Thread: Re: TNE - Stellar failure

Mike--

RE: Subject lines--I think I am better at changing subject lines when I
change the subject than I am at doing it in replies where the subject has
already changed, but I am trying to catch those as well.

Back to topic, I may be jumping ahead a little bit here, but this is in my
mind, so I might as well discharge it. I am thinking that "not far enough"
means that, "you did fix some of the world/star mismatches (% unknown at
this point, it would be nice if I could satisfy myself by comparing
pre-TNE stars with TNE stars with youseguys' EDG fixes to see how far we
got against the ideal, but I don't think I'm going to get that done, and
it is not fair for me to ask someone else to do it for me)" but didn't get
all of them.

And I think that the Delta between "fixed some" and "not up to the ideal"
is a combination of the following:

1. Standard error (hopefully small) in stuff slipping through the QA

2. A failure to appreciate that M5+ V still had no hab zone, and assuming
erroneously that switching D to V fixed it (this one annoys me, but I
think it's probably a reasonable explanation)

3. A new post-EDG understanding that the hab zone model does NOT capture
adequately all of the issues, i.e., while an M star gives you a hab zone
in terms of simple heat, its wavelength is centered too low to give you
the full spectrum you'd want for growing plants (Sol's wavelength is
centered in--guess what: Green), and while a bright star gives you a hab
zone in terms of heat, its wavelength is centered too high, giving you
rather too much UV for safe life

4. A new post-EDG understanding that a late-life giant would have done
something to blow the biosphere off of the remaining undigested worlds

5. Failed to properly rename degenerates as degenerates

6. Failed to fix the companion degenerates along with the primary

7. Maybe something else in addition

I get the impression that we're waiting for EDG to clarify points 3 and 4
above that you guys worked from.

Assuming that the above is accurate, that would provide me a basis for
saying, "okay, we got some but not all" and moving on with my life.

Another thing that this points out is that the "existing" (at the time of
TNE) star generation system is flawed in that it adds on Luminosity Class
D after generating spectral class which tends to force an unnecessary
error. Really you should determine if it's a remnant or a "real star, open
for business" at a step BEFORE calculating spectral class. The existing
process fully explains why Traveller had G2 Ds or whatever, because going
through the steps you had already written down G2 (or had your buggy
program drop G2 into the fields) before you got the D value. So an ideal
generation system would start out with, "Is there a star here," then, "If
so, Degenerate or not," then, "If not, generate spectral type, luminosity
class," etc.

Although arguably if the primary target is "how to add logical stars to
existing 3I UWPs," it would proceed differently, asking, "what does this
established world require," then randomly generate specifics within that
narrower band.

> Ø Oh look, there's Alell. Never mind, DED, we found it.
>
>
>
> Oh look, there is a big ol’ screw-up on me.
>
>
>
> The physical characteristics of Alell are 467. So, yes, indeed, it
should
> have had one of its stars increased to be F-K. I probably should have
made
> it have stellar data of “K7V M7V”. I dunno why I screwed it up. Maybe I
thought two M7Vs in a tight formation would have produced enough heat?
Regardless, I should have definitely bumped it. Maybe I could have
swapped
> it around with Boughene and make Boughene be an M7V, and Alell be a K7V M7V
> so as to try and keep the distribution a little more like the original.
>
>
>
> On a related through, I noticed in your reply to DED that Frank hated
the
> “high-pop hostile” world. I really hate those, too, and (with the
horrible
> upheaval even in the Domain of Deneb/Regency) used that as an excuse to
ruthlessly crush many (maybe most) of those worlds. (In fact, I
initially
> went too far and ended up putting some of them back.)
>
>
>
> Mike West
>
>
>
>
>
>

> On a related through, I noticed in your reply to DED that Frank hated the
> “high-pop hostile” world. I really hate those, too, and (with the horrible
> upheaval even in the Domain of Deneb/Regency) used that as an excuse to
> ruthlessly crush many (maybe most) of those worlds. (In fact, I initially
> went too far and ended up putting some of them back.)

I remember some early pre-TNE conversations where Frank saw the Hard
Times, post-Rebellion, eventually Collapse dynamic as an in-game "silver
lining" way to get rid of those worlds.

Not an invalid thought, but you'd still have players and RC going to them
to scrounge vacuum-preserved goodies. And there was also the dynamic that
star change introduced into it. In addition to the Hi-Pop airless rocks
you also had the Hi-Pop worlds with atmospheres around stars with no
habitable zones, which worked out almost the same way, because you still
had to put the population under domes or underground to provide artificial
heat. Fixing the stars would allow them to survive without technology, but
would require the "Collapser" to remember to fix the star before applying
"Collapsing." That is the way it ought to have been done. Maybe the
Gelinas article Alan mentioned in Challenge 77 goes into that, as I am
clearly leery of saying, "this is what we did, and we succeeded," where
that dynamic is involved.

By the way, I had the TV on last night and watched some of the new
"Cosmos" series on Fox, and I realized what the root of all my problems
is.

The executive producer of the new "Cosmos" is Seth McFarlane (Family Guy,
American Dad, Cleveland Show).

Clearly, everything that I thought I knew about anything is wrong. Just
wrong.

> Ø Oh look, there's Alell. Never mind, DED, we found it.
>
>
>
> Oh look, there is a big ol’ screw-up on me.
>
>
>
> The physical characteristics of Alell are 467. So, yes, indeed, it should
> have had one of its stars increased to be F-K. I probably should have made
> it have stellar data of “K7V M7V”. I dunno why I screwed it up. Maybe I
> thought two M7Vs in a tight formation would have produced enough heat?
> Regardless, I should have definitely bumped it. Maybe I could have swapped
> it around with Boughene and make Boughene be an M7V, and Alell be a K7V
> M7V
> so as to try and keep the distribution a little more like the original.
>
>
>
> On a related through, I noticed in your reply to DED that Frank hated the
> “high-pop hostile” world. I really hate those, too, and (with the horrible
> upheaval even in the Domain of Deneb/Regency) used that as an excuse to
> ruthlessly crush many (maybe most) of those worlds. (In fact, I initially
> went too far and ended up putting some of them back.)
>
>
>
> Mike West
>
>
>
>
>
>

You can probably boil the whole thing down to basically #2, #5, and #6.
Those cover the vast majority of what I did.

