# Custom planet needed for novel



## spalan (May 18, 2007)

Hi everybody,

I'm thinking of starting on a novel about the establishment of a settlement on an extrasolar planet. I was thinking of a somewhat forbidding world, which does not contain life and has an atmosphere that his not breathable for most Earth-evolved life. Nonetheless, it would need to be terra-formable within a relatively short amount of time, so that it is capable of supporting some (maybe slightly genetically modified) plants and life-forms.

I'd also like this planet to have a lot of different climate zones, so I can have ice landscapes as well as deserts to give me more leeway for different plot developments.

Can somebody think of some plausible planetary parameters that might fit the bill?

Thanks a lot for your time!

Stefan.


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## chrispenycate (May 18, 2007)

If you want to terraform it fairly rapidly,( a century or so adequate, or do you need to do it within story deadlines?) a fairly dense, reducing atmospherewould be best; but that's going to give you an enormous greenhouse effect, with temperatures at least ten or fifteen degrees higher than your final equilibrium.
Alternately, you could start with a fairly dry, cold planet and a fleet of robot comet tugs. You add volatiles and energy, and fine tune its orbit by bombarding it with comets.
Unfortunately, this is a much slower process, and living onthe planet while it's going on is probably not much fun; ice mountains flaring through the sky, hurricane winds, instability in everything; no permanent deserts, and the seas only that way betweeen impacts.
If you wanted to start off with the dense atmosphere and Earth-type temperatures, you'd better be planning either only living in the tropical zone, or building a very large mirror system to reflect a greater percentage of your star's energy onto the planet.
But terraforming is always going to produce instabilities in weather and climate, so permanence in featureslike deserts and rivers is not going to be attained until the job is very nearly done. 
Any more requirements? Day aor year length, satellites, rings? I do a nice line in multi-star systems...


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## HardScienceFan (May 18, 2007)

chrispenycate said:


> I do a nice line in multi-star systems...


Go on Chris,start a terraforming company.Don't forget soil microbes
I'd go for an M3 star any day,BTW
Although a binary star system would be more fun for the cover artist....


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## spalan (May 21, 2007)

chrispenycate said:


> If you want to terraform it fairly rapidly,( a century or so adequate, or do you need to do it within story deadlines?) a fairly dense, reducing atmospherewould be best;


 
A century or so would be good. I get the dense atmosphere - but what do you mean by "reducing"?



chrispenycate said:


> but that's going to give you an enormous greenhouse effect, with temperatures at least ten or fifteen degrees higher than your final equilibrium.


 
Fine - the initial conditions are not overly important, as the settlers will initially be living in domed-in structures anyway.



chrispenycate said:


> Alternately, you could start with a fairly dry, cold planet and a fleet of robot comet tugs. You add volatiles and energy, and fine tune its orbit by bombarding it with comets.
> Unfortunately, this is a much slower process, and living onthe planet while it's going on is probably not much fun; ice mountains flaring through the sky, hurricane winds, instability in everything; no permanent deserts, and the seas only that way betweeen impacts.


 
You mean I have this dry, cold planet and inject the needed elements (and alter the orbit) by crashing comets on the planet? I guess that would make for a little too volatile conditions for my taste.  



chrispenycate said:


> If you wanted to start off with the dense atmosphere and Earth-type temperatures, you'd better be planning either only living in the tropical zone, or building a very large mirror system to reflect a greater percentage of your star's energy onto the planet.


 
I don't understand that - didn't you say the planet would initially be rather warm (due to the greenhouse gasses) and then cool over the course of the terraforming - why do I then add heat using mirrors?



chrispenycate said:


> But terraforming is always going to produce instabilities in weather and climate, so permanence in featureslike deserts and rivers is not going to be attained until the job is very nearly done.


 
That's okay. Do I need special conditions to explain why there is no life on the planet or is life so improbable that I don't need an extra explanation why there is none?



chrispenycate said:


> Any more requirements? Day aor year length, satellites, rings? I do a nice line in multi-star systems...


 
 Nice - how much is shipping? <ggg>

Seriously - no special requirements. I was thinking of something along the lines of one to three moons and possible an asteroid belt somewhere not too far off, so I can get raw materials. Do moons have to be in tidal lock? And do geosynchronous moons occur naturally?

Thanks a lot for your help with these issues - the more I think about this, the more questions I realize I need to cover...  

Best wishes,
Stefan.


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## jezelf (May 21, 2007)

Hi Spalan

There are a few books that cover this subject. 

