Thoughts from the nether - Pigmen, redstone and magnets

[XantyZon]

(I'm unsure were this belongs so I'm putting it here to be safe.)

Excavating in the nether for hours on end gives your mind plenty of time to wander. Wile clearing out a particularity large area of soul sand and gravel I was speculating to my roommate whether or not gravel turned into soul sand. She brought up the whole soul anus topic and that got me to thinking.

Zombie pigmen have gold. How did they get it? My thoughts were, maybe they were the last true inhabitants of the nether and they use gold to keep from being digested. My roommate suggested that it might have more to do with putting coins on the eyes to pay the ferryman. Her idea sounded better so I went with it.

Does gold play some part in transporting pigmen to the nether? Since redstone can be made out of gold, maybe it is the redstone that responsible. Is it the gold that transport souls or does it more have to do with the hellfire dust? That got me thinking about hellfire dust.

Does burning nethercoal have any ill or positive effects to the surroundings? If you could combine hellfire dust with iron or steel maybe you could make a type of magnet out of it? If you did would it be able manipulate dragon orbs?

These were just my thoughts and they might not be the best, but I wanted to share them.

[MoRmEnGiL]

Interesting thinking, but for the love of god, it dose not do my soul good to read that error so many times :P

[Ethinolicbob]

Poor MoRmEnGiL, totally worth the errors to see you in that much agony.
I like the train of thought you have there XantyZon.

[XantyZon]

Interesting thinking, but for the love of god, it does not do my soul good to read that error so many times :P

I corrected some of the more painfully obvious errors. Sorry about that.

Here is another thought on redstone. If redstone is tainted gold, dose it occur in the minecraft world naturally or was it put there by the endermen (for the ender dragon) or was it put there by some thing else?

[Elevatator]

Interesting thinking, but for the love of god, it dose not do my soul good to read that error so many times :P

I corrected some of the more painfully obvious errors. Sorry about that.

Here is another thought on redstone. If redstone is tainted gold, dose it occur in the minecraft world naturally or was it put there by the endermen (for the ender dragon) or was it put there by some thing else?

Redstone is a ore, found deep in the ground, near bedrock.

So it might have something to do with a connection between the overworld and the underworld (nether), wich have been splited into several dimensions. Maybe by the enderdragon, maybe by steve. Maybe the pigmen were just banned into hell, and just the line of bedrock keeps them there.
Steve uses the portal to go to the nether, and in 1.3, the portals will "leak" and pigmen can spawn near them.
And why do they want to go to the overworld?

[Ribky]

Here is another thought on redstone. If redstone is tainted gold, dose it occur in the minecraft world naturally or was it put there by the endermen (for the ender dragon) or was it put there by some thing else?

Heh, you did it again.

But anyway, some of your theories are intriguing and I wish to hear more.

[deathzaplin]

i think FC mentioned that redstone was where gold had been change by some force from the nether hence the gold+hellfire recipie.

as for how the pigmen have gold i don't have much of an explanation for that as gold is absent from the nether so perhaps they brought it with them from the overworld suggesting that they were inhabitants (pigmen?) of the overworld who went to the nether and were changed by its harsh surroundings into zombie pigmen.

[FlowerChild]

Actually, what I've said is that redstone was formed due to micro-fractures in the fabric of the MC reality which causes small amounts of netherrack to leak through and occasionally combine with gold deposits to form redstone.

I am perpetually amazed at how pretty much anything I say is distorted with time like the internet is one gigantic game of Telephone :)

[Sarudak]

I am perpetually amazed at how pretty much anything I say is distorted with time like the internet is one gigantic game of Telephone :)

I think that's the nature of being a cult leader... ;)

[Katalliaan]

That's pretty much the effect of anything said on the internet. You get someone who reads it somewhere and doesn't remember where they saw it or quite the wording, and that gets repeated until someone reposts the contents of or links to the original post.

[Horizon]

Back on topic, I think that the reason pigmen drop gold is because a few of them have a cancer, of sorts, where the tumor is a golden nugget.

[Sarudak]

Back on topic, I think that the reason pigmen drop gold is because a few of them have a cancer, of sorts, where the tumor is a golden nugget.

This just in. Looting enchantments causing cancer in zombie pigmen! Please think before you enchant.

[Horizon]

It's been said before, it'll be said again, where's the +1 button?

[duartemad]

Back on topic, I think that the reason pigmen drop gold is because a few of them have a cancer, of sorts, where the tumor is a golden nugget.

