Geonomy is the study of floating islands — their physics, their orbital trajectories, their geology, and the minerals that keep them aloft. Geonomers are the scientists who practice it, and they are among the most important figures in any island community.
The field is young. The Shattering happened only a few generations back, and the knowledge of the ground-dwelling civilization that preceded it is mostly lost. Geonomers work from observation, careful record-keeping, and whatever fragments of pre-Shattering science they can recover and translate.
Islands float because they contain a naturally occurring Floating Mineral — a hard, crystal-like substance that counteracts gravity. This mineral is balanced by a Heavy Mineral (a dense, coal-like substance) that anchors islands at their current altitude. The ratio between the two determines how high an island sits.
Weather has no direct effect on an island's position. A hurricane passing across Trimont would not alter its trajectory, altitude, or speed — it only affects the people and vehicles on it.
Removing Heavy Mineral from an island does change its altitude, but the results are wildly unpredictable. Altitude shifts have devastating consequences: the island's climate changes, its weather shifts, and critically, which other islands it will encounter in its orbit may change entirely. This is not a tool anyone uses lightly.
The precise mechanics of the Floating Mineral (how it can be extracted and used in Cloud Skims, why the process is difficult and rare) need to be written.
Islands move in stable, largely predictable orbital paths around the planet. These orbits occasionally bring islands into proximity with one another — the basis for all inter-island trade, communication, and travel.
Geonomers track and predict these orbital windows. The precision required is significant: missing a window by even a few days can mean waiting months for the next opportunity.
| Parameter | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Orbital Height | 250 m | Height above the planet's surface |
| Orbital Radius | 2,550,250 m | Total radius (planet radius + Trimont's height) |
| Orbital Speed | 0.1 m/s | |
| Orbital Period | 1,854.59 days | Time for one complete orbit |
| Solar Day | 24 hours | Standardized to Earth-like timekeeping |
Codex/World/Veridell is Trimont's sister island — once part of the same landmass, now on a closely aligned but slightly different orbit. The two islands pass near each other with remarkable regularity.
| Parameter | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Relative Speed | 0.0015 m/s | Veridell is the slower of the two |
| Synodic Year | ~243.5 days (~8 months) | How often the islands align |
Synodic Window (how long they remain close enough to interact):
| Edge Proximity | Window Duration | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 10 m | ~15.5 days | Retractable bridges connect the islands during this period |
| 1,000 m | ~23 days | Practical limit for most inter-island interaction; floating platforms deployed in advance |
The ~15-day bridge window is the heart of the Harvest Festival — the most significant recurring event in Trimont's calendar.
Weather is a major factor for pilots and island residents, but has no mechanical effect on island orbits or altitude. Storms that would be catastrophic at ground level leave an island's trajectory unchanged. This distinction matters enormously in practice: a Geonomer's orbital prediction remains valid through any storm. A pilot's route plan does not.
The Fellowship of Geonomers is the most organized body of scientific exchange in the floating world. Geonomers from different islands communicate their findings and establish shared standards for measurement and experiment.
Communication is slow by necessity. Most knowledge exchange happens during orbital windows — when islands are close enough for pilots to carry correspondence or, rarely, for a Geonomer to travel and work alongside a peer. Some Geonomers spend an entire orbital cycle on another island. The Fellowship's standards exist precisely to make these occasional exchanges useful: observations recorded the same way, terminology agreed upon, so that data from one island means something to a Geonomer on another.
The Fellowship is also the primary institutional memory of the post-Shattering world. Geonomer archives preserve historical records, track long-term patterns, and maintain whatever pre-Shattering texts have been recovered and translated.