Ask Novil questions about Gaia
└ posted on Monday, 4 May 2015, by Novil
Last year, I posted a news entry which I asked our readers to ask me general questions about Gaia. It was a pretty popular format with lots of questions being asked, so I decided to give it another try.
Do you have any questions about Gaia? Then add them to the comment section of this post. I will try to answer all questions which I don’t consider to be spoilers for the plot.
I have a few questions I’d love to see answered:
How does day and night system work on Gaia? Planet itself is spherical, but it’s alone in space, without a sun or any other astral body to cause the change between day and night, yet there is day, night, even sunset-like times at evening (like LJB-12, BaB-39).
There is no sun, but all shadows are usually falling in the same direction – considering that light is propagating linearly, it would suggest that it is emitted from one source/surface.
If the shadows were always right under the objects/people, it would suggest that it’s something like “reverse radiation” from the planet surface (no matter how weird this sounds, I can’t think of better words to describe the idea), so we can probably rule this option out.
While the sky is clouded, there’s less light (like in SD-70), so the “source” would seem to be over clouds.
After this long introduction, here comes the question: Where does the light come from?
And another one:
Is it the same time of the day on whole planet, or does it change like on Earth? I mean something like time zones etc.
Apsik wrote:
There’s an area in the sky that is brighter than the rest. But the light fans out over pretty much the whole sky. You can see it in the last panel of http://www.sandraandwoo.com/gaia/2015/02/06/breaking-all-barriers-044/
This would actually result in much dimmer shadows than usually seen on the pages. However, this would also make the pages look very bland since the contrast would be so low. Because of this, normal “earth shadows” are used for the coloration of the pages.
It’s the same time on the whole planet. Given the day-night cycle with the shifting “bright spot” in the sky, this means that the “bright spot” has not an absolute but a local position relative to the surface of Gaia.
How emotionally clueless is Ilias? Just thought I’d ask because of the recent update. Also, more in-universe question than storyline question, does the blue and red magic balance out on a cosmic scale or is it in flux, ie in constant change of ratios?
DrCrazy102 wrote:
A little.
DrCrazy102 wrote:
It’s 50-50. But it’s unclear how much of the Redstream is actually usable since it’s trapped inside Gaia. Half of the Bluestream is contained in the three Tears of Gaia if the history books are to be believed.
The way the current outlay is, there’s a distinct impression that everything up to now has merely been a prologue sequence, and that the actual adventure(the module that would’ve been) is all about Oakdale. The obvious completion is at least some of the party living to get out of Oakdale, but the general flavor seems like they’ll be here for quite a while, and that it will resolve most/all of the plot.
So, it’s not a question of “Will they get out of Oakdale” but rather, “Will there be much/any story left at that point?” Not trying to get too much told, merely reflecting on the fact that it seems like everything has been building towards Oakdale, and it’s showing to be the focal of everything, as well as the excuse–as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, post-Oakdale promises to fracture the party permanently, with people going separate ways and becoming various government officials that have no business going on adventures. There’s obviously a story in that as well, but it seems like it’d break the mold and flow of what’s going on now.
So do they use the phrase “Clue sphere” instead of “Clue by Four” on Gaia? I have to wonder how Lili’s gifts to Edwyn and Teglen will come to play but I know spoilers.
Novil wrote:
What would happen then if all, or even a usable half, of the Redstream was released? Or am I asking for spoilers?
•1: Was Lilith’s protection spell around Viviana the reason Vivi’s experience in the forest was different from the others?
In SD-004, Ilias mentions ‘Isaac and Llyra’. Do these two intentionally have the same first letters of their first names? On the next page, it said that everything was nothing. Does this mean that Gaia and Bhaal were originally the same? If the tear was split into three parts, and the elves took one, what happened to the others? What all does the Avaril do besides granting flight and the right to rule? Are the Avariel extinct? Eldor appears to use both red and blue magic, but I suspect that’s plot related, so won’t ask about it. Do all imps talk in 3rd person? When Erius’s hand is stuck in the wall, what happened that portion of the wall? Did it replace his hand, or move it to the place the wall was? High Hage Morian casts a purple wall on the steps Lilith made. Is this significant. or d different spells have different colors? In JB-47, there’s a bird that turns into a dragon. Is shapeshifting an inherent skill for dragons? Is there any special significance to being Jael Bara? How do meat-plants work? Is the bluestream surge San detected the same one that Lili did?
