The Moon Pedestal is an altar-like structure located on the moon, and is a crucial component in the Trial of the Mountains.
History[]
Early History[]
Though unconfirmed, the lunar pedestal was likely created by the Super-Ancient Beings long ago during an unknown point in Earth's history, either built on a mountaintop in the Apennines mountain range on the moon itself, or was transported there after being constructed on Earth.
When the Super-Ancients began creating a series of trials for a later race of sentient people, they decided to set make the moon pedestal a component of the Trial of the Mountains. Whenever the altar came into alignment with one of the iron mountains on Earth, it would send a shaft of green light down into their Halls of the Falling Temples, which would provide any who wished to try the opportunity to perform the Fall to earn entrance into the Supreme Labyrinth.
Long after the Super-Ancients were gone, the knowledge of the moon pedestal, among the information relevant to their trials, were left to the Four Legendary Kingdoms.
During his time serving the Four Kingdoms at the Invisible College, Sir Isaac Newton learned of the Trial of the Mountains and of the moon pedestal. Prior to the completion of the Principia, Newton came up with a thought experiment known as Newton's Mountain, which involved a whole planet and its moon and created a sketch of both the Earth with its iron mountains and the moon with its altar. However, Newton's knowledge of the pedestal was considered too dangerous to be divulged for all to know, and so only an inverted drawing of the moon from the thought experiment was included in the Principia.
Working behind the scenes of the U.S./Soviet space race, the Four Kingdoms initiated manned missions to the moon in the hopes of eventually locating the pedestal. On the fourth lunar landing in 1971, the Apollo 15 mission, U.S. astronauts used rovers to reach the pedestal from their landing site in the Sea of Rains, confirming its existence. The U.S. astronauts then covered the pedestal with aluminised Kapton foil in order to prevent it from being spotted by anyone else on Earth before departing, and left one of the rovers behind. During the 1980's, the Soviets send unmanned probes to the moon, and used a remote rover to locate the pedestal as well.
While the Four Kingdoms were evidently prepared to undertake the Ancients' trials when they eventually arrived, the Order of the Omega had its own desire to use the ultimate throne in the Supreme Labyrinth to take control of the world themselves, and began learning all about the Trial of the Mountains, including the moon pedestal's coordinates.
Jack West Jr and the Chinese Splashdown[]
Prior to November 2016, through their agents in the Chinese government and space administration, the Kingdom of Sky, and their King, Kenzo Depon, orchestrated a secret mission to send a lunar rover the moon, in order to examine the moon pedestal for themselves. The rover successfully made its way to the lunar altar to analayse and photograph it, but since they did not want to risk anyone intercepting the data if they transmitted it back to Earth, the Sky Kingdom's agents organised it so that the rover would be transported back to Earth so that its camera and laser rangefinder could be retrieved and examined. However, King Garrett Caldwell and the Kingdom of Sea got wind of the plan, and began making preparations to take the data for themselves.
A few days before the Great Games of the Hydra were set to begin, the Kingdom of Sky's lunar rover and its data on the moon pedestal was set to splash down in the Indian Ocean, and General Lau Lieping began preparing to send a crew of loyal commandos out on the Wuhan-II to retrieve it. After the splashdown occurred, the Wuhan-II's crew retrieved the rover's laser rangefinder and camera, only to be suddenly ambushed by American troops working for the Kingdom of Sea, who stole the equipment and lunar pedestal data.
However, Jack West Jr soon stole it from the Americans in turn, and upon returning to an A.S.D. communications facility on West Island, he, Wally and General Eric Abrahamson began trying to decrypt the images from the camera, however the level of encryption meant they were only able to view a static-riddled image of the altar on the moon's surface, to their astonishment. Jack suggested that Abrahamson take the data back to Pine Gap, where the facility's decryption software would have a better time decrypting the images. Unfortunately, Pine Gap was compromised a few days later during the Kingdom of Land's kidnapping of Jack and his allies, preventing further examination of the moon pedestal data.
The Two Lost Mountains[]
As Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster began preparing to undertake the Trial of the Mountains, he also began taking measures to create an uplink to the rovers still on the moon so that he could have the foil covering it removed during its alignment with the iron mountains, as well as preparing precautionary measures to have it re-covered to keep his rivals from performing the Fall.
The foil cover on the moon pedestal was removed by one of the rovers by the time Sphinx arrived at the first iron mountain to perform his Fall. As such, when the alignment with the moon began, the pedestal began emitting a powerful green light that reached Earth instantly despite the distance, shining upon the iron mountain and affording Sphinx the chance to undertake the Fall. The pedestal's light continued until the end of the alignment with the first mountain.
Using the observatory on the Aiguille du Midi, Sphinx's forces maintained the necessary uplink with the lunar rover, and Jaeger Vier waited until after Dion DeSaxe had performed his Fall in the second iron mountain to begin re-covering the pedestal to prevent Jack's team and General Garthon Rastor and his forces from being able to attempt the Fall themselves, unaware that the Order of the Omega had taken advantage of the timing to allow Brother Ezekiel to perform the Fall at the third mountain. Once the foil was in place over the pedestal, Viers destroyed the uplink to keep anyone from trying to re-establish contact with the rover to remove the foil.
As Rastor and his men began making their preparations at the fourth mountain, some of his men went to the Zapadny Cosmodrome to create an uplink to the Soviet rover so that they could expose the moon pedestal in time. After Rastor successfully performed the Fall, he had his men at the Cosmodrome cover the pedestal once again and destroy the control tower.
As it happened, Alby Calvin had the same idea as Rastor, and soon arrived at the Libyan Cosmodrome with Rufus, discovering the state of the destroyed control tower. Luckily, Alby was inspired by Rufus to use one of the remaining orbital rockets to create the necessary uplink to the lunar rover instead to provide Jack, Zoe and Lily the chance to perform the Fall at the final iron mountain. After briefly marveling at the live images of the pedestal, Alby began working on removing the foil cover on the pedestal, just as a squadron of bronzemen sent by Sphinx's forces arrived to stop them. Alby managed to get the foil cover off just long enough for the Wests to undertake the Fall even as he was being assailed by the automatons, and once Jack reported that they were successful, Alby released the rover's controls, which automatically covered the moon pedestal once again.
Attributes[]
The moon pedestal appears to be a slab of rock, with very little features of interest on its own besides its location. However, when the altar comes into alignment with the iron mountains on Earth, it releases a beam of green-coloured light so powerful that it spans the 240,000 mile distance instantly. This beam of light emitted by the pedestal is then used to allow the Fall to be undertaken at that particular iron mountain until the alignment is over. However, the beam can be easily prevented from being emitted if the pedestal is covered in a thermal sheet of aluminised Kapton foil at the time of an alignment event.
Trivia[]
- There seems to be no set order to the pedestal's alignments with the iron mountains that needs to be followed, as the Order of the Omega undertook the Fall at the third iron mountain before Dion's attempt at the second, suggesting that the moon pedestal need only be in alignment with the iron mountain at any given time in the period before the Omega Event for anyone to be able to undertake the Fall.