Talk:Orbital (The Culture)

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Given that The Culture aren't the only ones to have Orbitals, should this page be elsewhere? If so, where? -- Tzartzam

Indeed. Banks says in an article he wrote on the Culture that he nicked the idea ... -- Tarquin

Actually, I meant that in his universe there are non-Culture Orbitals. Vavatch in Consider Phlebas, for example.

Hah, I just thought "Good point". I didn't realise it was me who made the point in the first place as tzartzam!! Anyway, should we move this to Orbital (Iain Banks) or something? -- Sam

So about 3 years after this point was raised, I've moved the page to Orbital (space habitat). :-) Evercat 12:33, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I moved it again to conform to Culture naming nomenclatura... MadMaxDog 05:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Are the Orbitals similar to oversized Stanford Tori? If so, where the artical says the says the rotation can be varied to give a day-night cycle, it is not clear that this means 'polar' rotation, not axial rotation (which controls the centripical force). CS Miller 13:22, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Just had a look at the link for the Stanford torus and it is a similar idea but on a grander scale. The article is a bit vague but the orbitals rotate axialy (like a wheel) and are tilted approximately 45° to the star. They are quiet simple when you can visualise what they look like. Afn

ehm... and Chiark? (The Player of Games) --84.220.94.165 16:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Good shout. Added. --Guinnog 23:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Can we build one?

Would it be possible to build an orbital out of carbon nanotubes?

If you ask: could such an orbital be built currently, I severly doubt it - but ask a physics major instead. We certainly can't build it as Banks describes it, as they are held together with forcefields... MadMaxDog 10:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Image:Orbitale.jpg seems to have inaccurate scale

The image currently used by the article shows one hanging in front of Jupiter and appearing to be roughly the same angular diameter. Orbitals are described in the article as having a diameter of around four million kilometers, but Jupiter has a diameter of only around 140,000 kilometers and perspective requires that to look like this the ring would have to be smaller than that. It doesn't help if we assume that that's some other fictional Jupiter-like gas giant with a larger mass, since increasing the mass of a gas giant doesn't significantly increase its diameter until it gets big enough to actually achieves nuclear fusion (the increased gravity merely increases the planet's density). Am I correct in this interpretation? If so, I'm not sure it's a good idea to have such a misleading image here. Bryan Derksen 08:40, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree totally. The size comparisions you make are not possible - this could be very well a "planet" of 50 cm diameter, you have no way of telling. Even accepting your argument about min/max sizes of gas giants, you still cannot make a size guess for the Orbital 'bracelet'. This could be an image taken in space of a 10 cm diameter bracelet taken by a camera 30 cm in front of the bracelet object, with the planet far, far behind in space. Again, you have no way of knowing.

Therefore, the image is not misleading at all. MadMaxDog 10:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't understand your disagreement. It doesn't matter exactly how large that ring is, my key point is that by the basic laws of perspective it cannot possibly be larger than the gas giant planet in the background. Since Orbitals are supposed to have a significantly larger diameter than the Sun, let alone a gas giant, this is a major inaccuracy. Assuming the ring is only 10 cm in diameter only makes it worse. Bryan Derksen 11:45, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Point taken, I did not read your comments well enough. That said, I still strongly object to the idea of removing the image, as it is quite beautiful (not a strong argument in regards to correctness, maybe, but a important argument nonetheless), and also because having no image - or a lesser one - would hurt the article more than the removal would help. A little note about the incorrect size relations would fit the bill better. MadMaxDog 09:48, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Until a more accurate representation does come along, granted, it's probably better to keep the image with a warning in the caption than to remove it. At least it gives the reader an understanding of the general layout of the ring. But I think I'm going to dust off my old POVRay skills and see if I can't make a more accurate one that'll be just as "pretty", thus satisfying everyone. :) Bryan Derksen 01:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have make (with 3D Studio Max) a more accurate and pretty one orbital. Do you like it?

