What's Out There?

I promised I would start this topic, and I will. Throughout my time as an RPer I have noticed that one aspect of the universe we live in has never really been elaborated upon for a while: OUTER SPACE.

In the past we had created a star chart of our solar system, and we briefly used it, but it phased out- and when Felis tried to create a new one it too phased out of conversation and discussion. As an avid fan of astronomy, I'd love to see a return to space RPing, whether it be FT RPs set in the next century, present-day moon landings, the sending of probes and rovers, et cetera.

So I ask you all, fellow RPers, what's out there? What do you guys think about the topic?

We have the solar system that was designed by you and Ceretis pinned in the #worldbuilding channel on the Discord server and I have been considering it as the official one since. My attempt was abandoned by me rather than forgotten as it had all sorts of inconsistencies and was a mess in general.

I do still have a small number of the resources of my attempt though, and I may also be able to recall some features if prodded.

We need a moon!

The Solar system thing pinned in the worldbuilding channel isn't anything I ever considered as official - and if it is, then its woefully out of date and needs updating. Hell, it calls Eras Eve ffs.

If - and I remain very very cautious on space stuff due to the propensity of some to try to claim everything in sight - we do this, I feel like we'll need a fresh attempt.

And on that subject: whilst Eras isn't Earth, I feel like we need to be very similar in terms of the planet and its orbiting bodies, i.e. a single moon.

St George:

The Solar system thing pinned in the worldbuilding channel isn't anything I ever considered as official - and if it is, then its woefully out of date and needs updating. Hell, it calls Eras Eve ffs.

If - and I remain very very cautious on space stuff due to the propensity of some to try to claim everything in sight - we do this, I feel like we'll need a fresh attempt.

And on that subject: whilst Eras isn't Earth, I feel like we need to be very similar in terms of the planet and its orbiting bodies, i.e. a single moon.

Click to expand...

Maybe we should have like an Outer Space Treaty to stop people from claiming stuff in space, like in RL.

I'd like to agree with St. George on that. Since Eras is essentially our version of Earth, the fact that we're discussing timezones means there should only be 1 moon.

What about other planets though? Like a Mars? Or a Neptune with three moons such as Titan?

I raise these questions because seeing how technology nowadays is looking towards the possible colonization of said bodies, it almost seems realistic then that within the next 10 years, that possibility could become reality (albeit, really small scale like maybe robots making a small outpost or something with better equipment for studying these terrestrial bodies).

The placement of these terrestrial bodies would not only impact the possibilities of RP but also the goals some alliances have for their RP.

Hope I'm not reading too into this. Kinda new here hahaha...

St George:

The Solar system thing pinned in the worldbuilding channel isn't anything I ever considered as official - and if it is, then its woefully out of date and needs updating. Hell, it calls Eras Eve ffs.

If - and I remain very very cautious on space stuff due to the propensity of some to try to claim everything in sight - we do this, I feel like we'll need a fresh attempt.

And on that subject: whilst Eras isn't Earth, I feel like we need to be very similar in terms of the planet and its orbiting bodies, i.e. a single moon.

Click to expand...

Perhaps we could update it, then- I think Eras on that solar system map HAS one moon, but I'll have to check. What I do know and I want to discuss is that on that map there is a planet called Eko that can support life. Should we make it uninhabitable or keep it like that? I don't think we gave it any natives.

PS: I, for one, think the claiming of space colonies should be banned by the Mods, until an outer space treaty is made IC, and that treaty should ban it too. I myself plan to write up and propose such a treaty.

Syrixia:

St George:

The Solar system thing pinned in the worldbuilding channel isn't anything I ever considered as official - and if it is, then its woefully out of date and needs updating. Hell, it calls Eras Eve ffs.

If - and I remain very very cautious on space stuff due to the propensity of some to try to claim everything in sight - we do this, I feel like we'll need a fresh attempt.

