PG News: Only Pearly Gate 1 is available for first-time visitors to access Inisfree through.
The Pearly Gates
The Pearly Gates
Dimensions:
The gates leading from the Antarctic Outlands to Inisfree's protected interior have some incredible aspects to them. First, their sheer size is truly titanic; each gate being a long sequence of 5 chambers -so long, in fact, that by the time one passes through one of these gates, they have traveled more than a full mile. Second, their capacity is equally impressive; each chamber in these 5-chamber gates is wide, deep, and tall enough that an entire aircraft carrier (a 95,000 ton, 1/4-mile long, 25-story tall Navy warship with an entire fighter squadron and 5,000 crew-and-compliment capacity) can easily fit inside them.
Their hatches (the NORAD-style blast-doors which seal both ends of each of the 5 chambers, whose sequence comprises each of the Pearly Gates linking the Outlands to Inisfree) are rectangles oriented such that their long axes are side to side. Each hatch is like a sandwich; multiple layers, each of which open in a different way relative one another. For example, one layer (of each hatch at each end of each chamber within these Pearly Gates) will open from the center, its two halves moving apart from each other, each of them sliding silently into the walls at either side of their chamber. The next layer in will open with its top half silently sliding up into the ceiling of its chamber, while its bottom half silently slides down into the floor; its topside lip will become flush with the floor of the two chambers it once separates, serving as a temporary continuation and connection between these two surfaces, allowing for foot- and vehicular-traffic, as needed. This ‘sandwiched’ (layered) hatch (door) design prevents flooding by easily raising up a door from the floor as a wall during each closing process, as opposed to normal Outland doors which swing open laterally, easily being forced open by waters on ground level rushing around and past them.
Among these hatches, those sealing the outside of the Perimeter Wall against the Antarctic environment have internally-concealed hinges allowing their top edge to open out and down, becoming a ramp; this is a larger-scale equivalent of a drawbridge from the castle designs of olde. Oft’times those approaching Inisfree from the ground or air will wait for the opening of one of these ‘drawbridges’, signifying one of their final clearances for entering the city-proper. As with the other hatches of these Pearly Gates, successive layers of each hatch open from side to side, then into the top (ceiling) and bottom (floor), and so on.
(*The following figures apply only to the 12 topside Pearly Gates.) It is also of note that each of these hatches are over 460 feet wide; more than 200 feet wider than an aircraft carrier would need to sail into or out of them. Their height is more than 260 feet, also allowing more than enough room for the typically 24-25 stories-tall aircraft carriers. (*The aircraft carriers used on Inisfree’s lake (1 for the new sport called paintball-parkour, and 2 retrofitted and fused into 1 extra-wide carrier for the floating NASCAR stadium) were either teleported into place or sung into existence with Inisfree’s subatomic transmutation, flash-cloning, and 3D-printing technologies.) The depth of each chamber of each Pearly Gate is over 1,100 feet, also providing enough room for an aircraft carrier to fit inside. (*Though a snug fit in some ways, Repulsine technology built into the walls of each Pearly Gate chamber holds any vessel precisely in position, similarly to how tractor-beams function.)
The reason for making Inisfree’s Pearly Gates’ hatches wide and tall enough, and the Pearly Gates’ chambers wide, tall, and deep enough to easily fit entire aircraft carriers is because Inisfree in its entirety is the prophesied 2nd Ark; the ship that will preserve the worthy during the next global terraforming event. This means that, as the 2nd Ark, it will not only be responsible for housing large animals, but also accepting the potentially gigantic herds of migrating humans turned into desperate climate-change refugees; millions at a time may have to be entered into these gates’ chambers where they will, en-masse, be screened, processed, and ushered deeper into the city for their protection, re-education, and initial personal quarters assignments. In other words, when rising temperatures, such as by nuclear firestorms, result in the last of the ice caps melting and raising the ocean levels (nearly 50% of this world’s ice caps have already thawed and melted in recent decades, freeing up once well-contained volcanoes deep beneath the weight of the mile-high ices there, whose released heat, in turn, has further accelerated the remainder of the ice caps melting) many dozens of meters higher than they have been in 2012, it is entirely probable that the navies of the world will be tasked by their governments with functioning as mobile-cities to evacuate as many of their nations’ citizens as possible, and the only safe place to take everyone will be the only city capable of easily handling such a global terraforming event (and any E.L.E.; Extinction-Level Event); Inisfree. This may transpire in one of a few ways, which follow…
First, Inisfree is situated adjacent the Transantarctic Mountain range such that, if the ice caps finish melting and the ocean levels rise accordingly, the new ocean level will align perfectly with the bottom edge of Inisfree’s Pearly Gates’ chambers; when its outermost hatches (drawbridge-style ramp-doors) open, the outside ocean level will be just high enough to easily allow ship traffic to sail in and out of said chambers.
