Radiant Moon Base

[ConfusedCow]

        Could the radiants build/have built a base on a moon?  It's not implausible, particularly if the radiants have a means of transporting a large amount of stormlight.  It's a long way, but much shorter than the distance to another planet that the Shanay-im tried.   Once there, Stonewards could carve out an underground base quickly. Elsecallers could provide air and supplies.  Combined Stonewards and Elsecallers could create interlocking caverns with heavy glass shielding above them.   Edgedancers could make a forest bloom in those caverns.  With time and effort a self-sustaining eco-system capable of producing food and air could even be created.  We know the humans have experience moving between worlds, terraforming, and grand projects.   The humans built Urithiru and the floating glass cities on Ashyn.  I also think they had a hand in terraforming Shinovar.  

        There could be significant advantages to a moon base, particularly if it could be kept secret.  A moon base could be a refuge from both the wars and storms of Roshar.  It could also be an excellent place to safe guard precious treasures or knowledge.  If you believe as I do that BAM is the corrupted spren of the moon Mishim, then the radiants could have gone to the moon Mishim to capture her.   Perhaps she still resides on the moon captured in a gemstone.  

[Pathfinder]

Possible? Totally. They could even start soulcasting from the cognitive realm, to make a basic chamber in the rock for them to cross over to, and then begin everything you mentioned. Personally I do not think they did because it would not only be resource heavy to initiate, but also resource heavy to maintain. Urithiru is great because in theory it continually gets refreshed from highstorms. There would have to be a way to transfer stormlight to the moonbase, whether wirelessly, or physically bringing a regular shipment of charged stones. The logistics are not overly problematic because I would imagine they could set up an oathgate for instant transfer, but again, that requires a whole lot of resources that could be used directly towards the war effort. But I wish you luck with your theory! Just doesn't work for me, that's all. 

Edited January 6, 2022 by Pathfinder

[+Invocation]

2 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

oathgate

Moongate.

Now I need it to happen, just for that.

[Anomander Rake he/him]

There is definitely a lot that could be done with the various magic systems to make a moon-base viable.  A few ideas off the top of my head:

Spoiler

• Should a way to overcome the region lock exist by then, some large scale Forgery shenanigans could grant the base a localized, breathable, and pressurized atmosphere.
• Should that not work, current attractor fabrials make me think a more advanced one could generate a large dome/bubble to trap air inside of, accomplishing the same thing.  We also already have heating fabrials to overcome the issue of cold.
• Unsealed cadmium-minds can trap/move air as per this WoB.  Not only is air valuable for obvious reasons, but it also provides fluid fodder for soulcasting large structures as the 'atmosphere' on the moon is scantly present at best.  (assumptions made using our moon, the moons of the Rosharan system may have more dense local atmospheres!)
• Unsealed cadmium-minds for air and unsealed brass-minds for warmth make for a sketchy space suit replacement allowing for exploration beyond the established base.
• Some perpetually active soulcasting fabrial could transmute CO2 into Oxygen, making that a non-issue long term.

Any other potential ideas y'all have?

Edited January 10, 2022 by Anomander Rake
spoiler

[Frustration]

Just now, Anomander Rake said:

There is definitely a lot that could be done with the various magic systems to make a moon-base viable.  A few ideas off the top of my head:

*Snip*

Spoilers

[Zoey she/her]

54 minutes ago, Anomander Rake said:

There is definitely a lot that could be done with the various magic systems to make a moon-base viable.  A few ideas off the top of my head:

  Hide contents

• Should a way to overcome the region lock exist by then, some large scale Forgery shenanigans could grant the base a localized, breathable, and pressurized atmosphere.
• Should that not work, current attractor fabrials make me think a more advanced one could generate a large dome/bubble to trap air inside of, accomplishing the same thing.  We also already have heating fabrials to overcome the issue of cold.
• Unsealed cadmium-minds can trap/move air as per this WoB.  Not only is air valuable for obvious reasons, but it also provides fluid fodder for soulcasting large structures as the 'atmosphere' on the moon is scantly present at best.  (assumptions made using our moon, the moons of the Rosharan system may have more dense local atmospheres!)
• Unsealed cadmium-minds for air and unsealed brass-minds for warmth make for a sketchy space suit replacement allowing for exploration beyond the established base.
• Some perpetually active soulcasting fabrial could transmute CO2 into Oxygen, making that a non-issue long term.

Any other potential ideas y'all have?

Well, Soulcasting Fabrials do require the use of Stormlight in order to allow them to keep working. So it does mean it can't work infinitely, and requires it to have it keep on having Investiture applied to keep it functioning. 

 

And as an additional note, I wonder how the placement of orbital bodies works in the Cognitive Realm. 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Zoey

[Anomander Rake he/him]

30 minutes ago, Zoey said:

Well, Soulcasting Fabrials do require the use of Stormlight in order to allow them to keep working. So it does mean it can't work infinitely, and requires it to have it keep on having Investiture applied to keep it functioning. 

And as an additional note, I wonder how the placement of orbital bodies works in the Cognitive Realm. 

True.  It's not the perfect solution, but it certainly gets rid of a lot of steps in the process.

I've wondered the same!  The whole mapping a full 3D universe to a 2D plane deal is pretty great for theorizing.  I'm particularly curious about where the moon(s) would show up in the CR in relation to the rest of Rosharan geography!  Like, let us for example say our world functioned under the same realmatic theory; where would our moon be in our cognitive realm?  Where do we perceive the moon to be?  Would the moons subastral be attached to Earth proper's subastral, or would there exist "the space between planets" between?  Would the moon exist near Merritt Island, Florida or Houston, Texas (NASA launch site and mission control respectively, both locations deeply linked, at least within the American population, to space travel)?  Would these locations then be on the edge of our subastral as a result, does being closer to the edge have any realmatic significance?  Lots of cool questions and we probably havent even scratched the surface.

[Zoey she/her]

I can't wait until we get the projection type that the Cognitive Realm uses. hope to goodness it isn't Mercator