Terraspace

On my Flow map, (and in my campaigns) I consider Terraspace to be a sphere
where the planets follow the astronomical theories of the Ancient Greeks.
I use the views found in Ptolemy's _Almagest_ ("Great Book") especially.
(Note that while Ptolemy's view became widespread there was a Greek
philosopher,  Aristarchus,  who followed a view much closer to our truth).

The Ptolemaic solar system is geocentric,  the earth is the systems
primary.  Then,  in the following order,  the planets and sun orbit the
earth (which does not rotate but is round):Mercury, Venus,  The Sun,  Mars,
Jupiter, and Saturn.  These bodies do not simply orbit the earth,  but
instead orbit a point which in turn orbits the earth (this orbiting orbit
is termed an epicycle).  This system acounted for the motion of the
celestial bodies as observed by the ancients.

In my Terraspace none of the planets except Earth have any moons,  and
there is no astroid belt.  Earth is much smaller,  The America's only exist
as a northern island, "Vinland".  Africa and Asia are very small, roughly
the same size as Europe (see contemporary European maps of the "world").
The 6th Century AD (500s) is my setting,  The Roman Empire has recently
collapsed in the West,  but Byzantium is yet strong.  King Arthur, the Dark
Ages version, is fighting the Saxons (or soon will be),  China is under the
Han Dynasty. Christianity exists but pagan religions are still strong.

I simply use the _Glory of Rome_ and _Vikings_ historical reference books
TSR put out,  using the "Mythological" reality level.  The groundlings are
ignorant of Spelljamming for the most part.

What spelljamming traffic there is in the sphere is limited to the outer
planets (mMars, Jupiter, Saturn),  I haven't decided yet exactly how I will
handle this,  but I'm leaning towards placing a spelljamming aware
civilization on Mars,  possibly based off of _John Carter of Mars_ (like
the work on Terrasapce already done and on Static's _Beyond the Moons_
page) or, more likely, similar to "Gor" from that series of books.  I also
like the idea of using the Space:1889 Martians 2,000 years or so before
that set but don't feel like invalidating all the work I just did on that
post.

BTW,  doing a web search using Greek and Astronomy on Infoseek turned up a
lot of great links to pages with info on ancient astronomy, including some
nice old star "charts" and graphics.  I suggest anyone who is inspiration
starved give it a try.

Bibliography:
Greek geometry & Astronomy
http://landau1.phys.virginia.edu/classes/109N/lectures/greek_astro.htm
Greek Astronomy
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Experimental/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/d-mathemat
ics/Greek_astro.html

"We look on the same stars,  the sky is common,  the same world surrounds
us.  What difference does it make by what pains each seeks the truth?  We
can not attain to so great a secret by one road..."
Symmachus,  "Memorial on the Occasion of the Removal of the Altar of
Victory from the Senate House" (392 AD)

westermeyer.3@???.edu
Paul William Westermeyer