Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

[austenandrews]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

I am sure hardy species can exist. However' date=' and hopefully, there should be some sort of filtration/biohazard cleaning measures employed on the agricultural planet(s)'s loading docks prior to the stock reaching Coruscant.[/quote']

On millions of tons of food? Good luck with that.

[Cancer]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Irradiation in deep space could help with that.

[RexMundi]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Yeah but Bugs are tough. Scorpions aren't really bothered by Ground Zero nuke stuff for example. Not technically a Bug, but certainly something that could arrive in a crate of food and wreck havoc.

 

~Rex

[Cancer]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

A several-month quarantine period in stellar orbit, cooling it down to ~10 kelvin, as well as blasting it with hard X-rays or gamma rays at the end, oughta take care of a lot of stuff. Won't help against prions, but nothing multicellular will survive that. And you can do it "on the pallet" in free drift in the outer system, so you don't tie down ships holding the stuff rather than moving cargo. Yes, it makes the pipeline longer, but as a safety measure it should be acceptable.

[Kristopher]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

A several-month quarantine period in stellar orbit' date=' cooling it down to ~10 kelvin, as well as blasting it with hard X-rays or gamma rays at the end, oughta take care of a lot of stuff. Won't help against prions, but nothing multicellular will survive that. And you can do it "on the pallet" in free drift in the outer system, so you don't tie down ships holding the stuff rather than moving cargo. Yes, it makes the pipeline longer, but as a safety measure it should be acceptable.[/quote']

 

At the point of needing such measures, it might be better for a world to grow its own...

[austenandrews]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Exactly. Naturally we can conceive of ways to combat contraband fauna. The question is, would such measures even be worth it? With tens of billions of people coming and going, countless folks will eventually bring their pet rats and cats and birds and bugs and whatever else and some of them will get loose. (And that's discounting illegal transports, which will likely be uncountably numerous.) People are messy and there will be plants to eat and the animals will gain a foothold. At what stage does somebody do the math and figure out that quarantine measures can be reduced without an unacceptable increase in wildlife? What's the price point at which it's no longer worth it to attempt a vermin-free planet?

 

Sure, we can talk about scenarios where custom plagues eradicate everything nonhuman or a giant computer monitors every life form or whatever. Personally I'm talking about a city that acts like a real city, chaotic and organic and messy and bigger than every other city in history combined. I don't see that measure of control working in such an environment.

[Old Man]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

 

But these things are worth millions to the bioweapons division! All we have to do is get them past ICC quarantine!

[RexMundi]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

A several-month quarantine period in stellar orbit' date=' cooling it down to ~10 kelvin, as well as blasting it with hard X-rays or gamma rays at the end, oughta take care of a lot of stuff. Won't help against prions, but nothing multicellular will survive that. And you can do it "on the pallet" in free drift in the outer system, so you don't tie down ships holding the stuff rather than moving cargo. Yes, it makes the pipeline longer, but as a safety measure it should be acceptable.[/quote']

 

Well, we got things on this planet that can survive that. Water Bear's are good examples. I think, an Alien "I'm in your Tanker, eatin yer Foodz!" Waterbear-esque critter, could be a major issue.

 

~Rex

[Kristopher]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade#Physiology

[RexMundi]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Them's tough little critters. In Sci Fi, no real reason for them to remain little really.

 

~Rex

[The Weapon]

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 seventy-two planets are solely dedicated towards food production for Coruscant alone.[/i]

 

Which is really "kewl" for an overdone, melodramatic, operatic setting... but makes no sense at all.

 

View Coruscant as the equivalent of Washington D.C. . Now the District of Columbia has 572,059 people and is the capital of a polity with 307,212,123 people or about one person in the capital for every 537 in the polity total. Assume 72 earth-sized worlds ideally suited to agriculture. With good tech maybe they produce enough food for 60 billion people. That's 4.320 trillion people, assume they have 320 billion people on the 72 worlds (because it's easy) and you have 4 trillion people on Coruscant. Earth would have that population if it had about 4 times the population density of NYC, which given the supertech skyscrapers maybe Coruscant has. This implies 2148 trillion in the Republic. Count Dooku talked of tens of thousands of star systems, not worlds mind you but systems, changing sides. And he said it like it was an advantage, not game over. So if we assume 100,000 start systems it's the right order of magnitude and it gives us about 21 billion people per system. Higher than earth but not crazy high if you assume better tech. So yeah, the capital of a galatic empire might well have 70+ worlds whose main economic activity is feeding it.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

I have a mental vision of an entire world given over to producing martini olives, or broccoli, or corn chips, just for the Imperial Capital.

[The Weapon]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

... AND the traffic control.

