DShomshak Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 The recent discussion on whether and why to settle planets reminded me of some of the worlds I designed for an old SF setting that were not naturally habitable. Basically, they were settled because they were otherwise valuable -- or so worthless that they were free for whoever wanted them. Here's a sample. Enjoy. HIPPARCHOS (Epsilon Eridani 2) Distance: 10.5 LY Primary: K2 (mass 0.85 sols) Luminosity: 0.31 sols (bolometric 0.38 sols) Orbit Radius: 118.9 x 106 km Illumination: 0.49 sols (bolometric 0.59 sols) Revolution: 281.4 standard days 122.6 local days Eccentricity: 0.8% Rotation: 55.1 hours Axial Tilt: 63.6º Mass: 2.35 x 1024 kg Radius: 4,585 km Gravity: 7.5 m/sec2 (0.77 g) Density: 5.82 Atmosphere: Inert, thin Hydrosphere: 49% Population: 12.3 million Satellites: none Astrography: Hipparchos is the second of two terrestrial planets orbiting Epsilon Eridani, an orange dwarf star. The planetary system also has three large jovian planets and two asteroid belts. The jovians and asteroids were discovered telescopically from Earth in the early 21st century. Epsilon Eridani’s planets are all named for Greek astronomers. Geography: This planet is smaller than Earth, with a thicker, stiffer crust. Normal plate tectonics can’t happen: Instead of one plate sliding under the other when they converge, the crust simply crumples, forming huge mountain ranges. Lava erupts at spreading center ridges, too, forming another chain of mountains encircling the planet. Every 15-20 million years, a major “hot spot” volcano erupts to build a gigantic mountain — a tholos — like those found on Mars. Wind and permafrost are the chief erosion agents. Glaciers cover a quarter of Hipparchos. In a reversal of the normal pattern, the icecap rings the equator. Because of the planet’s high obliquity, each pole receives long periods of continuous high sunlight that melts any surface ice, but glaciers can grow in the equable climate of the equator. Permafrost underlies deep basins of wind-blown sediments in what ought to be the “temperate” zones. Hipparchos has no standing bodies of liquid water, but intermittent streams of glacial melt-water flow during each hemisphere’s spring and summer. Hipparchos did not always have such an extreme axial tilt: Because of perturbations from the jovians, Hipparchos’ obliquity changes over geological time. The planet gained its current axial tilt about 200 million years ago. The planet’s atmosphere consists of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, with a pressure only a fifth that of sea level on Earth. The changing of the seasons, and concommitant changing of the planet’s pattern of heating, causes planet-wide dust storms twice a year. These storms render any rapid travel dangerous, whether on the ground, in the air, or to or from space. The Hipparchan sky always looks ochre or yellow-orange from fine dust suspended in the upper atmosphere. Stars are never visible and the sun is a diffuse patch of brightness, like an overcast day on Earth. Ecology: Life never evolved on Hipparchos. When humans came to Hipparchos, they brought first food-yeast and algae, then pets, garden plants and — inevitably — small vermin. Nowadays, only poorer folk live on synthetic food. The Hipparchans expended great effort to create “food factories” that produce fruits, vegetables, grain and even meat from cloned tissues. Hipparchan cities all have parks, too, with grass, trees and flowers. History: Epsilon Eridani’s jovian planets made it an early target for interstellar exploration. Geological surveys showed that Hipparchos held great mineral wealth. The UN used Hipparchos as an experiment in economic engineering. Existing space mining cartels were barred from Hipparchos, leaving the planet for small companies and entrepreneurial prospectors. Hipparchos lived up to expectations in every way. Within 50 years, Hipparchos boasted several rich young mining companies… that became junior partners in the new World Governance Board the first chance they got. Most of the entrepreneurs kept majority stakes in their companies. Despite joining the WGB, the owners did not trust the Sol-based cartels to leave them alone. To prevent takeovers, they sold stock to each other and formed a co-op. The owners and their families became an unofficial oligarchy through sheer concentration of wealth. They dubbed themselves the Aristoi. Hipparchos saw fierce fighting in both Cladist Wars. Its mineral wealth and industrial power made it an important strategic target for the cladists. In the Second Cladist War, Hipparchos fell to cladist infiltrators and plague-weapons almost at once, and the planet