Pluto is still a planet - in some places

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Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby bissek » Thu Sep 03, 2009 5:43 pm

Here's a strange little fact:

While the IAU has decreed Pluto to be a dwarf planet and not a true planet, the legislatures of Illinois and New Mexico have each passed legislation reclassifying it as a planet.

How would that all the fics in which Setsuna gets downgraded because of what happened to her planet?
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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby Crescent Pulsar » Thu Sep 03, 2009 5:49 pm

bissek wrote:How would that ? all the fics in which Setsuna gets downgraded because of what happened to her planet?

? = change? Affect?

Otherwise, I'm thinking it wouldn't matter in Japan...?

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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby bissek » Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:03 pm

The precise wording of the law is:

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that, as Pluto passes overhead through New Mexico's excellent night skies, it be declared a planet and that March 13, 2007 be declared "Pluto Planet Day" at the legislature


and

"RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that as Pluto passes overhead through Illinois’ night skies, that it be reestablished with full planetary status, and that March 13, 2009 be declared "Pluto Day" in the State of Illinois in honor of the date its discovery was announced in 1930."


The relevant point is that Pluto gets reclassified depending on its spatial position relative to Illinois and New Mexico, and only at night. Shifting between planetary and dwarf plantetary Senshi status depending on factors that can only be checked on a different continent could make things interesting for Setsuna.
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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby Crescent Pulsar » Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:13 pm

Eh. I figure the laws of the universe, and thus whatever dictates the nature of star seeds, would be the only thing that would matter. Not some law some people decided to create in a few states, in a single country, on a single continent, of a whole world, et cetera.

If it's the general concept, and the laws that would actually affect how senshi operate are changed, sure, I guess it'd be interesting.
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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby KonokoHasano » Thu Sep 03, 2009 7:49 pm

Honestly, I don't think it would matter at all to the Senshi. It's only a change in classification in how people on Earth look at it. Whether or not Pluto itself is a planet wouldn't matter in regards to Senshi matters. I doubt Setsuna is suddenly going to go ape over the change or anything.

Crescent Pulsar hit the nail on the head in mentioning the star seeds and just the fact that they are Senshi. Those are the only things that matter.
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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby Ellen Kuhfeld » Fri Sep 04, 2009 7:35 am

Meh - Pluto is still a planet, it just has a different adjective. We got terrestrial planets, we got gas giant planets, now we got dwarf planets. (I think gaining Ceres as a planet, albeit dwarf, is worth the loss of Pluto's status as a major planet.) So suddenly Setsuna becomes Chibi-Usa's size?

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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby lwf58 » Fri Sep 04, 2009 7:43 am

It'd just about have to be unrelated to Earthly classifications, since there are still many who reject the IAU's ruling and consider Pluto a planet. I'm one of them.

I consider the ruling to be extremely flawed, since if you go by the strict wording of the ruling, there are only 5 or 6 "planets" in the Solar System, and Jupiter and Neptune are not among them.

So if Senshi were affected by what Earth people thought, Pluto would be one very confused lady right now.

(IMHO, a "planet" is any non-stellar celestial body with enough gravity for hydrostatic tension to form it into a sphere, a nice, simple concept that is apparently beyond the capability of the IAU to grasp. As far as I'm concerned, there are many more than 9 planets in the Solar System.)
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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby Ellen Kuhfeld » Fri Sep 04, 2009 8:03 am

lwf58 wrote:I consider the ruling to be extremely flawed, since if you go by the strict wording of the ruling, there are only 5 or 6 "planets" in the Solar System, and Jupiter and Neptune are not among them.

Ah, the old "Trojan Asteroids gambit". I agree. The ruling would have been a lot better if they'd required planets to domesticate their orbital zone, instead of clearing it. Besides, all those words are matters of degree. Is Earth a planet, when we still have to worry about those Earth-crossing asteroids? How high can the mountains get before a planet is no longer 'spherical'?

In one view, these objects are what we call them. We use words to do it, and we own the words. In that sense, Pluto is affected, because she's magical -- and name-magic is among the most powerful magics around.
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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby CRBWildcat » Fri Sep 04, 2009 8:05 am

As interesting as all this is, I still think it makes for some neat humor material.
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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby Tovath » Fri Sep 04, 2009 5:15 pm

Ellen Kuhfeld wrote:
In one view, these objects are what we call them. We use words to do it, and we own the words. In that sense, Pluto is affected, because she's magical -- and name-magic is among the most powerful magics around.


I agree wholeheartedly with this and I will see what I can do to work that into my fanfic. Bards are masters of name-magic after all.
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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby Knight of L-sama » Fri Sep 04, 2009 6:38 pm

lwf58 wrote:I consider the ruling to be extremely flawed, since if you go by the strict wording of the ruling, there are only 5 or 6 "planets" in the Solar System, and Jupiter and Neptune are not among them.


