> I know that I hated all of the dwarfs as well, but the main reason to not
> excise them is that red dwarfs are the most common type of star (according
> to astronomical theory circa 1991-95).
Ah, that was probably the problem. The only type "D" star is a white
dwarf, and that doesn't have a spectral class. A "red dwarf" is really
a type M main sequence star. (That confused the crap out of me at
first.) So, the largest "red dwarf" is actually an "M0 V", not an "M0 D".
That means that all of those "red dwarf" stars should have been a main
sequence "V", not a dwarf "D".
Because of the mistaken generation routines, there were actually no
white dwarfs in the data at all. All of the "dwarf" stars where type
"D" with a spectral class. While that was a mistake, it was a tremendous
boon to me, as that meant I could just take the mistaken spectral
class and change the type to "V". That fixed 95%+ of the problems. (Well,
not really. But it did get me close enough to ignore any remaining
problems in that 95%.) The last little bit could legitimately have
been white dwarf stars, so I just deleted the spectral class and left
the "D".
(Hey, I didn't understand all of this stuff until I needed to learn it
for Spinward States, and then I got to ask Constantine a lot of questions,
which helped, as this is his actual area of real-life expertise!)
The one fix I didn't make was to world sizes. I really wanted to
fix world sizes where the atmosphere was type 4-9 so that the minimum
planet size would be 5. (That is the minimum size required for a
planet to retain an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere. Smaller than that,
and the atmosphere leaks out leaving a planet like Mars.)
> And as for the star you cite, I'm sure it was a typo. I don't recall
> having any Droyne gating any stars around, and if I had, I would have
> referenced it in the text, "on XXX-11XX Regency scientists noticed a
> stunning development..." What world was it?
Uniqua/Darrian/Spinward Marches. It lists "K9 V M2 D" for 1117 and
"K9 V M9 D" for 1202. It ended up with "K9 V M9 V". (Of course,
I think I later learned that is still wrong, as there is no "M9".
Red dwarfs stop at "M8". Oh well. One step at a time. :-) )
> By the way, Mike, I tremendously enjoy your messages, as you pay the kind
> of demented attention to this stuff that I did.
Well, the vast majority of that was focused on the RSB because of my
effort on 1248 Spinward States. Martin gave me some very broad strokes
to work with, and let me run with it. The main broad strokes were:
- The Regency collapses (splinters, really)
- The three main political entities post-Regency were the Imperial
Regency, the League of Deneb, and the League of Spinward States.
Other than that, he pretty much let me go nuts.
While I later found out that you never intended for the Regency to
splinter, the RSB perfectly sets up the possibility. Because of that,
it was very easy to set up the scenario where that happened. And many
of the UWP changes that were made just wrote their own stories.
For example, Lilad was population A and extremely high tech, but
its government went from A (popular dictator, e.g. a hereditary
king) to 7 (balkanized). Well, that just screamed out "civil war"
to me as the King's unpopular child/grandchild attempts reassert
absolute control. What does all-out war at TL F even look like?
Not pretty, I decided, and Lilad suffered greatly as a result.
Another example was the Rape of Trin. I expanded on the effect
of the flight of the Kishkii. Basically, the Kishkii virus was
extremely effective and extremely invasive. However, it was
single-minded in its focus, which meant it caused relatively
little damage on its way to Trin. The practical effect of this
was that the Regency got to refine and perfect its anti-viral
techniques and technologies as it fought against the most
advanced virus example it ever saw. While the Regency lost the
battle, as the Kishkii succeeded in devastating Trin, the
Regency actually *won* the war as the Kishkii effectively
proved and improved the Regency viral defenses with a true
trial by fire. The reason there were no more episodes like
the Rape of Trin is because the experience made the Regency
effectively immune to virus. So, while the Rape of Trin
was a tremendous loss of life and a great tragedy, their
deaths were not in vain: they helped protect the rest of
the Regency.
Anyway, the result is doing all of that, even after finishing
Spinward States four years ago, I still remember most of this
stuff off the top of my head.
Now, if you asked me about general TNE rules or FF&S or
something like that, I am toast. I got nothin'. As me about
the RSB, and I got you covered. As me about H&I or general
TNE history, and I am probably OK. The other stuff? I am
outta my league.
Mike West