Let me back up for a moment.
If you have a life-less rock, I donât give a crap what star it orbits. I also donât care if there are a billion morons living on it. Thatâs Traveller. Roll with it. I am not talking about those worlds.
The worlds I am talking about are those worlds with some kind of âbreathableâ atmosphere. It is âbreathableâ because it is the correct composition and has lots of oxygen in it. Oxygen doesnât just âappearâ in an atmosphere. It also doesnât just âstayâ in the atmosphere, either. Something (generally this thing called âlife as we know itâ) is what puts it in the atmosphere and then keeps it around. An atmosphere is a huge, huge thing. Putting enough oxygen in that atmosphere takes a long, long time. How long? I donât know for sure, but I am willing to bet the Vilani havenât been around long enough to change a world with a type A (or 0 or 1) atmosphere into a type 4-9 atmosphere. Are the Ancient old enough? I dunno.
And even if the Ancient *are* old enough, there werenât enough of them to terraform every world. There were, what, 400 of them? And it wasnât like everyone one of them was spending all of their time terraforming as many lifeless worlds as they could. Terraforming was kind of a side business to them. Sure, they did it to several worlds, but it was more of a means to an end, not the end itself. So, you can use that excuse for what, a few dozen worlds across their entire range? I imagine they would get bored with the whole idea past that.
What I *can* see is some world like a large Titan (or something even more frozen down) could get warmed up by an expanding giant and have a period where it blooms into a warm planet with an advanced atmosphere. But that atmosphere is going to be, at best, type A. Good luck getting that type A atmosphere changed into a type 6 before the giant expands more and burns up the planet or collapses and blows the atmosphere completely away as it becomes a white dwarf.
I do freely admit that maybe this whole terraforming thing is way easier than I think, and that it would be relatively easy for a human society to transform lots of Marses and Titans into little Earths with a type 5 atmosphere. But I am just not seeing it. Heck, even the Traveller canon shows that the actual Mars itself was only able to be given a type 3 atmosphere after centuries of trying.
Mike West
From: [] On Behalf Of DEREK STANLEY
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 10:59 PM
To:
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Re: TNE - Stellar failure
You're assuming that the imperium is only looking for habitable planets with life on them to put roots down on if I'm following you. A planet could be a rock with an atmosphere and water and nothing more sophisticated than random strands of RNA. If the planet only has a 20,000 year habitable window that's a lot of time in human standards. Lets face it a few billion years back you could have chucked down a human colony on Mars and started farming there... Possibly. :)
Derek Stanley
Sent from my iPad
On Apr 7, 2014, at 7:06 PM, "Mike West" <> wrote:
I donât know if I have the WTH around anywhere, so I canât speak to the tables easily.
On the subject of M0-4 stars working, it is my understanding they can. (Heck Mire has an M0V, and I donât think anyone has tried to change it.) It was just the dinky red dwarfs that were the issue (e.g. Alell).
If I remember right, the problem with both giants and main sequence stars O,B,A is that they just donât last the couple billion years required for life to develop. That said, it isnât as necessary to worry about the giants, a s a few habitable worlds around a giant is cool for the type of SF that is Traveller.
Mike West
From: [] On Behalf Of
I still have to loop back and finish looking at the earlier one, but I
think there's still something going on in 3 and 4 based on other remarks
abo ut M0-4 being too cold, and giants being inadmissible.
Is it your understanding the using the habitable zones table is adequate,
or that there is something beyond that?
If you have a life-less rock, I donât give a crap what star it orbits. I also donât care if there are a billion morons living on it. Thatâs Traveller. Roll with it. I am not talking about those worlds.
The worlds I am talking about are those worlds with some kind of âbreathableâ atmosphere. It is âbreathableâ because it is the correct composition and has lots of oxygen in it. Oxygen doesnât just âappearâ in an atmosphere. It also doesnât just âstayâ in the atmosphere, either. Something (generally this thing called âlife as we know itâ) is what puts it in the atmosphere and then keeps it around. An atmosphere is a huge, huge thing. Putting enough oxygen in that atmosphere takes a long, long time. How long? I donât know for sure, but I am willing to bet the Vilani havenât been around long enough to change a world with a type A (or 0 or 1) atmosphere into a type 4-9 atmosphere. Are the Ancient old enough? I dunno.
And even if the Ancient *are* old enough, there werenât enough of them to terraform every world. There were, what, 400 of them? And it wasnât like everyone one of them was spending all of their time terraforming as many lifeless worlds as they could. Terraforming was kind of a side business to them. Sure, they did it to several worlds, but it was more of a means to an end, not the end itself. So, you can use that excuse for what, a few dozen worlds across their entire range? I imagine they would get bored with the whole idea past that.
What I *can* see is some world like a large Titan (or something even more frozen down) could get warmed up by an expanding giant and have a period where it blooms into a warm planet with an advanced atmosphere. But that atmosphere is going to be, at best, type A. Good luck getting that type A atmosphere changed into a type 6 before the giant expands more and burns up the planet or collapses and blows the atmosphere completely away as it becomes a white dwarf.
I do freely admit that maybe this whole terraforming thing is way easier than I think, and that it would be relatively easy for a human society to transform lots of Marses and Titans into little Earths with a type 5 atmosphere. But I am just not seeing it. Heck, even the Traveller canon shows that the actual Mars itself was only able to be given a type 3 atmosphere after centuries of trying.
Mike West
From: [] On Behalf Of DEREK STANLEY
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 10:59 PM
To:
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Re: TNE - Stellar failure
You're assuming that the imperium is only looking for habitable planets with life on them to put roots down on if I'm following you. A planet could be a rock with an atmosphere and water and nothing more sophisticated than random strands of RNA. If the planet only has a 20,000 year habitable window that's a lot of time in human standards. Lets face it a few billion years back you could have chucked down a human colony on Mars and started farming there... Possibly. :)
Derek Stanley
Sent from my iPad
On Apr 7, 2014, at 7:06 PM, "Mike West" <> wrote:
I donât know if I have the WTH around anywhere, so I canât speak to the tables easily.
On the subject of M0-4 stars working, it is my understanding they can. (Heck Mire has an M0V, and I donât think anyone has tried to change it.) It was just the dinky red dwarfs that were the issue (e.g. Alell).
If I remember right, the problem with both giants and main sequence stars O,B,A is that they just donât last the couple billion years required for life to develop. That said, it isnât as necessary to worry about the giants, a s a few habitable worlds around a giant is cool for the type of SF that is Traveller.
Mike West
From: [] On Behalf Of
I still have to loop back and finish looking at the earlier one, but I
think there's still something going on in 3 and 4 based on other remarks
abo ut M0-4 being too cold, and giants being inadmissible.
Is it your understanding the using the habitable zones table is adequate,
or that there is something beyond that?