The Solar System Campaign

[Tom Kalbfus]

In a setting without an FTL drive, the Solar System would be more densely settled. This map is set in the same year as the Classic Traveller campaign, except in this alternate universe, the Jump drive was never invented, and artificial gravity is provided for only by spin and acceleration. Most of the major colonies in the Solar System are McKendree Cylinders. This Wikipedia article describes what a McKendree Cylinder is, the short description is they are like the classic O'Neill cylinders only much bigger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKendree_cylinder
Here is an image of a McKendree Cylinder similar to the type I am using in the above map.

Here is what the interior looks like.

Also in this Solar System the planets Venus and Mars are terraformed.
Jupiter has a Halo ringworld around its equator, about 12,800 km wide and a radius of 111,156 kilometers, and a surface area equal to 34.7 times that of Earth. It is actually an inner and an outer ring. The outer ring rotates once every 24 hours, the inner ring rotates once every 250 minutes. the masses of the Inner and outer rings are about the same, and the non inhabited surfaces face each other and repell each other with magnetic fields. the gravity and weight of the outer ring holds together the inner ring by counteracting the centrifugal force of the inner rings spin.

 

[Reynard]

Birth control would be so much cheaper...

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Birth control would be so much cheaper...

Until the asteroid hits us and wipes us out! Or until some mad dictator decides to try and take over the World and failing that, he starts a nuclear war that wipes out 90% of humanity! You see, so long as we're living on just one planet, we are more vulnerable. Planets aren't the most efficient utilization of Solar System resources, our Sun radiates most of its energy without benefitting us, and under your plan, we have to keep our numbers down all to fit within the finite resources of our planet Earth, while ignoring the resources of the rest of the Solar System including the Sun. Also we put less pressure on our ecosysem if there are fewer of us living on planet Earth, but we also do not reach our full potential if their are fewer of us over all. The idea with McKentree Cylinders is that we automate their construction with robots I think Traveller Tech Level 15- can manage that. Construction if done right can be a repedative task which doesn't require human level intelligence or creativity.

Imagine its 6728 AD, the equivalent of 1104 on the Imperial calendar, but lets imagine that the Jump Drive was not developed, and neither was artificial gravity or reactionless drives, the effect of this is to make the Solar System effectively a much larger place. Now you notice my map does not include the entire Solar System, it does not even go out to the orbit of Mercury, yet we have McKentree cylinders orbiting very close to the Sun, and in case you wondering, yes in this picture the Sun is drawn to scale with these orbits. How do we manage this?

As close as they are to the Sun, they are still in a vacuum, and if the outer surfaces of these cylinders are 99.99% reflective, they still can remain quite cool, in addition a reflective light shield can be placed inbetween them and the Sun, in the shadows of these light shields, a vacuum can get as cold as interstellar space, then we reflect just a small percentage of the available sunlight through the endcaps of these cylinders and that is enough to illuminate the interiors to the equivalent of daylight levels on Earth.

At a distance of 10,000,000 kilometers radius, the sunlight intensity is about 225 times that on Earth, further away from the Sun, say at the radius of Jupiter, the Sunlight intensity is only 1/25th that on Earth, and we may need to concentrate sunlight into cylinders there, or just create it artificially powered by fusion reactors, but 10,000,000 kilometers from the Sun, you don't need fusion reactors with all this free sunlight coming in from the Sun, we only need a small portion of it to meet out needs.

 

[paltrysum]

Very cool setting, Tom. What are the various points of drama in the setting? Are there political conflicts? Wars? Competition over resources, or is the setting essentially post-scarcity and its denizens are planning STL expeditions to nearby stars?

One question I have regarding futurist settings is what makes us think human population will continue to expand if/when we matriculate into the solar system? Developed societies tend to reproduce less as education proliferates and even more so as women are educated in great numbers. It seems to me that we would have a massive robotic population and probably only marginally more humans.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Very cool setting, Tom. What are the various points of drama in the setting? Are there political conflicts? Wars? Competition over resources, or is the setting essentially post-scarcity and its denizens are planning STL expeditions to nearby stars?

