Hi Pop Worlds

[captainjack23]

Perhaps it is time to look for a quiet discussion of Near C rocks.

i've always prefereed my NearC on the rocks with a gravitic twist - served with an umbrella, naturlich!

Philistine! :shock: :?

Everyone knows that it has to be served with a twist of lime! :roll: :wink:

Phil

I refute thee:
1. "absolute statements are falsified by a single contrary example".
2. I for one love it with a twist of lime.....wait.
3. DAMMIT !

 

[EDG]

Both constructs, if capable of supporting "life as we know it", are setting breakers. Quite aside from the wars that would be fought over them, the sheer space available would break interstellar land ownership models. Why struggle to maintain a few acres when you and every other member of your species can have enough land to never see your neighbors, and not even make a tiny dent in the available space, and that's just on a ringworld.

The problem with that is that civilisations don't just need "living space" - they need energy and resources. A ringworld or dyson sphere that's been around for tens or hundreds of millions of years and that has a rock layer that is several tens of km thick, and that has active plate tectonics going on somehow to recycle crust, and has active erosional/depositional/burial processes would have a nigh infinite supply of fossil fuels generated by buried plant matter.

Any TL0 civilisation that found itself (or devolved on) a ringworld would need those resources to claw its way up the technological ladder - after all, one can only get so far by burning dead trees or by geothermal heating (if that exists), and it'd be hard to have an industrial revolution on solar power alone.

 

[Infojunky]

Perhaps it is time to look for a quiet discussion of Near C rocks.

i've always prefereed my NearC on the rocks with a gravitic twist - served with an umbrella, naturlich!

Philistine! :shock: :?

Everyone knows that it has to be served with a twist of lime!

I prefer a slice Blood Orange my self.

 

[lucasdigital]

The problem with that is that civilisations don't just need "living space" - they need energy and resources.

Amen to that! Ringworlds don't make sense, they're just cool. I've enjoyed reading through this thread. It's clear this forum has a generous supply of smart members. But come on! Nothing much in Traveller actually makes sense, though much of it is very cool. Jump Drives, thruster plates, grav control, idealised fusion processes, psionics, dogs and cats living together...none of it makes sense. Within minutes of rational, science-based scrutiny it all falls apart. The Traveller universe was created to fit artistic notions, to make a place where people are still regular joes, holding down jobs, drinking in bars, cheating on their taxes.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely hate sloppy use of science, but, at some point you need to accept it at face value, and stop worrying how it works, so long as it fits into the Traveller milieu. Traveller has some Very high population worlds. It's there in black and white. If you don't think that works, absolutely fine, take it out of your own game. Making an argument for changing the official line on the basis of some obscure scientific argument seems to me like a waste of effort.

 

[GypsyComet]

There's sloppy science, and then there's sloppy engineering.

Both can be influenced by increasing technology and the discoveries not yet made. I have no problem with that, and can accept much of Traveller on that basis.

The ones that get me (and others) are those things that cannot be changed by increasing technology.

 

[Tobias]

Speaking of "under-analyzing", why do you claim that he is trying to prove that ringworlds

That's the most disillusioning part of it.
Post something which is meant to material for open, SF-geeky discussion: People can't be arsed to even read it.
Post something argumentative and/or snarky: People will go through your post with a fine tooth comb, meticulously dissect it to find something they can interpret as an error (even if, in the above case, it requires intentionally disregarding the context of a ringworld being constructed, not one being there as a freak artifact) to rub under your nose. In short words, they will devote infinitely as much time and energy as to your topical posts.

 

[rust]

I like to see what the real scientist folks say. It does interest me. Unfortunately, I think it can be taken to obsessive extremes, and there is a point where I sort of draw a line and go with what I have, and if somebody has nothing better to do with their time then point and babble about its realism, they are cordially invited to run their own bit and leave mine be.

I also like the comments, because most of them help me to improve my
setting.

I usually check the facts, because even experts sometimes get it wrong
(or argue in favour of one of many conflicting theories, or do not have
all the necessary information about my setting), and then decide whe-
ther a change would really improve my setting, or just add unnecessary
detail that would not help to make the roleplaying more interesting.

 

[lucasdigital]

There's sloppy science, and then there's sloppy engineering.

Both can be influenced by increasing technology and the discoveries not yet made. I have no problem with that, and can accept much of Traveller on that basis.

The ones that get me (and others) are those things that cannot be changed by increasing technology.

Yep, I hate to see clear breaks in commoner garden laws of physics. There are exceptions of course. Rendezvous with Rama is one of my all time favourite SF novels, which ends with the line 'There goes Newton's Third Law.'

There's more to it than just laws though. In an earlier post I mentioned plausibility as a more important factor. A city of mile high skyscrapers is possible, we are just developing the technology today, but without some serious motivation to build upwards, it's not plausible. Most of the heat generated in this thread has been the result of arguments over the plausibility of Traveller's high population systems. I'm just proposing that, as Traveller is not a Hard SF setting, the requirements for scientific accuracy should not be inordinate.

 

[EDG]

Post something which is meant to material for open, SF-geeky discussion: People can't be arsed to even read it.

You claim you posted something about ringworlds and dyson spheres - I looked back on the thread and didn't see any such post. I do see a delete post by you though - but if you deleted it, don't complain that we don't see it.

Post something argumentative and/or snarky: People will go through your post with a fine tooth comb, meticulously dissect it to find something they can interpret as an error

Like when you said that a size 1 world with a dense breathable atmosphere was unrealistic because you can't roll a 14 on 2d6? Yes, that's true, but that wasn't the point I was making - it was that small worlds with breathable atmospheres aren't realistic. I would have thought that people can recognise when I'm being general about something and not dwell on that point to the expense of the overall point I was making.