Secondly, if ocean levels do not rise enough to align with those chambers, Inisfree is a mobile construct; the entire city is capable of leaving its ‘anchor-point’ atop Antarctica, then floating or teleporting anywhere, at which point it can settle back down onto a new landing area, or float just as stably in the most turbulent of oceans. So if the approved ships cannot sail to it over what was once the ice cap crowning Antarctica, Inisfree can sail to them!
Lastly, for more extreme and interesting situations, when Inisfree functions as the flagship of the Inisfreean equivalent of Star Fleet, its Pearly Gates function again as airlocks, this time to allow Space-faring traffic in and out of its Perimeter Wall. Regardless of whether it is in deep Space or the interior of a black-hole or burning star, its immortal, invincible, living, conscious hatches and chambers work just as well.
One more point to cover here is this: Although usually only for foot-, vehicular-, and air-traffic (such as Repulsine-assisted hovercraft), these cavernous chambers of the Pearly Gates can be easily filled to any level with the amount of waters necessary for ships as large as aircraft carriers to sail in and out. Towering ballasts built into the depths of Inisfree’s nearly one-mile-thick Perimeter Wall make this possible –and in a very short amount of time. This aspect of the Pearly Gates was decided upon and built because the chambers of the Pearly Gates are Inisfree’s formal, official, preferred contraband detection devices; rooms whose walls are lined with every type of scanner (sensory perception equipment, like incredibly advanced metal- and bomb-detectors), and it doesn’t matter who or what is going in or out of Inisfree; everything must be scanned, checked, and screened, as per Inisfreean law. Whether a single person or an entire naval fleet is passing through, all of them get checked out in these chambers, so, naturally, these chambers must be capable of giving any of their persons or constructs a smooth transiting transition. (*Once sea-faring traffic passes into the innermost, final chamber of a Pearly Gate chambers-sequence, its occupants can be transported off its flight-deck (such as by Owl, MPHA, Fire-tank, or other airborne Inisfreean craft, etc.) or teleported out and down to the Welcoming Square. The ship, on the other hand, is then teleported into a stasis area in one of Inisfree’s many, gigantic, subterranean, cylindrical chambers. To reload, depart, and redeploy, this process is reversed.)
Dimensions:
The gates leading from the Antarctic Outlands to Inisfree's protected interior have some incredible aspects to them. First, their sheer size is truly titanic; each gate being a long sequence of 5 chambers -so long, in fact, that by the time one passes through one of these gates, they have traveled more than a full mile. Second, their capacity is equally impressive; each chamber in these 5-chamber gates is wide, deep, and tall enough that an entire aircraft carrier (a 95,000 ton, 1/4-mile long, 25-story tall Navy warship with an entire fighter squadron and 5,000 crew-and-compliment capacity) can easily fit inside them.
Their hatches (the NORAD-style blast-doors which seal both ends of each of the 5 chambers, whose sequence comprises each of the Pearly Gates linking the Outlands to Inisfree) are rectangles oriented such that their long axes are side to side. Each hatch is like a sandwich; multiple layers, each of which open in a different way relative one another. For example, one layer (of each hatch at each end of each chamber within these Pearly Gates) will open from the center, its two halves moving apart from each other, each of them sliding silently into the walls at either side of their chamber. The next layer in will open with its top half silently sliding up into the ceiling of its chamber, while its bottom half silently slides down into the floor; its topside lip will become flush with the floor of the two chambers it once separates, serving as a temporary continuation and connection between these two surfaces, allowing for foot- and vehicular-traffic, as needed. This ‘sandwiched’ (layered) hatch (door) design prevents flooding by easily raising up a door from the floor as a wall during each closing process, as opposed to normal Outland doors which swing open laterally, easily being forced open by waters on ground level rushing around and past them.
Among these hatches, those sealing the outside of the Perimeter Wall against the Antarctic environment have internally-concealed hinges allowing their top edge to open out and down, becoming a ramp; this is a larger-scale equivalent of a drawbridge from the castle designs of olde. Oft’times those approaching Inisfree from the ground or air will wait for the opening of one of these ‘drawbridges’, signifying one of their final clearances for entering the city-proper. As with the other hatches of these Pearly Gates, successive layers of each hatch open from side to side, then into the top (ceiling) and bottom (floor), and so on.
