Developing the Cosmic Compass System

[Patrick-Leigh]

What holds the poles in place? Why do they exist? Why do they attract different materials? A configuration like that doesn't usually exist in nature. It feels a little bit contrived to have these "attractors" placed so conveniently.

That's because it's not a natural setup. It's a deliberate one. The Cosmic Poles and Cosmic Pulse were put in place by the gods who created the Transitory Planes. Every plane in the Multiverse was created by the gods, (most of them intentionally.) The Transitory Planes were specifically to enable people to travel between different planets on the Celestial Plane (which is structured like our universe but has magic.) To facilitate navigation on the Transitory Planes, they put the Cosmic Poles in place and linked each pole to a particular material. This was actually done as a backup since, in the first ages of history, people had the innate ability to sense the direction of each of the Cosmic Poles as well as the Cosmic Pulse without the aid of devices or spells. However, over time, that ability was gradually bred out of them, as the gods anticipated might happen, so reliance on spells and magical compasses to navigate the Transitory Planes became the norm.

The way it works is that all eight Transitory Planes technically occupy the same space, but, being different planes, they don't actually interact with each other, except through portals. I'm leaning more and more to the idea that the Core of each Transitory Plane is actually the same object that actually exists outside all eight planes but is at the very center of the space they occupy. Likewise, the Cosmic Poles are similar objects that are in fixed locations just outside the bubbles of the overlapping Transitory Planes. This is why the Cosmic Compass is the same on all eight planes and also why the Cosmic Pulse functions the same way on each of them. I suppose you could think of the Core and Cosmic Poles as "anchors" that hold the Transitory Planes in place.

Anyway, as to why the poles attract different materials, I'm still figuring that out. I'm currently thinking that a given material is linked to a given Cosmic Pole because the Cosmic Pole in question is actually made of the same material, but with an opposite magical charge. So, if the Cosmic Pole has a positive charge, the other samples of the material have a negative charge. If you shape the sample of that material into a needle or put a piece of it onto a device that can move, the sample will tug in the direction of the Cosmic Pole. So, just as the Core is emitting the Cosmic Pulse, each Cosmic Pole is emitting a field of its own. All these overlapping fields are the Cosmic Compass.

Finally, since I'm thinking that there's only one Core, and since the Cosmic Poles might actually be objects, I'm considering that the Cosmic Poles are each the same size and shape as the Core - spheres with a 2 km diameter that tug the needles on compasses toward their very centers. The idea is that they're like a network of GPS satellites set up just outside these eight universes, but they're fixed in their locations, not in any kind of orbit. Like I said, the Cosmic Poles might actually double as anchors that keep the Transitory Planes from drifting out of alignment with each other.

 

[Vaporo]

So if the planes were created to provide travel between planets, why did the gods make the so dangerous and inconvenient? Why not instead create say, a portal that immediately connects when you shout the name of your destination?

Personally, I'd avoid explanations that goes anything like "The gods did it to make things convenient." It's contrived. It can easily be be rewritten as "The g̶o̶d̶s̶ author did it to make things convenient." If you make things too convenient and artificial, it runs the risk of feeling like an extensive hub world in a video game rather than a wild, untamed frontier that humanity is slowly wrestling into submission. It It also it immediately brings up the question "Well, why didn't the gods make this other thing convenient as well?" Perhaps if the explanation were "The gods (or another precursor) put them there for their own use, and we're just using their leftovers" it would be better. That would imply that they didn't make it more convenient because they couldn't, and that the transitory planes are something they don't have full control over. Better, but still contrived in my opinion.

My biggest problem here is how the poles are oriented to form nice, convenient Cartesian axes. Cubic shapes like you have are rarely stable in the long run. A simple way to make it feel less artificial would be to simply change the number and configuration of the poles. Perhaps instead there are 4 poles arranged like the vertices of a tetrahedron. Or perhaps they're not fixed in space at all. Perhaps they gradually orbit the core. That way, your characters actually need to do some math to figure out where they are, rather than being basically given a nice Cartesian grid space to navigate.

