Light

[Brightbane]

I'd imagine it is rather dim in the spire.  Isn't that the reason that they all wear goggles on the airship?  I thought that when they went outside one of the characters forgets and is stunned by how bright everything is.

It's the webs interacting with natural light, something about that drives people insane without the goggles to contain it

[knnn]

It would probably be simple enough to engineer it so that it gathers a small amount of energy, at least equivalent to our emergency lighting in public buildings.

I don't think I would call it simple to wire up a two-mile tall building with thousand of access tunnels, but point taken.  Also I wonder if it was simple for builders or if the current residents have the ability to repair things.  Otherwise, I would assume that two centuries of warfare and pilfering (hey, "free" light crystals) would have degraded coverage in the lesser used tunnels.

[Second Aristh]

I don't think I would call it simple to wire up a two-mile tall building with thousand of access tunnels, but point taken.  Also I wonder if it was simple for builders or if the current residents have the ability to repair things.  Otherwise, I would assume that two centuries of warfare and pilfering (hey, "free" light crystals) would have degraded coverage in the lesser used tunnels.

Who said anything about wires?  The etheric currents flow all through the spire.  Folly comments on places where there's a strong current once or twice.  I'd say the crystals draw energy directly from that.  As far as stealing crystals, I doubt it would be a huge problem.  You don't see many people stealing street lights in our world.

[knnn]

Who said anything about wires?  The etheric currents flow all through the spire.  Folly comments on places where there's a strong current once or twice.  I'd say the crystals draw energy directly from that.  As far as stealing crystals, I doubt it would be a huge problem.  You don't see many people stealing street lights in our world.

1)  Sorry.  I meant "wire up".   

2) People might not steal street lights these days but that's mainly because there are other things that are worth more and easier to steal.  Note for example that stealing copper (from telephone wires) is still strong.  They actually put together a special task force to deal with it.  Thus, I submit that given the worth of lighting crystals, people will inevitably steal them. 

3) Doubly so for deliberate sabotage as a form of warfare.

[Brightbane]

It seems that the spirestone might be a bit conductive

The bombardment from the Auroran destroyers had not struck the habble directly, but enough of the energy had transferred through the spirestone to dislodge a significant amount of masonry

Perhaps the strong etheric energy down the center of the spire can transfer through the stone to power things farther away from the center