(*The following figures apply only to the 12 topside Pearly Gates.) It is also of note that each of these hatches are over 460 feet wide; more than 200 feet wider than an aircraft carrier would need to sail into or out of them. Their height is more than 260 feet, also allowing more than enough room for the typically 24-25 stories-tall aircraft carriers. (*The aircraft carriers used on Inisfree’s lake (1 for the new sport called paintball-parkour, and 2 retrofitted and fused into 1 extra-wide carrier for the floating NASCAR stadium) were either teleported into place or sung into existence with Inisfree’s subatomic transmutation, flash-cloning, and 3D-printing technologies.) The depth of each chamber of each Pearly Gate is over 1,100 feet, also providing enough room for an aircraft carrier to fit inside. (*Though a snug fit in some ways, Repulsine technology built into the walls of each Pearly Gate chamber holds any vessel precisely in position, similarly to how tractor-beams function.)
The reason for making Inisfree’s Pearly Gates’ hatches wide and tall enough, and the Pearly Gates’ chambers wide, tall, and deep enough to easily fit entire aircraft carriers is because Inisfree in its entirety is the prophesied 2nd Ark; the ship that will preserve the worthy during the next global terraforming event. This means that, as the 2nd Ark, it will not only be responsible for housing large animals, but also accepting the potentially gigantic herds of migrating humans turned into desperate climate-change refugees; millions at a time may have to be entered into these gates’ chambers where they will, en-masse, be screened, processed, and ushered deeper into the city for their protection, re-education, and initial personal quarters assignments. In other words, when rising temperatures, such as by nuclear firestorms, result in the last of the ice caps melting and raising the ocean levels (nearly 50% of this world’s ice caps have already thawed and melted in recent decades, freeing up once well-contained volcanoes deep beneath the weight of the mile-high ices there, whose released heat, in turn, has further accelerated the remainder of the ice caps melting) many dozens of meters higher than they have been in 2012, it is entirely probable that the navies of the world will be tasked by their governments with functioning as mobile-cities to evacuate as many of their nations’ citizens as possible, and the only safe place to take everyone will be the only city capable of easily handling such a global terraforming event (and any E.L.E.; Extinction-Level Event); Inisfree. This may transpire in one of a few ways, which follow…
First, Inisfree is situated adjacent the Transantarctic Mountain range such that, if the ice caps finish melting and the ocean levels rise accordingly, the new ocean level will align perfectly with the bottom edge of Inisfree’s Pearly Gates’ chambers; when its outermost hatches (drawbridge-style ramp-doors) open, the outside ocean level will be just high enough to easily allow ship traffic to sail in and out of said chambers.
Secondly, if ocean levels do not rise enough to align with those chambers, Inisfree is a mobile construct; the entire city is capable of leaving its ‘anchor-point’ atop Antarctica, then floating or teleporting anywhere, at which point it can settle back down onto a new landing area, or float just as stably in the most turbulent of oceans. So if the approved ships cannot sail to it over what was once the ice cap crowning Antarctica, Inisfree can sail to them!
Lastly, for more extreme and interesting situations, when Inisfree functions as the flagship of the Inisfreean equivalent of Star Fleet, its Pearly Gates function again as airlocks, this time to allow Space-faring traffic in and out of its Perimeter Wall. Regardless of whether it is in deep Space or the interior of a black-hole or burning star, its immortal, invincible, living, conscious hatches and chambers work just as well.
One more point to cover here is this: Although usually only for foot-, vehicular-, and air-traffic (such as Repulsine-assisted hovercraft), these cavernous chambers of the Pearly Gates can be easily filled to any level with the amount of waters necessary for ships as large as aircraft carriers to sail in and out. Towering ballasts built into the depths of Inisfree’s nearly one-mile-thick Perimeter Wall make this possible –and in a very short amount of time. This aspect of the Pearly Gates was decided upon and built because the chambers of the Pearly Gates are Inisfree’s formal, official, preferred contraband detection devices; rooms whose walls are lined with every type of scanner (sensory perception equipment, like incredibly advanced metal- and bomb-detectors), and it doesn’t matter who or what is going in or out of Inisfree; everything must be scanned, checked, and screened, as per Inisfreean law. Whether a single person or an entire naval fleet is passing through, all of them get checked out in these chambers, so, naturally, these chambers must be capable of giving any of their persons or constructs a smooth transiting transition. (*Once sea-faring traffic passes into the innermost, final chamber of a Pearly Gate chambers-sequence, its occupants can be transported off its flight-deck (such as by Owl, MPHA, Fire-tank, or other airborne Inisfreean craft, etc.) or teleported out and down to the Welcoming Square. The ship, on the other hand, is then teleported into a stasis area in one of Inisfree’s many, gigantic, subterranean, cylindrical chambers. To reload, depart, and redeploy, this process is reversed.)
