To: feedback@jim-butcher.com

Subject: Design Rules for Etheric Airship Fan-Concepts

Dear Jim Butcher,

I want to start by thanking you for writing The Cinder Spires series. I love it to bits. The technology, magic system, and world are so compelling and visually detailed, it's like I'm watching a tv show. It's seriously helped me to rediscover my love of reading, a passion I have sorely neglected these last five or six years. 

To help flesh out that world, I was hoping to make my own small contribution in the form of a fan-designed airship. I am writing to ask for clarification on some of the technologies that make these fantastic machines work to help guide my design process. 

In retrospect, the rest of this email is primarily me geeking out over etheric technology and explaining it in great detail, perhaps more so than is appropriate when addressing the author of the series. So I wanted to clarify. The main question I want to ask is thus; Do the sails exert force on the ship’s surroundings to drive it forward (allowing for much finer control), or do they merely catch the etheric current like normal sails, leaving the ship primarily at the mercy of the currents (which would lean into the sailing aesthetic better)?

In my experience in other fandoms, I find that authors sometimes like to focus on the writing and story, and allow their geeky fans to flesh out the technology. When a fan comes up with an explanation for something that seems well thought out and grounded, the author can just give a thumbs-up and leave it at that. With that in mind, I hope you don't find me too pretentious as I tell you how your wonderful airships work.

My understanding is that etheric current flows just like air. Only instead of pushing against and flowing around physical objects like air does, it flows into physical objects and follows them downwards, trying to find ground, similar to lightning. The nervous system of living beings functions through a form of electricity and repels etheric current. Etherealists' nervous systems somehow fail in this, perhaps through some quirk of wavelengths, which allows the etheric currents to flow through them and - with training - allows them to control and redirect it. This also explains how certain surface creatures are able to harness etheric current for their own purposes, like mistmaws, mistsharks, and probably a whole host of other horrifying creatures you've yet to introduce us to.

Etheric current is also caught up by etheric components. This explains how power crystals get their limitless clean energy. They don't have to work to produce the energy, the energy is coming to them. The crystals just capture and redirect it. This also explains why etheric vests work without a power crystal, as do smaller lumin and weapons crystals. You often describe non-etherealist characters "willing the crystals to life", which implies that even normal people have some effect on etheric current. Perhaps by focusing their thoughts on the crystal, the small electric current from their own nervous system flows into the crystal and opens the floodgates for the surrounding etheric current to take over. I imagine this would be similar to how pushing a boulder is hard at first, and gets easier once it's already moving. This ability to turn off etheric crystals of various types also helps explain why, for example, a power crystal being transported in a crate with no outlet for its energy doesn't just explode.

My main question is about airship thrust. I understand that the ships are propelled by etheric current, but the how is interesting. From your descriptions, etheric webbing must be emanating some form of electromagnetic field, just like wires in real life. This explains why it requires power to function, and also why it still works with only a web with gaps in it, as opposed to a solid sheet. The electromagnetic fields fill in the gaps. That's all well and good, but my main question as far as a design goes is whether the webbing just catches etheric flow like a sail, or uses it to cause the flow of normal air like some form of thruster.

There are two theories I've come up with as to how the etheric webbing works, each with upsides and downsides.

1. Etheric webbing uses the energy of the etheric current it intersects with to cause airflow and thrust, similar to ionic thrust concepts currently being experimented on in the real world. By forcing electric current to jump an air gap, the air gets dragged along for the ride and produces thrust. This technology is currently fairly inefficient, which would justify the use of lift crystals to keep the ship aloft (as opposed to conventional airplane wings). Also, in real life, electromagnetic fields also have a direction, or 'spin' to them, whose direction depends on the direction of the electricity, which could help explain the ships' ability to reverse direction or even fly sideways. The use of such expansive sails of webbing would also create a large column of air around the ship, and somewhat negate the need for a keel or other directional stability. 

However, it does beg the question: Why don't the airships use some form of tailfin? Even in slow flight, the volume of air flowing over the ship would make any sort of rudder or flap highly effective. You mention once in the early chapters of The Olympian Affair that Predator uses "maneuvering planes" to change her attitude in a dive, and there is some kind of rudder in Predator's design in the front pages of The Aeronaut's Windlass. But a craft that flies in three dimensions would have the need for three-dimensional tailfins similar to an airplane. Should a fan-concept include such tailfins? It would somewhat ruin the air "ship" aesthetic. Speaking of the aesthetic, the fact that the ship exerts forces on its surroundings, as opposed to being at the mercy of the currents, eliminates the need for nautical maneuvers like tacking, which is kind of a shame.