Obviously #1 played a part, but that was actually pretty small, and I likely
added enough of those to counterbalance whatever ones I did fix.

Items #3 and #4 are more of the types of things I *wanted* to fix, but knew
I couldn’t. The primary issues (2, 5, and 6) were what I focused on to
“finish” the changes you had started.

Then, as mentioned before, in an ideal opportunity, as part of #7, I would
have “fixed” the world sizes, too. But, again, that just wasn’t possible, so
it didn’t happen.

So, again, to stress the point, it wasn’t so much a “stellar failure” and
just an incomplete process. And, when you look at what I tried to do with
the cold, hard light of objectivity, it was incomplete, too. Because it
can’t ever be complete without changing it so much it risks becoming
unrecognizable. Sure, I went a few steps past the RSB, but that doesn’t mean
it isn’t incomplete as well.

Mike West



RE: Subject lines--I think I am better at changing subject lines when I
change the subject than I am at doing it in replies where the subject has
already changed, but I am trying to catch those as well.

Back to topic, I may be jumping ahead a little bit here, but this is in my
mind, so I might as well discharge it. I am thinking that "not far enough"
means that, "you did fix some of the world/star mismatches (% unknown at
this point, it would be nice if I could satisfy myself by comparing
pre-TNE stars with TNE stars with youseguys' EDG fixes to see how far we
got against the ideal, but I don't think I'm going to get that done, and
it is not fair for me to ask someone else to do it for me)" but didn't get
all of them.

And I think that the Delta between "fixed some" and "not up to the ideal"
is a combination of the following:

1. Standard error (hopefully small) in stuff slipping through the QA

2. A failure to appreciate that M5+ V still had no hab zone, and assuming
erroneously that switching D to V fixed it (this one annoys me, but I
think it's probably a reasonable explanation)

3. A new post-EDG understanding that the hab zone model does NOT capture
adequately all of the issues, i.e., while an M star gives you a hab zone
in terms of simple heat, its wavelength is centered too low to give you
the full spectrum you'd want for growing plants (Sol's wavelength is
centered in--guess what: Green), and while a bright star gives you a hab
zone in terms of heat, its wavelength is centered too high, giving you
rather too much UV for safe life

4. A new post-EDG understanding that a late-life giant would have done
something to blow the biosphere off of the remaining undigested worlds

5. Failed to properly rename degenerates as degenerates

6. Failed to fix the companion degenerates along with the primary

7. Maybe something else in addition

I get the impression that we're waiting for EDG to clarify points 3 and 4
above that you guys worked from.

Assuming that the above is accurate, that would provide me a basis for
saying, "okay, we got some but not all" and moving on with my life.

Another thing that this points out is that the "existing" (at the time of
TNE) star generation system is flawed in that it adds on Luminosity Class
D after generating spectral class which tends to force an unnecessary
error. Really you should determine if it's a remnant or a "real star, open
for business" at a step BEFORE calculating spectral class. The existing
process fully explains why Traveller had G2 Ds or whatever, because going
through the steps you had already written down G2 (or had your buggy
program drop G2 into the fields) before you got the D value. So an ideal
generation system would start out with, "Is there a star here," then, "If
so, Degenerate or not," then, "If not, generate spectral type, luminosity
class," etc.

Although arguably if the primary target is "how to add logical stars to
existing 3I UWPs," it would proceed differently, asking, "what does this
established world require," then randomly generate specifics within that
narrower band.

> Ø Oh look, there's Alell. Never mind, DED, we found it.
>
>
>
> Oh look, there is a big ol’ screw-up on me.
>
>
>
> The physical characteristics of Alell are 467. So, yes, indeed, it
should
> have had one of its stars increased to be F-K. I probably should have
made
> it have stellar data of “K7V M7V”. I dunno why I screwed it up. Maybe I
thought two M7Vs in a tight formation would have produced enough heat?
Regardless, I should have definitely bumped it. Maybe I could have
swapped
> it around with Boughene and make Boughene be an M7V, and Alell be a K7V
M7V
> so as to try and keep the distribution a little more like the original.
>
>
>
> On a related through, I noticed in your reply to DED that Frank hated
the
> “high-pop hostile” world. I really hate those, too, and (with the
horrible
> upheaval even in the Domain of Deneb/Regency) used that as an excuse to
ruthlessly crush many (maybe most) of those worlds. (In fact, I
initially
> went too far and ended up putting some of them back.)
>
>
>
> Mike West
>
>
>
>
>
>

I never really minded those... At least some, but I could see the reliance
on high technology making them do things not quite wise in retrospect,
though not deliberately planned.

Its the while New Orleans built under sea level in a hurricane zone.
Sure, there are probably just too many, but space isn't hospitable and who
in tge Ziru Sirka or Rule of Man or Sylean Federation ever conceive of
Virus? It was partially human penchant for the willful disregard of danger
that isn't imminent and a car if classic shortsightedness.

Though I also partially prefer a New Era retcon that most of that pre
Collapse data is just wrong/corrupted/etc (tranlation error or someone in
IISS did a bad find/replace perhaps), though that would possibly be more
contentious. Works for a campaign without big investment in the old
material anyway.

