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[AbacusWizard]

Well, Mr. Hammerer sir, I was just standing around in the Room of Levers, and out the window I sees the Baroness going ice-skating, and all of a sudden there's this beam of light from heaven like, and I'm blinded by the glare for a moment, and when I look again the Baroness is gone! Where to, Armok only knows.

[Spreggo]

Well, Mr. Hammerer sir, I was just standing around in the Room of Levers, and out the window I sees the Baroness going ice-skating, and all of a sudden there's this beam of light from heaven like, and I'm blinded by the glare for a moment, and when I look again the Baroness is gone! Where to, Armok only knows.

It would be pretty hilarious to put one too many mirrors feeding into the system, causing strolling dwarves to spontaneously erupt into flames.

[shadowclasper]

You've all got it wrong.

If we allow the dwarves to study the sun. It'll mean we get something BETTER than magma. WE'LL GET PLASMA! Come on, dwarves, who worship all fire causing things, are not going to blow up the ultimate fire available to them. They shall figure out how to create reservoirs for it and direct it with screw pumps!

New Megaproject idea: dwarven Tokamak "Gaze of Armok".

Damn, now why didn't I name my old fortress that. Where I built an orbital magma cannon network...

[Sabre_Justice]

That's no mountain...

[Dr. Melon]

Applied Photonic Particle Physics and Waveform Mapping!

Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation!
Oh wait, that's already taken.
Dwarves with Lasers would be awesome though. All they need is high-voltage current and mirrors...
Dwarves already have the gemstones usually used for such things, the high-strength metals needed to withstand the temperatures, so now all we need is <<-copper wires->> and a *dynamo* attached to the water wheels and the <<-silver backed clear glass->> and we should be all set.

Laser towers inside the eyes of a giant statue of Armok? Truly a Gaze of Armok there - kills anything it sees.

[kurokikaze]

Applied Photonic Particle Physics and Waveform Mapping!

Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation!
Oh wait, that's already taken.
Dwarves with Lasers would be awesome though. All they need is high-voltage current and mirrors...
Dwarves already have the gemstones usually used for such things, the high-strength metals needed to withstand the temperatures, so now all we need is <<-copper wires->> and a *dynamo* attached to the water wheels and the <<-silver backed clear glass->> and we should be all set.

Laser towers inside the eyes of a giant statue of Armok? Truly a Gaze of Armok there - kills anything it sees.

And don't forget ☼aluminium lightsaber☼

[Soadreqm]

Why not just have a mirror building?
You could have it 'oriented up and south' on a lit tile, and another one next to it that transfers it (like gear assemblies with power) which is 'oriented southwest,' and so on, sending the light power in straight lines, diminishing over distance and causing surrounding tiles to be lit.
You wouldn't need a full system of sun light tracing or whatever. The 'light' is created at the mirror pointing upwards, like power is created at a waterwheel.

That would be just fine if you didn't have a moving light source, which the sun unfortunately is. So, to do it realistically, you'd have to turn the topmost mirror, not only with the day/night cycle but also the seasons. The ancient Greeks probably could have devised an automated system for that with water clocks or something, if they'd ever had a reason to, but that would be lost technology in the DF time period. Maybe just have a slave turn it manually.

Of course, just pointing a mirror at the bright blue daytime sky would provide quite a bit of light, so I guess that's not a crippling problem. In fact, you could do all kinds of neat things with a mirror array that delivers direct sunlight for two minutes once a year. Think Indiana Jones. Or Stonehenge. And combine that with the light-sensitive dwarven doors and writing from The Lord of the Rings.

Also, unless every mirror you have is a masterpiece, the light is going to scatter and the intensity will drop really quick, and if every mirror IS a masterpiece and the light DOESN'T scatter, it won't properly light the space between the first and the last mirror. So it's not going to be a way to brightly light up every space, just a way to add turns to your light wells.

And if your mirror production REALLY took off, it'd be nice to be able to make a tunnel with every surface lined with mirrors. Or maybe a glazed silver tube. Ancient fiber optics.

Some of this stuff is probably going in with the intriguingly named Fire and Lighting Arc, some of it will have to wait for version 3 and the Advanced Astrophysics and Space Flight Arc, and the rest of it will be left for the Particle Physics and Basic Quantum Mechanics Arc.

[Dr. Melon]

We're too late.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tt7RG3UR4c

BEHOLD THE EYE OF ARMOK - AS YET, IN ITS INFANCY, BUT ONE DAY THE RAW POWER OF THE GODS WILL RISE IT UP TO ITS FULL POWERS.

[shadowclasper]

Some of this stuff is probably going in with the intriguingly named Fire and Lighting Arc, some of it will have to wait for version 3 and the Advanced Astrophysics and Space Flight Arc, and the rest of it will be left for the Particle Physics and Basic Quantum Mechanics Arc.

You mean where the space ship megaproject becomes (actually launch it into orbit and fight space goblins?)

[snaggles]

############## <--- Glowing Pits Sun
      &         &           &
&           &                    <--- HFS rain     
&      &         &     & 


At least the dwarves have light!

[LumenPlacidum]

Solar forges aside, I do really like the idea of dwarfs using arrays of mirrors to redirect sunlight to light the depths of the fortress.  Seems like a very good way of making the new techniques of the lighting arc intricate.

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm... mental images of a dwarf in a white lab coat at a blackboard with the text

"
Magma ~= 12,500°D.
Solar Surface Plasma ~= 20,000D.
Subsurface Plasma ~= 3,500,000D.
Central Matter ~= 25,000,000D.

Sun > Magma

Q.E.D.
"

And a crowd of dwarves in front with wide eyes and slack jaws as they suddenly rethink their hatred of the great vomit-inducer in the sky.

Edit: one of them figuring out that this would finally allow them to eat, sleep, and breathe adamantine... well, for a fraction of a second, kinda rough on the lungs, but it'd be the dwarfy way to go.

[Neruz]

Next thing you know they'll be throwing superjovian-sized planets into stars to turn them into flamethrowers.

[Freaky]

I tried doing a search online and couldn't locate video that clip is from. do you know by any chance what show that is?

It says in the description: James May's Big Ideas, ep 3 presumably.

[BlazingDav]

I'd be quite happy with a means to light up the inside of a fortress and stop painting the outdoors green, though on a lower level scale we ought to be able to dazzle and blind anything that can see

Urist McHammerer: So how is a bunch of mirrors and a corridor with stairs for flooring gonna stop a goblin siege single handed?
Urist McParanoidEngineer: Just watch for yourself

*goblins are blinded trip over themselves fall down stairs into magma hall below*

Urist McLeader: I prefer hammers personally

*mirror strangely spins round blinds Hammerer and falls down some stairs into a lava pit*