I figured it would be good to just have this info all in one place.
The long and short of it is, the scaling of the setting heavily rests upon the shoulders of General Radahn, and there's a lot of debate across the internet as to whether it's valid, if the stars are meteors, and so on. This is going to break all that down in one place since these games can be kind of obtuse about things.
Let's start from the beginning, with the Starscourge Conflict Radahn performed when he was very young that earned him his title.
Sellia's sword monument
Iji backs this up
So we get another confirmation that Radahn stopped not just "falling stars" but also constellations.
The point is further driven home in Radahn's actual boss fight.
Watch the first 3:45 of this video.
You get very clear views of what Caelid looks like during the day. The shore Jerren specifically says Radahn is at, is visible from the elevator taken down to the portal to Radahn. While when you talk to Jerren to fight, the game switches to night, when you actually take the gate across the river the fight immediately begins at daytime. Despite this, once Radahn enters phase 2 and flies into space, day immediately becomes night.
I have investigated claims that this entire fight is at night and it just looks red because of Scarlet Rot but this falls flat for numerous reasons.
1. As shown in the above video, you can see the river at night. It is not red. This is far too large of a visual oversight to have been a mistake.
2. You can visit the Wailing Dunes afterwards, and during the day they unsurprisingly look identical to when you fight Radahn at phase
1.
50 second mark. Wailing Dunes during the day are the same as they are during phase 1. The argument that "Radahn just cleared scarlet rot smoke" is impossible because it then later means that same smoke returns and clears on its own in perfect cycles that just happen to align with day and night. A ridiculous reach.
EDIT: Ignore the above, the hypothesis that the Dark Moon brings about darkness and night here is most likely correct, idk why I thought the Wailing Dunes weren't red at night, they definitely are
This does not really change any of the scaling since Radahn was the one meddling with the Dark Moon's goals in the first place.
3. Caelid was already of reddened sky before Malenia used her Scarlet Rot, you can see it in the beginning of the game art depicting their fight as well as all of the early cinematic trailers we were given.
^ This is still true, it's just inconsequential.
4. This is something I only became aware of recently, but it makes sense given the lore: The Dark Moon is only visible in two places (sort of three but more on that later) in the entire game, Radahn's arena phase 2 (night) and the Moonlight Altar where it can be seen next to the Full Moon (ER's world has multiple moons)
(You can see the distinction between the Dark Moon and the Full Moon, it's clearly the Dark Moon in Radahn's arena)
Before I get into a full explanation of this and the end of his fight an important detail needs to be noted, the Eclipse Crest Greatshield specifically refers to the Sun as a star as well.
Ranni enacts her fate in her ending, and what do we see in that? Well a vision of the Dark Moon for one, but also
We clearly see a vision of space, stars, galaxies etc. that Ranni was cut off from, because of Radahn.
So it is quite clear that he turns day to night in his fight now, given the evidence above. I have seen it instead posited that the Dark Moon is what makes it night,which while possible, does not explain the visuals of Radahn's arena. We can see the Dunes from an incredibly short distance away at night on the way there, and they simply do not look red as they do during the day or during the first half of the fight. As such I am not convinced by this even though the Dark Moon should reasonably have the ability to do something like that. I now agree with the Dark Moon hypothesis, but do not think it meaningfully changes things given the other points and those to follow.
More importantly, this, and Radahn in general, is not the only example of celestial object manipulation in the game. For starters the Elden Ring itself is called "that which commanded the stars" in an early trailer. We also know that there was actually an entire third moon that used to exist, called the Black Moon...
-Memory Stone item description
...which at some point was obliterated into these tiny shards people carry with them. Not exactly something that can happen in a non-cosmic setting even if we don't know who is directly responsible. Aside from the shards, the japanese text apparently differentiates Dark Moon and Black Moon (need to find the source for this again though) indicating there is a lost/destroyed moon.
The antics don't end there, as Miquella was deliberately working to cause a solar eclipse as part of his plan to save Godwyn, who he was extremely close to.
from a spirit at the church of the eclipse
Now while non-canon/retconned, this NPC said something completely different in patch 1.0 of the game
The fact that killing Radahn is inexplicably required for the upcoming Miquella-centric DLC, means this plotline of the eclipse is probably coming back in some way, but we will have to wait and see on that. It does signify a pattern though, that Miyazaki and the writing team wrote various characters with celestial bodies in mind, not meteorites.
Regarding "Repulsing the stars"
This is an odd turn of phrase only Sellen uses, but I think it actually explains things a bit clearer than other, quite frankly less knowledgeable, characters' words do.
Note that Jerren states the Radahn Festival can only begin when "the stars have aligned" (japanese: when the constellations have "filled"), which doesn't make much sense if he "halted their movement". But it makes more sense in light of viewing it as a constant repulsion, they seem to retain some movement, the sun certainly moves (although extremely bizarrely ), but Radahn is keeping them away, keeping fate away. This is why the Dark Moon comes to see him off in phase 2. The Dark Moon and Ranni want this, and while I don't think Radahn was even aware of how far reaching his actions would be, he is not willing to let them back in under any means. Even his spells like Collapsing Stars, the one which made him aware he could face stars, works by moving an opponent rather than keeping them still.