Maybe the poles and core all attract the same material, and the compass just points to whichever is closest. So, to find the other poles the user has to carefully watch how fast the compass spins back to center. Or perhaps how strongly the material is attracted to a particular pole is based on how it's oriented, not just distance. i.e. If you force the needle of a compass to face a distant pole, it will stay facing that pole even though another one is closer.

Or maybe the compass isn't a needle at all. Maybe it's actually something like a ball of Ferrofluid suspended in a glass sphere, so it will form "peaks" on its surface pointed at each of the different poles.

Also, why would the ability to sense the Planes be bred out? It's a useful power. Natural selection usually enhances useful abilities, not removes them.

 

[Riva]

I tend to agree with Vaporo on this one.
It's in that zone where it's a bit too convenient to be natural but not so much to be intended.

I'll throw out there a couple of ideas regarding the poles:
What the actual poles are immaterial but the seem to be big balls of whatever material they happen attract due to the various junk made (or partly made) of that material that they attract?
If they attract the same material there could be "space junk" deposits in the points where the attractive forces cancel out.
Obviously if they attract the same material it would be way harder to orient yourself.

Cubic shapes like you have are rarely stable in the long run

Don't know if this is relevant to what you're saying but the octahedral configuration is the stable configuration for molecules with 6 bonds (no lone electron pairs) such as SF6. So it would stable to the extent that the poles would be repelling and disposing themselves on a sphere so as to minimize potential energy (and the repulsion is not so strong that one or more would leave the orbit).

Also I would suggest that, in order for the trait to be bred out, the genes that determine the ability to orient yourself in the planes would need to have one or more disadvantageus side effects. Maybe they block the synthesis of certain enzymes or cause some problems with some hormonal receptors, you know that kind of stuff.
And maybe you could couple that with a period in history where the planes are unknown or untraveled and you could have lost the trait.

So yeah, just giving some suggestions in case you want to have more of a scienc-y feel I guess, but do as you wish: it's your world.

 

[Patrick-Leigh]

I tend to agree with Vaporo on this one.
It's in that zone where it's a bit too convenient to be natural but not so much to be intended.

I'll throw out there a couple of ideas regarding the poles:
What the actual poles are immaterial but the seem to be big balls of whatever material they happen attract due to the various junk made (or partly made) of that material that they attract?
If they attract the same material there could be "space junk" deposits in the points where the attractive forces cancel out.
Obviously if they attract the same material it would be way harder to orient yourself.


Don't know if this is relevant to what you're saying but the octahedral configuration is the stable configuration for molecules with 6 bonds (no lone electron pairs) such as SF6. So it would stable to the extent that the poles would be repelling and disposing themselves on a sphere so as to minimize potential energy (and the repulsion is not so strong that one or more would leave the orbit).

Also I would suggest that, in order for the trait to be bred out, the genes that determine the ability to orient yourself in the planes would need to have one or more disadvantageus side effects. Maybe they block the synthesis of certain enzymes or cause some problems with some hormonal receptors, you know that kind of stuff.
And maybe you could couple that with a period in history where the planes are unknown or untraveled and you could have lost the trait.

So yeah, just giving some suggestions in case you want to have more of a scienc-y feel I guess, but do as you wish: it's your world.

I admit, I'm a bit confused about why gods setting something up for themselves is not too convenient but setting it up for mortals to use for navigation is too convenient. And Vaporo's point about it raising the question about why they didn't make other things more convenient, like the distances that have to be covered, is also a bit confusing. Compared to the millions of light years between galaxies, having to travel 100,000 km is pretty convenient, but it's also not so convenient that an enemy army from another galaxy can invade your world without you having plenty of time to prepare. It also means there's lots of space for other things to exist on these planes - like entire ecosystems and civilizations. You have a solar system's worth of space at your disposal. That's plenty of room for nine (or more) races of people (who may eventually number in the trillions as their societies advance) to travel from Point A to Point B without traffic congestion becoming so bad it results in economic gridlock.

(I should also point you to my post about the different regions of these planes, since it's relevant to this discussion, but also a topic in its own right.)

