DeTess

The rules state that anyone not posting for two cycles dies, and that a random member of their house then gains an allomantic ability to compensate:

Yes, that would be nice. Thanks!

I've already gotten the official info from Thingyman, so unless there's a legion of people waiting in the wings to hammer-vote Aman or Steeldancer to the top spot I'll go ahead and properly sign up.

I'm going to have to cancel my participation in this game, as there's a decent chance I'll be go-gming a game soon, and there's also the little thing of the mafia championship coming up. Sorry about that, guys.

The name doesn't sound Terris to me at all. The -din suffix in particular suggests a Rosharan origin to the name. Terris names do use the 'in' sound in the end of the name at times, but in those cases it's usually something like -wyn, with the 'y' instead of the 'i'. The fact that Brandon even highlighted the fact that the ethnicity of the name is off suggests that it's probably offworld, with -din suggesting Rohsar.

Basically, if two objects are close enough together and have the right relative velocities (so they haven't actually collided), they will orbit around a shared center point called a barycenter. The barycenter would then be orbiting around the star, with the two (or more planets) orbiting around the barycenter. For a particularly exotic set-up, you could place a single moon right at the barycenter of a constellation of two planets, which means that it would always be right in the middle. For a setup like this you'd ideally have two planets of about equal mass, as that means that the barycenter is actually in between the two with room for a third object like a moon.

Yeah, distance only really becomes an issue if you want two or more planets to be close enough together that they orbit around eachother. Otherwise you should have plentyvof room, as I'd calculated before.

Well, something planet size would basically just reform the planet it comes into contact with (IE: impact energies would probably melt down the surface, the planets would partially merge with the remains becoming a debris ring that could either decay, get thrown out into space or over a billion years or so form into a moon and the planet could start the whole 'becoming life-bearing' cycle all over again). I remember reading about a possible scenario of what would happen to a planet with a moon in a decaying orbit, and if I remember correctly the moon would basically get ripped apart by the planets gravity without a massive single impact event (provided the decay happened slowly enough). However, I do expect that planet to suffer from a period of intense seismic activity (and smaller asteroid impacts) as the moon approaches and is being ripped apart (disclaimer: this is me trying to remember things about an article I read years ago and can't find again, so take it with a grain of salt). Scaling probably doesn't matter too much, but the bigger they both are, the farther apart you want them to be. That depends a lot on the orbit they enter after they leave their parent planet. I don't expect the orbit to deviate too much, so it would probably be a bit like a giant asteroid that passes the various planets once every X or so years. If the event that knocked it away from its parent planet is very traumatic though (for example: and impact between two other planets, or at the very least one planet passing dangerously close to the other), it could enter a far more elliptic orbit, which would mean it would pass planets far more rarely but its orbit might also intersect the orbit of the other planets, creating a potential impact hazard;

Most of the effects that would create a debris ring like that would probably also see the planet being hit by a lot of large asteroids, so I'd expect some serious climate change and damage to existing civilizations. You wouldn't really get a moon that is shared by multiple planets unless those planets are themselves close enough together to be orbiting around each-other instead of the local star (The pair would still be orbiting the star together, of course). A sort-of example in our own solar system would be Pluto and Charon (pluto's moon). Charon is almost half the size of Pluto, so that particular pairing is closer to being a pair of dwarf planets than a planet and a moon. Another thing you might see is the presence of a number of loose 'moons' (they wouldn't technically be called moons because they aren't orbiting a planet) that are far smaller than the planets, but also in orbit around the central star instead of a planet. these might have started around a planet, but then slowly moved away because of the influence of the gravity of other planets until they left he planets sphere of influence

I'd expect the game to take about 3-4 weeks, but depending on the amount of players and the amount of kill-roles it could take longer (or maybe shorter) than that.

The earth's magnetic field creates a couple of zones called the 'Van Allen Belts' which contain a lot of charged particles and radiation. These belts are mostly limited to fairly high altitudes (the inner of the two belts goes from about 1000 km to about 6000 km). However, because of the weaker magnetic field at the South Atlantic anomaly, the inner Van Allen belt can begin at altitudes as low as 200 km there. This means that spacecraft passing through this area would need extra radiation shielding to prevent damage to electronics (and passengers) that they wouldn't need if they didn't pass through it. No doubt, but 'third body perturbations' are probably one of the most complicated factors in orbit dynamics. You usually can ignore the effects of all other objects apart from the planet you're orbiting around and the sun, but in your proposed system, things would be close enough together that things could get a lot more complicated. If I had to guess, I'd say that things like planetary rings, spacecraft and even moons would be in rather unstable orbits. You probably wouldn't have any real moons around any of the planets, but debris belts are possible, provided they where created within a couple of thousand years of the moment your story is set. This is really just a slightly educated guess though, without any math to really back it up.

Sure, I'll play. Tediore DuPon has returned form the southern dominance to take part in the intrigues of Luthadel once again.

