Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

[RexMundi]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Some how I don't think you would find Han Solo bragging about setting speed run records, if the cargo were several hundred tons of poo. So therefore, I say, the midichlorians eat it all. Though on the other hand if you cargo is several hundred tons of poo, that would be a good incentive for a speed record. Not to mention, the waste of Coruscant, would make for a nasty planet bomb. "Deathstar, or Flush? Your call rebel."

 

~Rex

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Yeah, if you want to destroy planets, you don't need giant (and expensive) space craft. Just get a asteroid or moon (or a Very Big Pile Of #### ), aim it at the target, and then boost it up to high speed.

 

THAT is collateral damage!

 

The real beauty is that you could probably handle this sort of thing out of the Public Works or Waste Disposal budgets - and then use the savings on Military appropriations to do something useful like giving the troops better training.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Matter of scale. It's rare to find science fiction with an actual sense of scale.

 

There are orders of magnitude in scale and complexity and vulnerability between feeding NYC from across the US, and feeding a world of 60 billion from across galaxy.

 

Well, you could call it a breakdown in the sense of scale, but it could just as equally be that galactic distances just aren't that big a deal with the technology they have. The Millenium Falcon managed to limp from Hoth to Bespin in a matter of days with a malfunctioning hyperdrive, after all. Poor writing by Lucas? Well that's no big surprise, but I've never heard anyone complain about it before.

 

At any rate, it wasn't that long ago that the idea of a city with the population of NYC was ridiculous, and even more ridiculous was the idea of bringing fresh vegetables from California and fresh fruits from Panama to feed that stupid-big city.

[RexMundi]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Yeah, if you want to destroy planets, you don't need giant (and expensive) space craft. Just get a asteroid or moon (or a Very Big Pile Of #### ), aim it at the target, and then boost it up to high speed.

 

THAT is collateral damage!

 

The real beauty is that you could probably handle this sort of thing out of the Public Works or Waste Disposal budgets - and then use the savings on Military appropriations to do something useful like giving the troops better training.

 

Definitely Public Works ......Imperial Waste Management. Disposing of your Waste and clearing the galaxy of Rebel Scum. Deathstar or Planetoid size Frozen Turd dropped on your Planet at relativistic speed. Think the poo is more cost effective. Less Civilian Contractors to be murdered by hotshot Rebel pilots at the end of the movie to.

 

~Rex

[Nyrath]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

No more than Tatooine was borrowed from Dune.

 

Well, there are quite a few desert planets in SF stories and novels. But I cannot recall any 100% city encrusted planets except for Trantor.

[RexMundi]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Hmmm, there has to be more. You've got the Dr. Who episode "The Long Game". There's even Apokolips from our good friend Jack Kirby, Cybertron from Hasbro, Jack Vance's Oikumene stuff. The Puppeteer Homeworlds in Niven's Ringworld material, Helior from Harrisons Bill the Galactic Hero. Sure there could be even more out there but those come to mind.

 

GRANTED. Trantor is one of the best ones, and certainly the footprint a lot of other stuff walked in along the way after it.

 

~Rex

[austenandrews]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Well' date=' there are quite a few desert planets in SF stories and novels. But I cannot recall any 100% city encrusted planets except for Trantor.[/quote']

I believe Lucas cited Dune as one of his biggest influences at the time. There was even a giant worm skeleton!

 

Hmmm' date=' there has to be more. You've got the Dr. Who episode "The Long Game". There's even Apokolips from our good friend Jack Kirby, Cybertron from Hasbro, Jack Vance's Oikumene stuff. The Puppeteer Homeworlds in Niven's Ringworld material, Helior from Harrisons Bill the Galactic Hero. Sure there could be even more out there but those come to mind.[/quote']

Heck, Doctor Who had an entire planet taken up by a single gigantic library. (Granted, it was a silly idea...)

[Kristopher]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Hmmm, there has to be more. You've got the Dr. Who episode "The Long Game". There's even Apokolips from our good friend Jack Kirby, Cybertron from Hasbro, Jack Vance's Oikumene stuff. The Puppeteer Homeworlds in Niven's Ringworld material, Helior from Harrisons Bill the Galactic Hero. Sure there could be even more out there but those come to mind.