became an armory. The Hipparchan resistance became one of the grimmest epics in the entire war, as resistance cells hid in the trackless, sterile deserts, mountains and glaciers, risking death as much from the sandstorms, starvation and air loss as from the cladist soldiers. At the end of the war, many of the Aristoi who collaborated with the cladists were executed, but that simply meant that relatives who’d spent the war off-planet or in hiding inherited their stock in the mining companies. After the Second Cladist War, the Aristoi sought and gained full sovereignty within the WGB commonwealth. Society: All the Hipparchans live in artificial habitats. About 2/3 of the people live in squat arcologies with heavy walls, sturdily built to resist the dust storms and occasional powerful earthquakes. The rest live in enormous tracked vehicles — veritable moving villages — that slowly roam the wastes, prospecting for minerals to mine. If a “crawler” discovers an especially rich deposit, it might settle down to become the start of a new arcology, but that only happens once every few decades. Each arcology literally belongs to one immensely rich family. Everyone else in the arcology pays rent. Hipparchos does not have literal serfdom and does have a planetary constitution, but the Aristoi landlords are so much richer than everyone else that they do whatever they want. Crawler communities owe fealty to a sponsoring Aristos. Most are led by Aristoi scions who hope to strike it rich and found their own cities. Three times, crawler leaders struck wealth so great that their leaders could instantly repay all their debts to their sponsor and found their own city. As it is, though, Hipparchos has 14 primary cities and 20 “colonial” cities whose owners still owe money to sponsors, decades after their founding. Each city is also a business. The citizens are stockholders. Everyone who owns stock has proportional votes in electing the Ex, the mayor who heads the city bureaucracy. The city’s Aristoi, however, own 40-70% of the voting shares. The popular vote usually only matters in choosing the Ex if factions develop among the Aristoi, sponsoring different candidates. Hipparchos enjoys full religious freedom. Half the population considers itself “not religious.” The remainder show about the same proportions of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and followers of other faiths as does humanity as a whole. The Hipparchans also have full gender equality, sometimes to a degree that shocks offworlders (unisex community bathrooms, for instance). As stockholders, every citizen receives a small fraction of the city’s income. Even a single share is enough to guarantee bare survival. Citizens receive basic health care and education for free. Anything beyond that, they must pay for themselves. Citizens can also receive limited insurance against medical and other emergencies. A citizen’s worst fear is to incur debts so severe that he must sell his shares and apply for a loan from the city corporation. No longer a citizen, he loses most civil rights. If he dies before paying off his loan (and the interest), his heirs inherit the debt. Hipparchos has bankruptcy protection — but only as another form of insurance policy, not as a guaranteed right. Economy: The Aristoi organized their mining companies as a planetary co-op… at least in theory. In practice, the cities and companies often cheat and undercut each other. Together, the Aristoi control a co-op worth more than 500 billion credits. All other business and industry on Hipparchos add up to barely 100 billion credits’ value. Most Hipparchan business is utilitarian: Synthetic food factories, clothing, retail, construction, mining machinery and vehicles, banking, and so on. The Aristoi tend to own large blocs of stock in basic industries, but most of them leave retail and service industries alone. Military: The Aristoi can afford the best armaments in Human space. Hipparchos may not have a very large military, but it is very well-equipped. The Hipparchans have no interstellar battleships — if their customers want a defensive escort, they can supply their own — but their in-system ships are as fast and powerful as any in known space. The planet also has the usual orbital weapons platforms and emplaced weapons around the cities. The ground forces train in high-tech guerilla warfare: From the example of the Cladist Wars, the Aristoi assume that if an enemy ever reaches the planet’s surface, the cities will be in the invader’s hands or destroyed, and the Hipparchans will have to retreat to the sterile wastes again. It’s an open secret that each Aristoi family owns several hidden bunkers to which they can retreat