Map of Regulus?

From the dark, distant, and possibly dank past (aka almost a year ago), I dredge up this topic with a deplorable diversity of alliteration. Why? Well, to bring you the short animation of a 3D flyaround of a rather spherical and not at all successful attempt at Jem's Regulus. Needless to say, although it looks pretty, the cogs just do not fit together. I'll try for a pyramidal structure next.

If it doesn't load, that means Angelfire took away my bandwidth, so first come first serve.

Well, the link should be a direct link to the *.mov file, so try doing right-click and save-as. If that doesn't work, it probably is angelfire's restrictions. Unfortunately, I don't know anywhere else where I can easily host it. If you want, I would be happy to email it to you. Just PM me the address. It is about 3mb, if I'm not mistaken.

As for what I mean by the gears not fitting - I made them all the same size and because of the spherical arrangement, not all of them touch each other.

Okay. The [url="www.angelfire.com/wizard/quendibar/index.html"]above link[/url] (as well as that one) now lead to a practically blank page with a text link. Hope that works.

This a necro post of several years, but this subject has been haunting me for as long, haha.

The pyramid diagram is really great.

My only issue with it is that the cogs are stated to be of differing size and sector 64, the location of Primus' tower which is neither a quarter or region hub, is stated to the largest and located at the top.

This makes me think that sector 64 should be located at the very top, and quarters 1, 2 and 3 should descend on three sides from that, while the central spoke should descend straight down from Sector 64 with all regions and sectors of Quarter 4 somehow arranged either inside the pyramid and/or as the bottom face of it.

Rip, your solution as a non-canonical one is most serviceable.

The reason I (and probably many others) have been so obsessed with sorting out the canonical version is that there are some almost obvious patterns with the numbers involved which indicate there is some form of method to the madness and a reason to try and work with the canon unmodified.

For instance, the numbers of heirarch modrons of each caste are square numbers. The breakdown of military units are patterened on the numbers 12 and 64 (evident at various tiers so it's difficult to see if this is intentional or haphazard). The whole population number ratios display factors which happen to be the same numbers used in computer memory sizes, coincidence? Also, the placement of Primus in sector 64 is so obviously counter to the whole scheme that it seems very much a riddle... which implies that there is an actual reason which fits the grand pattern. Or maybe its just a red herring?

The original AD&D Monster Manual II entry for modrons described Nirvana as one unbroken plane with Primus located at the hub and the Quarters, Regions and Sectors radiated outward but, these numeric patterns were still evident. The AD&D 1st Edition Monster Manual II authors then apparently had some idea of pattern in mind. One of the more poignant mysteries is the range of telepathic communication for each of the heirarch modrons... I gather that this could be an indicator of heirarch domain size in the original Nirvana (and extrapolated to cog/sector sizes in Regulus). I feel that the 2nd Edition designers wouldn't (or shouldn't) have ignored this since they propogated the telepathic ranges to the new material.

When 2nd Edition material was published in the boxed sets, it seems like the formation of a 64 cog realm for Regulus carried the patterns into the new design... I am hoping against hope that Colin McComb and friends actually knew what they were doing and that this is a riddle... with a solution. If they just randomly threw together an attempted logical and purposeful design which was supposed to illustrate order and law in it's very being but didn't actually put some thought into it, I would be rather disappointed, lol. Then, after getting over the dissappointment, I would probably just fake it and pretend there was some grand purpose in the design after all, lol.

If I were of greater means, I'd offer a significant reward to whoever could display a visual working model of Regulus which answered all of the canonical points in its design.

1) Cogs must somehow at least vaguely form a pyramid in their arrangement

2) Quarter cogs are larger than region cogs are larger than sector cogs which are all dwarfed by sector 64 (Primus' cog) though it is merely a sector cog. (I'd try to somehow factor in telepathy ranges of heirarchs to help me determine cog sizes while also considering that since each cog has at least several million monodrones and lesser amounts of other types such that each cog most probably at least takes up the space of Los Angeles if not a much larger area). At the very least, an Octon more than likely has telepathy range from the center of his sector cog to reach the edge of his own cog, if not the center of his local regional hub's cog to communicate with the staff of the Quarton there.

3) A central shaft descends from sector 64 cog located at the top.

There's quite a bit of room for play given all of these ambiguous specs

Rip, your second solution which holds with 64 cogs is a nice one, but again is not entirely canonical, though close. The problem is that the canon doesn't allow for a Secundus residing on cog 64 with Primus. At best, a tertian is rumored to hang out there and serve Primus directly (though he gets his orders from a Secundus residing on one of the Quarter cogs and doesn't truly comprehend the being he's attending). Several quintons and hextons do hang out on cog 64, but it's also missing a quarton (64 isn't a region hub or a quarter hub). Primus obviously has to deal with his Secundis always at range, thankfully his stretches far enough.

As to the role of octons, because they not only govern cogs, but are probably constantly acting as telepathic switchboard operators in their role of conveying orders up and down the line, I believe telepathic ranges will probably be key here. I would hate to be an octon... I am horrible at multitasking. It would seem worse when orders stem from where bottlenecks would seem to occur like where Hextons are sharing Septons... at first glance, the modron heirarchy looks like it was invented in the Abyss, but after careful study it does seem like it could begin to work.

I'm guessing the most critical relationship is between decatons and pentadrones since this is where the administration bottleneck occurs. My feeling is that groups of pentadrones acting together can do just about anything with little actual need for direction. Thus octons down to decatons can convey some idea of what's good for the sector to pentadrone adminstrative ganglias and the pentas figure it out from there, extrapolating the stepped down will of Primus to the millions of other base modrons residing in a sector. Octons do have the title of governor, however, I believe that's got to be mostly just title... their primary job would seem to me as expediting the ball rolling and I think by the time it gets to Pentadrones, the details actually start to get hashed out.

If the modrons had just used a corporate management consulting firm rather than gamers to sort out the workings of the heirarchy of Regulus, we wouldn't be in this mess, lol.

I'm not so certain it doesn't. The secundus isn't considered part of Primus's "staff," but that doesn't mean it can't live on the same gear.