- Sent from my SM-N900T
On Apr 7, 2014 10:36 AM, <> wrote:

>
>
> > On a related through, I noticed in your reply to DED that Frank hated the
> > "high-pop hostile" world. I really hate those, too, and (with the
> horrible
> > upheaval even in the Domain of Deneb/Regency) used that as an excuse to
> > ruthlessly crush many (maybe most) of those worlds. (In fact, I initially
> > went too far and ended up putting some of them back.)
>
> I remember some early pre-TNE conversations where Frank saw the Hard
> Times, post-Rebellion, eventually Collapse dynamic as an in-game "silver
> lining" way to get rid of those worlds.
>
> Not an invalid thought, but you'd still have players and RC going to them
> to scrounge vacuum-preserved goodies. And there was also the dynamic that
> star change introduced into it. In addition to the Hi-Pop airless rocks
> you also had the Hi-Pop worlds with atmospheres around stars with no
> habitable zones, which worked out almost the same way, because you still
> had to put the population under domes or underground to provide artificial
> heat. Fixing the stars would allow them to survive without technology, but
> would require the "Collapser" to remember to fix the star before applying
> "Collapsing." That is the way it ought to have been done. Maybe the
> Gelinas article Alan mentioned in Challenge 77 goes into that, as I am
> clearly leery of saying, "this is what we did, and we succeeded," where
> that dynamic is involved.
>
> By the way, I had the TV on last night and watched some of the new
> "Cosmos" series on Fox, and I realized what the root of all my problems
> is.
>
> The executive producer of the new "Cosmos" is Seth McFarlane (Family Guy,
> American Dad, Cleveland Show).
>
> Clearly, everything that I thought I knew about anything is wrong. Just
> wrong.
>
> > Ø Oh look, there's Alell. Never mind, DED, we found it.
> >
> >
> >
> > Oh look, there is a big ol' screw-up on me.
> >
> >
> >
> > The physical characteristics of Alell are 467. So, yes, indeed, it should
> > have had one of its stars increased to be F-K. I probably should have
> made
> > it have stellar data of "K7V M7V". I dunno why I screwed it up. Maybe I
> > thought two M7Vs in a tight formation would have produced enough heat?
> > Regardless, I should have definitely bumped it. Maybe I could have
> swapped
> > it around with Boughene and make Boughene be an M7V, and Alell be a K7V
> > M7V
> > so as to try and keep the distribution a little more like the original.
> >
> >
> >
> > On a related through, I noticed in your reply to DED that Frank hated the
> > "high-pop hostile" world. I really hate those, too, and (with the
> horrible
> > upheaval even in the Domain of Deneb/Regency) used that as an excuse to
> > ruthlessly crush many (maybe most) of those worlds. (In fact, I initially
> > went too far and ended up putting some of them back.)
> >
> >
> >
> > Mike West
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>

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
about 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?

I'm just calling it "stellar failure" because the intent was to do it
once, take the heat, and be done with it. The fact that it didn't
accomplish that means by definition that it failed its mission. I'm not
trying to go all martyr-y, just calling a spade a spade. And the obvious
danglers, like the remaining D companions and failing to rename the Ds
indicates that somewhere along the line I had to go "quick and dirty"
which means it was doomed from the get-go. Not what I intended. Probably
my thought at the time is that those 2 obvious danglers at least "solved
the main problem" by giving habitable zones to worlds that didn't have
them (except where it didn't).

> You can probably boil the whole thing down to basically #2, #5, and #6.
> Those cover the vast majority of what I did.
>
>
>
> Obviously #1 played a part, but that was actually pretty small, and I
> likely
> added enough of those to counterbalance whatever ones I did fix.
>
>
>
> Items #3 and #4 are more of the types of things I *wanted* to fix, but
> knew
> I couldn’t. The primary issues (2, 5, and 6) were what I focused on to
> “finish” the changes you had started.
>
>
>
> Then, as mentioned before, in an ideal opportunity, as part of #7, I would
> have “fixed” the world sizes, too. But, again, that just wasn’t possible,
> so
> it didn’t happen.
>
>
>
> So, again, to stress the point, it wasn’t so much a “stellar failure” and
> just an incomplete process. And, when you look at what I tried to do with
> the cold, hard light of objectivity, it was incomplete, too. Because it
> can’t ever be complete without changing it so much it risks becoming
> unrecognizable. Sure, I went a few steps past the RSB, but that doesn’t
> mean
> it isn’t incomplete as well.
>
>
>
> Mike West
>
>
>
> RE: Subject lines--I think I am better at changing subject lines when I
> change the subject than I am at doing it in replies where the subject has
> already changed, but I am trying to catch those as well.
>
> Back to topic, I may be jumping ahead a little bit here, but this is in my
> mind, so I might as well discharge it. I am thinking that "not far enough"
> means that, "you did fix some of the world/star mismatches (% unknown at
> this point, it would be nice if I could satisfy myself by comparing
> pre-TNE stars with TNE stars with youseguys' EDG fixes to see how far we
> got against the ideal, but I don't think I'm going to get that done, and
> it is not fair for me to ask someone else to do it for me)" but didn't get
> all of them.
>
> And I think that the Delta between "fixed some" and "not up to the ideal"
> is a combination of the following:
>
> 1. Standard error (hopefully small) in stuff slipping through the QA
>
> 2. A failure to appreciate that M5+ V still had no hab zone, and assuming
> erroneously that switching D to V fixed it (this one annoys me, but I
> think it's probably a reasonable explanation)
>
> 3. A new post-EDG understanding that the hab zone model does NOT capture
> adequately all of the issues, i.e., while an M star gives you a hab zone
> in terms of simple heat, its wavelength is centered too low to give you
> the full spectrum you'd want for growing plants (Sol's wavelength is
> centered in--guess what: Green), and while a bright star gives you a hab
> zone in terms of heat, its wavelength is centered too high, giving you
> rather too much UV for safe life
>
> 4. A new post-EDG understanding that a late-life giant would have done
> something to blow the biosphere off of the remaining undigested worlds
>
> 5. Failed to properly rename degenerates as degenerates
>
> 6. Failed to fix the companion degenerates along with the primary
>
> 7. Maybe something else in addition
>
> I get the impression that we're waiting for EDG to clarify points 3 and 4
> above that you guys worked from.
>
> Assuming that the above is accurate, that would provide me a basis for
> saying, "okay, we got some but not all" and moving on with my life.
>
> Another thing that this points out is that the "existing" (at the time of
> TNE) star generation system is flawed in that it adds on Luminosity Class
> D after generating spectral class which tends to force an unnecessary
> error. Really you should determine if it's a remnant or a "real star, open
> for business" at a step BEFORE calculating spectral class. The existing
> process fully explains why Traveller had G2 Ds or whatever, because going
> through the steps you had already written down G2 (or had your buggy
> program drop G2 into the fields) before you got the D value. So an ideal
> generation system would start out with, "Is there a star here," then, "If
> so, Degenerate or not," then, "If not, generate spectral type, luminosity
> class," etc.
>
> Although arguably if the primary target is "how to add logical stars to
> existing 3I UWPs," it would proceed differently, asking, "what does this
> established world require," then randomly generate specifics within that
> narrower band.
>
>> Ø Oh look, there's Alell. Never mind, DED, we found it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Oh look, there is a big ol’ screw-up on me.
>>
>>
>>
>> The physical characteristics of Alell are 467. So, yes, indeed, it
> should
>> have had one of its stars increased to be F-K. I probably should have
> made
>> it have stellar data of “K7V M7V”. I dunno why I screwed it up. Maybe I
> thought two M7Vs in a tight formation would have produced enough heat?
> Regardless, I should have definitely bumped it. Maybe I could have
> swapped
>> it around with Boughene and make Boughene be an M7V, and Alell be a K7V
> M7V
>> so as to try and keep the distribution a little more like the original.
>>
>>
>>
>> On a related through, I noticed in your reply to DED that Frank hated
> the
>> “high-pop hostile” world. I really hate those, too, and (with the
> horrible
>> upheaval even in the Domain of Deneb/Regency) used that as an excuse to
> ruthlessly crush many (maybe most) of those worlds. (In fact, I
> initially
>> went too far and ended up putting some of them back.)
>>
>>
>>
>> Mike West
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>

