Gravity & Sentience & Mad GB's Can it get any better?

[Dual Cee]

It's back to school time, which means: Boring lessons, which cause my mind to ignore the teacher and think of bionicle and during my physics lesson about gravity I tough this:Spherus Magna, has normal gravity.The MU had artificial gravity.Since I suppose creating artificial gravity must use a LOT of energy I suppose the GB's lowered the gravity of the MU in comparation with Sperus Magna. But since the first Matoran and Toa were made to build mr. Mata Nui, I think the GB's made them able to function in the stronger Gravity of their planet. But the other species created after Mata Nui's departure, why would they be adapted to withstand a more powerfull Gravity. Doing this would only waste a lot of recources and energy, by so you could assume, that when other beings, like Axonn, they would experience immence pressure and there Kanohi would most likely fall off since the magnet would be no mach against the higher gravity. But none of these things was the case, so we can maybe assume that at least some GB's planned for the MUians to one day get to Spherus Magna and survive this could be because of two reasons:1) They wanted to use them as slave/worker.2) Some fanatic GB's planned the sentiencing to happen after a while so they could study them and they could help in keeping the Reformed Spherus Magna safe. They also adapted the basic blueprints in Mata Nuis mind: Marine Rahi surviving in water, Matoran drinking water, Adapting the builds of species to avoid been crushed by gravity,... Only the Marendar,... they heard from the others about the Marendar but werent able to prevent his building without revealing their secret. They could've stationed Velika in the MU so he could secure everything went well with the sentience,....

[Makuta Matata]

What if the artificial gravity in the MU was made to mimic the gravity of SM?

[Dual Cee]

Thats what I was talking about mimicing the full gravitational power of a planet the size of SM would recuire a superdupermegahugelot amouth of energy and that would be just a waste since it is not needed.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Dual Matrix

[TheSkeletonMan939]

Wouldn't have been a lot easier on Mata Nui if life forms had gravity "built in" to their feet instead of him having to power gravity to every corner of the MU?

[bonesiii]

Since I suppose creating artificial gravity must use a LOT of energy I suppose the GB's lowered the gravity of the MU in comparation with Sperus Magna.

There is no evidence that the MU gravity is weaker than on SM. I suppose it might be weaker so slightly that nobody noticed to save a little power, but if it was significant we would expect them to mention it somewhere. And we also have no reason to think it would take a ton of energy compared to what is available.

 

 

I think the GB's made them able to function in the stronger Gravity of their planet. But the other species created after Mata Nui's departure, why would they be adapted to withstand a more powerfull Gravity.

Just for sake of discussion, pretend I agreed that SM has stronger gravity than the MU (which I don't ). We know SM's gravity is earthlike. The GB-made beings you're talking about are partly organic like us, and we handle Earth's gravity just fine. And robots can handle it even better. So why would we expect the other species, which are made out of the same materials and building techniques, to be any worse than Matoran, etc. at handling Earth gravity?

 

 

Doing this would only waste a lot of recources and energy

I don't see why it would be efficient to make other beings very wimpy compared to Matoran. Keep in mind that the same strength that enables to withstand gravity also enables them to lift heavy things, move heavy things sideways, etc. Although it's quite possible some Rahi have functions that don't require much strength.

 

 

by so you could assume, that when other beings, like Axonn, they would experience immence pressure and there Kanohi would most likely fall off since the magnet would be no mach against the higher gravity.

Why would making wimpy magnets significantly preserve any resources?

 

 

But none of these things was the case, so we can maybe assume that at least some GB's planned for the MUians to one day get to Spherus Magna and survive this could be because of two reasons:1) They wanted to use them as slave/worker.2) Some fanatic GB's planned the sentiencing to happen

But this is all a house of cards based on the evidenceless speculation that the MU's gravity is significantly weaker. How weak are you thinking? Mars? Moon? A large asteroid? In general the weaker it is from Earth's gravity, the less efficient and controllable the movements of the beings inside would be. Basic running would equal longer strides, meaning less ability to stop short. If heading into danger, that's a bad thing.

 

It's possible your ideas for uses of the MU beings after the main mission is done are correct, but these could be true without any appeal to a gravity evidence. (I get the sense that Velika does have something similar to #1 in mind.)

 

 

Thats what I was talking about mimicing the full gravitational power of a planet the size of SM would recuire a superdupermegahugelot amouth of energy and that would be just a waste since it is not needed.

