Red Moon scaled one in sixty million by tato_713

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

This is my interpretation of the Red Moon where it takes place Manifold: Origin, a hard science fiction novel full of gore, by Stephen Baxter. It has nothing to do with the real Earth's Moon1; in the book, it is a planetoid, a bit bigger than Mars, that suddenly appeared in the same place and orbit of the real counterpart, replacing it, and causing disasters on Earth after its huge tidal force. This post will be full of spoilers, so if you are planning to read the book, read it first.
I made this model using Ubuntu available tools, not because of having any advantage, but because I was forced to work on Linux at that time, so I challenged to myself to learn to use free-soft tools with this model. I used GIMP instead of Paint.net for drawing the topography; Octave instead of MATLAB for plotting the 3D model; MeshLab for simplifying the meshes, instead of Microsoft 3D Builder; Freecad2 instead of SolidWorks for the tunnel and the World Engine; and Blender for subtracting the tunnel and the chamber, and painting the outer surface, instead of 3D Builder or Paint 3D.Characteristics taken from the book
I took as much information as I could from the book, though I had to leave out some concepts that contradicts other, but the small details I had to make them up, as they are not as much detailed. I will list some of the features taken into account:
Its visible disc has five times as surface as Luna.3
It has one big continent mostly rounded as if the moon's center of mass was displaced from the geometric center.
There is a huge volcano at the center of the continent, nicknamed "Bullseye", surrounded by glaciers, and then, by vegetation. I made it twice as big as the real Olympus Mons.
From the Bullseye it is born a Nile like river that ends on the east coast.
The inland of the supercontinent is a rusted red, Mars like, dessert, with giant eroded craters. The vegetation is restricted to the coastlines. Two mountain beltways run along the east and west coasts.
There is a spherical chamber in the "very heart" of the moon. I made it displaced from the geometric center so that it can explain the displacement of the center of mass.
The chamber has something "blocky, obviously artificial," lurking within, that is the "World Engine". It is implied that this is huge but it does not occupy the whole chamber, but since the biggest scale I have made is something 13 cm in diameter, the space for something in the chamber is small (4 cm), so I decided to do like it is shown in one of the images. There is not a well detailed description of the engine in the book, so I made up a gyroscope-like stylised structure.
It is said that the entrance of the tunnel that leads to the chamber is placed in a small crater in the East coast, and that this crater is "diametrically opposite" to the Bullseye; however, this is not possible taking into account all the previous constrains, so I intentionally ignore this one.
Inhabitants of the Red Moon
From this point on, everything is a spoiler, so you are already warned. Many of the races listed behind are based on extinct pre-human species; they are not time-travelled hominines, but morphologically similar descendant of them, so they cannot be treated as the real species they are meant to be.
Runner folk. Homo erectus4. They are tall and thin, dark skinned, primitive face traits but recognisable as humans. They lore in groups of many, nomads, and they develops specific roles for each individual, making tools, starting fire, treating injuries, etc. When they have to do a group task they do it without any synchronisation, chaotically. They speak a few weakly connected English words.
Elf folk. Australopithecus sp.4. Short, dark furred like a chimp but standing strait when walking. Speculative pointing ears and a oddly human face. They are an aggressive folk, gregarious, tree dwelling, and they lack any fluid communication.
Nutcrackers. Another australopithecine5 species. Herbivorous, with a big belly and a tall sagital crest, similar to that of gorillas. The author was likely referring to the genus Paranthropus, which is not widely agreed to be a separated genus, and are dubbed as "robust australopithecines".
Hams. Homo neanderthalensis. They are stocky, heavy built, with pronounced eyebrows and short chin. They speak a rough English, lacking verbal times, like the typical cartoonish cavemen speak. They are named after biblical characters, and they said to came from a place they call the "Gray Earth"
English men. Homo sapiens. They are a few, old, male, Victorian Era English astronauts. They live in small towns and use other folks as servants.
Zealots. Homo sapiens. An ultra religious, Medieval Age civilisation (or just a town?). They use Hams as slaves, Runners as load animals, and they hunt australopithecines5 as food. It's not clear enough if all of them or just their leader have a tail.
Daemons. They are 3 m tall, knuckle walkers, fast moving, sapien australopithecines5, that evolved on an high O2 atmosphere. They are far more advanced than humans, and they developed magic-like technology called Mapping, that allows them to summon things and teleportation. They are tagged as Homo superior, they are not meant to represent any real animal, but it's possible that Baxter was winking at the problematic genus Meganthropus, though bigger.
Other species include: cats (presumably big felids), hyenas, bats, hunting ground birds (possibly phorusrhacids), deers, mouse deers, duikers, crocodyles, fish, glass shrimps, and an speculative aquatic hominid. The plants mentioned in the book are conifers, grass, brushes, pitcher plants, cloudberry plants and bananas.
Notes
Probably inspired by the Blood Moon Prophecy
A pain in the ... back.
The circular visible disk corresponding to a distant point of view: S = π r2
Homo erectus and some species of Australopithecus are most likelly to be chronospecies, that is, species that did not stand firmly on a separate clade, but some population of it, evolved into a new one; in this case, in more modern humans. So that, even late surviving individuals should not be considered the same species.
"Australopithecines" refers to the sub-tribe Australopithecina, which cladistically includes humans; but in the book, the term is used in a paraphyletic way, including Australopithecus grade hominids, but not the genus Homo.
References
Surf to STL function for MATLAB (Octave in this case)
I spend part of my time making these models, letting them available and free for everyone. If you want to support my work, you can contribute with me here:

