NB Astronomy 101 *SPOILERS*

I've been paying much closer attention to the night sky these days and I've a few observations I thought I'd share.

Now before I begin.. I'm NOT hiding spoilers. There's a reason I put "*SPOILERS*" in the topic. And one of the main reasons I put that there is that I very well might, in all likelihood post screenshots of my findings and some people may prefer to figure out the constellations on their own.

First the basics..

There are basically two types of objects in the sky. "Planets" and constellations.

"Planets" or moons as of R20 all orbit on the same plane and travel through the sky from East to West reaching their apex in the northern sky. There are a total of 9 including Daedelus. Apart from Daedelus they each correspond to the 8 virtues and are colored accordingly.

Officially, the planets have no yet been named. They may yet either be named after the virtues or after the corresponding vices.. either plainly or from latin roots or whatever Richard fancies.. but the point is they aren't named yet.

Constellations differ from planets in their behavior through the skies.. while planets all travel at different speeds, constellation travel speeds are constant. I have identified what I believe to be at least 10 or 11 constellations and one possible. That being said there seems to be a few more so I'm not sure of the total number.

8 of the constellations directly reflect the 8 virtues and are based on the virtue symbols from Ultima. Hand for Honestly, Heart for Compassion, Sword of Valor etc. There are also constellations for Chaos, Order and Virtue.. the last two I'm not entirely sure which is which.. but I am sure they are one and the other. Of the 8 virtues I'm a little unsure of the Crook but the other 7 I'm 100% on.

The constellations travel from West to East, oddly enough but also reach their apex in the northern sky. As such.. the southern sky doesn't seem to have much in it.

Because of the odd arrangement and not having identified yet how the skybox itself moves (assuming it does) I am having difficulty pinpoint the constant star (if there is one).. being Soyeuz.. this was the name we came up with for the 'north star' of New Britannia some time ago when we were talking about both astronomy and heraldry. So assuming this star exists it will be fun to find it.

 

I don't have much to say about the planets themselves. Is there more symbolism here than we might at first imagine? Is there some reason 'Justice' is broken? Or 'Spirituality' has a hole in it? Or was it just Richard's fancy to make them that way? I'll leave that to the philosophers.

What we do know so far is that there is significance to both planetary alignments.. and when planets pass through a constellation. I will point out that as to the latter event.. constellations do not travel on the same plane as planets do.. however their respective planes seem to intersect at their northern apex. So look for planets crossing constellations in the northern most skies.


Blue - Truth/Honestly

Yellow - Love/Compassion

Red - Courage/Valor

Green - Justice

Orange - Sacrifice

White - Spirituality

Ok these two are Purple and Black.. but which is which? Now the 'dumbell' as some people call it has been brightened up in a photoshop so it's closer to black in-game.. but the purple of the "whirlpool" could just be emphasizing that black hole in the middle. So take your pick.. I think they could go either way..

Purple is Honor
Black is Humility

Note: The 'whirlpool' may have a buggy orbital path. It is the slowest moving 'planet' and so easier to track.. I have noted that once it sets in the West.. it was very quick to reappear in the East. I could be wrong but I think it bears further observation.

Orbital Distances & Speeds.

Still collecting data but while the 'whirlpool' is the slowest.. taking several days to cross the sky.. the 'dumbbell' and Orange are noticeably faster than the other planets.

It is also noteworthy that relative speed does not correlate with distance apparently as faster planets have been observed passing behind slower ones. Bug or not? Who can tell?

 

One of the more interesting things I've noted about constellations is that several of them.. particularly the virtues.. are basically lined up in a straight line across their path through the sky.


The Hand (Truth/Honesty)

The Heart (Love/Compassion)

The Sword (Courage/Valor) - This is actually sideways.. at it's apex the blade points up.

The Scales - Justice

The Tear - Sacrifice

The Chalice - Honor

The previous constellations appear in the order presented.


The Crook - Humility.

The Ankh - Spirituality


This is either virtue or order. 3 interconnecting circles.

If you look closely this is the symbol on all the quest hats. Basically the infinity loop with a line through the center. Edit: If my understanding is right this is Ethical Hedonism.


Chaos

There are what appear to be other constellations that really stand out in the sky but I haven't the foggiest idea what they are (yet).

 

Oh.. since I posted this I might as well add I'm currently planning a weekly astronomy event. As soon as I get around to settling on a time and post it to the calendar.

 

Great work!
In spite of what is written in various places, I've asked Richard about the virtue symbols twice, and he confirms that both the ankh and the ethical hedonism symbol represent the virtues, but he doesn't give me details.
I'm pretty sure the three interlocking circles are the swords from the cover of Blade of the Avatar.
The circle with dot in the center seems to me to be a circle of eight stones with a moonstone in the middle, but you are probably correct that it is meant to be chaos.

