Stalactites and Stalagmites

[bilbous]

Stalactites and stalagmites are typically formed where groundwater finds a place to seep through the surrounding rock in caverns. Now we have any number of them around the map, indeed they are quite visible in the Bronze Doors region. My question is this: are these systems active or have the gods frozen the drips so that no growth can occur?

Well it is late and I have lost my thought, did anyone else find it?

[Josellis]

Stalactites and stalagmites form over thousands of years, and depending what is being deposited by the water, they can be very solid (and very fragile). So even if there is no water dripping anymore, the stalactites and stalagmites will remain. So I am assuming that the course of the water changed in the BD area, and does not filter through the rock to form the stalactites and stalagmites.

[Nikodemus]

So I am assuming that the course of the water changed in the BD area, and does not filter through the rock to form the stalactites and stalagmites.

You are not giving reasons for that assumption.

[bilbous]

It might have to do with no water dripping.

[Nikodemus]

Yeah and still no reasons why. Think people, think please.

[Jeraphon]

Yeah and still no reasons why. Think people, think please.

Not speaking on behalf of the settings team, just creating a possible reason:

The Waterfall by the EBD wasn't always there. The water's source could be from a crack in the foundation above the Stone Labyrinths, causing a river/waterfall flowing from there. Thus the water is, instead of dripping down to form stalactites, now in motion for the waterfall's movement.

I dunno.

[bilbous]

Two words: Global Warming

Dried up the exterior water source.

[Nikodemus]

Talad and Laanx found small cave under the Azure Sun. They enlargened it a lot. if there were any stalactites, they probably were broken in the process and if there were any, for sure not close to the walls of the actual Yliakum cave. Interesting, isn't it? Especially that stalactites form thousands of years. And how big stalactites we see all around?
I explain it by it that eighter Laanx and Talad waited so long, before they started making the place habitable (soil, oxygen and stuff). Or they used powerfull spells, bending the time as they wanted. That's rather important aspect in the Yliakum creation.

As to answer why the heck the stalactites don't grow anymore.
You know, for stalactite to grow, not only time, and properly mineralized water is needed. You need special microclimate! For example, wind and changing temperature kills stalactite growth and turns them into "dead" forever. So all stalactites in Yliakum are "dead". Of course i'm not talking about smaller caves somewhere.

[bilbous]

With gods anything is possible.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

none of these concepts are lost on us by and large the devs are educated people and who is to say more are not forming now? Our actual lifetimes will have long passed before new ones form; this does not mean others or this one will not fall at some point. Thanks all for the geology lesson to the unknowing. 

[Under the moon]

For whatever reason, the gods had to have created them, or they were formed in an unatural proccess. The simple fact is that stalactites of that size would have taken hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years to form.

Before you know anything about them, though, you would have to know exactly what they are made of.

The last option is an interesting one. Someone... or something, is trying to close the cave back up again.

[Pizzasgood]

The simple fact is that stalactites of that size would have taken hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years to form.

On Earth.  The minerals of this planet may be very different from the ones we have.  Then you have to factor in any funky effects from the crystal.  Big icicles form over days or weeks, not years.  Sure, they're made of frozen water and not as immense, but they look very similar.

And who's to say Talad and Laanx didn't add them as eye candy?  I doubt they just blasted the hold bigger and let things fall into place.

Another possibility is that they aren't all traditional stalactites.  Some could be the remnants of molten stone.  They could be stonecicles, if for some reason there was melting rock above them that trickled down and cooled.

Or maybe the aliens made them.

[Raleigh]

Or maybe the aliens made them.

*cough* Stargate SG-1 *cough*

No one ever said the gods were here to save us…

Definitively out of question, it doesn't fit much the style of Planeshift to claim that Talad and Laanx are aliens... although it would be an interesting idea... 

Anyway, with enough terraforming you can always make some stalagmites and stalactites, even artificially.

* Raleigh thinks that sci-fi is as saturated, if not more, than fantasy as a genre, and that it's not a bad thing to mix elements of one with another, if done properly while keeping most of one of them, and wonders about the Winch.

[bilbous]

One thought is that they could be remnants of whatever process to carve out the empty spaces, the result of eddies of rock in the power vortexes which were left untouched. This goes along with the previous speculations.

[Zabio]

This has been discussed in IRC a few times, and my answer still stays the same until more proof can be given. Some have even said that I think too much about a fictional game.

“Science is only best guess anyways.” (Movie: The Core).

   Known:
      We live in a large stalactite
      Azure sun emits Inferred radiation
      What most of the outer wall is made of
      We have an atmosphere (it rains and we can breath)
      Water comes into the stalactite
      How long races have been apart of Yliakum (archeological evidence and written history)
      If you put water on a hot coal, the water disappears, smoke appears, and the coal gets cooler.

   Unknown:
      How old the stalactite really is
      How old the Azure sun really is
      Where the water goes after it reaches the lake
      What the stalactites that are not apart of the outer walls is made of
      How they are made.

   Assumptions:
      Dew forms
      Mist from the water from the waterfall coats the rocks
      Iron rusts if left to the elements (Iron temple vs. a well kept iron blade)
      We have a definition for condensing
      We have a definition for evaporation
      We have a definition for water tension
      We have reached the top of the inside of the stalactite (flying creatures)
      

My Hypothesis:

Water reaches the ceiling of Yliakum due to some force during the day. The water then gets heated as hot as metals in the furnace.  This super heated water combines with the “baked” rock (due to the IR radiation from the Azure sun).  Then at night, the water and rock cool forming a mineral enriched water droplet. This water droplet then rests upon a single spot on the ceiling. Then more water combines with it, until the next morning when the Azure sun, again. bakes rock and water.  This baking of the rock and water that has condensed overnight draws the water out of the mineral enriched rock and leaves the rock baked upon rock, forming the stalactites.