Regarding common questions and "debunks"
"Elden Ring is a medieval setting, they don't have awareness of how celestial bodies work"
Completely false and easy to disprove. The Carian Study Hall shows a round planet or moon, the Devourer's Scepter shows a serpent eating the world and it is globe shaped. Gideon Ofnir's staff has a galaxy depicted on its orb. The Primeval Sorcerers were able to view real stars in space through the current. Elden Ring's people absolutely have awareness of the cosmos to some degree, and study it fervently.
"We saw the falling star in Limgrave, it was not the size of a real star"
Correct. Because it wasn't a real star, and it wasn't the only thing Radahn stopped.
"He didn't stop any real stars"
He is said to have stopped constellations by characters intimately familiar with the stars, and is heavily implied to be involved in altering the sun. The stars and galaxies the Dark Moon shows off are explicitly what it and Ranni were hindered from by his actions. Extremely unlikely the galaxies depicted are also meteors.
"Elden Ring characters can be killed by swords and do not show enough collateral damage, this isn't consistent"
This applies not just to most video games, but most fiction in general. Furthermore Radahn does show collateral damage, as a single meteor dropped left a crater hundreds of meters deep. We see hundreds if not more of those resume movement across the sky, which are also denied as valid indicators of strength, letalone the examples of actual stars.
"It's not something he can use in a fight. It doesn't apply to his DC"
If he can stop something with that mass and speed with his magic that seems extremely useful against other characters. He also uses the same spells he did on the stars against us during his boss fight. This argument makes no real sense in the context of the game, especially considering Radahn is a linchpin character to nearly every single major plotline.
"Elden Stars states the Elden Beast arrived on a golden star, this should have destroyed the Lands Between"
This was the only legitimate criticism I ever became aware of (and oddly one I never see anyone bring up) however, there's actually a pretty likely explanation in-game already, that it probably refers to a meteor in this context. At the bottoms of many mines you can see golden meteorite remains. The Fallingstar Beast's crater in the Altus Plateau also glows golden. This is not a 100% "debunk", but given "star" can refer to many things, in this context it probably just means another meteor. Given the sun is a star, we have no reason to assume a sun is not...a sun, unless very explicitly shown otherwise.
We have examples of multiple characters attempting to meddle with celestial bodies,we have on screen examples of day becoming night which would require planetary movement at minimum Dark Moon shenanigans, we have lore including the actual sun in with the stars as a catch-all term. I have looked at this from every angle I could find and have not found any indicator this series simply wasn't meant to operate at a cosmic scale.
The long and short of it is, the scaling of the setting heavily rests upon the shoulders of General Radahn, and there's a lot of debate across the internet as to whether it's valid, if the stars are meteors, and so on. This is going to break all that down in one place since these games can be kind of obtuse about things.
Let's start from the beginning, with the Starscourge Conflict Radahn performed when he was very young that earned him his title.
Now, note on the heirloom itself you can clearly see he is facing a meteor, and the description mentions falling stars i.e meteors.
Sellia's sword monument
Another reference most likely to meteors. However, sorceress Sellen and Iji have more detail on this. Their perspectives are important because both are tied to the Carians and Raya Lucaria in general, with Sellen in particular wanting to bring back the Primeval Current, which is what the Primeval Sorcerors used to actually peer out into space and observe real stars.
Sellen specifically says Radahn stopped constellations which would denote he did much more than stop meteors that threatened Sellia (and even this is questionable, given Radahn's own admittance that he wished to "challenge" the stars). I also want to note that she specifically says he REPULSES the stars, and I will elaborate on this more later.
Iji backs this up
So we get another confirmation that Radahn stopped not just "falling stars" but also constellations.
The point is further driven home in Radahn's actual boss fight.
Watch the first 3:45 of this video.
You get very clear views of what Caelid looks like during the day. The shore Jerren specifically says Radahn is at, is visible from the elevator taken down to the portal to Radahn. While when you talk to Jerren to fight, the game switches to night, when you actually take the gate across the river the fight immediately begins at daytime. Despite this, once Radahn enters phase 2 and flies into space, day immediately becomes night.
1. As shown in the above video, you can see the river at night. It is not red. This is far too large of a visual oversight to have been a mistake.
2. You can visit the Wailing Dunes afterwards, and during the day they unsurprisingly look identical to when you fight Radahn at phase
1.
EDIT: Ignore the above, the hypothesis that the Dark Moon brings about darkness and night here is most likely correct, idk why I thought the Wailing Dunes weren't red at night, they definitely are
This does not really change any of the scaling since Radahn was the one meddling with the Dark Moon's goals in the first place.
3. Caelid was already of reddened sky before Malenia used her Scarlet Rot, you can see it in the beginning of the game art depicting their fight as well as all of the early cinematic trailers we were given.
^ This is still true, it's just inconsequential.