And on that subject: whilst Eras isn't Earth, I feel like we need to be very similar in terms of the planet and its orbiting bodies, i.e. a single moon.

Click to expand...

Perhaps we could update it, then- I think Eras on that solar system map HAS one moon, but I'll have to check. What I do know and I want to discuss is that on that map there is a planet called Eko that can support life. Should we make it uninhabitable or keep it like that? I don't think we gave it any natives.

PS: I, for one, think the claiming of space colonies should be banned by the Mods, until an outer space treaty is made IC, and that treaty should ban it too. I myself plan to write up and propose such a treaty.

Click to expand...

I can agree with that. Really though, what I meant was RPing scientific endeavors into the great unknown. Like launching probes, maybe setting into orbit on one of these bodies a scentific sattelite of a sort? (Sp. my phone has no spellcheck...)

At this point, a decade out, I don't think it's reliable to say we'll have humans self-sustaining themselves on any extraterrestrial body any time soon. So I agree with the ban treaty. But that ban wouldn't also discourage legitimate forrays into outer space though would it?

Syrixia:

PS: I, for one, think the claiming of space colonies should be banned by the Mods, until an outer space treaty is made IC, and that treaty should ban it too. I myself plan to write up and propose such a treaty.

Click to expand...

What about those of us who RP FT(future tech)? I if we would like to participate in some rps of our own would that said treaty extend to us, or would it be voluntary to agree to it, if the latter I believe the FT rpers wouldn't mind helping in creating a entire galaxy/universe for us to rp about. And maybe some day it would help set up a "first contact" rp.

Zeek:

Syrixia:

PS: I, for one, think the claiming of space colonies should be banned by the Mods, until an outer space treaty is made IC, and that treaty should ban it too. I myself plan to write up and propose such a treaty.

Click to expand...

What about those of us who RP FT(future tech)? I if we would like to participate in some rps of our own would that said treaty extend to us, or would it be voluntary to agree to it, if the latter I believe the FT rpers wouldn't mind helping in creating a entire galaxy/universe for us to rp about. And maybe some day it would help set up a "first contact" rp.

Click to expand...

I consider all Future Tech rps as non canon, as do many other RPers here. It just sets too many things in stone and makes RP rigid. That being said, iirc, the most tech you can use modern day in Eras is current Earth tech plus ten years, so no one will be able to RP colonies in outer space realistically.

Syrixia:

St George:

The Solar system thing pinned in the worldbuilding channel isn't anything I ever considered as official - and if it is, then its woefully out of date and needs updating. Hell, it calls Eras Eve ffs.

If - and I remain very very cautious on space stuff due to the propensity of some to try to claim everything in sight - we do this, I feel like we'll need a fresh attempt.

And on that subject: whilst Eras isn't Earth, I feel like we need to be very similar in terms of the planet and its orbiting bodies, i.e. a single moon.

Click to expand...

Perhaps we could update it, then- I think Eras on that solar system map HAS one moon, but I'll have to check. What I do know and I want to discuss is that on that map there is a planet called Eko that can support life. Should we make it uninhabitable or keep it like that? I don't think we gave it any natives.

PS: I, for one, think the claiming of space colonies should be banned by the Mods, until an outer space treaty is made IC, and that treaty should ban it too. I myself plan to write up and propose such a treaty.

Click to expand...

That's what I said!

So, as a /massive/ space nerd here, I should point out something surrounding colonies on other planets, and that is that stations on other bodies actually are feasible to build with current technology, with a few caveats.

The first is that I only said stations, not self-supporting colonies, and those, while technically feasible with enough money and RnD thrown at them, are still far-off. It's actually fairly easy to dump a few habitats on the moon and fling resources at them from Earth, the problem is that we /need/ to fling resources at them from Earth/Eras. If your nation's default response to your space agency requesting a budget allowance is to just double their budget, then this won't be such an issue. If you're like NASA IRL, whose annual budget is only about 20 billion dollars or so, this will be much less feasible, and is one of the main reasons why they haven't bothered to send people to the moon since the early 70's.

