THE TWIN MOONS OF ORLANTIA

In the course of creating Orlantia, I had naturally given it a moon; in fact, two moons. Folar, the inner moon, (also sometimes spelled Pholar), has an orbital period of exactly 10-days. A day, coincidentally, is still 24 standard Earth hours on Orlantia, thus avoiding the problem of a radically different time frame. The outer moon, Septer (also sometimes spelled Scepter), has an orbital period of exactly 20-days. Since both moons are in the same orbital plane, which, by the way, is different from the ecliptic, ( the plane containing the center of Gimarian (this solar system's sun) and the center of Orlantia at any given time), but identical to Orlantia's equatorial plane, both moons will eclipse one another every 20-days. They both have the same angular size in the sky and so appear to be nearly identical and of the same size, just as Earth's moon and Earth's sun, Sol, appear to be the same size. Beyond that, I didn't need to know anything else. Unfortunately, I had assigned some arbitrary sizes and distances to these moons, not quite realizing once their periods were fixed and Orlantia's mass was known, the distances to the moons were also determined, not arbitrarily, but by Kepler's Laws. In particular, GMT^2/(4(pi)^2)=D^3.

Thankfully no story line had yet been written concerning these numbers, and so I was able to correct my mistakes before they became a problem. Using Kepler's laws I determined the distances to Folar and Septer to be 34,393.28 miles and 54,595.93 miles respectively. By comparison, Earth's moon is about 239,000 miles away. Since it turned out that Orlantia's moons were outside the Roche limit, where tidal forces would tear them apart if they were inside it, I didn't have a problem and was able to proceed.

I next turned my attention to the two moon's angular size. The arbitrary sizes I had previously given them resulted in an angular size of about 1-degree at those distances. That's nearly twice our moon's angular size and I didn't want that. I therefore reduced their size to about 0.6-degrees of arc, just a little bigger than the 0.5-degrees of arc for Earth's moon. Thus, even though Orlantia's moons are both smaller than Earth's, because Folar and Septer are considerably closer, they appear to be a little bigger. To be exact, the diameters of Folar, Septer, and Earth's moon are 180 miles, 286 miles, and 1080 miles respectively. Now that I think about it, these moons would appear to be slightly larger than Gimarian, Orlantia's sun, but that's O.K.

Next, I decided to determine their masses. I was concerned that these numbers may have necessarily been somehow fixed by other previously determined parameters and would work out to be wholly unrealistic; but this was not the case. A moon's mass would be determined if one could observe where the barycenter would be. The barycenter is that center of mass point which both masses appear to orbit. Usually, this is nearly the same as the center of the much more massive object, or at any rate, sufficiently close to its center such that most people wouldn't notice. Since it wasn't predetermined, I arbitrarily set them to be at the surface of the 125-km radius spherical wall of force deep inside Orlantia for the moon Folar, and at the surface of Orlantia itself for Septer. After a little number crunching I discovered the masses of the moons would therefore need to be 3.04329 x 10^23 grams and 1.463855 x 10 ^24 grams giving them average densities of 2.98 g/cm^3 and 3.59 g/cm^3. Finally, I placed the orbital plane of the moons in the same plane of Orlantia's equator. This plane was at an angle of about 20-degrees to the ecliptic, similar to Earth's 23.5-degrees, thus, giving rise to the seasons on Orlantia. Since all of this is comparable to Earth and Earth's moon, and therefore perfectly reasonable (I assume), I left it at that. It should, of course, be noted the moons, when eclipsing one another, which happens 20 times a year, will be at identical, but varying degrees of fullness at the time of the eclipses throughout the Orlantian year. Also, the only time both moons are full during their eclipse happens to be the first of the year that is at the spring equinox. So one thing to remember is that the new year begins as spring starts rather than in the middle of the dead of winter. I think all of this works out, but I haven't made a computer model or anything to be sure. Oh well.

The important thing here was only to preserve the orbital periods of 10-days and 20-days for the moons (seems like an awful lot of work to just get there, but I do these things sometimes just for the hell of it as it may only take a few hours of calculations). These periods were important because much had been played and written concerning the Orlantian calendar. It turns out the orbit of Orlantia around Gimarian is 399 days, 21 hours, 31 minutes, and 28 seconds, or 3.4551088 x 10^7 seconds. This gives rise to the convenient 100 day seasons. Better still, the 400-day year divides up nicely into twenty, 20-day months. Each SEPTER month is the orbit of the outer moon Septer, and each of those contain two FOLAR weeks, or a 10-day week, which is the orbit of the inner moon Folar. Thus each year contains 400-days, or 20 Septers, or 40 Folars. (This has two noticeable effects for the culture in general. One; 10, 20, and 40 tend to be considered holy numbers; and two; many mathematically inclined people tend to know their multiplication tables up to 20 times 20 in the same way that most of us know ours up to 10 times 10.

Not that it matters, but the practicality of a decimal based system is used wherever I can. I've used it in the Imperial coins, where it is very important, and in the subdivisions of time units for an Orlantian day, where it isn't very important since converting from them to seconds and hours and vice versa would be such a great pain that we don't play that way. It is, however, important to know how the system is set up even if we tend to ignore it. So we don't convert from Orlantian units to English or Metric units. I'm sure it would take all the fun out of the game to do so. Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness, here are the subdivisions anyway.

