Doing some work on putting together logistical groundwork for the story, including picking out good craters to be used for the NLR initial pony cities and designing the initial shuttle/vessel that takes the group Up. Right now, settling on the Plaskett and Peary craters of the North pole due to the potential values of both craters. Both have relatively steep and high walls with a good backing to prevent collapses. Peary is mostly in shadow from the imagery I can obtain, suggesting a good chance for subsurface ices as well as being within a few miles of the lunar north pole.
Plaskett crater, on the other hand, is much deeper and larger, and while about 10 degrees to the south of the north pole, it still maintains a good internal shadow that likely contain some ices while also having a massive central peak that would be useful for constructing a citadel/spire to reach above the dome that could also serve as a nice castle. At about 68 miles across, it's got enough space for a good sized city or wide-open tracts of farmland as well, providing a good base for a lunar colony if you can completely seal the crater over. There are other features, such as a slightly overlapping crater on the southeast rim that could serve as another position for a starport, as well as a terrace section along the south rim that would serve admirably for some kind of farming other other sectionalized purposes, and also sharing a border with the massive crater/walled plane Rozhdestvenskiy. And it has an additional advantage of being right on the edge of the lunar disk as seen from earth, so it would be a prime spot to launch forwards or backwards along the lunar orbit (I need to find out if it's on the leading or trailing edge of the earth-side hemisphere). In fact, unless anyone can think of any previous claims on the crater, I'd like to nominate it for the hub/capital city of the pony factions, as it's pretty much an all-around good site.
Plaskett crater, on the other hand, is much deeper and larger, and while about 10 degrees to the south of the north pole, it still maintains a good internal shadow that likely contain some ices while also having a massive central peak that would be useful for constructing a citadel/spire to reach above the dome that could also serve as a nice castle. At about 68 miles across, it's got enough space for a good sized city or wide-open tracts of farmland as well, providing a good base for a lunar colony if you can completely seal the crater over. There are other features, such as a slightly overlapping crater on the southeast rim that could serve as another position for a starport, as well as a terrace section along the south rim that would serve admirably for some kind of farming other other sectionalized purposes, and also sharing a border with the massive crater/walled plane Rozhdestvenskiy. And it has an additional advantage of being right on the edge of the lunar disk as seen from earth, so it would be a prime spot to launch forwards or backwards along the lunar orbit (I need to find out if it's on the leading or trailing edge of the earth-side hemisphere). In fact, unless anyone can think of any previous claims on the crater, I'd like to nominate it for the hub/capital city of the pony factions, as it's pretty much an all-around good site.