Magic and Technology of MGLN

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by AdmiralTigerclaw

As an experienced shopper myself, I know what you're talking about too, and both agree and dissagree. I would have developed the planet and a shade background for it. (Since this version of the planet is viewed through an atmosphere filter. Then broken that off into a modular component I could reuse quickly without having to reshuffle layers for different backgrounds.

It all depends on the software they're using (in photoshop, I would have thrown the planets and clouds in two sets, that way I can shuffle without havingto worry about overlayering).

Originally Posted by AdmiralTigerclaw

We've been veering further and further from the topic the last page. I'm just as guilty as you are, so don't freak out about it.

Right, well the point I was trying to make is that we shouldn't take what apears in the sky on-screen in the background too seriously due to the inconsistency of the animation. What we do know is that Mid-Childa has two moons, whose orbit takes the two bodies both very close to the planet and far away from it. When Yuuno explained the Cradle's abillities, he gave us these two screens:

Spoiler for Mid-Childa and its moons:

This shows that there are only two moons in orbit around Mid-Childa, the orbit these two moons have explains why we sometimes see huge moons, sometimes small ones, and sometimes none at all.

Also, while I'm not sure about the green moon, the blue moon seems to be a life-sustainable one.

[Sheba]

I am glad Mid-Childia is not a planet a la Helliconia, othewise, they would be very fcked.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

True true.

Of course, we ignore that gravitationally speaking, that orbital layout is impossible.

The moons are near equal size, and judging by their atmosphere, equal mass to the center planet.

In such a situation, for Midchilda to remain the center of mass in this trinary planetary system, it would have to have a significantly higher mass and gravity, making the 'earthlike' environment on it impossible...
If the three objects share roughly equal amounts of mass, then there should be a mutual orbital point and the orbital paths quite complicated, because otherwise we'd get collissions that would pretty much shatter the worlds, and make life ALSO impossible.

But that of course, is the realm of just not doing research into gravity. I wouldn't expect people to know that off hand, especially animators.

I'm gonna' go grab a gravity simulator program and see what I come up with.

[arkhangelsk]

Based on the fact it is blue? Because otherwise there is not much to differentiate b/w the two of them. But based on their apparent size, given the correct geological background it is possible.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by AdmiralTigerclaw

Of course, we ignore that gravitationally speaking, that orbital layout is impossible.

The moons are near equal size, and judging by their atmosphere, equal mass to the center planet.

In such a situation, for Midchilda to remain the center of mass in this trinary planetary system, it would have to have a significantly higher mass and gravity, making the 'earthlike' environment on it impossible...
If the three objects share roughly equal amounts of mass, then there should be a mutual orbital point and the orbital paths quite complicated, because otherwise we'd get collissions that would pretty much shatter the worlds, and make life ALSO impossible.

But that of course, is the realm of just not doing research into gravity. I wouldn't expect people to know that off hand, especially animators.

I'm gonna' go grab a gravity simulator program and see what I come up with.

Which is why I keep saying, some things don't have logical explanations. They're just there to look cool.

If everything was scientifically correct in movies and animation, where would the fun be?

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Based on the fact it is blue? Because otherwise there is not much to differentiate b/w the two of them. But based on their apparent size, given the correct geological background it is possible.

I'm going for the 'it's blue because it has water' theory. We already know it has an atmosphere thanks to the clouds.

[Sheba]

Some novel or rpg settings have two or three moons, and sometimes two suns. Nothing is told much about the local weather, tectonic and tide cycles. Authors seems to do that for the cool and exotic factor.

And the many moons influencing magic is a pretty common heroic fantasy trope.

I'm going for the 'it's blue because it has water' theory. We already know it has an atmosphere thanks to the clouds.

This moon could be a second Venus or Titan, heheh.

[selkirk]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Spoiler for Mid-Childa and its moons:

I'm amused by how the cloud patterns on all three are identical . When you see things like that, you really have to think; is there any point in trying to get any information whatsoever from what you see on the screen?

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by AdmiralTigerclaw

True true.

Of course, we ignore that gravitationally speaking, that orbital layout is impossible.

The moons are near equal size, and judging by their atmosphere, equal mass to the center planet.

In such a situation, for Midchildra to remain the center of mass in this trinary planetary system, it would have to have a significantly higher mass and gravity, making the 'earthlike' environment on it impossible...

Well, humans are flexible. Coruscant is about 1.5Gs and 2.5 Earth Masses. It is clear that the moons are about half the diameter of the planet (or so the author wants to make them) - and astronomical pictures tend to use zoom which destroy perspective, so you have even more flex room there. So, crank up the mass of Mid so it can be a better "anchor" (if you don't want to change the gravity, you can still make it bigger) and crank down the mass of the moons - you can go down to 0.1 Earth masses and still keep an atmosphere - no one ever said those two moons have life, so don't complicate life on yourself.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Well, humans are flexible. Coruscant is about 1.5Gs and 2.5 Earth Masses. It is clear that the moons are about half the diameter of the planet (or so the author wants to make them). So, crank up the mass of Mid so it can be a better "anchor" (if you don't want to change the gravity, you can still make it bigger) and crank down the mass of the moons - you can go down to 0.1 Earth masses and still keep an atmosphere - no one ever said those two moons have life, so don't complicate life on yourself.

Don't complicate life?

I like to make things complicated!

Go hang your head in shame.

[arkhangelsk]

Suit yourself. However, the first priority is to enter a 3-body system which at least does not crash. It is not like workable ternary systems are in rich supply...