4. This is something I only became aware of recently, but it makes sense given the lore: The Dark Moon is only visible in two places (sort of three but more on that later) in the entire game, Radahn's arena phase 2 (night) and the Moonlight Altar where it can be seen next to the Full Moon (ER's world has multiple moons)
(You can see the distinction between the Dark Moon and the Full Moon, it's clearly the Dark Moon in Radahn's arena)
Before I get into a full explanation of this and the end of his fight an important detail needs to be noted, the Eclipse Crest Greatshield specifically refers to the Sun as a star as well.
And the sun, while behaving strangely, does appear in Elden Ring, so we know "star" can refer to both meteorites as well as actual gas giant type celestial bodies (in addition to space monsters like Astel).
Ranni enacts her fate in her ending, and what do we see in that? Well a vision of the Dark Moon for one, but also
We clearly see a vision of space, stars, galaxies etc. that Ranni was cut off from, because of Radahn.
So it is quite clear that he turns day to night in his fight now, given the evidence above. I have seen it instead posited that the Dark Moon is what makes it night,
More importantly, this, and Radahn in general, is not the only example of celestial object manipulation in the game. For starters the Elden Ring itself is called "that which commanded the stars" in an early trailer. We also know that there was actually an entire third moon that used to exist, called the Black Moon...
-Memory Stone item description
-Moon of Nokstella item description
...which at some point was obliterated into these tiny shards people carry with them. Not exactly something that can happen in a non-cosmic setting even if we don't know who is directly responsible. Aside from the shards, the japanese text apparently differentiates Dark Moon and Black Moon (need to find the source for this again though) indicating there is a lost/destroyed moon.
The antics don't end there, as Miquella was deliberately working to cause a solar eclipse as part of his plan to save Godwyn, who he was extremely close to.
from a spirit at the church of the eclipse
Now while non-canon/retconned, this NPC said something completely different in patch 1.0 of the game
I wonder who could have been responsible for holding a star still and stopping the fates of others
The fact that killing Radahn is inexplicably required for the upcoming Miquella-centric DLC, means this plotline of the eclipse is probably coming back in some way, but we will have to wait and see on that. It does signify a pattern though, that Miyazaki and the writing team wrote various characters with celestial bodies in mind, not meteorites.
Regarding "Repulsing the stars"
This is an odd turn of phrase only Sellen uses, but I think it actually explains things a bit clearer than other, quite frankly less knowledgeable, characters' words do.
Note that Jerren states the Radahn Festival can only begin when "the stars have aligned" (japanese: when the constellations have "filled"), which doesn't make much sense if he "halted their movement". But it makes more sense in light of viewing it as a constant repulsion, they seem to retain some movement, the sun certainly moves (although extremely bizarrely ), but Radahn is keeping them away, keeping fate away. This is why the Dark Moon comes to see him off in phase 2. The Dark Moon and Ranni want this, and while I don't think Radahn was even aware of how far reaching his actions would be, he is not willing to let them back in under any means. Even his spells like Collapsing Stars, the one which made him aware he could face stars, works by moving an opponent rather than keeping them still.
Regarding common questions and "debunks"
"Elden Ring is a medieval setting, they don't have awareness of how celestial bodies work"
Completely false and easy to disprove. The Carian Study Hall shows a round planet or moon, the Devourer's Scepter shows a serpent eating the world and it is globe shaped. Gideon Ofnir's staff has a galaxy depicted on its orb. The Primeval Sorcerers were able to view real stars in space through the current. Elden Ring's people absolutely have awareness of the cosmos to some degree, and study it fervently.
"We saw the falling star in Limgrave, it was not the size of a real star"
Correct. Because it wasn't a real star, and it wasn't the only thing Radahn stopped.
"He didn't stop any real stars"
He is said to have stopped constellations by characters intimately familiar with the stars, and is heavily implied to be involved in altering the sun. The stars and galaxies the Dark Moon shows off are explicitly what it and Ranni were hindered from by his actions. Extremely unlikely the galaxies depicted are also meteors.
"Elden Ring characters can be killed by swords and do not show enough collateral damage, this isn't consistent"
This applies not just to most video games, but most fiction in general. Furthermore Radahn does show collateral damage, as a single meteor dropped left a crater hundreds of meters deep. We see hundreds if not more of those resume movement across the sky, which are also denied as valid indicators of strength, letalone the examples of actual stars.
"It's not something he can use in a fight. It doesn't apply to his DC"
If he can stop something with that mass and speed with his magic that seems extremely useful against other characters. He also uses the same spells he did on the stars against us during his boss fight. This argument makes no real sense in the context of the game, especially considering Radahn is a linchpin character to nearly every single major plotline.
"Elden Stars states the Elden Beast arrived on a golden star, this should have destroyed the Lands Between"
This was the only legitimate criticism I ever became aware of (and oddly one I never see anyone bring up) however, there's actually a pretty likely explanation in-game already, that it probably refers to a meteor in this context. At the bottoms of many mines you can see golden meteorite remains. The Fallingstar Beast's crater in the Altus Plateau also glows golden. This is not a 100% "debunk", but given "star" can refer to many things, in this context it probably just means another meteor. Given the sun is a star, we have no reason to assume a sun is not...a sun, unless very explicitly shown otherwise.
We have examples of multiple characters attempting to meddle with celestial bodies,
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