Basil

Re: Answers & Questions Q: I have a $2000 hunting rifle, a $500 scope, and my last name's Cheney! A: It's only political commentary!

Re: What effects would you see on a terrestial planet in a binary system?

Re: What effects would you see on a terrestial planet in a binary system? OK, a smaller "other" star will mean less disturbance of the planet's orbit. Note, though, that class M stars will have a mass of .2 to .45 that of Sol -- well, for Main Sequence stars; some of the other types (Ia, Ib, etc., etc.) are more massive. So, a red "dwarf" (which is actually a Main Sequence star) will still have a significant effect on the planet's orbit. Just not as much as my original description.

Re: What effects would you see on a terrestial planet in a binary system? No, just say that gravity works a leeeetle bit differently. But don't say how it's different.

Re: A Game Of Questions Didn't he refer to you by name?

Re: Creative Puns for Educated Minds She was only a stableman's daughter, but all the horse manure.

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if... Absolutely right. I have no idea what the heck he's doing, but it's not amusing, interesting, fun, useful, or related to the threadS cluttering up with this yatter. I can see no reason to do it, other than to get attention, like jumping up and down and yelling. I've put him on ignore. Perhaps if others did so he'd stop. You (generic) are free to ignore my advice, of course.

Re: Susano's Song-Based DC NPCs You, sir, are a genius. Just a couple of minor notes: Perhaps some contacts "on the street"? I find this a little confusing; with the two quotes arranged like this it almost looks like a Disad. got dropped. That, or "I have..." got displaced. Also, "I have squandered my resistance" sounds more like bad health (lowered CON), or he's punch-drunk or has a glass jaw (Phys. Lims.) What Reputation? Anyway, this sounds like gullible &/or pig-headed. Oh, and it's "A man hears..." ::blinkblinkblink:: Wow, I can't see how one could say the first-person stuff is from someone other than the boxer. Seriously, I just now had to listen to it twice to realize the first-person narrator never said what he does for a living. Well, well. Ya live an' learn. Anyway, a superlative work. The Bacandforthtrian would bow, too, but he can't agree with himself on which end does what.

Re: Answers & Questions

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Older. That's all I got. NT: Signs of the coming apocalypse, that turned out not to be signs of the coming apocalypse.

Re: A Game Of Questions Are you Scotch? Hop-scotch, get it?

Re: Answers & Questions

Re: Seemingly Silly Things to Model He's Losing His Marbles: The target of this spell will have a marble drop out of his ear every 1-5 minutes while awake. The target's intelligence is not affected, but try convincing onlookers of that. Each marble disappears a few seconds after hitting the ground.

Re: A Game Of Questions Who?

Re: Order of the Stick "Logically" indeed. That is very good satire indeed. Spoiled by a silly little in joke at the end.

Re: A Game Of Questions Do you speak to ghod? Does s/he answer?

Re: Starmap question - where the fark is Alpha Centauri on this? OK, thanks for the answers.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat 1,000 nude male Dallas Cowboy fans NT: What to do with 1,000 nude male Dallas Cowboy fans. (remember the posting rules on these boards!)

Re: A Game Of Questions Oh ghod, are we back to sports again?

Re: What effects would you see on a terrestial planet in a binary system? I just found this thread, after adding more to the thread on the Star Hero Board. It brings up something that would strongly affect people living on such a planet, so go read it.