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Suit yourself. However, the first priority is to enter a 3-body system which at least does not crash. It is not like workable ternary systems are in rich supply...

It's more like trying to get the program I downloaded to have a workable floating three body system without it crashing with a runtime error. Now, I like complicated, but getting absolutely nowhere after two to three hours is just FRUSTRATING.

(Error keeps occuring after inserting moon 2 into the system and trying to go check the editing screen.)

[Kagerou]

Perhaps it's because the simulation thinks it's impossible .

[Sheba]

I suggest people to read a bit of Brian Aldiss' Helliconia trilogy for an example of binary system, or watch the movie Pitch Black to see a ternary system.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by AdmiralTigerclaw

It's more like trying to get the program I downloaded to have a workable floating three body system without it crashing with a runtime error. Now, I like complicated, but getting absolutely nowhere after two to three hours is just FRUSTRATING.

(Error keeps occuring after inserting moon 2 into the system and trying to go check the editing screen.)

Well, I've been poking around with Coruscant sized Mids and Mars sized moons. By setting them at an angle with different inclinations (a 2D diagram can never dismiss inclination, especially since the diagram is conceptual rather than necessarily actual), I've actually been able to make the ternary system last over 100 orbits before Moon 2 crashed into Mid (I think) during a toilet break. So I guess I can suspend disbelief that they've somehow found parameters stable enough that the ternary system will last for awhile.

Since the orbits in my attempt were flying all over the place, I guess it is possible that in all those almost random interations, ONE orbit will look like what is shown on the screen - can't say about the next, though.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Screen? I can only remember two.

Just looked at the Ep12 DVD version, and I think I see at least 4 of those infernal things. I think I'm just going to throw things to the vagaries of orbital mechanics.

Maybe all those moons is why there seems to be so few people living on that darn planet. Kranagon is pretty much the only inhabitable spot - the rest keep getting covered by killer tides.

[Avatar_notADV]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Maybe all those moons is why there seems to be so few people living on that darn planet. Kranagon is pretty much the only inhabitable spot - the rest keep getting covered by killer tides.

Huh. Wonder if you could use this to describe why there's so many "abandoned areas" to play with, too. Maybe all those moons weren't there originally? It'd also explain why the TSAB goes around hunting for possible dimensional threats, if their homeworld got run through the food processor in a magical accident...

[dkellis]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Just looked at the Ep12 DVD version, and I think I see at least 4 of those infernal things. I think I'm just going to throw things to the vagaries of orbital mechanics.

If you look at the scene where Dieci (the one with the sniper rifle) is with Quattro in preparation for shooting the helicopter, there's a slow pan which shows three... I'll just call them "moons" for now, in front of Dieci (ie in the direction she's facing). Then the view changes, and there's at least two more behind her, and, depending on how leniently you want to interpret the view, at least one more off the the side of Quattro and distinct from everything else in that it's noticeably "bigger" (optical illusion or otherwise).

So that's six moons to contend with. At least. And this is assuming that the other moons seen in the episode around the other characters are the same ones from different angles. In bright daylight; gods know what it all looks like at night.

Yuuno does mention in episode 21 that Midchilda has two moons which the Cradle can absorb energy from, and his orbital diagram thing shows only the two moons. So these moons are presumably significant magically at the least, but the others (if they exist) are not as important.

Would it be too much of a canonical stretch to just say that it's a result of the raw magic of the moons causing all sorts of unintended optical illusions?

[krisslanza]

I think 7Arcs just likes showing lots of planets/moons in the sky myself. Look at the worlds the Knights went onto in A's... Many of them you can see like 4 or 5 other planets off in the distance and some look really, really close.

[Kha]

Originally Posted by Keroko

That aside, this is simply one of those cases where we are looking at things too logicaly. Yes, realistically speaking those moons are far too close, and it makes no sense for them to have an atmosphere, yet they do. Why? Because it looks cool. Like episode 26's floating islands with seemingly eternal yet unknown watersources, this is simply one of those cases where we are supposed to go "Wow, that looks awesome!" and move on.

I thought they were in Nagrand, Outland, when they showed Caro's zoo-world.

Originally Posted by Keroko

Rewatching a few episodes of StrikerS does reveal that the number of planets that apear in the sky does tend to fluxuate. Sometimes there are two, sometimes more. I'm atrubiting this to lazy artwork concistency rather then anything factually based (heck, in episode 11 lazy artwork makes some of the clouds disapear behind a planet, which would mean that the damn thing is inside the atmosphere).

Another note is that they didn't fix it with the DVD releases either. I would post DVD screens, but I'm having trouble taking screenshots of MKV's.

The ending had several too, if I'm not wrong.

Originally Posted by krisslanza

If Mid-Childa has two moons within its atmosphere. It has two moons in its atmosphere. Just say its magic.
"Screw the rules, I have magic!" works pretty well here.

It might actually be that. 2 worlds that are natural mana minefields for the Cradle's personal use? Chances are, they are nothing but liquid mana shaped into a shadow of the host planet, thus the illusion of "clouds" and "water" like the Emerald Dream.

And hence they possibly have a net gravitational footprint of ZERO, however insane that sounds.

However, they remain in orbit as they were placed there by the Alhazredians, or the Belka, as some kind of planetary defence system designed to protect their royalty.

[Sheba]

Liquid mana filled moons? Woah, this could be a nice setup for a conflict involving a greedy foreign nation that is really desperate for resources and profits.