The second follows from the first, and it is that, as of the present time, the feasibility of building and operating a colony on another body is inversely proportional to the amount of Delta-V required to get there, i.e. how hard it is to move things from the dirt beneath your feet to the dirt beneath your colonists' feet and back. It's important to understand that sending something to a planet on the outer edge of the solar system is far more difficult than sending the same payload to the moon, not to mention it takes orders of magnitude longer to do with any degree of efficiency.

The third caveat is that, well, it's quite difficult to actually do anything most associated with a space colony with current technology. Sure, you could build a science base on the moon, but the astronauts aren't going to be mining, say, Helium-3 and sending it back to their home planet any time soon.

Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that a blanket ban on building anything on other planets is a bit ham-fisted, but it's also fairly accurate to say that it's really not possible to build anything more than a glorified ISS on the moon at this point in time, and even then, that will require a lot of funding in order to be viable as a research platform.

Two words: Moon mines

(Newt Gingrich joke)

Are there aliens and moonmen?

I think the consensus seems to be that space exploration is good, and that possibly we should name the planets. No space colonies or things like that? Perhaps an international space station that is not controlled by anyone would be a worthwhile idea?

I like the idea of an ISS.

I think it makes sense for there to be no space colonies but I imagine that there may be interest in more space exploration, especially as it slowly becomes more feasible in real life. Perhaps allowing room for ISS-style international research stations around other nearby planetary bodies or something? (I'm not sure thats realistic to do though)

I think we should update the solar system map we have at least to a reasonable level and make it official. The map is a good start and though there is a bit of variation from Earth's solar system it's not out of bounds and I don't think it should be an exact copy of our solar system either. If I recall Eko, Ao, and Oa were habitable to some extent but the rest of the planets were not readily habitable. There were no sentient creatures on the planets though there was life on those planets such as plant, insect and animal. The rest of the solar system from what I recall generally took shape like our solar system. There were only three planet orbits in the habitable zone (if I recall) similar to our solar system with a slightly unusual nature for one of those orbits.
1) Ao and Oa are a binary planet set (Venus zone - At least Ao was habitable Oa might have been as well)
2) Eras (Earth zone)
3) Eko (Mars zone)

We had gas giants and such on the outer ends, crispy rocks near the sun, we had asteroid rings in the system as well.

Mods should not ban exploration, anything that happens should be done like IRL and handled among nations. Plus there are few nations that are funneling any real funding to their space programs and those that are mostly just launch satellites and such to orbit. Thus it's not IC feasible for a bunch of nations to just jump into space and colonize, at best a couple might be able to set up non self sustaining station / colonies as Sasten mentioned.

Ceretis:

I think we should update the solar system map we have at least to a reasonable level and make it official. The map is a good start and though there is a bit of variation from Earth's solar system it's not out of bounds and I don't think it should be an exact copy of our solar system either. If I recall Eko, Ao, and Oa were habitable to some extent but the rest of the planets were not readily habitable. There were no sentient creatures on the planets though there was life on those planets such as plant, insect and animal. The rest of the solar system from what I recall generally took shape like our solar system. There were only three planet orbits in the habitable zone (if I recall) similar to our solar system with a slightly unusual nature for one of those orbits.
1) Ao and Oa are a binary planet set (Venus zone - At least Ao was habitable Oa might have been as well)
2) Eras (Earth zone)
3) Eko (Mars zone)

We had gas giants and such on the outer ends, crispy rocks near the sun, we had asteroid rings in the system as well.

Mods should not ban exploration, anything that happens should be done like IRL and handled among nations. Plus there are few nations that are funneling any real funding to their space programs and those that are mostly just launch satellites and such to orbit. Thus it's not IC feasible for a bunch of nations to just jump into space and colonize, at best a couple might be able to set up non self sustaining station / colonies as Sasten mentioned.

Click to expand...

