[Dragaera] Dragaera and Moons **Minor Vallista Spoiler, nothing plot related**

[Jerry Friedman]

      From: Scott Schultz via Dragaera <dragaera at lists.dragaera.info>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dragaera [mailto:dragaera-bounces at lists.dragaera.info] On Behalf Of
> Jerry Friedman via Dragaera
> Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2017 1:47 PM
> To: dragaera at lists.dragaera.info
> Subject: Re: [Dragaera] Dragaera and Moons **Minor Vallista Spoiler,
> nothing plot related**
> Sent from my iPhone please excuse typos
> > ----- Original Message -----
> >
> > From: "Konrad Gaertner via Dragaera" <dragaera at lists.dragaera.info>
> > To: dragaera at lists. To.info
> > Sent: Friday, November 3, 2017 5:04:29 AM
> > Subject: Re: [Dragaera] Dragaera and Moons **Minor Vallista Spoiler,
> > nothing plot related**
> >
> >> On 11/2/2017 10:19 PM, Jon via Dragaera wrote:
> >> Spoiler Space
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> > [snip]
> >
> >>> to the rotational period of the planet itself. Effectively, it means
> >>> this moon must orbit at a point close to (but not exactly at) the
> >>> natural altitude for a fully geosynchronous orbit. It cannot diverge
> >>> from this orbital period by more than about 2 hours per day (given
> >>> Dragaera's 30-hour day), however, or else it would always take fewer
> >>> than nine days to appear again in the sky at any particular point on
> >>> the
> >>> surface of the planet.
> >>
> >> Is this the only option using normal physics? I'm asking because in
> >> another series I'm reading, there's a world with a moon that is similar
> >> in size and phases to Earth's, but is only visible every eighth day.
> >
> > This is the only solution I can see that does not involve the observer
> > being at some extremely specific location (such as near one of the poles,
> > which does not seem to be the case given the shirtless condition of the
> > character in the scene), or some other
> > extremely-significant-yet-entirely-unmentioned factor, such as dust clouds
> > obscuring the view of the moon, for example. This does not appear to be
> > the case here, given the phrasing of the passage.
> >
> > Regarding how one could have a moon that was visible only once every
> eight
> > days--well, that makes no sense to me using normal physics. There's no
> > normal orbit that would cause a body the size of the moon to be visible
> > for only one day, then completely missing the next 7. Even with a highly
> > elliptical orbit with an 8 day period, an object the size and mass of the
> > moon would still have to be pretty clearly visible as a moon on days 7 and
> > 9 (and visible at least as a bright star the rest of the time) else, it
> > would either have to be moving so fast that there's no way it would be
> > able to maintain an orbit, or else it's orbital period would have to be
> > much longer than 8 days. (And I hate to think what the impact of tidal
> > forces of such an object in such an orbit would be like on the planet's
> > surface. Yikes!)
> >
> > Certainly there could be exotic solutions involving other factors such as
> > temporal displacement via wormholes, obfuscation by clouds, or the moon
> > getting repeatedly kidnapped by space goblins, but none of these are a
> > result of orbital mechanics alone.
> >
> 
> 
> Maybe it's actually some sort of satellite or space station or other
> artificial construct in space that has an artificially unusual orbit.
> 

IMO, it's the Terran mother ship that brought  the Easterners to Dragaera just in time to be used as the control lab rats. Whatever the reason for its orbit, it's entirely artificial. It could be some geosynchronous orbit that makes sense when you're directly underneath it, but that Dolivar and the nascent Empire only see every so often when the planet's natural wobble brings it into visible range. It could be some highly elliptical orbit, like a comet. Note that the wording is that it will rise in "another nine days", not that it rises EVERY nine days. We don't really know the period of Littlemoon (even if Dolivar does know it).

I'm more interested what sort of phenomenon Morning Snake represents. It could be their version of the Milky Way, but why name something that comes out at night, "Morning Snake"? If it's a constellation, it would have to be a very unusually bright and obvious constellation, especially to be visible when the sun is rising.

If a nuclear reactor blew up in orbit, would the debris continue to glow and create a band across part of the sky? My very first thought was that a band of amorphia could be orbiting the planet but in that case, I'd expect the Jenoine to be attempting to harvest that instead of going after the Greater Sea or Lesser Sea that are both defensible to some extent.
+++++++++++++++++
I'm having trouble imagining a planet wobbling enough to bring a geosynchronous satellite into and out of view on a scale of days.
A constellation wouldn't just appear in the morning.  The time of day it appeared would depend on the time of year.
I must admit I didn't spend more than a second thinking about the Morning Snake.  Now that you mention it, though, if a nuclear reactor as we know them blew up, it could glow for a long time if it stayed together somehow, but I don't see how it would if its debris spread out.  On the other hand, if the Morning Snake is amorphia, maybe the Jenoine did harvest it and that's why it isn't mentioned in any later stories.
We refer to Venus (and sometimes other planets) as a morning star and evening star, depending on when we can see it.  Maybe a planet closer in than Dragaera is sometimes the Morning Snake and sometimes the Evening Snake.  It could be called a snake because it's so big and close that you can see a snake-like pattern on it.  (If it's artificial, it could be less massive than you'd think and not disturb Dragaera's orbit or create much in the way of tides.)  If it's tidally locked to the Furnace, the snake pattern could be on the side of the planet that's visible during the Dragaeran morning, so then it could be the Morning Snake and the Evening Sea Anemone or something.  Or maybe it's a giant ice-and-dust planet that has a tail like a comet.  Or maybe it's named Snake for reasons having nothing to do with its visual appearance.

Does Dragaera have noticeable seasons?  What is the Dragaeran year synchronized with?  I don't remember Vlad ever talking about winter coming (the way Billy does in Cowboy Feng) or anything like that, which would be obvious wish-fulfillment for someone from Minneapolis, but I could easily be forgetting something.
We may not get enough clues about astronomy to settle these questions, considering how seldom Vlad sees the sky.
Wait till we find out that Dragaera doesn't orbit anything and the Furnace is a huge sorcerous lamp that orbits Dragaera.

Jerry Friedman

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