Ragitsu Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 That is to say, a world with nothing but rain forests, nothing but beaches, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Probably not. Take Hoth for example. Somewhere, there had to be, say, open oceans, at least, or there wouldn't have been snow storms and clouds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? That is to say' date=' a world with nothing but rain forests, nothing but beaches, etc.[/quote'] I'd say it's possible but really unlikely. Most common would be icy planets, further from their sun, where there is less difference temperaturewise between the poles and the equator. For jungle, or tropical waterworlds, I have to think up bizarre schemes like two-star systems that constantly bathe the planet in light and heat, or a planet in an incredibly dense nebula which accomplishes much the same thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? All-desert planets seem pretty common! Others, not so much. I imagine all-ocean planets wouldn't be hard to arrange. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sundog Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Even then, you'd have major climatic differences between polar waters and equatorial, leading to significantly different habitats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Definitely. I can envision planets with only one habitat suitable for human life, though, which is the direction I'd go if I were trying to make a Star Wars-like setup more plausible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? That is to say' date=' a world with nothing but rain forests, nothing but beaches, etc.[/quote'] No. A world is a world. At the very least the poles will tend to be colder than the equator. SF author Larry Niven summed up this fallacy with the flippant quote "It was raining on Mongo that day..." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? I admit I don't have a good handle on what the climate would be like on a world with a Uranus-like obliquity (that is, its rotation axis more or less lying in its orbital plane). It's vaguely possible such a world would have the same climate all over, though clearly the seasons are opposite for the poles when one is in daylight and the other is dark. (When Voyager 2 encountered Uranus, the equatorial temperature was about the same as the poles; this happened near one of the solstices, that is, the south pole of the planet was directed more or less right at the Sun.) On the other hand, the cloud patterns seen on Uranus now with HST are more complicated than the featureless blue cue ball Voyager saw. Only tangentially related, there is already a substantial literature in theoretical models of "water planets". The one I stumbled across yesterday was for water-rich (they did models for planets with total mass of the planet as water 2%, 25%, and 50%) "super-Earths" (planet masses of 2 to 10 times Earth's). Such worlds have substantial convection in the ice parts of the planet, not just the liquid parts, though the convection in ice is a lot slower,. Their model has some weaknesses: we don't know the viscosity/rigidity of the various forms of ice at high pressure, so they had to make up some of that out of the air. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RexMundi Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Not without Markovian level Science controlling it all I would think. Just to many random things in the dynamic. ~Rex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ragitsu Posted January 21, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? I suppose then, that planets like Hyda IV, Risa, Zeltros and the like would have to be purely artificially made/organized and maintained? Note that I have nothing against this occurrence (as I am a fan of science fiction). Rather, I was just curious as to how "realistic" it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RexMundi Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Well, cases in point. Risa, used to be a rain soaked earthquake prone dump of a planet until the Weather and Seismic control equipment was installed. Planet Zeltros from Starwars is effectively, Planet Las Vegas. Non Stop party action more then perfect One type climate. Now not the biggest bastion of Star ocean knowledge out there but knowing a little bit of a lot of useless trivia things, reading the info for Hyda IV, makes it look like a perma Sandles resort at first, but turn that info over to a Meteorologist and al they say is, Hurricane. Lots. ~Rex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Well' date=' cases in point. Risa, used to be a rain soaked earthquake prone dump of a planet until the Weather and Seismic control equipment was installed. Planet Zeltros from Starwars is effectively, Planet Las Vegas. Non Stop party action more then perfect One type climate. Now not the biggest bastion of Star ocean knowledge out there but knowing a little bit of a lot of useless trivia things, reading the info for Hyda IV, makes it look like a perma Sandles resort at first, but turn that info over to a Meteorologist and al they say is, Hurricane. Lots.[/quote'] I make it clear to my players that what a planet is known for is not all that goes on there, unless that's all that CAN go on there, and that there are no worlds that are both single-climate and widely habitable. A world known as a "resort world" makes most of it's interstellar trade income on tourism, but still has its own industry, agriculture etc, as one example. A "mining world" might only do mining and some small manufacturing, because it doesn't have the environment or ecosystem to support anything else, on the other hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ragitsu Posted January 21, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Coruscant comes fairly close, because a LOT of food has to be flown in every day. How much is a lot? Last time I checked, at least seventy-two planets are solely dedicated towards food production for Coruscant alone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Coruscant comes fairly close' date=' because a LOT of food has to be flown in every day. How much is a lot? Last time I checked, at [i']least[/i] seventy-two planets are solely dedicated towards food production for Coruscant alone. Which is really "kewl" for an overdone, melodramatic, operatic setting... but makes no sense at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Coruscant comes fairly close' date=' because a LOT of food has to be flown in every day. How much is a lot? Last time I checked, at [i']least[/i] seventy-two planets are solely dedicated towards food production for Coruscant alone. Bah, all those tall buildings had enormous shafts devoted to superfood hydroponics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? And they're full of perfectly edible fellow sapients! