Animals?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

There is something I plainly do not understand. The oceans are not wet. OK. Yet they have fish on sale in the market and elephant seals are animals whose call is known. What is going on?

[iceblade44 he/him]

Either its A) Hoid glossing over things or 2.) there are bodies of water on the planet outside of the 12 oceans. Given how this planet has trees and wood, water must exist in more then just in wells and people 

Edited March 3, 2022 by iceblade44

[apepi]

I am guessing they are more..similes of fish/elephant seals. Not exactly the same thing, but they get their point across to the listener.

They swim in the spores I assume.

[Dreamwa1ker she/her]

I think he did make some comment that these worlds in these projects will be more alien like Roshar vs the Earth analogs of some of our other Cosmere worlds. So it would be really fascinating if there are life forms that can live in the spores, meaning they either have some sort of high level of salt or silver in them or they are water-less lifeforms (which would be wild).

Or, will the oceans be lifeless and instead there are inland seas or something? They did mention they had wells on the island that got underground water - could there be fish living down there?

Will water only be underground though, like does it ever rain? A thunderstorm would be terrifying in a different way than on Roshar.

[Mat he/him]

I don't think there are necessarily elephant seals in the world- unless I missed something, that was just a Hoid addition and not something that was said by the characters. Doesn't mean they couldn't be there though.

The fish is kind of weird... I guess they could swim in the spores, but it also makes sense for there to be bodies of water elsewhere. It's possible that some of the other Aethers don't react to water in the same way that Verdant does though I don't know what that would mean for Aether continuity.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

10 minutes ago, Dreamwa1ker said:

I think he did make some comment that these worlds in these projects will be more alien like Roshar vs the Earth analogs of some of our other Cosmere worlds. So it would be really fascinating if there are life forms that can live in the spores, meaning they either have some sort of high level of salt or silver in them or they are water-less lifeforms (which would be wild).

The "fish" were affordable to lowly mineworkers on a godforsaken island and available in bulk quantities. They also were not all that well preserved and losing a whole vat of them was not a catastrophe to be prevented at all cost. That does sound like local catch to me.

[+Bzhydack he/him]

16 hours ago, iceblade44 said:

Either its A) Hoid glossing over things or 2.) there are bodies of water on the planet outside of the 12 oceans. Given how this planet has trees and wood, water must exist in more then just in wells and people 

Preaty much this. If seas are salty enough to kill spores in them, they can exist in other parts of planet.

Or they have underground seas.

[Johnny Silverlight]

Hoid could be "translating" the fauna on Tress's world into rough equivalents that would be understandable to the person(s) he's telling this story to.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 4.3.2022 at 11:58 AM, Bzhydack said:

Preaty much this. If seas are salty enough to kill spores in them, they can exist in other parts of planet.

Or they have underground seas.

They may also have undersporic oceans, that is the lowest part of the planet could have live spores - dead spores - salt water as layers.

10 minutes ago, Johnny Silverlight said:

Hoid could be "translating" the fauna on Tress's world into rough equivalents that would be understandable to the person(s) he's telling this story to.

He could but that does not solve the issue of rain without the water evaporating from oceans the fish and whales live in.

[cometaryorbit]

The spore seas might be purely equatorial (directly under the geostationary orbit belt); the rest of the planet might be more Earthlike.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

6 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

The spore seas might be purely equatorial (directly under the geostationary orbit belt); the rest of the planet might be more Earthlike.

That is possible, but it does not explain the market. Would you transport multiple barrels of a food that has to be imported from far away to a poor island? And would it be so common and cheap that a miner's daughter would be familiar with it?

[cometaryorbit]

12 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

That is possible, but it does not explain the market. Would you transport multiple barrels of a food that has to be imported from far away to a poor island? And would it be so common and cheap that a miner's daughter would be familiar with it?

Well there is probably something weird/not yet revealed about why the king insists people not leave that island. If there is really something really important there, and there aren't good local protein resources....

I mean I guess they could be spore-swimming fish, but if water on spores is really bad news I don't think conventional (water-based) biological life forms could live in the spore sea. And if humans can eat them they must be conventional biology.

So it seems like they have to be imported.

We don't know enough about the tech/economy to know how expensive that would be. There's a mention of mining machinery emitting smoke, but is this like early 19th century steam engines or more like 20th century to modern internal combustion tech? (Lots of smoke implies maybe a bit older tech, but OTOH if this world is largely hostile it might not be densely enough populated for environmental concerns to push toward cleaner engines. Also, if Tress's area is remote, their tech might not be cutting edge for the kingdom or world as a whole.)