--- Gerry Harris <> wrote:
> Thanks. That gives me a lot to work with. I've been trying to get a picture of what kind of
> society would develop on such a world, including their transportation and industries. I wanted
> to give it a Victorian Science Fiction feel, without actually replicating the Victorian era.
> Kinda like those steampunk anime films the Japanese make.
>
I'll give my prognosis, a "what I would do if I were you." Terraformed worlds, particularly one
that is only a few hundred years old since settlement, are likely to be mostly desert. Soil
development can take up to 10,000 years, especially in the interiors of larger continents.
Settlements are likely to be located in coastal areas, in or near large river deltas, or along the
lower channels of major rivers (think the Nile or Mesopotamia) where enough material has washed
out to be collected into fertile polders. Food is going to be rather plentiful, provided that
terraformation permits adequate plant nutrients and a working nitrogen cycle. Otherwise everything
necessary for agriculture will coming out of the hind end of a cow. Minerals, particularly iron,
will be quite plentiful: in the absence of oxygen, iron forms water soluble compounds. As the O2
levels increased due to terraformation, iron combines with oxygen to form insoluble hematite (iron
oxide) and goethite (iron carbonate), dropping out of solution to form "banded iron" deposits
similar to the Mesabi Range of northern Minnesota.
Personally I prefer algal-derived biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol as my primary liquid fuel
sources (especially since the latter is needed to obtain the former). Run-of-river hydroelectric
powerplants are your best bet for eletrical generation, as the jagged landforms produce rapidly
running watercourse, and sedimentation is still too immature for lake formation. Evaporite
chemicals (like saltpeter) are also in short supply (because playa lake deposits are immature as
well) and are best obtained by cultivation of kelp and other seaweeds in estaurine farms, and then
burned and processed on a seasonal basis. Transportation technology and infrastructure will
consist mainly of railroads, with biodiesel burning diesel-electric locomotives (insufficient
ground water supplies mititgates against steam generation; aquifers are generally sedimentary
deposits that take time to develop). Propeller driven airplanes will exist, and naval technology
will be definitely early 20th century: diesel driven larger ships plying the lanes with
old-fashioned wind driven schooners and smaller catamarans using rice paper sails. Roads will be
limited to stone or concrete highways clustered around the main communities (no asphalt) and motor
vehicles are probably considered an exorbitant luxury.
However, military technology will lag around TL-3 or 3M. While the means for synthesizing
nitroglycerin certainly exists, the process of manufacturing it produces a high quantity of water,
with which the Nitro-G forms a solution. The earliest Terran manufacturers used diatomaecous earth
to filter the water out of the solution, but that material is derived from ancient marine deposits
of the silica shells of dead zooplankton that was uplifited from deep seabed regions (below 3000
meters depth) by plate tectonics. On your world deposition of "silica slurry" will have just
begun, at very crushing oceanic depths. Given the economics of your world, large standing infantry
armies are less important than armored trains (known as draisines), maritime warships and fleets
of long ranged patrol aircraft, all armed with various blackpowder munitions. Peroxide and
fluoride explosives may exist, but solely for demolition work.
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Thread: [Traveller_TNE] Living on a Terraformed Low Tech World (Was Re: Alternative Energy)
2 posts.
--- Peter Gray <> wrote:
> >
>
> I'll give my prognosis, a "what I would do if I were you." Terraformed worlds, particularly one
> that is only a few hundred years old since settlement, are likely to be mostly desert. Soil
> development can take up to 10,000 years, especially in the interiors of larger continents.
I just read the message on the age of your world's terraformation. Will still be about 60-70%
desert however, as pioneer plants and lichens haven't yet broken down bare rock into viable soils
except in coastal and riverine areas. Good growing soils, particularly prairie and temperate
forest soils, will just beginning to emerge. Ocean salinity will be approaching terrestrial
levels, and evaporite minerals (gypsum, halite, and niter) should be rather plentiful. River
sedimentation will be sufficient for aquifer development, though freestanding limestone and
sandstone aquifers are still millions of years into the future. Majority of plants will consist of
lichens and moss in the deserts, and coniferous trees in more developed areas.
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