Mad SF idea: the Hollow Earth theory is semi-correct, except Earth isn't a hollow sphere, it's a Klein bottle.
@cstross a pity Richard Lupoff has passed, this sounds like a worthy companion to Circumpolar!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumpolar!
Back in high school math we had a series of posters up showing the Earth remapped onto various geometries and genuses - done with styrofoam and paint given the tech of the times. I managed to obtain my own copies, decades later.
You'll need to embed the earth in 4-dimensional (or higher) space to do that, instead of the usual 3-dimensional space. So you'll want to also distinguish the consequences of the additional needed dimension from the properties due to the Klein bottle itself.
@masonporter Also, it's going to be *real fun* working out what happens when you yeet a rocket straight up towards LEO at orbital velocity.
@cstross
Surely that is just another flat earth theory trying to get around the edge problem?
@cstross reality: It's an Ezra Klein bottle
@cstross could it be mixed with Christopher Priest's Inverted World ?
@heliopolitan @Kroc Did you say NEW TEXT EDITOR FOR EPOC? Tell me more!
@cstross ah yes and there are conspiratorial “round earthers” who won’t accept the truth
@cstross that sounds like one of the weirder Xeelee series stories
@cstross As long as there are still C.H.U.Ds...
A very groß klein bottle 😜
@cstross nothing would surprise me nowadays