Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
From: djb6@ellis.uchicago.edu (Dennis Brennan)
Subject: Re: ADMIN's away!!!
Message-ID: <1992Oct3.234657.29656@midway.uchicago.edu>
References: <1992Sep30.202139.12756@cheshire.oxy.edu>
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 23:46:57 GMT

When creating a calendar and timekeeping system for Nexus it might be
helpful to consider the local astronomy.  For starters, is Nexus a
flat or spherical world?  (I'd vote for spherical, so that it can better
fit into a greater universe for the purpose of introducing SF-genre
characters).  Let's also assume that Nexus (I refer to the planet containing
The Known Lands) rotates and revolves around one sun.

Science-Fiction and Fantasy literature support all kinds of variety when
considering the rest of Nexus' sky.  There can be one moon, like Earth,
or three like on Krynn.  Naturally the nighttime constellations will be
vastly different than those familiar on the earth.  

Earth's months and weeks are based roughly on the sun's apparent position
in the sky relative to the constellations and to the phases of the moon.
With potentially plural moons and different constellations, there is endless
opportunity for creative calendar-crafting.

Let me stick in an example, and hope it stays canon:  I'll create a
constellation called "The Pendulum" containing several bright, easily
distinguishable stars.  One of these stars orbits another at a very fast
rate so that over the course of the night in Generica the star, "Locus,"
appears to oscillate back and forth.  Nexic (Nexian?) sages and travelers
have learned to determine the time by studying the position of this sky.

This kind of Nexus Lore might well make the stuff of another periodical
information posting, perhaps someone cares to volunteer?


-- 
Dennis Brennan
djb6@midway.uchicago.edu