Thoughts about "Iron Rot"

[knnn]

Could it be possible the spires absorbs the kinetic energy from vibration and use it to power some of its features?

I suppose it's possible, but I wonder how much energy you'd get from that.  Possibly you could use all the flexing going on to power all the light crystal in the spire?  IIRC, it was the various "nexii of ethereal energy" that was the main power source.

Actually, it might be possible to get an guesstimate of how much energy is involved.  Do we have any information about how thick the spire walls are?  If we can figure out how much a spire weighs, we might be able to estimate the kinetic energy in the swaying.

Heck, this raises another question.  How heavy is the spire per square foot?  That is, how strong does the foundation need to be so that the spire doesn't sink into the ground (or maybe the bottom few levels *are* underground.  That could explain the aforementioned mines).

[Brightbane]

I don't think I consider it a complaint as much as an observation, esp. since I don't believe this is contradicted by anything in the text. 

As to your point, sure, Jim can invent any magic/physics rules he wants, but the general way these things go is that you introduce very few changes to the universe and then assume everything else is consistent.  So yes, magic crystals, but gravity still works, electricity needs to be conducted, material still have finite tensile strength and the Right Hand Rule is in effect until we see explicitly otherwise.

To put it another way, there is a range of fantasy type works ranging from the very "soft" fantasy of Harry Potter where one doesn't look to carefully at inconsistencies to the "hard" ones of Alera and (as far as we have seen) The Cinder Spires where except for a few stated rule changes, everything can be derived logically.   Infinitely hard spirestone would simply be adding yet another technical complication that at the moment seems unwarranted.  That's not to say that a future revelation that spirestone is actually a sort of magical forcecfield that doesn't bend couldn't be in the works, just that it doesn't seems necessary.

Yeah, but the spires are clearly one of the things that he's tweaked about the world so you can't expect them to follow normal material rules. They already break it by being an impossible structure with impossible tensile strength. No material that exists, and no material creation process we have could explain the spirestone

[kazimmoinuddin]

digging under a spire risks destabilising its foundtions potentially.

[Quantus]

Because nothing is perfectly flat even in our world -- there's always a small incline.  It might not be detectable without instruments, but it will be there.  Consider also that even if the original builders settled the spires perfectly upright, building tend to sinks and the earth moves.  Unless there's some self-correcting mechanism, there's no way it would remain perfectly level.

Note also that all building tend to sway (in wind, minor earthquakes, etc.).   Yes, spirestone is incredibly strong and a spire is relatively short and squat, but it's physically impossible for anything to be 100% rigid.  It doesn't matter how tough it was built, something 2 miles high is going to be moving, possibly vibrating back and forth as the waves move up and down the spire.

OK, that's all fair from a scientific point of view, in the sense that Straight lines dont actually exist (even light bends thanks to gravitational lensing and all that) though in the scale and context here I dont think it will become all that relevant.  Ive been in building that were swaying and built for earthquake survival, but it wasnt hugely noticeable by normal perception.  Similarly Ive done the experiment to push on a brick building and wiggle it, it took lasers to detect. 

To your initial question, Id say that it shouldn't have any /more/ curvature than the earth itself, which curves at a rate of 8 inches per mile.  Given the extreme engineering and the Spirestone/Unobtanium, I dont expect the material properties to be the limiting factor; I rather expect that to be the very reason they are Spriestone and not granite or marble or any factual material.  Had it been some real material, then the curvature would have been a much more important design constraint.On the other hand, the presence of support columns in the Habbles confirms what you say about spirestone not being perfectly rigid, so it could easily arch and sag between then just like normal support beams, and they could even pre-load them for added strength like we do.

Also, fwiw, I am currently doubting that the Spires were built in place or by human means.  Im presently theorizing that they were dropped for orbit, or teleported in, or some such.  But to be fair, you can blame some of that on the recent Starcraft expansion.   

[knnn]

Also, fwiw, I am currently doubting that the Spires were built in place or by human means.  Im presently theorizing that they were dropped for orbit, or teleported in, or some such.  But to be fair, you can blame some of that on the recent Starcraft expansion.   

^this^

Actually, all the recycling discussion had me originally thinking spires were actually originally part of a vast space station.  The thing is that I don't really see any concessions to zero-g in the design, so even if it started off that way, it was clearly heavily re-built to be a groundbound dwelling.  Still "dropship" or "teleported in" seem very likely to me.  The whole thing seems too self-contained.

[kazimmoinuddin]

Spires stone lasts ages and near indestructible, so it might not be stone as normally think of it. Could it have been grown?

[Ulfgeir]

Spires stone lasts ages and near indestructible, so it might not be stone as normally think of it. Could it have been grown?

One though that just hit me, was that it might be some kind of concrete, and that they just think it is stone.

/Ulfgeir

[Quantus]

Spires stone lasts ages and near indestructible, so it might not be stone as normally think of it. Could it have been grown?

As in Crystals, or as in the superhard bones of some massive creature?

[kazimmoinuddin]

We know it absorbs energy from the ether to run it self, but but I wonder If some of that energy helps keep the stone strong and repaired. It is possible that each spire is a giant circle construction networked with each other.
 Sort of how alera is a kind of genus loci and construct similar to little Chicago, the copiers are at their basic circles, so ward, keeping something away or keeping something contained.
 I wonder what iron does to ether, does it drains or blocks it?

[Second Aristh]

As in Crystals, or as in the superhard bones of some massive creature?

Grown like crystals makes more sense to me.  I wouldn't expect bones to have such angular geometry.

[Quantus]

Grown like crystals makes more sense to me.  I wouldn't expect bones to have such angular geometry.

Oh, not raw Bones, but bone as a shaped/milled material

[kazimmoinuddin]

What if it was some kind of self generating material, feeding on something to increase in mass and quantity?

[Sully]

Gotta shape it, but I like the idea of super-coral.

[kazimmoinuddin]

What if the spire was grown with a blue print imprinted? So it would not need continual intervention as it already knows what to become. I wonder if all the spires have the same basic design, it only differs in how it was outfitted and altered.

[Second Aristh]

Gotta shape it, but I like the idea of super-coral.

Yeah, that would be one of the more interesting origins I would think for the spirestone.