One question I have regarding futurist settings is what makes us think human population will continue to expand if/when we matriculate into the solar system? Developed societies tend to reproduce less as education proliferates and even more so as women are educated in great numbers. It seems to me that we would have a massive robotic population and probably only marginally more humans.

Well I was thinking of compacting the various Traveller OTU polities into this Solar System. The Earth is an occupied planet under a military government, just as in the OTU. Jupiter seems like it might make an interesting substitute for the Imperium, it has 34.7 times Earth's surface area, in the double halo spinning around it, Jupiter also symbolizes rulership. Gravity allows for the construction of enourmous spinning habitats, because the gravity pulls in on the outer ring, compressing the inner ring which is spinning to simulate gravity on its inner surface. the outer ring simply uses Jupiter's gravity at that distance which is equal to Earth's, that is why I chose the radius of 111,156 kilometers, because at that distance, Jupiter's gravity equals Earth's surface gravity, the inner ring spins once every 250 minutes, which is 4.166 hours, this is enough spin to create 2 Earth gravities of outward force, Jupiter's gravitational field subtracts 1-g from that. Both rings have about the same mass, so the forces balance and no fantastically strong material is required. Without a planet at the center, a radius of about 1000 km is about the limit for normal structural materials such as carbon nanotubes. For lighting there are a number of options including fusion and beamed energy from the Sun. You know the Sun's atmosphere can be used as a lasing material, with the right material, you could create a solar laser. or a stellar lazer.

So in the Colonising the Sun episode some research on using the Sun to make a laser was mentioned. Called A stellar Lazer or Stellazer it uses the naturally "lazy" Sun's Corona to make a super efficient and parallel beam.

https://youtu.be/0Ap4JhPoPQY

Turns out that one can get quite close to the Sun if one uses mirrors, and their are materials which have high melting points and high reflectivity. Even in the tenuous outer atmosphere of the Sun, it is possible to stay in orbit or to light levitate a structure against the Sun's gravity. Now if we create a laser using the Sun's energy to lase its atmosphere, you can create a beam of coherent light which can hit Jupiter and other outer planets to deliver the Sun's energy in a more concentrated form than it naturally receives.. If we create a number of laser beams of different wavelengths and then recombine them with prisms, we can recreate almost natural sunlight on location. You know how a prism can split a beam of white light into a rainbow spectrum of colors? Well it turns out that prism can also do the opposite, they can combine a spectrum of rainbow colors back into white light, and it can do that in the vicinity of Jupiter to recreate seemingly natural sunlight for the residents of the rings surrounding Jupiter. An array of reflectors inside of the inner ring can illuminate that ring, and by varying the intensity and turning it on and off, we can create night and day as well as seasons over a 365 day period.

Now there are a lot of years of history, just as in the OTU, I am sure I can think of some conflicts to create some drama, do you have any ideas about this?

 

[paltrysum]

Similar stellar energy concepts are explored in Kim Stanley Robinson's "2312." Great novel that features a solar-system-spanning story. I highly recommend it for inspiration: https://www.amazon.com/2312-Kim-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0316526983/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528213415&sr=8-1&keywords=2312

Your Jupiter orbitals and rings remind me a bit of the orbitals from Iain Banks "Culture" series. Are you saying that the inner ring is twisted, sort of like a bracelet, so that it spins, producing gravity? Or am I misunderstanding?

Looks like you have the makings of a quality setting. Hard sci-fi enthusiasts will enjoy the lack of physics hand waving that the OTU setting has.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Interesting setting - I've run a few just like it techwise. If I ever go back to a really hard setting it will be based on stuff I've borrowed from Isaac Arthur's youtube channel.

By the way IY-1104 is 5622-AD

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Similar stellar energy concepts are explored in Kim Stanley Robinson's "2312." Great novel that features a solar-system-spanning story. I highly recommend it for inspiration: https://www.amazon.com/2312-Kim-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0316526983/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528213415&sr=8-1&keywords=2312

Your Jupiter orbitals and rings remind me a bit of the orbitals from Iain Banks "Culture" series. Are you saying that the inner ring is twisted, sort of like a bracelet, so that it spins, producing gravity? Or am I misunderstanding?