IIRC Eras and Eko were the only inhabitable planets. I think it would be interesting to have another inhabitable planet. We'd need to all agree to not colonize it, though, obviously. Space colonies are a no go. I assume any outer space treaty we'd have would have a special section for Eko.

Syrixia:

Ceretis:

I think we should update the solar system map we have at least to a reasonable level and make it official. The map is a good start and though there is a bit of variation from Earth's solar system it's not out of bounds and I don't think it should be an exact copy of our solar system either. If I recall Eko, Ao, and Oa were habitable to some extent but the rest of the planets were not readily habitable. There were no sentient creatures on the planets though there was life on those planets such as plant, insect and animal. The rest of the solar system from what I recall generally took shape like our solar system. There were only three planet orbits in the habitable zone (if I recall) similar to our solar system with a slightly unusual nature for one of those orbits.
1) Ao and Oa are a binary planet set (Venus zone - At least Ao was habitable Oa might have been as well)
2) Eras (Earth zone)
3) Eko (Mars zone)

We had gas giants and such on the outer ends, crispy rocks near the sun, we had asteroid rings in the system as well.

Mods should not ban exploration, anything that happens should be done like IRL and handled among nations. Plus there are few nations that are funneling any real funding to their space programs and those that are mostly just launch satellites and such to orbit. Thus it's not IC feasible for a bunch of nations to just jump into space and colonize, at best a couple might be able to set up non self sustaining station / colonies as Sasten mentioned.

Click to expand...

IIRC Eras and Eko were the only inhabitable planets. I think it would be interesting to have another inhabitable planet. We'd need to all agree to not colonize it, though, obviously. Space colonies are a no go. I assume any outer space treaty we'd have would have a special section for Eko.

Click to expand...

If another planet was habitable, there probably would be life on it. I don't want that sorta thing as assured canon in RP, therefore I think we should only have Eras as the inhabitable planet in the system.

Since it had been a long time since I really looked over the space information we created, I decided to pull some of the more relevant data into this discussion. As far as habitable planets go, there were two main readily inhabitable planets. One being Eras, the other being Ao. Other than that there is Oa which seems like it's a habitable planet but has a variable environment and due to atmospheric and geologic instability and other issues is essentially a death trap for colonists. Thus Oa is technically 'habitable' but due to danger uninhabitable. Other than that Eko is a nearly all water planet with just a couple small dots of land. The last is Obscura which is Class L - barely habitable generally rocky often with with forests and a primitive ecosystem often without animal life. Obscura currently is covered in ice and snow.

Iraelia:

If another planet was habitable, there probably would be life on it. I don't want that sorta thing as assured canon in RP, therefore I think we should only have Eras as the inhabitable planet in the system.

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This...isn't necessarily true.

Life, we're finding, may not have that much to do with liquid water, 20°C temperatures and an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere after all. take the current #1 candidate for other life in the IRL solar system, Europa. It's a frigid iceball with no atmosphere to speak of, and oceans of high-pressure supercooled water beneath its frozen shell alimented only by geological activity at its very bottom. While a case could be made that the depths of said ocean bear some similarity to the abyssal depths of Earth's deepest oceans, the moon itself is nearly as alien as anything we could have imagined thirty years ago.

Life itself is an extraordinarily complex...thing. At its core is a large set of chemical processes and chemical structures that all had to come together and work in the exact right way to keep primitive cells from just disintegrating. Even if all the conditions are right for life, it's not a given that it will form, in fact it looks to be of a very low probability, though we still don't know this for sure.

What this means basically is that it should be entirely possible for a planet with plenty of water and a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere in the habitable zone of a star to be entirely devoid of life, so if we don't want aliens and carnivorous extraterrestrial plants in our RPverse we don't actually need to have them.

I'm for the plants and animals depending on the planet's environment. If we use the info I reposted from way back when, that'd only be, at best, a couple planets even with that possibility. I don't think there should be intelligent alien life in the solar system or even in contact with us anytime in the near future.