Gaming Outpost Discussions

1. 

   Tadeusz
   Member

   I do need to finish up my Constellation posts and help with the World: Gate post (but we're waiting on JTM to enlighten us.) However...

   Kraypunkt orbits a gas giant named Skybalancer, which orbits a blue dwarf named Chariot near the outer edge of the Goldilock's Zone for the Chariot A and Chariot B dual system (Chariot B is a red giant). Its roughly a thousand lightyears from Earth not that any of the current inhabitants know where Manhome is.

   The Dvev Maga Glorious and Honorable Imperium had sent ahead the netbots to terraform the airless moon into habitability. The bots stole a fair bit from the gas giant (not that it missed the tiny .0001% of its atmosphere) to make the atmosphere of Kraypunkt. It took about a hundred years, and then the bots went inactive.

   Humans arrived in Dvev Maga coldships, and the first citizens Kraypunkt called themselves the Maga. They were gene-modified to accept the cold weather which ran from -50 in the 'temperate' winter to 60 in the summer. They began to ranch with gengineered aurochs (larger means holds heat better) that were furred. Thousand pound furred bulls with nine foot wide horns with the temperment of a wild boar survive well, and can fend off the rockbreaking giant worms (they break rocks and eat them and poop dirt) and the ground spiders who will eat practically anything animal that wanders on to their ground covering webs (which serve as erosion control) and with their very effective toxin they can take down a dog. These and other very aggressive wildlife continue the job of terraforming the planet, and die off rapidly providing fertilizer, but not before having slews of descendants.

   The Maga become ranchers.

   Several hundred years pass and the Dvev Maga Imperium is on hard times. An alien empire has invaded, and they are reeling. A refugee ship lands on Kraypunkt, and the refugees are dropped off. The refugees are another variety of gengineered human. They were heavy-worlders with short physiques and twin thigh bones in each leg, and the ability to bench press for their champions about two thousand pounds.

   They are raucous, tribal, with a a culture that celebrates brute strength and the manly arts of pounding your opponent into the dust via wrestling or boxing. They do not have a great deal of cold tolerance. They were dropped on the equator, and told by the captain of the refugee ship that the land near the equator was theirs.

   No one asked the ranchers.

   The ranchers are typically cold, tough, ruthless loners. Their solution to problems is a high-powered combat laser if they're rich, and a high powered rifle if they're not. The ranchers had suffered a technological fall, and they were on the verge of starting a tech snowball so that they could climb back to the stars when the Raucon arrived.

   The most valuable land is near the equator.

   Things did not go well. Neither side really understands the other. To the Raucon, a Maga is arrogant, sullen, and pitiless. To the Maga, a Raucon is a lazy braggart with no backbone of his own. The Maga are called misers and hermit loons, and the Raucon are named thieves and bullies. The Maga are content in their solitude and the Raucon in their large cities near the equator.

   The Raucon are capable of tweaking with what few genelab tools they have left the giant worms so that they go into overdrive. This will provide the farmland the Raucon need near the equator to grow and thrive. However it will also decimate the aurochs herds of the Maga. The Maga can develop the wealth to draw in star traders if their aurochs are allowed into the very fertile valleys near the equator to create the very best furs. With that, they could sell all their furs, but without the top quality furs the star traders won't bother to come.

   Both want to get to the stars again, but each is standing in the others way. And incidents are multiplying. There's been the Life War which the Raucon won (because they had too...it was win or be enslaved as they saw it.) when the Raucon landed. After that was the High Valley War which ended in a truce when a Maga general broke a dam and washed a Raucon army and a town out to sea. Still the Raucon won part of their aims. Its been twenty years since then...

   And the verser arrives.

   And the Netbots wake up and report to him.

   "Officer of the Dvev Maga Imperium, command us."

   For the leadership class of the Dvev Maga was True Human. And the netbots are failing in their abilities and logic. So they think TH=DM. And while the Netbots can do some small things, and offer satellite surveys of the whole moon, they can't do as much as promised. Some of the small things are not really that small on an individual human basis. Of course, the more they do, the more they break down.

   It turns out they can do one really big thing. They could stop the war by smashing one side or the other.

   But few people are really going to believe the verser if he threatens. They're hardheaded and convinced they're right. Sure the verser can get the netbots to fry one man in teh street, but can they get him to kill a platoon armed with rifles and bayonets? (No, not unless he unleashes the last chance one strike KE weapons designed to defend agains the alien empire that never got this far before sending humanity into a dark age and itself as well.)

   And the war is going to be nasty. At best, one side is going to be second class citizens and suffer some massacres. Practical slavery is possible as a result. So is genocide. And thats both sides solution to the other side.

   This gives the verser the chance to wander teh land, appeal to the hardheaded rulers and try to decide who is more worthy of being saved...to hold the fate of a world in his hand, and weep over the stupidity of the people in it.

   Sat May 8 2010 5:36 am #
2. 