I recently read *Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy (Paperback) *by Analog & Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine  (Author). It has a section on developing databases mathimatically for the creation of authenic and various planets with various atmospheres that will keep most avid SF readers happy. It includes graphs and the like to help explain. I found it very handy, though I havent yet had a go, but will probably use this technique when creating my own worlds.

It's also menioned in *How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy (Paperback)* by Orson Scott Card in less detail 

...and I just found this book online which might help.
*World Building (Science Fiction Writing) (Paperback) *by Stephen Gillett & Ben Bova . 

"Another in Ben Bova's series on Science Fiction Writing, here geologist and SF scribe Stephen Gillett helps you construct star systems and planets from the atoms up. While it may take you a little more than the proverbial seven days (well, _six_ with rest), when you're done, your knowledge of gravity, weather patterns, cosmic mass and stellar patterns--in this universe--will be greatly enhanced. "

I havent read that one yet, though but I guess it's just what you are looking for?Apologies to all - I don't mean to sound like an advertisment for these books - or a certain online bookstore where you can find them, but they do advise in more detail to help you.

Hoe it goes well.
Jez


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## spalan (May 21, 2007)

Jezelf,

Thanks a lot for that great piece of advice - I wasn't aware there were actually books on how to construct a world! I've ordered "World Building" right away and now am waiting anxiously to get my hands on it...

And if it doesn't answer all questions I'll be right back being a nuisance to you guys! 

Thanks again,
Stefan.


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## chrispenycate (May 21, 2007)

Reducing atmosphere= opposite of an oxidising atmosphere. When I last checked, it was still what they thought the Earth had before the developement of life, Thus, neutral gasses (such as nitrogen, water vapour and carbon dioxide) and reducing gasses (the sort of things that burn with oxygen, like methane, ammonia, various other hydrocarbons) None of the nasty, corrosive oxiding gasses like oxygen itself, chlorine, sulphur trioxide. Oxygen is present (if present theories of stella fusion are correct, it and carbon are almost bound to be common, but all chemically bound, no free molecules.
Apart from a few anaerobic bacteria, most lifeforms don't like these conditions; even plants, which (in sunlight) produce more oxygen than they absorb, like some oxygen around for the dark times, and most bacteria and  I believe all multi-cellular animal life (go on, tell me about isolated caves or ocean vents - would you accept " the vast majority?) use free oxygen in their energy cycle.
But, for a long time in a reducing atmosphere, all the oxygen released by your plants is just going to absorb into the system, burning wit thelocal gasses and reacting with the surface rocks. On Earth, life had several million years to adapt the planet as it adapted to the changing planet: that would make for a rather slow story. Phytoplancton in ocean currents is probably a better start than dry land, but there will have to be gigatonnes of biomass beforethe changeover to an oxygen atmosphere can begin.

As to whether life is common or not in the universe, no-one can contradict you: no-one knows.

The re-heating was merely to maintain a majority of the surface at comfortable temperatures for as long as possible, it's not essential. If the equator cooks eggs before the transformation, while the poles are comfortable, and it drops down to Earth-like conditions with the work, that's fine.
A geosynchronous moon? Already planning your space elevator, are you? I don't think there are any planetosynchonous moons in the sol system, which suggests that solution to the harmonic equations doesn't come up all that frequently, However, particularly if your continental mass were unbalanced, the solution is stable, but I suspect it would always be tidally locked.
Another solution would be to make your teraforming ship big enough that it can be considered a moon, and park it carefully.

Within the local cluster, delivery can normally be absorbed into construction charges; further away, it's more the delay that's problematic. Delivery in less than a millenium or two requires taking it extra-dimensional, and that really adds to the energy consumed.


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## dustinzgirl (May 21, 2007)

jezelf said:


> Hi Spalan
> 
> There are a few books that cover this subject.
> 
> ...



What I liked best about Orson's how to write books is that he does not give details...he just helps you flesh out ideas, which is what I think this guy is looking for. Plus, when you write, be careful of too much detail. Some books  are just a bore because of it.


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## spalan (May 22, 2007)

Chris:
So with a reducing atmosphere, the world could be warm, have water and still not have a lot of life, while still being terra-formable in decent time (with some good ideas in biology and technology). That sounds ideal! I understand that the oceans are the place to start with oxygen-producing organisms - how about lichens and algae on the land masses - would they work?