I'm with you in liking the Hi-Pop worlds on airless rocks (gives it a nice
SF feel) the first time...maybe the second time...but then when you
started finding them all over the place and realizing that they were more
often the rule than not, it started getting annoying, especially when you
see how many lush unpopulated worlds are nearby, and how notionally cheap
travel is, etc. It undermines the economic assumptions, or else asserts
new weirder ones.

> I never really minded those... At least some, but I could see the
> reliance
> on high technology making them do things not quite wise in retrospect,
> though not deliberately planned.
>
> Its the while New Orleans built under sea level in a hurricane zone.
> Sure, there are probably just too many, but space isn't hospitable and
> who
> in tge Ziru Sirka or Rule of Man or Sylean Federation ever conceive of
> Virus? It was partially human penchant for the willful disregard of danger
> that isn't imminent and a car if classic shortsightedness.
>
> Though I also partially prefer a New Era retcon that most of that pre
> Collapse data is just wrong/corrupted/etc (tranlation error or someone in
> IISS did a bad find/replace perhaps), though that would possibly be more
> contentious. Works for a campaign without big investment in the old
> material anyway.
>
> - Sent from my SM-N900T
> On Apr 7, 2014 10:36 AM, <> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> > On a related through, I noticed in your reply to DED that Frank hated
>> the
>> > "high-pop hostile" world. I really hate those, too, and (with the
>> horrible
>> > upheaval even in the Domain of Deneb/Regency) used that as an excuse
>> to
>> > ruthlessly crush many (maybe most) of those worlds. (In fact, I
>> initially
>> > went too far and ended up putting some of them back.)
>>
>> I remember some early pre-TNE conversations where Frank saw the Hard
>> Times, post-Rebellion, eventually Collapse dynamic as an in-game "silver
>> lining" way to get rid of those worlds.
>>
>> Not an invalid thought, but you'd still have players and RC going to
>> them
>> to scrounge vacuum-preserved goodies. And there was also the dynamic
>> that
>> star change introduced into it. In addition to the Hi-Pop airless rocks
>> you also had the Hi-Pop worlds with atmospheres around stars with no
>> habitable zones, which worked out almost the same way, because you still
>> had to put the population under domes or underground to provide
>> artificial
>> heat. Fixing the stars would allow them to survive without technology,
>> but
>> would require the "Collapser" to remember to fix the star before
>> applying
>> "Collapsing." That is the way it ought to have been done. Maybe the
>> Gelinas article Alan mentioned in Challenge 77 goes into that, as I am
>> clearly leery of saying, "this is what we did, and we succeeded," where
>> that dynamic is involved.
>>
>> By the way, I had the TV on last night and watched some of the new
>> "Cosmos" series on Fox, and I realized what the root of all my problems
>> is.
>>
>> The executive producer of the new "Cosmos" is Seth McFarlane (Family
>> Guy,
>> American Dad, Cleveland Show).
>>
>> Clearly, everything that I thought I knew about anything is wrong. Just
>> wrong.
>>
>> > Ø Oh look, there's Alell. Never mind, DED, we found it.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Oh look, there is a big ol' screw-up on me.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > The physical characteristics of Alell are 467. So, yes, indeed, it
>> should
>> > have had one of its stars increased to be F-K. I probably should have
>> made
>> > it have stellar data of "K7V M7V". I dunno why I screwed it up. Maybe
>> I
>> > thought two M7Vs in a tight formation would have produced enough heat?
>> > Regardless, I should have definitely bumped it. Maybe I could have
>> swapped
>> > it around with Boughene and make Boughene be an M7V, and Alell be a
>> K7V
>> > M7V
>> > so as to try and keep the distribution a little more like the
>> original.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On a related through, I noticed in your reply to DED that Frank hated
>> the
>> > "high-pop hostile" world. I really hate those, too, and (with the
>> horrible
>> > upheaval even in the Domain of Deneb/Regency) used that as an excuse
>> to
>> > ruthlessly crush many (maybe most) of those worlds. (In fact, I
>> initially
>> > went too far and ended up putting some of them back.)
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Mike West
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>

I don't know if I have the WTH around anywhere, so I can't 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 don't 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 don't last the couple billion years required for
life to develop. That said, it isn't as necessary to worry about the giants,
as 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
about 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?