Note
One of the beauties of being an Inisfreean means you can bypass these titan-sized gates and the 'pearly' spheres that engulf two-fifths of their inner chambers.
Inisfreeans can teleport (commonly referred to by Inisfreeans as 'port' and 'porting') just by choosing to do so, which means they can decide to appear inside their home-city, Inisfree, without moving with the much slower guest-traffic through any of their city's Pearly Gates.
Technically, Inisfreeans can will approved Outlanders to 'port' in with them, but this has never happened before, and it would be highly unlikely unless the one Inisfreean making this decision was the ruler of the entire city himself; Auzdein.
One of the beauties of being an Inisfreean means you can bypass these titan-sized gates and the 'pearly' spheres that engulf two-fifths of their inner chambers.
Inisfreeans can teleport (commonly referred to by Inisfreeans as 'port' and 'porting') just by choosing to do so, which means they can decide to appear inside their home-city, Inisfree, without moving with the much slower guest-traffic through any of their city's Pearly Gates.
Technically, Inisfreeans can will approved Outlanders to 'port' in with them, but this has never happened before, and it would be highly unlikely unless the one Inisfreean making this decision was the ruler of the entire city himself; Auzdein.
珠光
蓋茨
Note Continuation:
Misconceptions:
Misconceptions:
The Pearly Gates are the stadium-sized, hollow spheres which silently rotate to realign with other chambers connected to them, all hidden inside Inisfree's Perimeter Wall. While there are 16 large Pearly Gates for the military ship hangars inside Inisfree's lower hemisphere, and 24 'small' (by comparison to the large ones) Pearly Gates for the smaller and more common traffic through Inisfree's Perimeter Wall (in) to its 'topside' (upper hemisphere) or (out) to the Antarctic realm and the rest of the Outlands, many outsiders (people not born and educated in Inisfree, often called 'Outlanders') are ignorant of this, and they have sometimes said that there are only 12 of these gates. This is because these gates were fashioned and named after their inspiration in the Outlanders' Bible's book of Revelations; the 12 'pearly gates' that serve as the only ways in and out of New Jerusalem; the city that is prophesied to appear once Heaven and Earth are reunited.
This erroneous numbering of Inisfree's Pearly Gates is also because the lower hemisphere of Inisfree is almost completely unheard of; a well-kept secret of Inisfree's highly classified military might. Yet another reason this error in numbering Inisfree's gates occurs is because, of the 12 gates most guests to Inisfree are vaguely aware of (only one of these gates is every actually used for their passage), the inner workings of the sequence of chambers which make up each of these gates -these passages through the extremely thick, Inisfreean Perimeter Wall- function so smoothly and deceptively that their chambers seem like a straight route from outside to inside. This makes each route from outside to inside, while it is actually a sequence of 5 chambers, 2 of which are inside the stadium-sized spheres, seem as though there is only one 'pearly gate' aspect hidden inside it, perhaps encasing all of these 5 chambers.
The truth is that each of these 12 topside gate chamber sequences, and each of the 8 lower-hemisphere gate chamber sequences, are in a 'zig-zag' orientation; traffic enters the outermost chamber, moves into the first of its two sphere-encased chambers (inside the first of its two, stadium-sized spheres), then waits while this first sphere rotates 90 degrees to align with the next (third) chamber, then the traffic enters this third (middle) chamber, then moves into the second of its two sphere-encased chambers (inside the second of its two, stadium-sized spheres), then waits while this second sphere rotates 90 degrees (in the opposite direction) to align with the next and final of the 5 chambers, and then the traffic enters this 5th (final) chamber where it waits for the innermost hatch (also stadium-sized) to unlock and silently yawn open to connect with the on-ramp to Inisfree's GAH, leading down through the Chinese Great Gate to the Welcoming Lot.