This just in. Looting enchantments causing cancer in zombie pigmen! Please think before you enchant.

For some obscure reason This just reminded me to install sim city 4 :)

[Azdoine]

Actually, what I've said is that redstone was formed due to micro-fractures in the fabric of the MC reality which causes small amounts of netherrack to leak through and occasionally combine with gold deposits to form redstone.

You. Are. Awesome.

[XantyZon]

Actually, what I've said is that redstone was formed due to micro-fractures in the fabric of the MC reality which causes small amounts of netherrack to leak through and occasionally combine with gold deposits to form redstone.

Thank you FC I appreciate that you clarified that. My brain has a tendency to throw random ideas at me when I'm thinking about things. So it is helpful to know BTW lore that I have not come across yet to help me rope my brain in when I'm thinking about it.

This just in. Looting enchantments causing cancer in zombie pigmen! Please think before you enchant.

Sugoi! Now any time I kill a pigman with my looting sword I'll do it with an evil grin.

So after reading the prior posts I went back to the nether and started thinking again.

Is there something in obsidian that manipulates the micro-fractures? Can obsidian be refined to obtain this and is this what was used to crate the end portals?

Does netherrack/hellfire combine with gold because of it low melting point? If combining hellfire is a mater of melting and mixing it might be possible to mix other element with it but it would not be possible with the higher temperatures needed unless you could add some thing to the hellfire to stabilize it from exploding. Note ( I have to see if a block netherrack will explode in a kiln.)

Those were the only good thoughts I got out before my brain before it completely derailed and I stated thinking about enchanting soulforged steel blocks with looting and making a room out of it that would kill zombie pigmen from cancerous gold tumors.

[XantyZon]

I finally found the third end gate, so I headed back into the nether to build a gate that would properly connect to it. This brought me close to a blaze spawner and got me thinking about an old question that I have always wondered about. What exactly are mob spawners? There just there with out any explanation for them. Having them in arias that look like they have been shaped by former inhabitants might indicate that this is the remnants of those that came before. If this was the case then how were they formed? The incompleteness of the lore vanilla MC makes me twitchy at times. So after I gave up on thinking about were they came from I started thinking about whether or not there should be some thing left over from a spawner when you brake it. IF it did drop something like a shard that would make it into a rare resource which may not fit into the spirit of BTW but it would encourage people out to explore there world more. If they didn't drop something it make it feel like a bit of a waste when I have to destroy them for one of my projects. Since I have found 30ish close to my base I don't worry about it to much.
So in the end I do like mob spawners but there are some things that just bug me about them. Also I'm thankful that FC puts time into creating a fun lore for BTW.

[chaoticneutral]

I know it's necro*, but let me put some bits of insight in this discussion?

FC's canon - natural redstone is leaked Netherrack combined with gold deposits - has two problems:
1. Until Steve?'s arrival, there's no uncombined Netherrack in the Overworld; and
2. The Nether has both Netherrack and gold, but no redstone.

The solution for both is all about decomposition rates: Gibb's energy for Netherrack formation is negative in the high temperatures we find in the Nether, but positive for the low ones in the OW. In other words, that shit will decompose on its own when cold**, and will form spontaneously from its components when hot. The components are already known, hellfire and souls, obviously.

The souls, being incorporeal, just go back to the soul anus continue their... suffering. Now, the hellfire is quite reactive, and will happily react both with gold (the reaction is fast enough to be mimicked by Steve) and stone (slow, geological time reaction - it would require millenniums, not years). Of course, where there was Netherrack, now there's a hole, that's why caves exist in first place***.

Now, that hellfire dust is quite reactive, and will combine both with gold and stone (hellfire+stone = lava). Reaction speed with gold is pretty quick, enough to be mimicked by Steve?, but in geological time with stone (this means not reproducible in his/her/whatever short life). And because it's the hellfire freed from souls, not the Netherrack itself that reacts with the gold explains why zombie pigmen can happily walk in the Nether with their gold swords and helmets and cancers without producing redstone.

So, not only this solves the two first problems, but as a bonus it explains the origin of caves and lava in the OW. Lava in the Nether was generated by a similar process, but being stone the limiting component (less stone than hellfire) explains why we can't find stone there.

And why soul sand? Simple, it has more affinity for souls than hellfire has. This doesn't matter in the Nether because souls are fucking everywhere in the Nether (proof: a Blood Wood needs to absorb souls in order to grow), so any "free" hellfire will be converted to Netherrack quickly.

