Well the only "Unrealistic" thing Ive seen in the trailer is how the moving City (London) has no rain clouds above it ... moving or not, they should be there!
I love the metal image. You see this big, fast-moving stormcloud in the distance. You turn to avoid it, but it seems to head straight for you no matter what you do. Eventually you give up, baton down the hatches, and wait for it to blow over. Then, out of the darkness, a massive outline starts to become visible through the rain. Someone screams “PREDATOR CITY!” as it’s infernal maw opens up. Someone else screams “ITS LONDON!”as lightning briefly reveals the entirety of the massive craft. You take off at full speed, trying to avoid the jaws, close enough to spit at the whirling blades.
If you read the books, it's a whole lot better. In fact the ridiculousness and unsustainability of the Traction Cities is a major plot point. The cities in the books are a lot more industrial and practical than what Peter Jackson has created too, no huge monowheels, far closer to hundreds of sets of tracks and wheels, and they're not that fast relative to their size either. It's made clear that wherever possible weight is saved, with smaller towns using wood for the upperworks, etc. As for why they're all moving, yes the world was uninhabitable. London was built to move first, and because it was able to consume static settlements to grow itself, everyone else started to copy it in order to survive. Any static settlement would simply become food for the Traction Cities, so everyone ends up being forced to start moving.
I've seen the film, and the emphasis on how outdated and impractical "municipal darwinism" and cities on wheels are is intact. I'm amazed how quick you are to judge, especially if you probably haven't even seen it yet. And honestly, the tech was never the point, in either the novels, or this film. The characters, and humanity's short-sightedness that led to the war and the ruined, junk-filled world, is the point. Reeve isn't exactly subtle about humanity being rather fairly unwilling to learn from its past mistakes.
As someone who has both read the book, and watched the film...the films wheren't good by any measurment. They didn't adpet the story well, they didn't tell a good own story. The one thing where they did shine where small details. I loved many of the small details, but for the rest.... Making everyone involved less competent, from Hester, over Tom(who incidentally was made more competent in the beginning) over MEDUSA and the Anti-Traction league. But the biggest problem was that it had a really bad case of, must adher to story conventions. The heroes have to be intellegent, the villains must be over the top and stupid, there must be a betrayel in the villains ranks. Valentine probably got the worst lot after Hester, so many of his human moments cut so they could have a better villain.
I can't judge the book because I didn't read it, but that explanation sound like it has been pulled right out of the Ass. It would've been much better if Author didn't try to explain why cities are moving. Only working explanation would be if people in those books had access to an unlimited source of energy. But, they actually have energy crisis. Steam engines running on coal? Come on. How one can suspend his disbelief to such and incredible degree? That's not far from believing in Elon Musk's international Rocket travel or Hyperloop.
@@KlarkBrothers Because the construction of London features in the prequel trilogy. It's not explained in the original quartet, but it's central to the plot of the prequel finale.
There is a famous Mark Twain quote that Neil Degrasse Tyson loves to say regarding Sci-Fi: "First get your facts straight, then distort them at your leisure"
@The Only True Witch-King I wasn't referring to distorting facts, just that the books got too entangled in their own ruleset at some point. Got nothing against ripoffs and mishmashes of other works as long as they're done well, but Inheritance really isn't. First two books were ok but then the cart hits the slope. Just my opinion.
@@raics101 There is a way you can pull of changing rules, and physics to suite a story. But to pull it off, you have to describe how the universe is directly different from ours. For example, here, the gravitational Constant is G=9.81m/s^2, but on the Earth that my story takes place, it's actually g = 9.84 m/s^2, because the force of gravity in of itself is stronger than it is here, because the mass and density of the earth as not changed. But it later get's revealed that there are many, many universe each with their own set of laws at work, and many can be vastly different compared to what we know.
Besides being a mythological creature in some ancient cultures (greek, I researched just now), the first memory of this I have is from the movie Aladdin and The Kinf of Thieves.
*EHEM* On disk which lays on top of four elephants a finally they are standing on turtle. My my , please be more precise next time , people may mistake Great Discworld for something else!
My biggest issue with the reality of this world isn't a city on wheels, one of the trailers says "...Cities were built in the air, on the water, but the deadliest of all were built on wheels." Why? A flying ship would be a lot better than a land based track treaded thing of the same size especially in the context of multiple cities fighting each other. I wouldn't say dumb, just crazy.
Flying city. Sure, but how? 1. Hot air. Too fuel-hungry. You could try using nuclear reactors to supply the neccessary heat. 2. Hydrogen? A single contact-fuzed High Explosive Incendiary shell might bring the whole city down in flames. The only advantage is that you aquire it easily through cloud condensation. 3. Helium? You can't make that from water, no, you have to go mucking about underground for that, and the infrastructure needed to make enough for a city would be on the scale of a small city all by itself. 4. Helicopter rotors? NO. There are limits to how far the laws of physics can be bent. In order for it to fly, you'd need to build it like a flying spiderweb carpet covered with rotors, and you CANNOT use combustion engines. Nuclear turbo-electric propulsion is the only way you're going to stay in the air for a meaningful period of time. From a military standpoint, all these methods are deeply flawed; the helicopter city would need to be ludicrously light (and thus fragile) to support its own weight, and the balloon cities would all be vulnerable to time-fuzed HE shrapnel shells (WWII-era tech). Doubly so for any city with hydrogen ballons. The Helium balloon would also be fucked because of the cost of importing the stuff to fill your damaged gas bags after the fight. In simple terms, flying cities, no matter how they are built, are too fragile to fight against each other, and a wheeled city will have every advantage in firepower, armour, ease of access to natural resources, and anything else except mobility in good weather. What flying cities excell at is speed and fuel efficiency, and therefore trade. Fighting, and most resource-harvesting should be left to the wheeled cities, whilst the floating cities would be the true masters of combat, at the cost of being stuck on the open seas which, at the time when the story takes place, have shrunk because of reasons that I've forgot.
@@gustaveliasson5395 all good points, but I think that if you can swallow the idea of a large enough engine that something the size we've seen in trailers could be moving the speed that it's moving, you could assume some of the same reasoning and ability could be put towards a flight based structure as you're right there are limits to physics and treads that big moving that fast (for one, moving that fast) without shaking apart the thing that is mounted on them is a bit of a stretch. I was ignoring logistical problems and only questioning the idea that the deadliest are wheel based, but if you wanna look into those, then you wouldn't really need a single vehicle into a city, it would make more sense to make a bunch of smaller ones that stick together like a flotilla, and the ones that would be most well suited for that would be water or air based, though it would also work for a land based grouping. The other thing though is that an air vehicle doesn't need to be as big as the thing it's attacking, it's something that has three dimensions of movement as opposed to the two of any land or sea based vessel, that's one reason why in WW2 air craft carriers were the center of large naval engagements and not just a bunch of battleships going after each other, and typically a larger sized vehicle means a decrease in maneuverability and speed, so you give it some smaller friends that don't have those limitations to defend them. As a side note, I have heard great things about the series and have been intending to look into them when I'm done with the Expanse. Something you said I fully agree with is that the land based stuff would be the best at quick and efficient resource gathering, however, the way you explained it sounds like there is some symbiosis between the different types, is that the case?
@@Sean-ne3gx 1. The problem with engines shaking themselves apart only exists if you're using internal combustion engines. Steam engines of the piston variety are also susceptible, but steam turbines don't have that problem at all. Since the only realistic way of moving a wheeled city is by electric power, I'm fairly confident that each wheel is electricly driven, with the power being supplied either by several smaller diesel generators on shock-absorbing mountings, or by a small number of very large generators turned by steam turbines. Because of the scarcity of resources, I'm leaning towards steam because boilers are more versatile in terms of what you can fuel them with. The most sensible source of steam for a vehicle of that size would of course be nuclear, but engines in this world might be fuel-efficient enough that eating other cities is enough to keep your own moving. The best real-world counterpart to the moving cities today would be tanks. They've got so many wheels that driving over a large boulder won't cause any serious damage. The boulder would be pushed into the ground like a pebble. Larger cliffs would be troublesome, but using active suspension such as that on the swedish Strv 103 would allow the city to move over the obstacle at a reduced speed. 2. A wheeled city can serve as a base for smaller flying cities just like a large flying city. A wheeled city, as stated, also has easier access to resources. From the perspective of the flying cities however, it makes far more sense to be neutral and to trade with any city they meet rather than to stay with, and fight for their "mother". 3. Wheeled cities will always have an advantage in armour and firepower. Any weapon that you can put on a flying city, you can also put on a wheeled one. And the wheeled city can be much smaller because the flying city needs huge, vulnerable balloons. 4. Wheeled cities also have greater survivability because they most likely won't flip upside down if they lose a wheel. If you pop a balloon or two on a flying city however, all bets are off. 5. Carriers replaced battleships not because they were faster, but because they could attack from longer range. 6. There's no real symbiosis between cities, but there is trade. Trading is mostly done by airship because anything else is likely to get eaten. Flying cities like Airhaven work fantastic as permanent trade hubs, but wheeled cities and floating cities can also trade along the coastline because there's nothing to gain from fighting something that you can't eat. The true strength of flying cities is their vulnerability and the fact that they stop flying when they're defeated. If you shoot one down, the fireball will be visible for hundreds of miles and will attract predators. If you try to board one, you risk destroying it anyway, and also your own airship/city. 7. The logic of point 5 also applies to flying cities attacking wheeled or floating ones. Even if you succeed in not getting yourself shot down and eaten, the other city will attract scavengers. If you use numerous smaller flying cities or even airships like a carrier to attack while you stay out of range, the other city can do the exact same thing but better because it can also carry enough weapons to defend itself.
That s it. Hey should a different universe follow the same laws of Physic? It s called FANTASY and is often times MEANT to be unrealistic. "Realistic Fantasy " could be seen as a sub genre in my personal opinion. Of course you don t have to agree with me.
darkblood626 Not really. First of all the rules have to be internally consistent. Second of all if your fantasy setting is derived from our real world (like say harry potter) then the audience sort of expects most of the regular rules to still apply. As for the ones that don’t it’s probably a good idea to explain why they’re different, either something happened that changed them or they’ve always been different and the magic people have been keeping is muggles in the dark, etc. Narratives do have a lot of creative freedom but for it to be interesting, there are certain guidelines that help with that.
Pretty much. Unless your fantasy story is meant to be the Present day, Present time fantasy then I think any and all things are possible depending on what narrative the writer is going for. That's why half the epic heroes of myth was running around with swords heavier then most people or stringing bows alone that not even six strong men could. The key is you need to create a narrative that makes people feel something while using the stories strangeness as a way of adding things which changes the context of what is going on. As long as the story is well crafted it can still be pretty good as I've learned from writers such as Philip K Dick or Roger Zelazny.
I think it doesn't have to be realistic per say, it just has to function for the universe created. Also mortal engines is a pretty fun book, so I have no problem with it, and the idea is cool, kinda like flying islands, you either like it or hate it. For example the in games like sunless sea/skyes bat's literally took London underground and the sun is like a guy. Still a cool concept even tho trains can't spacetravel
I love how Sunless Sea doesn't even attempt to make sense. "Three decades ago, in the reign of Victoria, London was stolen by bats. Now it lies a mile below the surface. It was dreadfully inconvenient for everyone." That's just so ridiculous, you don't really want a better explanation.
I think in novels it's easier to get away with than in movies and video games because you have to do the majority of the visualizing. Novels have the option of being surreal andentertaining. whenever a movie tries to be surreal it doesnt always translate well and it gets mixed views.
Pacific Rim is far more believable than Mortal Engines, and yet it's completely, stupidly unbelievable. I just couldn't shut down my brain enough to enjoy it, not without entering a coma at least.
Yeh, thats a game that did manage to sell a really stupid idea. Its actually a well made movie tho, which doesnt seem to be the case for Mortal Engines.
skies of arcadia (game) or last exile (anime) comes to mind. Often 2 problems come: How is stuff floting and where is all the energie come from? Both are explained by steampunk and suspendium. So shads idea isnt unique but sill cool.
Isn't Skies of Arcadia an actual planet with just a ludicrously thick atmosphere and floating islands? I seem to recall they go to the surface and also space, at one point. Which, of course is one way to get an 'everything is sky' sort of thing. Set it in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant or hothouse. Making things actually float is another trick, but... yeah.
Larry Niven figured out a physically plausible, if somewhat improbable, way to create and sustain a huge gas torus with a breathable atmosphere and other conditions amenable to life. He did this via the use of a binary system with a main sequence star and a neutron star with a captured rogue planet orbiting the neutron star. This "three body problem" is what allowed the torus, or "Smoke Cloud", to form and stabilize around the neutron star. Too bad the stories he wrote really didn't live up to the fantastically weird, yet still somewhat scientifically possible setting... www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2015/03/02/integral-trees-by-larry-niven/ I read the books years ago, and have a *slightly* fonder memory of the two books than the linked reviewer. Though admittedly it was all fairly "meh", especially the bits about century old AI on the ship that brought the ancestors of the (more or less) humans populating various bits of the Smoke Cloud.
The Mortal Engines books are *bloody* amazing. You really should read them, Shad. From what I remember from the books, the cities are far more spread out, and also slower (also the fuel problem is a fairly big plot point in the books). The films, despite just being trailers, look to not be nearly as good. The cities do look more impossible than I imagined them in the books, and there are quite a few other things they appear to have changed (like half of Hester's face not basically being one huge scar). As far as it just goes for the moving cities, it's still impossible with what the books have, but not so impossible as to damage suspension of disbelief. The films don't look to have carried that over from the books, but hopefully they'll give us a nice surprise.
I read them many years ago when I was a kid too! They were great :D I actually couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the trailer for the film at the cinema. I bet barely anyone who sees it will realise it was based on a series of books.
Agreed. Everything about the physics and universe of Star Wars is downright stupid if you try hard enough to deconstruct it - huge, incredibly furry creatures on a desert planet? Which, by the way, somehow orbits a binary star system? Not to mention, sound in space, lasers with an arbitrary endpoint (lightsabers) that are hot enough to cut through anything but somehow do not fry the humans holding them to a crisp? A host of hundreds of alien species which all conveniently communicate through some form of vocalization and most have humanoid hands, arms, legs, and heads? Let's not forget about entire planets described by a single biome, like Hoth, all of which is an ice desert, Tatooine, which is exclusively desert, and Endor which is exclusively forest? Not to mention either the physics problems building a massive spherical space station that fires a planet-destroying laser without blowing itself up at the same time. But - it's the presentation that saves it. The worldbuilding is only the setting for the story, not the story itself. Not everything has to be explained by consistent rules.
@dudepersonvids What does it being a binary star system have to do with anything? There's way, WAY more binary and trinary systems than systems with just one star... and they would still support life just the same.
@@dudepersonvids Not all of that is impossible. Some single-biome planets are almost certainly real (the ice and desert worlds are actually pretty easy), and binary star systems can have stable orbits. That said, the hyperspace mechanics, consistent gravity, and universal communication and breathing are more of a problem.
I question why these cities fight. You'd think they'd try to avoid conflict, considering how squishy they look. I mean, even World War 2 era bombers could wreak havoc on some of these things, especially since I don't see any AA batteries and the center of government looks to be at the top judging by the dome. Furthermore, since it seems to take cities inside of it, why don't the victims take a bunch of satchel charges or other explosives and throw them on anything important, such as the wheels, which they seem to be so close to?
The books have a few answers to these questions. Heavier than air aircraft have not been invented, only slower airships, so the cities main weapons are adequate. When cities are eaten, they are looted for parts and slaves before being scrapped. The "bellies" are fortifications, so breaking out and sabotaging components would be rather difficult.
Give me a battalion of Leo-2s or M2 Abrams and the cities will fall before dinner. Alternatively the same number of PzH 2000s with sufficent amounts of artillery shells. Tanks, especially modern MBTs, and self-propelled artillery pieces are effective for a very good reason, people!
@@thif4722 due to a war the earths tectonic plates were damaged so volcanoes earthquakes and the like destroyed cities so making cities run away from these was great. This is the future were these quakes no longer exist but they refuse to change their ways
Can dumb idea's be fun? Absolutely. Star Wars is hippie wizards fighting Space Nazi's, and it's one of the most popular franchises in existence. Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive spider, and instead of getting cancer he got superpowers. Goku is a space monkey who can dye his hair by getting really angry. It's all in the presentation :)
@Titus Yes, but as reference to 90's. All mentioned cases were written for younger audience and that person clearly was a teenage edgelord himself, who use words he don't understand only because he think it is offensive.
