Just an odd question. I am messing around with Portals (as always). I was wondering about a Deryni led race to the South Pole and the exploration of Antarctica. One idea I had is a 12 man team with enough Deryni to create a Portal. This would allow resupply from base camp.
The issue is it would need a Portal to be made on Ice that is a kilometer thick. There is no access to the actual land below, no living rock or even turf.
What are your thoughts?
I'm going to say it wouldn't be possible. This is due to what it states in Deryni Magic on the construction of portals:
Physical preparation of a Portal apparently requires a base of natural earth or rock.
When Arilan prepares to construct a Portal in Kelson's tent in High Deryni, he makes a
point of turning back the carpet to expose the turf beneath, carefully raking it free of
stones and even small twigs; Joram and Ansel are noted to have spent several days
tearing up the flagstones of the north transept at Saint Mary's to expose the living rock.
We asked KK if there was some way to build a Portal on a stone or earth-filled surface on a ship or other non-grounded surface. I think she indicated it might be possible, but I forget under what exact conditions. If our search feature was working properly, I'd suggest checking the past year or two of chat logs, but unfortunately the last few times I've used the search feature, it only gave hits on the most recent posts featuring the keyword(s). :-\
Quote from: Bynw on September 14, 2018, 06:42:22 PM
I'm going to say it wouldn't be possible. This is due to what it states in Deryni Magic on the construction of portals:
Physical preparation of a Portal apparently requires a base of natural earth or rock.
When Arilan prepares to construct a Portal in Kelson's tent in High Deryni, he makes a
point of turning back the carpet to expose the turf beneath, carefully raking it free of
stones and even small twigs; Joram and Ansel are noted to have spent several days
tearing up the flagstones of the north transept at Saint Mary's to expose the living rock.
This is all true; however, Camber must have found some way to work around it to create the moving portal at the top of Queen Sinead's Tower, and that's what we were positing in that chat room discussion about if a moving portal could be created on a ship if there was a platform of earth or something similar under it.
Quote from: Evie on September 14, 2018, 06:45:18 PM
We asked KK if there was some way to build a Portal on a stone or earth-filled surface on a ship or other non-grounded surface. I think she indicated it might be possible, but I forget under what exact conditions. If our search feature was working properly, I'd suggest checking the past year or two of chat logs, but unfortunately the last few times I've used the search feature, it only gave hits on the most recent posts featuring the keyword(s). :-\
The search function works fine. You are doing it wrong.
I found these on the subject of moving/portable portals:
http://www.rhemuthcastle.com/index.php/topic,789.msg5067.html#msg5067
http://www.rhemuthcastle.com/index.php/topic,1602.msg14030.html#msg14030
Quote from: Bynw on September 14, 2018, 06:58:54 PM
Quote from: Evie on September 14, 2018, 06:45:18 PM
We asked KK if there was some way to build a Portal on a stone or earth-filled surface on a ship or other non-grounded surface. I think she indicated it might be possible, but I forget under what exact conditions. If our search feature was working properly, I'd suggest checking the past year or two of chat logs, but unfortunately the last few times I've used the search feature, it only gave hits on the most recent posts featuring the keyword(s). :-\
The search function works fine. You are doing it wrong.
Nope. I've used the search bar successfully for years to locate specific posts that were sometimes years old, even though that sometimes meant having to skim through pages of results or narrow my search to a specific part of the forum to find what I wanted. But more recently, no matter what I search for, I get at most one page of results, and sometimes only 3 or 4 results on a topic that has been discussed a lot more times than that. I tried it again just now with "Valerian," who has been mentioned in far more than 13 posts, but that's how many results I get back for that name. I think the problem has only been happening for me in the past few months to a year, maybe.
Well I was hoping a warded circle on a glacier would be similar to the Portal made on turf. Sadly there goes my vignette of the race to the South Pole using sled dogs and portals. Any rock outcroppings would be sought after to base a Portal on. Hmmm back to the drawing board.
Bynw, thank you for the first link to chat back in 2011. The closing conversation gave me an idea about how Camber's rotating Tower portal worked.
Quote
[Sunday, December 04, 2011] [07:45:07 PM] <Camber> I know that in the books, I had a moving portal in my living quarters, is there anything in the lore about portable portals?
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[Sunday, December 04, 2011] [07:45:48 PM] <Evie> a portal has to be grounded somehow, doesn't it? I imagine that might make a portable one difficult
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[Sunday, December 04, 2011] [07:47:04 PM] <KK> We know that temporary ones can be set up, and we know that the location can be somewhat altered or rotated. But I don't think they're portable as such.
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[Sunday, December 04, 2011] [07:47:28 PM] <jemler> so you can't place a portal on a tile, and move the tile?