in a crisis. The Aristoi make soldiering financially attractive to Hipparchans but half the military consists of mercenaries, including a few elite squads of aliens. Citizen-soldiers wear insignia showing what city they’re from (or more accurately, the city whose Aristoi pay their salary), to distinguish them from the mercenaries. Notes: Hipparchos has very little in the way of cultural industries. The miners and prospectors evolved a flourishing folk music tradition. Few of the songs are suitable for polite company; but Hipparchos doesn’t have polite company, so that’s OK. Hipparchans are open and often crude in discussing sex and other bodily functions. Despite this, they value privacy because they have so little of it. Even in the arcologies, where space is no longer a premium as in the crawlers, every Hipparchan tries to have a private place — if only the size of an office cubicle — that is theirs. Intruding on a Hipparchan’s “closet” will certainly give offense. Every few years, someone suggests terraforming Hipparchos. The suggestion never goes anywhere. Perhaps surprisingly, it isn’t because of the time and the cost. The Aristoi could afford it — they genuinely have more money than they know what to do with — but even they share the common Hipparchan’s love-hate relationship with their strange sideways world, that grants wealth one day and death on the next. Hipparchans are proud that they can survive on their “frigid bitch ball of sand.” The planet’s craziest lovers are the sand-sailors, devotees of one of the more insanely dangerous sports in the Universe. Racing an oversized, sail-powered bobsled over the vast dunes of the dust-seas is moderately dangerous at the best of times. The real devotees, however, sail their sleds in the planetary storms, with visibility zero and 300-kph winds. This is roughly equivalent to hang-gliding in a hurricane. (Hey, the Resistance did it in the Cladist occupation!) Every 5 planetary years, the Aristoi sponsor a great race, to sand-sail from pole to pole. The winner… let’s be honest, often it’s the survivor… wins the biggest cash prize in human space. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 Very cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted February 23, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 Many, perhaps most, star systems won't have habitable-zone worlds that humans could hope to settle. The system might still be marginally useful as a waystation between systems of greater value. Assuming starships need to refuel fairly often (as in Traveller), there could be many such "gas station" colonies -- created for a dull, utilitarian purpose but perhaps developing into something more interesting. Here's one. (And as you can tell from this one -- yes, I am a fan of Bujold's "Vorkosigan" series.) NOVAKIEV STATION (Tau Ceti 3-II) Distance: 11.4 LY (4.9 parsecs) Primary: G8 Luminosity: 0.45 sols (bolometric 0.54 sols) Orbit Radius: 493.7 x 106 km (3.3 AU) Illumination: 0.04 sols (bolometric 0.05 sols) Revolution: 7.1 Earth years 3,400 local days Eccentricity: 6.4% Rotation: 18.4 hours Axial Tilt: 28o Mass: 178.2 x 1024 kg (29.7 x Earth) Radius: 32,490 km Gravity: 11.3 m/sec2 (1.15 g) Density: 1.24 Atmosphere: Hydrogen-Helium, superdense Hydrosphere: N/A Population: 9,600 Satellites: 17 Astrography: Tau Ceti is a yellow dwarf star somewhat dimmer than Sol. Its planetary system is composed of three jovians in eccentric orbits. The orbit of the Saturn-sized inmost jovian, Novamoskva, neatly blocks Tau Ceti’s habitable zone. Novakiev, the next out, has the most nearly circular orbit. Novopetrograd, the third, has the most elliptical orbit. Beyond that lies the Kuiper Belt of comets, whose total mass is more than 100 times that of Sol’s. Tau Ceti space is much dustier that Sol’s environs, while the inner system sees a major comet every year. Novakiev has 17 moons of rock and ice: two tiny inner moons, three medium-sized moons and 12 miniscule outer moons in eccentric orbits. The last are captured asteroids or comets. The Novakiev spaceport is built on the planet’s fourth and largest moon. This moon, Pachersky, has these statistics: Orbit Radius: 129,800 km Orbit Period: 41.4 hours Mass: 1.27 x 1021 kg Radius: 580 km Geography: Pachersky is an airless rockball sheathed in crater-scarred ice. A huge impact in the past left a crater 200 km wide with a high central peak, and a crack that reaches almost all the way around the moon. Pachersky Station is built within the giant crater, where the ice is especially stable. The station’s spaceport consists of a field of insulating cryocrete where small ships can land. Large ships orbit the small moon and the station sends fuel