@@viniciussardenberg6420 According to who? Because not the facts 0_0 TLJ was second largest grossing movie of all time, what was critically acclaimed and is liked by most of fans. It only suffer on Empire Strikes Back syndrome, as best movie in old trilogy was poorly revived by common consumers, who didn't expect deep story. If Prequel movies didn't kill Star Wars, then way better New Canon also would not. You are aware that debate with haters always end on "prequels were better" argument? What it absolutely ridiculous lie. I'm seriously sick of bandwagoning kids like you 0_0
My biggest criteria for any fantasy is that it’s internally consistent. If you tell me that you’ve got a massive city on wheels I’ll accept it. But then you can’t start discussing how they have a strategy to bog other cities wheels into the Earth. Because then I have to try and explain why it doesn’t work all around.
Yes we can, and no you don't. 1. Wheels exist. 2. If you drive into a swamp, you'll get stuck. 3. If you have really big wheels and a huge engine, your car won't get stuck in the swamp. 4. If you can trick somebody who has normal-sized wheels to follow you into the swamp, they will get stuck, but your monster-truck won't. This also works in the world of Mortal Engines. The heaviest city with the smallest wheels/tracks gets stuck first, and the trick is to fool the other city to think that your city will get stuck first.
mel on the problem is that the entire universe of this movie requires that you suspend your disbelief by shutting off the rule that things can get bogged down. The second it comes up as a strategy it is like the world reminding you that 2+2=33, and was supposed to all along. It breaks all of logic to have that rule implemented, just like if it suddenly became true that 2+2=33 we would have problems. By saying they can bog down one vehicle it makes it so we can’t just shut off the laws of physics that allow for one vehicle to be bogged down, as such suddenly all those city vehicles have to be bogged down because they should have been all along.
"I found a way to make it work by restructuring the universe."~ Shad What a classical mad scientist/ fantasy author statement (I mean, they're pretty much the same thing, just authors are more dangerous).
@@anblueboot5364 Because I didn't watch the trailers and still regardless he guessed the same reason the author decided to use which is pretty fucking cool
@@anblueboot5364 But he did come up with it himself, I didn't see lava spraying everywhere and the ground being cracked through like an apocalypse film or someone going in front of the camera and explaining that, impressive regardless of what people say, others agree, look at the likes of these comments
Man, everything has friggin' dragons in it. Dracophiles are everywhere! They're like the "deep fried" of fantasy in that people do it to everything, even when it's unnecessary. Honestly dragons have lost their mystique because of over-exposure. Compared to dragons, giant moving cities are quite the novelty.
A floating continent setting could also be created on an oxygen-rich gas giant with landmasses (former asteroids?) that have superconductive cores. Doesn't have the falling forever thing, but the sky would alternate between HUGE storms and a nice view of multiple moons.
The problem with any system containing high amounts of oxygen is, that *oxygen will ignite (!)everything else(!) within the system* at a much much lower temperature and it will burn substantially hotter and faster (again everything else, not the oxygen itself). Life on earth did not develop because earth contained loads of oxgen, earth had lots of CO2 (which plants eventually turned into O2) and our atmosphere to this day is mostly nitrogen.
@@cdgonepotatoes4219 Well, we humans however don't breathe hydrogen...But unfortunately we're mostly made out of hydrocarbon, which means we're quite flammable. xD edit: Oxygen itself doesn't ignite btw. Like I said everything else however will, which is the crucial and deadly factor to consider here.
@@cdgonepotatoes4219 Hydrogen can't ignite on its own. It requires an oxidizer, such as oxygen or chlorine trifluoride. If you had a protoplanet with a lot of free hydrogen and oxygen, the two would react pretty quickly to get water.
Mortal Engines (the books at least) are effectively an absurdist satire of the lack of sustainability inherent in modern society. The cleverness of the story and setting doesn't really come from explaining the impossible premise, but rather starting from an impossible premise and logically extrapolating how society and culture would function in a world where moving cities weren't impossible. The books read like Mad Max meets Discworld, with a barrage of puns and in jokes. This is juxtaposed against characters who take everything entirely seriously, because its the world they live in and for them it is real, and a matter of life and death. I don't know how well the film will capture this, I'm really hoping that it will do a good job of representing the setting, rather than trying to adapt it as a by-the-numbers dystopia. You are spot on regarding the societal factors which lead to the creation of the first (much smaller) traction cities in universe. They were built during a period of geological instability and social upheaval, during which it became impossible for settlements to stay in one place for any length of time. Nomadic tribes developed, dragging their houses and fortresses with them across the land, and their archaeologists discovered "sufficiently advanced" technology created by the cultures which preceded the apocalypse. This allowed them to build entire moving cities, but how that technology defies the laws of physics is never addressed or explained, because the characters simply don't understand how it works. Almost all knowledge of science and technology has been lost, and the cultures of the traction era are more concerned with retrofitting scavenged devices to keep their civilization running than trying to work out how they work. Ironically I have a very low threshold for suspension of disbelief, precisely because I am a scientist. I find that even some of the best thought out and logically consistent worlds are still ludicrous if you try to over analyse them. The few Hard SF books which really do account for everything tend to get bogged down in the world building at the expense of telling a good story. I thus tend to take things as I find them, and don't let the impossibility of the premise detract from my enjoyment of it. When you can see that all SF and Fantasy is "dumb", you can better cope with the things with are egregiously so!
Even the side characters are demonstrations of how pathetic technology makes us. That one dumbass princess from the 2nd book springs to mind, predators gold i believe
I feel like they tried to make something like starwars.they stared the books(something like the Trinity movies episode1,2,3)then if people liked it they would do the prequels of the books like the 60 second war. Of course this is just my personal opinion/theory.
Here’s my five second take based on just like two,pictures of the cities: “This would make a lot more sense in space” It would though, I mean the biggest problem is that these things would crumble under their own weight with this kind of haphazard construction, especially when moving.
*agreed...look at what happens during an earthquake...and those only last a few seconds or minutes...the constant vibration of the cities trundling across the landscape would render everything a pile of smoldering rubble*
It depends. In space, you dont have weight. But if you wanna actually go anywhere, you have to accelerate. And since you wanna accelerate into a particular direction, you have to turn the ship. Both of those actions will create the same forces as gravity; the main advantage is really that you can accelerate with a force less than 1x earth gravity. in the Expanse, ships actually create "gravity" by accelerating/deccelerating the entire flight with 1G, maybe with a short high G burst at start/end of travel; and even then it takes weeks to travel from one planet to another. And of course you dont need suspension. Suspension might have to carry 5-10 times its weight that it normally does when hitting a rock/hill...
@@termitreter6545 Exactly, there’s a reason that city ships are so common in sci-fi (heck that’s what the LDSS Nauvoo is) but city cars aren’t. The city car is fine as long as it doesn’t move, but then you don’t really have a city car as a very compact city with weird foundations. I think the key here is the terrain and vibrations, you could build a mega structure like one of these things that can withstand 1G (although I doubt it would be able to be this haphazard), but like *Scott Mantooth* pointed out, driving one of these things would be like a never ending earthquake. But flying one, you could do it, we see it (on a much much much smaller scale) with real spacecraft, and unlike cars there’s not much reason you couldn’t scale it up (other than the insane launch costs, maybe they built a space elevator?). Obviously the setting isn’t trying to make sense but I think this is interesting.
@@the_kraken6549 Tbf I did think the setting looks at least very unique and interesting as well, you just gotta do a really good job at actually selling it. Maybe have the cities 'combat' be really interesting and fun or so. You really gotta make use of those driving cities if you use something that absurdly stupid. But from what I hear, the movies is pretty bad. They dont do much with those things, and the charachters are super bland and uninteresting. At that point you got an unbelievable scenario and no way to sell it. I got it on amazon prime, but I dont even feel like watching it. Idk, maybe if im too bored. Someone else mentioned, but I thought Pacific Rim was one of those movies that took something stupid and used it correctly. The mix of stupid fun robot action and the feeling of scale and weight really sold it. They also didnt have non stop action, but used those things economically, so it didnt get old fast.
I think it really depends on what kind of story you want to tell. Rule of cool is fun and all, but you must know what certain elements you introduce entail for the rest of your fantasy world. I love you fantasy-rearmed series, because it is exactly this kind of thinking, that most books and movies, that fail, miss. You can have epic wizards blow up castles left and right, but that should probably cause said castles to change in tasks to fulfill and design. Whenever you introduce something to your world, think about countermeasures to deploy. Consistency. If you manage that, suspending my disbelieve is easy.
Rule of cool works, until it gets too ridiculous that the plot falls apart. If you have the level of technology to build a moving city, why not build a terraforming rocket? Or SOMETHING less ridiculous and more practical
techncially we still build forts, whose commanders live there fore extended periods of time, often with their families so in a way we still have castles, they just look nothing like a medevil castle.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 Yeah but look at the function of modern military bases. They're not bulwarks designed to withstand siege. They're for staging operations, which in modern warfare are far more disparate and have a higher burden of logistics. Keep in mind most modern military bases called forts are called that more for historical context than anything else. The most important function of a modern military base is logistics for the chain of command, overseeing the various operations and things going on, potentially on the other side of the planet. These places are hard to attack, but not because they're fortified.
@@tommyscott8511 Hell, massive zeppelin cities would be literally more feasible than building a town on the back of what is essentially a tank, if a very large one.
My curiosity was tickled, so I ended up studying the lore from the novels. Essentially, you can very easily live in a single area on Earth, it's just that a huge event called the 60 minute war made traction cities rather popular because they can be moved about for tactical advantage, think aircraft carriers. The history is extensive and kind of interesting, breaking down stages in the development of 'Municipal Darwinism' wherein the battleship cities engage in constant mobile war. They even address fuel, and in the books the lower tiers of the city are much larger do balance out inertia. It's just stylization.
@@cherrydragon3120 Well of course, but keeping in mind that this is a fantasy work. Internal consistency matters more than real life applicability. So in universe they explained how and why the Track Cities were developed, so it sates my immersion needs.
@@cherrydragon3120 That is very much a plot point. These cities are inefficient and really really stupid. They did it to escape the apocalypse and now that the apocalypse is over nobody wants to be the first person to sit back down off their wheels again and it was all a bit stupid. Clinging to a forgotten, and imagined, past is a theme throughout the books and films from the get go with London's attachment to st pauls, the beefeaters, the lions, and the gigantic union jack on the front of the city. Hell even the Anti-traction league still pine for the forgotten past with their pseudo great wall and stylised palaces.
Moving cities actually didn't arise directly after the 60 minute war. It was actually thousands of years later after a new more primitive civilisation arose. You're right that Traction cities aren't necessary and are even counterproductive in universe. It was a sort of tragedy of the commons situation in which once there was one massive roving tank eating every other terrestrial city state it forced others to move around also to ensure their safety. This system is avoided in the parts of Eurasia beyond the Himalayas as well as Africa as the terrain is untraversable to cities. The first book is actually about London trying to use a salvaged superweapon from the 60 minute war to break through one of the passes in the Himalayas to destroy and consume the ground settlements beyond. The conflict between the anti-tractionists and tractionists has a sort of cold-war esque ideological bent. It's honestly all very cool.
Interesting that you'd bring up an "endless sky" world, as one of my favorite anime, Last Exile, actually does something to address this. The anime is a steampunk anime featuring airships, and the way they set up the world was quite unique. The world itself is an artificial planet created using an hourglass design, thus making it such that the planet exerts gravitational force from the center towards the ends. As such, the "middle" of the planet is almost entirely open sky. This unique planet design leads to a variety of implications in the show, but it also is an interesting way of establishing why airships are so important to the civilizations on the planet.
Things too stupid to explain? The answer is the Almighty McGuffin! Need structural integrity? Build it from McGuffnium! Need power/fuel source? Find a McGuffin or use McGuffnium as your fuel source (it's a very versatile mineral)! Praise the McGuffin! The Lazy Fantasy Writer's best friend!
Isn't it sometimes better to introduce special material with required properties than giving complicated explanation why the existing material endures something that it shouldn't endure? I understand that this is "lazy" way, but isn't it, at least sometimes, better ho offer simple explanation offering McGuffnium instead of complicated explanation using real-life materials?
@@TheOneTrueMar The problem is not that some materials are not real, but that they are (using gamer- jargon) "overpowered". McGuffnium is not non- real materials in general, but non- real materials that don't fit into the world/ break the world's rules. An energy source or a certain technology, for example, can't be highly efficient and easily obtained for everyone at the same time, since it would almost instantly loose it's property as "highly" efficient, now that everyone uses it and new, "better" things require even *better* tech/ energy sources. (Kinda like oars got outmatched by sails and then sails got outmatched by steam engines which then got outmachted by...).
You mentioned the structure destabilizing while moving...but then also...think of the people. lmaoo everyone in the movie were all still like they were standing on unmoving ground but like...the rumbling of the terrain, the speed, and turning would have these people flying off in all directions. Imagine the city going over just ONE boulder. Even that would be a speed bump big enough to keep anyone from sleeping.
One of the worst things about these huge moving cities is not so much the idea itself, it is WHERE they move. Oh hey, there's a hill, guess I will need to go around it...several miles. Even small gradients would be HELL for huge vehicles like this. Also as you and Kyle said, the wheels would literally sink in to the ground. It's already bad enough when the ground is wet and your puny little car sinks in to the dirt! A thing this size? oh dear god the sinkage! The ground isn't too compressible, but when you add immense weights and liquid in to the equation, it becomes slime, essentially. It just buckles under the weight. As that weight increases, energy will end up being pushed in to heat due to the sheer friction caused when compressing. At certain weights, you would literally melt the ground as you moved across it! Those weights wouldn't be seen in these films though, surprisingly, that weight is still well beyond this films scope. We're talking maneuverable mountains. Give me $15 trillion and I'll get it done for you. Also, the idea of "cataclysmic scenario leads to driving cities" just sounds absurd to the power of absurd. Limited resources would be the opposite scenario to allow for this! This kinda stuff would be post-scarcity worlds where people go to take part in crazy blood-sports / future VR game.
Well actually if the meet a hill, they just eat it, then when they meet a steep dip of boggy land the just vomited the ground earth and rock into the pit, so large amounts of Europe is actually flattened
Even if you could somehow resolve all these issues and engineer a rolling city their is one more problems. Plate tectonics! Such a huge rolling mountain would cause compressions in the earth’s crust generating earthquakes and volcanoes everywhere this thing moved!
@Tabletop Terrainer Eh, I guess they could eat hills. But that just brings up the other problem, the sheer volume and weight due to that. While we are on the very edge of being able to construct monstrously huge things like Kyle showed in his video in Because Science, they can't move all too quickly. The fuel needs for stuff like this go against the reasons for the cities needing to be portable. There is no natural surface fuel sources that could power these cities for any length of time at those speeds. We're speaking full-on fusion reactors to power these things. Doable... maybe, but not just now. As for the structure, we could get there using some of the current 2D substrates and other esoteric materials like carbon nanotubes, but nobody can scale them up reliably at decent cost yet. The day someone does, oh MAN they are going to be rich! (same goes for the next generation of batteries to fuel ever-smaller devices!) As it is if we take your idea, these cities would be tip-toeing around watching out for small hills and wet land. Doesn't even need to be a full bog, just needs to be wet from the rain. At these weights, wet land may as well be steam. If such a weight comes in at this at an angle, so not all the cities weight is on the wet land, it could well even topple the city if it was tall enough. If there was a hill at the other side, which is usually the case with water-drenched lands, that land would be impassable until they manage the devour the hill. However, what you bring up does create an interesting idea. If you could hold on to reasonable amounts of excess earth for transport, you could build artificial hills all around the place to make it harder for your enemies to traverse. (think hill maze) If you made it small enough so only your own city could travel around, larger ones are screwed. Smaller ones would be easier to pick off, especially if you laid the walls tall enough so they can't see the full maze structure. Place traps at any invalid routes. (really boggy sandy loams and such, or just explosives) But in saying that, these cities don't really "sleep" in a specific area. Well they could, I haven't read the story myself. I might read it though since hearing of it because it sounds hilariously bizarre and I love completely out-there bonkers stuff like this. Stretching the limits of our current materials science and all that fun stuff. (which is also why I am a fan of the SFIA channel with Isaac, discussing future possibilities of human expansion through the universe )
@@angloempire6935 That's irrelevant. Regardless of what shape the Earth itself is (which isn't the point of this discussion anyway), its surface is far from smooth. Even if you live in Nebraska or the Siberian tundra, you're still going to encounter differences in elevation.
Don't know about Mortal Engines, but in the White Knight Chronicles game there is a moving city. They are miners and live in a REALLY HUGE crater so they built their city on top of a monster roaming the crater and it gets them to the crater's walls where they mine while the monster hibernates. It's unbelievable maybe, but there is at least an explanation
Roman Bostel The Stormlight Archive has something like this as well. The Reshi culture lives on top of the forested shells of massive marine crustaceans. Sometimes these living islands have territory disputes, and the islanders living on top of them go to war with one another as well, and continue fighting until one of the islands gets tired, and makes way for the victor.
Disc world has what amounts to a full planetary biosphere on the back some elephants riding a giant sea turtle with its own orbiting sun through deep space.
