General Native 'life'

[gchuck]

Was mulling over the 'Pop 1' thread, and realized that TW descriptions often show planets/bodies as having 'no native life'.

Nothing?! Especially on habitable worlds with viable hydro and atmosphere?

Is this supposed to mean flora and fauna? Or is any existing flora imported/transplanted? Like kind of a half-a** method of terraforming?

 

[kilemall]

Was mulling over the 'Pop 1' thread, and realized that TW descriptions often show planets/bodies as having 'no native life'.

Nothing?! Especially on habitable worlds with viable hydro and atmosphere?

Is this supposed to mean flora and fauna? Or is any existing flora imported/transplanted? Like kind of a half-a** method of terraforming?

The world generator I use, RTT Worldgen, has an additional digit for biosphere, which covers everything from sterile through microbes and primitive life to full blown sentient race. You can look at it here-

RTT Worldgen - RPGnet

wiki.rpg.net

 

[Condottiere]

Tribbles.

 

[Timerover51]

Was mulling over the 'Pop 1' thread, and realized that TW descriptions often show planets/bodies as having 'no native life'.

Nothing?! Especially on habitable worlds with viable hydro and atmosphere?

Is this supposed to mean flora and fauna? Or is any existing flora imported/transplanted? Like kind of a half-a** method of terraforming?

I was assuming that it meant "no native intelligent life", not no life whatsoever. If conditions are right, I assume that life will be present, presumably carbon-based, but silicon-based lifeforms may also be possible.

 

[Vargr Breath]

The Permian extinction was characterized by the elimination of about 90 percent of the species on Earth, which included more than 95 percent of the marine species and 70 percent of the terrestrial species.

Something like this on some of the planets listed could have been unlucky enough for it to have been 100%.

 

[gchuck]

Here is an example of what I'm trying to figure out.

 

[Krikkitone]

I could put that as
1. No native complex life (ie microbes, mats only)
or
2. a good terraforming job

 

[gchuck]

I could put that as
1. No native complex life (ie microbes, mats only)
or
2. a good terraforming job

I think that may be what the entry means. Yuk!
Probably gonna say in the future, it just means imported Terran analogues.

 

[Timerover51]

No axial tilt means no seasons, unless the orbit is more than a little elliptical. So no change of temperature between winter, summer, spring, and fall. To have an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, there has to be some form of life producing the oxygen, meaning some form of carbon-based plant life, or possibly silicon-based life like H. Beam Piper's planet Uller. No seasons probably would reduce the diversity of life which would develop along with vegetation. You will have permanent icecaps at the poles, with very little change in the size due to not having seasons. The geography of the land masses is going to have the greatest impact on climate.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Dr. Todd: "There are no predatory animals on Diva Loca. No diseases. No adverse environmental factors. The climate is constant within a 5º range and the trees fruit in sequence all the year round."
The Doctor: "Which means the Kinda have no need of shelter and no fears for food supply."
Dr. Todd: "Right. And there's something else."
The Doctor: "What?"
Dr. Todd: "I think the Kinda are telepathic..."

- Doctor Who, season 19 episode 9, Kinda

 

[Kakistocrat]

Here is an example of what I’m trying to figure out.

World Name	Godrippe
Orbit	dub
Orbital Period	13354800 km

What type of orbit does “dub” represent?

Does Godrippe orbit a star, or does it orbit a gas giant? If the former, what is the star’s stellar classification? (For example, Sol’s stellar classification is G2 V.)

Orbital Period

77 Lunar months 13 days 22 hours 39 minutes 21 seconds

Measuring an exoplanet’s orbital period in lunar months seems like an atypical choice.

Axial Tilt	0
…	…
Upper Temperature Limit	1060 °C
Lower Temperature Limit	−26 °C
…	…
Native Life	No

As Timerover51 noted, an axial tilt of 0 represents no seasonal variation, so the temperature limits could well be driven by the orbit’s eccentricity (i.e. taking the form of a long ellipse). I wonder if that Upper Temperature Limit was a primary reason for Native Life being “No”?