By the way, I don't see redstone as "tainted gold"... I like to see it as a coordination compound, where the gold is the electron donor (hellfire dust accepts both electron or souls). Nethercoal is a bit different, not being a compound but a mixture, where the coal makes the inverse role than in gunpowder (slows down hellfire's reaction in order for NOT explode).

Thoughts on this?

*I don't know if necro is frowned upon this forum. If so, sorry - I'm posting this because I see it as contributing to the discussion.
**Stop staring your Netherrack blocks in the OW - being spontaneous doesn't mean it's fast. The odds of one decomposing by itself in your life time are smaller than winning in the lottery.
***Erosion by water gives a different formation, more akin to underground channels.

[Rianaru]

Spoiler

Show

I know it's necro*, but let me put some bits of insight in this discussion?

FC's canon - natural redstone is leaked Netherrack combined with gold deposits - has two problems:
1. Until Steve?'s arrival, there's no uncombined Netherrack in the Overworld; and
2. The Nether has both Netherrack and gold, but no redstone.

The solution for both is all about decomposition rates: Gibb's energy for Netherrack formation is negative in the high temperatures we find in the Nether, but positive for the low ones in the OW. In other words, that shit will decompose on its own when cold**, and will form spontaneously from its components when hot. The components are already known, hellfire and souls, obviously.

The souls, being incorporeal, just go back to the soul anus continue their... suffering. Now, the hellfire is quite reactive, and will happily react both with gold (the reaction is fast enough to be mimicked by Steve) and stone (slow, geological time reaction - it would require millenniums, not years). Of course, where there was Netherrack, now there's a hole, that's why caves exist in first place***.

Now, that hellfire dust is quite reactive, and will combine both with gold and stone (hellfire+stone = lava). Reaction speed with gold is pretty quick, enough to be mimicked by Steve?, but in geological time with stone (this means not reproducible in his/her/whatever short life). And because it's the hellfire freed from souls, not the Netherrack itself that reacts with the gold explains why zombie pigmen can happily walk in the Nether with their gold swords and helmets and cancers without producing redstone.

FC has said that redstone forms from netherrack plus gold next to lava, assuming the lava was already there(not a terrible assumption, since lava is decently common in the real world too)

Spoiler

Show

So, not only this solves the two first problems, but as a bonus it explains the origin of caves and lava in the OW. Lava in the Nether was generated by a similar process, but being stone the limiting component (less stone than hellfire) explains why we can't find stone there.

And why soul sand? Simple, it has more affinity for souls than hellfire has. This doesn't matter in the Nether because souls are fucking everywhere in the Nether (proof: a Blood Wood needs to absorb souls in order to grow), so any "free" hellfire will be converted to Netherrack quickly.

By the way, I don't see redstone as "tainted gold"... I like to see it as a coordination compound, where the gold is the electron donor (hellfire dust accepts both electron or souls). Nethercoal is a bit different, not being a compound but a mixture, where the coal makes the inverse role than in gunpowder (slows down hellfire's reaction in order for NOT explode).

Thoughts on this?

*I don't know if necro is frowned upon this forum. If so, sorry - I'm posting this because I see it as contributing to the discussion.
**Stop staring your Netherrack blocks in the OW - being spontaneous doesn't mean it's fast. The odds of one decomposing by itself in your life time are smaller than winning in the lottery.
***Erosion by water gives a different formation, more akin to underground channels.

Interesting theory, but hellfire plus stone=lava was in an add-on to an add-on(the Vat), and probably shouldn't be considered canon. Everything else makes sense. Soul sand has an affinity for souls, but can't hold them, hence why it's used for a soul filter. Actually, hellfire dust would probaby explode in the nether before it could be converted back. Maybe ghasts eat it or process it somehow and that's why the have exploding fireballs?

EDIT:spoilered the quotes for size

[TheFlame52]

I always thought that redstone conducted heat, and slimes lived by eating redstone for energy and plant matter for growth.

[The_Ender_lord]

I think zombie use the gold as a dimensional anchor of sorts so they aren't sucked into the overworld though they can go into the overworld via nether portals.

[The_Ender_lord]

I think zombie use the gold as a dimensional anchor of sorts so they aren't sucked into the overworld though they can go into the overworld via nether portals.

[Elevatator]

And yet another post that indicates that you are the banned user "theinfernalenchanter".

[The_Ender_lord]

Wut? I like theinfernalenchanter's idealism. I find it logical. I like logical things.