and maintainance crews up to them. Aside from a control tower and hangars for pressurized vehicles to fetch spaceship crews, Novakiev Station is entirely buried in the ice. The base refines hydrogen fuel from the moon’s water and methane ice, creating large cavities. The station then expands into the “ice mines.” Ecology: Not applicable. History: The Tau Ceti system itself is worthless, but it made a moderately convenient refueling stop on the way to other worlds. As traffic through the Tau Ceti system increased, the World Governance Board decided that the system needed a tritium fueling station. Thus Novakiev Station was built in the 2230s. Pachersky worked well because its ice could provide deuterium reactor fuel even more cheaply than scooping it from Novakiev’s atmosphere. Novakiev Station lacked a permanent population until nine decades ago when the station came under the administration of Presper Yoshihitov, the Tau Ceti system’s Regional Director for Empyrean Associates. Yoshihitov ran the station like a private fiefdom. He also had lots of money and an obsession with hermaphrodites. Yoshihitov brought dozens of these rare but natural sports to Novakiev and trained them as singers, musicians and artists to amuse him. When they failed to breed true (or at all) naturally, Yoshihitov used illegal genetic techniques to force procreation, creating a tiny cladist race. After this, however, all Yoshihitov’s wealth and status could not avert disgrace and prison. His hermaphrodites stayed on Pachersky. An Earth court granted them a trust fund from Presper’s confiscated assets. The “herms” had little contact with the gas station until the First Cladist War. Few herms collaborated with the cladists, but that didn’t stop the WGB from interning them and confiscating their trust fund. After the war, many herms sought work in the gas station. Many worked for the starport and hydrogen factory itself, but many also became entertainers to amuse travelers passing through. In time, this led to the Novakiev Opera Company. The WGB interned the herms again during the Second Cladist War, and they narrowly avoided mass sterilization as genetic criminals. Since then, Novakiev Station has remained a minor colony under the WGB. Society: Three groups dominate Novakiev Station: the herms, the starport personnel and the astry garrison. Most people in the latter two groups spend a tour of duty on Pachersky, then leave. Less than 10% of the station personnel (about 800 people) live on Novakiev Station permanently and raise children there. The herms form a self-governing small town, Presperton. The two most important officials in Presperton are the elected mayor and the president of the Pachersky Opera Company, appointed by the chief stockholders of the company. Although the station and military personnel outnumber the herms nearly 9 to 1, the herms believe that Novakiev Station rightly belongs to them more than it belongs to the transient population. The colonial government disagrees, of course, and the station’s Port Commissioner often clashes with the mayor of Presperton. The commandant of Novakiev Base watches their struggles with cheerful detachment, but has her own clashes with Presperton’s mayor over the herms’ black-market activities. It may seem strange that the herms named their town after the genetic criminal who enslaved their ancestors. The herms do not revere Yoshihitov’s memory. In fact, each Earth-year the herms hold a ceremony of remembrance that reviles the mad tycoon and celebrates his arrest. Still, they can’t deny that he is the most important figure in their history. Economy: Ships pass through the Tau Ceti system on the way to other worlds. The station proper subsists on tritium fuel sales, docking fees and maintenance fees. Military pay forms the second leg of the station’s economy. The herms’ entertainment businesses, from a musician in a bar to the Pachersky Opera Company, bring in a significant income that the station personnel cannot ignore. The herms also run their own small but duty-free spaceport. Presperton sees considerable smuggling and other illicit commerce. Some herms become high-priced prostitutes servicing people who pay extra for something “exotic.” The Pachersky Opera Company has a reputation for excellent but low-budget performances. The herms couldn’t afford extravagant stage effects and sets when they established the company, even using holography; they made it a virtue by using stylized, minimal sets. They make up for visual sparseness with magnificent voices, equal to the rare (because legally dubious on most worlds) castrati. Military: The WGB Astry posts two sublight cutters to Novakiev, and Pachersky has an emplaced