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

Kenneth Gorelick pulmon at mac.com
Mon Nov 6 15:37:08 PST 2017



Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 6, 2017, at 6:35 PM, dusty--- via Dragaera <dragaera at lists.dragaera.info> wrote:

>> 
>> 
>> 
>>      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
>> 
> 
> I think in Phoenix Vlad mentions that the New Year is in winter and Aibynn
> says it's in the spring back home (or vice versa).  I don't recall any
> description of what the seasons are like, though.

Yes, but winter in Phoenix is like spring in most other places...
> 
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