Sunrise

[D]

For my build of Apple Lane, I was trying to workout if the stars faded at sunrise or just blinked out, when something else occurred to me, because Yelm rises through the gates of dawn, it should go from total dark to dawn light almost immediately, with no predawn glow, or at the most, a beam of light shining through the gates that gradually gets wider as Yelm gets neared the gate.

has the hive mind got any thoughts?

[Nick Brooke]

Nah, that doesn't work for me. Sunrise looks like sunrise. Why mess with perfection?

[D]

7 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Nah, that doesn't work for me. Sunrise looks like sunrise. Why mess with perfection?

I kind of agree and it makes my life easier, but in a world where the sun rises through a hole in the ground, surely it would be different?

[Richard S.]

The world is flat but still has a horizon, the sky dome's dimensions shouldn't be possible (at least from the latest math I've looked at, might have been outdated), and in general everything runs on hopes, dreams, and copious amounts of drugs. The dawn probably looks like a dawn.

Also iirc Yelm's daughter paints the sky to look like the dawn when he rises, it's not an effect of the light and atmosphere or what have you.

[jajagappa]

23 minutes ago, D said:

because Yelm rises through the gates of dawn, it should go from total dark to dawn light almost immediately, with no predawn glow, or at the most, a beam of light shining through the gates that gradually gets wider as Yelm gets neared the gate.

has the hive mind got any thoughts?

As Nick notes, it should look like sunrise.

And there is mythic precedent for this with the Silver Age - the period of Godtime from the point where the Great Compromise was achieved to Yelm's release from the Underworld.  From the empty sky of the Great Darkness, the stars returned, then the light of Dawn grew in the east to announce Yelm's return ahead of him, and then the Sun's emergence from the Gates of Dawn.

(Same for sunset, Yelm's descent with his courtiers bleeding behind him, and Rausa rising in the Dusk even as the minions of Xentha blanketed the Sky.)

[D]

I'm glad I was over thinking it.

thank you

[French Desperate WindChild]

20 minutes ago, D said:

I'm glad I was over thinking it.

thank you

in all cases, it is a good question. A very different world may have the same effect than ours, but that "needs" a gloranthan reason (well... for those who have the question in mind of course)

 

[Baron Wulfraed]

1 hour ago, D said:

I kind of agree and it makes my life easier, but in a world where the sun rises through a hole in the ground, surely it would be different?

Just a WAG -- if the atmosphere doesn't disperse light one wouldn't see the "beam" emitted by the "hole in the ground". As the sun rises above the rim of said hole, the "beam" would widen (but again, without dispersion, not be seen from a distance to the side -- ever look at a narrow flashlight beam? Often one only sees the beam from directly behind the light, as the combined reflections from dust particles is dense enough to register -- but from the side may just be a vague "fog"). As the sun clears the rim, the beam sweeps downward to where it traverses the surface of the landmass.

This supports the concept that mountain tops may be illuminated, while lower elevations are still dark.

 

 

[JonL]

Theya makes the dawn light.

[Martin]

Before the sun rises there is the  pink light of the  false Dawn of Theya

[Rodney Dangerduck]

21 minutes ago, Martin said:

Before the sun rises there is the  pink light of the  false Dawn of Theya

Sung by the poets as "rosy fingered Dawn".

[dumuzid]

One thing I've read of that makes dawn a little different in Glorantha is that the shadows left by night don't give way as easily as they do on Earth.  They sort of linger and cling as the growing light forces them back.

[Ludo Bagman]

Should be of interest, even if it's over 20 years old.

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/glorantha-2/the-movable-ephemeris-and-the-gloranthan-sky/

[Akhôrahil]

This made me wonder about something else entirely - what's the speed of light in Glorantha? Does dawn rush over the lands from east to west in a way that could be seen from above, the terminator moving at a less than instantaneous speed?

Edited October 22, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[metcalph]

50 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

This made me wonder about something else entirely - what's the speed of light in Glorantha? Does dawn rush over the lands from east to west in a way that could be seen from above, the terminator moving at a less than instantaneous speed?

Instantaneous but slowed by Darkness.

[D]

14 hours ago, Ludo Bagman said:

Should be of interest, even if it's over 20 years old.

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/glorantha-2/the-movable-ephemeris-and-the-gloranthan-sky/

I've tried getting it to run but it doesn't like my PC. thank you for pointing it out to me 

[Alex]

21 hours ago, D said:

I've tried getting it to run but it doesn't like my PC. thank you for pointing it out to me 

You probably need to install the JRE for Windows, or other such dire acts of technecromancy.  Actual in-browser support might be swimming against a tide I'd not dare speculate as to the strength or hue of.

[Joerg]

On 10/22/2021 at 5:21 PM, jajagappa said:

As Nick notes, it should look like sunrise.

