012. Hard Stop [OPEN]

[a_perfect_end]

Greetings, Sacrosanct!

[Clu? Voluntarily outside. This can't end well.]

Given that this...phenomenon...is systemic and shows no signs of ceasing, in any Zone? No, really, it's everywhere. Even the beaches are covered in it.The real question is how individual flakes can be so beautiful in isolation, and so...not. In groups. But what I'm asking is

Comments

video;

[fuckinghubble]

It's not something you can typically create or control, and even then, you'd need the right conditions to make larger, individual flakes.

Unless if you happen to be the AI that generated all this snow in the first place. That's really the only thing that's phenomenal here.

video;

[a_perfect_end]

[This stuff is cold but why let that show? Besides, Raimi evidently knows how to dress for it, so he might be the one to ask.]

Yes! Those are the conditions I'm interested in.

[Because hexagons.]

...The last large-scale water-based occurrence was an accident. Our Blue Lady's not known for her superior error-trapping.

[video]

[spacebased]

You need a cleanroom and proper environmental controls, preferably in microgravity. Individual flakes can be preserved for electron microscopy by platinum vapor deposition.

[Less lecture-y:]

I do more metal crystallization than water, but the basics are the same. Water's just a pain to work with.

[video]

[a_perfect_end]

[Specifics are good. Details are even better. Hello, favorite person of the moment. ♥]

Hey, thanks! Super helpful.

I pulled near-perfect cuboids out of potassium chloride, with some prompting, but they were. Brittle when false-randomized according to projected controls. And they had this distressing tendency to feather.

...Yeah, I. Should probably go comb Hawking for the necessaries, huh.

Metal, huh? Interesting. [Processes clearly that he's dealing with a fellow AI, and then says it anyway: ] Please, tell me all about it.

[supernova1006]

Hoooowww large? [Said so dubiously.] And, uh, why?

[a_perfect_end]

Well, I mean, they're beautiful! In singles. In aggregate they're...wet. And horrifying.

[Just. Grinning. With a slightly manic chuckle]

Didn't anyone ever tell you, kid? Bigger is better.

[supernova1006]

Well...it's pretty, at least. When snow kinda settles on everything and it's all quiet, I like that. Heh, but yeah, I don't like the wet part much either.

Well the thing is...snow flakes are water crystals. Crystallization is a very small-scale event when it comes to water. The biggest you can get them naturally is about two inches in diameter, and that's really rare. But, I guess if you want a really big one or something, you could always sculpt one out of ice...that might not really count, though.

[cryovengeance]

What do you require assistance with?

I suppose I might as well offer my services, seeing as how I am creating the snow.

[a_perfect_end]

[New face! With, apparently, a thorough knowledge of the subject under discussion...He's. Kinda blue, though.

Well. Can't have everything.]

Greetings!

I'm discovering that I kinda. Really dig snowflakes, in abstraction. The six-fold symmetry is near-ideal and kinda reminds me of the City.

...But they need to be larger than they are. And not so. Wet.

Really? You did all this? [If he sounds kind of overwhelmed, it's because he is, but there's nothing hostile about it.] Nice.

[cryovengeance]

Snow is frozen water, in the most simplest of explanations. To keep it from necessarily being wet would require a colder environment, and that is -- in theory -- if nothing warmer approaches the snow.

Snowflakes cannot be larger than your expectations. I suppose if I focused more effort into it, I could make them larger. But what would be the point of that?

Yes. I did. I prefer it to snow around the holidays.

[a_perfect_end]

Yeah, that matches data from other responses. [Pause.] Yeah, I--the state change is erratic, even though the melting point is relatively constant.

[He wants water or snow. Both is just messy.]

They're...disorganized. They're just drifting around. Bigger ones'd be easier to stack, for example. Also easier to display.

[Have a noncomittal, friendly sort of nod with a grin.]

I know very little about these holidays, in particular, but I'm learning a lot about snow.

This one's a Us--human holiday, isn't it? You from Earth?

[audio]

[enslavedslayer]

[Have some angry and annoyed rumbling. Guess who isn't so happy about the snow and cold after falling in it while out patrolling.]

[audio]

[a_perfect_end]

[That sound? Unhappy ki-- Program.]

You alright, man?

[audio]

[enslavedslayer]

[Rumbling] Do not like it.

[audio]

[a_perfect_end]

C'mon home. Got a towel with your name on it.

[Really. It's monogrammed and everything.]