The origins of the magnetic field on earth isn't understood completely, but the currently most accepted theory (the Dynamo Theory) states that the magnetic field is created by interactions between the (conductive) liquid outer and solid inner core of the earth. This is something I don't know a lot about though (I'm an aerospace engineering student with a specialization in spaceflight, so I know a lot about orbital dynamics and gravity as well as some basic astrophysics, but this is outside my area of expertise). The magnetic field of the earth (or a similar planet) would be mostly constant, with little in the way of noticeable 'weak spots' (that is: noticeable by non-advanced civilizations living on the planet. There's actually several spots where we know the magnetic field is weaker or stronger, such as the south Atlantic anomaly, but those only really matter to spacecraft orbiting through this region). However, some other planets in our solar system do not have a magnetic field generated by the dynamo effect. Mars has a very sporadic/localized and weak magnetic field that's mostly caused by areas of the crust still being magnetized (that's how I understand it anyway. As I mentioned, this is not my area of expertise). This is also one of the major reasons for the lack of atmosphere around mars. So in summary, a planet with life on the surface and an earth-like atmosphere would need a strong magnetic field to stop solar radiation from stripping away the atmosphere and to stop harmful radiation from reaching the surface. If you planet has mostly subterranean life, with the underground areas being sealed off from the surface allowing a decent atmosphere to remain, or if life on one of your planets is completely aquatic (and with the oceans protected with a thick layer of ice to prevent evaporation) you probably can do without a magnetic field. I'm curious about that too. I'm also fairly certain I could write a Master's Thesis on this topic, so I'm afraid I won't fix that curiosity .

A planet of the same mass but with lower density would have a (very) slightly lower surface gravity, but it wouldn't affect any of the other planets in the system much. Using tunnels to fall from one side to the other is a fascinating idea, though those tunnels would have to be completely vacuum for someone to do it completely unassisted by anything but gravity. Planets with life on its surface generally need some kind of liquid core (which prevents direct tunnels from one side to the other) to generate a magnetic field which is required to ward off harmful radiation and keep the atmosphere where it is supposed to be, but this is less of a problem if the life is subterranean or aquatic.

You could have plenty of varied terrain based on planet size and atmosphere density and composition. A planet with a fairly thin atmosphere with few greenhouse gasses would be very cold (your typical Hoth style ice-world, with probably only the equator-regions being habitable by civilization), while one with a relatively dense atmosphere with many greenhouse gasses would be very hot (which would be more of a desert world, with the polar regions being the centers of civilization). Other archetypes you encounter in sci-fi are also perfectly possible sharing the same orbit, such as the ocean world. As for planet sizes, I'll try and do some actual math tomorrow. If they all share the same orbit, I don't think the issues are going to be that big, but I'd like to have done the math first. Edit: An example of atmosphere heavily affecting a planet's temperature would be Venus. If Venus had a significantly thinner atmosphere, more similar to that of earth, it would have had surface temperatures that would actually be survivable. It's short a couple of other features to be actually suitable for life (such as a proper magnetic field), but it wouldn't have been the pressure cooker it is now if it hadn't had that thick atmosphere. In a similar way, smaller changes in the atmosphere can create two very different planets, even if they are roughly the same distance from their star. Another planet of interest in our own solar system you could look at for inspiration is Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. Scientists currently believe that there is liquid water below the ice covering most of the moon's surface, and that this water might contain the conditions necessary for life to exist. Edit 2: So, I did the math. What I've done is calculate the gravitational pull of the moon on the earth, and set that as the upper limit for the allowed pull by another planet. I then calculated how far away a planet weighing 10 items as much as the earth (which would have a surface gravity of about 5g) would have to be to affect a planet with the same gravity pull as the moon exerts on our earth. This resulted in a minimum distance of about 11 million kilometers. An orbit at a distance of 1 AU from its sun (1AU is about 150 million kilometers, which is the distance between the sun and the earth) has a circumference of more than 900 million kilometers, so you could easily fit ten planets in there without any being too close. I can show you the exact math if you want, but I basically just abused newton's Law of universal gravitation.

(Disclaimer: I'm looking tat this from the point of real-world physics. As your world is a work of fiction, you are of course free to change things however you like) Okay, I haven't done any of the complete math, but the first issue that you'd run into is that planets that would be at a similar distance from the sun as the rings of Saturn are from Saturn would be extremely hot. The sun is about 10 times the size of Saturn, and Saturn's rings go from roughly 75,000 km to 150,000 km. If you'd scale that distance up, you'd get distances from 750,000 to 1,500,000 km. For comparison, mercury orbits the sun at a distance of about 60 million kilometer. Then there's the problem that developing solar systems don't usually develop planets in the same orbit, as usually one planet would just assimilate the other one during the process to form a bigger one. However, if these 10 planets would just be there, and are in a life-sustaining orbits, things wouldn't be too problematic. Tides would be really odd, and getting satellites in a stable orbit would be an interesting mathematical problem, but once the planets are there and assuming they either all share the exact same orbit or are spaced out enough that they wouldn't rip each-other apart when one passes another there wouldn't be too many physics related issue that I know of the top of my head. They would just be orbiting the sun as normal (if they didn't they'd just fall into the sun).

