What is an orrery?

An orrery is a mechanical model of a solar system — the brass kind, with the sun in the middle and the planets turning around it on arms. That is the whole idea. You are in the middle. Everyone you keep is a planet orbiting you, and how close they are is something you decide by putting them there. Reading the map: - The dashed ring is the edge of your Inner Orbit. - Some planets are people with an Orrery account of their own; the rest are contacts you keep notes about. A photo does not tell you which — one may simply have come from your address book. - A larger sphere with a name is a cluster — a group with its own smaller orbit inside it. - A tile with a date is an event, drifting closer as the day approaches. - Something passing by the outer edge is a Comet — see the article on Comets. You can drag planets, pinch to zoom, and drag empty space — or the centre — to move the whole system. Nothing in Orrery re-classifies anybody on its own. There is no score, no ranking, and nothing that decides who matters to you — where you put a person is where they stay. Planets do drift a little by themselves, and that is appearance rather than meaning: somebody you have not heard from in a while loops gently backwards on their ring, somebody you have just been in touch with warms and draws in, and an event moves closer as its date approaches.