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...what's so significant about the Himalayas, the tallest mountain range from sea level, when the Andes are the highest mountain range on earth? Why build the imperial palace on the second highest mountain range? ...or on "the greatest mountain range on earth" (stated in 'The Dark King and The Lightning Tower.'), when it is not?

Because gamesworkshop does not think things through.

I thought as much. Those fools!

They also ignore that building as high up as possible just makes it EASIER for space faring craft to get there.

I guess the old rule of 'always take the high ground' is just blindly followed and never revaluated.

whatwhat wrote:I guess the old rule of 'always take the high ground' is just blindly followed and never revaluated.

Which leads us back to GW NEVER THINK THINGS THROUGH.

I think this will be my reply to most questions asked about gw from now on.

Aren't the Himalayas still increasing height?

Emperors Faithful wrote:Aren't the Himalayas still increasing height?

Tectonics wise, yes but marginally.
However if you think about erosion then for all intents and purposes no they arn't.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Aren't the Himalayas still increasing height?

Yeh sure at about 3cm a year. Andes are about 2 miles higher than the himalayas. You do the maths.

...heres a clue: No.

whatwhat wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:Aren't the Himalayas still increasing height?

Yeh sure at about 3cm a year. Andes are about 2 miles higher than the himalayas. You do the maths.

...heres a clue: No.

It would take roughly 100,000 years for them to grow 2 miles higher.

Does it say when the seas dried? Perhaps construction on the palace started beforehand.

Perhaps. The Imperial Palace was built at the end of the age of strife, I know that. Don't know when the seas dried. Don't even know why they did. Certainly don't know how the atmosphere is livable without them. Plotholes, plotholes, plotholes.

Serious question, since I don't know - why do you say that the Andes are two miles higher than the Himalayas? Everything I can find indicates that the tallest peak in the Andes is shorter than 100 peaks in the Himalayas. I'm not sure why sea level would be so much lower near the Andes even with the seas going away (the Andes do not directly border the ocean on both sides).

lambadomy wrote:Serious question, since I don't know - why do you say that the Andes are two miles higher than the Himalayas? Everything I can find indicates that the tallest peak in the Andes is shorter than 100 peaks in the Himalayas. I'm not sure why sea level would be so much lower near the Andes even with the seas going away (the Andes do not directly border the ocean on both sides).

The andes are the furthest peaks from the centre of the earth. The furthest point from the centre of the earth is Mount Chimbarazo which is two miles further from the centre than everest.

Also even if you don't measure from the centre of the earth the tallest mountain from base to peak is Mauna Kea in Hawaii. It's base is currently underwater, were it not it would be about the same, two miles above Mt Everest.

Measuring from the center of the earth is meaningless here...what matters is how far from the ground people have to walk to get to your palace.

So if one presumes that Mauna Kea and other island peaks are just too small to house all that emperor-palace-goodness, it makes sense that the Himalayas would be the choice of location, not the Andes or anywhere else. Also, when you're writing cheesy sci-fi for a general audience, go with the obvious choice, not the technicalities.

As for surviving if the seas dried, well, Carl Sagan said it best - Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Have a little imagination, this is far from a plot hole, in a universe with many, many huge plot holes.

Well wehn the year 40,000 comes I'm going to build my palace on Mount Chimbarazo and look down on the emperor and do this out the window...

Shangri-La, the paradise of Earth, was situated in the Himalayas.

/Respect Bro points to lambadomy for quoting Sagan.

And I'll be looking down on you from nearby Mt. Aconcagua, wondering why you insist on measuring from a point with no real bearing on what mountain is actually taller, and wondering how you even see the Himalayas over the horizon.

I will freely admit though that you are MUCH safer from the evil mole men. And that is saying a lot, because they are really evil and dangerous.

I will point out that although Mount Chimbarazo is the furthest point from the center of the Earth, it is not the highest mountain in the Andes mountain range, that is Mount Aconcagua, at about 22,000 feet, which is about a mile shorter than Mount Everest (at about 29,000 feet).

This is due to the equatorial bulge created by the rotation of the earth, but is irrelevant as from the sea level perspective the Himalayas are (much) higher. The seas didn't boil away until the Siege of Terra, after the palace was built. Also, from an atmospheric standpoint, the Himalayas are still higher, as in the peak of Mt. Everest reaches higher up into the atmosphere than the peaks at Mount Chimbarazo or Aconcagua do, because like the surface, the atmosphere also bulges at this point.

