Is it cold on Elpis?

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel BL:TPS Discussion
#1

It’s currently 1° F where I live. It’s awful. I’m miserable. Anyway, as I was huddled up in a blanket last night, playing TPS, I wondered… is it cold on Elpis? Pandora seems earth-like in that it has an atmosphere that helps regulate its climate, but I always figured Elpis would be more frigid.

And then there’s Nisha, running around with her midriff showing. Isn’t she cold?? Isn’t everyone cold? I know I am.

#2

A Vault Hunter never gets cold. But yeah, considering how cryo is a vital part of Elpis, I’d say it’s freezing round the clock.

#3

But there is lava everywhere suggesting alot of geothermal activity. I imagine it to be warm, damp and smell of farts.

#4

I’m sure they can digistruct hot chocolate anytime they want!

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#5

There’s also special ice, though, consisting of “methane, ethane, and other anes” Normal freezing point of methane is -182 °C (-295.6 F), and it would have to be even lower in the low atmospheric pressure regions on Elpis where you find it.

So Nisha must quite literally be extremely hot blooded to be running around with an exposed midriff like that!

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#6

Haha, yes! Wish I could digistruct some hot chocolate right about now! Or coffee. Yes, coffee. <3

#7

Very hot chocolate!

#8

The vault hunters are using saidar and saidin.

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#9

Hexadecane has a melting point of 18 C (~64F).

#10

True, but you wouldn’t get solid methane at that temperature! Well, not unless you also had it at immense pressure…

#11

It is deep underground. Which the pressure should kill the vault hunters. But elpis has less gravity…which should be inversely proportional to the pressure…idk

#12

Well I am sure there is a sound scientific explanation like Eridium or Moonstone radiation or Psyenergy. Maybe even some sort of homeopathic effect. Or robots. From the future.

#13

Were the “methane” pools heavily doped with long-chain and complex branched alkanes, what we could theoretically get would be a sort of semi-solid waxy substance that would almost instantly expel its smaller dissolved alkanes were someone stupid enough to disturb it (by say, shooting someone with it).

All of those simple alkanes would want to gassify very quickly, which would have a substantial evaporative cooling effect.

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#14

But then of course, this is the fictional universe of Borderlands, I doubt the writers would really go into the physics of the BL planets and satellites. You can always speculate and think about it, but there’s not gonna be set facts and answers.

#15

Well, in a cave for the Nurse Nina mission anyway. Although oddly enough, there are plenty of similar frozen “lakes” all over Elpis that you can similarly freeze your butt on - maybe the result of a continuity discontinuity? :wink:

#16

-40 with the windchill factor here this morning :smile:

Also, Elpis is probably very cold and very hot, depending on where you are. Since without an atmosphere, there can be no heat transfer in other ways but radiation… when facing lava, you could probably cook your face, while literally freezing your back at the same time.

#17

There’s an atmosphere, it’s just not a very useful one.

#18

Huh, I just learned that -40 is actually valid in both freedom units and normal units.

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#19

Haha! I sort of was expecting someone to ask me what scale was that in, so that I could answer “I don’t care, you pick one” :stuck_out_tongue:

#20

Fixed that for you! :wink: You can also have Rational units (°R) and Kitchen units (K).