Venus - useful?

[Stattick]

So, I just skimmed through the wikipedia article on Venus. Interesting stuff.

So, would there be any point in inhabiting such a world? If it helps, we can drop the atmospheric pressure down closer to the "normal" range, instead of having it at 52 times that of Earth's. Perhaps there are valuable and exotic carbon and/or sulfer chemicles that are difficult to manufacture that occure naturally in the carbon dioxide + sulferic acid + high temp + high pressure atmosphere?

Maybe the ground is just litered in high quality diamonds if you know where to look?

 

[grymlocke]

set some atmo-processing plants on moutain tops (more 'normal' pressures there) run pipes to lower surfaces and suck up the heavier stuff to refine for useful elements and ship out to orbit.

less distance on a tall moutain to space and less soup to plow through too.

and suck the planet dry....liek a high tech tick infestation.

8)

 

[EDG]

Well even if you drop it down to 52 atm pressure, it's still an overheated, uninhabitable corrosive hellhole .

The real issue is whether what you can get from living on the surface is worth the effort. Otherwise, why not have aerostats (huge dirigibles that float around the upper atmospheres) or even orbital stations from which people just make trips down to the surface? Personally I don't believe for a second that people would willingly live on the surface (under it may be a bit easier to justify, since one underground warren is pretty much the same as another, but it'd still be really horrible conditions in which to construct it. And again, it'd probably be cheaper and easier to just build an orbital station (or build it on a moon or something).

Otherwise... it does have metal frost on the mountaintops (lead and iron sulphides, IIRC) but I don't know if that'd make it worth mining.

 

[Stattick]

Well, yeah, the idea was to have either cities floating above the worst of the pressure, or orbital stations around the planet. Still, I'm trying to figure if there'd be anything worth getting there if you had the tech. I'm trying to come up with something other then Unobtanium or it's sister compound Handwavium.

 

[rust]

I'm trying to come up with something other then Unobtanium or it's sister compound Handwavium.

In my setting I would probably choose rare radioactives or exotic crys-
tals, and would have the stuff mined by drones that are remotely con-
trolled from the orbital station.

 

[Jeff Hopper]

Well, yeah, the idea was to have either cities floating above the worst of the pressure, or orbital stations around the planet. Still, I'm trying to figure if there'd be anything worth getting there if you had the tech. I'm trying to come up with something other then Unobtanium or it's sister compound Handwavium.

Instead of a rare mineral to mine, how about using it to store unwanted stuff - like people?

Venus is Hellish, the environment would destroy any protected vehicle or suit in hours. So that helps to make the excellent spot for a prison. Place the prison underground, deep enough that the habitat will be safe for occupants. Once a new prisoner lands, that person has only enough time to get into the prison and safety.

EDIT: You know, with gravity control, you could just get rid of a large amount of the atmosphere. If you use a Classic Traveller Repulsor from High Guard, you could just have a permanent upward flowing tornado of carbon dioxide going where you like.

 

[AndrewW]

Something like Bespin's Tibanna gas mining or Yavin's Corusca gems.

 

[RandyT0001]

Instead of a rare mineral to mine, how about using it to store unwanted stuff - like people?

Venus is Hellish, the environment would destroy any protected vehicle or suit in hours. So that helps to make the excellent spot for a prison. Place the prison underground, deep enough that the habitat will be safe for occupants. Once a new prisoner lands, that person has only enough time to get into the prison and safety.

You're going to build a shelter, even one underground, to house prisoners expending a huge amount of money to do so just to keep them alive for later release? I don't see it myself. It would be easier, cheaper, and just as secure to house them on an airless rockball. The other option is cold sleep. I mean these prisoners have to be important enough not to kill for their infraction or useful politically. It's not like the 3rd Imperium has specific laws about the treatment of a world's criminals and/or prisoners. right? Why go through all that expense to build a prison on such a hellish world when cheaper and safer alternatives exist?
YMMV

 

[Jeff Hopper]

You're going to build a shelter, even one underground, to house prisoners expending a huge amount of money to do so just to keep them alive for later release?

Who said they were going to be released?

 

[RandyT0001]

You're going to build a shelter, even one underground, to house prisoners expending a huge amount of money to do so just to keep them alive for later release?

Who said they were going to be released?

If you're not going to release them why not just kill them if they are so bad/evil to never release or so clever (Lex Luthor) to escape a normal prison? My point is why put the extra effort into building the prison on Venus (or similar hot hellhole) when an airless rockball and/or cold sleep/low berth storage would be just as secure with alot less expense to create or operate.

 

[Jeff Hopper]

You're going to build a shelter, even one underground, to house prisoners expending a huge amount of money to do so just to keep them alive for later release?

Who said they were going to be released?

If you're not going to release them why not just kill them if they are so bad/evil to never release or so clever (Lex Luthor) to escape a normal prison? My point is why put the extra effort into building the prison on Venus (or similar hot hellhole) when an airless rockball and/or cold sleep/low berth storage would be just as secure with alot less expense to create or operate.

I could make up any number of reasons that would seem logical or sensible. The best reason for doing this would be to provide players something from which to plan jailbreaks or escapes that they would have fun with.