 

Excellent record of your observations Bowen! Being fairly new to the game (arrived just prior to R20) I've been concentrating more on the combat and crafting areas of the game, and haven't really thought much about the astronomy aspect yet. I've certainly noticed a few of the cool night sky views with planets and constellations, etc. But I never even gave it a thought to track it or even identify anything up there.

You however have made some great observations and have laid a firm foundation for all of us to build on. Perhaps you should add these findings to the SOTAWiki (if you haven't already done so)? Then others could help out with this grand discovery you've got going here!

Either way, keep up the good work. I'll be following along here and might even try to peer up there more often to see what's going on myself.

 

I hope we can all buy Bowen's Book of Astronomy in game some day!

 

Bowen you have found 2 more constellations than I had. Well done. I attribute that to time in game
I will pass on any info I make note of,concerning the movements and objects, your way to assist your endeavors.

 

BTW: I've scheduled an 'astronomy event' for every Friday evening if anyone cares to come along. May adjust times depending on what works best for the most people.

 

Ok new observation. It seems the constellations come in 2 rows. The virtues passing the northern sky at their apex.. and another set orientated for the southern sky.. although this set's apex is essentially directly overhead. The "2nd" virtue symbol belongs to the 2nd and I believe I've figured out the 3 constellations that follow it.


The Bell - Courage


The Candle - Love


The Book - Truth


If this is accurate than the Sword, Heart and Hand should be considered to represent only their respective virtue and not the corresponding principle as those would be represented by these 3 constellations.

To further comment I believe any other constellations will also be very specific to known/recognizable symbols.

One of the reasons I have for believing these to be accurate are there relative proximity to each other and also to the 2nd virtue symbol.

 

I don't think Bowen will be writing his own book.. though he might. Rather you might expect to find Astronomy among the topics in the Encyclopedia New Britannia.

 

Are you being facetious or are there really plans create an encyclopedia "new" brittania in game? If not someone should, that's pretty clever!

 

The idea came up at the first Scholar's Book Faire and I was crazy enough to start exploring the idea as a project for the Scholars of Novia. It's meant to be an on-going project well after launch. So I wouldn't say there are "official plans" but yeah.. it's something I'd like to do as part of the Scholars. I've actually written a sort of proof on concept book that's already in-game.. NB Encyclopedia - Holidays v1. Though I haven't distributed it yet, I am planning on doing so from the public vendors "soon". I just need to publish a few copies first.

 

That's pretty cool man. It's backers like you that will make this game really stand out. Now if they would only fix that combat bug (my abilities keep popping up and down like a deck of dominoes)...

 

Will it have a big red "Don't Panic" button?

 

I don't think it's going to be THAT kind of series.. but it would be most amusing if someone wrote one. No the encyclopedia is intended to be serious and "in character" for the world. Like something a native would write.

Incidentally, for anyone who'd like to help out with the project feel free to PM me.

 

So much win in this thread.

 

Excellent work, Bowen! I hinted at some of these in the other night sky thread, but you found a couple more I hadn't yet spotted.

Unless they changed it recently (I last checked a couple releases ago), the skybox does move and it takes two weeks for a full rotation. The entire night sky is a strip that is wrapped on a sphere with the flat plane of Novia (...and Vale) cutting it in half. This is why there's so much distortion, especially at the horizon.

The milky way is a vertical band and the constellations are placed on either side of it, with switching sides once you past the middle. So imagine half the constellations on one side and as you scan vertically up/down and cross the milky way center, the rest of the constellations are on the other side.

Yep, I have noticed this as well. For the time being, I'm not going to consider any orbital motion of the planets as correct in any way, and I really don't know about their current object/representation. But you got some good analysis there.

The planets do not orbit in alignment with the vertical strip of the milky way and is offset, thus allowing it to be in various stages of occultation with each other and the constellations behind it. This means even though we will see the entire night sky rotate over two Earth weeks (one Novia year), it will take much longer to get the right set of conditions to cover every combination of planet/constellation alignment/occultation. Perhaps even 1 Earth year (26 in Novia)...or much longer still.

 

I suspect major events like a full planetary alignment will occur only once an Earth year. I suspect it won't be very fruitful to actually try to track everything now as I doubt the sky is in its final state. If the moondial is any indication we should expect some planets to orbit on a different plane than others. That is if I remember right.. I don't seem to have one handy at the moment. Then again it might be redesigned to match the current sky also.

 

Yeah, just for yucks I really wanted to do that full 2-week timelapse, but I haven't found a practical way to keep the client "active" so the idle timer won't log me off. It would be interesting to see the mechanics sped up to see if there's any logic to it at all. I think there is, but you're right, it's likely not final.

I also noticed that the skybox is offset (by quite a bit actually) depending on if you see it from the Vale or Novia at the same time of the evening. That's likely just a bug, as I doubt they are modeling it that accurately.