 

Imagine what is needed just to cope with all those inbound (and outbound) spacefreighters, making sure they arrive safely and get sent to the correct docking area - plus the flexibility to cope with errors, accidents, incidents, malfunctions, unforeseen events, simple tardiness and the downright bizarre (in varying combinations and degrees of severity) as they occur. Then there is the infrastructure needed to unload all that cargo (much of which will undoubtedly have "special needs" in terms of handling and environment) AND get those goods moving to their final destinations.

 

Add on top of all that such considerations as customs, security, tariffs / taxation and so forth.

 

Sounds to me they might need at least one extra moonload of specialist bureaucrats (with attendant high-powered computers) just to handle all this.

 

Or maybe one largish continent on the throneworld was set aside just for this purpose. People speculate about a globe-spanning city - what sort of starport might such a thing have? Probably a whole bunch, OR one or a few that are frackin' enormous.

 

There would be several so that NOTHING could stop the ships landing even for an hour. The PCs think they land at the big spaceports, they don't. They land at the spaceports that aren't equipped to land food transports that ship a millions of meals at a time, empty the meals into maglev cars and launch them again in less than an hour. Rim-dwellers can see see as much rail transport capacity as they have on all their homeworld and if they miss it another one is due in 15 minutes.

 

Control areas are "rated against large impact" meaning you could crash the biggest transport you have into them and they're still functional. Which means that they're pretty much nuke-proof too. Not that you could get a nuke near them what with the AA defenses. The party should NOT start a fight with the customs officials in one of the big food spaceports. They're backed up by marines who know they can use AT rounds and not dent the walls and use "Such rules of engagement as the Commander thinks necessary for the security of the Imperium.".

 

It is however a great place to smuggle in the really big items, like an OGRE. Nobody checks every shipment in part because most things are checked once they get off the train at the other end. With a few bribes and blackmails they won't check yours. Do not try to smuggle yourself out by the big food ports, they're sending stuff back to the Ag worlds for recycling.

[The Weapon]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

I have a mental vision of an entire world given over to producing martini olives' date=' or broccoli, or corn chips, just for the Imperial Capital. [/quote']

 

Then the idiot in charge says he doesn't like broccoli and all hell breaks lose politically with that planet. In fact some think that the only reason he wasn't shot during the crisis is his son is even dumber.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-3990144.html

[Kristopher]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

View Coruscant as the equivalent of Washington D.C. . Now the District of Columbia has 572' date='059 people and is the capital of a polity with 307,212,123 people or about one person in the capital for every 537 in the polity total. Assume 72 earth-sized worlds ideally suited to agriculture. With good tech maybe they produce enough food for 60 billion people. That's 4.320 trillion people, assume they have 320 billion people on the 72 worlds (because it's easy) and you have 4 trillion people on Coruscant. Earth would have that population if it had about 4 times the population density of NYC, which given the supertech skyscrapers maybe Coruscant has. This implies 2148 trillion in the Republic. Count Dooku talked of tens of thousands of star systems, not worlds mind you but systems, changing sides. And he said it like it was an advantage, not game over. So if we assume 100,000 start systems it's the right order of magnitude and it gives us about 21 billion people per system. Higher than earth but not crazy high if you assume better tech. So yeah, the capital of a galatic empire might well have 70+ worlds whose main economic activity is feeding it. [/quote']

 

Logstics is the issue.

 

(Well, there's waste heat from 4 trillion people, and...)

[Markdoc]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

A several-month quarantine period in stellar orbit' date=' cooling it down to ~10 kelvin, as well as blasting it with hard X-rays or gamma rays at the end, oughta take care of a lot of stuff. Won't help against prions, but nothing multicellular will survive that. And you can do it "on the pallet" in free drift in the outer system, so you don't tie down ships holding the stuff rather than moving cargo. Yes, it makes the pipeline longer, but as a safety measure it should be acceptable.[/quote']

 

Probably unnecessary though. As I pointed out, the question is not whether you get free-riders in your cargo - at some point, you almost certainly will. The question is whether they could become invasive in an environment utterly unlike anything they have ever experienced, where much of the biological material would be alien (and very likely toxic) to them. To take an example, blue-lipped mussels have became invasive in many US waterways, but they're not a big problem in Manhattan, and probably never will be even though they're right there and are being re-introduced constantly Likewise, in Denmark, tropical snakes have been introduced many times: we've had several scares recently with people dumping venomous snakes on the common near our house. They're not going to become invasive though, because a month of sub-zero temperatures will finish them and even a few days can come close to killing them. In theory they could survive by finding warm places to over-winter, but the odds are stacked pretty heavily against them - and moving to a completely different world which is one big city is an even more alien environment for natural species.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Logstics is the issue.

 

(Well, there's waste heat from 4 trillion people, and...)

 

Capture it and use it. Very large dwellings are nearly purpose-built for heat pumps.

