Michael answers “What was the reason that Alabaster created...”

Ravi Singh asked this question about The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, #2):

What was the reason that Alabaster created the rift (and thus the fifth season)? Is it explained in this book?

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[From the chapter "you've got a big job ahead of you":

No matter how you try, you cannot imagine Antimony as having once been human. Too many things work against it: the stillness of her face, the dislocation of her voice. The fact that you hate her. “The Obelisk Gate amplifies energies both physical and arcane. No single point of surface venting produces these energies in sufficient quantity. The Rift is a reliable, high-volume source.”
Meaning… You tense. “You’re saying that if I use the Rift as my ambient source, channel it through my torus—”
“No. That would simply kill you.”
“Well, thanks for the warn-off.” You’re beginning to understand, though. It’s the same problem you keep having with Alabaster’s lessons; heat and pressure and motion are not the only forces in play here. “You’re saying the earth churns out magic, too? And if I push that magic into an obelisk…” You blink, recalling her words. “Obelisk Gate?”
Antimony’s gaze has been focused on Alabaster. Now her flat black eyes slide to finally meet yours. “The two hundred and sixteen individual obelisks, networked together via the control cabochon.” While you stand there wondering what the rust a control cabochon is, and marveling that there are more than two hundred of the damned things, she adds, “Using that to channel the power of the Rift should be enough.”
“To do what?”
For the first time, you hear a note of emotion in her voice: annoyance. “To impose equilibrium on the Earth-Moon system.”
What. “Alabaster said the Moon was flung away.”
“Into a degrading long-ellipsis orbit.” When you stare blankly, she speaks your language again. “It’s coming back.”
Oh, Earth. Oh, rust. Oh, no. “You want me to catch the fucking Moon?”
She just stares at you, and belatedly you realize you’re practically shouting. You throw a guilty look at Alabaster, but he hasn’t woken. Neither has the nurse on the far cot. When she sees that you’re quiet, Antimony says, “That is an option.” Almost as an afterthought, she adds, “Alabaster made the first of two necessary course corrections to the Moon, slowing it and altering the trajectory that would have taken it past the planet again. Someone else must make the second correction, bringing it back into stable orbit and magical alignment. Should equilibrium be reestablished, it’s likely the Seasons will end, or diminish to such infrequency as to mean the same thing to your kind.” (hide spoiler)]

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The Obelisk Gate

by N.K. Jemisin (Goodreads Author)

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