@Max Pain If you only fall for one day from the middle of the universe to the bottom, then according to my calculations, there would about 12 times as much air pressure on the world's surface than there is on our own. Seeing as we barely notice the air pressure ourselves, I'm sure it could be explained away with the people in Everfall evolving to have a slightly hardier physique. Fish can deal with the weight of an ocean's water on their backs, so I'm sure that humans in a fantasy world would be fine with a little extra air pressure.
@@TheBriguy1998 As long as the (air) pressure is equal on all sides, it shouldn't be to much of a problem. That's why we can go underwater without dying. EDIT: just realised that that would only work if we could breath water. ;) (the pressure has to be equal on the inside too)
@Max Pain Aaaam, no. Air pressure is more linked to planetary gravitation than sheer quantity. If the universe isn't small enough to condense the air, then it will have the same or less pressure than our planet's.
@@kovi567 You're discounting the weight of the atmosphere itself, which makes a hell of a difference when it comes to atmospheric pressure. I mean you can look at Venus as a prime example. 200 times the air pressure on earth and yet it's LESS massive than earth, because the atmosphere is just much heavier than Earth's.
Fantasy can never get too unrealistic because thats pretty much the point. The only thing it needs to do is follow its own rules. If the rules are that these cities have been traveling around for ages then destroying one has to be difficult. If someone manages to do it easily then it becomes unrealistic and ruins the enjoyment of the work. Competent writing can make unrealistic ideas possible for the purpose of a story.
Actually, that's one of the main conflicts in the entire setting. Basically, due to centuries of cities slowly eating each other, there are less and less of them around and since the larger cities can't support themselves without eating smaller mining towns they are getting more and more desperate. There is also another faction of people called the Anti-Traction-League who think that moving cities are an antiquated concept and everyone should just settle down again and in the later books both philosophies escalate into a full-blown war.
Twilights problematic issues are more within the area of inconsistent and unrealistic behavior of characters than in the world building, which IMHO isn't better or worse than most of the urban fantasy genre. If we attack the worldbuilding, it is more of the opposite issue than what Shad pointed out. If you have a cool concept, you can somehow make it work out in fantasy even if it's dumb. Twilights original worldbuilding concepts aren't particularly dumb, they are just not cool. Traditional vampire fans just don't like the idea of vampires sparkling in sunlight instead of being hurt by it. The in-world lore that it is a mythical curse to make them stick out as inhuman if they walk in broad daylight, like a Cain's mark, makes perfect sense for fantasy standards. The most glaring issue about it is that Meyer didn't bother to think about how vampires being real would affect human society, which is just like the real world and even the myths aren't changed to adapt to her in-world changes, which doesn't make much sense (Sure myths can get it wrong and exaggerate, but if vampires really just sparkle in sunlight instead of taking harm, there should be at least SOME versions of the myths that mention sparkling vampires). Furthermore, even if vampire government works very hard to keep vampires secret, there are bound to be more humans than in our real modern world who are ready to believe in them, especially since it isn't terribly rare that some rogue vampire causes a blood bath and draws plenty of attention until the Voituri squad arrives and manages to put him down. But the "How the fuck is the secret magical world still almost universally secret?"- issue is a logic issue that most urban fantasy settings have.
Wow Shad, you made yet another fantasy re-armed video, without addressing the best medieval weapons for creatures with 4 arms? It's treason then... Just kidding man, I love that your background on architecture allows you to talk about this setting of moving cities in a realistic way :)
I think 40k is a little bit more self aware though. Like, the practices of the Imperium are an unsustainable logistical nightmare, but that's kind of the point. Most of what they do is completely unreasonable and illogical, but they don't have reasonable motivations. Everything is either based in stubborn adherence to pointless tradition, or just desperate, hateful, paranoia. Plus they have magic and plot-tonium to explain things like the square-cube law.
@@nicapp984 A lot of the lore is that many things in WH40k work literally because they are believed to work, due to the warp. ie; red cars do in fact go faster, because the orks literally believe beyond doubt that a red paintjob will increase the speed of their vehicles - the cavat is that it requires absolute belief on a massive scale, and thus the ecclesiarchy can literally summon "saints", as by this time they have fermented their religious dogma in a 100 trillion people over 10s of thousands of planets. Literally anything and everything in WH40k follows the rules of that universe, except the warp, which also follows the rules of that universe because the warp itself allows for all of the insanity of that universe.
Except the "stubborn adherence" to "pointless tradition" is often actually perfectly reasonable in 40K. This is the universe where not following AdMech procedures result in demons corrupting your technology. The same universe where a single genestraler or heretic can corrupt an entire planet. Also the same universe where nigh all aliens are either extremely openly hostile, will feign goodness to backstab you, or were genuinely good but were wiped out by more ruthless aliens. The 40K galaxy just isn't stable enough to sustain galaxy spanning civilizations without employing an inordinate amount of totalitarianism and bloodshed.
Thing is, if that were the case, it shouldn't sustain galaxy spanning civilizations *with* an inordinate amount of totalitarianism and bloodshed. The Imperium is so utterly self-destructive it should collapse in a week. It really doesn't make any sense without A: making the setting much, much saner than it canonically is, or B: leaning heavily on 'it works because grimdark.' C: Being a fascist, and thus not understanding the concept of 'sense' to begin with. "This is the universe where not following AdMech procedures result in demons corrupting your technology." No, it doesn't. Chaos can corrupt technology, just like it can corrupt everything - but lack of AdMech procedures doesn't really make things worse, and using them doesn't really help - there are plenty of examples of 'sanctified' tech that got corrupted anyways - because it was in the middle of a chaos infestation. At best, the AdMech restrictions avoid the use of certain dangerous technology - but also, like, everything else, and sometimes it doesn't work. "The same universe where a single genestraler or heretic can corrupt an entire planet." If literally everyone is asleep at the wheel, perhaps. Now, the Imperium *is* astonishingly incompetent at finding cultists, but that's not... not actually justification for why they should be incompetent. Also the same universe where nigh all aliens are either extremely openly hostile, This applies to... Orks and Tyranids? The latter more than the former, since Orks will happily fight each other, and honestly don't *care* about anything that, ironically, isn't powerful enough to fight them. "will feign goodness to backstab you" Dark Eldar, maybe? Otherwise this might apply to Chaos, but they mostly aren't aliens. "or were genuinely good but were wiped out by more ruthless aliens." Yes, except for 'more ruthless aliens' read 'The Imperium of Man'. Like, of the few dozen alien species we know of... most of them aren't/weren't all that hostile. Some are certainly pretty nasty, but the majority aren't. *Humanity* is the second most vicious and aggressive species in 40k, matched only by the Tyranids - and at least the Tyranids can get along with each other.
In the books London is actually mentioned to have collapsed once. I think they called it the great tilt, and part of the lower layers gave way and collapsed, crushing loads of people including Tom’s parents
On a serious note, you know what would be cool? A WHEELED CASTLE! It has all the benefits of a castle plus the offensive capabilities. And you cannot siege something that moves around.
If there was air in space it would coalesce into a super massive black hole (assuming all the emptiness in space was suddenly and instantly replaced with air everywhere). Also air would carry the force of the fusion processes occurring within the sun so the atmospheres of the planets would be blown off.
VVayVVard, not necessarily. If there was a uniform pressure of air throughout the entire universe, it wouldn't all get pulled to the sun. In fact there is *technically* air in space, the density is just really low, around 1-10 particles per cubic cm. In the early universe, there was a point where space had a density at or above that of Earth's atmosphere, though it was brief. (Same amount of matter, smaller universe.) If a universe did not expand, then it would be possible for it to have uniform air throughout it for longer. The only difference would be an increased chance of stars forming; however, it wouldn't be that much higher chance than in our universe. Their is one atmosphere of density difference between a vacuum and Earth's atmosphere, and about 100 billion atmospheres difference between Earth's atmosphere and the center of the sun. It wouldn't collapse into a black hole because it's uniform, and the differential is great enough that it wouldn't have that much higher a chance of collapsing either. That is, on these scales, one atmosphere of pressure is so close to a vacuum that it's negligible. Also, GeorgeMonet, fusion reactions don't carry throughout Earth's atmosphere, why would it carry throughout a universe filled with air? At least I think so...
Honestly, Mortal Engines stands among my favorite fantasy settings and was probably my favorite series growing up. The concept of some GARGANTUAN mass of steel and smoke blotting out the Sun as its abominable maw of machinery prepares to swallow your "homeland" and "people" is downright epic. The populace of this smaller settlement watching in guttural horror as they're engulfed in darkness and overwhelmed by deafening mechanisms, confiscating people you've grown up alongside like they're property. Homes, buildings, and all of the above thoroughly dismantled for resources as these people are integrated into the city itself. This cycle possibly repeating multiple times (should they survive that long) for people who feed into an actual food chain of predatory cities. And it's not all about who's the biggest, lots of cities succeed due to specializing or innovating. Some choose to stay small and outspeed giant predators, while others cripple opposition via propaganda campaigns, internal manipulation, or systematic raids. There are even cases of decoys and sacrificial settlements rigged to blow as you mentioned. Sometimes rediscovered technology allows an edge against greater competition (still makes me tense to think about a massive city rendered defenseless as they're beset by countless scavenger cities like a flock of vultures [What will be your place in this city's societal structure? Are they communist or capitalist? Policy on slaves? Will you be separated from family? Do they actually allow visitors or for people to leave?]), being out of reach of these mechanical abominations (possibly airborne or purely impenetrable) can act as freeports or safehavens, there are even seafaring cities that take pirating to a whole new level of madness. Philip Reeve's world is absurd, but the glorious kind of absurd. It's a setting where places and populaces who wouldn't adapt to this rise of monstrous mechanical metropolises were assimilated one by one, and has finally reached a point where the only way of life they know is becoming unsustainable. A truly grim setting with plenty of intrigue and appeal to it. I'm even fond of the prequel series, which predates and sets much of the foundation for this era of predatory cities. Juicy stuff. A part of me dearly hopes that this upcoming movie is able to mirror the dark tone of the books and really sell the stress of resources, but... I'm not holding high expectations.
Precisely my thoughts, the physics isn't important in this story. Look at star wars. It's a sci-fi world beloved by many, and star wars doesn't rely on physics to make the story. It's exactly the same as with the mortal engines novels, all that's left to see is how Peter Jackson handles it
Because Science with Kyle Hill actually did a video about this, and the cities are actually just at the upper limits of present day materials science, and since the setting itself is set nearly a millenia ahead of where we are presently.
My first impressions coming from an outside point of view who hasn't read the books yet is just that the idea of moving cities is simply just waaaaaay too unbelievable. I'm in here thinking moving an entire city is simply not feasible for the supposed benefits it provides. Why don't they just have moving castles/fortresses instead? Those seem like a way cheaper alternative to raiding/piracy. I dunno... i'm here thinking of the logistics, economics and simply just how expensive trying to move an entire city would be.
@@xaero07vsxaero69 the logistics isn't really the point though, it's more of this mechanical horror, along with being a dark metaphor for society, nature and natural selection. While world building is important, it's not the most important thing when telling a story, other wise every book, movie, video game etc. would merely be people pretty much reading out lore in a dry monotone voice like a shitty youtuber. While thinking this way is important, especially when something is trying to present itself as realistic or grounded, sometimes you gotta let yourself get drawn into the experience of the film, and also look at what meaning is behind the surface, other wise your missing the point of film and story entirely pretty much stifling creativity.
@@dag_larsson Star Wars is actually a good example; look how much people complained when they introduced politics in Ep. I! They hated it! I thought it was fine, personally, but the point still stands. No one cares about all those lists of factual details, lol.
Awesome is an acceptable substitute for practicality. The problem I have with the Mortal Engines trailers I've seen isn't that city-tanks are impractical, it's that if you're going to make a movie about city-tanks, I want it to be about the city-tanks and not some YA novel protagonist. Now, give me a Bolo movie, and I'll see it opening night.
You should look into the early high-rises made from brick. There was a maximum height possible before the walls at street level would fill the entire footprint of the building.
I feel like this is the wrong question. For all that I'm accused of being unable to suspend my disbelief, I'm perfectly willing to accept _any_ unrealistic premise if enough is done with it. From what little I understand of the Mortal Engines novels, the way cities attack and devour each other (wasting almost as many resources as they gain in the process) is a criticism of the less-overtly-symbolic ways that real nations and communities destroy themselves by trying to subjugate each other and claw their way to the top. Is the core concept of Mortal Engines unrealistic? Yes. But is it _dumb?_ I don't think so. It would be dumb in real life, but it serves as an excellent metaphor for what the author wants to discuss. And yeah, it could lead to some spectacular fight scenes, but that's hardly the only important part of a movie.
+ Timothy McLean "...is a criticism of the less-overtly-symbolic ways that real nations and communities destroy themselves by trying to subjugate each other and claw their way to the top." And that is hardly saying anything good about the novels. Such ideas of social critique are honestly overused, boring and unneeded. How many times are we going to hear the same kind of condescending garbage being told to us by someone, who thinks him/her self smart, but is actually just a completely clueless little "philosopher", who's entire "deep" thought is nothing but a childish whine, that presents no real solutions. What is the point of this "criticism"?
It's surprising just how many people nowadays fail to understand how allegorys work. They see things only as at face value too often, so fail to see the message in the story due to... Well exactly this video.
The premise of Mortal Engines is that in the post apocalyptic future people want to go see the grand canyon, but there are no hotels nearby so they all work together to build an RV.
The square-cube-law has been ignored in basically every sci-fi and fantasy story ever at one point or another. Same goes for g-forces in basically any action movie ever. I honestly can't see why either of these things would suddenly threaten one's suspension of disbelief.
Wait, you mean, we can't launch a normal human being like Batman at 600mph into a wall and have him still be alive? But seriously, it always bugs me when they do that.
Actually, tom cruise does his own stunts and has them yank him into things with explosions. I'm not sure I have ever seen impossible to survive g-forces outside of comic book films etc. Also, square cube "law" isn't even deserving of the title, it does not even slightly affect the construction of megastructures and so on. What sci fi and fantasy "ignore" it exactly?
@@carbon1255 _"it does not even slightly affect the construction of megastructures and so on."_ Uh, yeah it does. Anything near a gravity well is affected by square-cube law. The bigger a building, the more tensile strength is required to keep it from collapsing on itself. (See World Trade Center for details.) In space, it's different. There'd still be a exponential curve for how big something can be, before it tears itself apart, but it'd be far different than it is at 1 Earth G.
@@manictiger no, actually, it doesn't. the square cube law is about the structural integrity of materials as they get larger, not about the strength of a structure as it gets larger. for example, a human cannot be 15 feet tall, because our bones become too heavy to support their own weight. but a lego tower can be 15 feet tall if it's built right, because all you need to do is keep adding bricks of the same size until you reach 15 feet. the bricks can all support their own weight, so as long as the weight is distributed properly, you can make the structure as large as you want. the problem with megastructures, like the burj khalifa in dubai, is that as they get larger, environmental effects start to be magnified. a minor tremor in the earth doesn't make a small bungalow move much, but it would make the burj khalifa twist and warp due to its length. if we make buildings much taller, then a strong wind will be able to snap them in half due to resonance. the square cube law is a law of biology, not engineering.
Larry Niven's book "The Integral Trees" is set in something similar to the idea of "infinite sky" - certainly not infinite, but far larger than any habitable planet could be, it's a torus of gas that has been ripped from a destabilized gas giant and is now orbiting the star. Niven points out that this structure isn't stable on a galactic timeframe, but it could easily last hundreds of millions of years. He comes up with some interesting lifeforms that could evolve in such an environment, too.
Mortal Engines is a fun series to read. Advise to read the series before speculating too much. It's only 4 books so based on your bookself would be a quick read.
12:00 The first problem that I found when you talked about the "endless sky" is not the windspeed. But the stars' energy output. If there was air to trasmit the sound, the Sun would be as loud as 10.000 trucks horning constantly [Number aproximate] And the heat would rise well over ignition becouse radiation is the least eficient form of heat trasmition. I don't think that even Pluto would be safe.
Plus the light of the sun probably wouldn't even reach earth. You can already see it being less blue and weaker when it enters the atmosphere through a lower angle.
When you look at the distant mountains or the moon you see them in a tint of blue. (And the moon isn't even in our atmosphere) if the atmosphere reached to the sun, would the sun look blue to us? Would we even see the stars?
Art C. to be technical, the distance to the moon over 2 is where Earth's atmosphere ends, due to the atmosphere being where particles are bound by Earths gravity. After that they are bound to the moon.
