given x).

20 feet wide and 10 feet down, is closer to (though not) 30 degrees.

Eerongal, you missed Inkthinker's point, he was suggesting nominal vertical difference, but both where you're crossing from and where you're crossing to are effectively six stories up, so you don't want to try and jump the gap even if it is only 10-12 feet.

Inkthinker, a 50-foot bridge would not need to be weighted at the rear to handle a 25 foot gap, it would need to be for a wider gap, but not for a 25 foot one.

The aim of attracting an honourspren to one person is unlikely to be the purpose of the visions, one more surgebinder is unlikely to be sufficient to defeat a desolution... They need a general who leads an army of skilled, willing men, and to be such said general will need to be honourable etc.

I see it that the visions were interactive memories followed by a recorded speach.

If I'm not mistaken, Gavilar was also personally fascinated by the Parshendi and had been studying them, so it's likely he understood something about them that most other people (including the reader) don't, which led him to make the comment.

I figured that the Parshendi were framed for Gavilar's murder, and their inability or unwillingness to communicate with humans has led to a war based on a lie (and to be certain, most of the Highprinces are fighting the war on the Plains to gain gemhearts, and because it's like a game to them by which they can scuffle for power and prestige without risk -they think- to their homelands).

Szeth at least deemed the Parshendi to be his masters, and it's said that the parshendi claimed responsibility for the assassination.

And we know that some of the gaps are that large... there were several descriptions that said the bridge barely reached across the gap, especially once they neared the Plateau.

That could mean barely reached without tiping, i.e. the gap being about half the length of the bridge.

Otherwise, yes the bridges would need to be weighted at the rear.

Inkthinker, if there weight is equally spread along them they shouldn't tip unless the gap they're being pushed accross is just over half their length.