Cosmeon

Not to be confused with the Unexpector goddess which is it's namesake, the moon of Cosmeon exists outside of the Manifold Sky setting but presumably close-by within the Celestial System. Cosmeon is responsible for the seasonal variation in nighttime illumination within the Manifold proper, its wan blue light penetrating the walls of the five-dimensional world at the lnflection layers in a similar manner to that of the star Selevati.

Geography

The actual physical nature of Cosmeon is largely unknown, as it cannot be observed directly from any cube surface. It is generally understood that Cosmeon is not a star because the Cosmeonar light provides little warmth despite how bright it gets during the ides of the month, suggesting that the light is reflected by something that absorbs infrared spectra instead of reflecting it.

Localized Phenomena

The Cosmeonar light varies over the course of the year, with maximum brightness occuring around the night of Iknemi 15 every month and its light fading to nothingness the night of Begu-I 30. Indeed, this consistent thirty day cycle was part of the original reason that the Navigator's Guild, when establishing and promulgating the Manifold Standard Calendar, chose to divide the year into months as they did; the Standard Calendar is both solar and lunar in nature.
Cross-culturally, the new Cosmeonar darkness that falls at the end of each month has long been a time of trepidation. Though the popular perception is that the full light of Cosmeon causes 'lunacy,' in truth, it is the dark of the new moon that sees an increase in (often injurious) wild animal encounters, surges at the fronts of wars, and temporary increases in crime rate in the civilized spaces of the Manifold. This is because these are perfect times for nocturnal creatures to set ambushes, as diurnal creatures (including most sentients have less acute vision in the dark. Ironically, this trend is actually reversed in one place: the Distal Tesseract, where the bioluminescence of many creatures mark them better against their backdrops in complete darkness, making ambushes less effective.

Type

Planetoid / Moon

Location under

Celestial System

Cultural Interpretations

It is currently understood that Cosmeonar gravity is closely associated with the tides and certain other circumvective processes. However, this knowledge could only be learned through gravity experiments aboard skystations. Pre-airship cultures of classical antiquity often understood the connection between lunar cycles and the tides, though not the true reason. This misunderstanding led to the creation of many myths to explain the connection through superstition. For example, the ancient Rostran cultures associated the tides with the menses of Ixaumosana, while Old Voxelians contemporary with Sokalyx the Learned regarded the crop-irrigating cycles of the rivers near Silkenvault as the blessings of the goddesses Cosmeon and Lyvianne.