Compared to the amount of energy needed to propel the giant robot through space, it's miniscule. It's clearly portrayed that the giant robot indeed has supercalifragilisticexpialadociously vast amounts of energy. What about Makuta's gravity attack at the end of the main plot? He made enough to collapse SM into a black hole. Clearly, making just enough for Earthlike gravity is easy by comparison. Though admittedly that's constant rather than a one-time attack. But so is the energy to propel the robot while accelerating and deaccelerating, etc. And the making of Gravity energy is a basic elemental power too. Just one little Bohrok Kal can make enough to send a whole army into space.

 

 

Wouldn't have been a lot easier on Mata Nui if life forms had gravity "built in" to their feet instead of him having to power gravity to every corner of the MU?

If it had been built as a spaceship, yeah, but the islands had earth, there were seas, etc. to create the disguised environment. You'd lose that benefit if you did that; it would be an entirely different MU.

[Dual Cee]

But this is all a house of cards based on the evidenceless speculation that the MU's gravity is significantly weaker. How weak are you thinking? Mars? Moon? A large asteroid?

 

Yes it is

 

Something like larger then the moon but small enough to simply notice.

 

 

Compared to the amount of energy needed to propel the giant robot through space, it's miniscule. It's clearly portrayed that the giant robot indeed has supercalifragilisticexpialadociously vast amounts of energy. What about Makuta's gravity attack at the end of the main plot? He made enough to collapse SM into a black hole. Clearly, making just enough for Earthlike gravity is easy by comparison. Though admittedly that's constant rather than a one-time attack. But so is the energy to propel the robot while accelerating and deaccelerating, etc. And the making of Gravity energy is a basic elemental power too. Just one little Bohrok Kal can make enough to send a whole army into space.

 

Propelling a giant robot trough space doesn't really need that much energy, since there's no air, Hey wait side question how does Mata Nui fly?, he needs an extra boost of energy when leaving a planet so he I think the GB's would have tought of lowering gravity to make more power for leaving planets.

[bonesiii]

Propelling a giant robot trough space doesn't really need that much energy, since there's no air

The lack of air does help, yes, avoiding friction, but that would not be a huge benefit. It's still extremely supermassive and it takes a lot of energy to move something that heavy.

 

 

Hey wait side question how does Mata Nui fly?, he needs an extra boost of energy when leaving a planet so he I think the GB's would have tought of lowering gravity to make more power for leaving planets.

Are you asking if his method of getting off the planet is to lower gravity around himself? It's possible. Also could be creating gravity that would pull him up, but I suspect it's something more basic like an "energy rocket". Maybe a bit of both, with the rocket type thing taking over once he's out of the atmosphere, lest it hurt an alien world.

[Dual Cee]

Propelling a giant robot trough space doesn't really need that much energy, since there's no airThe lack of air does help, yes, avoiding friction, but that would not be a huge benefit. It's still extremely supermassive and it takes a lot of energy to move something that heavy.

Indeed but once you get it moving you're done.I'm actually working on giving this a mathimatical answer but I'll need the time of one or two boring lessons to solve it.I was referring to normal space traveling, how does he prpel himself forward?

[Meta-Mind]

Propelling a giant robot trough space doesn't really need that much energy, since there's no air, Hey wait side question how does Mata Nui fly?, he needs an extra boost of energy when leaving a planet so he I think the GB's would have tought of lowering gravity to make more power for leaving planets.

Mata Nui lifts off from planets using the Red Star, if that's what you mean.Other than that, it can be presumed that he flies on his own once the Red Star accelerates him enough, through "foot jets" if the artwork we've seen is accurate.As far as the issue itself goes, I've always worked off the assumption that the MU has around Earth-level gravity. There's no real reason for the Great Beings not to have that gravity level (as it was also the approximate level of SM, at least judging from the things we're shown falling in the movie), given the effort they put into other things.

[bonesiii]

Indeed but once you get it moving you're done.

Not true -- you also need to brake and turn. Also, he visited alien worlds outside his own solar system, possibly with faster-than-light travel, which would take energy so vast all the rest of this is academic. Given the long times, it's possible he doesn't have FTL; not sure on that point, but either way it would still take far more than the little gravity fields.

