First, I would like to think that no one is flaming anyone here. We are
expressing disagreements, but that doesn't mean anyone is flaming anyone or
that the arguments are out of control. We are just expressing contrary
views. As long as everyone is civilized, all is good.
On the subject at hand, please know that I am not a chemist nor any kind of
expert. All I can do is regurgitate what I remember of what I have learned
before. So, take anything I say with a grain of salt to start with.
That said, with oxygen, my understanding is not how common or uncommon it
is. The issue is that oxygen is extremely reactive. So, if you have a
completely dead world with lots of free oxygen in the atmosphere, normal
chemical processes will cause the oxygen to combine with other elements and
(relatively) quickly leach it from the atmosphere. So, after X amount of
time (millions of years?) virtually all oxygen will be removed out of an
atmosphere on a dead world. The only way to keep free oxygen in an
atmosphere is to have "life" (presumably "as we know it"). Without that, the
free oxygen is lost.
Going back and using that "example of one" Dave referred to before, the
Earth's atmosphere was original what Traveller would call type A (at best;
it could have been B). It was only due to the formation of life that oxygen
was added into the atmospheric mix(and maintained) over the course of time.
If all life was suddenly erased from Earth, then the oxygen in the
atmosphere would be lost over time. Note that the oxygen would not leave the
planet; it would just be in another form and not in the atmosphere.
Anyway, that is the underpinning understanding of why I fixated on free
oxygen in the atmosphere and its ubiquity in Traveller.
Mike West
From: []
On Behalf Of Another Carpenter
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2014 9:27 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [Traveller_TNE] Re: TNE - Stellar failure
Not that I have any real scientific knowledge on the topic, but I am
proficient with 'Google-Fu', and a quick hit came up with an interesting
statistic. Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the cosmos. That
being understood, it isn't a very far stretch to conceive of a little ball
of dirt with a deep enough gravity well to accumulate a healthy percentage
of it to go along with the nitrogen et al. add some hydrogen, mix and stir
and voila, water as H2O.
I don't mean to propose habitable worlds are the norm, only that if the
stars are in the right luminosity class, the elements to support life can
coalesce nicely in a planet in a stable orbit in the HZ. so while habitable
worlds may be superabundant in the Travellers Universe, the whole UWP issue
as I see it as a GM is not generally fixable, and should we really be
flaming it about anyways?
I'd love EDGs point of view, but as a prediction, he will grouse for a post
or two and then link us all to his own homebrewed UWP system which is based
on current astronomical theory. Of course, with newer and better info coming
in all the time, his homebrewed system will need the occasional tweaking as
will any "hard" SF system.
expressing disagreements, but that doesn't mean anyone is flaming anyone or
that the arguments are out of control. We are just expressing contrary
views. As long as everyone is civilized, all is good.
On the subject at hand, please know that I am not a chemist nor any kind of
expert. All I can do is regurgitate what I remember of what I have learned
before. So, take anything I say with a grain of salt to start with.
That said, with oxygen, my understanding is not how common or uncommon it
is. The issue is that oxygen is extremely reactive. So, if you have a
completely dead world with lots of free oxygen in the atmosphere, normal
chemical processes will cause the oxygen to combine with other elements and
(relatively) quickly leach it from the atmosphere. So, after X amount of
time (millions of years?) virtually all oxygen will be removed out of an
atmosphere on a dead world. The only way to keep free oxygen in an
atmosphere is to have "life" (presumably "as we know it"). Without that, the
free oxygen is lost.
Going back and using that "example of one" Dave referred to before, the
Earth's atmosphere was original what Traveller would call type A (at best;
it could have been B). It was only due to the formation of life that oxygen
was added into the atmospheric mix(and maintained) over the course of time.
If all life was suddenly erased from Earth, then the oxygen in the
atmosphere would be lost over time. Note that the oxygen would not leave the
planet; it would just be in another form and not in the atmosphere.
Anyway, that is the underpinning understanding of why I fixated on free
oxygen in the atmosphere and its ubiquity in Traveller.
Mike West
From: []
On Behalf Of Another Carpenter
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2014 9:27 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [Traveller_TNE] Re: TNE - Stellar failure
Not that I have any real scientific knowledge on the topic, but I am
proficient with 'Google-Fu', and a quick hit came up with an interesting
statistic. Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the cosmos. That
being understood, it isn't a very far stretch to conceive of a little ball
of dirt with a deep enough gravity well to accumulate a healthy percentage
of it to go along with the nitrogen et al. add some hydrogen, mix and stir
and voila, water as H2O.
I don't mean to propose habitable worlds are the norm, only that if the
stars are in the right luminosity class, the elements to support life can
coalesce nicely in a planet in a stable orbit in the HZ. so while habitable
worlds may be superabundant in the Travellers Universe, the whole UWP issue
as I see it as a GM is not generally fixable, and should we really be
flaming it about anyways?
I'd love EDGs point of view, but as a prediction, he will grouse for a post
or two and then link us all to his own homebrewed UWP system which is based
on current astronomical theory. Of course, with newer and better info coming
in all the time, his homebrewed system will need the occasional tweaking as
will any "hard" SF system.