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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dlsharrock" data-source="post: 4173461" data-attributes="member: 55833">This reminds me of a theoretical artificial flat world model I read about a few years back; theoretically (in a very theoretically improbable kind of way), you can have a flat world using science. The model involves a Dyson Sphere (itself theoretically improbable) which surrounds a sun. At a point just above the equator of the sphere you build a horizontal 'flat' plane. A coin within a hollow ball. At its central point the disc passes over the sun at a distance whereby the gravitational pull of the sun is enough to create a limited region of downward gravity. A circular mountain range (more akin to the walls of a crater) surrounds this central region and in this you plonk atmosphere and your culture. The mountains keep the atmosphere from bleeding out and the sun heats the ground, warming the atmosphere. This might be a nice way of forming your 'cupped in the hands of a god' flat world. The science doesn't hold up, of course, under even medium distance scrutiny. For one thing, a Dyson Sphere is virtually impossible without a society of extraordinarily high technological capability and near-limitless resources, and to place the disc close enough to the sun to get the benefits of gravitational pull you'd risk frying the disc, not to mention the tremendous strains on the disc itself. You'd have to use magical material strong enough to withstand the stress. Think about a six inch circle of tissue paper with a marble plonked in the middle. Light a match under the middle of the tissue paper and you have something closer to reality <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />If you can get past the illogical science (and we are talking fantasy here) I think it gives you quite a nice 'believable' setup for your flat world. The inner walls of the Dyson Sphere would blot out all regular stars, so the planet would be perpetually dark. There'd  be no light, so some kind of Tolienesque lamp or shining tree might be nice, or you could make your disc semi-opaque and have light filter up from below. If the inner surface of the Dyson Sphere was highly reflective you'd have a second dim sun reflected in the sky above. With a decent telescope you could also spy on any part of the disc-world by pointing your lens into the appropriate part of the sky.</blockquote>

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