Looks like you have the makings of a quality setting. Hard sci-fi enthusiasts will enjoy the lack of physics hand waving that the OTU setting has.

Not twisted, at that specific radius, the gravity from Jupiter equals 1-g, so if you spin tghe orbital around Jupiter at would would be 2-g, you would only feel 1-g of outward force, Jupiter's gravity subtracts the difference. The inner ring spins for gravity, the outer ring mostly does not spin, it can spin to get day and night, or it can not spin and day and night can be provided by some other means. On the outer ring,, you feel 1-g of gravity pulling you towards Jupiter, which is below your feet. On the inner ring, Jupiter is above your head pulling you up. but centrifugal force is twice as much pulling you away from the planet, so you only feel a net gravity of 1-g outward away from Jupiter. This is sort of like a Banks orbital, except a Banks orbital doesn't have a central gravitational body, so it either needs to be made of very stong material to hold itself together, or it has a thicker much stronger outer ring using tensil strength to hold it together, the outer ring is not rotating because it needs to apply its tensile strength to hold the inner spinning ring together. the planet Jupiter's gravity just makes that task easier as you can rely on the outer ring's weight, not just its tensile strength, so you end up needing less mass in the outer ring to pull this off.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Interesting setting - I've run a few just like it techwise. If I ever go back to a really hard setting it will be based on stuff I've borrowed from Isaac Arthur's youtube channel.

By the way IY-1104 is 5622-AD

okay, well its still alot of time. Traveller has a lot of history but stagnant technological advancement. I think we should be able to terraform some planets by 5622 AD if we don't destroy ourselves first.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I watched an interesting scienceasylum episode on youtube about terraforming Mars.

He suggested starting with a magnet between Mars and the Sun at the lagrange point to deflect the solar wind - the Martian atmosphere would naturally start to reform, it would warm up thanks to the atmosphere trapping heat and you would get liquid water after a while. Shame no timescale was mentioned.


Here is the youtube link to the vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU0RN_dC2PY

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

I watches an interesting scienceasylum episode on youtube about terraforming Mars.

He suggested starting with a magnet between Mars and the Sun at the lagrange point to deflect the solar wind - the Martian atmosphere would naturally start to reform, it would warm up thanks to the atmosphere trapping heat and you would get liquid water after a while. Shame not imescale was mentioned.


Here is the youtube link to the vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU0RN_dC2PY

The Atmosphere doesn't just magically appear after you generate a magnetic field, you would have to replace the gases that were lost, but if you can mine the Sun, You could acquire whatever gases you need, in fact if you mined the Sun, you could come up with material to make new planets in fact. The Sun has 330,000 times the mass of the Earth and of that mass 71% is hydrogen
27.1% is helium
0.97% is oxygen
0.40% is carbon
0.096% is nitrogen
0.099% is silicon
0.076% is magnesium
0.058% is neon
0.14% is iron
0.04% is sulfur

There is enough iron in the Sun to make 462 Earths, there is over 3,000 Earth masses worth of oxygen. the Solar System contains a lot of stuff, and most of it exists within the Sun. the Sun can be manipulated with magnetic fields which can induce coronal ejections. the Sun provides plenty of power to generate those magnetic fields.

 

[Sigtrygg]

It's not magic, there is plenty of carbon dioxide and water vapour on Mars to make an atmosphere locked away frozen in the soil and at the polar caps.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

It's not magic, there is plenty of carbon dioxide and water vapour on Mars to make an atmosphere locked away frozen in the soil and at the polar caps.

Maybe, I am sure terraforming Mars is not going to be easy however. If it were easy, Mars would not be the way it is today. I one time read a book about someone proposing to repurpose retired ICBMs to deliver chloroflurocarbons to Mars, a supergreenhouse gas, and that is supposed to have a domino effect of subliming Mars' icecaps (dry ice) into more carbon-dioxide, this is in turn supposed to make it possible for liquid water to exist on the surface of Mars, the added greenhouse effect will heat up the crust causing the rocks to release more carbon-dioxide, thickening the atmosphere even more, and the greenhouse effect would melt the permafrost and oceans would then flow out of the ground, and then we just at plant life to convert some of that carbon-dioxide into oxygen.