laser defense system to deal with pirates. Battleships pass through every month or so. Novakiev Station and Presperton have their own police forces that cooperate much less than the treaty that established the herms’ colony demands. Notes: Herms are referred to using the neutral pronoun “it.” Most of the station personnel wear the generic jumpsuits of the space services. Herm fashion is incredibly diverse and often flamboyant — copied by way of operas from courtly styles throughout human history. Many herms sport clothing and makeup inspired by ancient China, Japan and Renaissance Europe. Story Seeds: Presperton’s black market makes it an excellent but risky place to buy all manner of illicit goods. If PCs need something the law will not normally allow, they can take their chances in Presperton. This also makes it a good place to meet shady characters. The Pachersky Opera Company’s performances draw glitterati from throughout Human space. Such gatherings make natural targets for espionage. When a dignitary is murdered at the opera, is it a political assassination or a killing with private motives? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted February 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 24, 2016 Here's another "gas station" world, this time for Traveller. Well, sort of. I created Nobis as the homeworld for my PC, two-fisted anthropologist Basilisk Smith, for a 1st edition Traveller campaign some friends of mine started when they were in high school. It's still running, intermittently, more than 30 years later. Only, they never accepted some Traveller Universe elements such as Vargr as uplifted wolves, or really any of the history that was built for the Imperium. In fact, as the campaign went on they ran the Imperium through a revolution. It's now the democratic Dominion (albeit with a rump Imperium in one sector of the Spinward Marches). So Traveller aficionados might find some of the references in Nobisan history and culture strange or obscure. NOBIS (BD-7o 4003 1) Location: Zavijava Subsector Primary: M5 Luminosity: 0.00219 sols (bolometric 0.022 sols) Orbit Radius: 105.8 x 106 km Illumination: 0.0044 sols (bolometric 0.044 sols) Revolution: 593.2 standard days 117.9 local days Eccentricity: 0.019 Rotation: 120.7 hours Axial Tilt: 8.5o Mass: 12.6 x 1024 kg (2.1 Earths) Radius: 8,790 km (1.3 Earths) Gravity: 10.9 m/sec/sec (1.1 g) Density: 4.42 Atmosphere: Reducing, Dense Hydrosphere: 61% Population: 870,000 Tech Level: 10 Starport: B Satellites: rings Astrography: Nobis is the inmost planet orbiting the red dwarf star BD-7 4003, and the largest; it is actually a small subjovian world. The star also has 3 small iceworlds outside Nobis’ orbit, and an asteroid belt inside its orbit. Because Nobis’ sun is so dim, Nobis is very, very cold. It receives less light from its star than Saturn receives from Sol. Geography: Nobis has a rocky core, mantle and crust like the Earth (although its metallic core is smaller); it is more than twice as massive, but less dense on average because a layer of water ice hundreds of kilometers thick covers the planet as an outer crust. Nobis has seas of liquid nitrogen and an atmosphere of hydrogen, helium, methane and ammonia, about 3 times denser than Earth’s. Nobis has a sparse ring made of methane-water ice; it isn’t visible from the planet’s surface because cosmic rays have darkened the ice, and the atmosphere is so thick. Nobis has no significant magnetic field. Every time BD-7 4003 (locally called simply “the sun”) spits out a flare, cosmic rays rip through Nobis’ atmosphere, causing interesting chemical reactions. Ammonia rains wash the resulting organic molecules into the seas. Unlike some similar iceworlds, however, this has not resulted in ammonia-based life on Nobis. The planet’s slow rotation causes incredible variations in temperature (relatively speaking). Ferocious storm fronts follow dawn and dusk around the planet. From space, Nobis is a dull, orangeish sphere splotched with yellow-orange clouds. On the surface, the dense atmosphere smears and reddens the sun’s light so the sun is never actually visible: there’s just a brighter area of the dim, dark red sky. It’s like someone put the whole planet in a darkroom. The Nobisans go outside as little as possible and ignore the planet’s long day, operating on an Earth-standard 24-hour day. Nobis is tectonically active. Pressure keeps the lower few hundred kilometers of water liquid, and volcanic heat causes local hot spots, resulting in secondary eruptions of water on the surface. Two-thirds of all the Nobisans live in one of the planet’s two cities. The Nobisans don’t expect to need to build a third city anytime