In Traveller, life doesn't have to develop independently. Between the Ancients, the Vilani, and all the other interstellar civilisations that have been hanging, there's a fair chance that most of the worlds in Charted Space are parkland rather than wilderness. That is, they have been modified, "terra"formed and otherwise messed with to a degree that allows all kinds of handwaving.

While it's a vastly different order of magnitude, the European settlements in both Australia and the Americas both occurred in landscapes that had been radically modified by their previous inhabitants. That is, they had already been "terraformed" to a remarkable degree.

---In , <mjwest@...> wrote :
If I remember right, the problem with both giants and main sequence stars O,B,A is that they just don’t last the couple billion years required for life to develop. That said, it isn’t as necessary to worry about the giants, as a few habitable worlds around a giant is cool for the type of SF that is Traveller.

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 don’t know if I have the WTH around anywhere, so I can’t 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 don’t 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 don’t last the couple billion years required for life to develop. That said, it isn’t 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?
>
>
>

Mike--

> I don't know if I have the WTH around anywhere, so I can't speak to the
> tables easily.

Well, I would say that all of the WTH tables that were also in TNE should
be identical to the ones in TNE. But you know how my batting average is
running on that topic of late. I swear I painted that yellow house purple.
I know it's still yellow, but there's got to be a purple house in this
neighborhood someplace.

> On the subject of M0-4 stars working, it is my understanding they can.
> (Heck Mire has an M0V, and I don't think anyone has tried to change it.)
It was
> just the dinky red dwarfs that were the issue (e.g. Alell).

Right, that is my assumption (the hab zone assumption), but there have
been enough remarks about too-cold stars that I'm wondering if there's
another consideration beyond hab zone, so that I don't have to wonder if
shoe-gnomes replaced the correct paste-ups with something else after I
went to bed.

> If I remember right, the problem with both giants and main sequence stars
> O,B,A is that they just don't last the couple billion years required for
> life to develop. That said, it isn't as necessary to worry about the
> giants, as a few habitable worlds around a giant is cool for the type of
SF that
> is Traveller.

That goes back to my assumption that in Traveller we are not really
thinking about native life. I know that we casually refer to native life
(and then ignore the animal encounter tables by flying over them in
air/rafts per recent discussions), but what Traveller is REALLY talking
about is starfaring races colonizing them in the last 8000 years, or
Grandfather plopping his experiments down 300,000 years ago, which is
still an eye-blink in stellar evolution. I assume that all of these
colonies are bringing their own seed corn and domestic animals with them.
BUT, two caveats:

1. We do need to establish where those "minor (independently evolved)
races" come from and ensure they have longer-lived stars, and I will admit
now that I am not conscious of having done that, although I think Geo did.
But my major thought was always those are the exceptions rather than the
rule, and the rule is colonization, where stellar lifespan is not a big
issue.

2. To a lesser extent we do need to think of worlds where we established
significant local animals (e.g., Tree Krakens) and ensure that those
worlds have long-lived stars. I definitely admit to not doing that. But
Traveller has always been a colonization game, not a locally-evolved life
game. Guaran or Glea (whichever one it is) and worlds like that, we
definitely have to keep an eye on.

The argument could and perhaps should be made that my colonization
assumption is invalid, or let's say "invalid as a universal rule." But in
about 95% of the cases the UWP population in question is about 8000 years
old, and the H in the table supports that.

There are a lot of issues and POVs to examine in all of this, something as
big as Traveller's Charted Space, and lots of special cases, exceptions,
etc. With all that in my mind right now trying to fit it in "on the side"
with the rest of TNE was maybe never going to work. The process would have
to start with:

1. Identify all homeworlds of indigenous minor races and mark them for
special stellar attention (or just say, "must be V")

2. Identify all worlds where any adventure, article, etc., has identified
distinctive local flora and fauna, and mark these for special stellar
attention (or just say, "must be V")

Then modify the stars as otherwise discussed. I don't know to what extent
the players were hooked on distinctive local stars. I know there was the
odd case of, "this subsector is known for the bright XXX star..." but I
don't think there was a lot of that. It's really just another lesson of
being careful on putting out overly-specific detail in cases where you
don't need it or haven't completely thought it through to begin with.

> 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
> about 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?
>
>
>
>

Yeah, what Alan said! (And which Mike also said)

> In Traveller, life doesn't have to develop independently. Between the
> Ancients, the Vilani, and all the other interstellar civilisations that
> have been hanging, there's a fair chance that most of the worlds in
> Charted Space are parkland rather than wilderness. That is, they have been
> modified, "terra"formed and otherwise messed with to a degree that allows
> all kinds of handwaving.
>
> While it's a vastly different order of magnitude, the European settlements
> in both Australia and the Americas both occurred in landscapes that had
> been radically modified by their previous inhabitants. That is, they had
> already been "terraformed" to a remarkable degree.
>
> ---In , <mjwest@...> wrote :
> If I remember right, the problem with both giants and main sequence stars
> O,B,A is that they just don’t last the couple billion years required
> for life to develop. That said, it isn’t as necessary to worry about
> the giants, as a few habitable worlds around a giant is cool for the type
> of SF that is Traveller.
>
>
>
>
>

> 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.

THAT'S clearly not true! "Look, an airless rock! Let's move 9 billion
people here!" :-)

> 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. :)

Just because I was curious, I looked this up. The oldest elements of Mars
surface supposedly formed 4.5 to 3.5 billion years ago. About 4 billion
years ago its tectonic plates stopped moving and it lost its
magnetosphere. By 3.5 billion y.a. it had extensive liquid water, and some
water lasted to "a few million" y.a.

