Does the Moon block the light of the Sun enough to suspend the laws of the Judgements?
Strictly speaking, an eclipse should probably be not much different than night time. Likewise, the corona is visible during an eclipse so some sunlight is touching the Earth even during totality.
Still, I kind of like the idea that Reality could become "bendy" in the shadow of the Moon.
Even a full eclipse is nowhere near total darkness. It’s not even close to a dark night out away from cities. Light diffuses in the air, and reaches around corners in reduced amounts - and any amount is enough to carry the law.
Yeah, it’s the same idea as a moonless night. Law doesn’t disappear just because the Sun isn’t shining directly on you.
The Neath is hidden from the Sun not only because it’s so far underground, but also because there’s a tremendous source of irrigo that sort of serves to obscure the gazes of Judgements.
Blot out the Dawn Machine?!
Well… if you had a really big ship…
Or did you mean, like, the actual sun on the surface?
Well… if you had a really big ship…
While those are the answers I expected to hear, I can’t help but find them a little disappointing. With all of the ways that stories like Fallen London wave their hands to invent McGuffins to explain why our world is so special in comparison to everywhere else in the universe, the ability to see a total eclipse is an actual thing that makes us special.
If Luna was just a tiny bit smaller, around 120 miles in diameter smaller, or if its orbit was just a little bit further out, we wouldn’t get the spectacular eclipses that we get. It’d be like Mars, where it was just a dark “hole” in the sun for a while.
You’d think that in a story that relies on Light to carry the Law that something actively blocking the Light might cause the Law Enforcement to become a little mushy, heh.
Especially if, say, an enterprising Neather showed up on the Surface carrying an eyeless skull or some other portable source of irrigo.
Well, we don’t actually know for sure what would happen during an eclipse. And as seen in Cut with Moonlight, the moon does do some funny things to light. Who knows what else might happen in the FL universe?
(Though given eclipses only block our sun and not all the other stars, I doubt you could do much.)
That’s a neat idea. They should make an Exceptional Story that involves spending a brief bit of time on the surface during an eclipse
Well, considering Failbetter is in England and the big eclipse next month is in America, they probably aren’t as tuned into it as strongly as some of us Yanks are. It would have been a neat tie-in between the game world and the real world, though.
A related question: Are Moon-pearls affected by lunar eclipses?