Forum:SH:Moons of X

Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Moons of X

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. EcksBot (talk) 07:45, August 10, 2020 (UTC)

---

Moons of X

It's occurred to me that whenever a moon with a name structured as "Moon of X", "Nth moon of X" or "Adjectival Moon of X" has the planet it orbits confirmed, the planet's name is always whatever X is. (Dead Moon of Antar, Moon of Avedot, etc.) I wanted to know anyone else's opinion on whether a moon merely having a name like this should be considered confirmation for the planet it orbits, and as such a mention of the planet as well — which would likely lead to the creation of some new articles depending on opinion. SilverSunbird (talk) 01:40, July 10, 2020 (UTC)

• Are there actually any examples where the orbiting planet doesn't exist? The two cases you cite do have existing planets, Avedot and Antar. You say this would "likely" lead to the creation of articles, which leads me to believe you don't actually know whether cases exist. If this is all hypothetical, this discussion seems like a useless exercise to me. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 01:48, July 10, 2020 (UTC)
  • There are cases where the orbited planet hasn't been mentioned. My point is, and I pointed those two moons out as examples because they do have known planets, is that this naming format is, in my opinion, always used to name a planet after its primary, which would logically result in the creation of articles for places like Maher, Thrinittik, Kyzring, etc. SilverSunbird (talk) 01:54, July 10, 2020 (UTC)
    • The thing is, it could be interpretational. For example, the ESB crawl uses the phrase "the ice planet of Hoth," which is of course referring to the planet itself. A more germane example is the "Forest Moon of Endor," which is a formal name for the Endor moon itself. I would not say that "Forest Moon of Endor" is referring to the gas giant that it orbits. So I would be very careful with other examples and probably suggest erring on the side of caution and not creating a planet that isn't mentioned anywhere else. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 02:00, July 10, 2020 (UTC)
    • ...True. Although I would say that it's even more likely that the specific variation of "Nth moon of X" probably does, in all cases, refer to a planet. Still, it's something worth thinking about. SilverSunbird (talk) 02:03, July 10, 2020 (UTC)
      • There are other examples of a "moon of X" later having "X" identified as a separate object (third moon of Kudo and Kudo, moon of Drazkel and Drazkel). However, even though cases like that often have planets of the same name, I don't think we should extrapolate it to be true for cases where a planet is not specifically identified. Zed42 (talk) 02:29, July 10, 2020 (UTC)
        • There's also in-universe precedent for moons named after planets where the planet no longer exists or never existed; the Forest Moon of Endor was said in some Legends sources to have been been without a primary, because the planet Endor had been destroyed in a mysterious cataclysm. Even though that was retconned as a bizarre hoax, it's proof that at least conceptually a moon can exist without a planet. jSarek (talk) 08:14, July 10, 2020 (UTC)