Something I don´t understand

[Future Esthar]

Can someone please explain to me if Cocoon is a planet or a 100% mechanical construct with soil from Pulse?
Never understood this.
Thank you.

[Madame Adequate]

As far as I know Cocoon is a constructed body, but the raw materials came from Pulse. Or fal'Cie magic or something.

[Future Esthar]

I have doubts because Cocoon has indeed natural landscapes.

[Madame Adequate]

Why wouldn't magical beings (Or advanced technology) be able to craft natural looking landscapes?

[Raistlin]

I understood from the game that Cocoon was in fact created by fal'Cie.

[Future Esthar]

Thank you.My doubt was wether they created a technological colony on a planet or everything by scratch.

[VeloZer0]

From what I gathered it was created from 'scratch', but it was mostly by levitating material up from Pulse. So most of the terrain is indeed natural.

[Future Esthar]

But it´s a sphere due to gravity or it is intencional?

[VeloZer0]

I don't think that is explained. I would think that a sphere is the most effective shape something like that could have. A sphere is the most uniform shape you can make.

[ANGRYWOLF]

if you've ever read Larry Niven's book by the same name..or a dyson sphere.

For a planet to be inhabitable it has to be built along certain lines and made of certain materials...It needs an iron core for example so it will have a magnetic field.
Not sure you could do that just from levitating materials as described.

[VeloZer0]

When the world is run by magic you can do anything you want
Since they can make gravity work with any shape a sphere makes the most sense because everything is a uniform distance from the 'sun' in the center.

[Mo-Nercy]

This may sound silly, but initially I thought the residents of Cocoon lived 'inside' the spherical body (as is implied by the name 'Cocoon'), not on the surface (like a normal planet), which would suggest some sort of... I don't know.. reverse gravity?

It wasn't till Chapter 11 when I first saw Cocoon in the sky that I considered Cocoon might just take the form of a normal planet.

[VeloZer0]

I thought they did live inside? It just made sense with the whole Eden being the sun in the sky thing.

[Madame Adequate]

No they live on the interior of it, a small-scale Dyson Sphere as ANGRYWOLF says. Cocoon is hollow; that's how come there's a huge hole blown in the side of it.

The gravity thing is easily resolved by centrigual force, or by the fact that fal'Cie are magic.

Also yes a sphere is a structurally sound shape, and any sufficiently large body will eventually end up roughly spherical. Though I doubt that would hold with something hollow unless it were manufactured that way. That said given that Cocoon is low enough in Pulse's atmosphere that there is condensation raining off it, and it seems to be in geosynchronous orbit, I'm fairly sure we have to write this off to fal'Cie magic. No way something that big and that close could maintain geosynchronous orbit unless Pulse is spinning at a fairly horrendous speed, and seeing as it doesn't have a day-night cycle in the order of minutes...

[Mo-Nercy]

Oh. Well now that makes much more sense. Okay, cool. Thanks.