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Terraforming?


cbullard

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I'm hoping someone can help me figure out how to do something in 5th Ed Champions.

One of the common things in sci-fi is the terraforming of planets, and I'm trying to figure out how this can be accomplished within the game.  I've seen one other method listed elsewhere on this board (using Summon) but it seems more like that would create a new planet where none existed rather than changing one that was already there.

Suppose we were starting with a Mars-like planet: 6800 km diameter, average surface temperature of -80F, gravity approximately 1/3 that of Earth.

We'd like to terraform it into an Earth-like planet, which means the average surface temperature needs to increase by 140F, and we need to triple the gravity.

Change Environment can handle both of those, if we treat gravity as Telekinetic Strength.  According to The Ultimate Vehicle book, TK Strength of 5 is the equivalent of 1 G, so we'd add a TK strength of 3 to the Change Environment.  Megascaling the area of effect out to 1" = 10,000km will more than cover the planet, so that aspect is taken care of.  We can set the whole thing to Long-lasting: permanent.

So we've got temperature and gravity set to where we want them, but how do we take care of atmosphere?  Or do we just assume that it is taken care of by the rest?

Any thoughts?

 

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I think it would be simplest to write terraforming up as a MegaScale AoE Transform, to whatever conditions you want the end result to be. The degree of change would set whether it would be Minor or Major Transform. The time interval of the Transform "attack" can be spread out over whatever span you want the terraforming to take. You might also apply the Partial Transform Advantage to reflect the gradual environmental modification to the world.

 

Star Hero 5E p. 197 calculates the total BODY of an Earth-sized rocky planet as 86 for purposes of destroying it, so would be the same for Transform. (That may seem low, but SH suggests you can define only very wide-Area attacks as being able to affect a planet in that way.) You could set a minimum rate by which the planet would "heal" the Transform if the terraforming is stopped before it's completed.

 

I would say it's well within a GM's purview to define the change as being stable and non-reversible once the final result is achieved, barring similar large-scale efforts to undo the terraforming.

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Just wondering why you feel the need to write it up as a power to begin with.

 

But then, this is certainly the right place for it.

 

 

To be honest, I've got a couple of motivations.

 

I'm trying to familiarize myself with the game as it stands now.  I've started gaming with a group who used 5th Ed... and the last version I used was Version 1, back in the early 1980's -- Quite a difference, as I'm sure you can imagine!  And, well, the best way I've ever found to familiarize muself with something is to try out as many different things as I can.  Ergo, trying to write it up.  :-)

 

I'm also looking at the mechanics of terraforming from a campaign perspective, so that I can figure out timelines, point costs, etc.  Ergo, writing it up.

 

I'm sure there will be other questions that will arise pertaining to terraforming, and having written it up will allow me to answer them more easily.

 

And last, but certainly not least?  Because I'm an uber-geek and I just like doing stuff like that!  :-)

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Hm.  Yes, Summon would open up some interesting possibilities.

 

 

I think you'd have to do that as creating a new planet / planetoid, though.  I don't want to open up the can of worms that would come with replacing an existing physical thing with something else that you've Summoned.

 

Thanks for the input!

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Extra-dimensional Movement is sometimes used in Hero as the mechanism by which someone or something is placed into a completely different environment, without actually transporting them to another dimension. For example, the granting of someone's wish, by "moving" them to a "dimension" in which the conditions wished for hold true. One could build an EDM large enough to cover a planet, the "destination" being the terraformed state of that world.

 

There are almost always multiple rules-legal ways to do something in Hero System. The choice of the "best" way often depends on personal preference. ;)

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Hm.  Yes, Summon would open up some interesting possibilities.

 

 

I think you'd have to do that as creating a new planet / planetoid, though.  I don't want to open up the can of worms that would come with replacing an existing physical thing with something else that you've Summoned.

 

Summon Habitable Planet has the Expendable OAF: Uninhabitable Planet and a *lot* of auxiliary machinery, cometary ice shipped in from the Kuiper Belt, orbiting mirrors to heat the planet through increased insolation, etc.

 

Personally, I'd leave it as an exercise of Skill Rolls unless terraforming is something that can happen on campaign-relevant timescales. But I sympathize with the ubergeek desire to find at least one Power, legal to the last jot and tittle, to represent it!

 

Dean Shomshak

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Hm.  Yes, Summon would open up some interesting possibilities.

 

 

I think you'd have to do that as creating a new planet / planetoid, though.  I don't want to open up the can of worms that would come with replacing an existing physical thing with something else that you've Summoned.

 

Thanks for the input!

You open up the can of worms once you have soil for them to burrow in with organics they can eat and certain thresholds of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere.

 

As has been pointed out, the Summon has the old planet as an expendable focus.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

This fresh new inhabitable world brought to you by Palindromedary Terraforming!

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