@@archibaldc.1833 Actually the reason the sky is blue is because blue light from the sun spreads out in our atmosphere, while the yellow/red light keeps it straighter beams (there is a better, more scientific way to say this, but that is the gist). This means that the sun isn't actually yellow/orange as we see it as, it just looks like it because the blue parts of the sunlight has spread it self through the atmosphere. If you look at the sun from space however it is white, because it has a whole lot of light from all around the visible spectrum. As such, if anything, the sky wouldn't be blue at all. The more atmosphere the light has to get through, the more light gets scattered and spread through the atmosphere. This is why purple, yellow and orange/red colours paint the sky when the sun is in a low position; there's more atmosphere for it to get through. You can see that it looks very red then, as even yellow and orange light will have spread out if it is low enough. The moon can also be in whole different amount of colour from my personal experience, so I don't totally agree with your opinion of it having a blue tint. Sometimes it is a bit blue, but other times it is a bit yellow. Most of the time it is just really white. And yeah, if the atmosphere would go all the way to the sun then night wouldn't really exist like we know it. We wouldn't ever see the stars because the atmosphere would have light spread out and scattered so completely through it that it wouldn't matter if the sun was viable in the sky or not, it's light would still reach us. It would be to bright to every see other stars, at most we could maybe only see other planets, but that would be doubtful as with them also being in the atmosphere their reflected light would also be too scattered. Think twilight/dusk, but much MUCH stronger and constant throughout the whole night.
I've always appreciated the careful balance between ridiculousness and realism in Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Like, the world consists of a flat disc balanced on the backs of 4 giant elephants standing on a space turtle, but then he goes into a lecture on how many bushels of wheat would be needed to feed a medieval city and the vampires have got themselves an equal representation union.
Another way to approach fantasy is just to sat... just 'cause. Why can Alice walk through the looking glass? 'Cause she can. How do the rings of power emanate corruption that turns the minds of men? Because they're evil. Why can wildlings warg into the bodies of animals? Old magic, that's why. Why can only Thor lift Mjolnir? Just 'cause he's worthy. Why does the gaze of Balor of the Baleful Eye kill men by the score? 'Cause it's a real bad eye. What universal power did Zeus use to turn those lovers into trees? God power, that's what. Fantasy and mythology can go a long way by just leaving no explanation. The supernatural is definitely a big part of the culture of fantasy we have now, and just because something doesn't work in a rational universe doesn't mean it can't be in a fantasy. You just have to first establish that it isn't a rational or understood universe. And that seems to me to be what Mortal Engines needs to do. If they just went, "There's like magic and stuff all over, so big moving cities I guess..." I'd be like, "ummm... okay."
Yeah. Writers should strive to be intelligent, realistic, logical, consistent and 100% scientific... but if they know they want to bend the rules of the Universe, there's nothing wrong with pulling the magic card.
Kyle's stats that almost might work... were based on values he looked up. Apparently he got the size of the city wrong, using the area of _City_ _of_ _London_ , rather than the city of _London_ . So, yeah.
The "endless sky" idea comes close to Larry Niven's "Integral Trees". There's also a fantasy trope of "sky islands", exemplified by the semi obscure story "The Piebald Hippogriff".
Totally liking for the book sneak preview. Fantasy is alright, but without something to make it more "intellectual" or something to make it feel somewhat believable it just gets boring. So there's dragon's that breath fire, big whoop. Give me a dragon that keeps a Volcano lit in order to keep the island warm, now there's a story.
This video actually made me focus on why I appreciate realism and explanation in fantasy overall than just pure mysticism and suspended disbelief. Actual "plausibility" makes people use MORE of there imagination rather than just trying to follow along to the beat of someone else's drum. Which is funny because originality is hard to find in anything anymore these days so I'll be looking forward to giving this movie a shot for the sake of its independence in being the first to do finally be different if not obscure.
Draco Dominus yep, not even a little bit, but the 4 dimensional nature of the shape of the universe it preserved, and tweaked, which is pretty cool, even if gravity gets a total rewrite
To your point, even though I already want to see the movie, I would be much more hyped if the city had more smaller treads. Like you said, the more realistic/believable they make the fantasy, the more engaging it is. Also, I do see any MACHICOLATIONS!
Shad... I don't no how to tell you this but if a star forms in breathable atmosphere, a flammable oxygen atmosphere, we have bigger problems than wind.
You know they have already made a star on Earth right, fusion reactors aren't exactly that dangerous. Our atmosphere is not flammable, it has too much nitrogen and not enough oxygen, and not enough fuel. lighting a match would kill everyone if it was flammable.
@@carbon1255 True, we have created fusion in our atmosphere. But on a universal scale there is bound to be the right conditions either caused by an oxygen based nebula or an oxygen gas giant that would allow for it to ignite in once that happens, then his lightspeed winds become a massive problem. A star several light years away goes nova and suddenly fire akin to a solar flair is hitting earth having cooled significantly faster than in a vacuum granted since it has a medium to expend it's heat energy but I imagine the heat it builds up through friction anf the radiation will still kill us all before lunch time.
Full Metal Panic had something similar. A behemoth model robot. It is huge. It has advanced technology that gave it extra structural integrity, and reduced weight. Total bs tech, more like magic, but still the explanation was there. Nice thing was if the magic engine got broken, the whole thing would collapse on itself.
There's a limit to how much 'advanced technology' can do. You need to use different materials, or a different processing, to change something's structural integrity.
@@waves_under_stars I totally agree, that is why it was a magic engine more then advanced tech. To me that is what most fantasy scifi is. Magic that they give techno babel names to, to make people think it could really happen in the future. Transporters, FTL, Hyper Space, Gravtonics, stuff like that. The solar drives from one of the Gundam series takes the cake.
The entire mecha subset of anime suffers from that problem. Sure, giant robots look cool, but as fighting machines realistically they're a bust without unobtainium-level technobabble. :)
So in the world of EverFall... if you jump off a continent, you fall continuously. If that is a fact, then does that mean that the continents are always falling? Do they have their own gravity? Or if you dug to the bottom of the continent, would you fall out and then splat on the top side? could you build an elevator Tower of Babel like from the Top layer to the Bottom layer? Fly in an Aircraft like a zeppelin, airplane, pegasus, griffin, or dragon be needed? If you can indeed fall off the continent then something must be holding up the continents between the 2 barriers, some sort of magic? If you tried to incorporate some laws of physics and thermodynamics, then the air near the upper barrier must be less dense than the air at the lower barrier. Now we've got some logic moving, I can get behind it.
How about a perpetual motion machine powered by water falling at terminal velocity into something like an archimedes screw (so the water falls out at the same point as it falls in). Well, so much for thermodynamics...
To be fair, from what I recall of the books the Traction Cities have been around for centuries or millennium by this point, the reason for their creation needn't still exist nor the exact understanding of how they were made. In point of fact in book 2, the city of Anchorage is seeking a quiet spot where they can transition to being Static in safety, and there are other static settlements which are generally very heavily armed to protect against being uprooted by the Traction cities.
To put it simply, the books explain it a lot better and it's prequel series. It makes it a tad more believable especially when they give you more information on them and its a book so you can just imagine its looks.
@@anblueboot5364 well I'm not sure about it even staying loyal to done of the basic parts of the book, as in them the technology is very primitive with it mostly being in the Victorian era, with heavier than air flight being a stunning new invention in the third book. With the movies having very advanced tech considering the set up is there has been a nuclear war that had left most of the world a bit barren apart from Asia and America being a toxic hellscape.
@@theyorkshireshadow7081 well until this comment section I wasn't aware that there was more than just one book ^^" so I've only read that one book where london was getting back nukes and wanted to break China, which if I remeber right was like the major non moving city which protected the lands behind it, so for me it looked kinda faifthfull to the book and the cover of the version I own shows London just beeing as big as in the trailer.
@@anblueboot5364 true but that's the basic plot and I'm not sure if they would get away with how to Train your dragon ing it up. But you can tell that they might go a bit off with the non core plot points. Which means that some of the bits that try to make it slightly more believable might not be in, like the fact that all the aircraft seem to be futuristic science fantasy things, rather than airships which is what you would expect to be seeing from a world recoving from a nuclear apocalypse. I'm going off on a bit of a tangent but I I'm kind of saying I'm not sure how it's going to go in terms of plot and other things. P.S the other books are quite chunky but they are worth reading to see where the characters and world goes from the first book.
@@theyorkshireshadow7081 Oh I'm very happy that there are even more books to read so it's a nice surprise I will have to look at the trailer I've only seen the teaser by now and there was just the city shown.
I actually thought of this idea of moving cities a few years ago independently, not even knowing it had already been done. My realistic explanation was that this was a parallel world of Earth and rather than developing city walls to combat looters and barbarians, moving cities were developed. The fact that a city can move provides the same function as a city wall :)
I'll be spoiling the prequels here, but if I remember correctly that is the entire reason why London is put on wheels in the first place. Nomadic tribes already existed beforehand who lived in moving fortresses, but these were much smaller and existed to escape from a chaotically changing geography and climate after the 60 minute war. The Londoners become aware of a huge invading force of these Nomads converging on them, so to avoid being captured and enslaved they decided to put the city on wheels following the discovery of old world technology that made it possible. The city leaves, barely finished, abandoning the majority of its own citizens to escape from the horde. Now that it had become a moving city, it copied the lifestyle of the smaller Nomadic Tribes, subsisting on resources and slaves from devoured static settlements. Now, no anchored settlement was safe. This started a Traction City Arms Race that led to the concept of Municiple Darwinism. So in essence, Traction Cities were first created to defend against invaders, but with their very existence making static settlements largely impossible, they caused a paradigm shift where cities moved and preyed on one another.
This probably falls under the lazy/dumb side, but (addressing your part about endless sky) I always thought a good way to explain such things would be with alternate planes of existence that, like Heaven or Hell, are their own self-contained, unique worlds and not just mirror-versions of the 'normal world' with a color-filter on. In these alternate planes, the physics and logic are internally consistent within each one, but also sincerely tell the laws of physics as _we_ know them to cram it, and any 'outsider' characters who are used to Earth-physics are just as baffled by what they're seeing as the reader might be. Sort of like "My house, my rules" for entire planes of existence. Building on that is maybe the idea of monsters from said other planes who use 'magic,' which is actually just them applying the laws of physics from _their_ home-plane while they're standing in ours, letting them casually flip off our laws of physics in well-established, consistent ways. It could easily be a runaway train if you just invent new law-breaks on the fly, but if you have a set list and keep it internally consistent, I think it could work. Dunno if I'm right or just lying to myself though.
Well the only "Unrealistic" thing Ive seen in the trailer is how the moving City (London) has no rain clouds above it ... moving or not, they should be there!
Best comment I have seen all day! XD
I 100% agree with you as well, where is the rain?!
it truly is always raining in london
Even when London gets stolen by bats and deposited underground, they take the clouds with them. =p
I love the metal image. You see this big, fast-moving stormcloud in the distance. You turn to avoid it, but it seems to head straight for you no matter what you do. Eventually you give up, baton down the hatches, and wait for it to blow over. Then, out of the darkness, a massive outline starts to become visible through the rain. Someone screams “PREDATOR CITY!” as it’s infernal maw opens up. Someone else screams “ITS LONDON!”as lightning briefly reveals the entirety of the massive craft. You take off at full speed, trying to avoid the jaws, close enough to spit at the whirling blades.
@@Reddotzebra ... Is that a Fallen London reference?
If you read the books, it's a whole lot better. In fact the ridiculousness and unsustainability of the Traction Cities is a major plot point. The cities in the books are a lot more industrial and practical than what Peter Jackson has created too, no huge monowheels, far closer to hundreds of sets of tracks and wheels, and they're not that fast relative to their size either.
It's made clear that wherever possible weight is saved, with smaller towns using wood for the upperworks, etc.
As for why they're all moving, yes the world was uninhabitable. London was built to move first, and because it was able to consume static settlements to grow itself, everyone else started to copy it in order to survive. Any static settlement would simply become food for the Traction Cities, so everyone ends up being forced to start moving.
I've seen the film, and the emphasis on how outdated and impractical "municipal darwinism" and cities on wheels are is intact. I'm amazed how quick you are to judge, especially if you probably haven't even seen it yet. And honestly, the tech was never the point, in either the novels, or this film. The characters, and humanity's short-sightedness that led to the war and the ruined, junk-filled world, is the point. Reeve isn't exactly subtle about humanity being rather fairly unwilling to learn from its past mistakes.
As someone who has both read the book, and watched the film...the films wheren't good by any measurment. They didn't adpet the story well, they didn't tell a good own story. The one thing where they did shine where small details. I loved many of the small details, but for the rest.... Making everyone involved less competent, from Hester, over Tom(who incidentally was made more competent in the beginning) over MEDUSA and the Anti-Traction league. But the biggest problem was that it had a really bad case of, must adher to story conventions. The heroes have to be intellegent, the villains must be over the top and stupid, there must be a betrayel in the villains ranks. Valentine probably got the worst lot after Hester, so many of his human moments cut so they could have a better villain.
thanks for sharing
I can't judge the book because I didn't read it, but that explanation sound like it has been pulled right out of the Ass. It would've been much better if Author didn't try to explain why cities are moving. Only working explanation would be if people in those books had access to an unlimited source of energy. But, they actually have energy crisis. Steam engines running on coal? Come on. How one can suspend his disbelief to such and incredible degree? That's not far from believing in Elon Musk's international Rocket travel or Hyperloop.
@@KlarkBrothers Because the construction of London features in the prequel trilogy. It's not explained in the original quartet, but it's central to the plot of the prequel finale.
Everything changed when London attacked
r/agedlikewine
citations: History circa 1500-1999
There is a famous Mark Twain quote that Neil Degrasse Tyson loves to say regarding Sci-Fi:
"First get your facts straight, then distort them at your leisure"
Alas, the Inheritance series is a well known example of distorting taken a several steps too far.
@@raics101 I love that quote
@The Only True Witch-King I wasn't referring to distorting facts, just that the books got too entangled in their own ruleset at some point. Got nothing against ripoffs and mishmashes of other works as long as they're done well, but Inheritance really isn't. First two books were ok but then the cart hits the slope. Just my opinion.
@@raics101 There is a way you can pull of changing rules, and physics to suite a story. But to pull it off, you have to describe how the universe is directly different from ours. For example, here, the gravitational Constant is G=9.81m/s^2, but on the Earth that my story takes place, it's actually g = 9.84 m/s^2, because the force of gravity in of itself is stronger than it is here, because the mass and density of the earth as not changed. But it later get's revealed that there are many, many universe each with their own set of laws at work, and many can be vastly different compared to what we know.
I don’t take anything Neil degrasse says seriously.
The only realistic moving cities are those lying in the back of a giant turtle.
what about those on the back of a giant whale?
@@cgamejewels if I only get the reference... I'm sorry
Besides being a mythological creature in some ancient cultures (greek, I researched just now), the first memory of this I have is from the movie Aladdin and The Kinf of Thieves.
*EHEM* On disk which lays on top of four elephants a finally they are standing on turtle. My my , please be more precise next time , people may mistake Great Discworld for something else!
You mean Terry Pratchett or the 4 lionturtle from avatar the last air bender?
My biggest issue with the reality of this world isn't a city on wheels, one of the trailers says "...Cities were built in the air, on the water, but the deadliest of all were built on wheels." Why? A flying ship would be a lot better than a land based track treaded thing of the same size especially in the context of multiple cities fighting each other. I wouldn't say dumb, just crazy.
Flying city. Sure, but how?
1. Hot air. Too fuel-hungry. You could try using nuclear reactors to supply the neccessary heat.
2. Hydrogen? A single contact-fuzed High Explosive Incendiary shell might bring the whole city down in flames. The only advantage is that you aquire it easily through cloud condensation.
3. Helium? You can't make that from water, no, you have to go mucking about underground for that, and the infrastructure needed to make enough for a city would be on the scale of a small city all by itself.
4. Helicopter rotors? NO. There are limits to how far the laws of physics can be bent. In order for it to fly, you'd need to build it like a flying spiderweb carpet covered with rotors, and you CANNOT use combustion engines. Nuclear turbo-electric propulsion is the only way you're going to stay in the air for a meaningful period of time.
From a military standpoint, all these methods are deeply flawed; the helicopter city would need to be ludicrously light (and thus fragile) to support its own weight, and the balloon cities would all be vulnerable to time-fuzed HE shrapnel shells (WWII-era tech). Doubly so for any city with hydrogen ballons. The Helium balloon would also be fucked because of the cost of importing the stuff to fill your damaged gas bags after the fight.
In simple terms, flying cities, no matter how they are built, are too fragile to fight against each other, and a wheeled city will have every advantage in firepower, armour, ease of access to natural resources, and anything else except mobility in good weather.
What flying cities excell at is speed and fuel efficiency, and therefore trade. Fighting, and most resource-harvesting should be left to the wheeled cities, whilst the floating cities would be the true masters of combat, at the cost of being stuck on the open seas which, at the time when the story takes place, have shrunk because of reasons that I've forgot.