I think this scenario overlooks a number of things. if Mars had oceans of water frozen underground, one might ask, how did all that rock get on top of all that ice? Alas, I don't think Mars has enough water to make an ocean. A long time ago it may have had an ocean. Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, it is easy to see where the oxygen went, much of that red color that Mars has is rust, iron oxide, the hydrogen on the other hand escaped into space. Lucky thing then that hydrogen is the most common element in the Universe and the next planet out has lots to spare. Jupiter also has plenty of nitrogen and other gases as well. I don't think terraforming Mars will be as easy as launching decommissioned missiles with a payload of supergreenhouse gases. Planets are big places, I don't think our entire arsenal of Decommisioned ICBMs will be enough, we will probably have to manufacture those gases on Mars, which means setting up an industrial base on the planet.

I can't imagine building enough factories to do this without some profit incentive, after all companies aren't going to do this out of the goodness of their hearts, and terraforming will take centuries, I don't think governments and taxpayers will have the patience to do this at cost for so long. I don't think today's technology would be sufficient, we need increased automation to reduce the labor costs of this effort. I think eventually Mars can be made somewhat like Earth, I don't think we can do much about its gravity, so it will be a low gravity environment, but the day length is right and so is the axial tilt by sheer coincidence, that is the only planet other than the Earth in the Solar System that we can say this of. Venus has a more Earthlike gravitational environment, but its rotation is too slow, and like Mars it has no magnetic field.

Venus' problem is that it is simply too close to the Sun, and more importantly it receives too much of the Sun's light. It is much easier to shade the planet than to move it further away from the Sun, and if we can shade the planet, we can also control how much light its surface receives, and give it a 24-hour day, and 365 day cycle of season, we would need to import hydrogen to create oceans of water with the available oxygen in its mostly carbon-dioxide atmosphere, Venus already has more nitrogen than it needs, perhaps it can share some of that nitrogen with Mars. Venus is after all much closer that Titan - another major source of nitrogen! Also Venus lines up with Mars for an orbital transfer much more often than Saturn Does, Venus does this almost one every Venusian Year, while we have to wait a Martian year to get the proper line up with Saturn and its satellite Titan.

 

[paltrysum]

In addition, Mars has this little problem: https://www.space.com/37402-mars-life-soil-toxic-perchlorates-radiation.html

I'm not sure how would-be terraformers would address that. Introduce some sort of perchlorate-resistant bacteria?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

In addition, Mars has this little problem: https://www.space.com/37402-mars-life-soil-toxic-perchlorates-radiation.html

I'm not sure how would-be terraformers would address that. Introduce some sort of perchlorate-resistant bacteria?

I believe the problem can be solved with brute force. I don't see the point in giving Mars a 1 bar atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide just so water can exist in liquid form and then spend the next 10,000 years converting it to a nitrogen oxygen atmosphere and in the meantime have people walking around with gas masks and bottled oxygen strapped to their backs. How about instead we create the atmosphere in space and then add it to Mars? One of the problems in converting an atmosphere is that it releases a lot of heat energy, this limits the rate of atmosphere conversion on the surface of the planet, but in space, this is not a problem,. we could obtain nitrogen from Venus, water ice from Callisto, use electrolysis to break some of that down into oxygen and hydrogen enroute, use the hydrogen to power the fusion process to split more water molecules onto oxygen and hydrogen and then radiate the excess heat into space, then deposit the resulting atmosphere onto Mars in the right proportion of gases. If we simply add an Earthlike atmosphere to Mars, this will already have more greenhouse effect than it would on Earth. Because Mars has 0.38-g of gravity, a 1 bar atmosphere would stack higher on Mars to get the same air pressure on the surface as it would on Earth, this means a greater atmospheric mass relative to the surface of Mars that the Earth's atmosphere has relative to Earth, this atmosphere would retain more heat, because it would have less surface area to radiate heat into space that Earth's atmosphere has.. A Mars with a thick Earth like atmosphere would be surprisingly warm. We might not even have to concentrate light on Mars to warm it up.

