DeadFencer Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 So we know that the final empire was at the North Pole. However, the Terris dominance is referred to as north of Luthadel. Is Luthadel not at the North Pole then? And, since Luthadel is at the empire's center, does that mean the empire isn't actually at the precise North Pole of Scadrial? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeiryWriter he/him Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 Luthadel is at the Magnetic North Pole. Brandon mentions in the Annotations that when Rashek moved the Well, the MNP moved with it, as a result compasses all pointed towards Luthadel (which the Ministry used as further "proof" of his divinity). Geographically however Luthadel rests at a more temperate latitude (as evidenced by the lack of a wonky day/night cycle). 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeadFencer Posted January 10, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 I thought they had to be at the pole though, because it was the only place cold enough for life? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeiryWriter he/him Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 I thought they had to be at the pole though, because it was the only place cold enough for life? It's actually the ferromagnetic ash that was cooling things down enough for people in the Final Empire to survive. Because of that it was actually colder in the Final Empire than it was at the Geographic North Pole, despite being more southerly. Here is Brandon in the HoA Chapter 76 annotation: 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. My original plan was for the Well of Ascension to be located a distance to the north of Luthadel, up at the geographic north pole of the planet. When I was revising the second book, I realized that wouldn’t work for various reasons. (More on this on the MISTBORN 2 Alternate Ending deleted scene page.) I changed things so that when the Lord Ruler held the power in the Well, he decoupled the geographic north pole and the magnetic north pole. 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. (Ferromagnetic volcanic ash has some precedent in our world.) So the interaction of the ash with the planet’s magnetic field’s new alignment meant that its protective cloak over the area of the Final Empire caused it to be cooler than the now unprotected geographic north pole. One side effect of this is that all compasses point toward Luthadel. Since it’s been that way for a thousand years, no one finds it odd–in fact, it’s used as evidence of the Lord Ruler’s divinity. It also makes it mathematically very easy to pinpoint one’s exact location in the Final Empire using a combination of the compass reading and noon observations. Not that it’s easy to get lost in the Final Empire in the first place—the geographical area of the planet’s surface that the Final Empire covers is actually quite small. Ultimately, when it comes down to sophisticated geography and astrophysics, I’m out of my element. If there are mistakes in my reasoning above, that is why I write fantasy and not hard sf. And I still haven’t said anything about what happened at the south pole. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DreamEternal Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 Wait, but isn't the magnetic north pole at the south hemisphere? Then the "Southerners" are supposed to be Northerners instead? Or Brandon just messed his physics up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeiryWriter he/him Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 Wait, but isn't the magnetic north pole at the south hemisphere? Then the "Southerners" are supposed to be Northerners instead? Or Brandon just messed his physics up. No? Our magnetic north pole is in the northern hemisphere, I see no reason why Scadrial would be any different (especially as Brandon specifically explained the situation). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natc Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 The compass's magnetic south pole points to the planet's magnetic north pole, which would be to the north. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DreamEternal Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 (edited) No? Our magnetic north pole is in the northern hemisphere, I see no reason why Scadrial would be any different (especially as Brandon specifically explained the situation).Actualy, the magnetic north pole is in the southern hemisphere. That is why the magnetic north pole of tge needle of a compass poits towards the geographical north.EDIT: @natc: I was taught it was the other was around... Edited January 10, 2016 by DreamEternal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeiryWriter he/him Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 Actualy, the magnetic north pole is in the southern hemisphere. That is why the magnetic north pole of tge needle of a compass poits towards the geographical north. No, the MNP is in the North. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natc Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 (edited) Actualy, the magnetic north pole is in the southern hemisphere. That is why the magnetic north pole of tge needle of a compass poits towards the geographical north. EDIT: @natc: I was taught it was the other was around... In the end a pole is north because someone took the original lump of lodestone and said that end was north and everything else in magnet history is extrapolated from there.So does it really matter that much? Edit: though actually by that logic, since the original point of reference is the planet, naming the pole to the north "south pole" sounds really silly. Random fact about compasses: ancient Chinese texts actually acknowledge the minor deviation of a compass from geographic north/south. Edited January 10, 2016 by natc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King's Twit he/him Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 (edited) Don't the magnetic poles on Earth switch every X number of years? Maybe Scadrial's magnetic poles are currently (or always have been) at the opposite arrangement to how Earth's are today. Edited January 10, 2016 by King's Twit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DreamEternal Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 No, the MNP is in the North.The wikipedia article later says that in a physical sense, the "magnetic north pole" is actualy the geomagnetic south pole, so I guess we both are right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaymyth she/her Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 The wikipedia article later says that in a physical sense, the "magnetic north pole" is actualy the geomagnetic south pole, so I guess we both are right? That sounds like some major physics pedanticism there. We call the magnetic pole on the north end of the planet the North Magnetic Pole because it's in the north. If, someday, our poles flip, there will probably be a giant scientific argument over whether to keep calling the pole in the north the NMP. The scientific community will want to keep it "accurate" and everyone else will want to keep it "simple" and we'll wind up with the greatest divide since Imperial vs Metric. (If Scadrial's magnetic poles are flipped from ours, it doesn't matter, we'll never know, because Earth isn't Cosmere so nobody from Earth can compare their compasses to one from Scadrial.) 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oversleep Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 That sounds like some major physics pedanticism there. We call the magnetic pole on the north end of the planet the North Magnetic Pole because it's in the north. If, someday, our poles flip, there will probably be a giant scientific argument over whether to keep calling the pole in the north the NMP. The scientific community will want to keep it "accurate" and everyone else will want to keep it "simple" and we'll wind up with the greatest divide since Imperial vs Metric. (If Scadrial's magnetic poles are flipped from ours, it doesn't matter, we'll never know, because Earth isn't Cosmere so nobody from Earth can compare their compasses to one from Scadrial.) As far as I remember the shift of the magnetic poles is so slow that it doesn't really matter. It ain't gonna happen overnight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaymyth she/her Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 As far as I remember the shift of the magnetic poles is so slow that it doesn't really matter. It ain't gonna happen overnight. Oh, sure. Go ruining all my hyperbole-ridden fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oversleep Posted January 11, 2016 Report Share Posted January 11, 2016 Oh, sure. Go ruining all my hyperbole-ridden fun. Sorry Do we know where the magnetic pole is post-Catacendre? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeadFencer Posted January 11, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2016 This raises so many questions. Is Elendel in the same place Luthadel was? Do magnets still point to it? I'm pretty sure the Well of Ascenion still exists and is below Elendel. You know what I just answered most of those questions. Nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeiryWriter he/him Posted January 11, 2016 Report Share Posted January 11, 2016 Elendel is not located in the same place as Luthadel (you can actually estimate it's position in what was the Final Empire by comparing the Elendel Basin map to that of the Empire. The peninsula to the west that Bilming rests on can be found just about the "NA" in Southern Dominance). It is also unlikely that the actual Well is under Elendel as: Dalenthas Does the Well of Ascension still exist in the new world? Or is it no longer necessary? I assumed that Preservation collected there like Ruin collects in the Pits of Hathsin, so if Atium keeps forming then the well should keep filling...Brandon Sanderson The Well (and the small wells in the Pits) is no more. For now at least. (source) 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormgate he/him Posted January 11, 2016 Report Share Posted January 11, 2016 If the poles on Scadrial were to switch, wouldn't it mean moving Preservation's (yes I do mean Preservation) Shardpool? I realize it's totally possible on a Shard level, but what about the planet moving it themselves? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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