   Tadeusz
   Member

   In order to emphasize the moral pain of making a decision to use the KE weapon, how about a surprise neuroempathic link? You launch, and suddenly you find your mind is riding along with the KE weapon as it plunges down out of the sky. So you get to see the people you're about to obliterate.

   I think I ought to make the KE breakdown a bit more complex. The more times you use it, the less likely it is to work the next time. The larger a use, the more likely it breaks. At a max, you have the ability to use it one time to wipe out one side.

   But you could ...

   "You guys need to stop being idiots..."
   Microwave blast one guy (turning him into spaghetti sauce so at least Fatal damage).
   Nearly get killed as verser realizes there is a one minute recharge time between microwave blasts.
   Blast a few more people, and find this is not going to convince anyone. But it really ticks them off.
   Use KE rock, tiny, to zap a platoon of soldiers sent to kill you. Small decrease in chance of system working next time.
   Gather a small bodyguard to protect you (Kind of Wizard and Fight tactics in D20).
   Try to threaten an army officer who laughs at you, and sends a small army to massacre a town. Now you have to kill him and his army...and it probably goes awry anyways as he sends a second army to flank attack the town which he didn't tell you about...

   Sat May 8 2010 7:24 pm #
3. 

   M. J. Young
   Moderator

   A moon around a gas giant around a blue dwarf star is interesting.

   The stellar radiation of the star is going to be heavily in the blue end of the spectrum, which means weak in the red end; that means that it's going to be cooler than a yellow star, and also that it is going to provide less energy for chlorophyll-based photosynthesis (which does not use the light on the bluer side of green, but relies more on the yellow/red light (which is why it reflects green)). The gas giant will be farther from the star than our inner planets, so the star will appear smaller and less energy will reach the planet, and thus it will be darker. On the other hand, though, it is thought that the tremendous pressure of Jupiter causes it to radiate enough heat to be felt on its moons, and thus there is a warming from that.

   This has interesting effects on the planetary conditions, because the light is dependent on the star but the warmth on the planet.

   I'm sort of thinking as I type, and getting a bit disjointed because my thoughts are getting ahead of me.

   If the gravity of the planet is strong enough that the moon does not rotate relative to the planet but is always facing the same direction, then one side of the moon is always cold and the other always warmer.

   The warmth is not dependent upon reflected sunlight, so it radiates from the dark side as well as the light side, and thus the planet can be in the sky "invisibly" providing warmth at the same time as the star; on the other hand, it may be that the star is not bright enough to obscure the very large view of the planet, particularly since as a gas giant it probably will filter light around the edges creating a distorted sphere.

   The planet will frequently fall between the star and the moon, and this raises issues. Certainly sometimes the moon will be within the penumbra, and at such times the light will be decreased. (The heat will always be on the day side during these times.) The question is whether the moon ever falls in the umbra--a total eclipse of the star which could last days if the planet/moon size and position relationships put the moon close and considerably smaller than the planet (it would have to pass through a very large portion of the shadow), but to make such events non-existent either the moon would have to be quite a distance from the planet (much further than Luna from Earth), or....

   ...or the orbit of the moon would have to be well out of the plane of the orbit of the planet, so that rather than passing before and behind it, it goes over and under it. This then raises questions about the relationship of the rotation of the moon--it is probably difficult for it to rotate in such a pattern as to have both the star and the planet rise every day all the time. It is more likely that the axis of the moon somehow remains roughly perpendicular to the plane of rotation of the planet. That means that for one day of the moon's rotation around the planet the planet is over its south pole, for one day it over the equator passing from east to west (ninety degrees out of phase with the star), for one day it is over its north pole, and for one day it is over the equator passing from west to east (ninety degrees out of phase with the star in the opposite direction, e.g., in one position half a day ahead and in the other half a day behind).

   The more elliptical the moon's orbit is, the more "seasonal" impact its revolution will have; if the ellipse is regular, it will be colder at the same time in the phase of the planet (e.g., warmest when the moon moves east to west, coldest when the moon moves west to east). The more elliptical the planet's orbit is, the more variation there will be in the light levels necessary for growing plants. When the moon is "above" or "below" the planet (that is, maximum distance out of the planet's plane of revolution) the hemisphere toward the planet will experience its warmest phase, but the atmosphere will carry some of that heat to the unheated pole; whether the unheated end thus is colder then or whether the entire moon is colder when furthest from the planet will depend on how elliptical the orbit is.

   I suspect, too, that the gas giant is rotating, out of synch with the moon and probably on a different axis. This means that the locals may have developed a sort of "astrology" based on the patterns on the face of the gas giant, which in addition to shifting their position also change a bit over time; but how superstitious they are and how informed they are about the nature of the reality of their situation are going to be factors in this. (Just because we moderns know that the stars and planets are traveling in entirely predictable orbits does not prevent some from believing that they predict the future.)

   This is probably not anything you wanted to include in your idea, but I think when you introduce irregular relationships of planetary bodies you should give some thought to their impact. Your players might.

