Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: arsmith@nyx.cs.du.edu (Alan Smith) Subject: ADMIN: The Nexus System (Size of Generica) Message-ID: <1993Jul29.205309.10436@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> References: <93210.113522ASG102@psuvm.psu.edu> Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 20:53:09 GMT In article <93210.113522ASG102@psuvm.psu.edu> The Dreamer writes: >I would say that Generica has more than 200,000 citizens. I would >be more willing to say 500,000. Well, I suppose, but we'd need like a 20 square-mile city, if not more. I have to do some research to be sure... >As a referent, didn't London of the 1700's have over a million people? I had kinda thought that we were more in the 1400s, socio-technologically. For a referent you'd really want to use the population of Venice. >On the subject of Nexus, I would say that it's larger than Earth (to allow >for additions later). It should probably be roughly spherical because >none of the travellers have said otherwise. I've been banking on a spherical Nexus, with, say, Generica at about he same place as europe, cathay where it's suppposed to be, and Bismania and the West continent near the americas (This puts the dark continent in the south atlantic ocean, and alpha in mid-africa, I think plenty of room for more stuff.) > I do think that we have some >literary licence with the moons though since there are a great variety >of numbers, sizes, and orbits in our own solar system. >I suggest the following: Two moons, one large one, that orbits Nexus >and a small one that orbits the large moon. To visualize this, equate >Nexus to our Sun. The large moon is Earth, and the small moon is our >moon. Earth goes around the Sun. The Moon goes around Earth. >The large moon goes around Nexus. The small moon goes around the large moon. Sounds wierd. I think we'd have to back the big moon away from nexus so that we can get the little moon in orbit without gravitational interference. UNLESS, you want to put the tiny moon in polar orbit over the big moon. so that at certain times of the month you'd see the little moon describing a circle around the big one, and at other times going before-behind like normal orbits, but in the vertical plane. Or always in a circle around the big moon. I dunno, is there a physicist in the house? (willing to do the math) >So, what about other planets in the system? Are there any others that >are inhabited? What about comets, rings, constellations, etc... We need a thread for this.