Océano de la Vida: 3 years later and much has changed

[Xhin]

The board isn't letting me edit the title because the post is too large, so I've moved everything in the OP here for the time being:

http://xhin.pbworks.com/w/page/54280541/Oceano

Yes, I know the formatting is messed up. It's a temporary solution.

[Acid Badger]

Why do they speak Spanish?

[Xhin]

They don't. They speak a pidgin that contains a lot of Spanish loan words because the earliest of them were originally lost conquistadors (from earth) that found their way here.

[Torco]

Why do they speak Spanish?

porque el español es awesome!

Lechugo

Lechuga ... unless lechugo is a different vegetable?

maybe rubíes, safiros, turquesas and the like should be in spanish as well?

This is one superlatively pretty conworld. I like what I'm seeing. Before contributing anything, however, or critiquing or nothing, I'd like to ask some questions about the meta.

1) what's the overarching principle, the virtue, so to speak, of the conworld? like, it's clear that it doesn't want to be realistic, but magical. but does it want to be magical realism? allegorical? metaphorical? mercurial? just plain bizarre?
2) what's the metacosmology, as in, relationship with earth, for instance, or the history of the world.

Now, since I'm more interested in how people live in this mystical ecology, here it goes.

a) population control mechanisms: if no one dies, what's stopping the Oceano from filling up with people? I imagine a solid layer of folk and fish and tree to develop over it eventually. Or do people not reproduce in it?
b) growth and food: sure, Vida heals people, and nurtures it, and gives them energy even, but you said it doesn't contribute nutrients: I guess it's physics, at this point, but... can you get fat, or grow, living off Agua de Vida ? and if so, a) and if not, how do limb regeneration works?
c) Energy (damnit I wanted to ask about people and I'm asking bout physics). I imagine Agua de Vida gives energy to people and animals and whatnot. It obviously can't be harnessed in metal machines because those are made of Muerte and Agua (sorry if I'm stepping on your toes with the name, it's just to distinguish the magical water from the regular water) destroys Muerte. buut yeah, can it be used for something else?

now for the people.
Economics: how do people get stuff. okay, no one dies of hunger of lack of medical care, but...
Psychology: what motivates these guys? does Agua cure mental illness as well? how about depression? if there's no need to eat, maybe folk would be far more epicurean? or perhaps they dedicate to spiritual pursuits like, say, praying or counting digits of ip?
Sociology: specifically, the nature of power. On earth, power is largely dependent on the ability to harm and kill, as well as take away the stuff you need, thereby indirectly harming or killing anyway. However, those things don't work like that on Oceano, since people can't be killed and don't need stuff to begin with, not in the traditional sense, at least, it seems. If murder doesn't work, and jails can be broken literally by sprinkling water on them.. well, Agua anyway, theeee... how do criminals are dealt with? also, on a broader sense, how does social control of individual behaviour work?
... shit, back to work, more later

[Xhin]

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond. You've raised some interesting points and given me some things to think about!

Lechuga ... unless lechugo is a different vegetable?

Yeah, I know. I just like the name "lechugo" better. Let's say that word drifted over 500 years or something.

1) what's the overarching principle, the virtue, so to speak, of the conworld? like, it's clear that it doesn't want to be realistic, but magical. but does it want to be magical realism? allegorical? metaphorical? mercurial? just plain bizarre?

Well, I originally invented it because I couldn't get to sleep. My main sources of inspiration were the Elven cities in LotR (from what I can remember of them) as well as the ocean near Aslan's Land during either Prince Caspian or that other seafaring narnia novel. Somehow Spanish overtones got tangled up into that.

I'd say that it follows the normal trend I have with conworlds where magic is (mostly) explainable in physical science terms. This one is a little different because there's not as much variety in materials; anything that isn't Gold or Silk or whatever turns into Muerte and sinks into Segundo Mar. There's also not nearly as many people here because people aren't native and I think there's some issue with having children.

For this world, I want to devote a lot of time to materials science because of the limited amount and variety of matter, as well as the unique needs of the people who live there. Biology is very interesting too because of the lack of variety in organisms (some basic plants, multiple types of fish, and specialized bacteria are all that there are).

2) what's the metacosmology, as in, relationship with earth, for instance, or the history of the world.

Haha I like that word. Océano de la Vida is the place where lost ocean/air travelers on other worlds (like Earth) end up. It ties into the mythology surrounding the Age of Exploration here a lot (the name itself is better translated as "Ocean of Youth"). Most of the humans that live there aren't older than about 600 years because of the technology that made deep-ocean travel possible then. (There are some exceptions though, like people in ancient ships that got caught in a storm and somehow survived until they reached Océano de la Vida.)

a) population control mechanisms: if no one dies, what's stopping the Oceano from filling up with people? I imagine a solid layer of folk and fish and tree to develop over it eventually. Or do people not reproduce in it?

Reproduction is extremely difficult due to the water's healing effects and the relative lack of neutral water. In order for babies to develop here on earth, they need nutrients from their mother. Here, nutrients can be provided by fish and plants like Lechugo, but not the amount that a baby needs. Furthermore, undeveloped fetuses act as Muerte here, so drinking ocean water would make it think that the mother has a parasite and spontaneously abort the child. The only feasible way of having a child is do it like the native fish do, and keep the mother near deep-colored crystals at all times so the water doesn't destroy her child.

Unfortunately even this doesn't work in all cases, because the mother can't eat Mugre directly, and that's an important part of the fish life cycle. Generally speaking, children simply aren't born. There are a few "native humans" to Océano de la Vida that were extremely lucky. Their development proceeds more slowly (about 5x the length of normal human development) because of how the water interferes with aging. Their physical age is roughly equivalent to the number of Tormenta Empíreo they've lived through (though not exactly since both the aging and the Tormenta Empíreo are somewhat random).

I imagine a solid layer of folk and fish and tree to develop over it eventually.