So even Grandfather was too late for liquid water on Mars, to indicate
what an eye-blink that was. (Homo heidelbergensis, H. rhodesiensis, H.
neanderthalensis)

> Derek Stanley
> Sent from my iPad
>
>> On Apr 7, 2014, at 7:06 PM, "Mike West" <> wrote:
>>
>> I don’t know if I have the WTH around anywhere, so I can’t 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 don’t 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 don’t last the couple billion years
>> required for life to develop. That said, it isn’t 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?
>>
>>
>>
>

Agree, far to much of that but I guess what I was getting at is just because a planet doesn’t have life on it doesn’t mean it’s un-inhabitable… you just have to be there at the right time as far as some of them are concerned.

From: [] On Behalf Of
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 10:04 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.

THAT'S clearly not true! "Look, an airless rock! Let's move 9 billion
people here!" :-)

> 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. :)

Just because I was curious, I looked this up. The oldest elements of Mars
surface supposedly formed 4.5 to 3.5 billion years ago. About 4 billion
years ago its tectonic plates stopped moving and it lost its
magnetosphere. By 3.5 billion y.a. it had extensive liquid water, and some
water lasted to "a few million" y.a.

So even Grandfather was too late for liquid water on Mars, to indicate
what an eye-blink that was. (Homo heidelbergensis, H. rhodesiensis, H.
neanderthalensis)

> Derek Stanley
> Sent from my iPad
>
>> On Apr 7, 2014, at 7:06 PM, "Mike West" <> wrote:
>>
>> I don’t know if I have the WTH around anywhere, so I can’t 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 don’t 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 don’t last the couple billion years
>> required for life to develop. That said, it isn’t 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?
>>
>>
>>
>

I agree with your point, I just couldn't help being dumb.

> Agree, far to much of that but I guess what I was getting at is just
> because a planet doesn’t have life on it doesn’t mean it’s
> un-inhabitable… you just have to be there at the right time as far as
> some of them are concerned.
>
>
>
> From: []
> On Behalf Of
> Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 10:04 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.
>
> THAT'S clearly not true! "Look, an airless rock! Let's move 9 billion
> people here!" :-)
>
>> 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. :)
>
> Just because I was curious, I looked this up. The oldest elements of Mars
> surface supposedly formed 4.5 to 3.5 billion years ago. About 4 billion
> years ago its tectonic plates stopped moving and it lost its
> magnetosphere. By 3.5 billion y.a. it had extensive liquid water, and some
> water lasted to "a few million" y.a.
>
> So even Grandfather was too late for liquid water on Mars, to indicate
> what an eye-blink that was. (Homo heidelbergensis, H. rhodesiensis, H.
> neanderthalensis)
>
>> Derek Stanley
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>>> On Apr 7, 2014, at 7:06 PM, "Mike West" <> wrote:
>>>
>>> I don’t know if I have the WTH around anywhere, so I
>>> can’t 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 don’t 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 don’t last the couple billion
>>> years
>>> required for life to develop. That said, it isn’t 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?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
>
>

Sure. That’s fine a few times. In the sector. But if you have to do it for vast sections of the sector, then that explanation loses a lot of its flavor and charm. It still has to work out most of the time, and let the Ancients pick of the slack from their.

Plus, there is only so much you can do in 1000 years. Or even in 300,000 years. Sure, you can take a “close to livable” world and tweak and modify it. (Or at least attempt to.) But it takes millions (or more) years to start from scratch with no oxygen in the atmosphere. You gotta have something to start with to terraform, and if the system just doesn’t have that time to get that headstart, there isn’t much the Ancients (must less the Vilani or Darrians) can do with it.

Part of “gooey” SF (like Traveller) is that sense of wonder and the impossible. I get that and like that. But if there is no firm foundation on which it is built, then it just becomes an indistinct mess.

Mike West



From: [] On Behalf Of
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 9:42 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [Traveller_TNE] Re: TNE - Stellar failure

In Traveller, life doesn't have to develop independently. Between the Ancients, the Vilani, and all the other interstellar civilisations that have been hanging, there's a fair chance that most of the worlds in Charted Space are parkland rather than wilderness. That is, they have been modified, "terra"formed and otherwise messed with to a degree that allows all kinds of handwaving.

While it's a vastly different order of magnitude, the European settlements in both Australia and the Americas both occurred in landscapes that had been radically modified by their previous inhabitants. That is, they had already been "terraformed" to a remarkable degree.

---In , <mjwest@...> wrote :

If I remember right, the problem with both giants and main sequence stars O,B,A is that they just don’t last the couple billion years required for life to develop. That said, it isn’t as necessary to worry about the giants, as a few habitable worlds around a giant is cool for the type of SF that is Traveller.

Let me back up for a moment.

If you have a life-less rock, I don’t give a crap what star it orbits. I also don’t care if there are a billion morons living on it. That’s Traveller. Roll with it. I am not talking about those worlds.

The worlds I am talking about are those worlds with some kind of “breathable” atmosphere. It is “breathable” because it is the correct composition and has lots of oxygen in it. Oxygen doesn’t just “appear” in an atmosphere. It also doesn’t just “stay” in the atmosphere, either. Something (generally this thing called “life as we know it”) 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 don’t know for sure, but I am willing to bet the Vilani haven’t 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 weren’t enough of them to terraform every world. There were, what, 400 of them? And it wasn’t 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 don’t know if I have the WTH around anywhere, so I can’t 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 don’t 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 don’t last the couple billion years required for life to develop. That said, it isn’t 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?

Ø That goes back to my assumption that in Traveller we are not really
thinking about native life. I know that we casually refer to native life
(and then ignore the animal encounter tables by flying over them in
air/rafts per recent discussions), but what Traveller is REALLY talking
about is starfaring races colonizing them in the last 8000 years, or
Grandfather plopping his experiments down 300,000 years ago, which is
still an eye-blink in stellar evolution. I assume that all of these
colonies are bringing their own seed corn and domestic animals with them

You can bring all of the seed corn and domestic animals to that nearly
airless rockball you want to, but you still aren’t going to get a breathable
atmosphere in the next 1000 years.

You can bring all of the seed corn and domestic animals to that world with a
type A atmosphere, but you aren’t going to get a breathable atmosphere in
the next 1000 years.

