#floating cities

[70sscifiart]

Last day to sign up for my free sci-fi art newsletter before the next issue's out, all about floating cities!

Here's the sneak peek, featuring Steinar Lund, Morris Scott Dollens, Ray Feibush, and Robert McCall.

[retroscifiart]

Floating cities by Steve R Dodd

[knightnydoorin]

I want to know more about the floating city where zemnian comes from. Because like we know about Aeor and Avalir but neither have ever mentioned anything about that. and matt keeps referencing this magocracy that was the basis for zemnian as a language and an archmage toying with time but we know zilch about it other than some lil tidbits

[skygodz]

The Wind Riders from Uttara in the Lyra system are semi-avian race and live in floating cities far above the planet.

🕊🕊🕊

[thestarsarelaughing]

So about flat-earther FCG...

Obviously this point of view is ridiculous to somebody raised on Exandria/who knows how that world works, but if your consciousness was, say... affected by memories of the past "life" of your salvaged components and those memories took place entirely in/on a floating city??? If you still maintained some of the tought patterns and tacit assumptions of that life?

Then your world was always flat. This is the city, it has an edge and if you roll over that you'll fall off. As far as you know this city is the world, or one of many, and there has never been any need for you to know how any other kind of world might work. if that was the case... FCG’s flat-Exandria assumptions might not be purely based on Sam’s love of seeing Matt cringe.

[deep-space-netwerk]

So Venus is my favorite planet in the solar system - everything about it is just so weird.

It has this extraordinarily dense atmosphere that by all accounts shouldn't exist - Venus is close enough to the sun (and therefore hot enough) that the atmosphere should have literally evaporated away, just like Mercury's. We think Earth manages to keep its atmosphere by virtue of our magnetic field, but Venus doesn't even have that going for it. While Venus is probably volcanically active, it definitely doesn't have an internal magnetic dynamo, so whatever form of volcanism it has going on is very different from ours. And, it spins backwards! For some reason!!

But, for as many mysteries as Venus has, the United States really hasn't spent much time investigating it. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, sent no less than 16 probes to Venus between 1961 and 1984 as part of the Venera program - most of them looked like this!

The Soviet Union had a very different approach to space than the United States. NASA missions are typically extremely risk averse, and the spacecraft we launch are generally very expensive one-offs that have only one chance to succeed or fail.

It's lead to some really amazing science, but to put it into perspective, the Mars Opportunity rover only had to survive on Mars for 90 days for the mission to be declared a complete success. That thing lasted 15 years. I love the Opportunity rover as much as any self-respecting NASA engineer, but how much extra time and money did we spend that we didn't technically "need" to for it to last 60x longer than required?

Anyway, all to say, the Soviet Union took a more incremental approach, where failures were far less devastating. The Venera 9 through 14 probes were designed to land on the surface of Venus, and survive long enough to take a picture with two cameras - not an easy task, but a fairly straightforward goal compared to NASA standards. They had…mixed results.

Venera 9 managed to take a picture with one camera, but the other one's lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 10 also managed to take a picture with one camera, but again the other lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 11 took no pictures - neither lens cap deployed this time.

Venera 12 also took no pictures - because again, neither lens cap deployed.

Lotta problems with lens caps.

For Venera 13 and 14, in addition to the cameras they sent a device to sample the Venusian "soil". Upon landing, the arm was supposed to swing down and analyze the surface it touched - it was a simple mechanism that couldn't be re-deployed or adjusted after the first go.

This time, both lens caps FINALLY ejected perfectly, and we were treated to these marvelous, eerie pictures of the Venus landscape:

However, when the Venera 14 soil sampler arm deployed, instead of sampling the Venus surface, it managed to swing down and land perfectly on….an ejected lens cap.

[copperisabadassbitch]

[jayrockin]

Anonyomous asked: Turii, What are avian clubs/bars like?

Something about "environmental damage" and "city shadow stunting crops" and "poor worker conditions" and "local economy disruption." You know, that kind of dumb stuff.