A small point of clarification is that the gods in my story setting are going to be characters who show up from time to time. Indeed, the core premise of this story setting is that the gods once got into this big war with each other where they fought each other directly. When one god punches another god, entire galaxies can vanish... or an entire species of flowers will suddenly change colors but otherwise be unaffected. There's no way to predict what the fallout will be. As a result, the top god finally stepped in and made it impossible for the other gods to directly fight each other. Now, they can only do so through very limited avatars or by choosing mortal champions to act as their proxies. So, the way things are right now, the gods are divided into two main groups who are engaged in a sort of divine cold war with each other.

With that in mind, do you still think it is "too convenient" for the Transitory Planes to have these poles?

That issue aside, I like your suggestion about the poles repelling and disposing each other on a sphere. I think it lines up with the idea I was considering that these objects double as anchors that keep these eight planes from moving out of alignment with each other. I'm trying to think of some other purposes these objects could serve in addition to navigation and keeping these planes oriented. If you have any suggestions, feel free to share them.

Your point about the ability to sense the Cosmic Poles going away because of a period when people weren't using the Transitory Planes is actually a perfect fit for my story setting because there was such a period. As I said, there was an era when the gods were waging war with each other. The Divine War had a lot of effects on things, but one of those was that portals to the Transitory Planes would randomly close (or randomly open.) This made travel through the Transitory Planes very difficult, so very few people used them for most of the duration of the Divine War. That would easily result in the trait being bred out of existence. (The fallout from the Divine War could also have been a factor, since it also changed the which people could use magic and how they could use it, and sensing these poles was a magic ability more than a natural one.)

 

[Vaporo]

Well, I'll ask the question again. Why didn't the gods make traveling between planets more convenient than they did? I think in the answer you may find the reason why I asked. The explanation that the gods wanted to intergalactic commutes without allowing the transit of entire armies doesn't really mesh. Every day the planes would have to process an army's worth of people anyways from a developed civilization. And is regular space not already enough room to expand?

The word you need to be focusing on here though is "Contrived," not "too convenient."

Think about it this way. The gods created the transitory planes for the convenience of mortals. Ok, great! But wait, some of them are full of fire and nearly unnavigable. So, I guess the gods didn't actually care that much about the convenience of mortals. But wait, they also added poles that form extremely easy to calculate Cartesian coordinates (i.e. They went out of their way to design the fundamental nature of the planes just so that people didn't need higher than a 5th grade math education to navigate them). So, I guess the actually do care? Wait, no! Now the planes are full of eldritch abominations...

Do you see my point? You talked about wanting to come up with solid rules for this universe so that everything isn't just "Cuz magic." However, if you ask why the rules are the way they are, the answer is just "Cuz the gods said so." That is contrivance in a nutshell. If they created multiple alternate dimensions to solve a problem that they had the means to solve in a simpler way, they'd better have a good reason why they solved it the way they did.

 

[Riva]

I'll post again when I'm done with homework,

just jumping in to rephrase a bit of what I said here

What the actual poles are immaterial but the seem to be big balls of whatever material they happen attract due to the various junk made (or partly made) of that material that they attract?

because I must've had a stroke while writing that lol.
It may be understandable but
"What if the actual poles are immaterial but the various junk made of the material they attract forms big balls of stuff in their place?"
is more understandable I think.

 

[Vaporo]

So, I've reread some of the stuff I've said here and realize that it comes off as a bit harsh. Know that I'm not trying to belittle you or anything here. I'm just trying to help you improve. You seem to be struggling to understand some of my points, and I guess I'm going a bit overboard trying to get those points across. I think your core idea is a good one, which is why I've taken such an interest in it.

 

[Patrick-Leigh]

So, I've reread some of the stuff I've said here and realize that it comes off as a bit harsh. Know that I'm not trying to belittle you or anything here. I'm just trying to help you improve. You seem to be struggling to understand some of my points, and I guess I'm going a bit overboard trying to get those points across. I think your core idea is a good one, which is why I've taken such an interest in it.

I'm glad to know that you actually like some aspects of my ideas. I think if you had led with that, you wouldn't have come across as so harsh. Mostly, I'm just confused (and a bit frustrated) that you seem to object so strongly to the arrangement of the other poles. From where I stand, it's basically like having three different magnetic fields that are all at ninety degree angles to each other, which, in a magical setting, doesn't strain my ability to suspend my disbelief. When I said I wanted a system that could be explained beyond "it works because magic," what I meant was that I wasn't content to just hand-wave the details, not that I didn't want an explanation that involved some kind of magical effect.

