sky islands

[Straha]

heres a repost of christ brielman's neat idea

Blame this one on the countless hours I've wasted on RPGs. What if there were one or more islands floating in the sky (not really high, but well above any tall skyscrapers)? I don't think they'd stay in one place, so it'd be an interesting way to get some species of transmitted around the globe. Plant, insect, and any flying life would be easily transmitted from the ground to the islands, but are other forms of life likely to be up there?

Or, for a loopier idea, how about a planet thats nothing but islands (and continents too) like this? A gas giant with a breathable atmosphere, and lots of islands floating around in it. Fun times.

Either way, I think we'll end up with airships.

[NapoleonXIV]

Australian snakes falling on Ireland kill every living thing in the country, most other places too :)

What holds them up? I'm not beiing persnickety here but would they be likely to fall down?
Even what we regard as small islands are actually fairly big pieces of Real estate. One drifting over an area might cut off sunlight completely for several days.
Are there archipelagoes?

I believe I've seen the second idea used somewhere. I forget the title but the name of the island was Mount Lookitthat.

[NHBL]

Mount Lookitthat is a human colony in Larry Niven's "The Gift From Earth," part of his future history.
The robot probe settled on the only habitable spot on a large planet--an extremely high mountain that portruded from the dence, poisonous lower atmosphere into the higher, breatheable region. Land is rather scarce as a result.
It recieved its name when the coloy ship was orbiting, seeing nothing but poisonous, uninhabitable planet, when the plateua came into view, and someone exclaimed, "Lookitthat"
It is not a floating island, but may as well be--but there's no where else to go without a starship.

[tom]

Like I said on the old forum, we reach an island and meet Knuckles the Echidna guarding the Chaos Emeralds.
Gee, my first reply here! :)

[Straha]

I'm gonig to use the livable gas giant idea....

[DominusNovus]

I'm gonig to use the livable gas giant idea....

This'll be interesting... I've often toyed with the idea for stories, including rather elaborate ideas on how the whole thing works.

For anyone who wants a reason for the islands to be able to float, lets say that there's a metal in them that somehow repels gravity. This metal could prove very useful, especially for airplanes and spacecraft. Of course, mining away the island's means of staying afloat carries some risk with it.

[Straha]

I plan on posting an ATL where the solar system is trinary and theres lots ofl ibable worlds

[tom]

Swift had to come up with something besides Laputa, since there really ARE floating islands!

[Leej]

Isn't there a livable gas giant on Star Wars?
I think its the second film and Corusant seems familiar for its name.

[Ace Venom]

No, you are thinking of Bespin. That was from The Empire Strikes Back. It's a little hard to forget the duel between Luke and Vader on Cloud City.

[zoomar]

How about huge colonies of algae-like creatures which produce hydrogen as a biproduct of some biological function. Over eons of evolution, they eventually begin to store this hydrogen in float bladders and become like airborne plankton. Linked together, they form huge "islands" of biomass slowly floating over the earth at about 500-1000 meters. Although too lightly structured to support large animals like humans, they serve as rookeries for birds, insects, and other flying animals, creating completely self-contained aerial habitats for creatures which never have to venture to the ground to reproduce or feed. A whole ecology of aerial flora and fauna evolves, eventually leading to the rise of intelligence in a species of bat which has developed prehensile rear legs. These bats then breed varieties of aerial algae to serve as lightwight structures and other tools..and on and on.

[DuQuense]

As I pointed out on the other board. It would be held up by UPsy-Dasyism.

[Count Dearborn]

Whats to say that in the next 50 to 100 years someone doesn't build a floating, anti-grav platform.

[Nik]

Can't remember the title, but based on premise that one zone in Saturn's atmosphere had habitable gravity, temperature & pressure... just about. The towns & cities were supported by giant hot-gas balloons, with waste heat pumped from homes & industry.

Er, yes, outside was was unbreathable, and any air-leak *burned*. Pressure was equivalent to saturation diving, significantly raising boiling-point of water, so unless your coffee came in temperature sensitive cup, you'd dip a finger to check...

And, yes, financial & political rivalry spilled into war...

Another 'solution' to flying islands was, IIRC, the Integral Trees in gas torus. Hmm: Ringworld had mag-lev buildings...

[GBW]

This sounds like some RPG video game I heard of some time... what was it called...

~searches~

Right, Skies of Arcadia. Here's an image.

Edit: Ah, just realized the name is different on the image, but it is indeed Skies of Arcadia.

http://dupsrpg.free.fr/Skies%20of%20Arcadia%207.jpg

[Torqumada]

There is also a series of fantasy novels set on such a wolrd, but I can't remember the name of the series.

Torqumada

[sbegin]

check out the Seventh Gate series by Margaret Weis, various habitats (worlds) interconnected, and one of them is the Realm of Air, with the floating islands.