Ro System Model (Tower of the Moon)

[Maergoth]

Today in Befallen.lore, some interesting discussion arose. Looking closely at the planetary model in the Tower of the Moon recently.. there are a few things I'd like to question.Anyone who has looked at it has noticed a few things. ( I recommend heading there and taking a look, it's hard to explain )1. Norrath is shown with 3 planetary bodies around it, and a ring around it.    A. Kerploded Luclin    B. A tailed, fast rotating moon, much smaller than Luclin.    C. An object below Norrath which appears to be stationary in orbit, yet spinning in place.2. There is a large planet, far from Norrath and it is heavily veiled by 4 outer shells, partially concealing it. A symbol is on the back with 8 dots and a (tentacle-esque, Treble Clef-ish) shape in the middle.3. There's a tailed, quickly rotating planet with a ring around it,  which periodically comes close to Norrath.. and very close to #44. A small, slowly rotating,  blank planet with nothing more to mention.For starters, Why 3 celestial bodies around Norrath? One is luclin, it's identical in appearance, cracked and obvious. One of the other 2 is Drinal.. first guess would be the free floating tailed one (1.b.). A few problems with this. Drinal's visibility in Norrath's sky doesn't change. It doesn't eclipse, it hardly changes visually at all. The ONLY way for that to be possible is if it was stationary in orbit( Due to strange pulls of Norrath and Ro), and spinning in place. 1.b. is also spinning so fast that it would have made a full vertical rotation over 6 times in one Norrathian day. I'm thinking 1.C is Drinal.What's the deal with the Shells on the outer planet? We're pretty much clueless at the moment.. the shells most likely mean it's concealed in some sense from Norrath.. physically or visually. The actual planet is NEVER visible from Norrath, it's always offset just enough that the 4 shells are keeping a line of sight poor.The other planets? Who knows.. What are the connections with the tailed planets, other than fast movement.. What do the rings around some planets mean.. they aren't normal, visible rings..Any ideas?

[Cusashorn]

<cite>Maergoth wrote:</cite><blockquote>Today in Befallen.lore, some interesting discussion arose. Looking closely at the planetary model in the Tower of the Moon recently.. there are a few things I'd like to question.For starters, Why 3 celestial bodies around Norrath? One is luclin, it's identical in appearance, cracked and obvious. One of the other 2 is Drinal.. first guess would be the free floating tailed one (1.b.). A few problems with this.<span style="color: #ff3300;"> Drinal's visibility in Norrath's sky doesn't change. It doesn't eclipse, it hardly changes visually at all.</span> The ONLY way for that to be possible is if it was stationary in orbit( Due to strange pulls of Norrath and Ro), and spinning in place. 1.b. is also spinning so fast that it would have made a full vertical rotation over 6 times in one Norrathian day. I'm thinking 1.C is Drinal.What's the deal with the Shells on the outer planet? We're pretty much clueless at the moment.. the shells most likely mean it's concealed in some sense from Norrath.. physically or visually. The actual planet is NEVER visible from Norrath, it's always offset just enough that the 4 shells are keeping a line of sight poor.The other planets? Who knows.. What are the connections with the tailed planets, other than fast movement.. What do the rings around some planets mean.. they aren't normal, visible rings..Any ideas?</blockquote><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=412862" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=412862</a></p><p>There have already been established that there are three other planets in the Ro system: Anbeal, Cordan, and Trorsmang. There's only 2 moons though, and this is from centuries of research by members of the Academy of Arcane Sciences before Lucan took over. It's entirely possible that the researchers in the Tower of the Moon did not know about what the Academy had found. We really don't know much more about the planets themselves as to what thier physical or magical properties consist of.</p><p>As for Drinal, just because it doesn't visually go through orbital cycles in Eq2 doesn't mean it doesn't revolve.</p>

[Maergoth]

I don't doubt the existence of other planets in our solar system.. I question the nature of these planets.The only way for a moon to not eclipse or go through different phases would be for it to NOT rotate around a planet. It fits in perfectly with a 2 moon model, despite it having 3.I can see incorrect information being applied to this model, though as intricate as it is, there may have been some method behind it.

[Cusashorn]

All I'm saying is that I"m chalking up Drinal not revolving as a detail the art department may have missed (Or otherwise couldn't have implimented.)

