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Why don't the Silos have elevators? It seems rather inconvenient navigating a 100+ floor city without elevators. I did a search on the Kindle edition of this book, and the word "elevator" doesn't appear. Is there something I missed?
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Barbara Hansen
I think that is part of the control factor. like why IT is further away from both sheriff offices. . .why wires are so expensive. . .
Charles Reid
add to all these answers the big one... if youre designing something to survive for hundreds or thousands of years and be maintained by generations who will have lost most scientific and engineering knowledge... stairs are brilliant
Steve
Because the author got too far in over his head and didn't have a clear picture of the world he was creating at the get go. Or at least by book 2.
Which is why much of this comes across as forced and for the sake of driving the story versus being part of a world in which the story takes place.
Why are there no mentions of plastics? The silo's on top of an oil reserve. Petrochemicals => plastic. You could have an infinite supply of reusable plastic sheets to be used as paper. Humans are gregarious communicators, why are there no underground newspapers or magazines or a strong oral news network if we're going to stick with the author's conceit? Where's the infinite supply of water come from for the farms (which require huge amounts of water) and the steam generator? Where exactly are the cracking towers to turn crude into useable oil? Where are the old people who can't climb stairs anymore or the middle aged or younger with arthritic knees? This bedevils professional basketball players on a hard level surface and would be a HUGE public health issue. And why stairs instead of a spiral concrete ramp where you could wheel things up and down like a mining cart or rollercoaster car? And wouldn't you have a whole set of separate stairs for the large amount of goods and food traffic versus people transport like the elevator banks in our buildings today?
Ignoring all of the above how could you even build this without a series of ramps or elevators to get construction workers and materials down and excavated materials out?
There's a difference between a slow reveal of a place/universe and making it up as you go and this totally reeks of the latter. First books is good but otherwise this world and how characters behave in it doesn't add up.
Which is why much of this comes across as forced and for the sake of driving the story versus being part of a world in which the story takes place.
Why are there no mentions of plastics? The silo's on top of an oil reserve. Petrochemicals => plastic. You could have an infinite supply of reusable plastic sheets to be used as paper. Humans are gregarious communicators, why are there no underground newspapers or magazines or a strong oral news network if we're going to stick with the author's conceit? Where's the infinite supply of water come from for the farms (which require huge amounts of water) and the steam generator? Where exactly are the cracking towers to turn crude into useable oil? Where are the old people who can't climb stairs anymore or the middle aged or younger with arthritic knees? This bedevils professional basketball players on a hard level surface and would be a HUGE public health issue. And why stairs instead of a spiral concrete ramp where you could wheel things up and down like a mining cart or rollercoaster car? And wouldn't you have a whole set of separate stairs for the large amount of goods and food traffic versus people transport like the elevator banks in our buildings today?
Ignoring all of the above how could you even build this without a series of ramps or elevators to get construction workers and materials down and excavated materials out?
There's a difference between a slow reveal of a place/universe and making it up as you go and this totally reeks of the latter. First books is good but otherwise this world and how characters behave in it doesn't add up.
Bonnie Blue
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Mkr
The silo has many puzzling characteristics. As you read through the whole series - Wool, Shift and Dust - the reasons for the lack of elevators and many other features will gradually be revealed. Short answer, no, you did not miss anything. The Silo does not have an elevator.
Yousef
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Paul
This is explained in the second book. It is intentional. If you haven't, I'd highly recommend the next two parts of this trilogy.
