Cold suns & soft science: UWPs revisted

In this article I'm addressing points made with respect to the
modified system for UWP (main world) generation which I presented
in the previous night's mailing. In the first segment, I am
replying to Arthur Green, who feels that the local sun type should
also be considered when determining main world features,
particularly population. In the second segment, I am answering
Chuck McKnight, who views the bizarre results which are generated
by the unmodified system to be an indispensible source of
inspiration for his soft-science approach to the game.


** Section 1 **

Arthur Green [email removed] writes:
> One major factor -- local sun type. Looking through the stuff in
> Imperial Encyclopedia, you see lots of Ag worlds orbiting M V suns.
> Without some major fudging World Builder's HB gives sub-zero equatorial
> temperatures for these.

Hmm... I wasn't aware of this, but I'll toss out my thought for whatever
they're worth (probably not much). Type M stars are the cool-red
variety. Even a main sequence (size V) example puts out considerably
less radiation than the "average" star. It's so low that for an M0-V,
the habitable zone is roughly 30 gigameters distant (or orbit 0
according to the traveller rules). When you start dimming the star
down to M5-V or even M9-V, the habitable zone falls ever further
closer to the star (well within this imaginary "orbit 0" established
in book six of the classic rules). Now the question really is, how
much faith can we put in this "orbit 0"? Thinking like a humanities
major, I see no reason why a planet shouldn't be able to get as
close to its star as it wants to (barring the vaporization distance,
which isn't going to be very lengthy in this case).

You've got to remember that "orbit 0" is a figment of somebody's
imagination. There are no rail-road tracks out there in space
dictating where a planet must orbit. Orbit numbers are a convenience
instated by the rules. Nothing more.

Even if you argue that they are based on astronomical observations
(the ratio of orbital distances and so forth), you still have to
realize that these observations have been taken from one star
system, ours, and that we haven't yet had a chance to verify the
theory with data on other star systems. So, in short, I don't
really think the problem is with the sector data so much as it
is with the system design rules... i.e., the extended system
design rules maybe shouldn't have relied to stringently to these
artifical orbit numbers.

> How about including some sort of -x here for "unsuitable" sun type?
> Actually a negative DM for mean planetary temperature would be better.

Now having said that, I have to address this question, and to
be honest, it's one I'd rather not address simply for the fact
that I'd prefer not to have to deal with extended system design
(basis system design is enough of a can of worms all by itself,
thank you). Agreed, the barrier between the basic and extended
systems is also artifical, and if you want to do things right,
you should always consider the star's size and spectral type
before proceeding to world generation. Nevertheless, how often
do your players want to know the spectral class of the star
in a particularly system? For my game at least, details like that
are largely irrelevant. To go a step further, how many of your
players know astronomy well enough that such an issue would
hinder their "suspension of disbelief" and thus their enjoyment
of the game? I haven't met a player yet who regarded star size
and spectral class as anything other than ignorable minutia.

In short, the modified system for UWP generation was meant to
fix something that is not ignorable. After that (the basic
system) is working, then at least we might have a solid enough
foundation to proceed into the particulars of the extended
system generation. But this is not the time to get into those
sorts of questions. Still, I appreciate your comments. I just
want to focus on this main problem for now.


** Section 2 **

To refresh the reader, Sonthert is a world of 30 million inhabitants.
They subsist with almost no atmosphere to speak of in a technological
state equivalent to the pre-indistrial era on Earth, circa 1800.
The questions are "why" and "how".

Sonhert/Lanth 1918 X6266AB-3    Ni              R  314 Im

[email removed] (Chuck McKnight) writes:
>    Let me offer an alternative for Sonthert.  Like many other worlds during
>the Long Night, Sonthert was cut off from the Imperium mainstream.  As an
>underground colony, isolated from the rest of the subsector it's inhabitants
>lost much of their knowledge regarding their technology.  The atmosphere
>generators continued to provide the underground habitations with adequate
>oxygen, and the colonists also found several variety of fungi that produced
>small amounts of gases that were breathable and began using them to supplement
>the atmosphere generators.  As time progressed, the society grew more
>structured along the lines of 19th century England (Earth).  Although the
>starport at Sonthert has been reestablished, the general populace retain the
>societal views developed during the long night.
>Why colonize a planet with a difficult environment?  Why look for gold or oil
>in Alaska? <grin>  Seriously, there might have been something of value there
>when the colony was set up or it might have been a strategic point to occupy.

Okay. You're making one basic argument here: that Sonthert's situation
can be explained... that with some imagination, it can be rationalized,
and that in the process, we can come up with an interesting and distinctive
history and culture for the planet and its inhabitants. That's fine. I agree
with you.

However, in the process of making this argument, you've completely
ignored mine. My argument was this: the system for UWP generation is
broken because it gives us unwelcome results with such alarming
consistency that it confounds the imagination to have to keep
coming up with new explanations and rationalizations on why such
and such a planet shouldn't exist but does. I think that having this
sort of world appear every once in a while is okay. But making it a
standard outcome of the system is only indicative of a broken system.

Take a second and think about it. True, we have lot of people working
the oil and minerals up in Alaska, but the system doesn't say anything
about oil and minerals. The unmodified/broken system says, if you
take a dinky, icy world (which happens to be the mainworld of a
star system), and you compare it against any other main world (even
the terra-prime worlds out there), the chances of the ice ball having
a higher population are 50%. In real life, if you take 1000 square
miles of alaska (or antartica, or sibera, or the sahara desert...
any place which is "inhospitable") and you compare it against 1000
square miles of any place which is hospitable, ask yourself, what
are the odds that the yuchy-foo place is going to have a higher
population than the garden paradise? My guess is that the odds are
well below 50%. Of course, that doesn't preclude it from ever
happening. The scenario you describe is still possible. All I'm
trying to do is make the system more reflective of what we'd
expect on average.

>I lean far more toward space opera than hard sci-fi when I'm running
>FRP/SFRPs.
>I look upon the current system as the engine that makes me
>use my imagination, to try to reason why an otherwise inhospitable world would
>be colonized.  However, that's my viewpoint and nobody else's.  <grin>

No, I'm sure that a lot of other people share your view, but if you
prefer feeling like an extremist, why don't you just scratch the
die modifiers altogether? Why make any attempt to get the UWP to
conform with our expectations unless the attempt is a good and
reasonable one? I think our difference here may simply be one of
degree. You are happy enough with the unmodified system that the
work needed to change it and make it better acts as a sort of
inertia (which is probably the same reason I'm still playing AD&D,
albeit largely modified). And please don't take this as a flame.
It's not meant as such. And I do agree with you, that the softer
the science in your game, the less desirable a reality-based system
for UWP generation becomes.

>Nah, I'd say the little ice ball was the spiritual center of a culture and all
>the populace lives ship board packed around the little ice ball either in
>space stations or some other technological marvel that masks the true nature
>of the ice ball (it's actually a size A world with one hell of a spacial
>distortion <grin>).  :-)  Of course, if it's pesky and annoying to you, you
>always have the option of changing the UWP.  After all, when was the last time
>the IISS came through here?

Again, it is pesky and annoying, and the unmodified system generates
too many of these pesky and annoying planets to modify by hand. A better
system is called for (IMHO). Either that, or we can chuck this so-called
hard-science/reality-based approach and start playing Star Trek.

Or maybe I should just look for another hole to bury myself in. :-)


           _   /|       Jim Vassilakos
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