[teddyboy4]

<cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite><blockquote>All I'm saying is that I"m chalking up Drinal not revolving as a detail the art department may have missed (Or otherwise couldn't have implimented.)</blockquote>I agree, we (sadly) can't entirely trust everything we see in-game b/c of technical or other limitations that may have trumped the importance of little details, such as Drinal's rotation, orbit and subsequent phases and eclipses in the sky. I also doubt that we can apply real-world astro-physics to Norrath and the Ro system, b/c for all we know, astro-physics work differently there. So basically if there was a 3rd moon above Norraths South Pole, we couldn't be looking for anomalies or other things that we know such a moon would cause.The planet w/ the shells and symbol is pretty interesting though. I can't even begin to guess as to what the symbol on it, or the shells could possibly reference though.

[Zabjade]

<span style="color: #00cc00;">I noticed that one of the plants had a counter-rotation and seemed to be a captured planet. I was the one who called the moon not changing Lazy devs and multiple zones <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></span>

[Troubor]

<cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite><blockquote>All I'm saying is that I"m chalking up Drinal not revolving as a detail the art department may have missed (Or otherwise couldn't have implimented.)</blockquote><p>Or could be a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, so to speak.  The old original developers may have talked to the old original artists and said "Yep, make Drinal tidally locked to Norrath.  Keeps it simple, you only need to draw one face of it".  Later, the Dof developers and artists sat down, maybe just not remember what they did, and said "You know...that planetarium model in Maj'Dul in the Tower of the Moon sure would look cool if Drinal rotated..".</p><p>Of course, there's always this idea:  They both are accurate.  Or at least semi-accurate.  Imagine a pre-shattering model of the Norrath/Ro Solar System built in the tower.  Later, Luclin goes BOOM.  So, they redo the Luclin model to make it look shattered.  But, for whatever reason, be it difficulty or just because it won't look as nice, they don't fix the Drinal model...which somehow ended up tidally locked to Norrath at the same time..it just looks better having the sucker rotate.  As for the third moon...maybe it's not there now or it was, maybe it was something the people of Maj'Dul insist is there but actually isn't, maybe it is there and they are the only ones who have the ability to spot it.</p><p>Pure conjecture on my part obviously.  I am more inclined to believe there was some lack or mix up of communication, thus the Maj'Dul planetarium being a bit off from what we see from the surface of Norrath.</p>

[Troubor]

<cite>Eandiil@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite><blockquote>All I'm saying is that I"m chalking up Drinal not revolving as a detail the art department may have missed (Or otherwise couldn't have implimented.)</blockquote>I agree, we (sadly) can't entirely trust everything we see in-game b/c of technical or other limitations that may have trumped the importance of little details, such as Drinal's rotation, orbit and subsequent phases and eclipses in the sky. I also doubt that we can apply real-world astro-physics to Norrath and the Ro system, b/c for all we know, astro-physics work differently there. So basically if there was a 3rd moon above Norraths South Pole, we couldn't be looking for anomalies or other things that we know such a moon would cause.The planet w/ the shells and symbol is pretty interesting though. I can't even begin to guess as to what the symbol on it, or the shells could possibly reference though.</blockquote>I need to look at the shells again...but isn't the outer planet marked as "gaseous"...what if the Maj'Dul "Astronomers" were trying to show the major layers of the gases of a Jupiter type of "gas giant" planet.  Or even one the size of Neptune?  Each shell might be a different layer of gas, or some such.  Vhalen in the post Cusa links has the outer planet listed as "poisonous", but what if each shell was showing to what degree the gas in that layer is poisonous.  Or that one layer isn't poisonous afterall.  I need to go back to the tower and look at it again I think

[vochore]

<cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maergoth wrote:</cite><blockquote>Today in Befallen.lore, some interesting discussion arose. Looking closely at the planetary model in the Tower of the Moon recently.. there are a few things I'd like to question.For starters, Why 3 celestial bodies around Norrath? One is luclin, it's identical in appearance, cracked and obvious. One of the other 2 is Drinal.. first guess would be the free floating tailed one (1.b.). A few problems with this.<span style="color: #ff3300;"> Drinal's visibility in Norrath's sky doesn't change. It doesn't eclipse, it hardly changes visually at all.</span> The ONLY way for that to be possible is if it was stationary in orbit( Due to strange pulls of Norrath and Ro), and spinning in place. 1.b. is also spinning so fast that it would have made a full vertical rotation over 6 times in one Norrathian day. I'm thinking 1.C is Drinal.What's the deal with the Shells on the outer planet? We're pretty much clueless at the moment.. the shells most likely mean it's concealed in some sense from Norrath.. physically or visually. The actual planet is NEVER visible from Norrath, it's always offset just enough that the 4 shells are keeping a line of sight poor.The other planets? Who knows.. What are the connections with the tailed planets, other than fast movement.. What do the rings around some planets mean.. they aren't normal, visible rings..Any ideas?</blockquote><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=412862" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=412862</a></p><p>There have already been established that there are three other planets in the Ro system: Anbeal, Cordan, and Trorsmang. There's only 2 moons though, and this is from centuries of research by members of the Academy of Arcane Sciences before Lucan took over. It's entirely possible that the researchers in the Tower of the Moon did not know about what the Academy had found. We really don't know much more about the planets themselves as to what thier physical or magical properties consist of.</p><p>As for Drinal, just because it doesn't visually go through orbital cycles in Eq2 doesn't mean it doesn't revolve.</p></blockquote>you forgot to mention the third moon at the south pole that seems to be rotating in position and actually rotating in the opposite direction as norrath

[Maergoth]

Sorry, my astronomical analysis of an in-game model was off by one minor detail <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Yes, you're correct. It's rotating in place and opposite of Norrath.Honestly, I would easily dismiss Drinal's lack of visual diversity to lazy dev work, but given the information we have..  it could actually make sense.On the other hand, it could have been a patchwork fix to a lazy dev job, similar to the whole Emergency change in Befallen lore, name it stormhold and move it kind of deal.. in which case it's still solid lore.

[Saroc_Luclin]

BTW, as Prathun (a Dev on EQLive) pointed out, "Drinal" like most God names is an anagram. Prathun said: Drinal = Anagram of Aldrin, as in Buzz Aldrin, the second person to set foot on the moon. ( <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?start=50&topic_id=129383#1895704" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/p...=129383#1895704</a> )

[Cusashorn]

<cite>Saroc_Luclin wrote:</cite><blockquote>BTW, as Prathun (a Dev on EQLive) pointed out, "Drinal" like most God names is an anagram.Prathun said:Drinal = Anagram of Aldrin, as in Buzz Aldrin, the second person to set foot on the moon.( <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?start=50&topic_id=129383#1895704" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/p...=129383#1895704</a> )</blockquote>Wow. What an increadibly obscure yet seemingly obvious reference.

[teddyboy4]

<cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Saroc_Luclin wrote:</cite><blockquote>BTW, as Prathun (a Dev on EQLive) pointed out, "Drinal" like most God names is an anagram.Prathun said:Drinal = Anagram of Aldrin, as in Buzz Aldrin, the second person to set foot on the moon.( <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?start=50&topic_id=129383#1895704" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/p...=129383#1895704</a> )</blockquote>Wow. What an increadibly obscure yet seemingly obvious reference.</blockquote>Seriously. I can't believe that I haven't picked up on that one. I am always looking for anagrams b/c they have always been so prevalent in EQ, and this one was so easy too, they barely scrambled it. They just cut off the first two letters and threw em to the end.Good show

[Kindayr]

<p>hhahah pwnage!</p><p>that makes so much sense!!</p><p>second moon = second man</p><p>/facepalm</p>

[Cusashorn]

<cite>Kindayr wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>hhahah pwnage!</p><p>that makes so much sense!!</p><p>second moon = second man</p><p>/facepalm</p></blockquote>Drinal is the first moon though. We knew about it long before Luclin.

[Kindayr]

i realize that, the context i meant was in the level of involvement, atleast lore wise.

[Cusashorn]

<cite>Kindayr wrote:</cite><blockquote>i realize that, the context i meant was in the level of involvement, atleast lore wise.</blockquote><p>Yeah, thats the thing. Lore-wise, Norrathians knew about Drinal long before Luclin.</p><p>It's just that Luclin has a deeper history and importance since it actually was inhabitable at one point.</p>