Yeah, I forgot to get to the life cycle of native life, but they have aging built in that overrides the water's effect. More specifically, the bacteria that they're in symbiosis with will slowly age them over a period of several hundred years. Fish reproduce relatively slowly because they're reliant on sparse underwater islands to tend to their eggs. When they are at the end of their life cycle, they will go to a new underwater island and lay a single egg there and their bacteria will become the bacteria of the new generation, helping to build Oak on the island.

Plants, meanwhile, are reliant on Mugre for growth, and Mugre is only replenished every few years due to the Tormenta Empíreo. They can't survive underwater because their symbiotic bacteria act as Muerte, turning Mugre into useful nutrients.

but... can you get fat, or grow, living off Agua de Vida ?

You can get fat, but it's extremely unlikely. You're more likely to get thinner because of the amount of physical exertion required to do anything due to the lack of technology. Water also doesn't get stored as fat, in fact weirdly it seems to pass through your body completely unchanged (a small amount of it will turn into ordinary water that your body will use). The reason for it being unchanged is the removal of muerte impurities on the way out.

a) and if not, how do limb regeneration works?

Limb (or body part in general) regeneration is a special process where mugre is pulled up from Segundo Mar and forms the basis of the new body part. A certain amount of this happens with ordinary healing, but the Mugre stream isn't visible. Limb regeneration is impossible in lakes on floating islands, flasks, and anything else that doesn't have a direct connection to Segundo Mar, although body part regeneration can also happen during Tormenta Empíreo regardless of where you are and by rain alone.

I imagine Agua de Vida gives energy to people and animals and whatnot.

Sort of. It restores the parts of your body necessary for energy production (mitochondria in cells I think) to a state where they have energy without actually providing them energy. Plants and fish meanwhile provide energy in the normal way, and plants capture sunlight (and even lightning light) in photosynthesis.

It obviously can't be harnessed in metal machines because those are made of Muerte and Agua destroys Muerte.

Exactly. Also metal other than gold is extremely rare because you basically have to bring it with you from the world you came from and protect it from the ocean and rain. Gold is a very good conductor of electricity, so it should technically be possible to harvest the constant electrical strikes in the Mar Tercero if you can get up there somehow. Though what would you actually use it for?

Economics: how do people get stuff.

I haven't quite worked that out yet, but there's a currency of crystals used because they're rare, difficult to obtain, useful, and are slowly depleted by turning them into dust.

Psychology: what motivates these guys? does Agua cure mental illness as well? how about depression? if there's no need to eat, maybe folk would be far more epicurean? or perhaps they dedicate to spiritual pursuits like, say, praying or counting digits of ip?

The two major groups of people (who I honestly haven't worked out much of, but you guys will be the first to see it) are either hedonists, that think of Océano de la Vida as paradise or are trying to find a way to get back to their home world and bring some of Océano de la Vida with them. There's also a good deal of exploration and scientific pursuit, which I'd love to delve into when I get some spare time. Segundo Mar and Mar Tercero are interesting areas that I haven't built in any real depth.

Also, 'Agua' can definitely cure clinical depression, since it restores serotonin and dopamine levels. Other mental disorders (that aren't chemically-based), not so much. Although the fact that you're living in paradise can generally soothe troubled minds.

Sociology: specifically, the nature of power. On earth, power is largely dependent on the ability to harm and kill, as well as take away the stuff you need, thereby indirectly harming or killing anyway. However, those things don't work like that on Oceano, since people can't be killed and don't need stuff to begin with, not in the traditional sense, at least, it seems. If murder doesn't work, and jails can be broken literally by sprinkling water on them.. well, Agua anyway, theeee... how do criminals are dealt with? also, on a broader sense, how does social control of individual behaviour work?

Ah, another good question. It IS possible to die on Océano de la Vida, Agua only prevents aging and makes you invulnerable as long as you're in the presence of it. Criminals are generally nonexistant because the society structure tends towards self-sufficient areas of the Tent City and other places, and specialization is required for a lot of industry and especially for surviving during Tormenta Empíreo, so collaboration is very necessary. Also the amount of people is very low, something like a few thousand at the most.

[Torco]

no problem, bro, thank you for such a freshly different and cool conworld to read about.

Yeah, I know. I just like the name "lechugo" better. Let's say that word drifted over 500 years or something.

in the exact direction english speakers tend to mispronounce spanish words???
joking, joking, lechugo sounds cool =P

Wait, is mugre a shorthand for matter ? I detect a sort of platonic undercurrent to it all. It's a weird amalgam between paradise and hell... I know it would feel like hell to me, at the very least.

Ah, another good question. It IS possible to die on Océano de la Vida, Agua only prevents aging and makes you invulnerable as long as you're in the presence of it. Criminals are generally nonexistant because the society structure tends towards self-sufficient areas of the Tent City and other places, and specialization is required for a lot of industry and especially for surviving during Tormenta Empíreo, so collaboration is very necessary. Also the amount of people is very low, something like a few thousand at the most.

What? no criminals? what's the point of paradise if there's no one trying to corrupt it? 'sides, I can see myself getting bored and punching people in the face just for the hell of it, after a couple of years at least. And since there's so few people and you're basically stuck with them forever, there's bound to be some of them you'll want to punch, or something. Immortality just makes it easier, since you know you're not actually hurting them, or at least not permanently.

Another cool thing is that, probably, everyone knows who everyone is... talk about century-spanning melodrama xD

anyway, cool idea, bro, looking forward to moar. and neat pics too.

[Xhin]

Wait, is mugre a shorthand for matter ?

The spanish words are basically:

Océano de la Vida -- Ocean of Youth
Segundo Mar -- The second sea (this is the swirling mass of Muerte at the bottom of the ocean)
Muerte -- Death, although an exact translation is more "non-alive" or "impure"
Vida -- Life
Mugre -- Grime, filth because of what it resembles.
Lechugo -- So named because the plant resembles lettuce.
El Mil Infiernos -- The Thousand Hells
Presagio de Viento -- Harbinger Wind; so named because it happens right before Tormenta Empíreo.
Tormenta Empíreo -- Empyreal tempest; literally is "storm of Empíreo (Empíreo is the name for the swirling multicolored sky)".
Mar Tercero -- The Third Sea (this is the swirling multicolored muerte in the sky)

I detect a sort of platonic undercurrent to it all.