Dennis
That's by design (will become clear in #2 or #3)
Yonadav Kenyon
The silos are huge buildings but very small worlds. If I were designing a multi-generation survival space, I might be tempted to leave out elevators and force people to use stairs. It makes the silos psychologically much larger than they are. People can take what feels like very long journeys between Down Deep and Up Top. It encourages a probably necessary social stratification with a deep down blue collar culture, elites Up Top, and the people of the mids engaging in that oh so necessary delusion of being upwardly mobile. The stairs make necessary interaction between the levels possible while promoting a 'stay in your lane' culture. Also, the stairs gave people something to do. Almost no one in the silos does any work that actually needs to be done. People are drilling for oil to power a generator that needs to be maintained just to create the illusion that they are doing something that is necessary for the silo's power and their survival. No one knows that IT gets its power from Silo 1 and that the silos could just as easily get all of their power from Silo 1's reactor. Once you've filled all of the seemingly necessary employment opportunities in mechanical and the farms, you still have people who need something to do. The stairs employ a massive number of porters. The porters are incredibly useful to the designers of Silo society because they are the 'common folk' who give cultural cohesion to all levels of the silo. They don't just deliver packages and mail. They spread news and gossip. They control the narrative, or rather the narrative can be controlled through them to a large but not perfect extent.
Denise
Once you get to the end, it makes perfect sense that they wouldn't have included elevators. I'm surprised they even allowed them e-mail at all, rather than just charging per character.
Eleanor
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Julie Craig-muller
I think it would take too much energy, both to run the elevator and to vent the heat created. Part of the drama in Wool is about how the IT department uses too much energy. The administrative silo had fewer people awake and the energy requirement is less
In addition, there's the control issue, and of course the important people "need" the elevator.
In addition, there's the control issue, and of course the important people "need" the elevator.
Jenny Wallace
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Luis
It kind of makes sense. How many elevators do you need for the entire population of the silo? Also, given people are isolated in an enclosed space, the more chances to exercise the better.
Marcya
I can believe that a functional elevator is missing by design but no one has figured out at least a dumbwaiter sort of design?
Tracy Marks
My guess: Those in control want to limit the ease of communication between levels. Too much easy communications and people will start thinking and questioning. Near the end of Wool, we learn from Bernard that Juliette's lover started thinking for himself, and had to sent cleaning. Granted, a lot of people are still going up and downstairs, but there's likely to be much less interchange between up top and down below elevators. And inevitably, the top 1% isn't likely to be too much in touch with or responsive to the needs of the 99%, right? <-:
Clio
I have recently read the 2nd book Shift and do remember it was discussed early on in that book as they put elevators in the control silo but not in the others. It was a conscious design decision. Cannot remember what it was though.
Christina Adina
I personally think that it would consume a lot of energy and also everyone would want to use them and taking into account that there are over 144 levels it would take an eternity to get to the floor that you need.
Katrina
It is explained in the second book.
Michael Mangold
Indirect answer, closely related: “Can you think of why it’s cheaper to porter a paper note to someone than it is to just wire them from a computer?�
"...what if it’s to make conversing with each other more difficult? Or at least costly. You know, separate us, make us keep our thoughts to ourselves.�
"...what if it’s to make conversing with each other more difficult? Or at least costly. You know, separate us, make us keep our thoughts to ourselves.�
Eric
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Frédéric MANSON
I also thought about that: where are the elevators?? Also, what are the dimensions of the silo?? In my mind I was thinking it like an intercontinental nuclear device silo but in the reading, with the stair running along the inner wall. But NO!! Later, there is a main column in the central point of the silo!! So, what are the real dimensions of the beast?? I don't have enough description of the silo to mentally represent it. And it's one of the many lilly flaws that are spanning this whole book.
JOHN GABBARD
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Ramon Carlos
*SPOILER ALERT*
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Because it would block the evil nanobots from spreading from one level of the silo to another. (But... this could have been done by vents, sheesh)
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Because it would block the evil nanobots from spreading from one level of the silo to another. (But... this could have been done by vents, sheesh)
William Huggins
They are always complaining about lack of power, might have been able to do it, but at a high cost, I mean think about cost of wire. They also don't have much of an obesity problem I would imagine haha.
Rudi Ghijsens
would it not take too much space to install elevators at cost of people who could survive instead in that free space? 100 levels would take more than one shaft.
Aditya Bhandari
It was a deliberate. I had the same thought initially.
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