soon. Ecology: Not applicable. History: Humans came to Nobis in the early centuries of interstellar travel. At that time, jump ships could not travel more than 2 parsecs per jump and needed to refuel frequently; hence the need for little “gas station” colonies between the star systems that were actually useful and worth settling. The first gas stations lay on routes from Earth directly out to the colonies; later stations were built on routes between the colonies themselves. Nobis was built between the important Xi Bootis star system and the Ophiuchi colonies. The origin of the planet’s name is now lost to history, although theories invoke everything from dead languages to the names of long-ago entertainers. As usual for gas stations, few people lived on Nobis for very long. Early interstellar government proved fragile, however. During the chaotic period before the present Imperium, travel between stars was greatly reduced for decades. Concurrently, improvements in jump-drive technology reduced the need for gas stations. During the First Interregnum, many gas stations were abandoned — and on some, where the people weren’t evacuated first, failures of technology caused the horrible death of the entire colony. Nobis was luckier than most of the gas stations. The Nobisans kept their technology working, and thanks to the planet’s hydrogen atmosphere they had unlimited fuel for fusion reactors and in-system space travel. They mined asteroids and synthesized what they needed. About the only thing they couldn’t build was a jump drive. After more than a century of isolation, the new Imperium restored contact with Nobis. The Nobisans joined without protest, but insisted upon certain planetary privileges of self-government and exemption from the Imperium’s feudal system. After that, the Imperium and Nobis largely ignored each other. In the last century, the decaying Imperium broke the ancient treaty by creating the title of “Duke of Nobis.” The title was non-hereditary and carried no privilege except free passage to and from the planet, but the Nobisans still took it as an insult. The planetary government quickly declared its support for Admiral Nincrock’s “revolution from the top”; Nobisan radicals took this as a signal to trash the Duke’s condo. That was the extent of Nobis’ participation in the Dominion Revolution. Even though Nobis is only 6 parsecs from Earth, the planet remains a small, obscure and peaceful colony. Most Nobisans like it that way. Society: Such a strange and hostile world demands special living arrangements. Nobis’ two cities and the various parklands are all buried in the ice: the Nobisans dropped asteroids to blast out craters, domed the craters with plastic bubbles, and sprayed a thick layer of ice over the bubble. Then they lined the bubbles with insulating layers of foamed plastic and mounted fusion lamps in the roofs for artificial sunlight. The Nobisans turn the lamps off for 8 hours a day to simulate a reasonably normal day-night cycle (losing such a cycle has undesirable effects on human physiology). Nobis’s government is technocratic and bureaucratic. A council of 6 autonomous agencies responsible for various necessary services — power, resources, law enforcement, etc. — make decisions. The Nobisans elect the head of each agency for a term of ten Earth-standard years. Together, the agency heads make up a collective presidency. It’s a small society; the Nobisan government operates like a town council. Originally, the Nobisan government was a strict technocratic oligarchy run by the engineers who kept the gas-extractors and fusion reactors going, but after regaining interstellar contact the Nobisans demanded liberal reforms. Eventually all adult Nobisans received a voting franchise, but votes are weighted according to the voter’s engineering background, on the theory that the people responsible for everyone’s survival should have the most say in electing leaders and setting policy. Civil rights are weak and safety regulations are strong on Nobis. The Nobisans remain very conscious that survival on their deadly world depends on one absolute rule: Keep the machines running. Minor safety infractions are punished by sending the person out onto the Nobisan surface in a spacesuit for an Earth day, to reflect on the fragility of life. Serious infractions are punished by sending the person out without the spacesuit. Nobisans neither bury nor cremate their dead: They dissolve them. Flesh, bone and blood contain calcium, phosphorus, sulfur and other heavy elements. Why waste a valuable resource? Anyone who dies on Nobis, citizen or not, goes in the recycle bin. Ideology/Religion: Engineers being a notoriously irreligious