How do you mean? I'm not familiar enough with Platonism to make that kind of judgment.

It's a weird amalgam between paradise and hell...

Yeah, it's tending more towards being hellish now that I've worked with it a bit. The lack of variety is definitely a deciding factor in that, but you have to realize this is only an early draft of the conworld and it's likely to get more interesting as time goes on.

What? no criminals?

Okay, to be honest that was a cop-out. I wanted to answer your question, but I haven't built anything about the actual people or cultures yet. That's probably going to be next, because it ties into the Gran Cacería.

Thank you again. I'll see what I can come up with the next time I get some spare time.

[Torco]

Maybe not exactly platonism, but like matter is inherently unclean and impermanent, and nothing really changes, but instead the Agua makes everything [that is not muerte, ie. matter that is not alive or water] into itself, reverting alterations that, in platonism, constitute deviances from a thing's, or living being in this case, true self.

keep it coming'

[Rodlox]

a very interesting place to visit; not sure I could live there, though. (bad swimmer)

a) population control mechanisms: if no one dies, what's stopping the Oceano from filling up with people? I imagine a solid layer of folk and fish and tree to develop over it eventually. Or do people not reproduce in it?

Reproduction is extremely difficult due to the water's healing effects and the relative lack of neutral water. In order for babies to develop here on earth, they need nutrients from their mother. Here, nutrients can be provided by fish and plants like Lechugo, but not the amount that a baby needs. Furthermore, undeveloped fetuses act as Muerte here, so drinking ocean water would make it think that the mother has a parasite and spontaneously abort the child.

sounds like the problem marsupials have - the mother's body treats the fetus as a foreign object, and tries to get rid of it.

Yeah, I forgot to get to the life cycle of native life, but they have aging built in that overrides the water's effect. More specifically, the bacteria that they're in symbiosis with will slowly age them over a period of several hundred years. Fish reproduce relatively slowly because they're reliant on sparse underwater islands to tend to their eggs. When they are at the end of their life cycle, they will go to a new underwater island and lay a single egg there and their bacteria will become the bacteria of the new generation, helping to build Oak on the island.

I imagine fish plagues, while very very rare, take a very long time to recover (population-wise) from.

Psychology: what motivates these guys? does Agua cure mental illness as well? how about depression? if there's no need to eat, maybe folk would be far more epicurean? or perhaps they dedicate to spiritual pursuits like, say, praying or counting digits of ip?

The two major groups of people (who I honestly haven't worked out much of, but you guys will be the first to see it) are either hedonists, that think of Océano de la Vida as paradise or are trying to find a way to get back to their home world and bring some of Océano de la Vida with them. There's also a good deal of exploration and scientific pursuit, which I'd love to delve into when I get some spare time. Segundo Mar and Mar Tercero are interesting areas that I haven't built in any real depth.

I can picture people working on the same field of study for centuries. or is there a "okay, its been sixty years, try something else" current in society?

Ah, another good question. It IS possible to die on Océano de la Vida, Agua only prevents aging and makes you invulnerable as long as you're in the presence of it. Criminals are generally nonexistant because the society structure tends towards self-sufficient areas of the Tent City and other places, and specialization is required for a lot of industry and especially for surviving during Tormenta Empíreo, so collaboration is very necessary. Also the amount of people is very low, something like a few thousand at the most.

I suppose its possible...there are islands on Earth where the entire police force is just one guy...and while Pitcairn Island had a tumultuous past, its pretty peaceful nowadays. so you've definately got precedent on your side.

[Rui]

Water can be drunk, and it will quench not only thirst but hunger. It has a slight cantaloupe taste to it, not sweet exactly but more rich in flavor than normal water.

I have nothing constructive to add, but when I read this, I was reminded of the episode of Friends where Phoebe and Joey try Carol's breastmilk, and Carol's girlfriend describes it as tasting like cantaloupe juice. *edit* video

It does seem like a very interesting concept, though.

[Torco]

also, worse place to have athlete's foot ever

[Astraios]

Pretty pictures.

[Sevly]

Well, all I'll say is that I was expecting this to be a cliche storm and that it's instead troperrific. It's an amazing conworld and I've really enjoyed reading about it. You've spent some time working on the details of how everything interacts. I especially like the nature of Oak, since it explains quite neatly why the stuff is impervious to water. Yup, brilliant.

More, please.

[Xhin]

So, it's been a couple of months. I figured it was time for an update. This update will mostly cover natural cycles and the human endeavor known as the Gran Cacería. But first, more art:


Océano de la Vida at night, during Presagio de Viento

(The water of Océano de la Vida will be known as Agua from now on.)

Fish/Bacteria Symbiosis

First of all, fish are not what they appear to be. It is unknown whether they came from another world and were utilized by the already-existing bacteria, or if they evolved alongside them, but their systems are far too complicated for their simple task of eating Mugre and surviving off Agua. Whatever the case, they are reliant on them for both life and death.

As I explained before, an Oak Tree is a complicated network of reproducing fish eggs and bacteria that convert Mugre in the rock to nutrients. The fish begins its life as one of these eggs, deep within the trunk of the tree. It will grow and evolve with its sisters through the branches of the tree. Every twig of the tree is a place where a fish has grown fully and left the Tree to begin its mobile stage.

The fish now carries symbiotic bacteria, and lives with Agua and a thin stream of Mugre from Segundo Mar that the bacteria cause to appear. It is worth noting that this is the same bacteria that infects missing human wounds, which I will cover soon. The fish will carry a single egg, which will be one of its sisters that it dominated when it was still in the womb of Oak. Its purpose is to find a mate who will change the DNA of the egg, but not in the way you'd expect. Fish live for hundreds of years while the bacteria within them slowly take over their body. The fish have no bacteria of their own other than that one kind that creeps within them, slowly biting into their tissue while Agua heals the wound.