 

[Higgipedia]

The world generator I use, RTT Worldgen, has an additional digit for biosphere, which covers everything from sterile through microbes and primitive life to full blown sentient race. You can look at it here-

RTT Worldgen - RPGnet

wiki.rpg.net

Another vote for RTT Worldgen. It is my preferred method as well.

 

[Higgipedia]

What type of orbit does “dub” represent?

T5 refers to moon orbits by letters and an... interesting... convention of writing them out. "dub" represents W, so one of the furthest satellite orbits available.

 

[Kakistocrat]

What type of orbit does “dub” represent?

T5 refers to moon orbits by letters and an… interesting… convention of writing them out. “dub” represents W, so one of the furthest satellite orbits available.

Thanks for the explanation. Does the TW description that gchuck posted mean that [1] Godrippe itself is a satellite in orbit “dub” (13,354,800 km) of some unnamed gas giant, or does it mean that [2] Godrippe has an orbit of 13,354,800 km around its star, and has its own unnamed satellite in orbit “dub”? If “Lunar months” in its Orbital Period means “mean synodic months of Luna around Terra”, then its orbital period is almost six mean Terran tropical years in length, which would seem to favor [1] over [2].

 

[Timerover51]

Thanks for the explanation. Does the TW description that gchuck posted mean that [1] Godrippe itself is a satellite in orbit “dub” (13,354,800 km) of some unnamed gas giant, or does it mean that [2] Godrippe has an orbit of 13,354,800 km around its star, and has its own unnamed satellite in orbit “dub”? If “Lunar months” in its Orbital Period means “mean synodic months of Luna around Terra”, then its orbital period is almost six mean Terran tropical years in length, which would seem to favor [1] over [2].

Good Question.

 

[Higgipedia]

Thanks for the explanation. Does the TW description that gchuck posted mean that [1] Godrippe itself is a satellite in orbit “dub” (13,354,800 km) of some unnamed gas giant, or does it mean that [2] Godrippe has an orbit of 13,354,800 km around its star, and has its own unnamed satellite in orbit “dub”? If “Lunar months” in its Orbital Period means “mean synodic months of Luna around Terra”, then its orbital period is almost six mean Terran tropical years in length, which would seem to favor [1] over [2].

13 million kilometers would be about one-quarter of the distance between Mercury and the Sun, so I am inclined to go with 1 as well. Although that's about 95 Jupiter diameters out from the planet. Being the 22nd orbit, I guess it makes sense...?

 

[Kakistocrat]

13 million kilometers would be about one-quarter of the distance between Mercury and the Sun, so I am inclined to go with 1 as well. Although that’s about 95 Jupiter diameters out from the planet. Being the 22nd orbit, I guess it makes sense…?

Presuming that Godrippe is the satellite of a gas giant, since orbit Dub represents a multiplier of 600, that would make its gas giant’s mean diameter 13,354,800 km ÷ 600 km ⁄ mi = 22,258 mi = 35,820.778752 km, around 72.74% of Neptune’s mean diameter.

Kepler’s third law can be used to determine the mass of Godrippe’s gas giant: M = 4π² × a³ ÷ GT², where a is the semi-major axis of the orbit in meters, G is the gravitational constant, and T is the orbital period in seconds. Thus,

M = 39.4784176… × (13,354,800,000 m)³ ÷ (6.6743×10⁻¹¹ m³ ⁄ (s² kg) × (197,665,862.5744608 s)²) ≅ 3.60581×10²⁵ kg​

Since the gas giant’s volume V = (π ⁄ 6) × (35,820,778.752 m)³ ≅ 2.40659878×10²² m³, the gas giant’s mean density ρ = M ⁄ V ≅ 1,498.3 kg ⁄ m³, around 91.48% of Neptune’s mean density.

These results are plausible, so the explanation of why Godrippe’s upper temperature limit is 1,060 °C — only a few kelvins shy of the melting point of gold — must be due to the details regarding the gas giant’s orbit around their star.