2. The etheric current interacts with the webbing exactly how normal wind interacts with sails. The webbing is only as powerful as whatever etheric current happens to be flowing, and the direction of that current is entirely out of the hands of the crew of an airship. Providing power to the web only makes the electromagnetic field fill out the gaps, a full sheet of ethersilk with minimal power would have the same effect with less adjustable force (and much higher cost). Modulating power to the web only affects the strength of those fields and how effectively they catch current. It is not possible for an airship to fly directly against etheric current, requiring sailing maneuvers such as tacking. 

This is supported by your descriptions of etheric webbing being caught by the current and sent floating ahead of the masts. In order to maintain a heading without water to stab a keel into, a kind of etheric keel is installed in the ship. Perhaps it is constructed out of some kind of special etheric-sensitive wood, or maybe just formed through the magnetic fields emanating from the ship's power cables running fore and aft.

This approach begs the question of etheric meteorology. Any craft which depends on the direction of etheric current would have some device to measure the direction and strength of that current, which isn’t mentioned at all (Perhaps this can be explained away by the etheric interference from the ship’s systems rendering any such device worthless). 

Additionally, without the ability to exert force on its surroundings, strafing maneuvers, such as the one we see in Predator’s fight against the mistmaw, would be difficult to explain. Can the force from lift crystals be directed sideways? Their energy is described as “anti-gravity”, not just force. And the masts are described as groaning with the strain of the maneuver, not the hull where the trim crystals are presumably housed. Maybe the etheric keel is somehow able to be shut off, and Preddy allowed herself to be caught in the etheric currents of the much larger ships around her?

Both of those approaches leave something to be desired, but I’m sure that the majority of readers will enjoy the books regardless of whether or not every little detail is explainable. I know I will. However, better defined rules on how these airships work would allow your fans to create stories in this universe and add much enjoyment to the series. I hope you consider it. 

Your Fan, 

Archer Goodman

P.S. Is the airship design on the cover of Warriorborn supposed to be Preddy? She’s the only ship that’s mentioned in that book, but the artwork doesn’t match her, or any ship in the series. The ship in the artwork is missing port, starboard, and ventral masts, and has some form of thruster on the dorsal mast and aft deck.

So clearly whatever happened 10000 years before resulted in a massive explosion of oxygen levels.

All of the following are in line with this

-Giant Insects

-Reduced green plants and giant Mushrooms like is mentioned at end of Olympian Affair

-excessively fast iron rust

-warriorborn due to increased o2

-sapient cats, presumably due to some kind of development acceleration

-Breathing in mesosphere. It's mentioned over and over that ships fly in mesosphere. That's wildly higher than humans can breath IRL.

Cavendish mentions the machines left behind by builders that keep things livable are starting to fail. My guess is either they perform some kind of effect to alleviate negative effects of too much o2, or they are producing the excessive o2.

Here is my guess:

The tyranima is weak to oxygen. The builders flooded the atmosphere with o2 in order to suppress the tyrannima as a last ditch means of defeating it. I suspect that the spires themselves contain the machines and its pumped through the ventilation tunnels and this is why the cats are so abnormally large and smart.

I suspect that the Etheric magic is the result of the tyranima given their seemingly close relation to crystals, based on the description of the creatures that attacked the ships.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FunnyAnimals/comments/1f1za2h/the_council_shall_decide_thine_fate/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I usually don’t post on Reddit really but I just finished the book. Man I actually like a lot of the individual Aurorans you meet. I really liked Espira and his second in command in the first book because they show that people aren’t just generic bad guys if they’re in the enemy faction.

I do have to say though that I legit got goosebumps in the Olympian affair though when Captain Chavez of “The Conquistador” had his ship rally with the other ships to challenge the Mistmaw. Now I won’t say I know what was in his head because we don’t get to see from his point of view and he could have easily not known that the Mistmaw was coming and under his spire’s control. Yet if he did know and then still made the decision to be the first to challenge the monster about to kill countless innocent people really shows once again an amazingly human side an enemy that could easily just been seen as cackling bad guys.

Bravo Mr. Butcher you really are able to show the human side of things and that even if they are part of the “bad guys” that there are still people willing to look at something horrific and take a stand. Whether if that’s the intention or not it’s amazing.

(Also I apologize if the posts isn’t formatted great. I just had to get this out and nerd out about it.)

I am maybe halfway through the audio book and have heard on multiple occasions a windlass referred as though it's a ship. Now having been a fan of dresden files I know Jim Butcher does his research rather well so it stood to reason he pulled windlass from nautical resources. My problem and question: a windlass is a crank on a ship not a ship itself, why did he use the term as though it's a ship? I mean, it sounds cool, probably better than aernauts sloop or aeronauts schooner but still.

"Waking up is stupid."

With Grimm able to talk to Predator (in a sense, probably talking to the lift crystal), would that be similar to Folly and her jar? Would he be considered dabbling in etherealism, and what kind of quirk do you think he might develop if he keeps going down that road?