I'm very big on hard magic systems. The better the rules for how magic works, the more I enjoy the system and the story that includes it (provided the story is actually good, of course.) So, for me, magic that bends but doesn't entirely break the laws of physics is a lot of fun. I also don't mind a setting that was built by gods and goddesses in a particular fashion. For my story setting, one of the biggest aspects is that the gods went to war with each other and made a mess of a lot of stuff. That's why the majority of the Transitory Planes are infested with Abominations, in fact. They were not originally supposed to be there. The Transitory Planes were intended to enabled travel to all parts of the Celestial Plane eventually, not immediately. The gods anticipated that mortals would develop vehicles that would speed up travel through the Transitory Planes, so making them as large as they did wasn't an issue in the grand scheme of things.

Anyway, I have to get to work, but rest assured, I'm not mad at you. A bit annoyed, perhaps, but that'll pass when I start to get annoyed with my boss (the big jerk.) Hopefully, we can further refine my idea in a more productive manner going forward. Thanks for your understanding.

 

[Patrick-Leigh]

Okay, how about this?

Originally, there was only one Transitory Plane. It had features of all eight of the current Transitory Planes, but didn't have either the Cosmic Pulse or the Cosmic Poles. People navigated it by the many visible landmarks which made it easy to tell where you were on this Transitory Plane. Then the Divine War happens and, due to the clashing divine energies, the one Transitory Plane becomes unstable and begins to separate into eight different planes. Now, the thing about the distortions that happened during the Divine War is that the only way to reverse the effects was if all the gods responsible for creating the distortion worked together. However, the evil gods were usually not the kind of people to clean up after themselves.

Thus, there was no way to completely save the Transitory Plane from dividing into eight. The good gods looked at the situation and responded like so:

They promptly set to work trying to salvage the situation, which certainly wasn't easy. Each of the new Transitory Planes had taken on certain elements of the original while also taking on new attributes of their own. Four of them became what are now the Elemental Transitory Planes, each of these predominantly reflecting matter in one of its four states (solid, liquid, gas, plasma,) though not exclusively. In other words, not all of the Plane of Fire is made of plasma, nor is it all on fire. In fact, the hottest areas are around the portals connecting it to other planes. If you can get past those, the rest of the Plane of Fire is much more tolerable, even having some areas that are downright freezing. But, because the dominant traits are flames and plasma, this plane has been dubbed the Plane of Fire. The four other planes that emerged from the original were not reflective of matter in any specific state. These are the Non-Elemental Transitory Planes. I have two ideas for these, but the final two are still undefined. All eight of the new Transitory Planes have portals connecting not only to the Celestial Plane but two each other. While the gods trying to salvage the situation were unable to merge the eight planes back together into one, they were able to preserve one 2 km diameter piece of the original Transitory Plane. That piece is the Core.

Here's where the Cosmic Poles and the Cosmic Pulse come into play. The Core, being the last remnant of the original Transitory Plane, both does and does not exist on any of the new planes. I'm thinking that it's like there's a sort of "echo" of the Core on these planes, but the echo works differently on each of the eight... while not actually being on any of them. Technically, the Core only has one field which has properties similar but not quite identical to a magnetic field. However, that field exists on a different axis on seven of the eight planes. Those axes are the Up-Down axis, the North-South axis, the East-West axis that we've already established, but there are four more. They are Upper-Northeast-to-Lower-Southwest, Upper-Northwest-to-Lower-Southeast, Upper-Southeast-to-Lower-Northwest, and Upper-Southwest-to-Lower-Northeast. So where's the eighth axis? Well, there isn't one, because the eighth echo of the Core is what is releasing the Cosmic Pulse.