lot, religion is weak on Nobis. The Cold School has gained adherents in the last century. The most popular religion on Nobis is Kludgianity, a sardonic religious parody that portrays God as a dimwitted administrator and his angels as harried engineers forced to meet impossible demands using substandard materials. Sat Misl, an offshoot of Sikhism dating from the early days of star travel, is becoming popular among Nobisans who seek more serious spiritual commitment. Mislians hold that God is transcendent and unknowable, but becomes immanent and knowable through the actions of sapient life: A person who displays great dedication and love for what they do reveals the latent divinity of the soul. As more people reach awareness of their divine calling — whatever that may be — and bring more of the physical universe under sapient control, God becomes more immanent and knowable. Indeed, sapient life defines what God’s presence in the Universe will be, so believers had better be sure they like the God they create through their vocations. Technology: The Nobisans preserve fusion technology and sublight space technology. They have also developed great skill at chemical engineering. On Nobis, energy is cheap but minerals are expensive (they come from the asteroid belt). The planet’s crust, seas and air give most of the atomic constituents of plastic — so that’s what the Nobisans use, whenever possible. They even build all-organic computers. (They aren’t very good computers by galactic standards, but adequate for Nobisan needs.) All pets on Nobis are actually plastic androids (zoödroids?), and the Nobisans let their fancy run free in designing them. Economy: Refining deuterium fuel from the planet’s atmosphere remain the most important industry on Nobis; it is still a gas station. For such a small colony, it has surprisingly good starport facilities (class B, with orbital docks). The deuterium fuel industry has always been a national monopoly; because this pays for all government services, Nobis has no income tax, sales tax or tariffs. Nobis is also a duty-free port, which attracts a small but steady amount of interstellar commerce. All other business is free-enterprise. Nobis’ most amazing industry, however, is the simulated-environment park. The Nobisans moved beyond Astroturf and plastic trees to create entire artificial parklands. Over the centuries, they’ve built more than a dozen such parklands, with a different environment in each. They even build robotic animals for some of the parks. The simulated-environment parks form Nobis’ chief (indeed only) tourist attraction. Each park offers a different environment for a different sort of recreation, from skiing (making snow is not a problem on Nobis...) to sword-and-sorcery LARP adventure, complete with android monsters to “kill.” Military: Nobis has four defensive satellites armed with fusion-powered lasers, and four sublight cutters armed with lasers and missiles. On the ground, Nobis’ two cities have police forces. Nobis outlaws all weapons that could damage the vital gas-extractor and life-support machines. Even the cops use tranq pistols, net guns and the like. Notes: Because of genetic drift over the centuries, most Nobisans have somewhat reddish skin and blue hair. These things happen in small, isolated colonies. Nobisan clothing tends toward jumpsuits and coveralls, even for people who aren’t engineers. The Nobisans weave or knit the fabric in rich, iridescent hues, however, and stitch the coveralls with elaborate designs in contrasting colors. Some designs are limited by tradition to people in specific professions. Fashions in accessories also change from decade to decade; this decade’s style is “active fabric” armbands, sashes and cummerbunds that slowly rotate in response to the wearer’s motion. Of course all the food is artificial, made from yeast and algae. Even hydroponically-grown food is a luxury — it’s an inefficient use of resources. The Nobisans have centuries of experience, however, at making yeast and algae feel and taste like damn near anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted March 3, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2016 Getting back to this thread... Another reason to settle a non-habitable world is because nobody else wants them. If your views are so radical that society at large does not tolerate them, you can settle some worthless rock and build a world of your own. But such isolation may not work forever. In my Star Hero setting, the cladists -- groups that wanted to genetically engineer new humanities -- were progressively driven off Earth, then other colony worlds, until they had no choice but to settle worlds of their own. The Daedalus