this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2024
422 points (99.5% liked)

Cosmic Horror

920 readers
1 users here now

A community to discuss Cosmic Horror in it's many forms; books, films, comics, art, TV, music, RPGs, video games etc.

"cosmic horror... is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock... themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries... the sense that ordinary life is a thin shell over a reality that is so alien and abstract in comparison that merely contemplating it would damage the sanity of the ordinary person, insignificance and powerlessness at the cosmic scale..."

For more Lovecraft & Mythos-inspired Cosmic Horror:-!lovecraft_mythos@lemmy.world

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
all 47 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] superkret@feddit.org 63 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Fun fact: If there was air between us and the sun to carry sound, we would constantly hear it roaring at around 100dB (as loud as a jackhammer).

[–] MattW03@lemmy.ca 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

More fun facts: ~~When the stars are right~~ In approximately 5 billion years, the sun will ~~awake from his slumber~~ enter in his red giant phase and ~~devour~~ engulf Mercury, Venus, and possibly also the Earth.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

And some previous sun(s), after growing into even larger red giants, created most of the matter you see around you in an act of such violence it likely destroyed any planets they hadn't devoured.

And some of what it created still contains enough rage to make the most violent creations humanity had made--up to the point when we realized we could use that to power an even more violent creation: a brief and miniature version of our slumbering sun.

[–] pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It will eat Earth and at some point the heat will likely make all the planets and their satellites unsuitable for humans. There might be a possibility for life on Pluto though.

[–] FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Pluto’s gonna get the last word after the other planets kicked him out of the planet club

[–] pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Well not really, it's not like Pluto's mass(1/6 of our Moon) will grow much in that time. But there are evidences of water on Pluto and even suggestions of underground liquid water oceans(due to it's core's heat) so it may be suitable for life even now.

[–] ekZepp@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can we agree on shrieking?

[–] Mac@mander.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

Who's to say it's doing something vocally at all? Perhaps it's simply breathing but our feeble biology cannot handle its immense power.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

how do we know it wouldn't sound like an opera singer holding the longest sustained note in the universe?

[–] Jumi@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Another fun fact: If we could hear the sun and it would suddenly disappear we would still hear it for another 13 to 14 years.

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Not eight minutes and twenty seconds?

Not even an edit: I typed this then realized I was thinking of the speed of light, not sound. Sorry for doubting you.

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If there was air between us and the sun we would long have been burned to a crisp, though.

[–] pinkystew@reddthat.com 5 points 1 year ago

Why is this so comforting

[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How so? And at what frequency?

[–] superkret@feddit.org 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Cause it's basically an ongoing explosion.
And supposedly it would sound something like a huge waterfall.

[–] Jax@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I can't help but wonder what effect that would have on life. Assuming that there's a circumstance where a form of life can somehow be exposed to the infinite roar of its benevolent tyrant - what would that do to hearing? Would life even develop hearing? I can't imagine things like echolocation would be very useful, but I'm just some dude thinking about our eldritch sun god. Idk.

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

We'd probably be safe from the "Quiet Place" monsters, at least.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i love the idea of hearing being a niche thing that only exists in caves sufficiently insulated from the surface, it would definitely make vision even more popular than it is as it stands

[–] Jax@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I'd have to wonder if surface eyes would become stronger as a result. Think a Quiet Place monsters but instead of sensitive hearing they have eagle eyes and night vision. Scary stuff.

[–] Eheran@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

No, it is not an ongoing explosion. It is in equilibrium, an explosion is not, that is it's defining thing. Why should it sound like water when the processes happen on far larger scales (lower frequencies)? They should almost exclusively be inaudible.

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

Do you know how loud it would be if you were right next to it, assuming it was all surrounded by air?

[–] half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is some dark souls shit

[–] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] rockerface@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Praise the sun or it will find you

[–] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] rockerface@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Not any more, there's a blanket

[–] Dav09@mander.xyz 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why limiting it to gaming?

[–] half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Also bloodborne & Elden ring vibes

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

It has a very Sekiro quality too

[–] otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

corporate-difference-meme.webm

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Damn, we putting .webm at the end instead of .jpg these days?

[–] NateSwift@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

webm is google, and we all know google owns us all

[–] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Funny thing, unless they updated it in the last few months Google Voice can't handle Google's own image format.

[–] otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago

I'm glad someone got that 😅🙇🏽‍♂️✊🏼

[–] ekZepp@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
[–] Ageroth@reddthat.com 4 points 1 year ago

I've always loved this movie even if the "science" behind restarting fusion in the sun was nonsense

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Really great movie.

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dammit I must have clicked outside my subscriptions again.

So anyway here's a reminder that if you take a stellar lifetime and map it down to something like a human lifetime, the relative slowness of the speed of light mostly goes away, down to something within an reasonable approximation of the speed of sound in air, give or take.

This means that stars, at least in close proximity to each other, could theoretically be having conversations (by means of light across vacuum) that to them, don't seem to take all that long at all.

And they have all that boiling mass doing who knows what and so much real time to think...

[–] dwindling7373@feddit.it 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

the relative slowness of the speed of light mostly goes away, down to something within an reasonable approximation of the speed of sound in air, give or take.

Nice try buddy, the ratio is 138 times higher for stars / lightspeed than it is human / soundspeed, not to mention the distance at which we have conversations is 1 human wide, clearly not the same between stars.

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 4 points 1 year ago

I admit it's been a while since I did the calculations so I must have misremembered the speed of sound part.

Trying again now (with less brain than I once had) I think you could still get a few million intercommunications between stars hundreds of light years apart within their lifespans, and stars only a handful of light years apart could be even more chatty.

[–] lunarul@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're comparing based on size. I think lifespan would be more relevant. Let's compare a 10 billion year lifespan to a 100 year lifespan. That makes 1 year of human life equivalent to 100 million years of a star's life. So a distance of 10 light years would mean 10 years for a message to get across. Which, at the 1 to 100 million time rate difference, still means an equivalent of 3 seconds. So yeah, communication would be slower than for humans, even for relatively close neighbors.

[–] magikmw@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

The op in op re-invented reasons for sun worship.

[–] MattW03@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

i mean...

Plasma ejecting from sun on November 7, 2024.

source

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 2 points 1 year ago

Now lets pull a necron and let's use the star god to power our civilization.

[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

some people just want to be herded