Size of Mekkan?

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Oxian
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Size of Mekkan?

#1 Post by Oxian »

I've taken on a big heccin challenge, recreating Mekkan in minecraft. Does Mekkan have a cannon size? If not, has anyone else here by chance done a similar project? what sort of scale worked for you?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give

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Re: Size of Mekkan?

#2 Post by MuonNeutrino »

Mekkan doesn't really have a *strictly given* canon size, no. It's implied in a few ways that the mainland is continent-sized (so good luck with your project!), but there are inconsistencies.

You can try to take the maps and combine that with info given in the comic (mostly times taken to go places) to work out a scale, but if you do that you tend to get inconsistent results. The movements of group A tend to make the most sense if the continent is roughly the size of north america (taking from sometime in the spring to the end of summer to get from the start of the comic to Wreathwood, then the durations of the various ship legs), but group B moves around much too quickly to fit with that (mostly getting from Pinewood to Edinmire on foot in the same time it took group A to get there from the Basitin isles on a ship), and Rose and Euchre's movements in the flashback also are much too fast if it's actually continent-sized. In response to a comment on one of the maps asking how big the continent is, Tom once said "One million miles! No, honestly, I don't know. I have no sense of scale" and realistically that's about right - as noted, some events fit best if even the part we know is a full fledged continent and others only really make sense if it's much smaller than that. Practically speaking, it's as big as Tom needs it to be for the plot at any given time, and that's subject to change without notice.

Personally I tend to still assume it's continent sized, as that makes the most sense with the overall backstory and worldbuilding. There's also a sketch of an updated map on Tom's patreon that includes a mini globe that to me *strongly* implies that the mainland is a large continent. IMO, you just have to accept the occasional inconsistencies as 'rule of plot'.
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Re: Size of Mekkan?

#3 Post by Yastreb »

I once did some math based on the map on Deviantart and travel times, mostly of group A. Those squares are very roughly 140x140 km each, meaning the map would cover about 5500 km in north-south direction. That is 50 degrees latitude, assuming the planet of Mekkan is the same size as the Earth.

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Re: Size of Mekkan?

#4 Post by aitaituo »

I don't understand how you could get to a North America or Eurasia sized continent based on the comic travel times. Multiple years to travel between the Basitin capital and Edenmire strongly suggests they live on a rocky planet the size of Uranus. Natural adamantine skeletons handily explain both their height in such gravity and the high resiliency to injuries that would kill ordinary humans.

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Re: Size of Mekkan?

#5 Post by MuonNeutrino »

Yastreb wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 5:06 pm I once did some math based on the map on Deviantart and travel times, mostly of group A. Those squares are very roughly 140x140 km each, meaning the map would cover about 5500 km in north-south direction. That is 50 degrees latitude, assuming the planet of Mekkan is the same size as the Earth.
I ended up with a somewhat larger scale; I traced the on-mainland path for group A on the map (wiggles and all) and assumed it represented 4 months of walking at 35 km/day (4.5 km/hr for 8 hrs). (During the ship ride back, Trace says he has about 6 months of memories, so between the month they just spent on ship and assuming they didn't spend *every* day walking that seems like a not completely ridiculous number.) Under those assumptions the scale turns out to be about 2.7 km/pix, or one of the map squares being about 310 km. At that scale the main continent is roughly 9000 km by 7000 km - aka pretty darn big. If you start measuring areas on the map, that scale makes the main continent roughly 40 million square kilometers, by comparison north america is 25-ish million square km and eurasia about 55 million square km. I don't know which scale might be more reasonable, perhaps something in the middle. (Realistically the continent is just however big Tom needs it to be.)
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Re: Size of Mekkan?

#6 Post by Yastreb »

I redid some of my calculations. When Flora met Sythe near Edinmire she had been pregnant for "Two months? Maybe a little more?". Say 60-70 days. The conception happened at the earliest two days before they embarked from Wreathwood, and at the latest about five days after. (Keidran are fertile "for a week".) They spent only two days on the Isles and one in Edinmire before flying to group B.

They Wreathwood-Fenzloch-Edinmire track is 30-32 squares and took 55-72 days to sail. I can't see Na'Rella covering less than 90 or more than 200 km/day, plus what is wasted on little curves that don't show on the map. This would set hard limits of 155-480 km per square. But then again, there are inconsistencies. Travel times of group B have already been mentioned. Also it is apparently only a short walking distance from Edinmire to the harbour, but on the map it is one square. Martholm is said to be "15 miles" from coast, but it is at least two squares.

A wild theory: the map of Mekkan in Deviantart is actually an in-universe map and includes similar crude errors as medieval maps often had.

