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Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!


Xavier Onassiss

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Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

On a tangent...

 

Floating cities would work in a pulp version of Venus just as well as a hard sci-fi one. When the surface is covered by hostile jungle, you can float well over the treetops (and hopefully about the razorbeaks and other airborne predators) You could get something like a cruise ship, where you can take safaris to the surface. Or a working city, where rare extracts are processed from the wilds below and packed for shipping across the aether to the other colonies.

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Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

And with all those stained-glass cities floating in the sky..

 

You're already writing the lyrics

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Riding a palindromedary through the Walls of Erek

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Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

Floating-in-air cities are also an option on a water world' date=' one whose entire surface is covered with water over a kilometer deep.[/quote']

 

Indeed...One of my favorite versions of this is in the classic Traveller module "Rescue On Galatea". Maybe it's just 'cause I really like the native species, the Jessa: highly dexterous swordsmen (swords-beings(?)) living aboard large "zeppelin-cities". Been working on adapting them to Hero stats off and on for some time now (see this thread: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/56907-Species-Package-Ideas-The-Jessa%20? )....:yes:

 

-Carl-

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Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

Indeed...One of my favorite versions of this is in the classic Traveller module "Rescue On Galatea". Maybe it's just 'cause I really like the native species, the Jessa: highly dexterous swordsmen (swords-beings(?)) living aboard large "zeppelin-cities". Been working on adapting them to Hero stats off and on for some time now (see this thread: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/56907-Species-Package-Ideas-The-Jessa%20? )....:yes:

 

-Carl-

 

I'm trying to remember who published that one and drawing a blank -- was it one of the Judges Guild modules?

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Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

I'm trying to remember who published that one and drawing a blank -- was it one of the Judges Guild modules?

 

No, it was a FASA module. One of their various "little beige books", basically the same size as the classic rules books, etc. They published it around the same time as "Ordeal By Eshaar" and the Sky Raiders trilogy of modules, etc.....

 

-Carl-

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  • 2 years later...

Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

Apologizies for casting "Raise Thread" on one of my own topics, but I'm using this idea (colonies in the upper reaches of super-dense atmospheres) for this year's Terracide games at GenCon. I could use some images, and I figured we might as well put them here instead of starting a new thread.

 

Does anyone have any appropriate artwork for this sort of thing? I found this one, but the clouds look a bit more Earthlike than than I think they should:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]43377[/ATTACH]

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Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

Well, on an earlier post on this thread (#18) I linked to Keith Curtis's marvelous Savage Earth campaign website, and mentioned his painting of the floating Celestial City of Crystal from that world, which particularly suits the concept of glass covering to resist corrosion described here. Might as well re-Attach Keith's illo of the city:

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Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

Apologizies for casting "Raise Thread" on one of my own topics' date=' but I'm using this idea (colonies in the upper reaches of super-dense atmospheres) for this year's [i']Terracide [/i]games at GenCon. I could use some images, and I figured we might as well put them here instead of starting a new thread.

 

Does anyone have any appropriate artwork for this sort of thing? I found this one, but the clouds look a bit more Earthlike than than I think they should:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]43377[/ATTACH]

 

You can ask at RPGNET, Xav. The neat images thread takes requests.

CES

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Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

Having just read this thread' date=' I'm surprised that no one brought up the concept of using this technology on a gas giant.[/quote']

Actually I know of a SciFi game that does this extensively, at least in Sol. The explanation is that humanity had to abandon earth, but didn't had FTL-Drives back then. So they just setteled in Jupiters and Uranus upper atmosphere.

They need anti-gravity generators to counter the gravitic pull and of course a lot of energy to fly (bu zluckily thier fuel is right there). But there is no picture availibel for free (the rulebook has some).

 

But, here is one from Stargate SG-1, the could city of the nox:

Ciudad_Nox.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

I wonder if you could stick some probes into the acidic atmosphere and get free battery power? Or have a post hanging down into the hotter clouds for a psudo-geothermal thing. That's it! STEAM power! Pipe down water, have it boil up the pipe, turn a turbine, condense, return, etc...

 

Because if you are going to have a stained glass balloon city on Venus, it needs to be powered by steam!

If you use lead as your primary resistance coating against the sulfuric acid atmosphere, you're going to build up lead sulfate surface corrosion pretty quickly unless you glass coat the hull, but yeah, you have the components of a Lead Acid battery right there, and more could probably be done with entendable arrays of power generation grids. I think you need to dilute the acid to get a proper electrolytic balance, so water becomes your consumable. I'm pretty sure there are other Cathode/Anode pairs that could work as well, but I'm kinda brain fried and rum soaked at the moment....

 

Of course, the waste water could be redistilled by using it in the steam plants...

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Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

If you use lead as your primary resistance coating against the sulfuric acid atmosphere, you're going to build up lead sulfate surface corrosion pretty quickly unless you glass coat the hull, but yeah, you have the components of a Lead Acid battery right there, and more could probably be done with entendable arrays of power generation grids. I think you need to dilute the acid to get a proper electrolytic balance, so water becomes your consumable. I'm pretty sure there are other Cathode/Anode pairs that could work as well, but I'm kinda brain fried and rum soaked at the moment....

 

Of course, the waste water could be redistilled by using it in the steam plants...

 

This is why the rum is always gone!

 

I'm thinking the acid-resistant coating would be primarily glass. The city is called "The Glass House" and the adventure title is "Throwing Stones." Yeah... I went there.

 

The lead-acid battery idea sounds awesomely steampunk! The game I'm running is more of a hard SF/space opera blend, so I'll probably go with wind power, which is readily available, and cleaner. The Glass House is situated at at altitude with constant 100+ kph winds, which makes me wonder how anyone lands an aircraft there! Very carefully, I guess.

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Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

Actually, it could be de-steampunked to be a very practical green power source. Presuming for the moment an H2SO4 atmosphere, your colony will be cracking water and oxygen out of the atmosphere, so you could probably design it into the intake phase of the process as essentially "free" power. Could probably make at least life support self systems self powering, which might make a nice fail safe in colony design.

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Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

This is why the rum is always gone!

 

I'm thinking the acid-resistant coating would be primarily glass. The city is called "The Glass House" and the adventure title is "Throwing Stones." Yeah... I went there.

 

The lead-acid battery idea sounds awesomely steampunk! The game I'm running is more of a hard SF/space opera blend, so I'll probably go with wind power, which is readily available, and cleaner. The Glass House is situated at at altitude with constant 100+ kph winds, which makes me wonder how anyone lands an aircraft there! Very carefully, I guess.

 

Yeah, wind turbines are the obvious primary power source. I'm thinking some form of skyhook is gonna be your best best for landing/docking. Starwhale, maybe?

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Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

 

Yeah' date=' wind turbines are the obvious primary power source. I'm thinking some form of skyhook is gonna be your best best for landing/docking. Starwhale, maybe?[/quote']

 

IIRC, there was a skyhook system and a high-altitude Venus colony in Saturn's Children by Charles Stross. I might have to read that one again.

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