Just a random SGA question poll

[resonant]

... because I like to know these things.

[Poll #557655]




(Way on back when I was attempting to write Shanghai Noon slash, I was in chat moaning, "I can't write a Western! I don't know what anything smells like!" And cin1607 said, "It smells like smoke. Trust me. If it doesn't smell like smoke, it smells like gunpowder.")

Comments

[vamysteryfan.livejournal.com]

Well, not to be gross or anything, in Westerns the air probably smells like manure. Horse manure littered the streets and they didn't have modern plumbing, if you catch my drift.

I'm thinking Atlantis has way more advanced waste treatment facilities, so to speak. So the outside air would smell clean. I think the indoor air when they first got there smelled musty and now it smells like the typical American office building (no smoking allowed.)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Huh. Which also makes me think: Who on Atlantis is/was a smoker? Or did they ban smokers, or at least gently encourage them not to make a one-way trip to a World Without Tobacco? And if so, did anybody make the trip just the same, reasoning that maybe the best way to quit was to be on another planet?

Perhaps this explains why Kavanagh is so pissy?

Or even Rodney?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

W00t? Aidan Gillen and Jackie Chan? Where, where!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. Untitled and unfinished. One day I may get around to figuring out what's wrong in the middle and fixing it.

[elishavah.livejournal.com]

Cripes. Now you've got me wondering whether the oceans on Atlantis are saltwater.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Wow. I thought that was canonically established and I just hadn't managed to see that episode yet. You mean it's not known? Wow.

And of course there's a whole family of elements/combinations that are designated as "salts," right? So even if it were salt, there's no guarantee it would be salt like earth salt, which means it could smell different.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

What a you question!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I can't help it. I have to know these things.

Maybe next I should ask for speculations on what the characters smell like.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Also, note all these really clever comments. I think Flashfic needs a Smell challenge.

[rhi]

What a wonderful question!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Hee -- thanks! Getting a lot of really clever answers.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

When you're a few days out at sea there isn't really much of a distinct smell. The smell of "sea air" is more "dead sea creatures washed up on a beach," and if you're not actually near a beach you don't get it. Although perhaps there is some barnacle growth and seaweed and dead crabs and stuff on the pilings of Atlantis, I don't know.

I imagine the indoor air smells like Typical American Office Building.

Interestingly, when we'd been in the waters of the Bahamas - mostly flat, sandy, coral islands - for several months, then sailed for the Dominican Republic, it was amazing how the scent of the air changed as we approached land. From 15 miles out we could smell the dirt, the trees, the vegetation. It was a truly stunning and obvious transition.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Wow. I guess I knew intellectually that you wouldn't have large amounts of decaying sea life if you were way out in the deep water, but I still think of the whole ocean as smelling like the underside of a pier.

That smell of approaching land thing is mentioned in the Hornblower books. He also says that when they had galleys rowed by slaves, you could smell them before you could see them.

(ran out of space in the box)

[ali-in-london.livejournal.com]

How about the indoor air?

That'd depend on where you were; could be kit-cleaning stuff (polish, whatever the guns and other bits of military kit are cleaned with), lab supplies (and that'd depend on what lab you're in), food, incense and scented oils (I'm willing to bet money that the Athosians have little personal rituals involving both). Dust, but probably not much, as I imagine that Atlantis has a lot of ventilation.

Now I'm wondering whether the Stargate has a smell when it is activated.

Also wondering whether McKay would do the same thing I (and a few other people I know) do when I get a new computer: put my head in the box and take a deeeeeeep sniff. There's just something about the smell of new tech.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Now I'm wondering whether the Stargate has a smell when it is activated.

Oh.My.God. That's an absolutely stunning idea. I love it.

Wonder if Teyla and Ronon have trained their senses of smell? So that people are always going, "How'd you know where my quarters were?" and they just shrug because they could smell, like, Rodney's powerbar/coffee/electronics/hypoallergenic deodorant smell from halfway down the hall.

Re: (ran out of space in the box)

[vamysteryfan.livejournal.com]

I always pictured it as having a sort of ionized smell. ALl the little atoms ionizing at the event horizon.

[hinokumo.livejournal.com]

If it doesn't smell like smoke, it smells like gunpowder

That's a good description and an interesting poll. Are you just curious or writing a fic? *hopeful nudge* Also, Shanghai Noon slash! I love Owen and Jackie :D Did you finish the fic, and if so, where can I read it?

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm not writing a particular fic, though I've always got some SGA in progress -- I was reading liviapenn's latest story, and when John and Rodney were out on the balcony breathing the air, I just started thinking, "Wonder what that smells like?"

I finished writing the Shanghai Noon story, but I never did manage to edit it into anything I could bear to publish. But I haven't given up on it entirely.

[axiom_of_stripe]

note: i have no idea what atlantis smells like. i just felt like giving random answers. :)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oh, but you had great answers! Poetic ones, even.

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think the inside of Atlantis doesn't smell like a typical office building of today, but I'm damned if I know what it does smell like. Partly, of course, this would depend on how important smell was to the original Atlanteans, what they liked and didn't like, and how that worked, statistically, in their population. For instance, when you read about the upper crust of Heian Japan, scent seems important to them; perfumed robes, the scent of blossoms, etc., and they seemed to find the ability to create or analyze a perfume to be a mark of good taste that anyone worthy of respect should have. If the builders of Atlantis had a greater, more subtle control over the air inside their city than we have on Earth at present, and if scent was a big part of their culture, they might (for instance) have one part of the city smell differently from another part. So one section might have a crackling, ozone smell, like a rainstorm on its way, whose effect on the system is like wake-up caffeine -- the smell equivalent of a Starbucks latte. Another section might have a muskier or more rose-like smell, for those who prefer exotic sensuality (and probably this would be reflected in the decor of that area, luxurious and tactile). Or a central control might send any of these scents out ciywide in revolving fashion, trying to match some circadian rhythm of people long gone.

OTOH, that sort of thing would be risky in today's population on Earth, where so many people have allergies or asthma that are triggered by smell. But perhaps that's something statistically peculiar to our genetics and environment? If it were also the case for Atlanteans, however, they might have just done something to the air that makes it smell "fresh" -- like a bracing, outdoor day -- without adding refinements.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oooh. I really like the idea of Ancient smell technology, and of walking through the city and having it smell different based on the purpose of the room.

And maybe our allergies and asthma are due to our great clumsiness in the way we create smell, and the Ancients were able to do it with molecules substantially identical to those of the normal air we breathe? Manipulating the actual elements that the air is made out of?

[celandineb.livejournal.com]

I should probably note that I was thinking of the traditional Atlantis, not SGA - brain hiccup, sorry!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

That's OK! (Most polls you can re-take by clicking on the Take Poll link again, if you want to, but it's fine either way.)

[kurage-no-fic.livejournal.com]

You don't know me, but I secretly stalk you, breaking my ninja-like cyber-cover only to say: Shanghai Noon slash! Post it this instant! I beg of you!

. . . I assure you, what might seem sub-par to you will be dazzling to the rest of us.

(And, on a wholly unrelated and slightly more timely note, I was appalled by your mention of the public school teacher who was proud to have never read Chaucer. I can only hope that yow hyed doune to this womman's hous and pummelyd heer sensles.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

[laughing so hard] Possibly with the Oxford English Dictionary.