@@gustaveliasson5395 all good points, but I think that if you can swallow the idea of a large enough engine that something the size we've seen in trailers could be moving the speed that it's moving, you could assume some of the same reasoning and ability could be put towards a flight based structure as you're right there are limits to physics and treads that big moving that fast (for one, moving that fast) without shaking apart the thing that is mounted on them is a bit of a stretch. I was ignoring logistical problems and only questioning the idea that the deadliest are wheel based, but if you wanna look into those, then you wouldn't really need a single vehicle into a city, it would make more sense to make a bunch of smaller ones that stick together like a flotilla, and the ones that would be most well suited for that would be water or air based, though it would also work for a land based grouping. The other thing though is that an air vehicle doesn't need to be as big as the thing it's attacking, it's something that has three dimensions of movement as opposed to the two of any land or sea based vessel, that's one reason why in WW2 air craft carriers were the center of large naval engagements and not just a bunch of battleships going after each other, and typically a larger sized vehicle means a decrease in maneuverability and speed, so you give it some smaller friends that don't have those limitations to defend them.
As a side note, I have heard great things about the series and have been intending to look into them when I'm done with the Expanse. Something you said I fully agree with is that the land based stuff would be the best at quick and efficient resource gathering, however, the way you explained it sounds like there is some symbiosis between the different types, is that the case?
There is a floating trading town in the books, named Airhaven, and it is held up by hydrogen.
@@Sean-ne3gx
1. The problem with engines shaking themselves apart only exists if you're using internal combustion engines. Steam engines of the piston variety are also susceptible, but steam turbines don't have that problem at all. Since the only realistic way of moving a wheeled city is by electric power, I'm fairly confident that each wheel is electricly driven, with the power being supplied either by several smaller diesel generators on shock-absorbing mountings, or by a small number of very large generators turned by steam turbines. Because of the scarcity of resources, I'm leaning towards steam because boilers are more versatile in terms of what you can fuel them with. The most sensible source of steam for a vehicle of that size would of course be nuclear, but engines in this world might be fuel-efficient enough that eating other cities is enough to keep your own moving.
The best real-world counterpart to the moving cities today would be tanks. They've got so many wheels that driving over a large boulder won't cause any serious damage. The boulder would be pushed into the ground like a pebble. Larger cliffs would be troublesome, but using active suspension such as that on the swedish Strv 103 would allow the city to move over the obstacle at a reduced speed.
2. A wheeled city can serve as a base for smaller flying cities just like a large flying city. A wheeled city, as stated, also has easier access to resources. From the perspective of the flying cities however, it makes far more sense to be neutral and to trade with any city they meet rather than to stay with, and fight for their "mother".
3. Wheeled cities will always have an advantage in armour and firepower. Any weapon that you can put on a flying city, you can also put on a wheeled one. And the wheeled city can be much smaller because the flying city needs huge, vulnerable balloons.
4. Wheeled cities also have greater survivability because they most likely won't flip upside down if they lose a wheel. If you pop a balloon or two on a flying city however, all bets are off.
5. Carriers replaced battleships not because they were faster, but because they could attack from longer range.
6. There's no real symbiosis between cities, but there is trade. Trading is mostly done by airship because anything else is likely to get eaten. Flying cities like Airhaven work fantastic as permanent trade hubs, but wheeled cities and floating cities can also trade along the coastline because there's nothing to gain from fighting something that you can't eat.
The true strength of flying cities is their vulnerability and the fact that they stop flying when they're defeated.
If you shoot one down, the fireball will be visible for hundreds of miles and will attract predators.
If you try to board one, you risk destroying it anyway, and also your own airship/city.
7. The logic of point 5 also applies to flying cities attacking wheeled or floating ones. Even if you succeed in not getting yourself shot down and eaten, the other city will attract scavengers.
If you use numerous smaller flying cities or even airships like a carrier to attack while you stay out of range, the other city can do the exact same thing but better because it can also carry enough weapons to defend itself.
@@bilbobaggins5938
Yup, and that's why flying cities don't ever fight.
I believe that fantasy can make up whatever crazy rules they want. The important thing is that they then stick to those rules.
That s it. Hey should a different universe follow the same laws of Physic? It s called FANTASY and is often times MEANT to be unrealistic. "Realistic Fantasy " could be seen as a sub genre in my personal opinion. Of course you don t have to agree with me.
darkblood626
Not really. First of all the rules have to be internally consistent. Second of all if your fantasy setting is derived from our real world (like say harry potter) then the audience sort of expects most of the regular rules to still apply. As for the ones that don’t it’s probably a good idea to explain why they’re different, either something happened that changed them or they’ve always been different and the magic people have been keeping is muggles in the dark, etc.
Narratives do have a lot of creative freedom but for it to be interesting, there are certain guidelines that help with that.
I remember "I Robot" as setting rules and then making stories about breaking them. So not sticking to the rules is also ok.
@@2adamast That's not the same thing.
Pretty much. Unless your fantasy story is meant to be the Present day, Present time fantasy then I think any and all things are possible depending on what narrative the writer is going for. That's why half the epic heroes of myth was running around with swords heavier then most people or stringing bows alone that not even six strong men could.
The key is you need to create a narrative that makes people feel something while using the stories strangeness as a way of adding things which changes the context of what is going on. As long as the story is well crafted it can still be pretty good as I've learned from writers such as Philip K Dick or Roger Zelazny.
I think it doesn't have to be realistic per say, it just has to function for the universe created. Also mortal engines is a pretty fun book, so I have no problem with it, and the idea is cool, kinda like flying islands, you either like it or hate it.
For example the in games like sunless sea/skyes bat's literally took London underground and the sun is like a guy. Still a cool concept even tho trains can't spacetravel
The idea is not new, The Inverted World had them in 1974, although they used rails
I love how Sunless Sea doesn't even attempt to make sense.
"Three decades ago, in the reign of Victoria, London was stolen by bats. Now it lies a mile below the surface. It was dreadfully inconvenient for everyone."
That's just so ridiculous, you don't really want a better explanation.
@Backstage Bum agreed however overexppaining stuff might be to a detriment. For example midichlorians in star wars kinda killed a mojo a little.
@@RokuroCarisu yeah and it's kinda magic of it I never know if the stuff said is a metaphor or a literal thing.
I think in novels it's easier to get away with than in movies and video games because you have to do the majority of the visualizing.
Novels have the option of being surreal andentertaining. whenever a movie tries to be surreal it doesnt always translate well and it gets mixed views.
My favorite "turn brain off and enjoy" movie has to be Pacific Rim.
Eh, the action felt silly too. The fact that they used the sword until the end of the movie after people had died was just stupid to me.
Totally agree.
@@Khe11endross I mean the giant monsters in pacific rim have acidic blood so not really a good idea to cut them
Pacific Rim is far more believable than Mortal Engines, and yet it's completely, stupidly unbelievable. I just couldn't shut down my brain enough to enjoy it, not without entering a coma at least.
Yeh, thats a game that did manage to sell a really stupid idea. Its actually a well made movie tho, which doesnt seem to be the case for Mortal Engines.
Space full of oxygen....treasure planet? I love that movie....no matter how wonky the physics are....
Well, the idea was to create an aether, not space, where the physics was different from our own.
skies of arcadia (game) or last exile (anime) comes to mind.
Often 2 problems come: How is stuff floting and where is all the energie come from?
Both are explained by steampunk and suspendium.
So shads idea isnt unique but sill cool.
Isn't Skies of Arcadia an actual planet with just a ludicrously thick atmosphere and floating islands? I seem to recall they go to the surface and also space, at one point.
Which, of course is one way to get an 'everything is sky' sort of thing. Set it in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant or hothouse. Making things actually float is another trick, but... yeah.
Larry Niven figured out a physically plausible, if somewhat improbable, way to create and sustain a huge gas torus with a breathable atmosphere and other conditions amenable to life. He did this via the use of a binary system with a main sequence star and a neutron star with a captured rogue planet orbiting the neutron star. This "three body problem" is what allowed the torus, or "Smoke Cloud", to form and stabilize around the neutron star. Too bad the stories he wrote really didn't live up to the fantastically weird, yet still somewhat scientifically possible setting... www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2015/03/02/integral-trees-by-larry-niven/
I read the books years ago, and have a *slightly* fonder memory of the two books than the linked reviewer. Though admittedly it was all fairly "meh", especially the bits about century old AI on the ship that brought the ancestors of the (more or less) humans populating various bits of the Smoke Cloud.
@@Areanyusernamesleft isnt niven the ringworld guy?
The Mortal Engines books are *bloody* amazing. You really should read them, Shad. From what I remember from the books, the cities are far more spread out, and also slower (also the fuel problem is a fairly big plot point in the books). The films, despite just being trailers, look to not be nearly as good. The cities do look more impossible than I imagined them in the books, and there are quite a few other things they appear to have changed (like half of Hester's face not basically being one huge scar). As far as it just goes for the moving cities, it's still impossible with what the books have, but not so impossible as to damage suspension of disbelief. The films don't look to have carried that over from the books, but hopefully they'll give us a nice surprise.
Not a suprise after what they do to hobbit.
Kiling original plot for more cinematic action.
@@xzardas541 trailers can't tell you a ton about movies, idk if its gonna be good or not but i am gonna try and stay optimistic
@@spartankittygames I was hyped on hobbit.
Never more.
Nice to know, sounds interesting
I read them many years ago when I was a kid too! They were great :D I actually couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the trailer for the film at the cinema. I bet barely anyone who sees it will realise it was based on a series of books.
No. If executed properly, most people can suspend disbelief for any concept. Execution is the key though.
Agreed. Everything about the physics and universe of Star Wars is downright stupid if you try hard enough to deconstruct it - huge, incredibly furry creatures on a desert planet? Which, by the way, somehow orbits a binary star system? Not to mention, sound in space, lasers with an arbitrary endpoint (lightsabers) that are hot enough to cut through anything but somehow do not fry the humans holding them to a crisp? A host of hundreds of alien species which all conveniently communicate through some form of vocalization and most have humanoid hands, arms, legs, and heads? Let's not forget about entire planets described by a single biome, like Hoth, all of which is an ice desert, Tatooine, which is exclusively desert, and Endor which is exclusively forest? Not to mention either the physics problems building a massive spherical space station that fires a planet-destroying laser without blowing itself up at the same time.
But - it's the presentation that saves it. The worldbuilding is only the setting for the story, not the story itself. Not everything has to be explained by consistent rules.
@@dudepersonvids "Not everything has to be explained by consistent rules" cough lots cough.
@dudepersonvids
What does it being a binary star system have to do with anything? There's way, WAY more binary and trinary systems than systems with just one star... and they would still support life just the same.
@@dudepersonvids Not all of that is impossible. Some single-biome planets are almost certainly real (the ice and desert worlds are actually pretty easy), and binary star systems can have stable orbits.
That said, the hyperspace mechanics, consistent gravity, and universal communication and breathing are more of a problem.
@@globin3477 "Single planet Biomes are almost certainly real."
Like Mars?
I question why these cities fight. You'd think they'd try to avoid conflict, considering how squishy they look. I mean, even World War 2 era bombers could wreak havoc on some of these things, especially since I don't see any AA batteries and the center of government looks to be at the top judging by the dome. Furthermore, since it seems to take cities inside of it, why don't the victims take a bunch of satchel charges or other explosives and throw them on anything important, such as the wheels, which they seem to be so close to?
In one of the trailers you see them shooting at aircraft
The books have a few answers to these questions. Heavier than air aircraft have not been invented, only slower airships, so the cities main weapons are adequate. When cities are eaten, they are looted for parts and slaves before being scrapped. The "bellies" are fortifications, so breaking out and sabotaging components would be rather difficult.
Why do they even move?
Give me a battalion of Leo-2s or M2 Abrams and the cities will fall before dinner. Alternatively the same number of PzH 2000s with sufficent amounts of artillery shells.
Tanks, especially modern MBTs, and self-propelled artillery pieces are effective for a very good reason, people!
@@thif4722 due to a war the earths tectonic plates were damaged so volcanoes earthquakes and the like destroyed cities so making cities run away from these was great. This is the future were these quakes no longer exist but they refuse to change their ways
Can dumb idea's be fun? Absolutely.
Star Wars is hippie wizards fighting Space Nazi's, and it's one of the most popular franchises in existence. Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive spider, and instead of getting cancer he got superpowers. Goku is a space monkey who can dye his hair by getting really angry.
It's all in the presentation :)
Star wars is literally an old Chinese martial arts movie but in space, with the force as qi etc
Its not Hippie. The New Oath Jedi, definitely maybe. But the old oath was actually functional. So yeah.
May the Force be with You.
@Titus Yes, but as reference to 90's. All mentioned cases were written for younger audience and that person clearly was a teenage edgelord himself, who use words he don't understand only because he think it is offensive.
Well starwars WAS the most popular till TLJ thas the treshold of stupidity
@@viniciussardenberg6420 According to who? Because not the facts 0_0
TLJ was second largest grossing movie of all time, what was critically acclaimed and is liked by most of fans. It only suffer on Empire Strikes Back syndrome, as best movie in old trilogy was poorly revived by common consumers, who didn't expect deep story.
If Prequel movies didn't kill Star Wars, then way better New Canon also would not. You are aware that debate with haters always end on "prequels were better" argument? What it absolutely ridiculous lie. I'm seriously sick of bandwagoning kids like you 0_0
My biggest criteria for any fantasy is that it’s internally consistent. If you tell me that you’ve got a massive city on wheels I’ll accept it. But then you can’t start discussing how they have a strategy to bog other cities wheels into the Earth. Because then I have to try and explain why it doesn’t work all around.
Almost like suddenly being able to hyperspace into other ships or into a planets atmosphere because you have new directors....
How is that a problem? Being able to bog other cities into the earth would be internally consistent right?
Yes we can, and no you don't.
1. Wheels exist.
2. If you drive into a swamp, you'll get stuck.
3. If you have really big wheels and a huge engine, your car won't get stuck in the swamp.
4. If you can trick somebody who has normal-sized wheels to follow you into the swamp, they will get stuck, but your monster-truck won't.
This also works in the world of Mortal Engines. The heaviest city with the smallest wheels/tracks gets stuck first, and the trick is to fool the other city to think that your city will get stuck first.
@@gustaveliasson5395 this is actually mentioned in the first book (see Motoropolis in the rustwater marshes)
mel on the problem is that the entire universe of this movie requires that you suspend your disbelief by shutting off the rule that things can get bogged down. The second it comes up as a strategy it is like the world reminding you that 2+2=33, and was supposed to all along. It breaks all of logic to have that rule implemented, just like if it suddenly became true that 2+2=33 we would have problems. By saying they can bog down one vehicle it makes it so we can’t just shut off the laws of physics that allow for one vehicle to be bogged down, as such suddenly all those city vehicles have to be bogged down because they should have been all along.
To quote Adam Savage "I reject your reality and substitute my own".
Nice, Dungeon Master!
yes savage indeed
@@volition142 What? No! Mythbusters!
lol
@@LydsTherinNotamon meta quote
a alloy of adamantium and anti gravitium should do most of the trick.
the anti gravitium obviously is the unoptanium from avatar.
Still makes city-sized ships more believable than this tho.
Throw some unobtanium in there
My favorite is impossibilium.
@Phlipp Bergamot, Whatisthisevenium is my favourite.
"I found a way to make it work by restructuring the universe."~ Shad
What a classical mad scientist/ fantasy author statement (I mean, they're pretty much the same thing, just authors are more dangerous).
An EXTREMLY underrated and absolutly true comment - thank you!
6:08 - This is the explanation in the books. It's still unrealistic but at least the books have an interesting history...
Wow, and I was thinking "Imagine if Shad came up with the exact reason out of just a guess" lol
@@gronkiusmaximus well in the trailers you can basicaly see the wasteland so why so surprised ?!? .-.
@@anblueboot5364 Because I didn't watch the trailers and still regardless he guessed the same reason the author decided to use which is pretty fucking cool
@@gronkiusmaximus but he did watch them so it's not too impressive, if he came up with by himself, yeah that's quite nice
@@anblueboot5364 But he did come up with it himself, I didn't see lava spraying everywhere and the ground being cracked through like an apocalypse film or someone going in front of the camera and explaining that, impressive regardless of what people say, others agree, look at the likes of these comments
"Are there ideas too dumb to explain away?"
Sparkly vampires.
Vampires that spent too much time playing with glitter after getting high of blood, thus "Sparkly vampires"
that are also made of marble apparently.
Hey, if sunlight is deadly to vampires, then some would obviously evolve (partial) reflectivity to decrease the sunlight damage.
@@ElijsDima that makes a surprising amount of sense.
@@ElijsDima But that's not why.
So, doesn't work.
They sparkle because............ They're pwetty fucking pansies
The cities are powered by handwavium. It's the most powerful sci-fi mcguffins since the 1800's. Don't you know anything, Shad?
