Portal Jumps

[revanne]

I've always assumed that people being susceptible to giddiness or vertigo would find them more disorientating. 

[whitelaughter]

This looks similar to the teleportation psionic ability in the Traveller RPG.

And that includes rules for going up or down. Yes, you get warmer as you go up and colder as you lose altitude because of the potential energy that comes from height (basically, since an object could fall that distance, the kenetic energy that could be generated by the fall is referred to as 'potential energy', and replacing that is taken from your thermal energy).

[DoctorM]

I've always assumed that people being susceptible to giddiness or vertigo would find them more disorientating.

Me, too. I think in "Season of the Sword" I had a character say he'd only been in a Portal twice, and had been sick as a dog both times. I don't get seasick, but I do get dizzy in high places, and that's no fun.

[Laurna]

In a FF I wrote but not yet completed, one of my characters is the captain of a fleet of ships and he is also a Cambarian Councilor, but the longer the portal jump the more disoriented he becomes. And it takes him a bit to recover when he has to portal from the Isles of Horte to the CC chamber. It is fun to play with that little disparaging flaw.

[whitelaughter]

Doesn't the Camberian Council have a chamber at the top of a mountain? Seem to recall that they destroyed the only nonmagical way to get there.

Well, if so, I doubt normal physical limits apply.

I found this site to calculate how much energy would be gained/lost:
https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/physics/gravitational-potential.php

Assuming a hundred kg person for simplicity, it says potential energy is 980665 J.
Which didn't tell me a lot, so checked how many joules to change temperature by 1 degree, and found that was 4.18 Joules per gram, so 4180 per kilo, or 418,000 for our sample Deryni.
So the temperature change would be a bit over 2 degrees; 2.34 to be more precise. It doesn't matter how much you weigh.
That's certainly bearable, but should be sufficient to be worth commenting on.

[Nezz]

Since you're talking grams and kilos, I presume you mean 2.34 degrees Celsius?

[Fruit]

Doesn't the Camberian Council have a chamber at the top of a mountain? Seem to recall that they destroyed the only nonmagical way to get there.

Well, if so, I doubt normal physical limits apply.

I found this site to calculate how much energy would be gained/lost:
https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/physics/gravitational-potential.php

Assuming a hundred kg person for simplicity, it says potential energy is 980665 J.
Which didn't tell me a lot, so checked how many joules to change temperature by 1 degree, and found that was 4.18 Joules per gram, so 4180 per kilo, or 418,000 for our sample Deryni.
So the temperature change would be a bit over 2 degrees; 2.34 to be more precise. It doesn't matter how much you weigh.
That's certainly bearable, but should be sufficient to be worth commenting on.

Someplace high in the Rhendall Mountains (Codex, pdf pg 21).

So, assuming a person with mass 100 kg; their weight would be 981 newtons; their height determines what their potential energy would be - if they're 1000 meters off the ground, then yes, 981000 Joules. 

Are you trying to find out how much thermal energy a human body loses when falling?  But you're using the specific heat capacity of water?  Why?  Yes, the specific heat capacity for water is 4184 J/kg-K (you're also missing an entire unity of measurement in your calculations) - the specific heat capacity is the amount of heat, of thermal energy, required to raise the temperature of a substance by 1 K.  You're talking about a person - 60% of the human body is water, true, but it also contains fat, sugars - how fat is the person?  Are they obese, or muscled?  The mass alone doesn't tell any of that.  A human is largely solid, not liquid - we don't evaporate as easily (thank you human skin), we also don't move as uniformly as a drop of water does.  2.34 joules?  It takes about 10000 Joules to boil a cup of coffee; but 2 Joules would raise the temperature in a human body?  And what is your calculation?  You're dividing the potential energy of a human body by the specific capacity of water and then multiplying by the mass of the person; that gets you 2.34/K (that pesky unit of measurement you forgot about).  Which you're equating to temperature? 

[Salic]

This is an interesting thread.  I wonder, though, if distance is relevant concerning teleportation through a transfer portal. If it is a hyperspace transit, there should be little problem with distance, per se.  Of course, a transfer portal could have built in distance limits if those limits were preset by it's creators and if it's available to multiple parties.

My impression of Katherine Kurtz' descriptions of teleportation that there is little loss of time in the transfer. Following up on the hyperspace conception, within most concepts of hyperspace, time stands still within that space. 

I'm under the impression that there may be a physiological stress encountered through teleportation, but I think that the effects would be minimal.  I think that a Deryni is shielded  from the harmful effects of any transit, since one is going through a hyperspace momentarily where within that space, oxygen, gravity as we know it, etc. would be missing.  This shielding must exist to prevent a Deryni suffering from explosive decompression in the act of teleportation.

These are my thoughts on this.  What do you think?

[Nezz]

I think if said Deryni is not shielded, he suffers the same effects as we saw in Galaxy Quest: "he turned inside out... boom ...and exploded."