Hill 12:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Hhhhmmmm, Hello Giuseppe, nice to hear you are still working on that. To be honest, the combination of elements in your first image (currently on the page) looked a lot better - that was/is a real beauty. I think the existing image's inside (with lots of blue seas and white clouds in addition to the land) also looks best so far.

The new ones, maybe it is the stellar background that I don't like too much? First one for example has too much (the asteroid, the ringed gas giant) distracting from the orbital, while third new one looks too much like a Ringworld? I like the second one, though I think Banks described the undersurface differently? Sadly can't remember the details right now, but wouldn't there be plate joints, for example?

Okay, hope I wasn't too negative. Would be great to see some more ideas if you are willing (I have no clue how much work that thing does). MadMaxDog 09:55, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the critics... In the next days I'll see what I can do to make it better. Hill 23:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

The first image looks best, IMO, it gives a good 'global view' of the Orbital without the scale inaccuracy of the image currently in the article. The third image is also excellent for illustrating how the atmosphere is retained, it should also be in the article. Bryan Derksen 01:16, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I still consider it sad that for the sake of a minor point of FICTIONAL accuracy (yes, gravity can be calculcated to show and all that jazz...) we have now ditched a very good image and replaced it with one that is, I feel, not nearly as great. Wikipedia is NOT required to always portray everything to perfect accuracy. Otherwise we could ditch all those historical paintings where artists showed people in incorrect perspective (want to ditch all pre-Renaissance art?) for example.

Therefore, to show people what has been replaced, I will link the older image here. Ingolfson 12:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Orbital illustration by Giuseppe Gerbino. When compared to gas giants, orbitals would be far larger than shown here.

Government

A couple of issues regarding the section on government of Culture orbitals:

1. As I recall, more than one Mind can be in charge of running an Orbital, but I don't remember where I read that. I know for sure there's a reference to a three-Mind GSV in Excession, but I don't remember where I got the idea that some Orbitals are run by more than one Mind. If anyone else knows, maybe they can add it.

2. The section on government omits two other aspects of Orbital government described in the books: the General Board, vaguely described in "Look to Windward", is a sort of parliament, and the plate-building collectives described in "The Player of Games" could be considered governmental organizations - a sort of cross between parks board and zoning commission. I might add these at another time, but I thought I'd mention them here first in case someone else wants to do it. -Father Inire 11:54, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I added the bit about about the General Board, and the use of referendums to decide issues of public concern. "Look to Windward" is the source for both items. -Father Inire 09:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

This section says that the Hub is within 1 ms of contact with the inhabitants, for a ring 10 light-seconds in diameter; either the Hub mind is somehow distributed/delegated for this kind of contact or this is FTL communication; is there any canonical evidence for which applies? HPA (talk) 21:18, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

high walls to keep in the atmosphere

Not sure I agree with the comment below. A person standing on the surface of the orbital will only feel 'gravity' - they will not immediately fall over backwards because of the spin of the orbital. In the same way there will not be strong winds at the inner surface of the orbital. It is true however that as you increase in height through the atmosphere the air will move slower and as you get to the outer edge of the atmosphere the spin and 'gravity' will not be strong enough to hold the air in place and some of it will be lost to space, but the amount of air lost into space will be small because the atmosphere is very thin at that height. There is a section in ring world that deals with this. They say that this will occur, but any civilisation advanced enough to build an orbital can add a bit of air to the atmosphere from time to time to keep it topped up! Gormster (talk) 21:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The article mentions high walls to keep in the atmosphere. While that's probably true in the novels, in reality it wouldn't be so simple. The atmosphere would not willingly rotate with the ring, instead it would drag (subjecting the surface of the ring and its inhabitants to incredibly high wind speeds... and slowing the rings rotation through friction). As a result the wind atmosphere would slow down, no longer feel the force, and escape. The article mentions artificial mountains dividing sections of the ring, and only these would be sufficient to keep the atmosphere moving with the ring. So that bit needs editing to reflect this. 172.206.184.6 (talk) 15:54, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

