Little bit OT but SEIV related

[oleg]

Introduction: As most people here know, the humanity has greatly increased the knowledge of nearby star system composiotions: Due to the progress in astronomical devices and software development, we can detect massive planets orbiting stars (sorry, I do not have a link in hand but it a very hot topic in SETI today andt somebody else can surely supply the most recent link on the subject). The limitation of our instrumentations restricted us to the detection of very strange systems: planets size of Jupiter or more orbiting star in distance inside mercury orbit, and by Jove, they are all arond us . It does sound something like a place totaly hostile to the life as we know it, but what do we know ?

For example (yep, it is the most "scientific" proof I have), in my Last SEIV Proportions game I started as my "non-canon" Tholian race (crystalline, methane gas giant) just on the top of the star. Here is JPEG picture:

1030890547.jpg

As you noticed, my start is fabulious: two "grean star" gas giants !! It promises a very interesting game, but, finally, my question is :

Is is possible that any sort of intelligent life possible in such enviroment ? If you answer yes, be aware that at least a dozen of places for such incomprehensive civilizations exist inside 40 parsecs sphere around Earth ...

[Yama001]

Take a look at David Brin's or Gregory Benford's fiction - great examples of the possibilities for life and/or sentience in unlikely environments.

[Taz-in-Space]

I personally doubt that ADVANCED life is possiable in a system that has a Jovian world so close to the star. Gravity tidal forces in such a system would seem to me to rule it out.
IMHO ADVANCED life would require some stability to evolve.

[geoschmo]

Not even thinking about life, would it be possible for such a planet to exsist so close to the star around which it orbits.

If so I would think it would have to be a very small and weak star, and so perhaps life could eveolve that close actually.

Geoshmo

[Suicide Junkie]

A planet can hold itself together under much harsher conditions than life can.
These Jupiter and bigger planets are nearly big enough to become stars themselves.

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Not even thinking about life, would it be possible for such a planet to exsist so close to the star around which it orbits.

If so I would think it would have to be a very small and weak star, and so perhaps life could eveolve that close actually.

Geoshmo

Likewise, a huge planet, called a brown dwarf because it gives off some of it's own energy could be part of a binary with a weak star.

You just can't fight the urge to speculate on such things when you play SE4. There was already a thread on the likelyhood of intelligent life.

Here's something that burns in my brain from time to time:

Many space 4X games have the "colony ship". You use it to colonize other planets. Once the colony is founded, the colony ship disappears -- stripped by the colonists for spare parts, scrap metal, the engines retrofitted into fusion reactors to power the new colony. Ok, that's the standard paradigm^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H model.

See, I wouldn't design it like that. I'd launch the colony module planetside and keep the ship in space. It's solar cells could transfer power down by shuttleing down fuel cells, or transmit to microwave relay stations. It could function as a communications sattelite. It could survey the rest of the planet or other planets in the system.

Or like the colony ships that left Europe for the New World, they could return home for redepoyment.

Or to keep the SE4 model, every new planet gets a bare bones 300 kt space staion. That you can retrofit with weapons so your new colonys aren't defenceless.

How would you colonize space if you had SE4-like technology?

Do you really need a chuck of a spacecrafts hull as a roof? Would you go anywhere where building materials were that scarce?

This probably all came to me cause I watched that tv show Earth 2, they seemed to have a plan simalar to mine.

[ September 01, 2002, 20:31: Message edited by: Arkcon ]