[Sunday, December 04, 2011] [07:49:57 PM] <KK> A portable tile or stone wouldn't work. Unlike a portable altar stone.
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[Sunday, December 04, 2011] [07:47:48 PM] <the_Bee> Yes. it IIRC it rotated among the four columns of the tower/platform/whatever.
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[Sunday, December 04, 2011] [07:49:05 PM] <KK> Which means that the whole platform was part of the Portal, and it was merely the focus of the energy that shifted. I think that would be very difficult to do.
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[Sunday, December 04, 2011] [07:50:42 PM] <KK> One has to set reasonable limits on the abilities of one's superheroes.
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[Sunday, December 04, 2011] [07:51:31 PM] <Alkari> KK, any thoughts as to where an old Portal would be in Coroth Castle? I assume Alaric would have found one in the Camber grotto by now?
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[Sunday, December 04, 2011] [07:52:22 PM] <KK> There really ought to be a Portal at Coroth, that Alaric just hasn't found. Or maybe there was one and it was destroyed.
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[Sunday, December 04, 2011] [07:52:33 PM] <KK> That's probably the likely explanation.
So this was a fun little excerpt. First off No portable portals. reason: 1)Portals need to be tied to the earth. 2)reasonable limits need to be set on superheros. I like that one.
The solution to Camber's rotating Tower portal. The platform tower floor is one portal. The rotation is the energy focus on different corners of the one portal. This is more like a trap to one portal than separate portals turning on and off around the room. If Bee has it right than there are columns of stone and earth that descend down the tower and all end in the same pinical area that makes up this portal signature. The trap comes in knowing what corner the focused energy will be on at any given time. It is likely a mathematical equation for the time of day or other constant formula that can be figured out by those who know the formula so the can jump safely into the tower.
As to Coroth's portal, It most likely was there but at some point history has destroyed it. (I have a fan fic story about that)
MerchentDeryni, you can build portals on rock outcroppings next to glaciers in Alaska, Canada, and Russia. But it says Antartica is 98% covered in 1.2 mile thick ice. Going to be hard to find a rocky outcropping in that. Sorry.
Yeah, I spent some time looking at the map of antarctica. Resupply is a problem. I will work something out. 8)
Not a problem - it doesn't need to be bedrock, or the majority of portals wouldn't work. Simply lay down flagstones at the pole. A decent mason could do it...
...we can do better than that. I volunteer my great grandfather, John Donaldson Walker. He was, amongst other things, a master builder, constructing a large number of (now heritage listed) houses in Sydney - and went to Antarctica on Scott's first expedition as carpenter. (He ended up looking after the dogs, because Scott didn't bring a specialist. Scott was a daft fool who had no business running an expedition - and explained this to Scott when the expedition ended. This is why GGDad wasn't invited on the 2nd, disastrous, expedition).
I assure you, given the other mad things he did in his life, building a stone floor for Deryni at the south pole wouldn't even make the top 10. He would insist on making it a shelter for safety - his time in the navy means he'd know exactly was needed.
That would be interesting. If a stone floor could be built to hold the energies in a Portal matrix then the sled dogs would haul a floor and posts and canvas to build a shelter. Build a floor, raise the beams, set up the tent and you have a shelter.
Create a Portal and you could ferry in a more permanent structure. bring in the next load of floor pavers and continue the expedition.
In the books they lifted the floor stones up to get to the living rock.
Hmmm, just checked pg 94 of Deryni magic. A portal requires a base of natural earth or rock. Joram and Ansel spent several days tearing up flagstones to expose living rock.
Looks like the rock floor idea won't work. :( bummer
So how did Camber's Portal at the top of the tower work?
Also, I'll have to do some digging (pardon the pun), but I am pretty certain KK mentioned in chat once that having a box or container of packed earth under an upper story floor was a possibility for grounding a Portal. I'll try to find the reference if I can figure out some keyword to search that might limit the number of hits to less than the insane number that "portal" would likely generate.
That is one thing that struck me as odd in the series. Unless everyone is living in the basement apartments the rulers and bishops in power have to run to the basement to get to the Portals.
Yet there seem to be Portals on upper levels of buildings.
I am also worried about my Camberland stories in that on some of the islands I am on a sand island with a coral substrate. I am hoping that is close enough to soil to count. Otherwise all the smaller islands have no Portal connection to the Camberland Network.
http://www.rhemuthcastle.com/index.php/topic,1749.msg15311.html#msg15311
There's one of the chats in which we discussed the tower Portal. I still haven't found the one in which we discussed the possibility of having one on an upper level with packed earth under the (presumably stone) flooring, but it would be earlier than this chat, since it's mentioned in passing during this discussion.