Re: What effects would you see on a terrestial planet in a binary system? I've been doing a bit of reading on this subject, and can give you a bit more info. Please note I'm no expert, and some of the following may be off. However, I believe it's correct in general. The most important question is, how far apart are the stars? I classify the distances into five classes, very close, close, medium, far, and very far. If neither star is much larger (mass and diameter) than Sol, we can put numbers to those classes. One important thing: stars at "far" and "very far" tend to have highly eccentric orbits (e=>.5). So when talking about distances I need to say if I mean closest, farthest, or average. Stars are very far apart if the farthest distance is >5000 AU. At this point, there's a good chance passing stars will "pull apart" the pair; by 10,000 AU it's a certainty. Note, though, this may take hundreds of millions of years. Stars (remember, I'm speaking of fairly Sol-like) are far apart if their closest distance is >100 AU. Far and very far apart stars will act pretty much like separate stars; each can have Earth-like planets with little effect from the other star. The other star will be a bright point in the sky, moving against the background stars so slowly it can only be told by records kept for centuries or millenia. Interesting, but not much effect on the setting. Stars are very close if their closest distance is <1 AU. These stars have an enormous effect on each other. In particular, they will certainly be tidally locked, so each keeps the same face toward the other. This means that each will be rotating rapidly. A magnetic field has drag when forced through a plasma, and the faster it's forced the more the drag, and the more flares, sunspots, etc. there is. When close enough, the effect is, as a book I read put it neatly, like pulling a mixer out of the batter without turning off the motor. And due to the drag, they will spiral closer and closer to each other in, astronomically/geologically speaking, a short time. Mind you, it's easy to put a planet in a stable orbit around very close stars; the planet orbits the center of gravity of the pair. As a rule of thumb, if the planet/stars distance is >5x the star/star distance, it's stable---IF the star/star orbit is low eccentricity (which it would be) and the planet is orbiting in the same plane as the stars are---which means the "thrown off" stuff is going to hit the planet. In short, with stars very close, radiation becomes a life-killer. Stars are close if the closest point is <10 AU (but not close enough to be "very close"). Stars that are close are a problem: although the radiation and such of very close stars isn't (as much of) a problem, there's no useful and stable orbit for the planet to be in. If it's close enough to one but not the other to be stable, it's going to bake. If it's far enough away to orbit both, it's going to freeze. Mind you, if you use a pair of O class stars at ~5 AU, you could put a planet in orbit around both and not freeze---however, O class stars put out a lot of hard radiation, so life is not likely. Also, O class stars are "very close" at that distance. Stars whose closest approach is >10 AU but <100 AU are at medium distance. At this distance, a planet can orbit one but not the other at a distance conducive to life (remember, we're dealing with stars neither of which is much larger than Sol). Now, the "other" star will have gravitational effects on the planet, so the planet will not have a simple elliptical orbit, It will, however, stay within a ring or torus shaped zone around its star. This is what I find the most interesting situation of a planet of a double star. The orbit will change (eccentricity, average distance, line of apsids, etc), as will the axial tilt (amount and direction) in a time frame that can be as short as a human lifetime (or as long as a few centuries). IOW, while it takes Earth tens of thousands of years for the precession of the equinoxes to make a full circle, it could take a planet in a binary system only a few centuries. Note too, that the rate of change may not be constant; indeed, it might be possible the change in the rate of change might be noticeable within a single life-time. Thus, the old man of the village could, one a night in early spring, gather around the youngsters--not the children (this is not a fit matter for them)--those in early adolescence, and tell them how he remembers, when he was their age, that the tribe lived farther down the side of the valley, and that where they are right now was covered in snow half the year. The Jungle People didn't live in this valley, because it was covered with forest all the way to the bottom! And you knew spring was coming when the constellation of the Hunter, the one that's overhead right now, was just rising at sunset. For you see, oh you who look forward to the Rite of Adulthood, the sky changes, even within the memory of a single man. Indeed, I remember hearing the oldest of the tribe speak of how much the sky had changed in his life, just as you now hear me. And as some of you do, I scoffed--oh, only in my head--at such a thing. But it is true, yes,.... Well, you get the idea.

Re: Seemingly Silly Things to Model That's Seasy for Ooo to Yay: This is a form of Spook in Speanerisms with the Advantage, Oozeable by Yothers.

Re: Starmap question - where the fark is Alpha Centauri on this? What does "GJ" stand for? What do the various colors (black, red, yellow, green) of the plus-in-circle symbols mean?

Re: Fembot The Bacandfrothtrain starts to think about cameloidbots. Dr. Infamous and The Mallard start to worry, though for entirely different reasons. This, that, and the other are yadda yadda yadda. And so on.

Re: New Product: Who Would Win? [card game] I would always vote against whoever had the (current) highest score, unless I could get a dependable promise of a vote. It BEGS for metagame thinking.