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Re: Size of Mekkan?

#7 Post by AmigaDragon »

I believe it has been suggested in the past that any inconsistent travel times to and from the basitin isles (longer to get there than back to the mainland) could be explained by fighting and taking advantage of winds and sea currents, on top of not returning to the same port they left. For group B's travels, I don't recall many specific travel times/distances being mentioned. We may have some significant time/mileage gaps in following their progress to Edinmire while also following group A.
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Re: Size of Mekkan?

#8 Post by MuonNeutrino »

AmigaDragon wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 3:09 amI believe it has been suggested in the past that any inconsistent travel times to and from the basitin isles (longer to get there than back to the mainland) could be explained by fighting and taking advantage of winds and sea currents, on top of not returning to the same port they left.
It's not just suggested, it's pretty much confirmed by in-comic canon evidence. We know it took four weeks to get there, but between counting days in chapters 13-17 and Keith's comment here about it having been a week since then, it seems apparent that the trip back couldn't have taken longer than a couple weeks at most (depending if there was any timeskip between chapters 13 and 14). This jives nicely with Trace's statement here, which also suggests the currents explanation, and we know from the deviantart map that their destination of Edinmire is on the other side of the continent from their departure port of Wreathwood.

The problem is, however, that it's not group A's movements that are weird. For example...
For group B's travels, I don't recall many specific travel times/distances being mentioned. We may have some significant time/mileage gaps in following their progress to Edinmire while also following group A.
Unfortunately, while we don't have any explicit dates or whatever mentioned for this trip, we *do* have a comparison - namely, group A's movements. We know from Zen and Natani's interactions that the story with group B fleeing their town and Zen chasing them does happen at the same time as group A leaving the basitin isles. And we know from the eventual coming together of group A and B in chapter 19 that they both were traveling towards Edinmire at the same time. But we get a location for the hotspring they were at before Reni came to get them - ""Barrow rock". And if you go looking for it on that map, you can see that it's about 2/3rds of the way from Pinewood to Edinmire (you might need to download the full rez version), *and* that the straight-line distance between the Basitin isles and Edinmire is about the same as the distance between Pinewood and Edinmire.

In other words, in the same time it took group A to sail back from the Basitin isles, group B managed to cover about 2/3rds as much distance on foot as group A covered by ship, which is just a bit extreme. On foot one might travel 35 km or so per day, while historically a fast passage from a sailing ship (as suggested by Trace's comments regarding the currents) might have been around 8ish knots, or about 15 kilometers per hour for 360 km covered in a day. In other words, group A ought to have been traveling about ten times as fast as group B, yet somehow the distances covered suggest that group B was moving a full 2/3rds as fast as group A.

There are also other examples of odd travel times from people other than group A. Group B has another one where they were near the wolf border with group A at the end of chapter 6, and yet by chapter 13 have made it all the way back to Pinewood *and* have been there long enough for Karen to feel bored (granted, with Karen that might just mean nothing had happened in the last 10 minutes :grin:). This one is a bit weaker, because it could perhaps be explained by them having taken ship from Wreathwood and sailed back to Pinewood instead of having gone on foot - since it happened offscreen, we don't know. Trace manages to apparently live with Saria either in Edinmire (as suggested by them having casually seen Flora) or the Templar West College (as suggested by the description of the deviantart map), yet somehow the two of them pop up all the way on the other side of the continent near the wolf border where Saria was killed and it's described as casually as if they just took a day trip to the next town over. Again, one could try to explain it away with magical travel or whatever (though in that case, why the coach?), but it's fishy. Along the same lines, both Euchre and Rose travel from wolf keidran lands to Edinmire on the complete opposite side of the continent, yet arrive in what seems like a very short time (it being autumn when Euchre leaves, and by the time Rose gets there in the winter he's already been there long enough to excel in his studies and catch Mary's eye and get involved with her.) Again, maybe ship travel or magic was involved, but it's still iffy for such a huge distance.

In general, group A's movements can be made to make sense, but if you do so then everyone else's movements have a tendency to not fit with theirs. (I discussed the issues with geography and travel times more extensively a while back, particularly the question of where the templar college that figures so prominently into the backstory of various characters actually is, but to no real conclusion.)
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Re: Size of Mekkan?

#9 Post by Yastreb »

MuonNeutrino wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 4:51 am Along the same lines, both Euchre and Rose travel from wolf keidran lands to Edinmire on the complete opposite side of the continent, yet arrive in what seems like a very short time (it being autumn when Euchre leaves, and by the time Rose gets there in the winter he's already been there long enough to excel in his studies and catch Mary's eye and get involved with her.) Again, maybe ship travel or magic was involved, but it's still iffy for such a huge distance.
Do we actually know that Euchre and Rose lived in snow wolf territory? Borders on the map are apparently more political than racial anyway, with Edinmire having a substantial Keidran minority (including canines), and there has been throw-away mentions of entire Keidran villages in the middle of human territory.