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? I will say this, if trade was ever disrupted in the Star Wars universe, Coruscant would descend into utter chaos in very rapid fashion. Any numbers I throw out would be completely arbitrary and made up, but assuming they had three days surplus for the entire planet, on day four there is going to be trouble. As to the general question, if your game is not depending rigidly on science to prop it up, go ahead with single climate/purpose worlds. Plenty of Pulp SciFi has used that tradition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SSgt Baloo Posted January 22, 2010 Report Share Posted January 22, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? No. A world is a world. At the very least the poles will tend to be colder than the equator. SF author Larry Niven summed up this fallacy with the flippant quote "It was raining on Mongo that day..." It was? I hope Ming the Merciless forgot his umbrella! Repped. Bah' date=' all those tall buildings had enormous shafts devoted to superfood hydroponics.[/quote'] ... And then the Senate decided to throw some pork to offworld food producers and those shafts have been sitting empty ever since! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clonus Posted January 22, 2010 Report Share Posted January 22, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? I suppose then, that planets like Hyda IV, Risa, Zeltros and the like would have to be purely artificially made/organized and maintained? Note that I have nothing against this occurrence (as I am a fan of science fiction). Rather, I was just curious as to how "realistic" it is. Canonically, Risa is artificial. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmjalund Posted January 22, 2010 Report Share Posted January 22, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? best change is for a smallist world with a thick atmosphere which is good at transfering heat from the equator to the poles (and coolness back) the place would be pretty windy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted January 22, 2010 Report Share Posted January 22, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? I will say this' date=' if trade was ever disrupted in the Star Wars universe, Coruscant would descend into utter chaos in very rapid fashion. Any numbers I throw out would be completely arbitrary and made up, but assuming they had three days surplus for the entire planet, on day four there is going to be trouble.[/quote'] From Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951) TRANTOR-...At the beginning of the thirteenth millennium, this tendency reached its climax. As the center of the Imperial Government for unbroken hundreds of generations and located, as it was, toward the central regions of the Galaxy among the most densely populated and industrially advanced worlds of the system, it could scarcely help being the densest and richest clot of humanity the Race had ever seen. Its urbanization, progressing steadily, had finally reached the ultimate. All the land surface of Trantor, 75,000,000 square miles in extent, was a single city. The population, at its height, was well in excess of forty billions. This enormous population was devoted almost entirely to the administrative necessities of Empire, and found themselves all too few for the complications of the task. (It is to be remembered that the impossibility of proper administration of the Galactic Empire under the uninspired leadership of the later Emperors was a considerable factor in the Fall.) Daily, fleets of ships in the tens of thousands brought the produce of twenty agricultural worlds to the dinner tables of Trantor.... Its dependence upon the outer worlds for food and, indeed, for all necessities of life, made Trantor increasingly vulnerable to conquest by siege. In the last millennium of the Empire, the monotonously numerous revolts made Emperor after Emperor conscious of this, and Imperial policy became little more than the protection of Trantor's delicate jugular vein.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted January 22, 2010 Report Share Posted January 22, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? From Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951) TRANTOR-...At the beginning of the thirteenth millennium, this tendency reached its climax. As the center of the Imperial Government for unbroken hundreds of generations and located, as it was, toward the central regions of the Galaxy among the most densely populated and industrially advanced worlds of the system, it could scarcely help being the densest and richest clot of humanity the Race had ever seen. Its urbanization, progressing steadily, had finally reached the ultimate. All the land surface of Trantor, 75,000,000 square miles in extent, was a single city. The population, at its height, was well in excess of forty billions. This enormous population was devoted almost entirely to the administrative necessities of Empire, and found themselves all too few for the complications of the task. (It is to be remembered that the impossibility of proper administration of the Galactic Empire under the uninspired leadership of the later Emperors was a considerable factor in the Fall.) Daily, fleets of ships in the tens of thousands brought the produce of twenty agricultural worlds to the dinner tables of Trantor.... Its dependence upon the outer worlds for food and, indeed, for all necessities of life, made Trantor increasingly vulnerable to conquest by siege. In the last millennium of the Empire, the monotonously numerous revolts made Emperor after Emperor conscious of this, and Imperial policy became little more than the protection of Trantor's delicate jugular vein.... Sounds a little like Rome... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted January 22, 2010 Report Share Posted January 22, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Yes, a lot of Asimov's galactic history is sort of a digest of Gibbon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted January 22, 2010 Report Share Posted January 22, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? Yes' date=' a lot of Asimov's galactic history is sort of a digest of Gibbon.[/quote'] SF author Ken MacLeod said "History is the trade secret of science fiction." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RexMundi Posted January 22, 2010 Report Share Posted January 22, 2010 Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible? So very true. ~Rex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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