On Venus however we either need to move it further away from the Sun, or put up an interposing shade at the Venus-Sun L1 point to block the Sun's light. After Venus is in total darkness, we then add back our own light source, to give a 24 hour day/night cycle because Venus spins too slowly. the same L1 shade can collect the Solar energy it receives and use that to generate an artificial magnetic field to deflect solar wind around Venus. light can be reintroduced to Venus using a clever arrangement of mirrors around the planet or maybe an artificial sun. A ball of tungsten would stay liquid even at the temperature of the Sun's surface, and at that temperature it would glow as bright as the Sun, and it could be placed in a 24-hour orbit around Venus, with the Solar shade shining lasers on it to keep it at that temperature. 39,500 kilometers is the radius of a 24-hour orbit around Venus, its orbit period is a little less than that, but Venus rotates backwards under than orbit, so the result would be a Sun rising and setting on a 24-hour schedule. the distance of the Moon from Earth is 384,400 km, and the Moon is 3474 kilometers in diameter, since our artificial Sun would be 10 times as close, and the Moon appears the same size as the Sun in our sky, an artificial Sun made of tungstein would be 357 kilometers in diameter. The boiling point of liquid tungstein is higher than the surface temperature of the Sun, so it would stay as a nice ball of white hot glowing liquid metal as it orbits Venus at that radius. Lasers from the Solar shade would shine on that ball of metal to keep it hot, and since it is a liquid and not a gas, it would not disperse into space but hold to a constant volume, which is what we want. Now where can we get all that tungsten? We could mine it from the Sun perhaps. the Sun has more than a Jupiter's mass worth of iron, I'm sure it has at least a sufficient amount of tungsten to do this job. We might also find the necessary tungsten in Mercury. It might also be easier just to shine lasers of a lesser intensity directly onto Mercury to create day conditions.

Here is a map of the inner Solar System I created, most of the human race would live within this inner Solar System due to the easy availability of Solar energy, Jupiter would have the second largest concentration of population, and Saturn the third. the diagram below the Solar System map is that of a Banks Orbital with a black hole in the center. I figured building one around Jupiter would end up being easier than creating this black hole.
https://thomasbowman767.deviantart.com/art/Solar-System-Inner-and-Banks-Orbital-728405177

Here is the proposed Jupiter Belt drawn to scale:

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Here is a blank map of the Solar System, it works this way, the first number is the radius in units of 10 million miles from the Sun, the rest of the number is the number of days in its orbit from the 180 degree position. The ideas is to use each space on the map for one orbital space colony. I think I will add one for orbits around the Earth for completeness. The thing is everything in each orbital track moves at the same speed around the Sun. I think I'll just use the McKendree Cylinders, I'm not going to go with the rings around planets. Each McKendree cylinder has a diameter of 1,000 miles, and a length of 5,000 miles.
https://orig00.deviantart.net/859a/f/2018/164/a/f/solar_system_1_metric_by_thomasbowman767-dceca45.png

 

[Linwood]

This is impressive stuff Tom. You might consider publishing it one day....

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

This is impressive stuff Tom. You might consider publishing it one day....

Thank you. The above map is a generic Solar System Map, it is the Solar System of today. I am thinking of combining the Solar System campaign with limited time travel. Very limited time travel, here's the idea. We start with modern TL7 Traveller characters, they are living in the present 2018 AD, and suddenly we drop a timeship in their laps. The timeship is controlled by a Conscious Intelligence (See Highguard) that is stored on the ship's computer. The conscious intelligence is modeled after a historic character - in this case I chose Anastasia Romanov, she died about 100 years ago at age 17 along with her family when they were executed by the Bolsheviks in Russia. The conscious part of the Conscious Intelligence has the memories of Anastasia Romanov, she doesn't know how her mind got uploaded into this computer, she does remember being shot along with her family by a firing squad and losing consciousness shortly thereafter, the next thing she remembers is waking up in a computer. The "unconscious" part of her mind controls the time drive. the player characters and she can only activate it, they can't determine the time displacement which occurs when the time drive is activated. The time drive is locked onto two time periods, it will toggle between jumping forward exactly 6000 years with not a second more or less, and after that it will only jump backwards in time by the same amount of years down to the second. Anastasia finds herself in the ships computer in orbit around the Earth exactly 100 years after her death, she wants to go back in time and change history to save her family, only she can't, she is a very frustrated cyber princess, and she is all alone onboard the ship. Anastasia can remotely pilot the pinnaces, she doesn't know where she learned to fly them, only that she knows how.