and Heracles groups chose lifeless rockballs in double star systems with habitable planets; the Prometheans settled an asteroid belt in a red dwarf system; and the Huxley colony found a planet that held a lush ecology, but that was lethally allergenic to baseline humans. This was not sufficient isolation to prevent conflict, and the results were very bad indeed. DAEDALUS (70 Ophiuchi B2) Distance: 16.63 LY Primary: K5 (mass 0.701 sols) Luminosity: 0.09 sols (bolometric 0.18 sols) Orbit Radius: 114.0 x 106 km Illumination: 0.15 sols (bolometric 0.31 sols) Revolution: 290.9 standard days 401.3 local days Eccentricity: 12.9% Rotation: 17.4 hours Axial Tilt: 17.7º Mass: 2.0 x 1024 kg Diameter: 8,770 km Gravity: 6.9 m/sec2 (0.7 g) Atmosphere: trace Hydrosphere: 8% (icecaps) Population: 220 Satellites: 1 (Icarus) Astrography: Daedalus is part of the 70 Ophiuchi system. This binary star system consists of a bright yellow-orange dwarf star and a considerably dimmer orange dwarf companion. The two stars orbit their common center of gravity in 88.13 years. In addition to Daedalus, 70 Ophiuchi B has a jovian in a star-hugging orbit. Daedalus has a single tiny moon, a potato-shaped lump of carbonaceous chondrite rock called Icarus: Orbit Radius: 84,750 km Orbit Period: 117.9 hours (4.9 standard days) Mass: 4.6 x 1016 kg Radius: 20 km x 16 km x 15 km Geography: This barren world once had Earthlike plate tectonics but froze solid more than a billion years ago, though (as with Mars) a few giant shield volcanoes, floodplains and scarps testify to the geological activity of the world’s remote past. The crust also cracked as it froze, creating gigantic rift valleys resembling the Valles Marineris on Mars. Daedalus is now a crater-scarred, radioactive cinder. The planet will vanish in another century: A small black hole now orbits through Daedalus, spawning a new volcano every time it pierces the crust, and slowly eating away its mass. Ecology: Nothing lives on Daedalus, or could live. History: Daedalus was originally named Beatrice. The planet was too cold, dry and airless for serious colonization. Nobody minded when in 2269 a cladist group settled the planet as the Daedalus Colony. The Daedalans sought to enhance human intellect through genetic engineering. The colonists did indeed create a people of extraordinary intelligence. Daedalus became an important force in science and technology, at least until the Daedalans stopped sharing their discoveries. The Daedalus Colony gained legal title to the entire planet and began terraforming it with technology advanced almost to Galactic sophistication. As each generation of Daedalans became smarter, though, they and their society became alien and disconnected from baseline humanity. Daedalus joined both Cladist Wars. If the Daedalans did not instigate the wars, they certainly made no attempt to prevent them. Daedalus contributed advanced weapons, fearsomely subtle and innovative strategies, and limited psionic powers. At the end of the Second Cladist War, though, the World Governance Board ravaged Daedalus. When the Astry found that its strongest bombs could not break the Daedalans’ force screens, the Martian technocrats fired a quantum black hole into the planet — revenge for the Daedalans’ attempt to destroy Mars in that manner, and to ensure that no Daedalans survived in hidden bunkers to take revenge later. That left a group of several dozen Daedalans who lived on Icarus. These Daedalans claimed they were conscientious objectors who had not participated in war activities. A short trial introduced the legal concept of genetic crime, and the last Daedalans were executed. Society: The only people around Daedalus are WGB soldiers and scientists occupying Icarus. They monitor the planet’s destruction, make sure nobody visits or leaves, and study leftover Daedalan technology. Ideology/Religion: Not applicable. The Daedalans were engineered based on both cladist and transhumanist ideas. Technology: Not applicable. Daedalan technology once equaled many feats of the Galactics. Economy: Not applicable. Military: Not applicable on Daedalus itself. In the Second Cladist War, however, Daedalus deployed self-replicating war machines and other weapons that continue to attack humanity. Icarus Base is armed with lasers and mass drivers, plus two sublight cutters to intercept ships. Notes: A few Daedalans left the 70 Ophiuchi system in the course of the war, so the race might not be truly extinct. Daedalans hold a strong place in the public imagination as evil masterminds for conspiracy theories and popular thrillers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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