Sorry for the wall of text, but this was a good opportunity to refresh my memory of the comic and I went through the whole thing again.
I had a question. What was the inspiration for Vivi’s hairstyle in the earlier part of the story (before the recent style change)?
First off, I looove Gaia.
How do you plan and draw your comics?
What advice would you have wanted when you first started doing comics, and how did you overcome various trials?
Did you take any specific classes in school? Are there any that you recommend?
Thank you! Keep up the inspiring work!
@ tictacattack:
Which hairstyle? There have been several, changes almost as often as her outfit.
As far as we know, everybody in Gaia we’ve heard so far has been speaking the same language – although poorly at times.
Are there any other languages than this common tongue?
Some questions about the biosphere on Gaia:
How widespread are carnivorous animals (or more specifically, predators , not scavengers) ?
Specific regions ? Are the dragons in general carnivorous (Ars seems to like flesh) and predators ?
Is Vegetarianism widespread or region-specific ? Are there cultures where it is normal to eat flesh
(and hunt prey) and others were it is a sacrilege ?
Do demons (creatures from Bhaal) need to eat ? Are demons acting more bestial (without conscience,
relying on instinct) or are they cunning and cruel ? Wizards can manipulate the redstream, so could a demon affect the
bluestream and/or possibly change their alignment (It is said that Bhaal’s creatures have no spirit, but can we really rely
on the information or could it be jaundice ?)
This may have been addressed previously, but how technologically advanced are the inhabitants of Gaia?
I see a light switch and a lamp in the most recent strip, yet the characters spar with swords and travel on horseback.
Lucid wrote:
The chance that the next 600 pages will all take place in a small town are pretty slim…
mhalpern wrote:
I’ve never heard that phrase before.
DrCrazy102 wrote:
It would just be “there”, like the Bluestream is currently “there”. You first have to activate it with magic spells.
PMark wrote:
Unlikely.
masterofkittens wrote:
I is not the same as L so I’m confused by your question.
No. They were two opposing “thoughts”.
The second shard is in the castle of Midgard. The third shard is in the Thunderbold Stronghold.
It is the “best” flight crystal in several ways.
Yes.
Yes.
The wall and the hand became interwoven on an “atomic” level. Ouch.
Some spells have different colors because they reflect the light in a different way. The color of a spell is usually irrelevant. A capable wizard could alter the color of most spells, but there’s usually no reason to do that.
Only the most powerful dragons are able to change their appearance this way.
I don’t understand the question.
Very much like normal plants. You can grill an eggplant or a steakalone pretty much the same way. The one tastes like eggplant and the other like steak.
This question can’t be answered with a simple “Yes” or “No”.
tictacattack wrote:
Viviana likes to change her hairstyle once in a while. Her hairstyles aren’t inspired by anything in particular.
Alive wrote:
The same language is spoken all over Gaia. But there are several exotic writing systems, especially found in old magic books.
Why aren’t guns a “thing”?
It seems pretty obvious on how to construct one, the materials and rules all seem to paint out how to do it, yet, everyone has swords.
Also, you said that day/night thing is such that all places are the same time of day on gaia. This suggests that there’s no polar regions, tropic regions, or meaningful hemispheres–just a sort of odd “it gets colder, and then it gets warmer” phase across the entirety. What would actually cause seasons, if day is merely a regular pulse of brightness in the bluestream?
Lucid wrote:
Guns don’t fit into the setting from a story writing point of view.
The warmth comes from inside Gaia which fluctuates in time and location.
Is there a specific reason for or specific effects caused by this magical fluctuation other than temperature? And how drastic is this fluctuation- as in, can the temperature stay consistently high in one area to form specific biospheres etc?