 

GRANTED. Trantor is one of the best ones, and certainly the footprint a lot of other stuff walked in along the way after it.

 

The Puppeteer worlds bring up something else I've been thinking of regarding the city-planets -- waste heat.

[Nyrath]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

I believe Lucas cited Dune as one of his biggest influences at the time. There was even a giant worm skeleton!

Oh, I misunderstood you. I thought you were implying that Lucas was NOT influenced by Dune. My mistake.

[RexMundi]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

The Puppeteer worlds bring up something else I've been thinking of regarding the city-planets -- waste heat.

 

Yeah they had to move AWAY from their sun because of the waste heat. If it weren't for the fact they needed the solar bits for their Farm Worlds, well, one would think if you are moving planets you could make a big sunlamp, but go figure. It's still a fun bit of explanation that they give to Louis Wu for it.

 

Still though, I always found the Known Space stuff to be a good read.

 

~Rex

[RexMundi]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Was going to quote it but it makes me feel bad to know such a nerdy thing. So dispensing with the quote, heh, mostly because I'm to dumb to figure out how to make the forum do what I want it to do.....I add:

 

That's a Greater Krayt Dragon Skeleton though, not a Sandworm. Star Wars nerdiness activated, commence Nerdiness Shut Down and retreat to some Real Science Fiction like some Asimov.......

 

~Rex

[Ragitsu]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Science-Fiction elitism? Oh no!

[austenandrews]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

That's a Greater Krayt Dragon Skeleton though' date=' not a Sandworm. Star Wars nerdiness activated, commence Nerdiness Shut Down and retreat to some Real Science Fiction like some Asimov.......[/quote']

Pshaw! EU nonsense!

[Ragitsu]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

trivially easy FTL travel

"Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?"

[RexMundi]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Not to mention getting eaten by a Giant Space Slug. Still, if Hyperspace was FTL, why did they always refer to it as "Jump TO Lightspeed." I sense some Relativity disturbances in the Force.

 

~Rex

[Nyrath]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Matter of scale. It's rare to find science fiction with an actual sense of scale.

 

There are orders of magnitude in scale and complexity and vulnerability between feeding NYC from across the US, and feeding a world of 60 billion from across galaxy.

 

Depends on the assumptions. In Niven and Pournelle's THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE, the circumstances are such that feeding even a small colony using food transport starships is flatly impossible. But this assumes that there are only a few thousand starships in all of human space.

 

In the Foundation trilogy, the galactic empire actually encompasses the entire galaxy (instead of just a segment as does the Star Wars empire). The Trantorian empire could easily support several trillion starships just to feed Trantor. IIRC Trantor had 20 agricultural worlds nearby whose entire output went to Trantor.

[Nyrath]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Matter of scale. It's rare to find science fiction with an actual sense of scale.

True.

If one wants a sense of scale about a galactic empire go here

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ac.html#terminology

and scroll down to "From "Galactic Empires" by Dr. Robert A. Freitas Jr."

 

It notes that to the Galactic Emperor, planetary governors are "the rabble."

[Ragitsu]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Others' date=' not so much. I imagine all-ocean planets wouldn't be hard to arrange.[/quote']

 

Bandomeer (Star Wars) comes close, and Mon Calamari comes closer. I remember one planet from Star Trek that was PURELY water (no crust, no mantle, no natural core) and needed a kind of gravity generator device at the middle to hold it together.

[Kristopher]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Depends on the assumptions. In Niven and Pournelle's THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE, the circumstances are such that feeding even a small colony using food transport starships is flatly impossible. But this assumes that there are only a few thousand starships in all of human space.

 

In the Foundation trilogy, the galactic empire actually encompasses the entire galaxy (instead of just a segment as does the Star Wars empire). The Trantorian empire could easily support several trillion starships just to feed Trantor. IIRC Trantor had 20 agricultural worlds nearby whose entire output went to Trantor.

 

How many ships, of what size, were unloaded at Trantor each day, or hour? How long did that unloading take? Was the unloading done at orbital transfer stations, or on the surface?

