From: nuny@bid.nes   
      
   On Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at 3:31:28 PM UTC-8, MrAnderson wrote:   
   > Okay, so this is answer to Mr Feergerson.   
   > I really don't wanna use this type of backstory, I want to go with what I   
   have   
   > started, the connection to LOTR universe, which I will explain soon.   
      
     If you have *human* humans, you are eventually going to have to show how   
   they connect back to Earth humans.   
      
   > And important thing to note, I started designing this universe as a kid while   
   > playing with Legos, and after some time I started reading Atomic Rockets, and   
   > that strongly affected realistic aspects of technology. Also, when I watched   
   > a movie, or was interested in one area of science, I added new things to it.   
      
     Nothing new about that. I designed my first spaceship in fourth grade, based   
   on a Bic pen. I designed a universe for it to operate in, strongly influenced   
   by Robert Heinlein's and Doc Smith's universes. Watched movies, added and   
   subtracted stuff. I    
   haven't revisited it in a while. I should write it up.   
      
   > Well, that's what I thought with these positions, seems that there needs to   
   be   
   > some *aliens/magic* intervention (remember the connection to LOTR :p). Oh,   
   and   
   > I didn't mention that Arda actually has a Moon of considerable size.   
      
     Okay, so how about either there was an ancient Earth civilization that sent   
   explorers out who became the Ardans' ancestors, but the civilization crashed   
   and burned 100 thousand or so years ago leaving no recognizable trace....   
      
     Or maybe Aliens with roughly Earthlike metabolisms stole some fairly   
   primitive humans from that far back and transplanted them to Arda (after   
   modifying its biosphere a little to allow humans to find food on their own in   
   a sort of planet-wide zoo, or as    
   slaves, and later lost interest or killed themselves off and abandoned them,   
   leaving a few too many high-tech scraps lying around, giving the humans Bright   
   Ideas.   
      
     I think, with sufficiently different environments on Arda and some drastic   
   climate change events as you describe to keep different breeding populations   
   separate until the time of your story, you could get dwarves and other extreme   
   variations on your    
   basic human theme in 100 thousand years.   
      
   > And also, I was thinking about putting an asteroid belt around Arda, in my   
   > mind it was always on very close orbit and was very dense, at least in some   
   > places, almost Star Warish dense, but that's probably strongly unrealistic.   
      
     Yeah, large moons tend to clear such things away relatively quickly.   
      
   > But, it could be a temporary cloud of rocks, made by a small moon that got   
   > blown up and created a ring, what do you think? The sole purpose of the belt   
   > in my plays was to give first space explorers materials for setting bases and   
   > make some interesting space exploring, jumping from rock to rock, drilling   
   > into them and also give to the first space battles a feel of stealth.    
      
     A small moon being broken up by the big one could be the event that drives   
   the catastrophic climate change and also drives technological innovations in   
   astrology and such proto-sciences for the Ardans. Much of the resulting debris   
   would probably remain    
   in decaying orbit for at least a few hundred years, but some big pieces would   
   come down and raise hell for a while.   
      
   > Bigger star seems quite reasonable to me, I really like this idea.   
      
     Also, some astronomers have recently pointed out that volcanoes on worlds   
   outside the traditional Goldilocks Zone can warm such world enough to support   
   life by emitting hydrogen, a potent greenhouse gas. You could have more   
   habitable worlds that way    
   but they'd be "exciting" places to live. Volcanoes can also bring rare   
   minerals and metals to the surface continuously.   
      
   > I don't want these planets to orbit a gas giant, the travel time between them   
   > is to be a few months if using a chemical rockets.   
      
     That will work for early chemical rockets. Even with Saturn V technology,   
   the first thing would be to put extra fuel and machinery in orbit to build big   
   enough rockets that don't have to take off from the surface to reach another   
   moon and still carry a    
   lander capable of taking off again.   
      
     For later constant-boost fusion tech, a few weeks tops.   
      
     Now, a gas giant with multiple planets could be a few months from another   
   habitable world. Getting a cooler-than-Venus, Earthlike-Arda, and   
   wetter-Marslike-world configuration close enough together for a few months   
   travel time will be awkward if it has    
   to be stable for a really long time.   
      
     I'd have to spend some time re-learning about orbital resonances between   
   planets to be sure but I think the options are limited. Orbital resonance   
   means the year of the inner planet would be some definite sub-multiple of the   
   Ardan year, and the outer    
   planet's year would be some multiple of it.   
      
     Like 8 Earth years are almost exactly 13 Venus years, but if they were   
   closer the ratio would be different. But as they get closer one will try to   
   eject the other, so they can't be too close.   
      
     More later, gotta get to bed.   
      
      
     Mark L. Fergerson   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)