We are constantly in the process of developing a better understanding of how the Sunspot is built. And this morning we took some time to rough out a cross-section of the Sunspot’s hull that is roughly to scale. We got the main hull, the sea depth, the highest buildings, and the mountains right about where we want them, as far as height is concerned. Width is fuzzy. Sections of deck is also fuzzy. Each layer of decks actually represents multiple decks. And really, this is still just a sketch. We’re be refining this significantly as we go.

But this gives an idea of how casual and imprecise Metabang is when it describes these structures, specifically the trams and fallow decks. We may have it go back and edit those parts of Systems’ Out! to give a more accurate depiction of the Sunspot.

We do keep asking ourselves, as we write these novels, “How much are we writing for Outsiders, and what should we just take for granted in our descriptions?” And we’ve been leaning more toward taking things for granted, because that would be natural of any writers who are not used to encountering total, utter newbies to the ship. Even Tutors such as Metabang may assume that by the time a resident of the Sunspot is able to read its book, that resident will have already seen a lot of what it’s writing about.

There’s also just a matter of expedience. In its story, Metabang is focusing more on the social dynamics of what is going on and less on the physics.

But, in comparison to other science fiction novels out there, we feel like we’ve leaned a little too hard on taking things for granted, and probably flesh some things out a little more carefully. So, we’re working on that.