No spoilers at all but cats are the best characters. If Jim Butcher ever felt like writing a series of short stories of just the stories of cats interacting with humans he could not take my money fast enough.

Yes I am aware I am showing my human foolishness by admitting an obvious law of the universe.

I'm trying to get a feel for the cultural Influences of the different spires and could use some help.

Ok, so I get that Albion is Victorian England mixed with a little North East American, New York and the New England area. With a sprinkling throughout the series of the Chivalric age for everyone, including the other spires.

Aurora is Colonial Spain, even down to the Monarchy. Maybe with a touch of the French during the Napoleonic era. Tell me I'm wrong?

Olympia feels like it's a British colony that broke off a long time ago, say Australia. Its got a similar feel to Albion and they do a lot of trading between them. Or maybe Dutch with a relationship similar to during the age of exploration as economic more than militaristic rivals. Again tell me if you feel different?

Atlantea is giving off, at least to me, huge Greek, vibes with the whole laurel wreath and togas, even though Olympia was actually Greek. Even a council of powerful mystics (read: Oligarchs) as their leaders, a la Thebes, gives a feeling of the Oracle of Delphi cult. Am I on the right track or at least in the same Panathenaic Stadium?

The "Spire" of the Pikes or Pikers feels very Polynesian, with a itinerant life style, to me. Nomadic traders living on their ships, ship is family, ritualistic tattoos/scars. Fast light airships armed with older style weapons, painted sky blue on the bottom and the mist grey on top so they are better to hide in the sky. Their spires are mountain peak settlements above the mist like islands on the ocean. Give me your interpretation's on them.

Dalos is a hard one for me. It is mentioned, in Chapter 19 of TOA, that Spire Dalos is a loose-knit federation, possibly of several spires, other than that you don't get much on the culture. As Dalos is in Dallas, Texas and being a Texan, I have a bias toward the Lone Star state and it's unique culture. I want to see that come through in future books, but right now does anybody remember any other details about Dalosian culture or supposition that they would like to share.

As for some of the other spires, that aren't Dependence, we have Jereezi. They make electric teapots, that's all we know except the location of their spire, some where near as far as I can position is close to Philadelphia . Then we have the Nephesians of Spire Nephesis, the women wear long, sweeping skirts in multiple layers, patterns and colors.

Then we have the last two Spires that we know next to nothing about. First is Kissam, at least we know the location of this Spire. It's close to Kissimmee in Florida. And finally there is Spire Ethosia, all we got is a name. I don't even remember where that name came from.

Anything y'all feel I forgot or got wrong let me know.

And oooh boy, I could not put the thing down!

And I loved it.

The cats. Omygosh I need more of them. I recently lost a big fat orange Tom cat and I was just loving the scenes with him.

I am not a huge fan of series so I almost didn’t start this or windlass. I’m so glad they were in at the library. I’m now hooked on the story and need more.

I just want to ask questions about the Olympian affair. what happened. why. what. The Aeronauts Windlass is on par with A Princess of Mars. The lore and world rival Robert Jordan and *Brandon Sanderson. the Olympian affair is... disjointed. incomplete. incoherent. somehow there's none of the action from before, and the bit there is has none of the same level of flavor. did it not get edited? there's times where it contradicts itself within the same paragraph. The Aeronauts Windlass had a tight and fresh use of tropes, this thing wields tropes like a battering ram. The subtle intrigue behind the scenes in the first book were delightful tidbits making you beg to know more. the most intriguing thing about this book is how it took so long to write. I'm just so disappointed and I want to know what happened. please. Jim butcher is clearly able to do better The Aeronauts Windlass is a classic. Adventurous Stream punk fantasy. What happened here.

I checked the book out from the library and it looks like it's actually missing pages, the last one it has is page 610, is there more? Don't want to start reading and not have an ending

Thanks

I just finished Chapter 49 and I keep getting Firefly vibes.

!Grimm v Velesco has so much Shindig energy. Granted Grimm actually knows how to use a sword and had a plan, but that is NOT how sword fights are supposed to work! :-) As per my fencing teacher, it's not about stabbing the other person, it's about keeping them other person from stabbing YOU. Grimm's sacrifice gambit is such a Mal Reynolds, "Oh, you have rules? That's nice." :-)!<

Then a bit later, Espira and Ciriaco have an exchange that is very much a Mal/Zoe moment. >!Trapped in the hold with Cavendish's zombies pounding on the door, Espira decides to make the most dangerous woman in the series to date ANGRY! And Ciriaco's reaction is very Zoe.!<

Also, Espira's last line in Ch 49 is about a half a degree off Mal's >!"If you can't do somethin' smart, do somethin' right."!<

I just finished "The Olympian Affair" and loved it. What a cliffhanger! What do you all think, will we have to wait 5-6 years for the next one again?