Didn't the seas dry in the Horus Heresy? Namely, when Earth was under bombardment?

edit - beaten

That, and who says the Andes didn't have an "accident" during all those years of fighting and came out as little shorty? Or that they maybe didn't build layer upon layer of stuff on those dried seas, decreasing it's depth?

I raise an eyebrow at a lot of fluff throughout the GW universe too, but it's their party, so if they want the Himalayas to be the highest mountain range at the time the palace was built, then so be it. In a fantasy world an explanation can always be pulled out of the magic hat.

The Landscape isn't a problem.
Ancient chinese emperors had it changed to have their tombs as they wanted and 40k got the mechanicum to level or erect whatever needs to be built.

An example could be the mountain range levelled to provide parading grounds for a 100k space marines at the big party before the Emperor declared Horus
warmaster. Now the dried seas are a different theme, as custodes moved there in a pre-heresy story ( sadly can't remember the source ).

If the seas didn't boil until after it was built that would make sense.

chaos0xomega wrote:I will point out that although Mount Chimbarazo is the furthest point from the center of the Earth, it is not the highest mountain in the Andes mountain range, that is Mount Aconcagua, at about 22,000 feet, which is about a mile shorter than Mount Everest (at about 29,000 feet).

This is due to the equatorial bulge created by the rotation of the earth, but is irrelevant as from the sea level perspective the Himalayas are (much) higher. The seas didn't boil away until the Siege of Terra, after the palace was built. Also, from an atmospheric standpoint, the Himalayas are still higher, as in the peak of Mt. Everest reaches higher up into the atmosphere than the peaks at Mount Chimbarazo or Aconcagua do, because like the surface, the atmosphere also bulges at this point.

But then like I said Mount Kea still dwarfs everest from base to peak and the fact that everest reaches higher into the atmosphere would be irellevant considering earths atmosphere would be almost entirely desimated if there were no oceans. Which again leads to the question how anyone could survive in said atmosphere.

corpsesarefun wrote:They also ignore that building as high up as possible just makes it EASIER for space faring craft to get there.

the stuff isn't build on the mountains, its build in the mountains, protecting them

oh GW how you amuse me, on a further point, not being to wise in the ways of science myself I have to ask, with earth pretty much a barren rock after the nuclear holocaust of the age of strife, now covered in buildings and cities, how is there even an atmosphere left? there's no trees, no oceans, nothing but buildings and factories. how does that work out for the people of terra, last I checked it wasn't cased in a biodome or anything.

Brother Heinrich wrote:oh GW how you amuse me, on a further point, not being to wise in the ways of science myself I have to ask, with earth pretty much a barren rock after the nuclear holocaust of the age of strife, now covered in buildings and cities, how is there even an atmosphere left? there's no trees, no oceans, nothing but buildings and factories. how does that work out for the people of terra, last I checked it wasn't cased in a biodome or anything.

Well the idea that the seas can boil and there are no oceans left on earth indicates there is no atmosphere to capture water. So yeh no or little atomsphere. That's obviously going to be a problem for breathing whatsmore the planet would be extremely hot, far to hot for life to survive. Unless your on the opposite side of the earth from te sun of course, where it will be extremely cold.

whatwhat wrote:If the seas didn't boil until after it was built that would make sense.

chaos0xomega wrote:I will point out that although Mount Chimbarazo is the furthest point from the center of the Earth, it is not the highest mountain in the Andes mountain range, that is Mount Aconcagua, at about 22,000 feet, which is about a mile shorter than Mount Everest (at about 29,000 feet).

This is due to the equatorial bulge created by the rotation of the earth, but is irrelevant as from the sea level perspective the Himalayas are (much) higher. The seas didn't boil away until the Siege of Terra, after the palace was built. Also, from an atmospheric standpoint, the Himalayas are still higher, as in the peak of Mt. Everest reaches higher up into the atmosphere than the peaks at Mount Chimbarazo or Aconcagua do, because like the surface, the atmosphere also bulges at this point.

But then like I said Mount Kea still dwarfs everest from base to peak and the fact that everest reaches higher into the atmosphere would be irellevant considering earths atmosphere would be almost entirely desimated if there were no oceans. Which again leads to the question how anyone could survive in said atmosphere.