The Trojan asteroids are gravitationally bound to Jupiter as much as any of it's numerous moons. Similarly, though Pluto crosses inside Neptune's orbit 1) Pluto's orbit never actually intersects Neptune's due to the tilt of relative to the plane the other planets orbit in and 2) Neptune's gravity is still powerful enough to force Pluto into 3:2 orbital resonance so it still clearly 'rules' its orbit.

lwf58 wrote:(IMHO, a "planet" is any non-stellar celestial body with enough gravity for hydrostatic tension to form it into a sphere, a nice, simple concept that is apparently beyond the capability of the IAU to grasp. As far as I'm concerned, there are many more than 9 planets in the Solar System.)


That definition was considered but in addition to promoting Haumea, a couple of other plutoids and several of the largest asteroids to planet status that would also include more than half the moons of the Solar System, including Luna, about half of Jupiter's moons (including Io which actually grazes Jupiter's upper atmosphere at perigee), a similar number of Saturn's moons, the 5 largest of Uranus's moons, three of Neptune's and Charon.

On the subject of Sailor Moon, I'm surprised no-one has written anything about Cere-Cere being obnoxious about her promotion and trying to hang out with Setsuna,
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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby Crescent Pulsar » Fri Sep 04, 2009 6:53 pm

Eh. Name-magic is fine, but star seeds give life to that which can create words, so... Technically, I still don't see how that would apply to them. Aside from the fact that, as far as words are concerned, the guardians of star seeds would have the say-so (as it were).

But I'll humor the idea. Let's say words do hold at least some sway over things. That doesn't mean that just any word, or combination of words, are magical. If someone says the sky is red with blue spots, the sky doesn't become red with blue spots, you know? So it makes even more sense that it comes down to being a special person, who knows how to use words in a way that would influence things like that. But I seriously doubt you'd find them writing magical legislation in Illinois and New Mexico. :lol:

Ellen Kuhfeld wrote:In one view, these objects are what we call them. We use words to do it, and we own the words. In that sense, Pluto is affected, because she's magical -- and name-magic is among the most powerful magics around.

There's just one problem with that. We "own" the words, but that which "owns" us, by extension, has the right to deny us the right to "own" them. The question becomes: who holds ultimate sway? The people who created the words, or what created the people and made it possible for them to create the words in the first place?

Don't mind me. I'm just looking into more than I need to. But I'd still suggest a higher authority reclassifying Pluto's status, since it'd make a lot more sense than just anyone in a suit who happened to be elected into an office. The universe is better than that. O.o
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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby Tovath » Sat Sep 05, 2009 4:08 pm

We are both probably going to end up confusing each other with this discussion, but here it goes.

Crescent Pulsar wrote:But I'll humor the idea. Let's say words do hold at least some sway over things. That doesn't mean that just any word, or combination of words, are magical. If someone says the sky is red with blue spots, the sky doesn't become red with blue spots, you know?


Of course not because thousands of other people are saying that the sky is blue. :D

Crescent Pulsar wrote:There's just one problem with that. We "own" the words, but that which "owns" us, by extension, has the right to deny us the right to "own" them. The question becomes: who holds ultimate sway? The people who created the words, or what created the people and made it possible for them to create the words in the first place?


Well, given that One of the most important aspects of a civilization is a language I would that words are such an intrinsic part of humans.
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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby Crescent Pulsar » Sat Sep 05, 2009 5:45 pm

Tovath wrote:Of course not because thousands of other people are saying that the sky is blue. :D

Ha! That's a good one. In a good way, I mean. (I'm saying it was a good response. :O )

Which is true, but the sky still came first. It'd be the color it is no matter what word we use to identify that color. And that's all that it really is: identification, not realization. The color inspires the word, not the word inspiring the color.

Well, given that One of the most important aspects of a civilization is a language I would that words are such an intrinsic part of humans.

That's just arguing that words should have an affect on humans. And, in many a sense, they do. But not in the way that legislation could affect a senshi because their celestial object was reclassified. A good way to put it, is like this: things become what they become through a series of events. Something like Pluto, for instance, existed long before language, long before humans on Earth. Words will always come after the fact, in regard to these machinations, to establish the idea of what is there, what it is. And for what is not there, in our imaginations, they will remain unrealized if unreal.

As interesting as it would be for words to have a grip on the controls of the universe, they will always be at the mercy of the universe's nature. And in the Sailor Moon universe, that means the Galaxy Cauldron, for each individual galaxy. As for the galaxies themselves... Who knows.
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Re: Pluto is still a planet - in some places

Postby Tovath » Sat Sep 05, 2009 9:28 pm

Well, given that One of the most important aspects of a civilization is a language I would that words are such an intrinsic part of humans.

Crescent Pulsar wrote:That's just arguing that words should have an affect on humans.


Actully I think I was that words are part of being human. Regardless of what effects words have on the natural world, humans are affected by them and it is humans (and magical creatures) who use magic, so therefore magic is affected by words. :mrgreen:
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