Cube Planet - worldbuilding advice needed

[Alfa he/him]

Inspired by Sixthface from Sanderson's "I hate Dragons" I thought about creating a world set on a cubic planet. I don't know what to use it for, tabletop might be a good idea.

Anyway, I started to think about the problems with such a world.

The first that jumps to my mind is "gravity does not work that way, and this planet can't possibly exist", which can be handwaved by "gods","aliens" ,"wizards" and the like. Still, even if such a planet would exist, the oceans would automatically accumulate in the centers of the faces (because this places are technically "down") while the corners would be mountains so high they would breach the atmosphere. Again, I'm handwaving this, and decide that gravity is always oriented "down". Therefore oceans might be everywhere, including edges and corners.

This, of course creates interesting interplays at the corners and edges, with very odd falling patterns for thrown objects.

One of the interesting features of this cube will be that there would be no different climate zones based on the the distance from the equator; in fact there won't be even an equator in the sense as we know it. If the planets poles will be in two corners, then all faces will face on average 45° to the sun, therefore making the planet approximately the same temperature everywhere (and that would create quite a lot of problems, i guess). Seasons, luckily, are still possible.

Also, each face will have exactly the same time zone (because of the flat form, sunrise, noon and sunset are at exactly the same time). This will render navigation by the stars almost impossible (you can only see which way is north/south, but neither longitude not latitude).

TIdes, if a moon (be it round, cuboid or any other form) might also become quite problematic: water would rush very fast from one face to the next each time the planet turns a new face to the moon.

Question to all the other worldbuilders here: what will be other factors which will play in?

 

PS: There would be one problem less in this world in comparison to earth regarding the following thing: large-scale maps would be easier to draw.

[king of nowhere]

depending on the moon's orbit, navigation using the moon may be possible. If the moon is circling around the equator (which is not the case for all mooons) then you can at least figure out the latitude from where you see it raising and setting.

[Mulk he/him]

You assume a lot of things that need not be or are not true.  You assume that around the horizontal four faces will all be level to the sun/moon and further that differences in relief will have no effect on climate or temp.  You assume the moon(s) if any are the same size and distance as our moon.  You assume the cubic shape is a perfect cube with no curvature at all.

I have one, as a matter of fact.  It's a former sphere that, for Reasons (tm) crunched into a cube, but not a perfect one as the sides still have a bit of arch to them, but there are definite corners and sides.  It's balanced (if you were to represent it on the plane with its sun) close to one of the corners so the path of the sun does have some north to south wiggle to it and it's also not a perfectly centered orbit.  It's also a world with some fairly severe relief and a lot of mountains and cliffs resulting from the fracturing and crumpling of the world so there are all kinds of climate zones/areas.

Gravity in this place doesn't work quite like it does as we are used to - again, there are Reasons(tm), but the effect is fthere is a sort of invisible line through the planet that functions as the gravitational center. The tide problem...I dealt with that by creating a sort of cascading waterfall effect from face to another, though their tides aren't as pronounced as ours.  Lunar navigation is possible

If you're going to go on the assumption that this world somehow exists in a universe space like ours - that is, the exact same laws of nature/physics/whatever, there's probably a lot of granular detail to go into.  For myself, I wanted something completely out of the ordinary, and I do have reasons that make sense in the worldspace itself, but would not play out that way in our world because things don't work exactly the same way for a variety of reasons from the relative strength of the rocks in question to the power of gravity itself and on and on.  Have some fun with it - make rules that make sense internally but don't feel bound to make every physical law precisely what ours are.

 

Edited October 23, 2017 by Mulk

[Turos he/him]

Well, it's not impossible to make 'down' perpendicular to each side of the planet. Everything with mass creates a gravitic pull on everything else. You are drawing Earth toward yourself, but the planet has so much more mass that when you jump you create a gravitic pull on it so minuscule in comparison to its pull on you that its unnoticeable. And some parts of your body are more dense than others, which parts create more spacetime distortion than the less dense parts. In this cube world, if you had a gradual increase of density of mass toward the edges and corners just right, it would do exactly what you envisioned.

Imagine an ocean covering one of the corners. That would be a bumpy boat ride. I'm not sure that the moon would make water rush around dramatically, at least not in comparison to our world's oceans, with the same moon at the same distance. If the planet's density increased at the corners, those corners, while closer to the moon at times, would still have more mass fighting for the lead position in gravity. Sure, there would be an effect, but I think it would average out to much like oceans on Earth.

If you threw a ball over the edge of the world, the forward momentum would push the ball effectively 'up' from the perspective of the new current side, stealing much of the 'forward' momentum, shifting of gravity would cause it to arc, and the ball would take a steep curve down to the ground.

Edited October 24, 2017 by Turos