 

Plus this only scratches the surface of what you need. Heating against the absolute zero of space, the ability to move aside dangerous particulate (deflectors) or full shields to simply catch it all, both of which would probably have to be more high powered by far than these Earth-level gravity generators, and if you don't have strong gravity generators then you've got to have much stronger inertial dampener fields to keep everything from flying around at the slightest turn or change in speed anyways. To that last point, it would be much easier to just use fullstrength gravity with basic inertial dampening. Likely you would also have to have airblocking shields through the whole skin in case of a crack to avoid decompression too.

 

Keep in mind we don't know the full extent of the gravity fields. It's possible that normally they only acted in the domes, and maybe not through all the air in the domes either, as the airlocking effect either of a sealed skin or of airshields would keep the higher air in. It could selectively gravitate any flying objects, but I doubt it. We can't really tell because the only times they ventured outside those areas were after he crashed on Aqua Magna. If so, then only if repairs were needed in an area outside the dome would he turn gravity on, likely. But this would also require much more complex constant sensors and adapters and that would likely be even less efficient in terms of power consumption.

 

So I think we're left with the conclusion that not having full gravity or close enough to it to not notice is more efficient than the alternatives.

[Dual Cee]

Maybe the force (I don't know tha name) which attrects stuff of the same kind is high enough to fake gravity, whitout gravity itself.

[sunflower]

No here's an interesting thing I just thought of. Because most (if not all) protodermis is magnetic, what if the MU doesn't use "gravity generators", instead uses magnetics to pull things to the ground? How is a bit iffy, because a giant electromagnet isn't that practical.

 

Now that's a bit out there, and mostly because it came to my head a few minutes ago. Otherwise, I always assumed that the MU gravity was around the same as SM gravity. Mainly because Matoran worked on the MU on SM before it had its own gravity generators.

 

And with all we've seen Toa do with these elemental powers in-story, I don't think power for an Earth-sized robot would be much of a problem.

[bonesiii]

No here's an interesting thing I just thought of. Because most (if not all) protodermis is magnetic, what if the MU doesn't use "gravity generators", instead uses magnetics to pull things to the ground? How is a bit iffy, because a giant electromagnet isn't that practical.

 

Now that's a bit out there, and mostly because it came to my head a few minutes ago. Otherwise, I always assumed that the MU gravity was around the same as SM gravity. Mainly because Matoran worked on the MU on SM before it had its own gravity generators.

 

And with all we've seen Toa do with these elemental powers in-story, I don't think power for an Earth-sized robot would be much of a problem.

Well, we can't be certain of what I'm about to say because I'll be talking about Earth physics. But two basic problems:

 

1) The magnetic force is not a good standin for gravity. Gravity can create a relatively even-strength field over a wide area (of distance from the source) but magnetism tends to be very strong when close and very weak when far. It's also tried into electric fields and would have side effects in that category. Once again, it seems more efficient just to use gravity. And since some materials are heavily polarized magnetic metals, these would be pulled strongly down so they'd basically be glued down, while others like protowater and less polarized metals might just float away if they ever got too high (like raindrops forming in a cloud).

 

2) Not all protodermis is magnetic. Basically only metallic proto, and protowater. Real water is slightly magnetic too, which our microwave ovens make use of, but it doesn't work like chute protowater. But the point is, it's basically about the same as real matter. Your average rocks, your plants, your organics, are not magnetic, so they would float away. Nor is air magnetic, etc.

 

And BTW, guys, let's not forget that science fiction is filled with artificial, Earth-strength gravity. It's good enough for Star Trek and Star Wars, why not Bionicle?

 

Besides, why doubt Greg's word? He says it's gravity, it's gravity, period.

[Dual Cee]

We all know the Great Spirit bot could not fix SM all alone, so there is a limit, why, when the GB's noticed the second couldn't be built in time they didn't lower Gravity in the MU?

 

Theory:

 

Because they already did so.

[bonesiii]

Well again I think the answer is that the amount of energy being spent on the artificial gravity is miniscule compared to what Makuta expended in that attack (which was redirected into the fusing process by Mata Nui). And lowering the artificial gravity at that time would have deadly side effects since the robot was standing up. Only if he laid down on his back would that be safe once he was on a planet. Incidentally, there also has to be a gravity cancelling field to avoid a diagonal total effect of both natural down and artificial "down" (towards the back). While on a planet, IMO it's likely that this entirely "pays for itself"; absorbing gravity to channel into power for the artificial.

 

However, this alone doesn't necessarily rule out lowering the field while in space sometimes, admittedly. But I still think that's more dangerous than useful.