Hehe, your probably right, they most likely would get a bit stroppy with me. The Xaltite name was the only thing that I could think of that combined "Oddness" with realism. Nice to know that it was a logical step though.
Xaltite forms as salt crystals mix with the alkalines and nitrates in the Paramonian jungle lakewater, swapping the carbon in the salt for solid oxides in the alkaline nitrate oxides. The resulting reaction extracts carbon from the salts and leaves behind a compound that bonds with the salt. In scientific terms, what happens is this: The alkaline nitrate oxides (named aNO for the purposes of this example) bump into the salt (sodium carbohydrate (Na)) and remove the carbon from the salt, forming hydrosodium (HNa), once this has happened, the HNa can take nitrogen from the alkaline, forming NitroSodium Hydrate (Or NNaH). The NNaH itself is actually black, but as it forms, it attracts a clear substance known as Strontium titanate, (SrT), this substance is completely see through, more see through than diamonds in fact. So, now we have NNaHSrT, a clear crystal with a black centre, very attractive!
The Strontium Titanate in the lakewater formed large Strontium Titanate crystals on the bottom of the lakebeds (which therefore makes this water sacred to the Mudokons.
Hope this bit of science makes you appreciate the depth of the game a bit more...
Reese
|