What does reality and fiction have in common? ;-) I do not have a big issue with this. If you want to have a go at this, please try and rephrase - but lets stick to what is described in the books only - your ruminations above are fair enough, but the article is not a place where we can comment on the author's physics... Ingolfson (talk) 08:52, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Why don't these intense surface-level winds happen on Earth? Father Inire (talk) 04:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Friction, I guess. Other weather pattern overlying them. They do happen in higher levels of the atmosphere. Ingolfson (talk) 06:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Right, so wouldn't the same be true of an Orbital (high-speed upper winds, relatively low-speed surface winds)? Father Inire (talk) 09:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

You are missing my point, I feel. According to Wikipedia's guidelines, we cannot/should not comment on the author's physics or any potential lack of realism (if a valid third party comments on them, its fair game). We cannot use sentences in the article like "In Banks' orbitals, atmosphere behaves like THIS (Banks reference) while in reality, atmosphere behaves like THAT (no reference, but several sentences of explanation).

The fact that the second section might all be true is irrelevant, as it would be original research. Even if you provided references for the the second section, it would be a marginal case, as these references would be about atmospheres in general, not about Banks' subject compared with reality (I doubt anyone has written about that except maybe on forums like this one right here) - and thus might be challenged. I'm not saying that it is impossible or automatically against Wikipedia's rules to do so, but I feel its going to be hard to get it right, and maybe there's simply more urgent stuff to do? Cheers Ingolfson (talk) 13:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you're confusing me with the unregistered user who brought this up. I'm just asking for a more detailed explanation of the supposed error in Banks' physics - specifically, why extremely high winds would be the norm close to the surface of one rotating habitat (an Orbital) and not on the surface of another (planet Earth). I'm not an expert on space station design, but if this is a real issue then I imagine it would be a show-stopper for more plausible habitat designs like O'Neill cylinders, and there will almost certainly be some discussion of it in the engineering literature. Father Inire (talk) 15:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The Orbital is 10 million kilometers in diameter, so according to this artificial gravity calculator, in order to simulate Earth's gravity, the Orbital would have to rotate once every 22 hours. The surface would be moving through space at a speed of 125 ks/m per second. In contrast, the Earth's surface only moves at 0.5 km/s at most. The effect would be much more pronounced. You're right that the Orbital's atmosphere would move slower closer to the surface as it does on Earth, so I was probably wrong in saying it would 'affect the inhabitants'. As it turns out, however, that's irrelevant, because the upper atmosphere is where all the escaping to space would be done anyway. The upper atmosphere would slow down, and so feel a lesser cetripetal force acting on it, and internal pressure would simply jettison it into space. With the upper atmosphere reduced the pressure would decrease, so the lower atmosphere would expand upwards and undergo the same effect. The process would continue until the entire atmosphere was gone.

Incidentally there wouldn't be too much problem with O'Niell cylinders since they're entirely enclosed anyway - so the air wouldn't escape. But it would rotate relative to the inner surface, causing a slight gust. It's the same reason why, no matter how long you spend rotating a cup of water, the water will always drag behind.

edit: actually come to think of it i'm not sure that cup-water thing is true. I'll look it up.

172.206.184.6 (talk) 16:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't forget to include the episode 5 of "Megas XLR" season 1 in the "References in culture/fiction" section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Keaper (talk • contribs) 02:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Just remember that we are not here to discuss actual or alleged faults in Bank's physics. Unless these are discussed in acceptable references, as always. Ingolfson (talk) 23:41, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

And even if we were, the entire premise of this objection seems flawed to me. Why wouldn't the air rotate at the same speed as the ring? What would cause it to slow down? There's nothing in space that would cause drag or friction with it. 204.50.199.4 (talk) 17:01, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Did he reference the game?

In Surface Detail (2010) a ring-shaped ground vehicle is described: "Halo 7 rolled magisterially across the misty plain". Is this a nod to the video game (which came out in 2001 and was based on the orbital concept)? 71.167.64.249 (talk) 01:04, 30 June 2016 (UTC)