He literally says he knows nothing
@@EwokWarrior i think you missed the joke
Moving cities on wheels are all well and good but...
...what about dragons?
Man, everything has friggin' dragons in it. Dracophiles are everywhere! They're like the "deep fried" of fantasy in that people do it to everything, even when it's unnecessary. Honestly dragons have lost their mystique because of over-exposure. Compared to dragons, giant moving cities are quite the novelty.
What about the droid attack on the wookies?
how bout moving cities on the back of a dragon?. just like discworld but replace giant turtle with giant dragon
They'd want to nest in them ?
Dragons on wheels?
A floating continent setting could also be created on an oxygen-rich gas giant with landmasses (former asteroids?) that have superconductive cores. Doesn't have the falling forever thing, but the sky would alternate between HUGE storms and a nice view of multiple moons.
The problem with any system containing high amounts of oxygen is, that *oxygen will ignite (!)everything else(!) within the system* at a much much lower temperature and it will burn substantially hotter and faster (again everything else, not the oxygen itself). Life on earth did not develop because earth contained loads of oxgen, earth had lots of CO2 (which plants eventually turned into O2) and our atmosphere to this day is mostly nitrogen.
@@42winks48 well, for what I know Jupiter is also full of hydrogen, even easier to ignite
@@cdgonepotatoes4219 Well, we humans however don't breathe hydrogen...But unfortunately we're mostly made out of hydrocarbon, which means we're quite flammable. xD
edit: Oxygen itself doesn't ignite btw. Like I said everything else however will, which is the crucial and deadly factor to consider here.
@@42winks48 I meant oxygen-rich as in enough to sustain life, although larger percentages would have fun side-effects such as giant insects.
@@cdgonepotatoes4219 Hydrogen can't ignite on its own. It requires an oxidizer, such as oxygen or chlorine trifluoride. If you had a protoplanet with a lot of free hydrogen and oxygen, the two would react pretty quickly to get water.
Mortal Engines (the books at least) are effectively an absurdist satire of the lack of sustainability inherent in modern society. The cleverness of the story and setting doesn't really come from explaining the impossible premise, but rather starting from an impossible premise and logically extrapolating how society and culture would function in a world where moving cities weren't impossible. The books read like Mad Max meets Discworld, with a barrage of puns and in jokes. This is juxtaposed against characters who take everything entirely seriously, because its the world they live in and for them it is real, and a matter of life and death. I don't know how well the film will capture this, I'm really hoping that it will do a good job of representing the setting, rather than trying to adapt it as a by-the-numbers dystopia.
You are spot on regarding the societal factors which lead to the creation of the first (much smaller) traction cities in universe. They were built during a period of geological instability and social upheaval, during which it became impossible for settlements to stay in one place for any length of time. Nomadic tribes developed, dragging their houses and fortresses with them across the land, and their archaeologists discovered "sufficiently advanced" technology created by the cultures which preceded the apocalypse. This allowed them to build entire moving cities, but how that technology defies the laws of physics is never addressed or explained, because the characters simply don't understand how it works. Almost all knowledge of science and technology has been lost, and the cultures of the traction era are more concerned with retrofitting scavenged devices to keep their civilization running than trying to work out how they work.
Ironically I have a very low threshold for suspension of disbelief, precisely because I am a scientist. I find that even some of the best thought out and logically consistent worlds are still ludicrous if you try to over analyse them. The few Hard SF books which really do account for everything tend to get bogged down in the world building at the expense of telling a good story. I thus tend to take things as I find them, and don't let the impossibility of the premise detract from my enjoyment of it. When you can see that all SF and Fantasy is "dumb", you can better cope with the things with are egregiously so!
Even the side characters are demonstrations of how pathetic technology makes us. That one dumbass princess from the 2nd book springs to mind, predators gold i believe
Perfect. Couldn't have said it better myself. Great to hear that a scientist actually likes these books.
@@SicFromTheKush i personally liked Freya Rasmussen, the problem was that she wasnt ready to lead and then a plague hit killing her parents
I feel like they tried to make something like starwars.they stared the books(something like the Trinity movies episode1,2,3)then if people liked it they would do the prequels of the books like the 60 second war.
Of course this is just my personal opinion/theory.
Ugh I couldn't read it all. The book is shit.
0:05 the sight that haunts my every nightmare
:D
We should take the city of London, and push it somewhere else!!!
West!
They already wish to be closer to North America.
Here’s my five second take based on just like two,pictures of the cities:
“This would make a lot more sense in space”
It would though, I mean the biggest problem is that these things would crumble under their own weight with this kind of haphazard construction, especially when moving.
*agreed...look at what happens during an earthquake...and those only last a few seconds or minutes...the constant vibration of the cities trundling across the landscape would render everything a pile of smoldering rubble*
not if the cities had equally sizable suspension.
It depends. In space, you dont have weight. But if you wanna actually go anywhere, you have to accelerate. And since you wanna accelerate into a particular direction, you have to turn the ship.
Both of those actions will create the same forces as gravity; the main advantage is really that you can accelerate with a force less than 1x earth gravity. in the Expanse, ships actually create "gravity" by accelerating/deccelerating the entire flight with 1G, maybe with a short high G burst at start/end of travel; and even then it takes weeks to travel from one planet to another.
And of course you dont need suspension. Suspension might have to carry 5-10 times its weight that it normally does when hitting a rock/hill...
@@termitreter6545 Exactly, there’s a reason that city ships are so common in sci-fi (heck that’s what the LDSS Nauvoo is) but city cars aren’t. The city car is fine as long as it doesn’t move, but then you don’t really have a city car as a very compact city with weird foundations. I think the key here is the terrain and vibrations, you could build a mega structure like one of these things that can withstand 1G (although I doubt it would be able to be this haphazard), but like *Scott Mantooth* pointed out, driving one of these things would be like a never ending earthquake. But flying one, you could do it, we see it (on a much much much smaller scale) with real spacecraft, and unlike cars there’s not much reason you couldn’t scale it up (other than the insane launch costs, maybe they built a space elevator?).
Obviously the setting isn’t trying to make sense but I think this is interesting.
@@the_kraken6549 Tbf I did think the setting looks at least very unique and interesting as well, you just gotta do a really good job at actually selling it. Maybe have the cities 'combat' be really interesting and fun or so. You really gotta make use of those driving cities if you use something that absurdly stupid.
But from what I hear, the movies is pretty bad. They dont do much with those things, and the charachters are super bland and uninteresting. At that point you got an unbelievable scenario and no way to sell it. I got it on amazon prime, but I dont even feel like watching it. Idk, maybe if im too bored.
Someone else mentioned, but I thought Pacific Rim was one of those movies that took something stupid and used it correctly. The mix of stupid fun robot action and the feeling of scale and weight really sold it. They also didnt have non stop action, but used those things economically, so it didnt get old fast.
I think it really depends on what kind of story you want to tell. Rule of cool is fun and all, but you must know what certain elements you introduce entail for the rest of your fantasy world.
I love you fantasy-rearmed series, because it is exactly this kind of thinking, that most books and movies, that fail, miss. You can have epic wizards blow up castles left and right, but that should probably cause said castles to change in tasks to fulfill and design.
Whenever you introduce something to your world, think about countermeasures to deploy. Consistency. If you manage that, suspending my disbelieve is easy.
Exactly. There's a reason we don't build castles anymore, and it has to do with things that go 'splode.
Rule of cool works, until it gets too ridiculous that the plot falls apart. If you have the level of technology to build a moving city, why not build a terraforming rocket? Or SOMETHING less ridiculous and more practical
techncially we still build forts, whose commanders live there fore extended periods of time, often with their families so in a way we still have castles, they just look nothing like a medevil castle.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 Yeah but look at the function of modern military bases. They're not bulwarks designed to withstand siege. They're for staging operations, which in modern warfare are far more disparate and have a higher burden of logistics.
Keep in mind most modern military bases called forts are called that more for historical context than anything else. The most important function of a modern military base is logistics for the chain of command, overseeing the various operations and things going on, potentially on the other side of the planet.
These places are hard to attack, but not because they're fortified.
@@tommyscott8511 Hell, massive zeppelin cities would be literally more feasible than building a town on the back of what is essentially a tank, if a very large one.
My curiosity was tickled, so I ended up studying the lore from the novels. Essentially, you can very easily live in a single area on Earth, it's just that a huge event called the 60 minute war made traction cities rather popular because they can be moved about for tactical advantage, think aircraft carriers. The history is extensive and kind of interesting, breaking down stages in the development of 'Municipal Darwinism' wherein the battleship cities engage in constant mobile war. They even address fuel, and in the books the lower tiers of the city are much larger do balance out inertia. It's just stylization.
But building them takes forever and is MASSIVELY costly. Thus Extremely ineffective
@@cherrydragon3120 Well of course, but keeping in mind that this is a fantasy work. Internal consistency matters more than real life applicability. So in universe they explained how and why the Track Cities were developed, so it sates my immersion needs.
@@cherrydragon3120 That is very much a plot point. These cities are inefficient and really really stupid. They did it to escape the apocalypse and now that the apocalypse is over nobody wants to be the first person to sit back down off their wheels again and it was all a bit stupid. Clinging to a forgotten, and imagined, past is a theme throughout the books and films from the get go with London's attachment to st pauls, the beefeaters, the lions, and the gigantic union jack on the front of the city. Hell even the Anti-traction league still pine for the forgotten past with their pseudo great wall and stylised palaces.
@@Qeztotz sounds boring as hell
Moving cities actually didn't arise directly after the 60 minute war. It was actually thousands of years later after a new more primitive civilisation arose. You're right that Traction cities aren't necessary and are even counterproductive in universe. It was a sort of tragedy of the commons situation in which once there was one massive roving tank eating every other terrestrial city state it forced others to move around also to ensure their safety. This system is avoided in the parts of Eurasia beyond the Himalayas as well as Africa as the terrain is untraversable to cities. The first book is actually about London trying to use a salvaged superweapon from the 60 minute war to break through one of the passes in the Himalayas to destroy and consume the ground settlements beyond. The conflict between the anti-tractionists and tractionists has a sort of cold-war esque ideological bent. It's honestly all very cool.
Interesting that you'd bring up an "endless sky" world, as one of my favorite anime, Last Exile, actually does something to address this.
The anime is a steampunk anime featuring airships, and the way they set up the world was quite unique. The world itself is an artificial planet created using an hourglass design, thus making it such that the planet exerts gravitational force from the center towards the ends. As such, the "middle" of the planet is almost entirely open sky. This unique planet design leads to a variety of implications in the show, but it also is an interesting way of establishing why airships are so important to the civilizations on the planet.
Last Exile is one of my favorite animes. No tropes, just good story crafting.
The best movie I've ever seen, is also the dumbest movie I've ever seen. *Kung Fury.*
It disabled my brain for good 2h.
@@xzardas541 how? its only 30 min long
@@rebbyra and 90 to regenerate damaged braincells
Damn good movie!
Things too stupid to explain? The answer is the Almighty McGuffin! Need structural integrity? Build it from McGuffnium! Need power/fuel source? Find a McGuffin or use McGuffnium as your fuel source (it's a very versatile mineral)! Praise the McGuffin! The Lazy Fantasy Writer's best friend!
Isn't it sometimes better to introduce special material with required properties than giving complicated explanation why the existing material endures something that it shouldn't endure? I understand that this is "lazy" way, but isn't it, at least sometimes, better ho offer simple explanation offering McGuffnium instead of complicated explanation using real-life materials?
@@TheOneTrueMar The problem is not that some materials are not real, but that they are (using gamer- jargon) "overpowered". McGuffnium is not non- real materials in general, but non- real materials that don't fit into the world/ break the world's rules.
An energy source or a certain technology, for example, can't be highly efficient and easily obtained for everyone at the same time, since it would almost instantly loose it's property as "highly" efficient, now that everyone uses it and new, "better" things require even *better* tech/ energy sources. (Kinda like oars got outmatched by sails and then sails got outmatched by steam engines which then got outmachted by...).
Why the hell should a writer have to explain the engineering and physics behind their buildings. Dude I'm a physicist and I don't give a shit
@@joshelguapo5563 i think its more of an issue for people who need to prove they're smart (like me!) than it is for scientists and engineers.
I think you mean -vibranium- unobtainium.
You mentioned the structure destabilizing while moving...but then also...think of the people. lmaoo everyone in the movie were all still like they were standing on unmoving ground but like...the rumbling of the terrain, the speed, and turning would have these people flying off in all directions. Imagine the city going over just ONE boulder. Even that would be a speed bump big enough to keep anyone from sleeping.
One of the worst things about these huge moving cities is not so much the idea itself, it is WHERE they move.
Oh hey, there's a hill, guess I will need to go around it...several miles.
Even small gradients would be HELL for huge vehicles like this.
Also as you and Kyle said, the wheels would literally sink in to the ground. It's already bad enough when the ground is wet and your puny little car sinks in to the dirt! A thing this size? oh dear god the sinkage!
The ground isn't too compressible, but when you add immense weights and liquid in to the equation, it becomes slime, essentially. It just buckles under the weight.
As that weight increases, energy will end up being pushed in to heat due to the sheer friction caused when compressing.
At certain weights, you would literally melt the ground as you moved across it!
Those weights wouldn't be seen in these films though, surprisingly, that weight is still well beyond this films scope. We're talking maneuverable mountains.
Give me $15 trillion and I'll get it done for you.
Also, the idea of "cataclysmic scenario leads to driving cities" just sounds absurd to the power of absurd. Limited resources would be the opposite scenario to allow for this!
This kinda stuff would be post-scarcity worlds where people go to take part in crazy blood-sports / future VR game.
if they where fliers or on the sea I could see it a bit more
Well actually if the meet a hill, they just eat it, then when they meet a steep dip of boggy land the just vomited the ground earth and rock into the pit, so large amounts of Europe is actually flattened
Even if you could somehow resolve all these issues and engineer a rolling city their is one more problems. Plate tectonics! Such a huge rolling mountain would cause compressions in the earth’s crust generating earthquakes and volcanoes everywhere this thing moved!
@@franklombardo8246 Umm, These cities seemed *much* to small for that.
@Tabletop Terrainer Eh, I guess they could eat hills.
But that just brings up the other problem, the sheer volume and weight due to that.
While we are on the very edge of being able to construct monstrously huge things like Kyle showed in his video in Because Science, they can't move all too quickly.
The fuel needs for stuff like this go against the reasons for the cities needing to be portable. There is no natural surface fuel sources that could power these cities for any length of time at those speeds. We're speaking full-on fusion reactors to power these things.
Doable... maybe, but not just now.
As for the structure, we could get there using some of the current 2D substrates and other esoteric materials like carbon nanotubes, but nobody can scale them up reliably at decent cost yet. The day someone does, oh MAN they are going to be rich! (same goes for the next generation of batteries to fuel ever-smaller devices!)
As it is if we take your idea, these cities would be tip-toeing around watching out for small hills and wet land. Doesn't even need to be a full bog, just needs to be wet from the rain. At these weights, wet land may as well be steam. If such a weight comes in at this at an angle, so not all the cities weight is on the wet land, it could well even topple the city if it was tall enough. If there was a hill at the other side, which is usually the case with water-drenched lands, that land would be impassable until they manage the devour the hill.
However, what you bring up does create an interesting idea.
If you could hold on to reasonable amounts of excess earth for transport, you could build artificial hills all around the place to make it harder for your enemies to traverse. (think hill maze)
If you made it small enough so only your own city could travel around, larger ones are screwed. Smaller ones would be easier to pick off, especially if you laid the walls tall enough so they can't see the full maze structure. Place traps at any invalid routes. (really boggy sandy loams and such, or just explosives)
But in saying that, these cities don't really "sleep" in a specific area. Well they could, I haven't read the story myself. I might read it though since hearing of it because it sounds hilariously bizarre and I love completely out-there bonkers stuff like this.
Stretching the limits of our current materials science and all that fun stuff. (which is also why I am a fan of the SFIA channel with Isaac, discussing future possibilities of human expansion through the universe )
Fun fact, if the universe would be filled with oxygen, we could hear the fusion reaction of the sun. and it would be extremely loud.
Not just oxygen, just any sort of medium through which sound waves could propagate.
So basically the Rick and Morty screaming sun?
@@barrybend7189 No, the Sound that depicts the maximum level of death by Ear-Rape.
So in such a universe, creature won't have hearing organs.
Actually, we couldn't hear it, because we'd be deaf due to destroyed ear drums. That is, if we'd be able to survive the heat.
Literally first problem,
The land isn't all flat!!
Mountains, cliffs and big rocks would just make it useless
The Earth is flat open your eyes
@@angloempire6935
That's irrelevant. Regardless of what shape the Earth itself is (which isn't the point of this discussion anyway), its surface is far from smooth. Even if you live in Nebraska or the Siberian tundra, you're still going to encounter differences in elevation.