Other astronomical objects

Object


Scale [1:x]
K = 103 (thousand)M = 106 (million)G = 109 (billion)


Image


Inner Solar System

Mercury
20M, 60M,
120M

Venus
60M,
120M,
250M

Earth
60M,
120M,
250M

Luna
10M, 20M,
60M

Mars
20M, 60M,
120M

Phobos and Deimos
200K,
500K


Artificial

Salyut 7
40, 48, 80, 160


Near Earth Asteroids

Moshup and Squannit
8K,
20K,
40K

Ra-Shalom
20K,
40K

Castalia
8K,
20K,
40K

Bacchus
8K,
20K

Bennu
3K,
8K

Ryugu
3K, 8K,
20K

Geographos
40K,
80K

Phaethon
40K,
80K

Itokawa
3K,
8K

Eros
80K, 200K,
500K

Nereus
3K,
8K

Mithra
20K,
40K

Golevka
8K

Toutatis
40K,
80K


Main Asteroid Belt


Gaspra
200K

Annefrank
40K,
80K

Braille
20K,
40K

Vesta
2M, 4M,
10M

Šteins
40K,
80K,
200K

Iris
2M,
4M

Hebe
1M,
2M,
4M

Lutetia
500K, 1M,
2M

Julia
1M,
2M,
4M

Mathilde
500K,
1M

Juno
2M,
4M

Ceres
4M,
10M

Pallas
4M,
10M

Kleopatra
2M,
4M

Ida
500K,
1M

Psyche
2M,
4M

Interamnia
2M,
4M

Hygiea
2M,
4M,
10M

Antiope
1M,
2M


Jovian System

Jupiter
500M, 1G

Amalthea
2M,
4M

Thebe
1M,
2M

Io
20M,
60M

Europa
20M,
60M

Ganymede
60M,
120M

Callisto
60M,
120M


Saturn System

Saturn
500M,
1G

Pan, Daphnis and Atlas
80K,
200K,
500K,
1M

Prometheus and Pandora
1M,
2M

Janus and Epimetheus
2M,
4M

Mimas
2M,
4M,
10M

Methone, Anthe and Pallene
40K,
80K

Enceladus
4M,
10M

Tethys
4M, 10M, 20M

Telesto and Calypso
200K,
500K

Dione
4M, 10M, 20M

Helene
500K,
1M

Rhea
10M,
20M

Titan
60M,
120M

Hyperion
2M,
4M

Iapetus
10M,
20M

Phoebe
1M, 2M,
4M


Uranian System

Uranus
250M,
500M,
1G

Puck
1M,
2M,
4M

Miranda
4M,
10M

Ariel
10M, 20M

Umbriel
10M, 20M

Titania
10M,
20M

Oberon
10M,
20M


Neptunian System

Neptune
250M,
500M,
1G

Larissa
2M,
4M

Proteus
2M,
4M,
10M

Triton
20M


Comets


Tempel 1
40K,
80K,
200K

Wild 2
40K,
80K

Churyumov-Gerasimenko
20K, 40K,
80K

Hartley 2
20K,
40K,
80K

Borrelly
40K,
80K,
200K

Halley
80K,
200K


Centaurs and TNOs

Hidalgo
500K, 1M

Chariklo
2M,
4M

Pluto and Charon
10M,
20M

Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra
500K,
1M

Haumea, Namaka and Hiʻiaka
10M,
20M

Arrokoth
200K,
500K,
1M

Largest TNOs and their moons
10M,
20M


Extrasolar

Exoplanets
120M,
250M,
500M

Nearest white dwarfs
120M,
250M

HD 189733 b
1G

Pulsars
200K,
500K

Cygnus X-1 accretion disk
10M,
20M


Sky maps

Heliosphere
7.5*1013, 1.5*1014

Constellations
-

CMBR
2*1028


Ancient

Earth (540 Mya to 20 Mya)
60M,
120M,
250M

Luna (4 Gya)
20M,
60M


Speculative

Planet Nine
250M,
500M


Cube planet
60M,
120M,
250M


Science Fiction

Ghroth
4M,
10M

Arda
60M,
120M

B612
10, 20, 32, 40

Mesklin
500M,
1G

Arrakis
60M,
120M

Borg cube
8K, 20K,
40K

Pern
60M,
120M

Europa Monolith
200K,
500K

Leonora Christine
500, 600, 1K, 3K

Rama
80K, 200K, 500K

Death Star
500K, 1M, 2M

Starkiller Base
2M, 4M,
10M

Nirn, Secunda and Masser
20M,
60M,
120M

Independence Day mothership
2M,
4M,
10M

Arrival heptapod spaceship
1K,
3K,
8K

Gaijin flowership
3K

Red Moon
60M,
120M

Halo Array
4M,
10M, 20M, 60M

Gem Homeworld

120M, 250M, 500M

The Skeld
40, 80, 160, 350, 500


Misc

Mars (1962 reconstruction)
60M,
120M

Flat Earth
250M

Expanding Earth
60M, 120M

Spaceship of Ezekiel
80, 160