Sunrise where, however? Columbia/Hawaii, southern Mexico, or north of Nome?

"Just like home" will mean different things.

[Alex]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Sunrise where, however? Columbia/Hawaii, southern Mexico, or north of Nome?

"Just like home" will mean different things.

Your Theya Will Vary.

 

On 10/22/2021 at 9:20 PM, Akhôrahil said:

This made me wonder about something else entirely - what's the speed of light in Glorantha?

I'm sure I recall a mythoid -- don't recall whose or even what era, I'm afraid -- in Glorantha you heard the thunder first, then saw the lightning.  Sound was faster than light because of elemental dominance, or something along those lines.  Iunno if that works for anyone as High Fantasy Eerieness -- I fear for me it's tipping over into cheesiness.

 

On 10/22/2021 at 9:20 PM, Akhôrahil said:

Does dawn rush over the lands from east to west in a way that could be seen from above, the terminator moving at a less than instantaneous speed?

I think that's more plausible (for me).  After all if you're high up enough to actually see this effect, you're en route to the Upper World, or at least the Middle Air.  Accordingly you're seeing things with myth-tinged glasses.

If you need more a SimPhysics rationale for that, I imagine that light travels near-instantaneously, but Theya and Yelm need a couple of cups of ambrosia (hazia?) in the morning until they get their range-mods all the way up.  (OK, that was even cheesier, but in the service of a Compatibilist reading...)

[Alex]

On 10/22/2021 at 4:21 PM, Richard S. said:

The world is flat but still has a horizon, the sky dome's dimensions shouldn't be possible (at least from the latest math I've looked at, might have been outdated), and in general everything runs on hopes, dreams, and copious amounts of drugs. The dawn probably looks like a dawn.

The sky dome's dimensions are 'infinite', as far as trying to squint at it for parallax effects or such like are concerned, IMO.  And the sky-above-the-sky -- the golden dome of Aether and Dayzatar you see above you in the Sky World -- is infinitely far above that.  Your maths may vary!  For me it'd be just too Truman Show if you could actually see the sky distorting to one side or other as you moved north and south, never mind bumping your head into it at either Gate.

The horizon might simply due to the ol' lozenge being subtly beveled at the top.  It's much smaller than Earth, so you could have it as curved, and still be fairly flat (imagine a decent-sized part of the crust and mantle of the Americas being blasted off into space, in the manner of Agents of SHIELD), or a gentler curve and hence a more distant horizon, without it looking too weirdly Ringworldesque.  (I think I nicked the gist of this off of someone else's blog, clear credit go here as and when available.)

 

On 10/22/2021 at 4:21 PM, Richard S. said:

Also iirc Yelm's daughter paints the sky to look like the dawn when he rises, it's not an effect of the light and atmosphere or what have you.

The reason the Sky Dome is blue (when it's not black) is due to invading deities, after all, so some divine set decoration seems entirely on-brand.

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 10/22/2021 at 10:21 AM, Richard S. said:

The world is flat but still has a horizon, the sky dome's dimensions shouldn't be possible (at least from the latest math I've looked at, might have been outdated), and in general everything runs on hopes, dreams, and copious amounts of drugs. The dawn probably looks like a dawn.

Also iirc Yelm's daughter paints the sky to look like the dawn when he rises, it's not an effect of the light and atmosphere or what have you.

What makes you sure that Glorantha has a horizon?  If Glorantha is not round but flat, then you won't have an Earth type horizon otherwise known as the limit of observation caused by the curvature of the earth.  No mast heads of ships appearing first as they approach. 

I had thought that extremely distant objects wouldn't be visible only because the atmosphere is not perfectly clear, and because of obstructions like trees and mountains.  So from a seaside mountaintop you should be able to see all the way from Genertela to Pamaltela, but not able to actually make out what is there. 

No estimating the size of Glorantha from measuring the angle between the vertical and the sun at noon and then taking a known distance as part of the arc around a round planet!

But estimating the size of Glorantha from celestial observations is still possible:   You have a flat world, and would need simultaneous observations of the sun as it goes though the sky:  Eatimate  east-west distances by measuring the two acute angles of the right triangles formed by the western point A, the sun, and the eastern points B and C.   Since Yelm will be directly overhead in the east first in Kralorela and only overhead near the end of the day in Loksalm, the trick  will be to use two duplicate water clocks to measure time after sunrise, and to observe your angles at the same moment.    if you have paced off the distance between western points B and C you have the one known distance that you need, and can compare the triangles A-Yelm-B and A-Yelm-C, find a ratio of sides  A-B to A-C,  and derive your distance A-C..   Several sets of such simultaneous observations taken during the day should give a range of calculated distances, enabling estimation of a distance and a distribution of error.  Do observations hourly for several days until your margin of error is acceptable.