Here's where it starts to get more interesting. Instead of different materials reacting to the different Cosmic Poles and the Cosmic Pulse, it's the same material in each case, however, the way the material reacts to the Cosmic Poles or the Cosmic Pulse is determined by which of the eight planes on which it is acquired. That is, if you acquire the material on Plane A, which has the Up-Down axis for the magical field, the material will only react to the Up-Down poles, regardless of which of the eight planes you occupy. If you get the material on Plane B, which has the North-South axis for the magical field, it will only react to the North-South poles, again, regardless of the planes you occupy. This is true for Plane C through G. However, if you acquire the material on Plane H, the eighth and last of the new Transitory Planes, it doesn't respond with any of the Cosmic Poles, it only responds to the Cosmic Pulse.

As to why the poles are all oriented this way, it's because that's how the gods set them up in their efforts to salvage the situation. See, these eight new Transitory Planes were drifting out of alignment with the Core, so, to prevent this from continuing, the oriented seven of the echos of the magical field as I've described and altered the last echo into the Cosmic Pulse. Then, at the points where the fourteen echos of the magical jets emitted by the Core crossed the edges of the Transitory Planes, they set up fourteen "anchors." These were physical objects that were similar to the Core. As the Arcane jets interacted with these anchors, they created a sort of lattice of magical currents that crisscrosses over the outside of the eight planes, keeping them all in place. The Cosmic Pulse, meanwhile, is what keeps the anchors from drifting inward toward the Core. I suppose you could kind of compare this to the heliopause. It took a lot of work on the part of the gods salvaging to situation to get this done, and some of them were none-too-pleased with the who mess. Others tried to look on the bright side.

After this was done, the gods set to work trying to further stabilize the eight new Transitory Planes, modifying the laws of physics governing each in order to make them more habitable while also orienting them so they were all facing the same direction. Unfortunately, this was around the time the Abominations started appearing, and some of them took of residence in the outer fringes of the Transitory Planes, which, of course, meant they would gradually spread their corruption through each of the planes.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. What do you guys think?

 

[Vaporo]

Yes, you've filled in most of the details that were bothering me.

Framing the current state of the Planes as a broken, incomplete version of their original form solves the issue of why the gods made traversing the planes so inconvenient. i.e. They didn't. Their current state is unintentional and cannot be corrected due to the bad blood between the gods at the moment.

Instead of different materials reacting to the different Cosmic Poles and the Cosmic Pulse, it's the same material in each case, however, the way the material reacts to the Cosmic Poles or the Cosmic Pulse is determined by which of the eight planes on which it is acquired.

I particularly like this detail. Instead of having a set of miscellaneous materials that are just arbitrarily attracted to the poles, there's a solid reason why things are attracted.

As to why the poles are all oriented this way, it's because that's how the gods set them up in their efforts to salvage the situation. See, these eight new Transitory Planes were drifting out of alignment with the Core, so, to prevent this from continuing, the oriented seven of the echos of the magical field as I've described and altered the last echo into the Cosmic Pulse. Then, at the points where the fourteen echos of the magical jets emitted by the Core crossed the edges of the Transitory Planes, they set up fourteen "anchors." These were physical objects that were similar to the Core. As the Arcane jets interacted with these anchors, they created a sort of lattice of magical currents that crisscrosses over the outside of the eight planes, keeping them all in place. The Cosmic Pulse, meanwhile, is what keeps the anchors from drifting inward toward the Core. I suppose you could kind of compare this to the heliopause. It took a lot of work on the part of the gods salvaging to situation to get this done, and some of them were none-too-pleased with the who mess. Others tried to look on the bright side.

So now there are fourteen poles, but opposite poles attract the same material? I like this better, since it also feeds into your idea that traveling to the very edge of the plane causes you to come out at the other side.

I still don't like how geometrically convenient it is, though. Nature abhors squares and right angles, so it bothers me to see them built into the very fabric of the cosmos. Personally, I'd have the poles move across the sky in some way, which in your new explanation could correspond to the planes rotating relative to each other. However, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this point.

Overall, I like the new explanation. It feels much more cohesive, much more consistent, than before. I don't see any obvious points of criticism right now.

Also, what would the "Arcane Jets" look like?

 

[Patrick-Leigh]

Also, what would the "Arcane Jets" look like?

