Smaller than yours, but not by a lot. We have about the same amount of habitable land, but way less ocean and way, way less lava.

Yes, I'd expect the lack of a core to mean less lava. So you have about the same number of people?

Before the Enemy, about two billion. Nowadays, half that.

Holy shit.

The Enemy are bad news. We're handling them much better nowadays, but it still doesn't look good.

Yeah, but still. Holy shit. 150 years ago we had less than 2bi people, and now... Holy shit.

Yeah.

In an ideal world, the amount of available land in Suranse wouldn't even matter. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, but winged ones get individual pocket universes when they get their wings, and the Spheres grow with age. If everyone got their wings, no one would ever starve or run out of room, and we'd all just be immortal forever with no problem. That's what I'd like to see.

You did not mention this. Nor the immortal part. I am now about 50000% more interested in this fact.

Really? I was nearly sure I'd mentioned the immortal part. Maybe I meant to and then forgot. Not literally immortal, but winged ones don't get old or sick and are substantially harder to kill than the wingless.

Elaborate on 'harder to kill'?

They don't get injured as easily, and they heal faster and more completely.

This is ridiculously useful, I am now officially very jealous of your world. Kinda. The Enemy makes it hard to decide.

If I'm very lucky, I'll be able to figure out what makes people able to get their wings and it will turn out to be possible to give it to Earth humans.

That would be very useful! I'm also even more curious now about what counts as 'admirable' and how I can cheat at it if/when you do that.

It really doesn't seem to be cheatable. But take heart, I'm sure saving the world counts.

Well sure but since we're only finding you a way back after we save the world, I'll have to find something else to be amazing at.

I hadn't considered whether it would work retroactively. My unsubstantiated feeling is that it would.

Really? I won't question it, it's your magic.

I might turn out to be wrong; that does happen sometimes with unsubstantiated feelings.

One might even say it happens fairly often with those.

Less frequently with mine than some people's.

Is that so? Wouldn't that only mean that your unsubstantiated feelings are in fact more substantiated than you realize?

Well, yes, but they're still unsubstantiated in the sense that I cannot in fact substantiate them.

Not consciously.

And therefore not communicatively. So I can't just say "I think it probably applies retroactively because of this evidence".