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Soylent Brown

 

But... I thought they were just cupcakes!

 

Yeah, if you want to destroy planets, you don't need giant (and expensive) space craft. Just get a asteroid or moon (or a Very Big Pile Of #### ), aim it at the target, and then boost it up to high speed.

 

THAT is collateral damage!

 

The real beauty is that you could probably handle this sort of thing out of the Public Works or Waste Disposal budgets - and then use the savings on Military appropriations to do something useful like giving the troops better training.

 

Yeah, then maybe they'd actually hit something when they shoot at it.

[Clonus]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

How many ships' date=' of what size, were unloaded at Trantor each day, or hour? How long did that unloading take? Was the unloading done at orbital transfer stations, or on the surface?[/quote']

 

I can answer one of those questions. The unloading was done on the surface since Foundation universe spaceships are all landing-capable, and possess the ability to float exactly the way a brick doesn't. One thing Asimov did was vastly underestimate the population required to occupy a planetary city, even assuming that that the city only occupied the land surface of a world like Earth. Coruscant has over a trillion people on it for just that reason. But even so, what difference does it make if it's ten million or a billion starships landing each day? It's the capital of a Galactic Empire. The sheer scale on which it does everything is beyond our understanding.

[Kristopher]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

I can answer one of those questions. The unloading was done on the surface since Foundation universe spaceships are all landing-capable' date=' and possess the ability to float exactly the way a brick doesn't. One thing Asimov did was vastly underestimate the population required to occupy a planetary city, even assuming that that the city only occupied the land surface of a world like Earth. Coruscant has over a trillion people on it for just that reason. But even so, what difference does it make if it's ten million or a billion starships landing each day? It's the capital of a [b']Galactic Empire[/b]. The sheer scale on which it does everything is beyond our understanding.

 

Hardly. It's just numbers.

 

The question comes down to the limit on how much food you can unload and distribute each day -- it doesn't matter how many ships you have from across the whole of the galaxy, it matters how much each one carries, how many you can land at once, and how long it takes to unload and load each one. And that's just the food. Where are the medicines, and the parts, and the building materials, and the consumer goods, and everything else coming from, as well?

[Old Man]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Not to mention getting eaten by a Giant Space Slug. Still, if Hyperspace was FTL, why did they always refer to it as "Jump TO Lightspeed." I sense some Relativity disturbances in the Force.

 

~Rex

 

More like plot disturbances. "Okay, we're at lightspeed! How long till Alderaan?" "Oh, a few dozen years, give or take. You might want to get comfortable."

[Clonus]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Hardly. It's just numbers.

 

The question comes down to the limit on how much food you can unload and distribute each day -- it doesn't matter how many ships you have from across the whole of the galaxy, it matters how much each one carries, how many you can land at once, and how long it takes to unload and load each one. And that's just the food. Where are the medicines, and the parts, and the building materials, and the consumer goods, and everything else coming from, as well?

 

Well planets are big so there would be plenty of places to land, and in a hugely overpopulated planet there would be plenty of labour force to load and unload. There are much, much bigger problems with the idea.

[Nyrath]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

How many ships' date=' of what size, were unloaded at Trantor each day, or hour? How long did that unloading take? Was the unloading done at orbital transfer stations, or on the surface?[/quote']

 

Well, let's fiddle with some numbers.

 

Trantor at its height had a population of 45 billion people. The requirement is 2.3 kg of food per man per day. Multiplying it out, Trantor requires about 1x10^11 kilograms of food a day.

 

A supertanker has a DWT of about 550,000 DWT, which is about 5x10^8 kg.

 

So to supply Trantor, you'd need to have 200 of these space supertankers to arrive every day, minimum. And unload them.

 

Reading the novels, I can make a WAG that it would take about 2 days to travel from one of the 20 agro worlds to Trantor. If I haven't overlooked anything, this would mean you'd need 800 supertankers total, to ensure a constant daily arrival of 200 supertankers. This is 40 supertankers per agro world.

 

This is a bare minimum, just-in-time arrangement. You'd want to have several times this, as a safety reserve. This will allow Trantor to stockpile extra food.