Instead, you are going to go to that atmosphere 4-9 world (*maybe* include
type 2-3, too) and settle there. Cool. I get that. But, where did all of
that oxygen in the atmosphere come from? Sure, you are “terraforming” that
planet by making it more Earth-like. But it was still pretty Earth-like to
start with. Where did that oxygen come from? It had to come from somewhere,
and has to have something that keeps it there. What was it? Maybe it was
life that sucks for humans, so you have to bring your own. Maybe it is
super-primitive life like early plants and lichen and alge. But something
needs to already be there to make that atmosphere type 4-9 to start with.
How did the oxygen get there first? Life. And it takes a long time for that
life to develop and change the atmosphere to type 4-9.

(And that is what Traveller means by “terraforming”, anyway. You go to a
world with a breathable or near-breathable atmosphere and a crappy [for
humans] biosphere and remake the biosphere to suit humans. But that still
means the world originally had both some kind of human-recognizable
carbon-based life *and* it had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Terraforming
doesn’t make the atmosphere; it at best modifies it and changes the
biosphere.)

Again, you can put up all of the domes you want. I am not talking about
those worlds. I am talking about a world with a breathable (or close enough)
type 4-9 atmosphere. No human put that oxygen there. Did the Ancients have
enough time to put it there? I dunno.

Mike West

Ø 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. :)

Let me try this in a much shorter manner:

I am not assuming the Imperium is only looking for habitable planets with life on them.

I *am* assuming the Imperium is looking for planets with a useable atmosphere on them. And, by the Traveller world generation rules, they find *loads* of them. How did all of those atmosphere 4-9 worlds get their atmosphere? What generates that oxygen and keeps it in the atmosphere?

As a corollary, I am asking two questions:

1) How long would it take to change a world with a type 0 or 1 atmosphere into a type 4 or 5 atmosphere?

2) How long would it take to change a world with a type A atmosphere into a type 6 atmosphere?

I am obviously making a ton of assumptions on what it would take, and I could be completely, totally wrong. Answers to these two questions would pretty directly tell me how wrong I am.

Mike West

Mike--

This is a good point, and will require me to rethink some of what I said
in my previous message about giants.

Certainly the idea is that on Earth plant life unlocked the oxygen, and we
have ways of measuring markers for or "fossil" partial pressure of oxygen
to see when it got here. When that life began here, and the time since to
create that partial pressure, I don't know, and if the length of time it
took it to begin here, and the rate at which oxygenation proceeded here is
representative of other places where life could happen, don't know that
either. Or if there are other mechanisms elsewhere by which it could
proceed.

But in the absence of other ideas, using the Earth yardstick is probably
the only reasonable approach.

Certainly worlds with only a giant star could have a problem developing an
oxygen atmosphere. Some guys say it could happen in the second
(chronological) habitable zone in stars of one stellar mass. And a giant
as part of a multiple could still be worked if it is a far companion or is
one that doesn't grow in a disruptive way, or at least in the billion
years before it gets disruptive.

I wish I had realized this is what you were saying 12-24 hours ago.

So, is this the kind of thinking that is going on in Traveller at large
these days, or only in certain corners?

> Ø That goes back to my assumption that in Traveller we are not really
> thinking about native life. I know that we casually refer to native life
> (and then ignore the animal encounter tables by flying over them in
> air/rafts per recent discussions), but what Traveller is REALLY talking
> about is starfaring races colonizing them in the last 8000 years, or
> Grandfather plopping his experiments down 300,000 years ago, which is
> still an eye-blink in stellar evolution. I assume that all of these
> colonies are bringing their own seed corn and domestic animals with them
>
>
>
> You can bring all of the seed corn and domestic animals to that nearly
> airless rockball you want to, but you still aren’t going to get a
> breathable
> atmosphere in the next 1000 years.
>
>
>
> You can bring all of the seed corn and domestic animals to that world with
> a
> type A atmosphere, but you aren’t going to get a breathable atmosphere in
> the next 1000 years.
>
>
>
> Instead, you are going to go to that atmosphere 4-9 world (*maybe* include
> type 2-3, too) and settle there. Cool. I get that. But, where did all of
> that oxygen in the atmosphere come from? Sure, you are “terraforming” that
> planet by making it more Earth-like. But it was still pretty Earth-like to
> start with. Where did that oxygen come from? It had to come from
> somewhere,
> and has to have something that keeps it there. What was it? Maybe it was
> life that sucks for humans, so you have to bring your own. Maybe it is
> super-primitive life like early plants and lichen and alge. But something
> needs to already be there to make that atmosphere type 4-9 to start with.
> How did the oxygen get there first? Life. And it takes a long time for
> that
> life to develop and change the atmosphere to type 4-9.
>
>
>
> (And that is what Traveller means by “terraforming”, anyway. You go to a
> world with a breathable or near-breathable atmosphere and a crappy [for
> humans] biosphere and remake the biosphere to suit humans. But that still
> means the world originally had both some kind of human-recognizable
> carbon-based life *and* it had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Terraforming
> doesn’t make the atmosphere; it at best modifies it and changes the
> biosphere.)
>
>
>
> Again, you can put up all of the domes you want. I am not talking about
> those worlds. I am talking about a world with a breathable (or close
> enough)
> type 4-9 atmosphere. No human put that oxygen there. Did the Ancients have
> enough time to put it there? I dunno.
>
>
>
> Mike West
>
>
>
>
>
>

Mike--

FWIW, unless there is a lot more stuff about the Ancients Droyn-iforming
than I remember*, I don't recall Traveller leaning really heavily on
"terraforming" as a theme, certainly not to the point where it went into a
lot of detail about what went into it. I think you are thinking along
these lines as well, that the background "feels" like the worlds came with
these atmospheres on their own, particularly because of the way population
assorted independently from atmosphere. If they were doing a lot of
terraforming you would expect to see more connection between "in progress"
terraforming worlds and the effort going into that, and the reason why
that world was chosen. You could assert that is happening, but the lack of
routine talk about it tends to undermine it. That and the number of high
population worlds nowhere close to terraformable, and the number of
livable worlds with small populations suggests an immunity to needing a
hospitable environment rather than a preference for doing so.