I don't think they're actually visible from any of the current Transitory Planes unless you're using the right spell to view them. The jets are made of Aethyr, the energy that powers all Arcane Magic. Aethyr usually takes the form of rainbow colored particles, with the changes in color indicating various things about what harmonic state the Aethyr is in. So, I suppose that the particular harmonics of a Transitory Plane affect the color of the Arcane Jets. I haven't quite worked out what the color system is for Aethyr, though, so I can't say which plane would have which color. Regardless of that, the jets would probably be shaped like a very narrow bicone, so something like this:

Basically, as the jets leave the Core, they gradually widen, reaching a maximum diameter of 2 km at the halfway point (5 billion km.) However, as they get closer to the... let's call them the Cosmic Anchors. As they approach the Cosmic Anchors, the jets begin to fall under their influence and begin to narrow again. Upon entering the Cosmic Anchor, the energy is separated in different directions, running across the exterior boundary of the Transitory Planes to form the lattice that holds them together. So, basically, the Core draws Aethyr from the Source (the plane from which all Aethyr originates, expels the energy to the Cosmic Anchors, which then use the Aethyr to form the lattice which keeps everything from flying apart.

And all this because some of the gods are jerks who refuse to clean up after themselves and allowed their Abomination pets to become invasive species of the Transitory Planes.

 

[Riva]

Okay, the gods if not united don't have complete power over the planes, and this explains their dangerousness ecc
I'm curious about what purpose the orginal plane did serve? Did they build it for mortals? Or for they own use? Or was it just a natural feature?

Also why are certain gods keen on maintaining it intact? Is it for their own sake or for the sake of mortals?

I still don't like how geometrically convenient it is, though. Nature abhors squares and right angles, so it bothers me to see them built into the very fabric of the cosmos.

Firstly: could you explain a bit further? I'm genuinely interested in this (I figure it could have something to do with gravitational rounding or maybe squares/cubes being inefficient at distributing forces?).
Anyway it might give you some insight to think about the reason for which they are oriented that way (I mean, not because the gods oriented them that way, more like why the gods decided to orient them that way).

Other than that it seems fine to me. Especially the form of the jets, I like how they narrow down again.

So, I suppose that the particular harmonics of a Transitory Plane affect the color of the Arcane Jets.

Is this related to the Pulse?

 

[Patrick-Leigh]

Okay, the gods if not united don't have complete power over the planes, and this explains their dangerousness ecc
I'm curious about what purpose the orginal plane did serve? Did they build it for mortals? Or for they own use? Or was it just a natural feature?

Also why are certain gods keen on maintaining it intact? Is it for their own sake or for the sake of mortals?

The thing about gods is that they never have just one reason for doing anything. Good or evil, they always have plans within plans within plans. That said, the original Transitory Plane was intended primarily to enable mortals to travel between planets on the Celestial Plane so they could help each other out and enrich each other's lives in various ways. In addition to this, there were (and still are) animals (and even some types of magical plants) that migrate from one planet to another using the original Transitory Plane and the eight new planes that were spawned from it. Some migrate by air, others by land, others by water, and some through fire. So, the gods were not just setting the Transitory Plane and its successors up for people to use. (Incidentally, this is also why, when it comes to diseases, my setting doesn't have as many virgin soil epidemics. Every world has a lot of the same types of diseases because they can be carried from one planet to another by both people and animals. Thus, while people can still get sick from diseases, their immune systems are usually experienced at fighting a pretty wide variety of them.)

But, as I said, there were other reason for the original Transitory Plane. When the good gods building the plane saw some of their peers turning evil, they realized they would inevitably try to corrupt the hearts of mortals, so the size of the Transitory Plane was expanded to make it harder for one race to invade the world of another race. In addition to this, some of the good gods foresaw the emergence of Abominations, so they tied to set up fail-safes on the Transitory Plane that would help to contain the threat they posed. However, when the original Transitory Plane got broken, the effectiveness of those fail-safes was greatly reduced. Fortunately, though, the emerging Abominations ended up gravitating toward the outer fringes of the Transitory Planes as they took shape and something about the nature of Abominations causes portals on the Transitory Planes to shut down if they dwell in an area for a certain period of time, or at least that's the case with the largest and most powerful Abominations.