In case you haven't guessed, since fish reproduce asexually and carry with them an egg who is identical to them, and Agua cures mutations, there is only one exact genome of fish, all female. The purpose of finding a mate, then, is not to change the genetic line of their sole egg, but of changing the genes of the bacteria that live within them. The diversity of bacteria in Océano de la Vida is unnerving, and it's better that the people who live there don't know about it.

Fish will take hundreds or even thousands of mates over their lifespan, all of which add some of their bacteria's genome to the bacteria residing there. This is not a random process; the bacteria will actively take only certain parts of the donor genome and discard others though by what process they do so is unknown.

When a fish has reached the end of its lifespan, it will find a new underwater island and burrow its way deep inside. Fueled by the crystals, its single egg will awaken. The bacteria, meanwhile, will branch out their network through the rest of the fish and kill it. As they cannot live without Vida, the network will wait for the egg to reproduce, with its eggs flowing through the network and the muerte it summons as they grow, forming a new Oak tree which can often be thousands of miles away from where the original fish began.

The Cycle of Underwater Islands

Segundo Mar is not a flat seabed. It is a swirling morass of peaks and troughs of Mugre at the darkest depths of Océano de la Vida. Deep within it are disturbing processes that form crystals, which I will cover under the Gran Cacería section. For the sake of this section though, know only that crystals are formed below.

If enough crystals are within a peak when it forms, it will break off. Most of the mugre (about 90%) will fall back into Segundo Mar, but a certain amount of it will remain, kept from dissolving by the crystals buried within. As the crystal's influence continues, the mugre of an underwater island will become harder and harder, like rock. Fish are also likely to lay their single egg at the beginning of an underwater island's lifespan. During this time, more and more of the mugre will turn to gold, but never will it be more than a fine dust, and never will it be enough to be visible. The crystals will also change subtly, Onyx breaking up into Sapphire chunks, Sapphire becoming Amethyst, and Amethyst becoming Ruby. As they do so, the island will rise towards the surface, steadily becoming harder as well.

When an underwater island reaches the surface and its mugre is exposed to air, cracks will begin to form in its surface, dividing it around crystals. To witness this process is very rare, as it only lasts a few hours within the hundreds-of-years cycle of underwater islands. The hardened mugre is a material known as Blackstone, as hard and undisolvable as crystal, but without its powers. Blackstone is, however, porous, and will take in air from the surface world for several hours, clearing out the water within it.

When a Blackstone chunk is full of air, it will suddenly and violently sink back into Segundo Mar within the span of seconds, powered no doubt by a new transformation of the crystal within. If there is Oak on the surface, it will violently break apart as well, scattering half-grown fish in all directions. As they are not mobile, they have no choice but to be carried by the pressure of the sinking Blackstone. That's the lucky ones. The unlucky ones are slowly eaten alive by their symbiotic bacteria and unlike mobile fish cannot do anything about it, so the process happens over several weeks rather than hundreds of years. Once the bacteria have killed the fish, they too will die, and the whole thing will become muerte that sinks into Segundo Mar.

Cycle of Floating Islands

Deep within Segundo Mar, the air-filled Blackrock from now-dead underwater islands will undergo many disturbing processes, and the crystals within will turn to Aquamarine, as the blackrock will turn white. Fueled by the Aquamarine, the air within the Blackrock will cause it to explode into strands of Cloudsilk. The newly born floating island will shoot up from the Segundo Mar as violently as the Blackrock did to get to it. Except when it hits the surface, showering water in every direction, it will continue floating up, coming close enough almost to touch Mar Tercero above.

Blackrock is nowhere near homogenous, so when it expands into Cloudsilk, there will be many indentations within it, which trap water and muerte as the floating island rises from beneath the waves. Blackrock also expands to a ridiculous size, from the size of a chair on average to the size of entire cities when it becomes a floating island.

Under the influence of Aquamarine which slowly turns to Emerald, Cloudsilk will slowly shrink into Silkrock. As before, the muerte collected in its indentations will vaguely turn into gold, but never enough to make a substantial difference. Lechugo and other vegetables will send their spores into the island and grow there. Muerte and a weaker verson of Agua will be replenished every few years by the Tormenta Empíreo.

As Cloudsilk becomes Silkrock, it will sink. Silkrock pieces may break off and become smaller islands, leaving the purer Cloudsilk Islands to float back up, though those too will turn to Silkrock over time. Eventually, a floating Island will be composed of so much Silkrock that it crashes into the surface and will sink back down into Segundo Mar. This is the only time when it is possible to collect Amber, the final stage of the crystal transformation cycle. Even then, most of the crystals in a no-longer-floating island will still be Sapphire and Aquamarine.

The floating island, crystals and all, will sink back down to Segundo Mar.

Gran Cacería

Within Océano de la Vida, there are four main types of people that evolve in the closed paradise that it offers:

* The Hedonists, who spend their time enjoying the bounty of Océano de la Vida and one another's company. These do not last long.
* The Suicidally Depressed, who were once Hedonists who now spend their time trying to find a way to kill themselves and each other in an environment that is designed to resurrect them. These last far longer than they want to.
* The Prisoners, who spend their time trying to find a way to leave Océano de la Vida, possibly with Agua and Gold.
* The Explorers, who spend their time exploring and developing Océano de la Vida.

The Explorers and the Prisoners work closely together and are generally the only sane group in Océano de la Vida. Whatever their motivation, they seek to unravel the mysteries behind Océano de la Vida in their pursuit of the unknown known as Gran Cacería. These are the ones that originally built the Tent city (and yes, most of the originals are still alive) and developed the technology and materials science of this limited world.

Gran Cacería -- The Sea



Creating a massive boat out of the trunks of Oak, six explorers set out to explore the farthest reaches of Océano de la Vida. This was when Silkcraft was still crude technology so they didn't yet have a way of flying there. It was right after an Tormenta Empíreo, so the wind was not enough to move their boat, and they could row it directly towards the sun and then away from it on the way back. They had been at Océano de la Vida for three years, arriving at a Tormenta Empíreo and now leaving at one. They would go towards the sun for exactly a year, and return for another year so that they would not be hit by another Tormenta Empíreo. Of the seven, there were four men, one wife of one of those men, and one concubina. The concubina was one of the few who had lived on Océano de la Vida all her life, and sought to see the world talked about by the others.

