: Thanks for the link! Alas, none of the proposed ideas are real places, except
: the ship which isn't very keeping with the theme.
: I just had a thought, that both Death Valley and the Dead Sea are below sea
: level, and the four courtyards, although technically at 0 WU elevation,
: are below the level the map is played on unless you fall off or dive in.
: However, I cannot find any earthly features below sea level that have the
: initials M.C.
: Mare Crisium, meanwhile, is indeed well below the average lunar elevation and
: is surrounded by highlands. Whether Bungie had access to detailed enough
: lunar topography to name it thus in 1994 I do not know, but it certainly
: makes an excellent fit.
: There is also a less-thematically named Mare Cognitum, but it is just a
: slightly-low lying area and is surrounded by other mares even lower lying
: than itself.
In addition to Mare Crisium, I'm considering naming the northwest quadrant "Crater Icarus." Icarus is a crater in the centre of the dark side of the moon (an excellent place for an antenna), with a sunken floor and central peak that rises above the rim, just as the satellite relay rises above the rim of the northwest quadrant.
Mythologically, Icarus was the Greek craftsman who, in trying to escape from Crete by fabricating a pair of wings to fly with, ignored the warnings of his father and flew too close to the sun out of pride, and plummeted to his death when his wings melted. I think this meshes nicely with the overall theme.