Finally, one of the reasons the gods made the original Transitory Plane and did what they could to salvage the planes that broke off from it was... simply because they could. Like people, the gods (at least the good ones) sometimes just enjoy creation for creation's sake. The reason the Celestial Plane has at least a trillion galaxies on it is because some of the gods really liked making them. It was fun for them and, in a certain regard, a way for them to express themselves. You could say they got a bit carried away with all their creating, but can you really blame them? I mean, if you had the power to create entire galaxies, would you stop at one?

Is this related to the Pulse?

I'm thinking it's a combination of factors. The Cosmic Pulse would probably have some effect on the color the Arcane Jets appear to be, but so would the harmonics of the plane you occupy at the time, and the influence the Cosmic Anchors have over the jets. The spell that you're using would also have some effect on how they appear, I would imagine. Not all Mages cast the same spell exactly the same way, after all.

 

[Vaporo]

Firstly: could you explain a bit further? I'm genuinely interested in this (I figure it could have something to do with gravitational rounding or maybe squares/cubes being inefficient at distributing forces?).
Anyway it might give you some insight to think about the reason for which they are oriented that way (I mean, not because the gods oriented them that way, more like why the gods decided to orient them that way).

Look around next time you're out in the woods. How many right angles do you see? Probably none. Check an astronomy chart. Again, probably no right angles anywhere to be found. If you do happen to see one, it's likely pure coincidence.

While there are a few small exceptions in the form of certain crystal structures, nature as a whole has no reason to produce right angles. In fact, the presence of a straight line or right angle anywhere in the universe would be a sure sign of intelligent life since they just don't occur naturally. There's almost always a more stable configuration nearby. The closest thing you might find is a normal vector projecting from a plane, such as a matter jet from a galactic core.

That's not to say that nature has no even and easy to calculate phenomena. For example, the orbital resonance of the inner 3 moons of Jupiter:

However, note for one that this is a dynamic, not static, phenomenon. Almost nothing is static in space. Things can be stable, but they're usually dynamically stable. Which is another part of why the structure bothers me. It's totally stationary. It's being held in place by nothing more than ill-defined magic. It would seem so much more natural if it just moved somehow.

The short version: Having a static system with nice straight lines and right angles and the only explanation for why it's like that being "because that how the gods did it" makes it look like the author designed it so it would be easy to calculate for themselves, not because of any logical worldbuilding reason. It breaks immersion.

 

[Patrick-Leigh]

The short version: Having a static system with nice straight lines and right angles and the only explanation for why it's like that being "because that how the gods did it" makes it look like the author designed it so it would be easy to calculate for themselves, not because of any logical worldbuilding reason. It breaks immersion.

So you’re saying I’m lazy?

 

[Patrick-Leigh]

Let me put it like this: You say my setup is not for “logical world building reasons,” but would you apply that standard to a story setting like this one?

I’m getting a bit tired of this. I have stated that the gods are recurring characters in my story setting. I have stated that they once fought a direct war with each other that messed things up. I have stated that they are now in a Cold War with each other and choose mortals to be their proxies. Do you really think that the Cosmic Compass is out of place in a story setting of this nature? You are going on and on about how ninety degree angles are not natural, but seem to be missing the point that they are not intended to be natural.

When I said I didn’t want to say the magic compasses worked “because magic,” I thought it was obvious that I meant I wasn’t content to say, “It’s magic, therefore I don’t have to explain it.” I wanted to a setup that fit the internal logic of the story setting and would potentially work in the real world, such as with a spherical coordinate system. Other people have confirmed that such a setup would logically work, regardless of how natural it may or may not be. That’s what I needed to have confirmed. I’m satisfied with this setup. Now kindly refrain from insinuating that I am just trying to avoid complex calculations and not using logical world building.

 

[Vaporo]

So you’re saying I’m lazy?

You've clearly put in enough effort to prove that you're not lazy. If I were calling you lazy, I'd be quite the hypocrite. It might not look like that from the perspective of someone who isn't familiar with your worldbuilding though.

 

[Vaporo]

I too am tired of this argument. Let's just agree to disagree on this point and move on. To reiterate, I think your worldbuilding is in a very good place right now. It's only this fairly minor point that we disagree on. I only brought it up again because Riva asked about it.