What they discovered on their journey was -- nothing. For the hundreds of miles they traveled, the world was exactly the same. Near the end of their journey, they found a floating island that had hit the surface due to an earlier Tormenta Empíreo. Exposed in its multicolored surface were pure amber crystals, which they had never seen before. They collected these treasures and headed home, with nothing otherwise useful coming out of their journey.

Gran Cacería -- Mar Tercero

As Silk technology developed, and more people became stranded at the heaven/hell known as Océano de la Vida, people began to live on the floating islands, cultivating Lechugo and other vegetables. To get there, they created balloons of Silk. One group decided they would try to reach Mar Tercero itself and see what lay within, so using a giant piece of Cloudsilk suspended over a boat of gold and ruby, they created a balloon known as the Gran Globo.

As the society had evolved, creating Silk was a role that men did not wish to touch, so it was a team of three women that took the Gran Globo on its flight. They started from one of the newer floating islands, one that was nearly the size of a mountain. From living on this floating city through several Tormenta Empíreos, they knew that Mar Tercero was only about a mile above their heads. They decided to go for only a single day and night, arriving home on the second day.

When they returned two weeks later with a psychedelic-colored balloon unable to speak, the people of the Tent City knew that something strange existed up there. It took them nearly a year to recover and for their memory to return, but before it did, another balloon was created and this time two men and two women investigated it. They decided they would only stay for a few hours. They returned also several days later, unable to speak with a look of complete terror on their faces that no amount of Aqua could cure.

Several months later, the second group had recovered. What they described was a world of shifting colors and blinding lights. It was random, but ordered. They felt as though they were being watched by millions of people, no, entities who would move around them. And every so often, the patterns would line up into an infinitely-long tunnel that stared at them malevolently.



They tried to leave, mere minutes after they had arrived, both from the combination of what they experienced and the violent winds of multicolored dust that they couldn't choke away. But instead Mar Tercero toyed with them. It would pull them out of the balloon and hold them apart from one another, and then put them back in. It too would keep the balloon from falling, no matter what they did. But at some point they could feel Mar Tercero diverting its attention away from them, and the clouds of the storm were if not peaceful, at least no longer malevolent. So they returned.

When the first group recovered, they reported the same thing, except in their case they were much higher up when Mar Tercero awoke, so it took them much longer to get back to the surface.

The Tormenta Empíreo that year came nearly an earth year early, and its ferocity was unmatched. Huge sections of the tent city blew apart and floating islands were ripped to shreds or toppled over. But this too did not last forever, and Mar Tercero directed its attention elsewhere.

Gran Cacería -- Segundo Mar

Segundo Mar had always been avoided, both in exploration and casually averted in conversation. Everyone knew -- this was the place where life came from and where death went to die. The source of the many wonders of Océano de la Vida. Those who went to gather crystals, especially onyx, would look into its depths with awe but never venture too close to it. The other explorers of Gran Cacería knew it would have to be explored at some point, but did not wish to rush it. And after the experience of those who visited Mar Tercero, it was a long time before a group was ready to go to those depths. But they knew that if there was any way out of Océano de la Vida, it would have to be through Segundo Mar.

Two pieces of technology provided for it.

The first was the Sirenas, those who had developed meditative techniques and gotten their body used to the concept of drowning. Over time in the Tent City, it was this group and their disciples who almost exclusively went underwater for supplies. They had become master fishermen and had learned ways to cut off pieces of Oak without disturbing the fish within. This group also had the best success rate of having children, and raised them in the art of Sirena rather than letting them become Concubinas like most of them ended up. They also did not avoid Segundo Mar in conversation nearly as much, but rather simply respected it.

The other piece of technology was Amber. Amber would give off light in much the same way Ruby gave off heat. Amber usually started out as a completely spherical crystal which was extremely hard to cut, even with Onyx, but it was discovered that if it was in a certain long and thin shape it would give off lightning that was persistent and highly illuminating. It was theorized that there were quantities of Amber present in Mar Tercero that were responsible for the persistency of its constant lightning flashes. Especially at night, when the lightning would morph into strange shapes rather than disappearing as lightning should.

Amber was difficult to harvest because it could only be gathered in small quantities when a Floating Island had completed its life cycle, or very very rarely it could be found in floating islands close to the surface. It was therefore extremely valuable, but really only useful underwater due to night illumination.

The Sirena were, however, easily able to trade for almost all of them because their skills couldn't be duplicated easily. Armed with their Arc Flashlights, they would naturally be the ones to explore Segundo Mar. But they lacked the motivation.

Until one of the original balloon explorers discovered a very interesting property of gold.

Gold Dust

Since Gold dissolved instantly in water, it was a mystery for the longest time how mugre that was brought up from underwater could contain gold, or why the gold hue of Golden Silk didn't wash out. Gold could be extremely useful underwater or could even be used as a decent currency if it didn't dissolve instantly in water.

When one of the original Gran Globo explorers returned and recovered, she got back to working with Silk, still creating balloons. Like all Silk workers, she used an Oak bowl with gold in it that Ruby would heat up, turning Agua into steam that would take Aquamarine dust and fill the pores of Cloudsilk. She was so excited for the Gran Cacería that she didn't notice when she was making the Gran Globo that the steam coming up had a golden hue to it. It was during mid-day though, so the entire sky was a golden hue.

However, after what happened to her, she started working exclusively during the night, fearing the brightest Mar Tercero of the day as something evil, and trying to become a Sirena during the night so she could escape its wrath. So when she created a large balloon during then that was going to be used to lift a giant Oak tree from underwater, she noticed that golden hue coming from the steam rising off the Oak boat she was using as a bowl. Logically, this shouldn't happen, because Gold is Muerte, and Agua destroys Muerte regardless of its form, but here the two were getting along just fine.

Curious, she collected the steam in an upside-down Oak bowl. When it condensed and cooled off (via Sapphire of course), there was a vaguely glimmering pool of Agua. After straining it a few times through Cloudsilk, she got a thin gold powder that refused to melt together, be burned by Ruby, and did not dissolve in Agua. It was, for all intents and purposes, Vida.

