New Britannia Astronomy

We know that astronomical events will play a big part in New Britannia. What we don't know is how detailed the lore surrounding these events and celestial bodies in general will be.

So the sake of discussion I'm less interested in the solar system and more interested in beyond. What constellations might there be? Is there anything official? If not then can the community come up with something that devs would be willing to incorporate into lore and the night sky?

It would be pretty cool to step out of your house at night.. look up at the sky and be able to find actual constellations you might have seen in a book in the town library.. or specific stars that have names.

From a technology standpoint all we're really talking is a well designed skybox where specific details have been laid out for players to find.

Along these lines I would like to make the first suggestion of naming NB's north star the "Soyuz". This idea came from the heraldry discussions beginning with the suggestion that a symbol called Soyuz be part of NB heraldry. The symbol we seemed to have settled on is an 8 point star which can also be a compass.

Also having the planets in the skybox I suppose would also be appropriate.

If specific constellations aren't planned it would still be pretty cool if the community came up with some on their own post-launch. Surely there must be more than enough astronomy geeks out there.

In keeping with the intention of this and other threads I'll make a list here of what we've discussed and try to keep it updated.

Specific Stars
The north star - Soyuz

Constellations
The Oracle - includes Soyuz
Hourglass - No special meaning? a vague nod to the Time Lord
The Dragon -

 

I really do hope they implement some form of "realistic" movement of stars, planets, and mooons. Not a realistic sim, but the illusion of one is perfectly fine.

Anyways, this snippet from this post might help with some of the backstory around celestial events and New Britannia culture, lore.

TH:
I was just looking at our past history section here. We talk about the fall of the cities, we talk about the fall of the sky. Very often you'll come into a game like this and you'll come across ruins, everybody's got to have ruins, and Richard and I want to know, why were they built here and who built them here and why function here at all.

RG:
And why have they fallen into ruin.

TH:
And why they have fallen into ruin. For my entire career in life in fantasy, I'm the kind of guy who would look at a building and wonder who built that? And why did they build that here and why did they build it this particular way? So a lot of the work that we've been here has been in terms of these centuries long process that has led us up from the fall and back towards civilization and how those civilizations have evolved here.
We see the grouping of fallen civilizations and the people that are there. We see the resurgence of magic in a new way. Because of the calamities that has taken place, magic and the foundations of magic itself have all changed. And how do the old school wizards deal with that or do they deal with that. What happened to the knowledge that was after the fall and how does it develop into new knowledge in terms of powers and abilities.

RG:
In fact if I can add to that very briefly too, specifically in the area of the backstory and how it relates to magic. For those familiar with my previous works you're familiar with the kind of intrinsic connection between the astrology and astronomy of the world and the manifestation of magic. Cities would appear and disappear based on the astronomical alignment and moon phases. If you scramble up a fair bit of what's happening in the heavens, it'd makes sense that would scramble up a bit of what's happening on the ground and especially in the areas of magic.
And so that allows us to reform magic, well, that has both an echo to the past so that the structures and principles of reagents and Logos words of power and recipes within which to make them is still a traditional metaphor but allows us to introduce new elements, new reagents, new words into that pantheon to give it a fresh perspective as well. And it also gives us the story based excuse to suppress or depress the previous powerful characters of the world and let a new pantheon rise to power.

 

In DragonLance the constellations (and moons), were Gods. If a constellation disapeared, it was because the God had left the heavens, either to visit the world of Krynn, or perhaps for a more serious reason (like they were killed or literally gave up on the world).

The combination of Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott would lead one to assume that some similar may be afoot.

 

That is definitely something to consider. That said, will they necessarily retread the same thought process?

 

I don't think there needs to be anything especially mystical about the stars. It simply seems natural that a culture would come up with constellations and names for stars that stand out to them. Their very existance isn't something that needs to be explained.

 

Yet we know that the moondial will have some kind of function that will be useful to players in the game, correct? That speaks to me as the stars have more meaning than just being in the sky.

 

But the moondial is 'local'.. it only applies to the solar system.. and they didn't even include all the planets like I think was originally planned. The only 'star' on he moondial is the sun.

 

Name of Constellation: Teddy
Image: Tiny bear on fire holding a card
Symbolic Meaning: Neverending Controversy
History: Avatars endlessly squabbling over those who kill, those who do not kill, and the very means in which they kill or do not kill reached such epic uproar that it literally stained the sky. It is said that when it rains, it is the heavens weeping for having to bare such a scar. An ugly, unrelenting, exhausting scar...



Hmmm, I don't know. The avatars are already invading this new realm. Perhaps, at least for a while, most of the sky should belong to the beings already there. I'm sure the fauns of Midmaer would have a couple of constellations. The sailors that "brave the Bay of Storms" would definitely name a few just in order to position themselves while sailing at night. Would the Kobolds have their own mythology that could be seen in the stars? And then there are the Vertas people, or Elves. I can see them with an extensive history for the sky.

So I guess that I'm leaning towards a more "official" lore. Something deep and rich that tie the different races and people together. Most of the sky should already be spoken for. It should take some time for us, the avatars, to steal the sky as well as their land and resources. Oh yeah...they are going to loooooove us...

 

Ok, just a stream of thoughts here, so...

Because of the cataclysm, the world of New Britannia was forever changed. Their views on magic and the virtues have changed. They've been deeply affected by that event and are forever reminded of it whenever they look up and see the shattered moon of Daedelus. It would seem logical that the stars they see would affect their views of what's happening back on land.