Such an atmosphere would also mean a volatile mix in the case of a breach of habitat domes, right? The planetary atmosphere and the oxygen in the domes would be easy to ignite - that could make for some nice (and crispy) scenes... 



chrispenycate said:


> As to whether life is common or not in the universe, no-one can contradict you: no-one knows.



Right, good point. 



chrispenycate said:


> The re-heating was merely to maintain a majority of the surface at comfortable temperatures for as long as possible, it's not essential. If the equator cooks eggs before the transformation, while the poles are comfortable, and it drops down to Earth-like conditions with the work, that's fine.



Yep, that's a good point. So if the planet has decent temperatures to begin with, I need some means to keep it that way when I chip away at the greenhouse-effect.



chrispenycate said:


> A geosynchronous moon? Already planning your space elevator, are you? I don't think there are any planetosynchonous moons in the sol system, which suggests that solution to the harmonic equations doesn't come up all that frequently, However, particularly if your continental mass were unbalanced, the solution is stable, but I suspect it would always be tidally locked.



Whoa - wait a minute. What would unstable continental masses look like? Anyway, this is just an idea to make things a little more exotic.
I was thinking of a space elevator, but probably using an asteroid to start with. Could a moon's orbit be stable if I changed its original orbit to planetosynchronous? At least for the few hundred years of planning horizon we humans usually exhibit? But then, I could continuously correct the orbit using your crashing comets, right?



chrispenycate said:


> Another solution would be to make your teraforming ship big enough that it can be considered a moon, and park it carefully.



Nice idea - but I fear that doesn't work with the storyline I had in mind. 



chrispenycate said:


> Within the local cluster, delivery can normally be absorbed into construction charges; further away, it's more the delay that's problematic. Delivery in less than a millenium or two requires taking it extra-dimensional, and that really adds to the energy consumed.



Neat - I think I'll opt for the local cluster then. Can you bill it to my Virgin Galactic Super Savings Credit Card? 

Stefan.


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## chrispenycate (May 22, 2007)

> Whoa - wait a minute. What would unstable continental masses look like? Anyway, this is just an idea to make things a little more exotic.
> I was thinking of a space elevator, but probably using an asteroid to start with. Could a moon's orbit be stable if I changed its original orbit to planetosynchronous? At least for the few hundred years of planning horizon we humans usually exhibit? But then, I could continuously correct the orbit using your crashing comets, right?


 
"Unbalanced" not "unstable". If you consider Earth in the time of the Pangea supercontinent, with an equatorial lump on one side opposite ocean, there will be a bulge in the gravitational field in that direction (very minor, so little of the mass is in the crust) If you put a geostationary satellite (of any size) in this region, it's going to tend to stay there, and any perturbation will tend to damp out, rather than develope into an instability or drift.

Moving moons? That sounds fun. Transfer momentum from the moon you want geostationary to other moon(s)? Focussed gravity waves or chucking rocks? Lots of energy, obviously,  but a drive system which is intended to push a decent sized starship near light speed has got a lot of energy (and isn't afraid to use it).

Sorry, it happens to me sometimes. Your universe; I'll go back to trying to work out hyperseasons in a triple star system.


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## spalan (May 22, 2007)

Okay, I get the unbalanced continents now. Interesting idea - I've got to think about that. Can you also imagine a scenario where there is just an area of more dense material (=more mass) on one "side" of the planet? On the other hand - wouldn't all that just change the center of gravity of the planet, thus having the moon orbit around this off-center center of gravity, but still not being stationary?

Well, I'd say the movability depends on the size of the moon, and the timeframe. With a powerful drive, a small-enough moon and some decades of time - "Tell me where you want 'im!"

...or one could just put a decent mass (into an orbit) close to the moon and let gravity do the job.


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## TiwazTyrsfist (May 23, 2007)

So, there's this program I bought at GenCon a couple years back that would be ideal for you, especially if you plan to be doing a lot of similar writing.

It's callsed Fractal Terrains, and it's from a company called ProFantasy.

ProFantasy Software - Fractal Terrains Pro - map making for game, historical and hobby mappers

You can change pretty much all the variables (mean temp, albedo, green house effect, axis tilt, size, etc.) to produce diffent planets, save the ones you like, and even export them to another of their programs that's a map editor to add cities and roads.

Granted the results may not be up to inspection by an astrophysist, but I think they're good enough for Sci-Fi.


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## spalan (May 23, 2007)

Thanks for that hint - I've downloaded a demo and am going to fiddle around with this in the next few days. Looks handy for creating maps and stuff!


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