This powder had another strange property. If an arc from Amber hit it, it would immediately space itself along the arc and keep it persistent far longer than the amber itself would. The arc would also morph into various strange shapes, much like Mar Tercero did at night. And at the end of its cycle, the gold dust would follow the arc back to the amber and collect around it.

It wasn't hard, then, to create what she called a Tercero Stick. A thin piece of amber coated in this gold dust that would turn into swirling lightning and last for whole minutes at a time, before returning to itself. Completely unaffected by water. And only she knew how to make this dust.

She talked to the Sirena about it, and promised to make some for them, provided that they use it to explore the Segundo Mar -- and take her with them. They agreed, so she learned to fully become one of them.

Conclusion

So yes, I'm obviously not done with this -- I have yet to cover what happened when they entered Segundo Mar. Which I'll probably do in the next few days.

Thoughts so far?

[Torco]

this place sounds EVIL =P

I'm interested in the various ways bacteria affect fish, for whatever reason. are these fish fish, as in do they have gills and livers and whatnot?

[Kezdő]

Maldita sea, este lugar es jodido original. Props to you.

Also, based on Torco's comment I seriously believe that there should be a small fifth faction known as Los Golpeadores de las Caras.

[patiku]

What a pointlessly contrived life cycle. Does anything ever happen on this world?

[Xhin]

Thank you for the questions. I might be able to get to the next update tonight afterwards. First of all, something I failed to address earlier:

also, worse place to have athlete's foot ever

It's worth noting that there is no fungi of any kind. So for one thing, making alcohol is impossible.

I'm interested in the various ways bacteria affect fish, for whatever reason. are these fish fish, as in do they have gills and livers and whatnot?

Yes, they are ordinary earth-like fish, which adds credence to the idea that one swam into Océano de la Vida rather than them evolving there. They are, however, multicolored and can change their color throughout their lifetimes, although their shape and size (about two feet long) remains constant. While they have gills, they don't actually need them; they have evolved to require only Agua to survive.

They have full digestive tracts, but use none of it. They are all oviparous females, which means that they cannot reproduce until they die. "Mating" is done by a cruel and disgusting process that would make your stomach turn (though the fish don't seem to mind). All I will mention of it in this post is that the two fish must first find an Oak tree to begin the mating process.

What would you like to know about the fish's bacteria specifically?

Also, based on Torco's comment I seriously believe that there should be a small fifth faction known as Los Golpeadores de las Caras.

Just for you guys, I'm adding it in.

Does anything ever happen on this world?

No. Nothing. Underwater and Floating islands will rise from Segundo Mar; Fish will burrow into those islands and form Oaks, giving rise to more fish that diversify their bacteria within; Underwater islands will die and become Floating Islands; the spores of various plants will land on and grow on those islands; and then those islands too will perish. Every three years or so, the sky will swirl down and corrupt everything. Humans are the most interesting thing Océano de la Vida has had for quite a long time.

[clawgrip]

If you eat some fish and then drink some water right after, what happens when the water encounters the fish material inside your stomach?

[Xhin]

If the fish isn't quite dead, then you must experience a process known as El Mil Infiernos to get it out of your body.

If the fish is dead, the Agua will dissolve whichever parts of it are not beneath the surface of stomach acid and other bodily fluids, as it treats those sections as Vida and will only slowly seep in through molecular crevasses.

[Left]

-------------

[Torco]

It's worth noting that there is no fungi of any kind. So for one thing, making alcohol is impossible.

that's it! I've decided this is hell

What would you like to know about the fish's bacteria specifically?

well, for one thing, which kinds of variability do the bacteria induce in fish? say, in locomotion? color? behavior? do the bacteria lodge in the fish's muscles and change the way they work, for example? and if so, how did these bacteria evolve in the first place? perhaps more relevantly, how does anything evolve over here? what are the evolutionary pressures anything might be subjected to?

also no fungi? damn!

lol@ los golpeadores de las caras [golpeadores de caras is better spanish, tho]. most excellent! dudes that spend their lives bashing each other's faces in and then taking a dip in the water. A thing to consider here is how this coping strategy might affect their sociology.

Does anything ever happen on this world?

No. Nothing

Everything happens in this conworld, I'd imagine. I urge you to consider that your inhabitants are humans, and apparently from spain [and presumably portugal, perhaps england, and maybe even some france up in there?]. This will powerfully color their economy, politics and culture, and that's in my humble opinion, will be the meat, so to speak, of this wistful, ethereal and otherwise weigthless conworld.

They would most likely be Christian, for one thing, and it's interesting how the platonic metaphisics of the Océano might affect their particular sect of christianity. Also, since it's likely not many clerics [or scripture books, as it were] made it to Océano, it will probably look more like folk religiosity, with a strong emphasis on the saints and the virgin Mary bordering on functional polytheism, and less like the highly structured catholic dogma with it's fascinating questions about how many angels can stand on the head of a pin.

Sociologically speaking, they might go with a feudaloid political structure, especially if you consider the social structures observable in ships: the Capitan is basically the chieftain of the tribe.

Economically, it's quite possible that property would be a highly controlled thing, and socialism is, I think, far from out of the question. In a world where everything might be destroyed as a consequence of a slip of the hand, it's not practical for an economy to place the control over the position and use of physical goods in the hands of just about anyone, since a clumsy person might well destroy half this year's island's GDP by stumbling it into the Océano.

Finally, I keep wondering how Agua decides what's alive and what's not alive, when death ensues, for example, and that kind of thing. It might work differently than we might think, for example: a braindead person is vida or muerte? and if he's vida, and stays braindead [say, through bacteria having already infested his brain], is he a zombie? Is the quality of Vida a field? does it have a gradient [as in fuzzy edges], and if not, how does the harsh edge of the Vida affect Agua effects? how does Agua decide that, say, nails or hair are or are not a part of me? is a soul involved?

