Author Topic: Scadriel's Orientation, Geography, and Weather  (Read 2172 times)

Plasman

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Scadriel's Orientation, Geography, and Weather
« on: September 16, 2009, 12:18:00 AM »
Hopefully this hasn't been covered somewhere in the 60 pages of HoA spoiler thread, and if it is, oh well. that's too much to look through for something that might not be there.

My question is how the planet Scadriel works within the laws of nature.  We have been told that scadriel is largely made up of wastelands with the only habitable parts being at the north and south poles and that the mistborn series takes place around the area of the north pole. on earth, this would mean that there would be some very large effects on the weather, i.e. periods of daylight lasting for a couple month's and a prolonged winter.  but this does not seem to be the case for scadriel.  nowhere in the books is anything like this mentioned and the seasons seem to move naturally.  assuming brandon actually has this thought through somewhere and i'm not delving too deeply into an imaginary universe, how would scadriel be oriented in space to maintain the "natural" seasons?

Would it lie virtually on its side like Uranus and then just have an extremely fast precession period to create day and night? that doesn't seem right to me, so i guess i'm at a loss. any thoughts?
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Chaos

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Re: Scadriel's Orientation, Geography, and Weather
« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2009, 01:41:56 AM »
I seem to remember we had a five page discussion on Scadriel's astronomy in either the Ruin and Preservation thread or the Hemalurgy thread (I think it's R&P, personally, but I'm not entirely sure where it was.)

I'll look into it.
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Aranfan

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Re: Scadriel's Orientation, Geography, and Weather
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2009, 02:40:50 AM »
Judging from Sanderson's commends, and Sazed's talk about the star religion in The Final Empire, Luthadel is actually at Scadrial's magnetic North Pole and not the geographical North Pole.  TLR actually locked the Magnetic North Pole's location for a 1000 years.

Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: Scadriel's Orientation, Geography, and Weather
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2009, 09:59:34 PM »
All will be revealed in the annotation for chapter 76.
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Plasman

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Re: Scadriel's Orientation, Geography, and Weather
« Reply #4 on: September 16, 2009, 10:31:42 PM »
so there actually is an answer and i'm not just a big nerd digging to deep?
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Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: Scadriel's Orientation, Geography, and Weather
« Reply #5 on: September 16, 2009, 11:57:13 PM »
Right.
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happyman

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Re: Scadriel's Orientation, Geography, and Weather
« Reply #6 on: September 17, 2009, 02:14:08 AM »
All will be revealed in the annotation for chapter 76.

Good.  This has irked me for a while.
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Ari54

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Re: Scadriel's Orientation, Geography, and Weather
« Reply #7 on: September 18, 2009, 11:26:50 AM »
All will be revealed in the annotation for chapter 76.

Sweet. I remember wondering this myself while reading HoA, cool to see that Brandon actually thought about it.

Troubadour

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Re: Scadriel's Orientation, Geography, and Weather
« Reply #8 on: September 24, 2009, 04:28:18 AM »
Quote
This has irked me for a while.
This.

I always looked at the map and said to myself: "So what's beyond the burnlands?" My first idea was that Scadriel was just a particularly small planet, and that tainted the rest of my thinking. It never struck me that the Final Empire just covered the pole of the world.

That brings me to a question: is habitability only at the poles because of Rashek's orbit-hopping shenanigans? If so, were there originally any civilizations of note beyond the pole regions? Or were those areas desert to begin with?

Andrew the Great

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Re: Scadriel's Orientation, Geography, and Weather
« Reply #9 on: September 24, 2009, 04:37:29 AM »
I remember discussing this at length at an earlier date too. Now I'll have to try to find it as well. Like Chaos says, Ruin and Preservation is sounding right.

EDIT: Well it's not Ruin and Preservation. I did find a thread that references the fact that we were talking about planetary tilt, but doesn't say where. So at least I know I'm not insane.

EDIT 2: Found it! At least I think so. This is where we were discussing the purpose of the ashmounts. We eventually realized they were there to cool things down, but in the process, got talking about planetary tilt and such. So here it is.

http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=5822.60

I started on the page where we start talking about planetary tilt. I think we actually talk about why the seasons and light aren't whacked out on page 7. We never did figure out that Rashek moved the whole planet, though.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2009, 05:54:03 AM by Andrew the Great »
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Chaos

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Re: Scadriel's Orientation, Geography, and Weather
« Reply #10 on: September 25, 2009, 12:38:23 PM »
OH! The Ashmounts. I remember now! Thanks Andrew!
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