If you're "disillusioned", at least practice what you preach before you complain that others aren't.

 

[Tobias]

You claim you posted something about ringworlds and dyson spheres - I looked back on the thread

It's the post saying nothing but EDIT right now. It said something different until recently.

Like when you said that a size 1 world with a dense breathable atmosphere was unrealistic because you can't roll a 14 on 2d6?

Well, it is fairly unrealistic to roll a 14 on 2d6, though it cannot be ruled out - it is after all a matter of definition what a d6 is.

 

[atpollard]

In my opinion, something more interesting than Ringworlds or Dyson Spheres would be to move planets into shared orbits.

It should be far easier to move a planet than to build one from scratch, and placing ALL of the planets (except gas giants) into the stars habitable zone would greatly expand the population potential of the system.

Imagine our system with the Earth, Venus and Mars all co-orbital around the sun at 1 AU.

Any thoughts on what TL that might be attempted at?
Any fundamental laws of physics (not already violated by reactionless drives) that make this impossible?

 

[rust]

Any fundamental laws of physics (not already violated by reactionless drives) that make this impossible?

When I made such a proposal on another forum, someone most probably
did prove to me that it would be impossible because the gravitic influen-
ces of the other celestial bodies of the system would influence the three
planets in the same orbit differently (different mass, etc.), and therefore
the orbits of these three planets would soon become unstable, leading to
some quite painful events for the inhabitants.

However, the guy attempted to convince me with lots of mathematics,
and my ability to understand any formula beyond 2 + 2 = 4 (or is it ?)
is severely limited, so I am not sure whether he was right.

 

[Oaty_bars]

Any fundamental laws of physics (not already violated by reactionless drives) that make this impossible?

When I made such a proposal on another forum, someone most probably
did prove to me that it would be impossible because the gravitic influen-
ces of the other celestial bodies of the system would influence the three
planets in the same orbit differently (different mass, etc.), and therefore
the orbits of these three planets would soon become unstable, leading to
some quite painful events for the inhabitants.

However, the guy attempted to convince me with lots of mathematics,
and my ability to understand any formula beyond 2 + 2 = 4 (or is it ?)
is severely limited, so I am not sure whether he was right.

Dude, if you had the technology to move planets that would be a minor point,

He is right though, how planets gravity can mess with each others orbit is complex, but if you had the brains to get the tech needed I'm sure they would find away around that :wink:

 

[captainjack23]

my ability to understand any formula beyond 2 + 2 = 4 (or is it ?)
is severely limited, so I am not sure whether he was right.

Rust,

I see your point; try this: repeat the addition about 10 times, if at least eight of them equal 4, then it's statistically likely that the answer is 4.

 

[rust]

I see your point; try this: repeat the addition about 10 times, if at least eight of them equal 4, then it's statistically likely that the answer is 4.

Thank you very much, Captain, but what does "about 10 times" mean ?

 

[EDG]

In my opinion, something more interesting than Ringworlds or Dyson Spheres would be to move planets into shared orbits.

It should be far easier to move a planet than to build one from scratch, and placing ALL of the planets (except gas giants) into the stars habitable zone would greatly expand the population potential of the system.

Um, there's nothing easy about moving planets. I'd argue that if you had the unobtainium materials then it'd probably be easier to create a ringworld.

Planets are bloody massive, and the only thing that will move one is a similar mass. If you can make a black hole and use it as a "tug" to move the planet to a new orbit then great, but I'd suspect that the black hole would cause problems for the planet in the process .

I guess you could also make a planet-sized wormhole to move it through to its new location, but again that would require staggeringly enormous amounts of energy - far more than can be created by any kind of reactor or energy source.

 

[Gaidheal]

I'm afraid that, ignoring the tech which doesn't exist and may never do so, it's still much easier to make a new habitat which is more efficient anyway (a solid sphere is not an efficient use of materiel when building a habitat) than it is to move existing planetoids.

Also, the bloke with the 'lots of maths' was right, they'd almost certainly rip each other apart, in the end but at the very least you'd quickly (in solar system terms, anyway) get eccentric orbits in place of the nice one you picked out, without tweaking masses (in which case we're back to the 'build it yourself, better' issue).

 

[captainjack23]

I see your point; try this: repeat the addition about 10 times, if at least eight of them equal 4, then it's statistically likely that the answer is 4.

Thank you very much, Captain, but what does "about 10 times" mean ?

A number not significantly different from decadic ANTILOG(1).

 

[captainjack23]

Planets are bloody massive, and the only thing that will move one is a similar mass. If you can make a black hole and use it as a "tug" to move the planet to a new orbit then great, but I'd suspect that the black hole would cause problems for the planet in the process .

I guess you could also make a planet-sized wormhole to move it through to its new location, but again that would require staggeringly enormous amounts of energy - far more than can be created by any kind of reactor or energy source.

Assuming we can trust Niven and others*, the easiest way would is to move a Gas Giant** into a capture position relative to the planet, then move the GG to where you want the planet. Not sure what you do after that if you don't want a planet that's a GG moon. Also, not sure what the tidal effects would be for the initial capture....or any attempt to nooge it out of the GG orbit.


* I'd be willing to hear if it's not actually feasable, and why.......

**Fusion ramjet "candle" technology.....I'm assuming EDG will recognise it -otherwise google it, I guess.

 

[Infojunky]

I see your point; try this: repeat the addition about 10 times, if at least eight of them equal 4, then it's statistically likely that the answer is 4.

Thank you very much, Captain, but what does "about 10 times" mean ?

A number not significantly different from decadic ANTILOG(1).

Quit that, my brain is desperately trying switch mathematics from Bad English as it's base operation language, and I have a faulty Math Co-Processor, so things get weird once the geometry module kicks in....

>chanting to self< Spatial distributions..... >over and Over again<