[Qwynegold]

But interesting conworld though. It's quite different than anything else on this forum. It does remind a little bit of Narnia for some reason, and Las Noches in Bleach since everything is in Spanish and there's a weird, monotone ecosystem.

a) population control mechanisms: if no one dies, what's stopping the Oceano from filling up with people? I imagine a solid layer of folk and fish and tree to develop over it eventually. Or do people not reproduce in it?

Reproduction is extremely difficult due to the water's healing effects and the relative lack of neutral water. In order for babies to develop here on earth, they need nutrients from their mother. Here, nutrients can be provided by fish and plants like Lechugo, but not the amount that a baby needs. Furthermore, undeveloped fetuses act as Muerte here, so drinking ocean water would make it think that the mother has a parasite and spontaneously abort the child. The only feasible way of having a child is do it like the native fish do, and keep the mother near deep-colored crystals at all times so the water doesn't destroy her child.

Or maybe there aren't many women since most people are conquistadors?

I suppose its possible...there are islands on Earth where the entire police force is just one guy...and while Pitcairn Island had a tumultuous past, its pretty peaceful nowadays. so you've definately got precedent on your side.

I heard the whole male population got arrested for pedophilia...

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Of the seven, there were four men, one wife of one of those men, and one concubina. The concubina was one of the few who had lived on Océano de la Vida all her life, and sought to see the world talked about by the others.

What is a concubine? And who was the seventh person?

Anyhow, what about virus? Do they work the same way as bacteria? And you said something about people eventually dying. How does that work?

[Xhin]

These are very good questions, Torco! Looking forward to more!

well, for one thing, which kinds of variability do the bacteria induce in fish? say, in locomotion? color? behavior? do the bacteria lodge in the fish's muscles and change the way they work, for example?

Not really. The bacteria are almost.. purposeful in the way they embed themselves, as a network branching out from the central egg within the fish's body. Whenever they hit the nervous system (around 600 years), the fish immediately tries to find a new underwater island to lay its egg. The fish itself seems to have evolved to swim as far away from its origin as possible, almost as though it was fleeing something.

A fish's standard color is a kind of grayish-blue. In earth's oceans it would have a kind of natural camoflauge. The color is however changed by the mugre that flows up to replace parts of the fish's body as they're eaten by bacteria or hurt. Through some poorly understood process, mugre will change colors in the presence of fish bacteria.

For some reason this process doesn't affect humans when they regrow limbs, but humans don't get slowly consumed by fish bacteria either.

and if so, how did these bacteria evolve in the first place? perhaps more relevantly, how does anything evolve over here? what are the evolutionary pressures anything might be subjected to?

Well, for one thing, evolution doesn't really work well because of how Agua interacts with DNA, preserving its purity and eliminating mutations. This does not, however, affect bacteria, probably because Agua doesn't necessarily recognize them as alive. In fact their diversity is considerably more advanced than even earth bacteria, but they remain unicellular. The whole thing seems to make no sense, since they're reliant on fish to stay alive, but there are things I'm deliberately not telling you.

also no fungi? damn!

Yeah, things from earth tend to either become immortal or die completely, depending on how Agua recognizes them. Earth diseases, for example, are eliminated because they can't survive outside of a human host. But there are some weird examples.

Some birds that have been brought from Earth and are pets are made immortal by Agua, but domestic chickens dissolve instantly, whether they're alive or not. Pigs are not only made immortal, but can regenerate months after they've died, which makes eating them impractical. Indeed, the stock of pigs that Océano de la Vida has came from food stores that miraculously turned into living, breathing pigs. They also reproduce with a rate better than humans, which leads to the joke that in a few thousand years they'll be the ones forcing humans to work as beasts of burden.

A thing to consider here is how this coping strategy might affect their sociology.

They're treated much like the Hedonists are by the others.

I urge you to consider that your inhabitants are humans, and apparently from spain [and presumably portugal, perhaps england, and maybe even some france up in there?

There's definitely a higher-than-normal number of Spanish Conquistadors, but most of the population besides them is extremely diverse and from around the world. Something as stupid as going a mile off the coast of brazil to fish can get you to end up in Océano de la Vida. The earliest seem to be settlers that were trying to reach Madagascar, a population of more women than men.

They DO NOT like to talk about their early history and how some of the basic technology was first established after they arrived and their outrigger canoe and everything on it dissolved. They say they were only about a hundred years old when the first conquistadors arrived, but who knows for sure?

This will powerfully color their economy, politics and culture, and that's in my humble opinion, will be the meat, so to speak, of this wistful, ethereal and otherwise weigthless conworld.

Yes, I agree. I'll probably put in a good anthropological update before the mindfuck update.

They would most likely be Christian, for one thing, and it's interesting how the platonic metaphisics of the Océano might affect their particular sect of christianity.

Well, for one thing, quite a few of them believe they're already dead and this is heaven -- or hell (but most likely some kind of limbo). The christianity of the conquistadors and other western explorers for some reason didn't catch on too well with the other people there, and actually has had the opposite effect, where many christians have been de-converted to some of Océano de la Vida's religions. And what can you do? You can't kill nonbelievers, and because of how the world works, the "primitives" there are more technologically advanced than you.

Sociologically speaking, they might go with a feudaloid political structure, especially if you consider the social structures observable in ships: the Capitan is basically the chieftain of the tribe.

Well, what happened is, when the Conquistadors married into the "native" madagascar population, the extreme patriarchy and matriarchy sort of canceled each other out into a highly gender-separated egalitarian society. The conquistador spirit fueled the Gran Cacería, while the madagascar settling spirit fueled the settlement of the Tent City and other settlements (like on floating islands).

Economically, it's quite possible that property would be a highly controlled thing, and socialism is, I think, far from out of the question. In a world where everything might be destroyed as a consequence of a slip of the hand, it's not practical for an economy to place the control over the position and use of physical goods in the hands of just about anyone, since a clumsy person might well destroy half this year's island's GDP by stumbling it into the Océano.

