DoW: What's going on with the orbit of Ariarcus?
Destroyer of Worlds is set on the ice moon of Ariarcus, which orbits the gas giant Oblivion. The player guide describes it as follows:
>Blocked by Oblivion, the colony hardly receives any direct sunlight. Instead, day and night is measured by the gas giant’s reflected planet-light. On Ariarcus, it is rarely brighter than twilight and never darker than a moonlit night back on Earth.
This statement seems to be at odds with itself. If Oblivion is blocking the sun then then it can't also be reflecting light onto the moon.
The closest representation to this that I can think of would be a moon that's tidally locked to it's host planet, with one side always facing inwards. The problem is that the Earth's moon is like this, and it gets plenty of sunlight. Making the moon very close to Oblivion (right at the Roche limit) would help the planet dominate the light cycle, but it will still get sunlight some of the time.
^(Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson has a lovely description of such a system, I would recommend it to anyone)
The best alternative I can think of is a planet which is tidally locked to its sun, with a moon that is tidally locked to the planet. In this 'double-locked' setup the moon is always on the sunward side of the planet with the colony on the planet-facing side where it receives never ending planet-shine.
Neither description is perfect, but I'm wondering what others make of it?