The Republic of Heaven

Just wanted to archive this here:

Daily Telegraph reported:
"..these maps [of Lyra's Oxford] are causing all sorts of problems for the illustrator. In Pullman's story, Oxford is served by steam engines and Zeppelins. Finding room for them in the congested city centre has proved impossible. David Fickling, the book's publisher, concedes that when it comes to updating maps of Oxford, there was 'tremendous difficulty working out where we could squeeze in a Zeppelin hanger."

Thanks to Graham on the DarkMaterials.com boards for this update.

thats stupid, thye dont need to fit in around our oxford, they can just cut a big chunk of area of modern oxford and put it in there

lol

Yeah, he's right.

::gets the feeling there's a thread discussing this already, but can't find it... hmm. must be a glitch in the matrix.::

uh oh... time to run...

::runs away from the agents::

why don't they just take out a residential section or something?

Yeah there is definitely another thread, the one with suburbs and cars, if that helps...

i thought pullman had this all worked out in his head.

I dunno...maybe the drawers are having trouble and hadn't thought about asking Pullman, or maybe Pullman misjudged the size of the hangers.

AySz88 wrote:I dunno...maybe the drawers are having trouble and hadn't thought about asking Pullman, or maybe Pullman misjudged the size of the hangers.

I can't think offhand of any example in our world where airships were flown out of or stored in city centres. They were kept out of town for all kinds of good reasons to do with safety and logistics.

Ceres

Yeah... why cant they just plop one down NEXT to the town for god's sake?

I know that the zeppelin sheds in Berlin were definitely on the outskirts.

Especially since they're full of damn hydrogen...

Yes. certainly a major safety concern, as well as a practical necessity. Imagine how much more of a disaster the Hindenberg would have been if it had happened over a major city.

i think one of the major problems with fitting the hangers in would be thier sheer size the ones the US Navy had in new jersey were so huge they had rain storms inside them also the open field required for landing and maintanace but like someone said before just cut a chunk out of the modern city that wasent mentioned in the book

Blighty wrote:Especially since they're full of damn hydrogen...

they dont have to be filled with hydrogen later ones were filled with helium although i seem to remember a couple being blown up which would certainly mean hydrogen

No the actual Zeppelins always used hydrogen (Zeppelin was the name of the German company that made them). Anything using helium would have to be termed more generally as a blimp or an airship. In HDM they were always called Zeppelins, so I assume that they were filled with hydrogen.

On the placement issue, If you have ever seen a map of Oxford, the old part of the city (the part that would have to be included in Lyra's oxford) is a very small area immediately adjacent to and to the west of the river Cherwell. The vast majority of Oxford is in the form of late 19th century, pre-war and modern housing estates lying to the east of old Oxford. There is also a large area to the south-east occupied by a huge car factory that would almost certainly not exist in Lyra's Oxford.

coming from vegas my knowledge of oxford is sadly limited however zeppelins can also be called dridgebals (sp?) which did in fact use helium blimps which have a ballon filled with helium are a different thing altogether. the name came from the american habit of renaming all things german after the first world war and seeing as the united states does not exist in lyra's world it makes sense they would be called zeppelins

As far as I understand it, a dirigible is another word for airship. The name actually comes from the french word meaning steerable, because airships/dirigibles can be steered (as opposed to balloons which cannot). Anyway a zeppelin is a much more specific term for a particular type of airship which is always filled with hydrogen, and actually refers to the brand.

So if airship were equivalent to automobile
dirigible = car
zeppelin = Volkswagen

I no that some of you will not belive me (but dont be a fudge/in the 5th year harry potter) but the magnetic polls are about to flip. every 5'000 years the magnetic polls flip BUT it has not don it in 70'000 year, this is sereus. for about for days during this the earth is not 3d but 5d. it ukers wen the lion gate is opened.

What's this post doing here?