In King Javan's year, Joram explains to Javan that they will be able to construct a portal on a higher level because earth is packed solid between the vaulting of the chambers below and the floor of the new development (which of course includes the library). So clearly the earth can be removed from it's original situation. Which makes me wonder how much one would need to construct a portal and whether it would be possible for that to be transported as part of an expedition's baggage? Or, what about a probe send down to bedrock which could act as a channel for the energy?
Beyond that I am wondering whether in the intervening centuries since those of which KK wrote there has been research into exactly what energies are being tapped into, and whether it might become possible to access them in other ways other than actually being grounded.
My guess is that they're meant to tap into ley lines, so that might be why they require grounding. Or something.
Quote from: Evie on September 20, 2018, 09:08:02 AM
My guess is that they're meant to tap into ley lines, so that might be why they require grounding. Or something.
You are brilliant. That is my thought on the matter too.
Quote from: Bynw on September 20, 2018, 10:07:20 AM
Quote from: Evie on September 20, 2018, 09:08:02 AM
My guess is that they're meant to tap into ley lines, so that might be why they require grounding. Or something.
You are brilliant. That is my thought on the matter too.
I think all of the upper-story Portals we have seen in canon manage to remain grounded because they are located in buildings that have stone foundations and walls (plus, as revanne mentioned earlier, sometimes additional packed earth added between upper level flooring and the vaulting below). So I would think that trying to put a Portal into a timber-framed building's upper level wouldn't work, no matter how much earth one might pack under the flooring, unless there was some stonework to ground that packed earth and serve as a conduit between the ground below and the packed earth above. But that's my theory. Our various canonical castle and cathedral Portals would not have this issue, since they are all in buildings made of stone (and with stone floors as well). But the Portal wouldn't have to be sitting directly on bedrock, otherwise most Portals wouldn't be able to exist at all.
So I guess that would mean a shipboard Portal on a stone-topped box filled with packed earth wouldn't work, sadly, unless maybe the energies could also be conducted by water and the ship happened to be traveling over an underwater ley line, but that seems like it would be dubious at best. I definitely wouldn't want to trust my life to that attempt. ;D
I thought about the stone of the building acting like a conductor too. Ley lines make sense, though I assume that somehow the energy is drawn from the nearest ley line rather than there having to be a specific location or alignment.
Another query. What gives a portal its unique signature? Is it its relation to the energy source or does it have to do with whoever creates it?
Quote from: revanne on September 20, 2018, 11:23:43 AM
I thought about the stone of the building acting like a conductor too. Ley lines make sense, though I assume that somehow the energy is drawn from the nearest ley line rather than there having to be a specific location or alignment.
Another query. What gives a portal its unique signature? Is it its relation to the energy source or does it have to do with whoever creates it?
Just completely wild speculation here, but my guess is that it would be a combination of factors, such as the individual psychic resonances left by the builder(s), along with some sort of geographical marker inherent to that particular location. It would essentially be something like a unique psychic "fingerprint" that differentiates that particular location from any other Portal, even if it is relatively close by and made by the same Deryni. Maybe there would even be visual and/or tactile markers added in somehow, so that even if you've never been to a Portal location and are only getting the signature from another Deryni's mind, you'd get a different feel from a Portal in a cozy study niche than you would from one in the center of a wide open space. But short of finding two Portal locations and learning to balance the energies between them, it would be difficult for me to say with certainty. If you would just keep looking for a Portal on your end.... ;) ;D
I keep trying but they are very well hidden.
So there has to a connection to the living rock below.I guess you could describe it as the packed earth making the connection to the ground below like an extension cord reaching over to the plug. The Matrix is based on the living rock, but can be extended out via a connector route of packed earth.
Well my polar route would need a big drill and a bunch of dirt to drop down the hole so no dice for that story idea.
Hmm. Presumably a core sampling machine could be used/modified to sink a hole that could be filled with earth; possibly a stone drill could be carved, and simply left there. Core samples can exceed a kilometer, so you could get some serious distance - but if the ice is moving, it's going to destroy the link.
Given modern aircraft etc, it's probably simpler to have transfer portals on the coast and fly stuff the rest of the way. :(
Belay that, need to think laterally! The coast is easily accessible by portal - run a road southwards, with packed earth in it. Have a portal every kilometre or so for maintenance access - you just keep moving portal to portal until you can't, letting you know where the break is - and you've got a chain that will take you to the south pole.
Of course, you still need a reason to do this.....
Quote from: whitelaughter on September 23, 2018, 05:07:44 AM
Of course, you still need a reason to do this.....
Why does a man climb a mountain?
Because it is there.
But you are very correct. That would be crazy work just to build a portal because you can. It would be more cost effective to get to that place the same way we do now. Fly in, fly out. But Deryni powers could keep one warmer there. Just couldn't blink out during an emergency.