@@VestedUTuber
R/woooosh
@@angloempire6935
I'll accept the woosh, but leave reddit out of this.
In the books there's an eastern region with a more normal civilisation, because mountain ranges protect them from the roving cities.
Love it when Shad talks about physics. Learned way more from him than from any other teacher ever.
You have a serious problem with your teachers then.
@@shmekelfreckles8157 Had that problem with a few science teachers back in the day. Not my fault that they couldn't explain shit properly
Don't know about Mortal Engines, but in the White Knight Chronicles game there is a moving city. They are miners and live in a REALLY HUGE crater so they built their city on top of a monster roaming the crater and it gets them to the crater's walls where they mine while the monster hibernates. It's unbelievable maybe, but there is at least an explanation
Roman Bostel The Stormlight Archive has something like this as well. The Reshi culture lives on top of the forested shells of massive marine crustaceans. Sometimes these living islands have territory disputes, and the islanders living on top of them go to war with one another as well, and continue fighting until one of the islands gets tired, and makes way for the victor.
Disc world has what amounts to a full planetary biosphere on the back some elephants riding a giant sea turtle with its own orbiting sun through deep space.
“Can fantasy get too dumb?” Have you Heard- of Warhammer 40K?
Unfortunately yes
Why is it so hard to find a comment about it here, even after 2 years?
6:10 that's exactly the reason why the cities move
@Max Pain If you only fall for one day from the middle of the universe to the bottom, then according to my calculations, there would about 12 times as much air pressure on the world's surface than there is on our own. Seeing as we barely notice the air pressure ourselves, I'm sure it could be explained away with the people in Everfall evolving to have a slightly hardier physique. Fish can deal with the weight of an ocean's water on their backs, so I'm sure that humans in a fantasy world would be fine with a little extra air pressure.
@@TheBriguy1998 As long as the (air) pressure is equal on all sides, it shouldn't be to much of a problem. That's why we can go underwater without dying.
EDIT: just realised that that would only work if we could breath water. ;)
(the pressure has to be equal on the inside too)
@Max Pain Aaaam, no. Air pressure is more linked to planetary gravitation than sheer quantity. If the universe isn't small enough to condense the air, then it will have the same or less pressure than our planet's.
@@kovi567 You're discounting the weight of the atmosphere itself, which makes a hell of a difference when it comes to atmospheric pressure.
I mean you can look at Venus as a prime example. 200 times the air pressure on earth and yet it's LESS massive than earth, because the atmosphere is just much heavier than Earth's.
Well, that explains why ancient Indians used Vimanas.
Fantasy can never get too unrealistic because thats pretty much the point. The only thing it needs to do is follow its own rules. If the rules are that these cities have been traveling around for ages then destroying one has to be difficult. If someone manages to do it easily then it becomes unrealistic and ruins the enjoyment of the work.
Competent writing can make unrealistic ideas possible for the purpose of a story.
Actually, that's one of the main conflicts in the entire setting. Basically, due to centuries of cities slowly eating each other, there are less and less of them around and since the larger cities can't support themselves without eating smaller mining towns they are getting more and more desperate.
There is also another faction of people called the Anti-Traction-League who think that moving cities are an antiquated concept and everyone should just settle down again and in the later books both philosophies escalate into a full-blown war.
Chad: Can fantasy be too dumb?
Twilight: Hold my beer.
Twilights problematic issues are more within the area of inconsistent and unrealistic behavior of characters than in the world building, which IMHO isn't better or worse than most of the urban fantasy genre. If we attack the worldbuilding, it is more of the opposite issue than what Shad pointed out. If you have a cool concept, you can somehow make it work out in fantasy even if it's dumb. Twilights original worldbuilding concepts aren't particularly dumb, they are just not cool. Traditional vampire fans just don't like the idea of vampires sparkling in sunlight instead of being hurt by it. The in-world lore that it is a mythical curse to make them stick out as inhuman if they walk in broad daylight, like a Cain's mark, makes perfect sense for fantasy standards. The most glaring issue about it is that Meyer didn't bother to think about how vampires being real would affect human society, which is just like the real world and even the myths aren't changed to adapt to her in-world changes, which doesn't make much sense (Sure myths can get it wrong and exaggerate, but if vampires really just sparkle in sunlight instead of taking harm, there should be at least SOME versions of the myths that mention sparkling vampires). Furthermore, even if vampire government works very hard to keep vampires secret, there are bound to be more humans than in our real modern world who are ready to believe in them, especially since it isn't terribly rare that some rogue vampire causes a blood bath and draws plenty of attention until the Voituri squad arrives and manages to put him down. But the "How the fuck is the secret magical world still almost universally secret?"- issue is a logic issue that most urban fantasy settings have.
Wow Shad, you made yet another fantasy re-armed video, without addressing the best medieval weapons for creatures with 4 arms? It's treason then...
Just kidding man, I love that your background on architecture allows you to talk about this setting of moving cities in a realistic way :)
Fantasy getting too dumb and unrealistic? Impossible. Warhammer 40k exists and is awesomely fun.
Arseny Mescheriakov Grimderp, more like...
I think 40k is a little bit more self aware though. Like, the practices of the Imperium are an unsustainable logistical nightmare, but that's kind of the point. Most of what they do is completely unreasonable and illogical, but they don't have reasonable motivations. Everything is either based in stubborn adherence to pointless tradition, or just desperate, hateful, paranoia. Plus they have magic and plot-tonium to explain things like the square-cube law.
@@nicapp984 A lot of the lore is that many things in WH40k work literally because they are believed to work, due to the warp. ie; red cars do in fact go faster, because the orks literally believe beyond doubt that a red paintjob will increase the speed of their vehicles - the cavat is that it requires absolute belief on a massive scale, and thus the ecclesiarchy can literally summon "saints", as by this time they have fermented their religious dogma in a 100 trillion people over 10s of thousands of planets. Literally anything and everything in WH40k follows the rules of that universe, except the warp, which also follows the rules of that universe because the warp itself allows for all of the insanity of that universe.
Except the "stubborn adherence" to "pointless tradition" is often actually perfectly reasonable in 40K. This is the universe where not following AdMech procedures result in demons corrupting your technology. The same universe where a single genestraler or heretic can corrupt an entire planet. Also the same universe where nigh all aliens are either extremely openly hostile, will feign goodness to backstab you, or were genuinely good but were wiped out by more ruthless aliens. The 40K galaxy just isn't stable enough to sustain galaxy spanning civilizations without employing an inordinate amount of totalitarianism and bloodshed.
Thing is, if that were the case, it shouldn't sustain galaxy spanning civilizations *with* an inordinate amount of totalitarianism and bloodshed. The Imperium is so utterly self-destructive it should collapse in a week. It really doesn't make any sense without A: making the setting much, much saner than it canonically is, or B: leaning heavily on 'it works because grimdark.' C: Being a fascist, and thus not understanding the concept of 'sense' to begin with.
"This is the universe where not following AdMech procedures result in demons corrupting your technology." No, it doesn't. Chaos can corrupt technology, just like it can corrupt everything - but lack of AdMech procedures doesn't really make things worse, and using them doesn't really help - there are plenty of examples of 'sanctified' tech that got corrupted anyways - because it was in the middle of a chaos infestation. At best, the AdMech restrictions avoid the use of certain dangerous technology - but also, like, everything else, and sometimes it doesn't work.
"The same universe where a single genestraler or heretic can corrupt an entire planet."
If literally everyone is asleep at the wheel, perhaps. Now, the Imperium *is* astonishingly incompetent at finding cultists, but that's not... not actually justification for why they should be incompetent.
Also the same universe where nigh all aliens are either extremely openly hostile,
This applies to... Orks and Tyranids? The latter more than the former, since Orks will happily fight each other, and honestly don't *care* about anything that, ironically, isn't powerful enough to fight them.
"will feign goodness to backstab you"
Dark Eldar, maybe? Otherwise this might apply to Chaos, but they mostly aren't aliens.
"or were genuinely good but were wiped out by more ruthless aliens."
Yes, except for 'more ruthless aliens' read 'The Imperium of Man'.
Like, of the few dozen alien species we know of... most of them aren't/weren't all that hostile. Some are certainly pretty nasty, but the majority aren't. *Humanity* is the second most vicious and aggressive species in 40k, matched only by the Tyranids - and at least the Tyranids can get along with each other.
In the books London is actually mentioned to have collapsed once. I think they called it the great tilt, and part of the lower layers gave way and collapsed, crushing loads of people including Tom’s parents
On a serious note, you know what would be cool? A WHEELED CASTLE!
It has all the benefits of a castle plus the offensive capabilities. And you cannot siege something that moves around.
It's called gulai-gorod, or wandering city
Or Lego Nexo Knights. No seriously, they done that.
How about Beige's ship from one piece? Think exactly what you just said, a Castle on tracks-only it's also a ship
The farmers: Don't worry, the garrison will protect us!
*Sees the castle fleeing into the distance*
Damn!
That intro freaks me out every time, lol.
if there was air in space we would hear the sun.
the sun is a constant exploration the size of... well, the sun!
that would be loud.
Would be pretty hot too. Literally.
If there was air in space it would just get bound by gravity to the Sun and to planets, and voila, we get vacuum again.
Youst imagine Sun wind
If there was air in space it would coalesce into a super massive black hole (assuming all the emptiness in space was suddenly and instantly replaced with air everywhere).
Also air would carry the force of the fusion processes occurring within the sun so the atmospheres of the planets would be blown off.
VVayVVard, not necessarily. If there was a uniform pressure of air throughout the entire universe, it wouldn't all get pulled to the sun. In fact there is *technically* air in space, the density is just really low, around 1-10 particles per cubic cm. In the early universe, there was a point where space had a density at or above that of Earth's atmosphere, though it was brief. (Same amount of matter, smaller universe.) If a universe did not expand, then it would be possible for it to have uniform air throughout it for longer. The only difference would be an increased chance of stars forming; however, it wouldn't be that much higher chance than in our universe. Their is one atmosphere of density difference between a vacuum and Earth's atmosphere, and about 100 billion atmospheres difference between Earth's atmosphere and the center of the sun. It wouldn't collapse into a black hole because it's uniform, and the differential is great enough that it wouldn't have that much higher a chance of collapsing either. That is, on these scales, one atmosphere of pressure is so close to a vacuum that it's negligible. Also, GeorgeMonet, fusion reactions don't carry throughout Earth's atmosphere, why would it carry throughout a universe filled with air? At least I think so...
The Crimson Permanent Assurance was a brilliant short film that has set the standard for moving city warfare back in the early 80's.
Honestly, Mortal Engines stands among my favorite fantasy settings and was probably my favorite series growing up. The concept of some GARGANTUAN mass of steel and smoke blotting out the Sun as its abominable maw of machinery prepares to swallow your "homeland" and "people" is downright epic. The populace of this smaller settlement watching in guttural horror as they're engulfed in darkness and overwhelmed by deafening mechanisms, confiscating people you've grown up alongside like they're property. Homes, buildings, and all of the above thoroughly dismantled for resources as these people are integrated into the city itself. This cycle possibly repeating multiple times (should they survive that long) for people who feed into an actual food chain of predatory cities. And it's not all about who's the biggest, lots of cities succeed due to specializing or innovating. Some choose to stay small and outspeed giant predators, while others cripple opposition via propaganda campaigns, internal manipulation, or systematic raids. There are even cases of decoys and sacrificial settlements rigged to blow as you mentioned. Sometimes rediscovered technology allows an edge against greater competition (still makes me tense to think about a massive city rendered defenseless as they're beset by countless scavenger cities like a flock of vultures [What will be your place in this city's societal structure? Are they communist or capitalist? Policy on slaves? Will you be separated from family? Do they actually allow visitors or for people to leave?]), being out of reach of these mechanical abominations (possibly airborne or purely impenetrable) can act as freeports or safehavens, there are even seafaring cities that take pirating to a whole new level of madness. Philip Reeve's world is absurd, but the glorious kind of absurd.
It's a setting where places and populaces who wouldn't adapt to this rise of monstrous mechanical metropolises were assimilated one by one, and has finally reached a point where the only way of life they know is becoming unsustainable. A truly grim setting with plenty of intrigue and appeal to it. I'm even fond of the prequel series, which predates and sets much of the foundation for this era of predatory cities. Juicy stuff. A part of me dearly hopes that this upcoming movie is able to mirror the dark tone of the books and really sell the stress of resources, but... I'm not holding high expectations.
Precisely my thoughts, the physics isn't important in this story. Look at star wars. It's a sci-fi world beloved by many, and star wars doesn't rely on physics to make the story. It's exactly the same as with the mortal engines novels, all that's left to see is how Peter Jackson handles it
Because Science with Kyle Hill actually did a video about this, and the cities are actually just at the upper limits of present day materials science, and since the setting itself is set nearly a millenia ahead of where we are presently.
My first impressions coming from an outside point of view who hasn't read the books yet is just that the idea of moving cities is simply just waaaaaay too unbelievable. I'm in here thinking moving an entire city is simply not feasible for the supposed benefits it provides. Why don't they just have moving castles/fortresses instead? Those seem like a way cheaper alternative to raiding/piracy. I dunno... i'm here thinking of the logistics, economics and simply just how expensive trying to move an entire city would be.
@@xaero07vsxaero69 the logistics isn't really the point though, it's more of this mechanical horror, along with being a dark metaphor for society, nature and natural selection. While world building is important, it's not the most important thing when telling a story, other wise every book, movie, video game etc. would merely be people pretty much reading out lore in a dry monotone voice like a shitty youtuber. While thinking this way is important, especially when something is trying to present itself as realistic or grounded, sometimes you gotta let yourself get drawn into the experience of the film, and also look at what meaning is behind the surface, other wise your missing the point of film and story entirely pretty much stifling creativity.
@@dag_larsson Star Wars is actually a good example; look how much people complained when they introduced politics in Ep. I! They hated it! I thought it was fine, personally, but the point still stands. No one cares about all those lists of factual details, lol.
i swear this man has taught me more in a couple of 10 - 20 minute videos then school did in 11 years
I enjoy being early because I know Shad reads the comments
Always a good thing. I love Shad.
Can fantasy get too dumb? Why yes.
Edit: this movie was probably better on paper. Lol
Yes, it was. In book form lol.
The book is always better than the movie. :-)
@@kesselrunner that's not always true
kesselrunner, the exception is Lord of the Rings. I hated the books because it all felt like filler. In my opinion, that is.
@@fireborn lol what are you? American who dosent read? The books are better then the movies even if the movies are still amazing
"That face in the beginning is nightmare fuel"
nailed it. XD
OK, your novel sounds really interesting. Count me in.
Awesome is an acceptable substitute for practicality. The problem I have with the Mortal Engines trailers I've seen isn't that city-tanks are impractical, it's that if you're going to make a movie about city-tanks, I want it to be about the city-tanks and not some YA novel protagonist. Now, give me a Bolo movie, and I'll see it opening night.
The books were fantastic. And the characters in them amazing. Probably too much for an hour and half of movie so they inevitably mess it up.
You should look into the early high-rises made from brick. There was a maximum height possible before the walls at street level would fill the entire footprint of the building.
"Oh that's easy. You just need to change the universal constant."
-Q, Star Trek TNG
I feel like this is the wrong question. For all that I'm accused of being unable to suspend my disbelief, I'm perfectly willing to accept _any_ unrealistic premise if enough is done with it. From what little I understand of the Mortal Engines novels, the way cities attack and devour each other (wasting almost as many resources as they gain in the process) is a criticism of the less-overtly-symbolic ways that real nations and communities destroy themselves by trying to subjugate each other and claw their way to the top.
Is the core concept of Mortal Engines unrealistic? Yes. But is it _dumb?_ I don't think so. It would be dumb in real life, but it serves as an excellent metaphor for what the author wants to discuss. And yeah, it could lead to some spectacular fight scenes, but that's hardly the only important part of a movie.
Yes, my thoughts exactly!
+
Timothy McLean
"...is a criticism of the less-overtly-symbolic ways that real nations and communities destroy themselves by trying to subjugate each other and claw their way to the top."
And that is hardly saying anything good about the novels. Such ideas of social critique are honestly overused, boring and unneeded. How many times are we going to hear the same kind of condescending garbage being told to us by someone, who thinks him/her self smart, but is actually just a completely clueless little "philosopher", who's entire "deep" thought is nothing but a childish whine, that presents no real solutions. What is the point of this "criticism"?
It may be a critique agaibst something... but will it make an entertaining movie?
"it would be dumb in real life" and thats the main problem alot of people have.
It's surprising just how many people nowadays fail to understand how allegorys work. They see things only as at face value too often, so fail to see the message in the story due to... Well exactly this video.
The premise of Mortal Engines is that in the post apocalyptic future people want to go see the grand canyon, but there are no hotels nearby so they all work together to build an RV.
