On Thu, 7 Aug 2003, lazarus wrote: > On Thu, 07 Aug 2003 15:15:19 -0700 (PDT), you wrote: > > > >On Thu, 7 Aug 2003, lazarus wrote: > >> > >> And how the heck do the Orca navigate without stars? > > > >That's easy - they know the time, and they know the distance (I bet) from > >the Orb (I assume the speed of sorcery is finite). If that's not enough > >(and isn't there a reference to compasses somewhere?) they probably have > >simple charms that indicate distance to reference points... > > Now that's an interesting idea. The Orb as a GPS device? If I understand GPS, it takes two satellites. What I was thinking was: The Orb knows where you are, so it can tell you. Teleportation probably requires this capability. Vlad in fact refers to "coordinates" at some point in _Jhereg_, I believe. Or you have the Orb send you a wavefront, you bounce it back, and then you adjust the frequency until you get a standing wave; the Orb does the math for you and tells you the distance. Or you do the beacon thing above - say two fixed sorcery mirrors somewhere which you can bounce a wave off. If the Orb's timing is fine enough (and I guess it would have to be) then instead of the frequency-adjustment thing you can just do a ping and have it measure the time. All assuming the speed of sorcery isn't infinite.