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Weirdness with Southern Continent, given the Map


Firesong

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So we know that the Southern Continent is very cold and frozen, but with the arrival of the map, this brings about a lot of confusion. Given that the distance it is from the equator, which WoI shows is a bit below the Basin (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/508/#e15856). Shows that it really shouldn't be that cold. I measured the distance from the bottom of the Basin to the bottom of the Southern Continent, and it is 3,850 miles or 6,195.974 km.

That would just make it the temperature of like, the southern tip of South America (like Cape Horn), at the southern extreme of the Southern Continent.

This should only make it a lot colder, but not frozen, a lot of it is perhaps even flat out tropical. So I wonder what happens to make it just, completely frozen. Even more confusion, is that that isn't the South Pole. Unless they were actually placed where the Maskless are, somewhere off the map, and migrated more northward. 

Or it is as simple as the size being not that accurate, given Issac has said before that he makes maps as in-world artifacts, and things like the Sel map are purposely wrong due to biases and propaganda. So the continent might be bigger, or Elendel Basin might be smaller. 

Or maybe the tilt of the planet is just weird. 

Maybe we can try and get a hold of Issac or Peter or such for elaboration. Or maybe I am missing some information or did my measurements wrong.  

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On 11/18/2022 at 2:12 PM, Firesong said:

So we know that the Southern Continent is very cold and frozen

Technically, what we know is that the Malwish consider it to be cold and frozen. 

Also, we know that they SoScads had a millenium of adaptations to the intense heat cause by TLR, but without the adaptations of Ashmounts to prevent overheating. 

I think it is more like taking somebody from (for example) southern Texas who has never seen snow and letting them visit Michigan in May. The temp will be 50s-60s and the locals will be wearing shorts and t-shirts while the Texan will be bundled in a jacket and still feel "cold."

WoB:

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

South Scadrians have low natural body temperature. This is related to their cold intolerance.

 

Edited by Treamayne
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23 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Technically, what we know if that the Malwish consider it to be cold and frozen. 

Also, we know that they SoScads had a millenium of adaptations to the intense heat cause by TLR, but without the adaptations of Ashmounts to prevent overheating. 

I think it is more like taking somebody from (for example) southern Texas who has never seen snow and letting them visit Michigan in May. The temp will be 50s-60s and the locals will be wearing shorts and t-shirts while the Texan will be bundled in a jacket and still feel "cold."

WoB:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

South Scadrians have low natural body temperature. This is related to their cold intolerance.

 

 

That would explain a lot, didn't think about the Malwish being unreliable narrators to an extent. But it would still mean they also migrated northward, as we know that they lived at the south pole at least during the Days of Ash. According to Annotations and WoB. 

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15 minutes ago, Firesong said:

That would explain a lot, didn't think about the Malwish being unreliable narrators to an extent. But it would still mean they also migrated northward, as we know that they lived at the south pole at least during the Days of Ash. According to Annotations and WoB. 

Correct - Also from WoBs: (quotes edited for space - full WoB at the links)

Spoiler
Quote

Comatose

So here's my last question. If there ARE people on the other side of the world, did Vin kill them all by placing the sun on their side, or do they have they're own Ruin/Preservation battle going on over there as well? 

Brandon Sanderson

No, they're not dead. Yes, Rashek was aware of them. In fact, he placed them there as a reserve. I knew he wanted a 'control' group of people in case his changes to genetics ended with the race being in serious trouble. All I'll say is that he found a way other than changing them genetically to help them survive in the world he created.

 

Quote

Chapter Seventy-Six

The North Pole

One of my big challenges in the geography of this world was figuring out how we could have a kingdom set at the pole of the world while at the same time maintaining a normal day/night cycle. 

In our world, the magnetic north pole is located about eleven degrees of latitude south of the geographic north pole. On Scadrial, the two poles were originally in the same location. When the Lord Ruler moved the planet too close to its sun and realized he didn't have the control to place the planet in the proper orbit, he created the ashmounts to cool the atmosphere. He also wanted to keep access to the Well under his control, so he decided to build his capital city right above it. However, he realized that on a planet with a tilted axis, a city at the north pole would have seasonal daylight variation so extreme that at the height of summer the sun would never set and during the dead of winter the sun would never rise. He could remove the axis's tilt, but that would just make the sun perpetually skirt the horizon all year round.

What Rashek decided to do (and he had to make split-second decisions in the brief time he held the power) was to shift the crust of the whole planet so that the Well was at a latitude that would have more standard seasonal variation, and to re-create the Terris mountains in the new North (to maintain the rumors that the Well was located there). He worried that the new location of Luthadel would be too hot due to the latitude, but it turned out that moving the Well created an unexpected effect. The planet's magnetic pole followed the Well as he relocated it—and the ash from the ashmounts was slightly ferromagnetic. 

