Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman
There are some easy checks for it being a planet. Star altitudes from two locations with a few hundred miles of north-south separation will give you its approximate radius, and a Foucault Pendulum will tell you if it's rotating. |
Well, this is why they believe it's a planet. All the tests they can do give results consistent with it being a planet of general Earth-like structure and size.
It's the fact that all the other worlds they've visited tend
not to be which makes them skeptical, especially as some of these other worlds have magical effects that produce apparent stars without having the decency to have the kind of space that would be normal; or show evidence of having seasons, tides and even continental drift without orbiting a sun, having a moon or actually having any kind of physical structure that makes sense.
Germania Hyperborea seems to be none of these things, thankfully, but before anyone has managed to circumnavigate it and take careful measurements, none of the physicists, astronomers and other experts in fields which are shockingly hard done by in most of the worlds the ASNs visit, are prepared to assert anything positively.
As one of them no doubt said, there is no test that he can perform which will tell them whether any part of
Germania Hyperborea that is not under their direct observation might not be simply the invention of a bored imp of vast power, who has dedicated its capricious existence to falsifying experimental results and convincing them that they are in fact finally on a planet, when they are simply exploring yet another non-Euclidean dimension that is simply more cleverly disguised as a planet.
The stars are not just
wrong in the sense that they don't match any known year on Earth. They are wrong in the sense that whatever exists out in that space might not even be real or if it is, it might not be in any way similar to the conditions in the space around our Earth.
Edit: Well, actually, now that I consider it, I guess that some enterprising airship commander
has probably managed to circumnavigate
Germania Hyperborea in a well-supplied zeppelin powered by an Elemental Furnace, at some point between Year 25 to 51. To be certain in his navigation, there would have been not only
Hexensoldat rune-casters on board, but also a dowser of some power and a magi learned in many different traditions. They'd have homed in on landmarks using magic and checked all celestial navigation, even by the sun, against divinations and dowsing.
Obviously, the exploration our intrepid ASN explorer could perform in foreign lands was pretty limited, as he had to stay fairly high to avoid potential magical threats from locals, but he'd at least have collected visual impressions and started on mapping. And long before circumnavigation, there would have been expeditions to confirm that topography followed similar outlines as Earth all the way from the analogue of the Atlantic Coast of Eurasia in the west to the Caucasus mountains in the east, from the Arctic circle to the Mediterranean analogue.
And possibly somewhat further south than that, though that starts to get pretty dangerous before ASN zeppelins can reliably cruise the entire trip without ever having to land, as there are powerful sorcerers on the southern shores of the Mediterranean analogue and most of them don't like the ASNs.
It's true that magic on
Germania Hyperborea is generally not as dramatic and kinetic as it is on some of the more overtly fantastic worlds and rarely as useful for mayhem as technology, at least not on a combat time-scale, at any rate not outside Places of Power (which tend to surround magical gateways, however).
And certainly no single magician could reach out over thousands of feet and bring down an airship. But there is still a risk that a circle of powerful practitioners might manage to curse the vessel or the crew in some way and cause them bad luck and even accidents. And without the ability to land, any accident might be fatal. Even subtly spoiled water, which
could be done at a range, might be rapidly fatal to a crew without the magical might to cleanse it.
Any preference for the exact year or at least an approximate date range the ASNs made their first circumnavigation of
Germania Hyperborea?
And which routes he took?
Or if there should have been several expeditions by now, each taking a slightly different route?
I'm personally partial to the first circumnavigation having been recent, only after TL5^ Elemental Furnaces had been adopted and the kinks worked out. Before that, the speeds were too low for anyone to try, as they'd not have been able to avoid any possible native culture which had some flying mounts or something else that threatened airships.
I'd like the zeppelin
Parsifal to have done it, maybe in Year 49 or so. They're planning another circumnavigation that will follow another route, but there is a fairly powerful ASN faction arguing that the exploration of other worlds is more important.
There is no arguing that it is generally more profitable, as the ASNs have little material to gain from discovering something valuable located thousands of kilometers of terrain from one of their magical gates or any access to the World Tree. It's just quicker, easier and more practical to find a new world with that resource and set up a settlement around the gate.