In Summary:
The Pearly Gates of Inisfree number 40 total; 16 below the surface (the larger ones, which are nearly two miles in diameter), and 24 above the surface (the smaller ones, although these are still the size of stadiums). The 16 below the surface are unknown to outsiders; used only for large military ship traffic. Only 2 of the Pearly Gates on the surface are used for guest traffic; the 2 which are inside the one and only passage through the Perimeter Wall kept available (but not always open when one arrives) to these guests. Outsiders, a.k.a. 'Outlanders', assume that Inisfree is New Jerusalem, which they think must indicate it only has 12 of these 'pearly' (spherical) gates. Every time they enter or exit the city, they pass through the same 2, stadium-sized spheres which are the 2nd and 4th of the 5 chambers that make up their one and only guest route through the Perimeter Wall. If one was to consider each 5-chamber sequence through Inisfree's perimeter to be one 'gate', then Inisfree can be said to have 20 total 'gates' (passages through its perimeter); 12 above the surface (1 of which is used by guests), and 8 below its surface (reserved for Inisfree's larger military ships).
As Above, So Below / As Within, So Without:
Many other 'door's, sometimes called 'hatches', in Inisfree are fashioned like these Pearly Gates; hollow spheres hidden inside walls, moving so smoothly that it is difficult to tell one is passing through them at all. This is because the sphere is the most energy-efficient structure, and, thus, the strongest. This makes it next to impossible to damage or even dislodge an Inisfreean door.
This erroneous numbering of Inisfree's Pearly Gates is also because the lower hemisphere of Inisfree is almost completely unheard of; a well-kept secret of Inisfree's highly classified military might. Yet another reason this error in numbering Inisfree's gates occurs is because, of the 12 gates most guests to Inisfree are vaguely aware of (only one of these gates is every actually used for their passage), the inner workings of the sequence of chambers which make up each of these gates -these passages through the extremely thick, Inisfreean Perimeter Wall- function so smoothly and deceptively that their chambers seem like a straight route from outside to inside. This makes each route from outside to inside, while it is actually a sequence of 5 chambers, 2 of which are inside the stadium-sized spheres, seem as though there is only one 'pearly gate' aspect hidden inside it, perhaps encasing all of these 5 chambers.
The truth is that each of these 12 topside gate chamber sequences, and each of the 8 lower-hemisphere gate chamber sequences, are in a 'zig-zag' orientation; traffic enters the outermost chamber, moves into the first of its two sphere-encased chambers (inside the first of its two, stadium-sized spheres), then waits while this first sphere rotates 90 degrees to align with the next (third) chamber, then the traffic enters this third (middle) chamber, then moves into the second of its two sphere-encased chambers (inside the second of its two, stadium-sized spheres), then waits while this second sphere rotates 90 degrees (in the opposite direction) to align with the next and final of the 5 chambers, and then the traffic enters this 5th (final) chamber where it waits for the innermost hatch (also stadium-sized) to unlock and silently yawn open to connect with the on-ramp to Inisfree's GAH, leading down through the Chinese Great Gate to the Welcoming Lot.
In Summary:
The Pearly Gates of Inisfree number 40 total; 16 below the surface (the larger ones, which are nearly two miles in diameter), and 24 above the surface (the smaller ones, although these are still the size of stadiums). The 16 below the surface are unknown to outsiders; used only for large military ship traffic. Only 2 of the Pearly Gates on the surface are used for guest traffic; the 2 which are inside the one and only passage through the Perimeter Wall kept available (but not always open when one arrives) to these guests. Outsiders, a.k.a. 'Outlanders', assume that Inisfree is New Jerusalem, which they think must indicate it only has 12 of these 'pearly' (spherical) gates. Every time they enter or exit the city, they pass through the same 2, stadium-sized spheres which are the 2nd and 4th of the 5 chambers that make up their one and only guest route through the Perimeter Wall. If one was to consider each 5-chamber sequence through Inisfree's perimeter to be one 'gate', then Inisfree can be said to have 20 total 'gates' (passages through its perimeter); 12 above the surface (1 of which is used by guests), and 8 below its surface (reserved for Inisfree's larger military ships).
As Above, So Below / As Within, So Without:
Many other 'door's, sometimes called 'hatches', in Inisfree are fashioned like these Pearly Gates; hollow spheres hidden inside walls, moving so smoothly that it is difficult to tell one is passing through them at all. This is because the sphere is the most energy-efficient structure, and, thus, the strongest. This makes it next to impossible to damage or even dislodge an Inisfreean door.
