Gravity of Phobos and Deimos

[Ludi]

A friend of mine outside the Doom community brought up something I suppose I never thought of- how the heck does Doomguy stay on Phobos and Deimos without floating away into the vacuum of space? They posited that Doomguy must have very heavy boots, but that can't be possible considering how agile he is, right? 

 

All said, I wanna hear y'all's theories on how Doomguy stays planted to the ground!

[Devalaous]

Just assume gravity generator on Phobos, and Hell Magic on Deimos

[kwc]

Seconding the answer “Hell-Magic” for this and all future hypotheticals

[Solmyr]

Either Phobos has artificial structures that spins it around quick enough to generate a gravity like effect simillar to Earth's, or there's some super advanced device that simulates real gravity by bending spacetime locally kinda like what matter does by merely existing as that's a property of mass.

 

Deimos gravity is just hell's gravity as the base gravity generating systems are disabled due to hell's corrupting influence. 

[Sonikkumania]

John Carmack said: "May there be gravity on Phobos and Deimos", and thus there were. Of course he had to make a thing called the Doom engine but he was the one that created this world.

E: With aid from few other divine beings lol.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Sonikkumania

[Devalaous]

We now need a E1-themed map where Doomguy must explore the facility of the gravity generator, with a segment that has him reboot it, complete with a segment where hes floating around during its reboot cycle. Or for the rest of the map if it gets blown up :o (floating imps etc will be tricky but hilarious)

[Thelokk]

Considering how heavily terraformed both moons are (I mean, green mountains) I'd wager the gravity problem was long solved with some shenanigan we haven't seen in game.

[yakfak]

aaagh how are they fighting sephiroth when they're just floating in the sky, wouldn't they fall

[Grain of Salt]

If you really wanna take the nominal phobos+deimos settings that seriously, gravity is just one of many things that don't work

 

What (equally irrationally) bugs me more about the depiction of phobos and deimos is the mountains you see ingame are switched around from how you see them in the intermission screens. E1 = brown intermission mountains, grey ingame mountains, E2 = grey intermission mountains, brown ingame mountains. I want E2 to have cool snowy mountains in the sky >:l

 

2 hours ago, yakfak said:

aaagh how are they fighting sephiroth when they're just floating in the sky, wouldn't they fall

 

He's called cloud though. He can't fall :l

[Cammy]

They actually wanted Doom to be an experimental floaty zero-gravity combat game, but since Doom isn't 3D (it's one-and-a-half-D, like Sandy said), the engine couldn't handle gravity and they had to make it a boring run-around-on-the-ground shooter instead.

[PeterMoro]

It's his nuts of steel.

[BerserkerNoir]

Think that Phobos and Deimos have been terraformed, and that hell needs gravity as well.

[CasualScrub]

Well the obvious answer is "because to be playable it needs to be Earth-like". But as far as lore reasons, I'm guessing that Phobos and Deimos have been colonized to the point where they have artificially increased gravity due to some form of gravity machines.

 

I mean given that in Doom 1 we can see mountains with greenery in the background while on Phobos and there's a visible sky, we're clearly not on regular current floating dead rock Phobos.

[aboyes1989]

Whenever you notice something like that, a wizard did it!

[Lucius Wooding]

It's the weight of his sins from killing all those poor monsters.

 

That, or the heaps of ammo in his pockets.

[Murdoch]

On 9/10/2022 at 6:18 PM, Ludi said:

A friend of mine outside the Doom community brought up something I suppose I never thought of- how the heck does Doomguy stay on Phobos and Deimos without floating away into the vacuum of space? They posited that Doomguy must have very heavy boots, but that can't be possible considering how agile he is, right? 

 

All said, I wanna hear y'all's theories on how Doomguy stays planted to the ground!

 

Because video games.

[SMG_Man]

On 9/10/2022 at 1:18 AM, Ludi said:

how the heck does Doomguy stay on Phobos and Deimos without floating away into the vacuum of space?

 

this actually comes up in the (definitely non-canon) doom novels from the 90s. The explanation they went with was that there were artificial gravity zones already on the moons when the UAC went there, and that the bases were constructed around them. Same thing with the teleporters and the Gates connecting Phobos and Deimos; they weren't human-made, just incorporated into the overall design of the bases.

