Feral Geographic (Archived)

What I found to be most striking is that despite the name ‘’tundra’’ this expanse actually houses trees! This was surprising to me, because usually the most defining feature of a tundra biome is the marked absence of trees. Because of this, the climate more closely resembles a taiga or even a muskeg in some areas, like near the blood lake, where there is rain. 

The permafrost prevents proper moisture drainage into the soil, so it creates a boggy environment where there is rain or snowfall. Because of the cold, bacteria cannot decompose dead plants as quickly, and so peat is formed. 

In such a cold environment as the blood tundra you would expect there to be coniferous trees; these are trees are adapted to the cold and have needles instead of leaves. Yet still, we can find Blood Aspen Willows here, which are deciduous trees! aspen trees are also adapted to the cold, despite not having needles:

The petioles, or leaf stems of the aspen trees are very flat, so there is less aerodynamic drag and less risk of trunk or branch damage during strong cold winds. Even when an aspen tree drops its leaves it can still grow! This is because its trunk can photosynthesize instead! What ingenuity! 

Guess what else is special about aspen trees? All these trees often grow in a grove that is interconnected by their roots, meaning that an aspen tree forest is actually a single organism! 

Could it be that the spider vein clusters seen all around the blood tundra are part of the Blood Aspen Willow root system? After all, a spider vein is a cluster of veins that are close to the surface of the skin...

Interestingly, in a far off place known as UTAH, there is such an aspen system which is known as ''Pando'' or the ''Trembling giant''. 

Hm... why does that sound so familiar....?

First up is the blood moon, Astoria. It is always red in color, and I’ll give a possible explanation as to why that is! You see, 

This is what we would call a ‘’lunar eclipse’’! The moon is positioned in the earth’s or in this case, Feral’s or another planet’s shadow.  The light from the sun is bends around the planet, and is reflected on the surface of the moon! Because the light is scattered, its color changes to the well known blood red. This phenomenon is called ‘’Rayleigh scattering’’, and is also the reason why the sky appears blue! 

If this is indeed the case for Astoria, that would mean is is eternally stuck in a planet’s shadow, since it always appears red. How frightening! Or romantic, since the red coloring is essentially all sunrises and sunsets across the whole world reflected on the moon. Wowza!

Let’s take a look at Visoria next. 

Visoria is the blue, moon, which is a phrase some of you might be familliar with: Once in a blue moon. That blue moon, however, does not in and of itself appear blue, but is rather the second full moon that appears in a callendar month, as will be the case on Halloween this year. 

Visoria, on the other hand, is actually blue, so how is that happening?  The moon can in fact appear blue if the atmosphere is filled with dust or smoke particles! They have to be wider than 900nm, though. 

This is called ‘’Mie scattering’’, and can for example happen after a dust storm, forest fire or a volcanic eruption.  Because of the size of the dust particles, the angle at which the light is scattered changes, thus also changing the color. Simply AMAZING, right?!

Finally, there is Attis, the infamous broken, and largest moon of Feral.

There have been rumors going around that it got destroyed in interstellar warfare, but i’ll have to sift through my history book collection to confirm that.  In the meantime, lets look at why Attis appears so big, and why it is yellow:

There are several reasons why things can appear big: They are either very large by nature, or they are very close. For example, the earth’s moon can become a super moon when it is the closest to the earth in its orbital period.  Both are probably true for Attis! It is likely a very big moon that orbits feral very closely. 

Then why does it appear yellow? you might think yellow is the ‘’default’’ color for a moon, but the earth’s moon is in fact, white. The reason why it can appear yellow, and by extention, Attis appears yellow is because of the same principle as with the other colors: the scattering of light.  Could the atmosphere of Feral actually be fairly polluted? Oh dear...! The scattering of light sure does seem to indicate so, but luckily us sparks are unbothered by such a thing, hoho!

There is much more to say about the illusterous moons of Feral, but i’ll save that for some other time. Thank you for reading!