 

[EDG]

Venus is Really Effing Hostile (technical term, that) - it's got really high pressure, stupidly hot temperature and corrosive atmosphere working against you. The only thing in SF that's vaguely comparable to Venus is Crematoria (from Chronicles of Riddick), but even there people could run around on the surface without protection so long as the sun wasn't up. On Venus, you're dead if you're outside no matter what. That makes breakouts somewhat less "fun".

The thing that everyone forgets when they talk about how people would live on these hostile worlds is the expense - someone's got to pay the construction costs. And those construction (and maintenance) costs are always going to be higher on a world with an Insidious atm (which is what Venus has) than anywhere else, because you have to add the expense of extra armour and shielding and corrosion-resistance, and of doing the construction work in those circumstances too. So I think it's always going to be easier and cheaper to build aerostats (the upper atmosphere is a lot less hostile) or orbital stations or lunar stations than to build on or under the surface of these worlds.

And really, why dump prisoners on an Insidious world on another system (that's an added cost right there, paying for a jump-capable prisoner transport). Dumping them on a vacuum world (of which there are bound to be plenty) in the planet's own system would be easier and cheaper.

 

[Jeff Hopper]

Randy's right.

<snip>

That makes breakouts somewhat less "fun".

Then obviously a scenario involving an underground Venusian jail wouldn't be for either you or Randy.

See, here is the point that the two of you are missing. While this would not make sense from a realistic economic standpoint, we are talking about a role-playing game and not real life. The Venusian SuperMax Prison to me would be the Traveller equivalent of the AD&D module The Tomb of Horrors where many players gleefully threw their characters at the module not to see if it would be a viable economic investment in a fantasy world, but to see if they could survive it.

Some gamers find fun in the challenge of the situation and not the realism of the setting.

 

[EDG]

While this would not make sense from a realistic economic standpoint, we are talking about a role-playing game and not real life.

Your approach might work for one-offs where you're never going to play in that setting again but I think it'd be harder to justify in a campaign setting. You may not concern yourself with realism, but what about internal consistency? If anywhere's going to have the claim of being an 'unescapable prison" it'd be one on a Venus-like planet. If mere PCs can escape from one of those, then anyone else can too. So they wouldn't really be that much more effective as prisons (which brings us back to "why build them there in the first place")?

You can still send them to an isolated, hard-to-survive or escape from prison on a more normal world and have them try to escape from that and make it just as enjoyable a game experience (more so, since they wouldn't get killed horribly by the environment if they made it out) - and it'd have the added bonus of making sense.

but to see if they could survive it.

How would you envisage them escaping from such an environment?

Some gamers find fun in the challenge of the situation and not the realism of the setting.

You do realise that it is actually possible to have a challenging situation in a realistic environment, right? These aren't mutually exclusive concepts.

 

[Jeff Hopper]

Sorry, but I'm not going to get any further into this arguement with you EDG. It's not worth my time and we've had the realism vs its a game disagreement before.

 

[AKAramis]

Only way venus even comes close to useful is a few hundred years after seeding it with carbon-fixing acidophillic thermophillic microbes that can take the pressure... and lower the molecular weight of the atmospheric components, so that you can lower the surface pressure.

 

[RockViper]

I don't think it would ever be useful as a settlement colony, but there could be all sorts of funky crystals and minerals just laying about on the surface (there is really no way to know what that kind of temp and pressure does to mineral formation), or maybe an underground prison for political prisoners the imperium wants to keep under wraps, but may need at a later date.

 

[alex_greene]

Venus' atmosphere is useful to anyone who wants a high pressure, high temperature, corrosive atmosphere to work in. Converting it into a second Terra really ceases to be viable in Traveller, as the development of gravitic drive and Jump drive not only makes colonies on other worlds in system more viable; it allows Mankind to head out there and find other worlds, which are far less inhospitable.

There's even no need to sample its atmosphere for refuelling: the Sol system has four gas giants and one hydrocarbon-covered moon just waiting for the fuel scoops.

I can well imagine Venus being ignored by Humaniti after Mankind reaches the stars.

 

[tneva82]

If mere PCs can escape from one of those, then anyone else can too. So they wouldn't really be that much more effective as prisons (which brings us back to "why build them there in the first place")?

Maybe in their campaigns PC's aren't just bunch of nobodies but way better than your average Joe?

Actually I'm pretty sure traveller rules makes mention that PC's are by default not your standard characters...

Therefore they wouldn't be mere PC's and just because PC's can do it doesn't mean others less-talented prisoners can do it.

Maybe you run your characters as average Joe's but others use chance to play characters who have makings of heroes in them, the kind who are going to be stuff of legends so to speak.

High-security prison planet where prisoners have to work in obtaining rare materials. Might not be accurate if you think from realism point of view but not everybody requires their game to be 100% realistic. Not everybody even has capability for that(not all are quantum physicists or whatnot) so might just say "screw that. Let's have fun" instead.

 

[alex_greene]

A prison on, or beneath, Venus would perforce be a death sentence to anyone sent there.

I can see the place becoming a prison after originating as something else - a mining outpost, for instance. This extreme prison would not be the place where they send prisoners they want to keep alive, for any reason. This is where they send them to die. But in dying, hopefully they will yield some good, in the form of ores they mine before their suits fail on them.