Every year contains 400-days or 4 seasons. Every season contains 100 days or 5 Septers. Every Septer contains 20-days or 2 Folars. Every Folar contains 10-days. Every day, which is still 24 standard hours, contains 10 watches. That's 5 daytime and 5 nighttime watches. Every watch contains 10 zons, each zon being 14.4 minutes long. Every zon contains 10 breaths, each breath being 1.44 minutes long. This name, historically speaking, comes from the average length of time the first emperor of the empire could hold his breath without first hyperventilating. Now every breath contains 10 bits, each bit being 8.64 seconds long. The expression "Wait a bit" is pretty popular on this planet. Finally, every bit contains 10 beats, each beat being 0.864 seconds long. Again, the name of the beat resulted from the fact that the first emperor's average heartbeat was almost identically equal to 1/100th of a breath. This, by the way, works out to give that emperor a resting heart rate of about 70-beats/ minute, or 100 beats/breath. Lest you get the wrong idea here, the actual times were determined by the decimal divisions of the day, so only their names were determined by their close approximations to the emperor's breaths and beats.

Since the moons are like a giant clock in the sky, it is unusual for any surface dwelling society on Orlantia not to be aware of them and utilize their remarkable, almost artificial precision as the basis of their calendars. Whether or not these periods are artificial is still open to debate. The leading argument for their NATURAL origin is the imperfect period of Orlantia around Gimarian. It is argued that a creator of such an artificial system would have made the year EXACTLY 400-days long rather than NEARLY 400-days long. The leading arguments for their ARTIFICIAL origin is the fact that since the moons are in resonance they should perturb one another and throw themselves out of such a beautiful synchronization. They don't do this, however, and therefore there must be a reason why. Some speculate the moons may either both be positively or both be negatively charged to the degree necessary to exactly counter balance their gravitational attraction for one another with an equally strong electromagnetic repulsion. Or by similar reasoning, they may have equal magnetic poles of sufficient strength to counter their mutual gravitational attractions. Others who are less concerned with such things simply think the gods keep them that way, which may very well be the case. Oh well.

It is perhaps an interesting point to know the above speculation on the moons, coupled with the interplanetary teleportation network and an influx of off worlders, has made spherical planets, solar systems, galaxies, and galactic structure in general, almost common knowledge among the masses. That is, asking an ignorant farmer "What planet is this?" is not as shocking as you might think.

Furthermore, it is assumed that sages and magic users have, in addition to their other skills, a reasonable body of knowledge that would at least approximate what one might learn in an American high school physics course in addition to their other considerable knowledge. Of course CERTAIN knowledge found in such a course ISN'T common or known to the inhabitants of Orlantia. Here are some examples of things they do know. The limiting speed of light while confined to the PMP. Laws of universal gravitation on the PMP. Galactic structure. Static charges, magnetism, and the attraction and repulsion between these things. Here are some examples of things they wouldn't know. The critical mass of fissionable material. What fissionable material is, anyway. The application of electricity. Some extremely clever, though anti social uses of gunpowder. Gun powder. The cultural mind set tends to look to magic rather than technology to solve complex problems, and coupled with their agrarian based economy, all this naturally tends to preserve a world with a more medieval flavor.

THE CALENDAR OF ORLANTIA

Now, as I have previously mentioned, Orlantia's year is nearly 400-days long. As a result of being short of exactly 400 days, minor corrections needed to be added - similar to Earth's calendars requiring leaps years and additional corrections every few centuries, Orlantian calendars needed a few adjustments as well. On Orlantia, the corrections work out like this:

If a year is divisible by 10, skip one day in that year, unless it's also divisible by 300 when you would skip 2-days in that year. However, if the year is also divisible by 5,400, then just skip 1-day instead of the normal 2 for that year, for that particular 300-year cycle. The actual days skipped are in the last Folar of the year. The 20th day of every Septer should coincide with the eclipse of Folar and Septer. Therefore, the actual days skipped are the last ones possible so the 20th, or last day of the month, has an eclipse. Thus, many 19th days are skipped. This is why it is oddly considered lucky to have a birthday that actually falls on any 19th day of any month.

The years in which the 1-day is skipped are called skip years, giving us a skip year once every decade. The 2-day skip years are called leap years, giving us a leap year once every 3 centuries. Since Orlantian years are too short, whereas Earth years are too long, days are skipped on Orlantia and added on Earth.

All of those corrections mean the calendar is never off by more than one day. This system of years began at the formation of the empire, roughly 750 years ago, so the tertiary correction every 5,400 years has yet to be done even once. Further corrections beyond every 5,400 years would eventually be required, but it's unlikely to happen. Every 5,400 years puts the system off by only 22.464 seconds. Thus, it would take about 3,846 of those 5,400-year cycles, or nearly 20.77 million years to be off by more than a single day, and the Alodarian Empire isn't that arrogant. These problems were studied and the Council of Knorr, 18 A.E., made this system of corrections.

Since a Folar is a natural division, and since it is 10-days long, it was only natural that a 10-day week develop. On Orlantia, or at least in the Alodarian Empire, the 10-day workweek is divided into about 7 days of work with a 3-day weekend. In actual practice, most people work 7.5 days, with a half-day off somewhere, and then relax and party during a two-day weekend. At month's end, during the eclipse of Folar and Septer, many holy days and high holy days occur. So, every month, the population of the Empire is party hardy for about 2.5 to 3-days. All national holidays also occur during these times, as well as most holy days. As a general rule, it's harder to conduct business as usual at the end of any given month since many shops close up. There are, of course, exceptions, particularly those shops that sell food and drink and jewelry, of all things - i.e. party supplies and presents or holy sacrifices. Also, entertainment is open, and theaters and plays and operas and what not do more business than normal.