Now  do you have to invent trig tables which are not a RW bronze age thing -? No you don't!  The Bablylonians evidently did triangles without the concepts of cosine and sine.  https://www.zmescience.com/science/math/oldest-example-of-applied-geometry-babylon-05253/

 

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Squaredeal Sten
Damn, i put Kralorela and loksalm backwards! fixing that ... the sun rises in the east by definition.

[Richard S.]

2 hours ago, Alex said:

The sky dome's dimensions are 'infinite', as far as trying to squint at it for parallax effects or such like are concerned, IMO.  And the sky-above-the-sky -- the golden dome of Aether and Dayzatar you see above you in the Sky World -- is infinitely far above that.  Your maths may vary!  For me it'd be just too Truman Show if you could actually see the sky distorting to one side or other as you moved north and south, never mind bumping your head into it at either Gate.

The horizon might simply due to the ol' lozenge being subtly beveled at the top.  It's much smaller than Earth, so you could have it as curved, and still be fairly flat (imagine a decent-sized part of the crust and mantle of the Americas being blasted off into space, in the manner of Agents of SHIELD), or a gentler curve and hence a more distant horizon, without it looking too weirdly Ringworldesque.  (I think I nicked the gist of this off of someone else's blog, clear credit go here as and when available.)

Yeah the sky dome isn't really a literal physical dome, some people a few years ago just did some math as if it was a real dome and iirc the result was that it'd have been unusually short.

And MOB has actually given us a reason for the horizon, being that light bends back up towards the sky, and gloranthan eyes apparently project light rather than take it in to see stuff.

[Richard S.]

26 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

What makes you sure that Glorantha has a horizon?  If Glorantha is not round but flat, then you won't have an Earth type horizon otherwise known as the limit of observation caused by the curvature of the earth.  No mast heads of ships appearing first as they approach. 

MOB (or someone else from the Chaosium crew, it's been a while) made a post a while ago explaining that Glorantha had a horizon and how it worked, I'll see if I can find it.

Edit

Found it: 

 

Edited October 25, 2021 by Richard S.

[Alex]

10 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

MOB (or someone else from the Chaosium crew, it's been a while) made a post a while ago explaining that Glorantha had a horizon and how it worked, I'll see if I can find it.

That'll be this one, I think:  

 

Definitely true IMG!  ... true that Clement Longhair will tell you that's the case. 🙂

The distinction between "Glorantha is billiard-table flat but looks curved because light is homesick" and "flattish but curved" is soooo slight in practice that unless you're a Mostali professor of long-distance surveying, it's a matter of which version (or some other) rings the most true for you.  (If you are a Mostali professor of long-distance surveying, pick a side, and then conduct a low-motion flame war with your nemesis, who is of course the leading Mostali professor of long-distance surveying who favours the other account -- or as many such as you theories and/or senior tenured dwarven gloragraphers).

19 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

Yeah the sky dome isn't really a literal physical dome, some people a few years ago just did some math as if it was a real dome and iirc the result was that it'd have been unusually short.

It's of course a literary, metaphysical dome. 🙂  If you assume any finite diameter of dome, IMO you'll get fairly silly and unsatisfactory results -- the smaller, the sillier.  If it's large enough to not be measurable by Gloranthan technology, then good enough for government jazz.  (If you're measuring it with Gloranthan magic, please check the warranty on that on a case-by-case basis.  Then check yourself into a Solar Retirement Tower to purge yourself of such apostasy and heresy.)

But for me that it doesn't even make conceptual sense that it would be measurable in such ways.  It's literally part of the Hero Plane.  Just one you happen to be able to see without recourse to magic!  (Thoughtfully, it brought its own.)

 

19 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

And MOB has actually given us a reason for the horizon, being that light bends back up towards the sky, and gloranthan eyes apparently project light rather than take it in to see stuff.

This was of course received wisdom for centuries for how terrestrial eyes work, "extramission theory", all the way from Plato (Aristotle gets some slack for his occasional scientific howlers, but he at least actually did some science, as opposed to just having wildly wrong theories about everything 😄) until the Islamic Golden Age.  And if you want to depress yourself, find out as I just did how many people still believe it to be the case...

[Darius West]

On 10/23/2021 at 1:54 AM, D said:

For my build of Apple Lane, I was trying to workout if the stars faded at sunrise or just blinked out, when something else occurred to me, because Yelm rises through the gates of dawn, it should go from total dark to dawn light almost immediately, with no predawn glow, or at the most, a beam of light shining through the gates that gradually gets wider as Yelm gets neared the gate.

has the hive mind got any thoughts?

The Light in the Hills suggests the answer is no.