Colour Vision in Ancient World Vision: There are two important differences in Ancient World human vision.

One is that the magnetic sense has the same sensory modality as vision, so they can literally see halos, auras and magnetic and electric fields. The thalamus does not separate the two senses, so although in a sense they are different senses, they are not subjectively different. Processes within the brain map magnetic stimuli onto probable sources and most of the time this is accurate, but on occasions, magnetic illusions are possible because of discrepancies in perception. The existence of the magnetic sense makes accidental electric shocks less likely. The other is that rather than cone cells sensitive to blue light, there are indigo-sensitive cone cells, changing colour perception. What we would consider ultraviolet is faintly visible, indigo rather than blue is a primary colour and the area of the spectrum between green and indigo is more easily discriminated. Colour spaces are also different, and in a similar phenomenon to the consequences of the invisibility of red to many men in West World, basic colour terms develop in a different order, with a word for indigo occurring as a basic term in almost all languages. To an Ancient World human, violet and purple are completely different colours. If a World Zero human with good colour vision chose three torches, each of which looked like a perfect primary colour to them, and shone them overlapping on a wall, the image resulting would look something like this:

The overlapping regions stimulate two colour receptors in World Zero human eyes equally, and the central region stimulates all three, leading to the perception of white. If an Ancient World human did the same thing, this is how the result would look to a World Zero human with good colour vision:

To a World Zero human, the red and green look the same, but because the blue receptors in Ancient World human eyes respond best to shorter wavelengths, the third primary colour is in fact indigo, not blue. This also means that Ancient World magenta and cyan, also known as fuchsia and aqua, look slightly different, the former appearing richer and the latter more washed out. In fact, because we perceive these colours differently, the pigments used to make these colours are less accurate due to the fact that we are not so good at distinguishing colours including wavelengths at this end of the spectrum. There are other differences. Whereas the cyan looks less colourful to us and the magenta more so, to an Ancient World human they are both equally colourful. Also, to an ancient world human, the green looks about as colourful as it does to a World Zero one with normal colour vision, but the red looks duller and the indigo, and in fact the blue, are both brighter to her or him. The reason for this is that the ability to perceive indigo well is tied up with the ability of some Ancient World humans to perceive magnetic fields using visual receptors in their skin, which works better with indigo combined with the yellow protein which changes colour in response

to magnetism. Graphically represented, the distinction is quite subtle. The frequency response of World Zero human colour receptors can be plotted thus:

Compare this to a similar graph for Ancient World human colour vision:

Comparing these two graphs, it can be seen that the Ancient World indigo receptor is most sensitive at slightly shorter wavelengths than the World Zero equivalent. However, humans from both worlds have a second red receptor sensitivity peak in the short range of the spectrum, meaning that both perceive violet as blue tinged with a hint of red. Again though,

there is a difference here because the red receptor is generally less sensitive relative to the indigo one, so violet looks bluer to an Ancient World human and the same shades of violet are in different places. This is very difficult to pinpoint due to the subjective nature of colour perception: most of the time people from the different worlds would never even discover they were talking at cross-purposes, and the question arises of how subjective impressions of colour can be compared. Ancient World colour wheels would be larger than World Zero ones because they must accommodate the extra shades of violet at the short end of the visual spectrum. Moreover, the fact that the red receptor has completely ceased to respond considerably before the indigo one means that in a sense the purest indigo of all, though it is less intense than that of indigo itself, is in the near-ultraviolet range, and almost forms a fourth primary colour. Therefore, colour wheels are not feasible in the Ancient World because the choice would be between missing out the violet end of the gamut of colours to enable a relatively smooth blend to be achieved and introducing a sudden jarring edge in the wheel. It is consequently impossible to construct an effective colour wheel in Ancient World. Another consequence of this is that rainbows look slightly wider to Ancient World humans even in the other three physical worlds than they do to World Zero humans (incidentally, Aphrodite's Children see rainbows as simple white arcs with no colour at all). The development of basic colour terms in Ancient World: Like World Zero, languages in Ancient World develop words for colours in a particular order. Unlike World Zero, the order is different. Colour concepts are different for several reasons. Firstly, colours are never seen as warm or cold but as heavy and light. In World Zero, warm colours are associated with blood, fire and sunlight. This situation is vaguer to humans in Ancient World as red is not a clear colour to them and the colour of fire is yellow to white rather than orange or red due to there being more oxygen. The word light refers to weight, not brightness. Secondly, the cells in the retina which distinguish between colours are different. The red receptor is slightly less sensitive and instead of a blue receptor, there is an indigo cone cell. There are a few languages in both worlds which only have words for dark and light. The word for dark also refers to heavy colours. In these cases, the system is: Light: White, indigo, green. Heavy: Black, yellow, red. The next set of languages have actual colour words as well as words for black and white! These are distributed as follows: White, indigo/green, black/yellow/red. The third stage includes Chinese: White, indigo/green, black, yellow/red The fifth stage includes words for white, indigo, green, yellow, red and black. Finally, English and various other languages use eleven colour terms, as follows (with the requisite colours): Blue, violet, lilac, purple, grey, white, vrick, green, yellow, red and black.

Vrick is not a word in World Zero English. It refers to indigo but is a basic colour term in wide use. A notable omission is orange. It is usually referred to as red, brown or yellow in English although these words are not strictly accurate. Occasionally, the correct term, saffron, is used, but most people don't consider orange to be a real colour, seeing it as more something to make up the colours of the rainbow to seven and wouldn't be able to name the colour with certainty. If presented with an orange, or for that matter a piece of cloth dyed saffron, they would almost certainly either call the colour red or yellow, about equally divided. This is not because they are unable to see the colour but because they lack a common word for it.

This fruit is referred to as an orange, but in English and most other languages this name is simply the name of a fruit. It would be thought of as yellow or perhaps golden, not saffron. The word blue refers to a steely, greyish blue, not the colour of the sky. The sky is seen as indigo or violet, although even to our own eyes a clear sky would often seem to be streaked with aquamarine due to the colour of the microorganisms living in the stratosphere. The Ironic language uses the same colour terms as Sarmatian but uses them for complementary colours.