 

cheers, Mark

[austenandrews]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Probably unnecessary though. As I pointed out' date=' the question is not whether you get free-riders in your cargo - at some point, you almost certainly will. The question is whether they could become invasive in an environment utterly unlike anything they have ever experienced, where much of the biological material would be alien (and very likely toxic) to them. To take an example, blue-lipped mussels have became invasive in many US waterways, but they're not a big problem in Manhattan, and probably never will be even though they're right there and are being re-introduced constantly Likewise, in Denmark, tropical snakes have been introduced many times: we've had several scares recently with people dumping venomous snakes on the common near our house. They're not going to become invasive though, because a month of sub-zero temperatures will finish them and even a few days can come close to killing them. In theory they could survive by finding warm places to over-winter, but the odds are stacked pretty heavily against them - and moving to a completely different world which is one big city is an even more alien environment for natural species.[/quote']

An environment suitable for humans, with plenty of human food, is also suited for bugs, vermin and things that eat them. Countless species thrive in cities. You'd practically have to maintain a sterilized environment to keep them all from taking root.

[RexMundi]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

I say, Fire Ants end up on Coruscant, you have a problem.

 

~Rex

[Ragitsu]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Imagine a ring world where one half is dedicated to a "normal" world, and the other half is purely supply production (including agriculture) and manufacturing.

 

Hm, the ideas, they are a churning...

 

Capture it and use it. Very large dwellings are nearly purpose-built for heat pumps.

 

cheers, Mark

 

I point back to,

 

http://irregularwebcomic.net/396.html

 

and

 

http://irregularwebcomic.net/417.html

 

View Coruscant as the equivalent of Washington D.C. . Now the District of Columbia has 572' date='059 people and is the capital of a polity with 307,212,123 people or about one person in the capital for every 537 in the polity total. Assume [b']72[/b] earth-sized worlds ideally suited to agriculture. With good tech maybe they produce enough food for 60 billion people. That's 4.320 trillion people, assume they have 320 billion people on the 72 worlds (because it's easy) and you have 4 trillion people on Coruscant. Earth would have that population if it had about 4 times the population density of NYC, which given the supertech skyscrapers maybe Coruscant has. This implies 2148 trillion in the Republic. Count Dooku talked of tens of thousands of star systems, not worlds mind you but systems, changing sides. And he said it like it was an advantage, not game over. So if we assume 100,000 start systems it's the right order of magnitude and it gives us about 21 billion people per system. Higher than earth but not crazy high if you assume better tech. So yeah, the capital of a galatic empire might well have 70+ worlds whose main economic activity is feeding it.

 

Actually, the estimate is closer to the 10,000 range.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Capture it and use it. Very large dwellings are nearly purpose-built for heat pumps.

 

Ah, someone fails to understand the concept of "waste heat" as it relates to heat engines and Carnot efficiency.

[austenandrews]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

I point back to,

 

http://irregularwebcomic.net/396.html

a) If you're going to cite something as realistic, you'd do yourself a favor by picking something other than a cheesy Lego-based comic strip.

 

Show me how he got his numbers. This should be interesting.

[RexMundi]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Ah' date=' someone fails to understand the concept of "waste heat" as it relates to heat engines and Carnot efficiency.[/quote']

 

Explain to the Laymen! We demand Science!

 

~Rex

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Ah' date=' someone fails to understand the concept of "waste heat" as it relates to heat engines and Carnot efficiency.[/quote']

 

I've got a feeling that Markdoc can provide a wide variety of cites showing exactly what he meant there, but I'll point out that a lot of "waste" heat can be harnessed and used without breaking any thermodynamic laws. There's no reason that the heat produced in a factory, restaurant, garbage incinerator, or whatever couldn't be used to heat homes or preheat water before running it into a boiler, for instance.

 

More efficient use of heat, rather than just venting it into the open air, combined with some of the ideas being floated around to combat global warming (like putting sunshades in orbit) would go a long way to keeping the heat issue under control. Hell, since the planet has next to no plant life (I assume the CO2 is being cracked into O2 and some form of carbon in factories somewhere), it doesn't matter much if daylight effectively only lasts a few hours a day.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

http://irregularwebcomic.net/386.html

 

So, to review: 100 million square kilometresx50,000 people/square kilometres= 50 trillion people. At 1 MW/person, with 90% efficiency, you get a waste heat production of a million trillion watts.

By definition, waste heat is waste heat. You can't use it for stuff; at least once available "cold sinks" are gone. Heat engines may be understood as pumps that move a working fluid at one temperature to another temperature, extracting the lost heat as work. Not all of the lost heat will be available as work. The remainder will escape into the environment. Eventually, the ambient temperature will be very high (as in: boiling point of lead, high), and Coruscant will be unlivable, short of Jedi magic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics

It's a dumb idea, too. How big does the capital of even a galactic empire have to be? But, rule of cool and all that.