   --M. J. Young

   Sun May 9 2010 7:49 pm #
4. 

   Tadeusz
   Member

   Possibly some of the life on the planet is more driven by chemosynthesis than photosynthesis. And we could have some plants that have very deep roots (useful for breaking up rock into soil) so that we have some sort of hydrothermal energy either tapping the deep moon heat or exploiting the heat difference between surface and several hundred feet down.

   This also suggests that the Maga have very good genetically engineered dark vision, and correspondingly worse vision during the day. So the Maga might very well prefer to fight in the dark, and the Raucon who have normal human vision would prefer the day. This will cause cultural effects as well. Those who like to fight at night have a tendency to be distrusted and/or feared.

   The less light energy fits with a more barren world idea. There are plants, but there is an awful lot of rocks which is why the more fertile near equatorial valleys are so valuable.

   I'm going to say that we have full rotation of Kraypunkt, the moon.

   There will be Near Days which are days when the moon is in full view of the sun, and Near Nights when the opposite side of the moon is facing the sunlit gas giant (which will create a giant shadow hole in the bright blue gas giant.) These will be about the same temperature with the Near Night having the benefit of a very bright 'moon' to shine down on it. Actually, I think Near Night should be the warmest.

   Then you have Far Day when the gas giant is in the sky blocking the star. It should be a bit cooler than Near Night, about the same as Near Day. Far Night should be coolest of all with the most fearsome times being a Far Night Winter where temps can drop to -70.

   I think I'd say that the falling into the umbra happens, and thats what Far is.

   I could have the gas giant rotating toward the sun, and away from the sun as its south pole is the nose on its orbit around the sun. I could largely dodge this issue by making the gas giant a featureless blue ball, but rather than completely dodge it, maybe we can add one giant eye so as to keep it at the level where its challenging for me but not insanely so.

   I think the local plant life should be variable in its energy level usage. It quickly drops into hibernation (not as strong as that, but more so than the Earthly nocturnal cycle), and back out of it again. Other lifeforms have multiple energy systems which they switch back and forth from using.

   The amount of Light will be greatest on Near Day which will be the equivalent of a cloudy day on Earth, and pretty decent on Near Night. On Far Day it will be the equivalent of a full moon on Earth as the edges of the gas giant will glow and thats a LOT of square mileage, and on Far Night it will be close to pitch black for a verser and still very dark for a Maga (who after all need some light). The Maga wear sunglasses on Near Day.

   As you can tell, I'm going with the simpler rotation at the equator of the gas giant instead of the polar orbit.

   Sidenote: Overall, the Maga cannot see as far as a Raucon can see in the day.

   Tue May 11 2010 11:43 pm #
5. 

   M. J. Young
   Moderator

   I've never been on a moon of a gas giant, but I would guess--no, let me do some research. I find that the four best-known Jovian moons have orbital periods of roughly 2, 3.5, 7, and 17 days, but that they are all locked by Jupiter's gravity such that they always show the same face toward the planet. The farthest one has a rotational period of about 982 days (it's called S/2003 J 2).

   My concern is that a moon with a rotational period of about a month would probably spend several days in the umbra of a gas giant; the umbra is the complete dark shadow which allows no sunlight to hit objects within it, during which time the day would be marked by a starry sky and a fiery ring where the planet's atmosphere glows (perhaps akin to seeing the corona of the sun around the moon in a solar eclipse, but a much larger not as bright ring perhaps more akin to the aurora borealis). The night would be much darker, although the stars would be clear.

   I would think it simpler to have the rotation be polar, but then it occurs to me that it might then become dependent on the rotation of the planet around the star, so you're probably best keeping it at the equator.

   --M. J. Young

   Wed May 12 2010 1:34 am #
6. 

   Tadeusz
   Member

   Wikipedia claims that all moons in the Solar System are tidally locked except for Hyperion, a Saturnian moon. Hyperion has some sort of chaotic rotation because of the gravitational influence of Triton (and wouldn't that be interesting as a world for a verser to land on?)

   One person suggested that Jupiter was tidally locked to Sol, but doesn't the Great Red Spot move?

   Wed May 12 2010 1:47 am #
7. 

   M. J. Young
   Moderator

   Yes. I was pretty sure I'd heard that based on the movement of the Great Red Spot (which is believed to be a hurricane that has been blowing since before Galileo first observed the planet and is several times larger than the entire planet Earth) that Jupiter has a very rapid ten-hour revolution cycle (day/night). But I suppose it might be argued that the solid core of the planet is stationary and the movement is entirely atmospheric. I'm not sure how you'd know that, unless maybe you determined that there was a molten nickel/iron core and no magnetic field (I'm guessing, but I think the magnetic field is generated by the interaction of the liquid nickel and iron when spinning). That's still a tough thing to determine, I'd say. Not all planets/planetoids have molten cores.

   --M. J. Young

   Wed May 12 2010 2:06 am #

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