Could anyone tell me what http://www.imperial-library.info/content/nirn-map-arthmodeusd source is when it says Akavir is 4200 miles east of Tamriel? I know I've read it somewhere, but I can't seem to find the source material.

After a bit of searching around I couldn't find any thing that stated exactly how far away it's located.

How about Disaster at Ionith?

The guess was based on Disater at Ionith, 42 days, 100 miles a day.

Oh okay, that makes sense. Thanks!

Looking over the story, I can see where 42 days was gotten, but how was the distance traveled per day determined?

A completely arbitrary guess based on knowledge of completely arbitrary real-world sea travel.

Where do the numbers come from? I can't find them in the document, and an armada could make anywhere between 150 miles per day down into the negatives. Their path would almost certainly be diagonal.

4200 miles seems a bit short :unsure:

That distance is *roughly* a distance from London travelling eastwards to the middle of Mongolia.

Or from the northern borders of the US to the northern borders of Brazil

So a normal inter-continental distance

Ever sailed across an ocean before?

Anyways, it all depends on prevailing winds. You could make 200 miles a day while heading 45 degrees away from your destination, or you could find it impossible to cross a small sea because of strong contrary winds.

Or ze doldrums.

But yeah, four thousands miles is a considerable nautical distance. It's greater than the entire east-west length of the United States.

We don't even know if US miles and Imperial miles are anologous, in distance.

Occam's Razor. Writers wouldn't mention familiar units unless we were meant to understand them.

No, I'm certain an Imperial mile is the distance covered by an unladen, ancestor-moth, maintaining an average airspeed velocity, upwind for an hour.

An hour is another doozy.


It's unacceptable they're the same distance,* so Occam can cram it.

*For pet reasons of my own. Namely, world-building aesthetics. Pay no attention.

Agreed. Coincidentally, that distance is 5280 feet.

How does that compare to an unladen swallow?

Uh huh, and the only foot measure, standardized by Imperial governance, is based on the foot of Talk Roundus, who was born with two peg-legs.


African or European?

This is indeed true, it's pretty basic logic, really. If you set your story in a fictional world but use real life units of measurements, than the obvious motivation behind this decision is to make it so people who are familiar with that unit can easily understand what you're talking about. If the writers intended for a mile to be a distance different from a real life mile, they wouldn't call it a mile, they'd call it an elim or something. The point is they wouldn't use the name of a real life measurement. In the end, using the name of a real life measurement without having it actually be the same as its real life equivalent defeats the entire purpose of having the name of a real life measurement in your setting. It's like having a man eting creature with six legs, scales and eight eyes in your setting, and calling it a kitten.

But while 4200 miles might seem a plausible distance, I wonder if the actual lore basis for that theory is really sound evidence, because it seems to depend on the idea that they traveled exactly 100 miles a day for every day of the 42 day period, or at least, that their speed would be 100 miles per day on average. The problem with that is that their speed could very considerably depending on various conditions, not to mention they may not have traveled in a straight line, I'd say it's more likely that the distance is actually larger or greater than 4200 miles, how much of a deviation from the accepted numbers, though, I can't say.

I'm certainly not saying the numbers are wrong, just that it's possible that they're not be entirely accurate.

Maintaining an invasion force over 4,200 miles of ocean with only one stop on the way would be prohibitively difficult even at the height of the Age of Sail.

Linear distance barely matters, as it all depends on the prevailing winds. You could dash all the way there if there are westerly trades, and then be stuck there forever unless you tacked all the way to Atmora and multiplied the distance. It's probably narrower than the North Atlantic.

42 days gets a slowish 18th century ship from England to Boston with some bad weather on the way. An armada laden with soldiers could be much slower.

Yes, you are the Proctor of Lessons We've Heard, lawyer of all things once discussed, now over again. And again, outside humor. Obvious is your miter.

Thanks guys. So it seems the distance is, instead of 4200 miles, "6 weeks by boat at uncertain speeds from Esrionet, the distance between which and Tamriel also being unknown." Great.

Could be worse. Could be "Here be Dragons" instead.