So, orichalcium is a high-Z synthetic element that is also a high temp superconductor?
After the announcement of LK-99 I was expecting to hear that it was a (very) old brand name for a specific alloy of gold that was a high temp superconductor…
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Technically, of course, that’s not the true spin axis; that’s what you get when you model in the additional (slow) flipped-coin spin component needed to keep the (fast) spin component aligned to the tangent of the orbit.
Now, why tidal forces haven’t upset this neat little arrangement, that’s a very good question. Add that one to the pile of evidence for “this world just ain’t natural”.
Anyway, you’re essentially correct on the various problems of adapting Earth-style celestial navigation to Eliéra. Which will teach me to make things up when I’m tired, belike.
Pending greater revisions, one assumes the early days of seafaring did make use of (as @Maximilian_Crichton points out) methods similar to those of the Polynesians and other ancient mariners. (The Phoenicians had some interesting techniques, as did the Vikings, both primitive sun and star-watching along with soundings, observing bird flightpaths - and on Eliéra, this would extend to certain predictable behavior among the more visible mechal elementals.) To a certain extent this, and taking land bearings, is made more flexible by the lack of a horizon - you can take bearings on mountains and beacons from much further away than you otherwise might be able to, to back up observations of prevailing wind and wave.
Sadly, the magnetic compass was not any kind of solution: Earth’s magnetic field is dependent on the spin of its molten ferromagnetic core, and Eliéra has neither a molten ferromagnetic core, nor an appropriate spin. (Although there may have been some use in an instrument more like Dune’s paracompass, which detects local magnetic anomalies as an aid to positioning.)
(Side-note: Native maps do use polar coordinates.)
While I am still thinking on the details, I have taken some inspiration from this article on tor.com, concerning Númenórean navigation in Middle-Earth, back in the days before the Fall when that world was flat, too.
(Which also points out how many of the traditional methods have problems when the distances you are traveling become sufficiently great. A problem in particular for such as the Alatians, “bold to go wherever dreaming goes”, as they say.)
Anyway, not to recapitulate that article in too much depth, I suspect the use of appropriate devices (similar to the horizontal sextant postulated) to measure stellar azimuth and triangulate should give you a decent position, when coupled with a good ephemeris and chronometer. And thanks to ancient astronomical traditions, places like the Starspike can provide exceptional ephemerides.
Of course, that does leave the problem of keeping a steady course during the day to be solved. Perhaps some sort of clockwork gyrocompass…?
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Trevor Barry wins international amateur astronomy award, especially for his Saturn research
This seems like the sort of thing that would get an eldrae nodding appreciatively at the chap finding his qalasír. Deciding you like space enough to design and construct your own telescope - and not a small hobby one, a modestly sized observatory - where you then gather data of world-leading quality, leading to collaborations with NASA and multiple published journal papers.
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Could sunstones help? I’m honestly not sure if the angle of polarisation would shift over the course of a day on a flat world.
“THE BEACONS ARE LIT!” cue swelling orchestral beats
One option is a stabilised Foucault pendulum, which allows you to get rid of 90% of the gyrocompass’ circle of travel.
I think sunstones would function to identify the elevation and azimuth of the sun, but we run into the problem that @JHPrime pointed out that the difference in solar azimuth just isn’t enough to be useful for longitude-determination purposes. Still useful on overcast days for determining direction, however.
I suspect that this chemical process (and name) would be something the Eldrae would appreciate:
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/adaptive-catalysts-coupling-reactions
" This new work introduces what the authors call “adaptive dynamic homogenous catalysis”, or Ad-HoC (see, I told you it was a good one). They’re using nickel catalysis and visible light, and running the reactions under conditions where a range of catalytic Ni species can self-assemble. They’ve broken the combinations down into about five groups, and reduced the additives down to either none (group I), DABCO (group II), DABCO/triethylamine (group II’), cyclohexlamine (group III), or tetramethylguanidine (group IV). This scheme works well enough that they demonstrate examples of one-pot reactions where you can do sequential couplings on bifunctional starting materials by dropping in different additives, or even start with a dibromoaryl and make different sorts of coupling partners react in turn. The paper’s extensive Supplementary Information will give you plenty of details even if you don’t have access to the primary manuscript. They cover sp2 bond formation with S, Se, N, P, B, O, Si, Cl, and all three carbon hybridizations, which should be enough to get some work done."
Eldrae love their puns, right?
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The Reintroduction of the Northern Bald Ibis to their old migratory routes via paramotor. They’d appreciate the project, if not the situation that led to it being necessary.
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Will admit that I’d do some creative trading to acquire an example of that patch. I even have some classic pre-refit patches I’d be willing to trade off to get one.
Elaboration deemed counterproductive.
This is an official Lockheed photograph of a Shinto priest blessing Japan’s domestically produced F-35.
Imperial culture approves this seamless blending of tradition and technology, for reasons more or less here.
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“Forsooth, do you grok my jive, me hearties?”
Almost entirely not like that, yes.
Revisiting a classic today: Dumb Ways to Die - YouTube
On another note, TIL from TV Tropes that all those characters have individual names.
On a third note, I need an animator who would like to work on Dumb Ways To Die IN SPACE.
(On a fourth note, 'scuse me, I have to go do my own electrical work.)
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There is an Eve Online version of Dumb Ways to Die. I doubt it will help, but still.
(And if you prefer it with ponies: https://youtu.be/EBsUqwlXukc?si=D45HERKSSUT3BJDO )
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In today’s quote, from early in Oathbringer, the third book of the Stormlight Archive, a view which I think they would heartily agree with:
There are no foolish oaths. All are the mark of men and true spren over beasts and subspren. The mark of intelligence, free will, and choice.
- the Stormfather, largest remaining splinter of Honor
One of the world’s leading researchers into deadly skin cancer gets diagnosed with ‘incurable’ brain cancer. So he immediately offers himself as a guinea pig and his team are trying to innovate new treatments for that, too. Even if they fail, he’d be respected for the attempt (and would become a Martyr to Science)
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Well. They’d appreciate the humour, at least. I don’t think anyone really thinks “give the computer imperative instructions in somewhat ungrammatical latin” is a terribly efficient way of going about things. I do appreciate that one of the debugging features is making the compiler translate the code back to ‘english’ to help you spot incorrect declinations, though.
This may go nicely with this humorous blogpost on Latin for the Information Age.
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But “give the computer imperative instructions in a subset of Eldraeic” is apparently a thing there