The square-cube-law has been ignored in basically every sci-fi and fantasy story ever at one point or another. Same goes for g-forces in basically any action movie ever. I honestly can't see why either of these things would suddenly threaten one's suspension of disbelief.
Wait, you mean, we can't launch a normal human being like Batman at 600mph into a wall and have him still be alive?
But seriously, it always bugs me when they do that.
Actually, tom cruise does his own stunts and has them yank him into things with explosions. I'm not sure I have ever seen impossible to survive g-forces outside of comic book films etc.
Also, square cube "law" isn't even deserving of the title, it does not even slightly affect the construction of megastructures and so on. What sci fi and fantasy "ignore" it exactly?
@@carbon1255 _"it does not even slightly affect the construction of megastructures and so on."_
Uh, yeah it does. Anything near a gravity well is affected by square-cube law. The bigger a building, the more tensile strength is required to keep it from collapsing on itself. (See World Trade Center for details.)
In space, it's different. There'd still be a exponential curve for how big something can be, before it tears itself apart, but it'd be far different than it is at 1 Earth G.
Not every, there of plenty of sci-fi without improbable stuff in it. Hell, some sci-fi stuff has become real life science.
@@manictiger no, actually, it doesn't. the square cube law is about the structural integrity of materials as they get larger, not about the strength of a structure as it gets larger.
for example, a human cannot be 15 feet tall, because our bones become too heavy to support their own weight. but a lego tower can be 15 feet tall if it's built right, because all you need to do is keep adding bricks of the same size until you reach 15 feet. the bricks can all support their own weight, so as long as the weight is distributed properly, you can make the structure as large as you want.
the problem with megastructures, like the burj khalifa in dubai, is that as they get larger, environmental effects start to be magnified. a minor tremor in the earth doesn't make a small bungalow move much, but it would make the burj khalifa twist and warp due to its length. if we make buildings much taller, then a strong wind will be able to snap them in half due to resonance.
the square cube law is a law of biology, not engineering.
Larry Niven's book "The Integral Trees" is set in something similar to the idea of "infinite sky" - certainly not infinite, but far larger than any habitable planet could be, it's a torus of gas that has been ripped from a destabilized gas giant and is now orbiting the star. Niven points out that this structure isn't stable on a galactic timeframe, but it could easily last hundreds of millions of years. He comes up with some interesting lifeforms that could evolve in such an environment, too.
I was going to post this.
I think Shad might enjoy The Integral Trees and its sequel The Smoke Ring.
Yes, this was going to be my post.
@@sketchesofpayne @TheBilgepumper Good to see I'm not the only Niven fan here!
Mortal Engines is a fun series to read. Advise to read the series before speculating too much. It's only 4 books so based on your bookself would be a quick read.
Well so long as it a fun ride of unrealistic then I guess I’m ok with it
I read this book, and I can safely say it leans further toward science fiction than fantasy.
London: I'm the strongest cause I’m the biggest!
Tokyo: *Hello there little one*
12:00
The first problem that I found when you talked about the "endless sky" is not the windspeed. But the stars' energy output. If there was air to trasmit the sound, the Sun would be as loud as 10.000 trucks horning constantly [Number aproximate] And the heat would rise well over ignition becouse radiation is the least eficient form of heat trasmition. I don't think that even Pluto would be safe.
So in such a universe, creatures would not have hearing organs, and their biology would be entirely different from ours.
Plus the light of the sun probably wouldn't even reach earth. You can already see it being less blue and weaker when it enters the atmosphere through a lower angle.
When you look at the distant mountains or the moon you see them in a tint of blue. (And the moon isn't even in our atmosphere) if the atmosphere reached to the sun, would the sun look blue to us? Would we even see the stars?
Art C. to be technical, the distance to the moon over 2 is where Earth's atmosphere ends, due to the atmosphere being where particles are bound by Earths gravity. After that they are bound to the moon.
@@archibaldc.1833 Actually the reason the sky is blue is because blue light from the sun spreads out in our atmosphere, while the yellow/red light keeps it straighter beams (there is a better, more scientific way to say this, but that is the gist). This means that the sun isn't actually yellow/orange as we see it as, it just looks like it because the blue parts of the sunlight has spread it self through the atmosphere. If you look at the sun from space however it is white, because it has a whole lot of light from all around the visible spectrum.
As such, if anything, the sky wouldn't be blue at all. The more atmosphere the light has to get through, the more light gets scattered and spread through the atmosphere. This is why purple, yellow and orange/red colours paint the sky when the sun is in a low position; there's more atmosphere for it to get through. You can see that it looks very red then, as even yellow and orange light will have spread out if it is low enough.
The moon can also be in whole different amount of colour from my personal experience, so I don't totally agree with your opinion of it having a blue tint. Sometimes it is a bit blue, but other times it is a bit yellow. Most of the time it is just really white.
And yeah, if the atmosphere would go all the way to the sun then night wouldn't really exist like we know it. We wouldn't ever see the stars because the atmosphere would have light spread out and scattered so completely through it that it wouldn't matter if the sun was viable in the sky or not, it's light would still reach us. It would be to bright to every see other stars, at most we could maybe only see other planets, but that would be doubtful as with them also being in the atmosphere their reflected light would also be too scattered.
Think twilight/dusk, but much MUCH stronger and constant throughout the whole night.
The books are really good and unique, if the movie can tap into even a fraction of that it should be entertaining.
I've always appreciated the careful balance between ridiculousness and realism in Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Like, the world consists of a flat disc balanced on the backs of 4 giant elephants standing on a space turtle, but then he goes into a lecture on how many bushels of wheat would be needed to feed a medieval city and the vampires have got themselves an equal representation union.
I hope the movie is as good as the book. Trailer makes me think no but who knows
Another way to approach fantasy is just to sat... just 'cause.
Why can Alice walk through the looking glass? 'Cause she can.
How do the rings of power emanate corruption that turns the minds of men? Because they're evil.
Why can wildlings warg into the bodies of animals? Old magic, that's why.
Why can only Thor lift Mjolnir? Just 'cause he's worthy.
Why does the gaze of Balor of the Baleful Eye kill men by the score? 'Cause it's a real bad eye.
What universal power did Zeus use to turn those lovers into trees? God power, that's what.
Fantasy and mythology can go a long way by just leaving no explanation. The supernatural is definitely a big part of the culture of fantasy we have now, and just because something doesn't work in a rational universe doesn't mean it can't be in a fantasy. You just have to first establish that it isn't a rational or understood universe. And that seems to me to be what Mortal Engines needs to do. If they just went, "There's like magic and stuff all over, so big moving cities I guess..." I'd be like, "ummm... okay."
Yeah. Writers should strive to be intelligent, realistic, logical, consistent and 100% scientific... but if they know they want to bend the rules of the Universe, there's nothing wrong with pulling the magic card.
LOL, Perfect answers for anyone that just wants to enjoy the show.
Magic is only magic when there are rules in place. If there are no rules then what you have isn't magic but coincidences
Kyle's stats that almost might work... were based on values he looked up. Apparently he got the size of the city wrong, using the area of _City_ _of_ _London_ , rather than the city of _London_ . So, yeah.
Also known by its b movie title: “The Moving Cities That Eat People”
Scary, special intro is back... RUN AWAY!!
... *MACHICOLATIONS!!*
The "endless sky" idea comes close to Larry Niven's "Integral Trees". There's also a fantasy trope of "sky islands", exemplified by the semi obscure story "The Piebald Hippogriff".
Totally liking for the book sneak preview. Fantasy is alright, but without something to make it more "intellectual" or something to make it feel somewhat believable it just gets boring. So there's dragon's that breath fire, big whoop. Give me a dragon that keeps a Volcano lit in order to keep the island warm, now there's a story.
Sometimes not giving an explanation is better.
Sometimes the uncomprehensible nature of something is what drives the story. Kafka and Lovecraft used this.
Just accepting something as is is great for a story, but it's not as engaging with the audience.
One of my favourite books series of all time. Went for a pizza with the author Philip reeve and he’s actually a really chill guy.
This video actually made me focus on why I appreciate realism and explanation in fantasy overall than just pure mysticism and suspended disbelief. Actual "plausibility" makes people use MORE of there imagination rather than just trying to follow along to the beat of someone else's drum. Which is funny because originality is hard to find in anything anymore these days so I'll be looking forward to giving this movie a shot for the sake of its independence in being the first to do finally be different if not obscure.
Wow. I really want to read your book now
The vertical looping in everfall sounds quite interesting, because that is actually how our universe works as well, just in every direction
Except that's not how gravity works at all...
Draco Dominus yep, not even a little bit, but the 4 dimensional nature of the shape of the universe it preserved, and tweaked, which is pretty cool, even if gravity gets a total rewrite
To your point, even though I already want to see the movie, I would be much more hyped if the city had more smaller treads. Like you said, the more realistic/believable they make the fantasy, the more engaging it is.
Also, I do see any MACHICOLATIONS!
Why would u need them 😂
Shad... I don't no how to tell you this but if a star forms in breathable atmosphere, a flammable oxygen atmosphere, we have bigger problems than wind.
You know they have already made a star on Earth right, fusion reactors aren't exactly that dangerous. Our atmosphere is not flammable, it has too much nitrogen and not enough oxygen, and not enough fuel. lighting a match would kill everyone if it was flammable.
@@carbon1255 True, we have created fusion in our atmosphere. But on a universal scale there is bound to be the right conditions either caused by an oxygen based nebula or an oxygen gas giant that would allow for it to ignite in once that happens, then his lightspeed winds become a massive problem. A star several light years away goes nova and suddenly fire akin to a solar flair is hitting earth having cooled significantly faster than in a vacuum granted since it has a medium to expend it's heat energy but I imagine the heat it builds up through friction anf the radiation will still kill us all before lunch time.
Full Metal Panic had something similar. A behemoth model robot. It is huge. It has advanced technology that gave it extra structural integrity, and reduced weight. Total bs tech, more like magic, but still the explanation was there. Nice thing was if the magic engine got broken, the whole thing would collapse on itself.
There's a limit to how much 'advanced technology' can do. You need to use different materials, or a different processing, to change something's structural integrity.
And I think it even happened during main heroes fight against it, don't remember the episode correctly
@@LilithLonelyHeart You are correct, it got destroyed by exploiting its weakness, the weakness that it couldn't work in reality.
@@waves_under_stars I totally agree, that is why it was a magic engine more then advanced tech. To me that is what most fantasy scifi is. Magic that they give techno babel names to, to make people think it could really happen in the future. Transporters, FTL, Hyper Space, Gravtonics, stuff like that. The solar drives from one of the Gundam series takes the cake.
The entire mecha subset of anime suffers from that problem. Sure, giant robots look cool, but as fighting machines realistically they're a bust without unobtainium-level technobabble. :)
There are people (actual human beings) that believe the world is flat, I don’t think you can make fiction unbelievable
Yeah, but it looks cool.
Edit: Ok, your novel sounds even cooler!
For fuck's sake. Why are YOU here? Aren't you supposed to watch Historical Stuff about the Roman Catholic Church? I don't really like you, Mozgus.
@@danielantony1882 I HEARD THERE WAS HERESY HERE SO I CAME AS QUICKLY AS I COULD
So in the world of EverFall... if you jump off a continent, you fall continuously. If that is a fact, then does that mean that the continents are always falling? Do they have their own gravity? Or if you dug to the bottom of the continent, would you fall out and then splat on the top side? could you build an elevator Tower of Babel like from the Top layer to the Bottom layer? Fly in an Aircraft like a zeppelin, airplane, pegasus, griffin, or dragon be needed? If you can indeed fall off the continent then something must be holding up the continents between the 2 barriers, some sort of magic? If you tried to incorporate some laws of physics and thermodynamics, then the air near the upper barrier must be less dense than the air at the lower barrier. Now we've got some logic moving, I can get behind it.
How about a perpetual motion machine powered by water falling at terminal velocity into something like an archimedes screw (so the water falls out at the same point as it falls in). Well, so much for thermodynamics...
The Last Jedi creates a world too dumb to explain.
To be fair, from what I recall of the books the Traction Cities have been around for centuries or millennium by this point, the reason for their creation needn't still exist nor the exact understanding of how they were made.
In point of fact in book 2, the city of Anchorage is seeking a quiet spot where they can transition to being Static in safety, and there are other static settlements which are generally very heavily armed to protect against being uprooted by the Traction cities.
So basically we are dealing with the Thunderbirds episode where they tried moving the empire state building?
Dumb and unrealistic.. but AWESOME AF! I love that machine-city vehicle!
Eh, Personally as a fan of Steampunk, I enjoy the concept of Mobile Cities. It seems like a fun concept that can work with the right explanation.
Thanks to Shad and Terrible Writing Advice I've been able to make my fantasy books have believable stuff in it.
"Moving Cities" ⇒Chrome Shelled Regios
To put it simply, the books explain it a lot better and it's prequel series. It makes it a tad more believable especially when they give you more information on them and its a book so you can just imagine its looks.
to be fair we have only the trailers we have now Idea how much will be explained ^^
@@anblueboot5364 well I'm not sure about it even staying loyal to done of the basic parts of the book, as in them the technology is very primitive with it mostly being in the Victorian era, with heavier than air flight being a stunning new invention in the third book. With the movies having very advanced tech considering the set up is there has been a nuclear war that had left most of the world a bit barren apart from Asia and America being a toxic hellscape.
@@theyorkshireshadow7081 well until this comment section I wasn't aware that there was more than just one book ^^"
so I've only read that one book where london was getting back nukes and wanted to break China, which if I remeber right was like the major non moving city which protected the lands behind it, so for me it looked kinda faifthfull to the book
and the cover of the version I own shows London just beeing as big as in the trailer.
@@anblueboot5364 true but that's the basic plot and I'm not sure if they would get away with how to Train your dragon ing it up. But you can tell that they might go a bit off with the non core plot points. Which means that some of the bits that try to make it slightly more believable might not be in, like the fact that all the aircraft seem to be futuristic science fantasy things, rather than airships which is what you would expect to be seeing from a world recoving from a nuclear apocalypse. I'm going off on a bit of a tangent but I I'm kind of saying I'm not sure how it's going to go in terms of plot and other things.
P.S the other books are quite chunky but they are worth reading to see where the characters and world goes from the first book.
@@theyorkshireshadow7081 Oh I'm very happy that there are even more books to read so it's a nice surprise
I will have to look at the trailer I've only seen the teaser by now and there was just the city shown.
*THE INTRO IS BACK*
I actually thought of this idea of moving cities a few years ago independently, not even knowing it had already been done. My realistic explanation was that this was a parallel world of Earth and rather than developing city walls to combat looters and barbarians, moving cities were developed. The fact that a city can move provides the same function as a city wall :)
I'll be spoiling the prequels here, but if I remember correctly that is the entire reason why London is put on wheels in the first place.
Nomadic tribes already existed beforehand who lived in moving fortresses, but these were much smaller and existed to escape from a chaotically changing geography and climate after the 60 minute war.
The Londoners become aware of a huge invading force of these Nomads converging on them, so to avoid being captured and enslaved they decided to put the city on wheels following the discovery of old world technology that made it possible.
The city leaves, barely finished, abandoning the majority of its own citizens to escape from the horde.
Now that it had become a moving city, it copied the lifestyle of the smaller Nomadic Tribes, subsisting on resources and slaves from devoured static settlements. Now, no anchored settlement was safe.
This started a Traction City Arms Race that led to the concept of Municiple Darwinism.
So in essence, Traction Cities were first created to defend against invaders, but with their very existence making static settlements largely impossible, they caused a paradigm shift where cities moved and preyed on one another.
part of writing is accepting and ignoring facts in equal measure. part of it is as you said is with clever methods.
I want exactly same wall unit in my future home as Shad, with books and swords on it.
Note on endless sky:
Integral Trees by Larry Niven, set in a gas torus, a ring of air around a neutron star. Kind of wild, worth checking out.
This probably falls under the lazy/dumb side, but (addressing your part about endless sky) I always thought a good way to explain such things would be with alternate planes of existence that, like Heaven or Hell, are their own self-contained, unique worlds and not just mirror-versions of the 'normal world' with a color-filter on.
In these alternate planes, the physics and logic are internally consistent within each one, but also sincerely tell the laws of physics as _we_ know them to cram it, and any 'outsider' characters who are used to Earth-physics are just as baffled by what they're seeing as the reader might be. Sort of like "My house, my rules" for entire planes of existence.
Building on that is maybe the idea of monsters from said other planes who use 'magic,' which is actually just them applying the laws of physics from _their_ home-plane while they're standing in ours, letting them casually flip off our laws of physics in well-established, consistent ways. It could easily be a runaway train if you just invent new law-breaks on the fly, but if you have a set list and keep it internally consistent, I think it could work. Dunno if I'm right or just lying to myself though.