The birches dominating the flashbacks indicate that wherever they lived must have been somewhat colder than story's usual temperate deciduous forest settings, but this could be as close as some place up the Parapet mountains.

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Re: Size of Mekkan?

#10 Post by MuonNeutrino »

Yastreb wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 10:59 amDo we actually know that Euchre and Rose lived in snow wolf territory? Borders on the map are apparently more political than racial anyway, with Edinmire having a substantial Keidran minority (including canines), and there has been throw-away mentions of entire Keidran villages in the middle of human territory.

The birches dominating the flashbacks indicate that wherever they lived must have been somewhat colder than story's usual temperate deciduous forest settings, but this could be as close as some place up the Parapet mountains.
This is one of the other potential ways to solve that particular problem, yeah. The thing here is that I really don't get the impression that there's villages of wolves in human territory. We know that human lands do have populations of keidran, but the impression I always got was that these were minority keidran population in otherwise human towns and villages. The borders are mostly political, yes, but the relative populations and governance of villages *is* a political thing - I don't think that human society would tolerate entire self contained villages of keidran in their territory. (For that matter, the existence of *one* isolated human village in keidran territory - Ditteridge, in snow wolf lands - is so significant it gets a special notation all to itself on the map - the reverse, but still suggestive that such things are not common.) It just never seemed to me that this was particularly plausible.

I'm not aware of those references you mention, where might those be? And regarding climate, I assume that it was somewhere on the border of snow wolf lands given that Rose is listed as a snow wolf on her ref sheet, which would necessarily be more northerly than most of the places we've seen.
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Re: Size of Mekkan?

#11 Post by Warrl »

MuonNeutrino wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 4:51 am Along the same lines, both Euchre and Rose travel from wolf keidran lands to Edinmire on the complete opposite side of the continent, yet arrive in what seems like a very short time (it being autumn when Euchre leaves, and by the time Rose gets there in the winter he's already been there long enough to excel in his studies and catch Mary's eye and get involved with her.) Again, maybe ship travel or magic was involved, but it's still iffy for such a huge distance.
Easy fix: Rose's trip was a year or so after Euchre's.

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Re: Size of Mekkan?

#12 Post by aitaituo »

MuonNeutrino wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 7:55 pm
Yastreb wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 10:59 amDo we actually know that Euchre and Rose lived in snow wolf territory? Borders on the map are apparently more political than racial anyway, with Edinmire having a substantial Keidran minority (including canines), and there has been throw-away mentions of entire Keidran villages in the middle of human territory.

The birches dominating the flashbacks indicate that wherever they lived must have been somewhat colder than story's usual temperate deciduous forest settings, but this could be as close as some place up the Parapet mountains.
This is one of the other potential ways to solve that particular problem, yeah. The thing here is that I really don't get the impression that there's villages of wolves in human territory. We know that human lands do have populations of keidran, but the impression I always got was that these were minority keidran population in otherwise human towns and villages. The borders are mostly political, yes, but the relative populations and governance of villages *is* a political thing - I don't think that human society would tolerate entire self contained villages of keidran in their territory. (For that matter, the existence of *one* isolated human village in keidran territory - Ditteridge, in snow wolf lands - is so significant it gets a special notation all to itself on the map - the reverse, but still suggestive that such things are not common.) It just never seemed to me that this was particularly plausible.

I'm not aware of those references you mention, where might those be? And regarding climate, I assume that it was somewhere on the border of snow wolf lands given that Rose is listed as a snow wolf on her ref sheet, which would necessarily be more northerly than most of the places we've seen.
OTOH, we know humans were more tolerant of keidran in the fairly recent past. Trace really did a number on everyone. Historically, it was not unusual to export slaves to one's traditional enemies. Free keidran villages under human suzerainty would still be a potential source of regular slaves, possibly paid as taxes to the king. But I also do not recall references to human ruled keidran villages.

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Re: Size of Mekkan?

#13 Post by Yastreb »

MuonNeutrino wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 7:55 pm I'm not aware of those references you mention, where might those be? And regarding climate, I assume that it was somewhere on the border of snow wolf lands given that Rose is listed as a snow wolf on her ref sheet, which would necessarily be more northerly than most of the places we've seen.
Hmm, I tried to find them again but couldn't. But I think it was in the early chapters, so maybe it wouldn't be canon.

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