One of the pinnaces land near where the PCs are, when they get aboard, Anastasia tells her story, the part that she knows, she is looking for a crew to help maintain the ship, she knows how, but their are times when maintenance requires shutting down the computer, thus shutting down her, thus she needs some flesh and blood crew members. The following are the stats for the time ship, It is a modified ANNIC NOVA. Anastasia doesn't know who modified this ship, only that when she first woke up in its computer she was all alone.

This ship can jump from 2018 AD to 8018 AD and then back again, it can't go anywhen else in time, or at least its programming will not permit access to other time periods, only these two, thus no time paradoxes, as the PCs aren't familiar with future history and how to change it, and neither is Anastasia, who's historical knowledge is 100 years out of date. As you can see below, in the Solar System of 8018 AD, the planet Venus was moved outside of the Earth's orbit. Venus now orbits the Sun at an average distance of 105,237,910 miles and its year is now 439.6 Earth days long. The planet has a day 24 hours long, has a magnetic field and Earthlike seasons, though a bit longer than what Earth has, its axial tilt is the same as Earth's, and it has a satellite, the former moon of Jupiter Io, its volcanos still erupt quite frequently, though not as much as when it was actively stretched by Jupiter's tides, it still has that cheery red and yellow color to it, and it orbits Venus in about a month. The player characters can explore this planet and who lives on it, as well as the other two Earth and Mars, all three have been terraformed.

https://orig00.deviantart.net/d9ed/f/2018/166/c/d/solar_system_1_space_settlements_by_thomasbowman767-dcefsbt.png

By the way, Venus has a Dense atmosphere with a heightened greenhouse effect which compensates for its greater distance from the Sun. Mars at this stage has a breathable Thin atmosphere, but lower gravity heightens its greenhouse effect, as the atmosphere stacks almost three times as high as on Earth, it is still a bit cooler, but not as cold as it otherwise would be than Earth. the hydrographics percentage for Venus is 80% while that for Mars is 30%.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Venus is a primitive world. Third planet from the Sun, it has been moved to a further out orbit, has a year length of 461 days, and orbits at a distance of about 110 million miles
It has a starport X, Size 8, Atmosphere is 8 (Dense), Hydrographic is 8 (80%), Population is about 7 to 8, Government type is Balkanization, Law Level varies from place to place, and its maximum tech level is 3. Despite Venus being further out from the Sun, its overall climate is warmer than Earth's due to its Dense but breathable atmosphere. Because of its Dense atmosphere and 0.9-G gravity, this planet is host to a number of large flying creatures including Giant Eagles with wingspans of about 10 meters! Dinosaurs roam the planet, and in some cases are used as beasts of burden and food animals by humans living on the planet, some of the wild ones can be dangerous.

This is the moon of Venus as of 8018 AD

And here are the weapons selections and starting gold pieces for native characters of this terraformed Venus

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

http://www.worlddreambank.org/V/VENISHTA.GIF
Here is a part of Venus with a climate comparable to Europe's. As I said before Venus has a warmer climate than Earth, even though it is further away from the Sun, due to its thicker atmosphere and greater greenhouse effect. Turns out that even at the summit of the highest mountain on Venus, Maxwell Montes, a human could still breath quite comfortably, as the atmosphere thins out to a merely Standard atmosphere rather than a Dense one. Its quite cold at the Summit of Maxwell Montes however, as the planet is further away from the Sun and the location is near the north pole. Human society has regressed technologically, the ones who's ancestors have chosen to remain human at any rate. A lot of humans a couple millennia ago have chosen to upload to machines, what happened to those machines is a bit of a mystery. Someone terraformed Mars and Venus. Moving Venus to a new orbit, and also moving Jupiter's moon Io from Jupiter to Venus Orbit was no mean feat. One possibility is that engines were build on the surface of Io to move it around the Solar System, and it was used as a gravity tractor over a thousand year time to pull it into a wide orbit out beyond Earth's.