Novil:
Have you forgotten? Some of the Gaians speak German.
🙂
*Sorry. Couldn’t help myself*
🙂
Okay, let’s try it from a different angle.
Would it be a spoiler to tell us if Vivana’s separation from the group in the forest was accidental or on purpose?
TSK wrote:
Creatures are generally “vegetarian”. But this term and others like “carnivore” and “predator” don’t exist in the same way on Gaia. It isn’t frowned upon to eat dead creatures that died a natural death and whose soul has left their body. This is uncommon in humans, but more common in other creatures.
In general, you can’t compare life on Earth with life on Gaia. On Earth, we have millions of different species. On Gaia, there are just a couple of hundred. Life forms such as bacteria don’t exist at all.
Nonferrous wrote:
Yes. In mountainous regions it can be pretty cold during the whole year while the country of Harasanth has a pretty large desert. You can find almost all environments known from Earth on Gaia. But since Gaia is a much smaller planet, these areas are also smaller.
PMark wrote:
If you have a close look at the dialog of the shadow creatures, you can guess that Viviana’s separation from the group wasn’t planned by them. But of course it also didn’t happen for no reason at all.
Alright, I will shoot a question. I was wondering a little about gear. I know the cast has at one point pretended to be adventurers or ‘cutters’ dressing as what I would commonly attribute to an adventurer in a fantasy setting. However, outside of that, I rarely see anybody with anything for protection except Lili and her staff. Is wearing weapons taboo? Do our heroes have the kind of protective gear to deal with threats on hand or readily available? That brings me to a further point. We say Ryn and Illias fighting with spells in their weapons from crystals. Are these easy to come by? Do our heroes have them on hand?
Alright, maybe I not so secretly want to know that they have the means to at least fight some kind of physical threat if it actually showed up, which may be somewhat close to happening…
Is there a specific character in Gaia that you believe is most like you personality wise?
Clue by Four is a play on “Two by four” the term is used when someone else really needs a hint, they say that they “need to be hit in the head with a Clue by Four” or something along those lines, lesser variants of the term exist such as “Clue bat”
So we’ve got the dragons, (seemingly divided up between Imps and what we normally consider dragons.) the humans, the elves, the dwarves and these Averiel.
Are there any other intelligent races on Gaia? And why do we not hear much about the elves, dwarves, and Averiel?
Pobbes wrote:
Wearing weapons all the time in a peaceful city would be seen as suspicious by some people.
Lilith’s magic shields are better than almost all kinds of armor you can find on Gaia.
Unsurprisingly, there are simple and powerful crystals with the powerful ones being rare and expensive.
Yes.
Test Subject 801 wrote:
I think Ilias is the character most similar to me.
feneris wrote:
No. But there are some animals that can be considered semi-conscious.
The elves are behind the Mythal in the remote land of Ysdar. The dwarves and Avariel are extinct.
You said that Gaia and Bhaal originally were two opposing thoughts. But did they exist forever as such and did they just take physical form at some point, or were they themselves created at some point? Or does the Gaia-religion not specify this?
Alive wrote:
They were the original thoughts that formed the world, which consists of the planet Gaia. There was no “before” in this world.
I meant Issac having I and Llyra having L, similar to Ilias and Lilith, sorry about that.
Lili seems quite surprised when Vivi tells her she’s Jael, so I was wondering if that meant anything besides being the daughter of two (famous?) reporters.
@ Novil:
I believe that our author is German so timber dimensions would be metric. Referring to a “38 by 89” just doesn’t have the same ring as a “2 by 4” and doesn’t at all lead to “Clue by four”.
IllJonathan wrote:
I didn’t get an answer here… Is this due to spoilers or just because the answer would be too long (or you simply didn’t see it)? Other people have asked this recently, so I’m not alone in this one.