Perhaps more than ever, they base their systems of belief based on what they see every night. A parallel we see here on Earth are the backstories given to the constellations. Could it be that the virtues that we used to know have been reframed in regards to the very constellations? Perhaps they've assigned highly visible stars to three principles of Love, Truth and Courage. Each star rising and falling at different times, perhaps seasonally visible. And the 8 virtues as we once knew them are now each their own constellation.

As each principle rises in the night sky, so do the mindset of the people under which it casts its light. When none are present, how do the people react? Are they genereally more fearful during those times?

Richard had said "if you scramble up a fair bit of what's happening in the heavnes, it'd make sense that would scramble up a bit of what's happening on the ground and especially in the areas of the magic". Because of that, the resurgence of magic in New Britannai and the people's view of them could ebb and flow with the constellations in the sky. Their ideas on what the virtues represent are then tied to what they see in the night sky and what's happening on the ground. This puts a twist on how they see particular virtues. Perhaps they don't mean anything like we expect, maybe even the opposite. Perhaps a horrific event happened in New Britannia while the constellation of Valor (for example) was up, and now Valor is not the same as we think. And whenever Valor is up in the sky, the people react in ways which we traditionally would not expect nor understand.

 

I guess they could do this.
Kind of like the shadows now, the stars could circle through the sky.
Any lights should dim out the stars.
But at times with no sun, moon or city lights around the stars should really shine out.
I'm guessing they have the moon on a schedule for the gates right? Or do the gates work all the time?
Other then that who knows what else they might be used for.

 

If they are looking for something special or unique, perhaps a comet can cross the sky once or twice a year. Its arrival could be celebrated with a great festival.

Name: The Comet Akalabeth
Symbolic Meaning: The beginning of a great journey.
Meaning for the common man: The passing of the comet allows one to examine the role that he plays in the game of life and if he ultimately wishes to change it.

Bowen, perhaps throw that in for NB Heraldry?

 

I have been thinking about comets myself actually.. the old Britannia solar system did have a comet.. so unless it crashed into something it's still there. I wonder though just how many people outside of acedemic circles know about it? I am unaware if it was ever given a name though. I do recall it played a significant role in astronomical events but I don't remember precisely what that was.. something about what planet it was near at any given time I think.

Was it in Ultima V? I seem to remember being able to use a telescope or something to look in the sky and it would indicate which cities the shadowlords were in... maybe it was 3 comets?

Some other thoughts I had on constellations in general.. with so much world history lost to the cataclysm.. wouldn't that include knowledge of the stars? On the other hand.. did no one think to save any books when they went underground? And might not have Lord British retaught some of what was lost?

It seems like a no brainer to have constellations for the virtures.. so much to the point that I'm inclined so suggest it be avoided.. at least in the sense of using tradional virtue symbols.. .. many constellations represent legendary/mythical people more than objects.. So I suppose some of my suggestions would be..

The Avatar / Hero
The Paladin
The Warrior
The Shepherd
The Mage
The Tinker / Artisan (prefering artisan now actually.. recall that tinkers were also craftsmen and artisans also made their home in Minoc)
The Druid
The Bard
The Serpents (order/chaos/balance). These are supposed to be actual beings so..
The Gypsie
The Seer

Possibly renaming some of them to make them less obvious.

 

Perhaps instead of generic archetypes they would assign those to major characters in the story that we might learn about or even meet in the game.

And you're right, the knowledge of what once was, regarding not just the stars and constellations but of virtues and magic, before the cataclysm may be lost and new ones may have been created by people when they emerged from underground. Just as many cultures throughout human history have created their own stories of those same celestial bodies.

 

If there are suitable characters in the lore to name constellations after rather than archtypes I think that would be ideal. I was thinking of that avatar's companions but we can't really use those names I don't think.

Doh.. I forgot the Ranger/woodsman.

The problem right now is we don't know much lore yet. I might be interesting to have a writing contest for the community to come up with lore for various constellations. Write a story where the main character is someone a constellation was named after. That is assuming of course that lore hasn't already been fleshed out.

 

In Ultima 5, comets near one of the planets meant that Shadowlords were threatening the town associated with that planet.

The comets were supposed to have begun again just before Ultima IX as well. There was no "singular" comet, which would make a nice addition to the skyline. It might be confused with a Game of Thrones reference, however.

In Lynn Abbey's Ultima saga, there was a constellation called the Lazy Hunter, which was a ranger lying on his back near the horizon.

For other celestial bodies, the Sosarian Solar System is pretty well established. In the stars, The Ankh appeared when the Avatar ascended, and the Hammer of Tulur was mentioned in the Ultima IX guide.

 

After viewing a 3d model of the moondial there are two planets with their own orbital satellites. Maybe we could suggest naming them after something from Sojourner and Star Citizen games.
Also in the game do we know if the moondail is called a Darkstarr Moondial. If so, is this named after the NB citizen who built it? Or is it a reference to a ‘dark star’ in the system? Both?

 

I'm assuming Starr's character in the game will be "Lord DarkStarr", since thats his usual MMO name (and Lord Blackthorn probably can't be used). Having him be a patron of astronomers, and perhaps the occult, would be very cool.

 

What if SotA and SC were in the same universe! You'd fly your ship to New Britannia and if you try to land on the planet, it launches the SotA client

 

Should the constellations give any benefit to certain skills based on the time of the year?
http://tinyurl.com/nqza6gy

 

The ulitmate easter egg.