Yeah, that was definitely meant as a compliment.

Just wanted to point out that I did protect Elandara C5. I only forgot to submit a protection order C6 . Secondly, I'd like to once again apologize to @Eternum for dismissing him as being less experienced. Reading through the elim doc showed me how wrong I was, and it's not a mistake I'm likely to make again. Lastly, I'd like to say well played to the the elims. You got very close to pulling it off, but a couple of small thing (correct gut-read on Devotary on my part, and both Drought and Eternum voting on Devotary) made things fall apart. Having three roles that where hard-cleared village in a small game was also quite a boon. Edit: Oh, and I almost forgot to mention Bard and Elandera, who also did great work to get the village to win. Shortly after I claimed knight, they both got in contact with me and we set up a group PM in which we had some pretty useful discussion. In particular, the decision to manipulate the Drought/Elenion tie was made there, mostly by Bard, and I think it was this lynch that swung things in favor of the village.

The last of Melhi's bots had been cornered, but the cost had been steep. Less than a quarter of Kai's inner circle remained intact. As a knight, Cane should have been the first line of defense against invaders, the first to fight... and the first to fall. Instead he'd survived longer than almost any others, stumbling after the traces of the bots. And even cornered, this last creature didn't seem done yet. There was a glint in its eyes, like it knew something the rest of them didn't. "Well, to hell with this then." Cane muttered. He motioned for the Steward to step back, brought his sword up into a striking potion, and started to charge. *** Sure, you can and the thread now, Joe

Actually, as far as I could tell, there isn't a minimum vote necessary for the lynch(and you've got two against you), and when there is it is usually lifted in the final cycles (otherwise the game could be locked in an unending loop in the final stages depending on the roles left). We'll see how Joe rules though.

yeah, well done to Devotary. I'd been rather suspicious of you for these last two cycles, but when I reviewed your posts, I realized it was mostly based on gut and circumstantial evidence, so no real mistakes on your part as far as I can tell. Edit: @Elandera, don't forget to submit an action to move Devotary's vote back to him .

Welp, that seems rather cut and dried, Devotary.

[expletive], Elandara. you nearly gave me a heart attack with that last minute post

That's what I'm planning to do. I'll be around about an hour before turnover to adjust my vote if nessecary.

Okay, let's try to do some analysis to see if we can determine whether Devotary or Drought is evil. Because we killed Sophie, one of them is Sophie's last convert, and was converted in C4. I'll be looking at the posts of Drought, Devotary and Eternum for this analysis. Droughtbringer He posted once in C4, posting a light defense of Crimsn (who was innocent), and voting on Eternum (who we now know is Sophie). Eternum had no other votes that cycle, and crimsn already had 3 votes, so that could have been a fairly safe distancing vote, especially because he doesn't really bring forth any proof to incrimante Eternum, instead using the same process of elimination that I used to vote on crimsn that cycle. NAI In his C5 post, he makes an interesting mistake. He seems to assume that I think Devotary is Sophie, where I actually thought he was the convert. I didn't specify this thought, but Drought's comment suggests that he might not be aware of the elim team's composition. Slight village lean. There's also the fact that Eternum focused very heavily on Drought after I called him out on his vote on Devotary. It seemed to me that eh was trying to deflect the lynch towards drought, which wasn't that good of a tactic if Drought was the convert, as the lynch of the convert would have made a village win far easier than the loss of Sophie. This could just have been a last ditch effort to avoid being lynched with little regard for what would happen in the next cycle though. very slight village lean (on Drought). Devotary I've already commented on Devotary's C4 post, but on a re-read I'm even less suspicious of it. yes, Devotary made suggestions regarding the Knight's actions which is normally a red flag, but he didn't really try to influence me to act in a way that I wouldn't have had to act anyway. He'd also made similar suggestions before possibly getting converted. As the analysis of the post seemed genuine, I'm leaning very slightly village on him for this. I'm not really getting any sort of read from Devotary's posts C5, but as I explained when I voted on devotary this cycle, it's a bit less likely that Eternum would have made that vote against Devotary that resulted in his lynch if he and Drought had been team-mates. Slight elim lean. However, I don't think there's much need to try to guess which of these two people is evil. Allow me to present: Rand's plan V0.2 Instead of making the votes a tie, we'll leave them as they are now, with 2 on Drought and 1 on Devotary. Then @Elandera moves one of the votes on Drought to Devotary with her power. @Devotary of Spontaneity counters this by using his action to use the fiance's ability to roleblock Elandera (meaning that the vote remains on Drought). That way Devotary has to use his action to stay alive, so if he's an elim he either gets lynched, or can't kill (putting him at 1vs2 next cycle). If he isn't an elim then Drought is an elim, so he gets lynched. So, did I miss anything? If not, I suggest we stick with the above plan. Edit; I realize the plan above might seem a bit majory, or just generally cheesy to use the roles in such a way to force a no-lose situation for the village. I apologize for that, but it's the best way I can see to force a win when I seem to be light on information regarding my two main suspects.