If the moons' sizes are exaggerated for effect, that makes things much more workable. I have been wondering if Fifth Moon has a captured rotation, since it only seems to be shown with that crater visible, which implies that it always presents the same hemisphere toward the planet.
Quite possibly they all do - even just casually checking an overview of the Solar System (http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/overview.html) turns up that, out of the seven largest moons in these parts, six are tidelocked - so it's a fairly common thing.
(I've read Catherine Asaro's books. I tend to skim the more military sections, but I love the bizarre physics and mathematical theories she uses to justify telepathy and whatnot.)
Well, personally, I actually like watching things explode, but the best part, for me, has always been knowing that she knows exactly what she's talking about, you know? With the repeated insulin shocks falling in a close second...
The problem with the desert planet issue is that Nightow doesn't show how the ecology functions. I can think of three native animals offhand -- sandworms, thomases (weird mix of mule, elephant, and camel), and toma (cross between chicken and vulture). There don't seem to be any native plants, though, and no surface water. So how do the animals survive? And if they can find water, why aren't there towns built near those sources, or giant pipelines carrying water to the cities? Clearly, there's a lot that Nightow isn't showing.
Or, quite possibly, even thinking about. Resolving the issue...
My immediate guesses would be that - 1.) the plant life is non-photosynthetic, although it does give off oxygen, and spends its entire life-cycle deep down out of reach, where the water is. As you go higher up the food-chain, though, you start getting closer to the surface - I'm picturing the primary herbivore as something of about the same size and habits as a golden mole - cold blooded, and it comes to the surface to breath or to breed or something, out away from the real competition down in the deeps, at which point thomases and other surface dwellers start gleaning their numbers...
2.) photosynthesis takes place in the upper atmosphere, from floating algae-things, which are brought down to the surface with dew and frost when the temperature plummets at night.
3.) Gunsmoke's native plant life is ahydrous - water, in quantities above trace, poisons it - and so you never see any of it in the parts of the planet that humans have settled on.
4.) The local plants don't use clorophyl, and their substitute doesn't work at temperatures below about fifty, sixty degrees centigrade - which means that humans (who would, naturally, want to live someplace a lot cooler), still wouldn't see it.
I don't remember seeing any bird-things in the anime, but the sandworms looked like pure predators (unlike their Arrakian counterparts, which were filter-feeders) and the thomases... honestly remind me of bipedal anteaters.
Anyway, once I realized there were two suns, I kept wanting him to do interesting things with double shadows and so on in the artwork, but he didn't make use of that. Also, I started wondering if the planet has a strong magnetic field, since when Meryl and Millie get lost in the first chapter, Meryl tries to establish directions from the suns' positions, not by using a compass. (This could be because she's not used to traveling and didn't think to bring one, but it's fun to speculate about things.)
IIRC, the absence of a magnetosphere would be perfectly plausible - I'm pretty sure Earth's the only solid world that has one worth noting - and make things like solar flares pretty significant news, with real repercussions for the people living there.
The anime never mentions Vash's bounty being dropped at all, so I can't help you there. ^_^;
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Date: 2006-01-30 05:23 am (UTC)Quite possibly they all do - even just casually checking an overview of the Solar System (http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/overview.html) turns up that, out of the seven largest moons in these parts, six are tidelocked - so it's a fairly common thing.
(I've read Catherine Asaro's books. I tend to skim the more military sections, but I love the bizarre physics and mathematical theories she uses to justify telepathy and whatnot.)
Well, personally, I actually like watching things explode, but the best part, for me, has always been knowing that she knows exactly what she's talking about, you know? With the repeated insulin shocks falling in a close second...
The problem with the desert planet issue is that Nightow doesn't show how the ecology functions. I can think of three native animals offhand -- sandworms, thomases (weird mix of mule, elephant, and camel), and toma (cross between chicken and vulture). There don't seem to be any native plants, though, and no surface water. So how do the animals survive? And if they can find water, why aren't there towns built near those sources, or giant pipelines carrying water to the cities? Clearly, there's a lot that Nightow isn't showing.
Or, quite possibly, even thinking about. Resolving the issue...
My immediate guesses would be that -
1.) the plant life is non-photosynthetic, although it does give off oxygen, and spends its entire life-cycle deep down out of reach, where the water is. As you go higher up the food-chain, though, you start getting closer to the surface - I'm picturing the primary herbivore as something of about the same size and habits as a golden mole - cold blooded, and it comes to the surface to breath or to breed or something, out away from the real competition down in the deeps, at which point thomases and other surface dwellers start gleaning their numbers...
2.) photosynthesis takes place in the upper atmosphere, from floating algae-things, which are brought down to the surface with dew and frost when the temperature plummets at night.
3.) Gunsmoke's native plant life is ahydrous - water, in quantities above trace, poisons it - and so you never see any of it in the parts of the planet that humans have settled on.
4.) The local plants don't use clorophyl, and their substitute doesn't work at temperatures below about fifty, sixty degrees centigrade - which means that humans (who would, naturally, want to live someplace a lot cooler), still wouldn't see it.
I don't remember seeing any bird-things in the anime, but the sandworms looked like pure predators (unlike their Arrakian counterparts, which were filter-feeders) and the thomases... honestly remind me of bipedal anteaters.
Anyway, once I realized there were two suns, I kept wanting him to do interesting things with double shadows and so on in the artwork, but he didn't make use of that. Also, I started wondering if the planet has a strong magnetic field, since when Meryl and Millie get lost in the first chapter, Meryl tries to establish directions from the suns' positions, not by using a compass. (This could be because she's not used to traveling and didn't think to bring one, but it's fun to speculate about things.)
IIRC, the absence of a magnetosphere would be perfectly plausible - I'm pretty sure Earth's the only solid world that has one worth noting - and make things like solar flares pretty significant news, with real repercussions for the people living there.
The anime never mentions Vash's bounty being dropped at all, so I can't help you there. ^_^;
Ja, -n