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The Slog WLW - Interlude: Ishuäl [Spoilers]

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H:
Interlude: Ishuäl:


--- Quote ---"One cannot raise walls against what has been forgotten," he says, reciting a proverb she has heard before. "And nothing is so forgotten as Ishuäl. For two thousand years it has survived—in the very shadow of Golgotterath, no less!"
--- End quote ---

Indded, as has been speculated, the prologue's quote is about defending Earwa against the Dûnyain.


--- Quote ---The Qirri again, she realizes. She avoids all thought of what the ash might be doing to her child.
--- End quote ---

I wonder too.


--- Quote ---At last they find themselves staggering across sloping moraine, the glacier rearing enormous blue beneath a flaring Nail of Heaven.
--- End quote ---

I think it's been remarked on before, but Earwa has no moon, seemingly.  I doubt if it really is important though.


--- Quote ---Its once grand bastions overturned. Its curtain walls struck to their foundations.
Another dead place.
--- End quote ---

I am kind of coming to think that it was the Consult who did it.  But I also think that there was no one there when they did.  Where did the Dûnyain go?  That it probably the next leg of Akka's journey...

Somnambulist:
Quick aside about the moon.  I thought there was no moon, as well.  However, on about my third read of TWP, I think Akka mentions something about the moon.  Sorry, will come back later with a reference.  I wonder if it simply has an orbit such that it's only visible on rare occasions.  But then that would mean when it is visible, it would remain so for longer.  Or it has a strange orbital path.  So, I obviously just demonstrated my total lack of astrophysical knowledge.

EDIT:  Just did a search for moon in TWP, and it actually came back with 30 hits.  A lot of them reference moon-lit and moonlight, and a couple are in direct reference to 'the moon', so Earwa does have one.  Seems like no-one really pays much attention to it, though. Interesting.

H:
Hmm, yeah, you are right.

There still is a curiosity as to what the Nail of Heaven is.  A new celestial body, that has dwindled in intensity over the years.

I have no idea why I didn't think of it before, but the Nail is a Pole star, but it is a supernova.  I've said before, what if it was the star where the Inchoroi came from?  Alternately, what does it mean that their pole star is dead?  There is something to this and I'm sure it has to do with the coming of the Inchoroi, but I just don't know what...

Blackstone:

--- Quote from: H on April 22, 2016, 03:06:34 pm ---Hmm, yeah, you are right.

There still is a curiosity as to what the Nail of Heaven is.  A new celestial body, that has dwindled in intensity over the years.

I have no idea why I didn't think of it before, but the Nail is a Pole star, but it is a supernova.  I've said before, what if it was the star where the Inchoroi came from?  Alternately, what does it mean that their pole star is dead?  There is something to this and I'm sure it has to do with the coming of the Inchoroi, but I just don't know what...

--- End quote ---

Yeah, this is definitely one of the mysteries that I want answered. I think it's some sort of artificial object in geosynchronous orbit. Not every description of it make it out to be more than a star (depending on interpretation) but I definitely think there are descriptions that make it sound like much more than a star. It gives off a tremendous amount of light in some descriptions (as much as a moon it seems). Perhaps it is some sort of power station that absorbs solar radiation and beams it down to the Inchoroi ship.

Somnambulist:
In the 'False Sun' appendices (or notes at the bottom, whatever), the Nail is given a Cunuroi name which means the 'Newborn' (or something like that).  That would suggest the star didn't exist before a specific time, but did after.  So, it wasn't a star that went nova (a dim star to a bright star), but rather a 'star' that didn't exist which suddenly did.  Of course, the star could have been too far from Earwa to have been visible before it went nova, thus appearing to have... appeared (ahem) out of nowhere.  I've always found it strange that this 'Newborn' star is the pivot around which all the other stars wheel.  Again with the astrophysics...

EDIT: Also, according to a google search (take that for what it's worth), at best a supernova would be visible for a few months, gradually losing the intensity of its brightness over time.  So probably not a supernova, since the nonmen observed and named it thousands of years in the past.

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