Jonathan wrote:
There was already a light switch in The Red Hall 13: http://www.sandraandwoo.com/gaia/2011/11/14/the-red-hall-013/
There is no definitive answer to this question. Some appliances can be compared to those on modern earth, like lamps and cable cars, but other items are still very old-fashioned. It depends how complicated the spells and how rare the crystals that have to be used for a certain job are. There’s an expensive crystal that powers Aracona’s cable car. But there are only a handful of those so a car for every person is out of the question.
Are we going to see any recurring antagonists? Will there be any that use Redstream in a fight? (I want to see what redstream can do :p)
@ i so noob:
I believe Eldor is hinted at using both. See TS-019 and TS-020, he uses both red and blue magic. As well as some purple. And dropping Delvor into the pit of hell is probably redstream magic. This could just be the different colours of spells, but it seems likely that Eldor uses both.
@ masterofkittens:
TS? I dont see any arcs with those initials.
Still, i want some antagonists by now. Preferably one that can actually beat Lilith in a fight, maybe a Redstream counterpart?
(1) Does the spiritstream consist of blue and redstream or are they all separate?
(2) Does a soul contain small parts of redstream as well?
(3) Is the “shadowrealm” acessible in dreams or a kind of afterlife? If you sleep/fall unconscious/die can you “wake” in the “shadowrealm”? If you “die” in the “shadowrealm” can you “wake” in the real world?
So, you said that there was “nothing before Gaia and Bhaal”. Does that mean that Trias is totally out of the picture?
masterofkittens wrote:
The colour of spells was stated to be arbitrary earlier in the thread, so I don’t think conclusions can be drawn from it. Eldor, of course, has been called a “lunatic red mage.”
i so noob wrote:
Tower in the Sky.
You said that spells reflect light, rather than generate them…
So, have we actually seen any “red magic” so far?
i so noob wrote:
The third chapter is entitled, “Tower in the sky”, and is usually abbreviated as “TS”.
i so noob wrote:
I suspect Eldor fits that description rather nicely. And I would say that whoever it was that sent that massive blast at her at the end of the Red Hall chapter would qualify.
@ Novil:
Does Viviana’s separation, and the different way the maze affected her result from her “peculiar soul”?
These questions probably involve spoilers but…
I have been trying for two years to make sense of TS 20.
Who is San’s sister? Lilith? Did Eldor orchestrate Lilith’s imprisonment and death sentence as part of her “training?”
Does the cult of Trias have any significance? Are they the cult in Osterath from TS20? Or were they just an amusing interlude?
Lookfar wrote:
Is this the spoiler Woo tried to reveal? (Don’t answer that!)
i so noob wrote:
There were already several fights with Redstream spells in it.
Arent wrote:
(1) No. The Spiritstream is a separate entity.
(2) No.
(3) I’m not sure what you mean with “shadowrealm”. There’s no distinct realm populated with ghosts or something like that.
Lucid wrote:
I’m always answering these questions in a way a knowledgeable person on Gaia would answer them. The only definite truth is the comic.
Lookfar wrote:
I’m surprised that apparently so few readers have interpreted the dialog this way.
Lookfar wrote:
I can’t answer these questions since they’re story spoilers.
Are the people of Gaia vegetarian? Or do they create meat magically? Lilli seemed really upset that someone was fishing…
Novil wrote:
1) Would it be possible for a mage/wizard to use both the blue and red stream at the same time, e.g. cast a spell with blue and red stream components? Sorry to be quizzing about the magic system, I just love when there are “hidden” rules and mystery
2) What would be the consequences if someone did work both blue and red-stream magic at the same time for the same spell?
3) Am I asking for spoilers about Eldor or upcoming characters or storylines?
4) Why do you hate the word “Mary Sue”? Purely curiosity because I don’t understand the reference or if it is personal
@ Drcrazy102:
Oops, I can’t really work the HTML tags, sorry. First line of the quote is mine, but the second is Novil’s answer to my question
Drcrazy102 wrote:
Google is your friend.
Drcrazy102 wrote:
A very powerful wizard may be able to cast a Bluestream spell and a Redstream spell at the same time. While their effects could be complimentary, the spells itself would still be separate from each other on the most basic level. Bluestream and Redstream don’t mix into a Purplestream or something like that.