I love the design for this, however, I feel as though this is a competitive multiplayer space. I just get that feeling from it especially since it looks to be in the same fashion like that rooftop area with the windmills we saw a little while ago.

I think multiplayer just because it reminds me of Blackout from H3.

Haha, I had the same thought. Looks very cool.

... but seriously. For some reason I was able to accept "changing the atmosphere/gravity" or "slapping down an ocean on Venus", but plate tectonics on the Moon requires a LOT of stuff to happen that definitely never happened on the Moon (at least the Moon we know). So yeah, this statement made my brain hurt.

I actually thought the same thing. I'm hoping that was just a way to make it relatable.

That's how I interpreted it. A non-scientist is dropped on the moon and describes their surroundings, specifically 'broken ridges' in the land where the Hive have mined.

At the point that you're changing atmosphere/gravity, plate tectonics seems par for the course. Changing gravity would involve drastically changing the mass let alone move it around a bit.

I beg to differ....

Traveler's To-Do List

#1 Change planet's atmosphere
Method: Acquire a bunch of gas, deposit onto planet

#2: Change planet's gravity
Method: Acquire a bunch of super dense materials, bury them all over the place

#3: Add tectonic plates
Method: Read Warlock School textbook on Planetary Geology, "A tectonic plate isn't just a feature, it implies a certain history... specifically that a planet has/had a mobile, fragmented lithosphere and a viscous asthenosphere, which are caused by some combination of residual heat of accretion, radioactive elements, and that the resulting subduction of crustal rocks causing them to melt and re-solidify through volcanic/plutonic processes."

Long story short, you need a variety of things to get "plates" and on Earth it most likely wouldn't even be possible to melt crustal rocks without very large bodies of water to lower the melting point of the rocks. The moon isn't massive enough to have much residual heat of accretion or radioactive elements, and there is no evidence there were ever large bodies of water on the moon.

So... if you want to "add" plate tectonics you basically are saying that the moon isn't even the moon anymore, it's something else entirely.

The problem with the Moon is it's the loser in the gravity match between it and the Earth. If it had any atmosphere the Earth sucked it up long ago, you really can't fight that level of bigness.

But something could've been kicked up in it's core to start some warmth, that's when they found the Hive?

If so, inducing magnetic-inducing (heh) currents in its core could generate enough magnetic force to shift some landmass around, couldn't it?

Unfortunately, no. But that would be cool :)

The moon doesn't have much of the heavier elements. Those all dropped to Earth when the collision between earth and another mars sized body created the moon. The moon itself is mostly oxygen, silicon, magnesium and a little bit of iron. The surface is fragmented and it only really becomes a solid mantle six miles down.

To refit the moon to hold an atmosphere would require increasing its gravity, which is foolish given the proximity to Earth. Right now it is slowly drifting away from Earth, but an increase in gravitational pull would reverse that, leading to a slow yet inexorable doom for us.

The more likely scenario is to craft a weak lunar shield that holds gasses in.