[nestedneons]

By Harvey Brown

[70sscifiart]

Here's possibly my favorite 'floating city' art ever. It's by Vicente Segrelles for the 1978 German translation of 'Armada of Antares,' by Alan Burt Akers. I love the organic touches - the rope bridge, vines, birds. And why is just one city decaying like that? Mysterious!

​This is my personal scan and, I believe, the highest quality version available online. My free email newsletter subscribers got to see it first! You can check out the full issue here.

[retroscifiart]

Art by Alfred Kelsner. Cover for Perry Rhodan: Die Spur nach Andromeda by Hans Kneifel (1996 edition)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

One last devastating blow

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[zegalba]

Illustrations by Steve R Dodd

[radiance1]

A Dp x Dc idea that isn't Danny-centric!? Say it ain't so!

So I think that this'll be a relatively short one but anywho.

Pariah Dark forcing the entirety of Amity Park into the ghost zone did not come without consequences, even with the ghost shield the Fenton's put over the town.

Said consequences come in the form of the entire basically becoming a ghost portal in and of itself. It mostly happened slowly over time, with the town experiencing quakes that spread quakes that lead to the Ghost Zone.

Everyone had to evacuate when it got really bad, well, mostly everyone. You see, Sam didn't want to leave Amity Park at all so he tried to find ways to convince her parents to let her stay even if said city was basically crumbling.

Then she had an idea.

What if she became one of Undergrowths allogenes? (taken from genshin impact)

So she persuaded (read: bullied) Danny into taking her to him so they could make a deal and let her stay in Amity. Undergrowth was surprisingly accommodating to the both of them, what with Danny becoming the new Ghost Prince and Sam already leaving a good impression on him.

He gave her a task, take this seed and place it within the middle of Amity Park and watch over it until it fully grows, then, and only then, will he accept her as one of his allogenes.

So Sam very obviously took said seed, said yes, and went to plant it.

The center of Amity Park was basically a giant ghost portal, it was small, at first. But with each and every quake it expanded and expanded until it couldn't be ignored anymore, so after Danny and Sam got back and went to it, Sam just dropped the seed in the middle of it and watched it sink.

Luckily Overgrowth gave her a proper method she should follow to ensure its growth, at the very least.

It took 4 years for the seed to grow, 4 years of relative isolation for Sam. Danny was usually busy with High Prince duties, what with being summoned and the likes, while Tucker was busy with taking over the outside world.

They still made time for her however.

When it grew Undergrowth gave her praise, not many would willingly keep themselves in isolation to grow an interdimensional seed from the other world. Such, he made do on his promise and gave Sam a portion of his powers, turning her into one of his allogenes.

He did however tell her that she was only Allogene he's ever had in multiple eons. Some of them chose to reenter the reincarnation cycle, while others sacrificed themselves for the greater good and such, some of them among the living are still alive, however, so they should be at least, vaguely aware of her existence.

Sam trained her new powers, familiarizing herself with them until it was as easy as breathing, which took a few months of non-stop training. Thankfully her new stamina is leaps beyond that of her previous human self. Eventually, she was even able to create a few lotus' that acted mostly as transport around the giant ghost portal.

Oh yea, did I mention that the Ghost Portal expanded enough to take over all of Amity Park? Well, a few buildings here and there stilled survived, mostly like small islands but still.

So Sam was living a pretty fine life, all things considered. Her days were very peaceful, tending to a few plants here and there, taking care of the giant tree that sprouted from the seed she grew, training her powers and talking to Danny and Tucker whenever they dropped by.

It was repetitive, but a nice one.

Then her daily cycle was interrupted by people claiming to be the Justice League, and she honestly did not have a clue as to who they are. She didn't really keep up with the news after planting the seed, or the outside world at all for that matter, the only one she regularly kept in contact with was Tucker.

She thought back on, and Tucker did mention them once or twice. Mostly painting them as irritating individuals yet worthy of respect, not that she knew why but she wasn't going to just let them step in here regardless. It's pretty rude to just step into someone's home without permission, no?

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Robota by Doug Chiang