Once again, the Palace was built before the oceans boiled away... and the atmosphere of Terra in 40k is described as being harsh and barely breathable. Most of Terra's full time residents live in sealed buildings with their own atmosphere/air recyclers, etc. Pilgrims and the poor, etc. usually don't last to long out on the surface.

BTW, for people that are so concerned about science, you seem to be missing the fact that boiling doesn't remove water from the Earth/atmosphere, it just changes its state from liquid to gas. All that water is still there (theoretically speaking anyway, I'm not going to try to figure out how that works), bu its not in a form that you would like it to be (as I recall its basically been turned to acid and ultra-polluted).

chaos0xomega wrote:

whatwhat wrote:If the seas didn't boil until after it was built that would make sense.

chaos0xomega wrote:I will point out that although Mount Chimbarazo is the furthest point from the center of the Earth, it is not the highest mountain in the Andes mountain range, that is Mount Aconcagua, at about 22,000 feet, which is about a mile shorter than Mount Everest (at about 29,000 feet).

This is due to the equatorial bulge created by the rotation of the earth, but is irrelevant as from the sea level perspective the Himalayas are (much) higher. The seas didn't boil away until the Siege of Terra, after the palace was built. Also, from an atmospheric standpoint, the Himalayas are still higher, as in the peak of Mt. Everest reaches higher up into the atmosphere than the peaks at Mount Chimbarazo or Aconcagua do, because like the surface, the atmosphere also bulges at this point.

But then like I said Mount Kea still dwarfs everest from base to peak and the fact that everest reaches higher into the atmosphere would be irellevant considering earths atmosphere would be almost entirely desimated if there were no oceans. Which again leads to the question how anyone could survive in said atmosphere.

Once again, the Palace was built before the oceans boiled away... and the atmosphere of Terra in 40k is described as being harsh and barely breathable. Most of Terra's full time residents live in sealed buildings with their own atmosphere/air recyclers, etc. Pilgrims and the poor, etc. usually don't last to long out on the surface.

BTW, for people that are so concerned about science, you seem to be missing the fact that boiling doesn't remove water from the Earth/atmosphere, it just changes its state from liquid to gas. All that water is still there (theoretically speaking anyway, I'm not going to try to figure out how that works), bu its not in a form that you would like it to be (as I recall its basically been turned to acid and ultra-polluted).

If water boils away it would need to be kept at a constant temp of over 100 degrees's c to remain as steam which is so unlikely on earths surface which I'm going to say its impossible on earths surface unless it has a super-greenhouse effect or the planet is really close to the sun somehow.

Even if the H2O reacted with any of a variety of pollutants to form acids they would still fall and form oceans as acids cannot be gaseous and would only exist in a suspended form or in bodies of aqueous liquid and the former is unlikely unless the atmosphere was stupidly thick (probably providing a strong greenhouse effect).

So really the only 2 solutions are that the oceans boiled and terra was massively terraformed into having a stupidly thick venus like atmosphere or all the water was boiled away and sent into space resulting in terra having no atmosphere.

chaos0xomega wrote:Once again, the Palace was built before the oceans boiled away....

Yes the seas boilng after the Imperial Palace was built does explain the himalayas thing, I did acknowledge that.

chaos0xomega wrote:... and the atmosphere of Terra in 40k is described as being harsh and barely breathable. Most of Terra's full time residents live in sealed buildings with their own atmosphere/air recyclers, etc. Pilgrims and the poor, etc. usually don't last to long out on the surface.

BTW, for people that are so concerned about science, you seem to be missing the fact that boiling doesn't remove water from the Earth/atmosphere, it just changes its state from liquid to gas. All that water is still there (theoretically speaking anyway, I'm not going to try to figure out how that works), bu its not in a form that you would like it to be (as I recall its basically been turned to acid and ultra-polluted).

Yeh because you would have a hard time trying to. First you've got to explain why it wouldn't just condensate as it does currently. Then how the atmosphere can hold 30 million trillion gallons of water in gaseous form, and how anyone can survive living in such an atmosphere considering how hot it would be and how they could breath at all.

GW says, "**** reality, we say whats real or not!"

It's true. Don't get me wrong I get they can't cover every corner and taking liberties is necessary in most science fiction. I just like hearing peoples explanations they come up with, makes for interesting debate I think. Maybe just me.