Edit: well trod territory. Dumb autocorrect.

No spoilers below, but just came here to post that Jim seems to be in good form! OA was a vast improvement on Aeronaut's Windlass.

Really Nicely paced!

To preface this: I do love the cats. I find their culture and attitudes fun, believable, and very cat-like. That being said, I have a rant:

I ended Olympian Affair wanting to throttle the cats. The side quest to find the halfling tribe cats a home (something that was not an urgent issue) delayed warning Spire Olympia (something that was an urgent issue). A couple thousand people died because a) cats are ignorant of the world and don't care, b) wanted something, and c) were coddled.

Every time there's a clash between human and cat expectations, humans always cave.

Now I think two cultures learning to get along and respect each other is a fascinating story. But the cats never make an effort to understand and accommodate humans. Humans, at least our main characters, are constantly bowing over backwards to give cats what they want.

The halfing tribe had been rescued by humans. They were guests of humans. I just wished the Spirearch had pushed a little harder to get the information instead of bowing to the whims of the cats.

He betrayal of the Aurorans on her ship seems way out of character of her in this instance. By siding with Cavendish she was going to doom an entire spire to death, who, in the least surprising betrayal of all time, didn’t save her crew. It just pulls me out of the story when I think about it.

I'm listening to the audiobokk and thats all i'm picturing. He would be perfect for the character never the less.

One of the biggest unexplained mysteries of the Cinder Spire series is to me the oft mentioned iron rot. It's a weird but of world building that gets brought up a lot: iron rusts incredibly fast and destructively in the cinder spires universe, to the point where any iron tools have to be clad in copper (which patinas but does not oxidize destructively) and protected with wax when not in use to prevent rust. I'm not sure why Jim added this detail from a reader perspective, as it doesn't really contribute much to the world - perhaps to explain why technology such as advanced engines or firearms doesn't exist? I believe there was some mention of firearm barrels corroding and making them more expensive to use.

In any case, back to my main topic, hyperoxygenation. One reason for iron rusting faster could be because of a higher concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere compared to our world. There's more to support this as well - the silk weavers. The silk weavers are giant bugs, much larger than anything in the real world. However, there was once a time in prehistory where insects grew to be much bigger, a time when trees had first developed and covered most of the planet, resulting in, you guessed it, much more oxygen in the atmosphere. Cinder Spires also has a giant, surface spanning forest. All together, I feel like these factors seem to imply that the atmosphere in Cinder Spires has a much higher oxygen concentration than out atmosphere. I'm not sure of any other implications this would have for mammal biology.

What do y'all think?

When the new cat tribe is first introduced (being carried by Benedict), they are reffered to as "kittens". I then came to the conclusion that these 12 kits were all that was left of a large cat tribe (like the Silent Paws), and that the main body of the tribe died trying to fight whatever killed the spire.

Nothing in the book disabused me of this notion. They are referred to as being much smaller than Rowl. Rowl refers to them as "Halflings".

Yet they don't act like kittens , nor does anyone treat them as kittens. At some point I just decided they must be adult but sized like regular housecats (~15 lbs) instead of Rowl sized (~30lbs).

Anybody else have this problem? Or did I miss something while listening?

The way Grimm won the duel with Baron Valesco is straight out of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Gold! Wherein Richard Sharpe, a good soldier but not a fencer or duelist, kills the much more skilled duelist El Catolico by letting him stab him in the meaty part of his thigh to trap his sword and thereby kill him. Sharpe even uses a heavy cavalry sword consistently described as a "butcher's blade." Maybe Jim Butcher is a Sharpe fan - maybe it's just a coincidence (certainly possible), but I KNEW as soon as the duel was set up that that was how it would end!

Re-reading through The Aeronauts Windlass and came across the dimensions of Spire Albion. The book describes it was being 2 miles in diameter and about 10,000 feet tall, which is just short of 2 miles. This means the spire is wider than it is tall.

That's certainly not what I'd had in mind when I heard the word "Spire", which implies a tall tower which would be taller than it is wide (by a large margin). Instead, it seems that these "spires" are stunted disks at best.

Has there been any drawing of what this might look like?

Is it just me or is the nature of the relationship between Grimm and Abigail vastly different in OA vs how it appeared to be in AW?

In AW bayard talks about how Abigail was worried about Grimm after the initial fight, and sent Bayard to check on him, etc. There was something about 'we should have you over for dinner soon', etc. It seemed a warm, loving mutual friendship.

But suddenly in OA she can barely tolerate him, resents him for having predator, only puts up with him because he's bayard's best friend, and Grimm mentions that he's well aware of how she feels about him.

I'm super confused.