Ah, but the extremely pervasive nature of Tormenta Empíreo makes it almost impossible to keep anything that isn't Vida around. Gold, for example, has to be replenished after one as corrupted Agua will seep in through Oak and Silk containers, and while it won't destroy all of it, it'll still need to be resupplied. What the Conquistadors found was a complicated society of voluntary enslavement -- every "caste" has power over every other caste because they're the most developed in their skillset, and every product is geared towards human comfort and advancement rather than basic needs which are provided by Agua.

Castes are motivated by altruism and extreme boredom if they didn't do anything (they were all Hedonists at one point of course). Manual labor is a form of currency that pays off the "debt" castes owe one another for new technological developments. I'd love to delve into how this works, which I might do tonight.

Finally, I keep wondering how Agua decides what's alive and what's not alive, when death ensues, for example, and that kind of thing.

It depends on the animal. Fish usually take between a few minutes and a couple hours to become muerte, which probably has to do with how much the bacteria have invaded them. Humans will take a good week on average, but it seems to be reliant on how much they want to live -- there are cases of suicidally depressed that were able to kill themselves and become muerte almost immediately, while there was a case of someone who became trapped in Cloudsilk and was resurrected when the floating island crashed into the water. He had died within hours, but was kept from becoming muerte for months.

Pigs are fucking ridiculous. If you kill a pig, and cook it, and cut it into a hundred pieces that a hundred people eat (and pork passes completely through your body untouched here), and then push the undigested pieces together and sprinkle Agua on them, you'll get a miraculously alive pig (sometimes more than one). There's a reason they're worshipped!

No one has tested Muerete dynamics on birds, as they're far too rare and valuable.

It might work differently than we might think, for example: a braindead person is vida or muerte?

Braindead people seem to be cured instantly, as the Golpeadores de Caras find out on a daily basis.

bacteria having already infested his brain

Bacteria seem to be incapable of taking over humans, probably because Agua makes the human immune system extremely powerful. They also can't (or don't want to) take over dead humans because that would make them muerte. Like the lack of fungus, it's probably worth mentioning that nothing muerte ever rots. Food can be stored in Oak containers forever without needing to be preserved. Though it's impractical to store massive amounts of food because its flavor will evaporate (something actually utilized by the chef caste, as I'll explain in the anthropological update) and the Tormenta Empíreo will make corrupted Agua seep into any container slowly.

Is the quality of Vida a field? does it have a gradient [as in fuzzy edges], and if not, how does the harsh edge of the Vida affect Agua effects?

First of all, it's worth noting some peculiar properties of Agua:

* Unlike other water, Agua does not evaporate. The air is still relatively humid though, which suggests that the ordinary water component of Agua is still going through the normal process.
* If Agua turns to steam, it will rise up completely straight (well, minus wind effects obviously) rather than evaporating to the sides and into the air like normal water would.
* Agua ice does not float on top of Agua, but electrically charged Agua will. During a Tormenta Empíreo, there's enough of an electrical gradient for ice to float, although it will bob up and down as the electric potential around it changes. Amber lightning is generally not diffuse enough, so it will turn ice back into water, although the lightning that comes off Tercero Sticks will not.

Agua seems to have a kind of contact viscosity. If any part of Vida touches it, it will become viscous. If something touches Agua that is incomplete (say, a missing limb), Agua will become ridiculously viscous and stick to the body part until it is healed. It is possible to touch a missing limb to Agua and then float up in a Globo and bring the surface of the ocean with you, although that's impractical since it exterts pressure equal to the amount of mass above the surface.

Agua also has a poorly-understood "seeping" effect, where it will lose all viscosity whatsoever and go deep into a wound, regardless of what's in the way. When it does this, it has less of an ability to dissolve muerte but keeps its restorative properties. This "seeping" effect is responsible for what happens during a Tormenta Empíreo when it actively gets inside of Oak and Silk containers, but has a harder time dissolving whatever is within (it doesn't help that it's corrupted by mugre either).

how does Agua decide that, say, nails or hair are or are not a part of me? is a soul involved?

Well, they're still molecularly attached. It's worth noting that warts and other blemishes don't automatically get purified either, but if you cut them off, they won't grow back. Scars will still be slowly removed over time though.

[Xhin]

Good questions from Qwynegold as well! I LOL'd pretty hard at the picture.

It does remind a little bit of Narnia for some reason

Well it was originally based partially on the area in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader where the water is sweet and extremely clear. There's probably other Narnia influences in there -- who knows where my influences come from anymore

Or maybe there aren't many women since most people are conquistadors?

I addressed that in my previous response to Torco. Basically, though, the "natives" were mostly women in a matriarchy and the conquistadors were men from a patriarchy.

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Yeah, I think my image hosting site has a bandwidth limit. I've updated them to images from my art website (where they belong anyway).

What is a concubine? And who was the seventh person?

I think I'll cover the anthropological update tonight, it should answer the "concubina" question, but a basic summary is that people who are naturally born on Océano de la Vida become sex slaves.

Also the seven thing was a typo, I started out with seven explorers but cut that back because I wanted to introduce concubinas. There were six explorers on that particular journey.

Anyhow, what about virus? Do they work the same way as bacteria?

Viruses (viri?) are one of the things that are instantly destroyed by Agua, regardless of whether they're surrounded by Vida or not. They are treated like any other never-living material like metal from earth. Suppose it answers the age-old question about whether they're life or not

Due to a lack of viruses and their own tendency to dissolve in Agua, the fish's bacteria are reliant on their hosts to diversify their genes.

And you said something about people eventually dying. How does that work?

No, people are immortal and practically invulnerable. They can only really die effectively if they are away from Agua and have lost the will to live (or positively want to die), in which case the process is as simple as committing suicide on an area that won't get any Agua for several days. Often, they paddle Oak boats away from the Tent City and find a nice floating island to kill themselves on, making sure no one is around to resurrect them.

When the heart stops beating and the brain stops working, people are STILL not irreversibly dead. They also don't rot, so they can be in this kind of limbo for a while. At some point though they will eventually become muerte, which is an imperceptible change and can only be told by whether Agua heals or dissolves them. People tend to not like seeing half-dissolved human bodies, so burial is accomplished by throwing people into the sea, where they dissolve into mugre and sink below into Segundo Mar.