On a more serious side, I can see the hyperspace scenario: the original researchers of portals wouldn't know about hyperspace, and so when one portal went wrong that one time, they'd say "Oh, it must be because we tried to make it go too far," and now they just assume the limit is about x-number of miles. No one questions it because it's worked and no one else has turned inside out and exploded for several hundred years.

[Salic]

I think if said Deryni is not shielded, he suffers the same effects as we saw in Galaxy Quest: "he turned inside out... boom ...and exploded."

he, he   

On a more serious side, I can see the hyperspace scenario: the original researchers of portals wouldn't know about hyperspace, and so when one portal went wrong that one time, they'd say "Oh, it must be because we tried to make it go too far," and now they just assume the limit is about x-number of miles. No one questions it because it's worked and no one else has turned inside out and exploded for several hundred years.

I would agree with you, Nezz.  I would also tend to identify the lack of education with the unevenness of education in Feudal societies where most higher education is controlled by guilds or their equivalents in Deryni society.  Many times, guild knowledge would be held in secrecy to give certain guilds advantages over social competitors.  I suspected that the culture of Feudalism retarded Dernyni knowledge.

I think that we cannot use the analog of human, Earth society, as an accurate understanding of Deryni society.  The mere presence of psionics in that society must be considered, and how it affects their scientific understanding.  I think that the thoughtful among the Deryni probably considered Deryni magic, or rather psionics, as something open to scientific, instead of a ritual, or religious explanation.  Whenever I see the word "magic" in the canon, I think I'm going to see a pre-scientific explanation.

[Cronanbor]

This, I believe, is an appropriate place for this question.  I apologize if it has already been answered.
What precisely is the Portal Cubicle?  I'm having a hard time picturing it.  While reading the Legends of Camber, I just pictured it as an unmarked spot on the floor that one has to memorize its location, to then step on it to activate the teleportation.  But now, as I read the Harrowing of Gwynedd, i'm aware of the word 'cubicle' which implies a box of some sort.  An intangible box?  Or a physical structure?

[Bynw]

This, I believe, is an appropriate place for this question.  I apologize if it has already been answered.
What precisely is the Portal Cubicle?  I'm having a hard time picturing it.  While reading the Legends of Camber, I just pictured it as an unmarked spot on the floor that one has to memorize its location, to then step on it to activate the teleportation.  But now, as I read the Harrowing of Gwynedd, i'm aware of the word 'cubicle' which implies a box of some sort.  An intangible box?  Or a physical structure?

I don't recall Portal Cubicle as a term in the Legends of Camber of Culdi Trilogy. But it has been sometime since I read those books. I do know of the term "portal square" to represent where the portal is located.

A Deryni is able to sense a portal if they step on one. Unless it's like the moving portal that  Camber rediscovered. Where Joram didn't trust it because it moved and he couldn't sense it.

Where in Legends is the Cubicle mentioned?

[Evie]

I know the portal in Duncan's study is in a hidden niche in the wall (behind either a curtain or a sliding bookcase, I think?), and that could be considered a sort of a cubicle, but the Portal in the Royal Library is in the center of the room. The one at the Library annex is subtly marked by being a different shape or size from the stones around it, but not so noticeably so that someone who couldn't sense it would notice that the Portal stone stands out from the rest of the floor.

@Cronanbor, are you reading the books in English or in a translated version? That could also explain why the term "portal cubicle" doesn't sound familiar. Though I can't think of any reason why a portal stone couldn't be located in a cubicle. I just can't remember reading about a portal that specifically is mentioned as being in one.

[Cronanbor]

I'm sorry, there is a slight misunderstanding.  The term "Portal Cubicle" is not in the Legends of Camber.  They are found in The Harrowing of Gwynedd, Open Road publishing, Chapter 4 pg 50.
"I just finished up what you'd started," the Healer said with an amused shrug, gesturing toward the Portal cubicle.  "Now let's get out of here before any of Norris' chums come along.  I've told him to make whatever excuses he needs to be sure they don't but we wouldn't want to push our luck."
     Nodding, Javan let himself be ushered into the Portal cubicle, his mind churning with a dozen unasked questions.

<<But, I'm not trying to split hairs about the nomenclature.  I'm trying to imagine them accurately.  Is there a description anywhere of the portals?  As I said, currently i'm just imagining an unmarked spot on the floor that the Deryni has to memorize its placement for it to work. 

[Evie]

Ah. In that case the Portal itself is likely just a particular stone in the floor in that cubicle (i.e.,small room), which may or may not have any particular markings on it, but which a Deryni would recognize in either case because they would feel the tingle of the portal energy upon stepping on the right spot. "Portal cubicle" in that context would just mean "the cubicle that contains the portal," in the same way that calling a particular room a bedroom would imply it likely contains a bed or at least was built for that purpose. But having a bedroom wouldn't be integral to the bed's usage;it's perfectly possible to have an empty bedroom or a bed in the living room that remains perfectly functional. The portal stone itself is what makes it a portal, not the stone's location, aside from it needing to be grounded.