 

So, basically Rashek put TFE at the North pole and the Southern Scadrians were at the South pole (but only because of his changes). When Harmony restored the world's orbit and landmasses; the landmass that the Southern Scarians in habited, which used to be at the Sountern Pole, was moved to it's current location. So they are geographically north of their pre-catacendre geographic location, but still have a new climate significantly cooler than their previous "no ashmounts-too close to the sun" landmass climate. The difference, presumably, would be like taking the ecosystem that evolved to survive in Death Valley or the Saharan Desert and moving them to Mid-Canada (Summer high temps still below the coolest previously known temps; but winter low temps bordering on Tundra-cold)

Edited by Treamayne
SPAGF
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13 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Correct - Also from WoBs: (quotes edited for space - full WoB at the links)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

So, basically Rashek put TFE at the North pole and the Southern Scadrians were at the South pole (but only because of his changes). When Harmony restored the world's orbit and landmasses; the landmass that the Southern Scarians in habited, which used to be at the Sountern Pole, was moved to it's current location. So they are geographically north of their pre-catacendre geographic location, but still have a new climate significantly cooler than their previous "no ashmounts-too close to the sun" landmass climate. The difference, presumably, would be like taking the ecosystem that evolved to survive in Death Valley or the Saharan Desert and moving them to Mid-Canada (Summer high temps still below the coolest previously known temps; but winter low temps bordering on Tundra-cold)

Mhm, that would make sense, but I don't see what implies that that is what occurred.

Unless first WoB was about Sazed "finding a way" by shifting the crust to move them higher. But I assumed it meant something Rashek did. 

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3 minutes ago, Firesong said:

Mhm, that would make sense, but I don't see what implies that that is what occurred.

Unless first WoB was about Sazed "finding a way" by shifting the crust to move them higher. But I assumed it meant something Rashek did. 

No, the words of Brandon describe that the reason they were at the South Pole duing the millenium of the Final Empire was because Rashek moved them there. Harmony moving them back is part of HoA Ch 82:

Spoiler

There had been a people called the Bennet. They had considered mapmaking to be a solemn duty; Sazed had once preached their religion to Kelsier himself. From their detailed maps and charts, Sazed discovered how the world had once looked. He used his powers to restore the continents and oceans, the islands and coastlines, the mountains and rivers.

So the Southern continent was in it's current location during the days of Alendi, Rashek moved them to the South Pole, Sazed moved them back. But since he also fixed the orbit, their climate was cooled even if they moved closer to the equater from their South Pole location

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2 hours ago, Treamayne said:

No, the words of Brandon describe that the reason they were at the South Pole duing the millenium of the Final Empire was because Rashek moved them there. Harmony moving them back is part of HoA Ch 82:

  Hide contents

There had been a people called the Bennet. They had considered mapmaking to be a solemn duty; Sazed had once preached their religion to Kelsier himself. From their detailed maps and charts, Sazed discovered how the world had once looked. He used his powers to restore the continents and oceans, the islands and coastlines, the mountains and rivers.

So the Southern continent was in it's current location during the days of Alendi, Rashek moved them to the South Pole, Sazed moved them back. But since he also fixed the orbit, their climate was cooled even if they moved closer to the equater from their South Pole location

Ah, that makes sense. 

I always interpreted them getting moved there as like, the people themselves being picked up and moved to the pole. 

I was just being dumb and stuck in my assumption. Lol. 

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No worries, it's easy to miss since so much of the informatino was not in the books themselves (nor is all information just in WoBs).

5 minutes ago, Firesong said:

I always interpreted them getting moved there as like, the people themselves being picked up and moved to the pole. 

I was just being dumb and stuck in my assumption. Lol. 

Now I'm picturing huge Sazed Fingers picking up masked Scadrians one-by-one like in the various Tycoon games (Rollercoaster Tycoon, etc). 

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18 hours ago, Firesong said:

That would just make it the temperature of like, the southern tip of South America (like Cape Horn), at the southern extreme of the Southern Continent.

This should only make it a lot colder, but not frozen, a lot of it is perhaps even flat out tropical. So I wonder what happens to make it just, completely frozen. Even more confusion, is that that isn't the South Pole. Unless they were actually placed where the Maskless are, somewhere off the map, and migrated more northward.

  1. Scadrial may have more axial tilt, hence more extreme seasons.
  2. Scadrial may be more distant from its star or its star may be dimmer.

Frankly Elendel has too many fireplaces and a style of clothing and architecture incompatible with a subtropical setting on the Earth.
That would make the true geographic poles horrible places. But we cannot rule that out.

 

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