[Pechudin]

On 9/10/2022 at 8:51 AM, Solmyr said:

Either Phobos has artificial structures that spins it around quick enough to generate a gravity like effect simillar to Earth's, or there's some super advanced device that simulates real gravity by bending spacetime locally kinda like what matter does by merely existing as that's a property of mass.

 

Spinning the planet would decrease the apparent gravity, not increase it. When spinning on a merry-go-round, you feel pulled outward, not inward. Spinning space stations work because the astronauts are on the inside of the circle.

 

As far as Phobos gravity goes, there is no plausible explanation for the increased gravity, unless the planet was accelerating in a straight line (think of being in an elevator that is starting to accelerate upward).

[Stupid Bunny]

The gravity on Phobos isn’t high at all. Doomguy has just gotten really good at controlling his speed in an environment with negligible gravity. That is also why he never jumps, because even a simple hop would send him careening into Mars orbit. Deimos of course does have Earth’s gravity as it is magically floating over Hell’s surface, but by now Doomguy has a mortal fear of jumping after so many nightmares of becoming a satellite by accident. If there were archviles on Phobos you’d see how instantly they could send Doomguy skyward.

 

As to why Phobos has a sky and vegetated mountains: well obviously it is under a dome that projects pretty scenery from southern China at all times. That’s also what keeps the air in. The clues are all right there

Edited September 23, 2022 by Stupid Bunny

[Captain POLAND]

I'd just like to point out that the escape velocity of Phobos is around 11.4 m/s. You probably can't jump that fast, especially wearing a bunch of armor and carrying a bunch of guns and ammo. Although for Doomguy it could be possible.

[Pechudin]

2 hours ago, Captain POLAND said:

I'd just like to point out that the escape velocity of Phobos is around 11.4 m/s. You probably can't jump that fast, especially wearing a bunch of armor and carrying a bunch of guns and ammo. Although for Doomguy it could be possible.

 

He could run off a ledge at his top speed (probably larger than 11.4 m/s) and exceed the escape velocity, no need for jumping as long as the ledge has a clear horizon.

[Solmyr]

6 hours ago, Pechudin said:

 

Spinning the planet would decrease the apparent gravity, not increase it. When spinning on a merry-go-round, you feel pulled outward, not inward. Spinning space stations work because the astronauts are on the inside of the circle.

It may sound dumb and it's certainly wrong, but i thought that those sci-fi/conceptual ring space stations worked by spinning opposite from the direction that centrifuge effect occurs, thus creating a force that pulls towards the center or "hub" of the ring.

[bunnytummy]

super heavy-ass boots too

[Pechudin]

On 9/23/2022 at 4:34 PM, Solmyr said:

It may sound dumb and it's certainly wrong, but i thought that those sci-fi/conceptual ring space stations worked by spinning opposite from the direction that centrifuge effect occurs, thus creating a force that pulls towards the center or "hub" of the ring.

 

Centrifuge effect does not depend on direction of spinning, so yes, it is wrong.

[PraoLmao]

My personal theory is that Doomguy was actually crawling throughout the entirety of Doom 1 and just gripping the floor really hard, but due to technical limitations they couldn't show that in detail

[Pechudin]

We could also say it was magnets. Magnetic boots. But I do like the idea that the entire Phobos is accelerating (this is what some Flat Earth "theorists" say about Earth's gravity).

 

This thread is pointless, but I like it.

[PraoLmao]

Hell yeah, pointless threads are the best ones imo

[GuyMcBrofist]

I think the low gravity of Phobos and Deimos explains why there's no fall damage in the first two episodes. Hell is a different dimension so it doesn't count. By Doom 2, Doomguy has proved how badass he is that he can just say no to fall damage on Earth.

[SPG]

It's all a ruse by big-UAC to have you believe the Tei Tenga stations are on the moons of Mars!

[Wyrmwood]

Probably can't float off when he's carrying a massive suit of green armor, a chainsaw, a pistol, a shotgun, a mini-gun that should be mounted probably, a Rocket Launcher, a plasma cannon, set of knuckle-dusters and great big BFG.

 

I'd assume terra-forming though especially given the skies, it is the far future.