*And even if there is, that would likely be limited to the worlds
established as being to Droyne preference, and wouldn't explain a lot of
worlds magically made for humans, other than those selected for the
transplant projects.

The 3I is settled the way it is because those hexes have systems in them,
and everyone expands to fill up each one all the way out to the borders.

So, assuming this is where you're at, I'm with you on the assumption that
these are naturally oxygenated atmospheres, found and exploited the way
they developed, which means I suddenly have to hate giant stars a lot more
than I did a couple hours ago.

Why am I suddenly excited and talking like I'm involved in a project? I've
been irrelevant to this thing for decades now. But there is something
about re-awakening a project I was working on 19 years ago that gets me
fired up.

> Let me back up for a moment.
>
>
>
> If you have a life-less rock, I don’t give a crap what star it orbits.
I
> also don’t care if there are a billion morons living on it. That’s
Traveller. Roll with it. I am not talking about those worlds.
>
>
>
> The worlds I am talking about are those worlds with some kind of
“breathable” atmosphere. It is “breathable” because it is the
correct composition and has lots of oxygen in it. Oxygen doesn’t just
“appear” in an atmosphere. It also doesn’t just “stay” in the
atmosphere, either. Something (generally this thing called “life as we
know it”) 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 don’t know for sure, but I am
willing to bet the Vilani haven’t 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 weren’t enough of them
to terraform every world. There were, what, 400 of them? And it wasn’t
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 don’t know if I have the WTH around anywhere, so I can’t 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 don’t 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 don’t last the couple billion years required
for
> life to develop. That said, it isn’t 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?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

---In , <mjwest@...> wrote : in that
> And even if the Ancient *are* old enough, there weren’t
> enough of them to terraform every world. There were,
> what, 400 of them?


Despite the other arguments on the matter, I wouldn't rely on this one.


Sure there were only 400 or so "real" Ancients, but there were any number of sentient robots, humans, Vargr and goodness knows what else around. Even if they were lackeys, they still had access to technology that was for all intents and purposes magic.


It would take just one "real" Ancient to take an interest in gardening to set off a massive wave of terraforming.


Unfortunately, we don't the the Journals of the Imperial Geological and Archeological Society available to tell us if there was any evidence that this happened.


"What the Ancients did" is pretty much a black hole, and could have involved anything.


So they probably didn't massively terraform, but they could have, if a reason for impossible/unlikely worlds is necessary. For me, it isn't.

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.

--
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for
it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their
kids pay for it."

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.

I know we aren't at the flashpoint for flames yet 8-) but it would sure be
nice to never get there as well.

excellent and valid points about oxygen, but as for terraforming and the
presence of Oxygen in an atmosphere, it wasn't the Oxygen that came first,
it was actually single celled life that resembled modern Earths "Vent Life"
those odd ball creatures that survive the superheated volcanic plumes in
the oceans depths. So, life as we know it in our case, meant it
originated/evolved from life as we don't understand even now.

What traveler barely touches on, which is strange for a hard SF game, is
the whole "Not as e know it" conundrum. It postulated in an article which I
can't recall atm, an hydrogen/methane breathing spider like critter that
existed during the Ziru Siirka, through part of the rule of man. but due to
poor political relations was locked to a single world after a genocidal war.
That is the only nod I can recall to the whole "not as we know it" school
of thought.

but that is just distraction from the point at hand.

What is clear is that until we as a species get our lazy bums off this ball
o dirt and do some serious "lewis and clark" style exploring, we are simply
going to have to live with the best tidbits we have and simply play along
to the GMs tune and enjoy our weekend sessions without advanced chemical
knowledge.

Here is another thought for us. Fusion is a process where hydrogen is
converted up the scale of the periodic table, producing larger and more
complex elements with Energy as the side effect. so, at what tech level can
we postulate that extracting Oxygen atoms from a functioning reactor
becomes feasible?
If this is the case, a fusion reactor could be made a de-facto tool of the
terraforming process of many worlds where there is an hydrosphere, but an
inimical atmosphere.

In fact, the canonical existence of the 'fusion still' in travelers makes
that thought less of an oddity and more of a certainty IMO.

if this is food for thought, "Cruchy" anyone?

--
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for
it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their
kids pay for it."

Mike West wrote:

>>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.<<

That is correct. And as list Admin, I certainly don't want any flame
wars. We've had them here in the past, and they've led to some
unfortunate circumstances.

>>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.<<

I, on the other hand, have a degree in chemical engineering and worked
for several years at it before being lured away by that whole World Wide
Web thingee in the 90's. ;) Anyway, my point is that as a chem eng, we
had to take plenty of chemistry classes in order to scale up what a
chemist does in the lab to industrial capacity.

>>That said, with oxygen, my understanding is not how common or uncommon it
is. The issue is that oxygen is extremely reactive.<<

This is absolutely true. Oxygen loves to react with anything it can get
it's atomic mitts (or even molecular mitts) on and thus it's shacking up
everywhere with practically everyone (except the celibate noble gasses)
on the periodic table: Water, rust, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide,
alcohol, acetone, lime, soda ash, baking soda, caustic soda, etc.

>> 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.<<

Exactly. How long, we don't know (and certainly out of my expertise),
although I'm sure there are theoretical formulas.

Another Carpenter wrote:

>>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.<<

Yes, I'll give you that about EDG. But there are enough facts out there
that, when applied to Traveller, can improve the UWP's immensely. Even
applying Traveller's own rules, like those in WBH, would be a good
start. I hope to have a post about that soon but I don't have the time
just yet.

\_/
DED
TNE @ Yahoo ml Admin

Can someone summarise any specific questions here? I don't read the group much and the topic seems to be rather lengthy and meandery.

Though if you want someone's input, it helps if you don't start by saying they'll probably just 'grouse39; about it.