Quote:
Originally Posted by wallcraft
If gravity is about the same as on earth then the planet is less dense. This is possible, within limits, see ardeegee's chart. There would likely be less mine-able metal.
|
Likely less metal in the planet overall, but it's possible some twist of nature (especially if magic is involved) has put a number of those metals near the surface. Being a metal-poor planet need not affect a medievalesque fantasy society; they may have plenty of metals for their purposes.
Quote:
The Moon has a huge effect on the length of the day (slowing down Earth's rotation over time), and a Moon as large is ours is thought to be rare. So I would say that the day would more likely to be shorter than longer, but "about the same" is ok because there is so much variation.
|
And there's the option of multiple moons, pulling the planet into whatever cycle the author wishes. Two or three small moons, the readers might argue about gravitational pulls; throw in six moons of varying sizes, and nobody's done that math, and nobody can if their distances aren't given. Make one of them rich in a magical metal, and you can get away with a lot of handwaving.
It comes down to "how much detail is going to matter?" In a normal fantasy world, the characters have no idea how big the world is--they deal with a kingdom, maybe a continent. Maybe two. The total surface space of the planet is irrelevant. But any details that are given need to be consistent, need to make sense for those readers who do care about the hard science aspects... if the sun is 5,000 miles away and you can reach it on the back of a thunder-bird, you're outside of "high fantasy" and into "extreme wacky magic-world," and the plots need to hinge on aspects that the readers can understand, like character interactions, rather than aspects of physics or geography like "can we reach the temple before the enemy army does." (If you can fly to the sun, the readers will wonder why you can't teleport to the temple.)
Pratchett pulls of discworld by making readers care about, and the stories hinge on, the characters, not the speed of travel down the Ankh or the durability of the stones used to make the pyramids. If the size of the world *matters*, the science behind it needs to be solid. If it doesn't matter, it may never get mentioned, even if the author knows how much space is involved.