Collaborative Conworld

[patiku]

How about coming up with a preliminary model for a moon-less planet?

[KathTheDragon]

If this planet hasn't developed past the Renaissance, which I doubt it will be, then astronomical data like asteroid belts and the number of planets isn't very important. As for day length and whatnot, most people will probably not want something complicated like Torco's Suenu. I think Sol-like is the way to go.

Actually, it's very important for determining when life could get started. After all, we had the Late Heavy Bombardment which prevented life from developing sooner. It also determined the face of the moon. The asteroid belt also gave us some awesome craters, which probably shaped the mythology of people who lived near them. From the Kuiper Belt, we get comets which may have brought us water, and also acted as omens to people like King Harold just before the Battle of Hastings.

See, they're very important for shaping civilisation.

(Remember that meteor over Russia? That came from the asteroid belt)

[patiku]

Okay, but is anyone really interested in working out billions of years of planetary formation and then billions of years of evolution?

[patiku]

Fuck this project.

[KathTheDragon]

Okay, but is anyone really interested in working out billions of years of planetary formation and then billions of years of evolution?

Remarkably, you can sit down and do it in about 10 minutes. We understand the process of forming planetary systems fairly well, and you can more or less skip that part. As for billions of years of evolution... Easiest way to do that is to start with modern animals, then work backwards. Fill the niches, then work out what sort of animal would have filled it previously. Actually, you can do that with alot of things. Skip the process, but add in the results.

Fuck this project.

Good for you. I am so glad you've found something you don't want to help with. [/sarcasm].

[Hallow XIII]

If it's fantasy, you can screw evolution, take modern animals and add fantastic stuff to it. This fantastic stuff can then be explained by magic.

HANDWAVES! [/guitarsolo]

[Sacemd]

The problem with a moonless planet is that there would be no tides, and animals from the sea washing onto shore is far more unlikely than on a planet with tides. As such, life on land may not even have developed there, simply because sea animals never had any need to become amphibious.

A star like our sun might be the easiest way to start, mainly because a planet with a small red star needs to be really close to its sun to support liquid water, and a planet around a large white or blue star has not enough time to develop. Also, a star with a different colour will also mean that animals, including intelligent beings, have a different perception of colour. This might affect their art and their culture (the way we associate red with blood, for instance) and it may allow them to see infrared radiation (don't know if that would require a redder or a bluer star). Plants would also have a different colour: I have read somewhere plants on a planet around a red or orange star would probably be brownish or blackish to our eyes instead of green.

Evolution could be done in great lines: outlining only the kingdoms (animals, plants), phyla (molluscs, vertebrates (OK, technically that last one is a subphylum)), and classes (birds, mammals) with simple rules. For example, "vertebrates" would be "Multicellular, with a backbone, never more than four appendices". This way, there's no need for millions of years of evolution, as long as organisms are placed within a system, to create a credible conworld biology. But if you want to create prehistoric monsters as ancestors for modern-day animals, go ahead.

If it's fantasy, you can screw evolution, take modern animals and add fantastic stuff to it. This fantastic stuff can then be explained by magic.

HANDWAVES! [/guitarsolo]

You have a point there, but credible conworlds are usually the best. And (back to astronomy): why does it need to be a planet? The world might be flat as in Discworld, and I've never heard of a cube world. (The problem here is: how do you explain the existance of a horizon?)

Oh? How different would our mythology be if Uranus was visible to the naked eye, or Saturn didn't exist? But okay, let's say six planets, three terrestrial, including Collaborworld, and three gaseous planets, one of which is not visible.

But in many cultures (think Roman, Persian, Chinese) important descisions were made based on the stars and planets. A different night sky would thus have lead to radically different descisions about whether to go to war or who the crown prince would marry and when. So a war would or would not have occurred or an important character would or would not have been born.

What we need is a relatively small detail to remind people it is not our Earth. Almea's three moons are a good example of this. It doesn't have any major impact on life on the planet, but it reminds people the world is different (I had to raise an eyebrow when I encountered them in the document about Uyseic logographs.) We don't want something which completely messes up all we know about our planet: setting the conworld on a moon of a gas giant would probably result in massive winters when the moon is on the dark side of the planet. A differently coloured star would result in having to recolour everything: even "universal" colours (the colour of water or rust) would look radically different from the perspective of our humans. Jeez... It's difficult to think of this detail which doesn't mess up the entire climate. A change in axial tilt would mean heavier or less heavy differences in seasons. More or less gravity means animals (and architecture) are either flatter and plumper or taller and leaner (the reason the Na'vi from Avatar are so tall, they live on a (smaller-than-earth) moon of a gas planet.) Both of those are not too hard to implement, but must be kept in mind all the way through the project.

Fuck this project.

I hereby assume you have resigned from your role as leader?

[Hallow XIII]

You can regenerate credibility by explaining exactly why these normally unrealistic things happen. It's not actually handwaving if you have a set of rules for your magic.

As for the lacking tides, things being unlikely does not at all translate to them being impossible. Moreover, gravitational pull from the star or nearby gas giants will generate tides too, just weak ones.

As for different colouring, nah. Remember that their eyes would have evolved to match the light of their star.

[KathTheDragon]

Magic's not that difficult to work into a conworld, even one set in our own universe. I managed by explaining it as a product of a piece of tech produced by a civilisation given an unimaginable time to develop by some other aliens, whom I don't bother describing. However, magic as the very backbone of a conworld... I'm not so sure how credible it would be. And as Hallow says, the more credible the better.

[Torco]

Why not have the cosmology be radically impossible? like the inside of a sphere such that the sun is *not* at the center?. Perpetual day [and also perpetual shadows where there are shadows].

[KathTheDragon]

Why not have the cosmology be radically impossible? like the inside of a sphere such that the sun is *not* at the center?. Perpetual day [and also perpetual shadows where there are shadows].

Because it's impossible. That's why.

Tbh, I'm not fond of 'impossible' worlds. Really ticks off the scientist side of me. So, I would not help in any way with 'impossible' cosmology, and stick to the down-to-earth stuff.

[Sacemd]

Simply because an impossible world would result in having to rethink everything. A world at the inside of a sphere would result in a horizon which is higher instead of lower. Perpetual day creates extremely hot deserts and perpetual night results in dark ice caps. Perpetual twilight results in a world with a temperate climate, but less, reddish light with all consequences for plant life and colour perception.

An idea: the world turns in a direction exactly opposite of that of earth (so that the sun rises in the west) or is that a too small detail?

As for different colouring, nah. Remember that their eyes would have evolved to match the light of their star.

Their evolution is the entire problem. We have barely any idea about the difference in perception between non-colourblind and colourblind people, let alone we could understand how aliens in a red-sun world see their (to us) brownish plants.

[Lyhoko Leaci]

The problem with a moonless planet is that there would be no tides, and animals from the sea washing onto shore is far more unlikely than on a planet with tides. As such, life on land may not even have developed there, simply because sea animals never had any need to become amphibious.

As for the lacking tides, things being unlikely does not at all translate to them being impossible. Moreover, gravitational pull from the star or nearby gas giants will generate tides too, just weak ones.

The sun's tides are noticeable, being the reason that there's spring and neap tides. Even with no moon, there'd probably be somewhere with significant tides due to geography.
Though the lack of a moon/other stabilizing force could result in the planet tilting over randomly in the long term...

A star like our sun might be the easiest way to start, mainly because a planet with a small red star needs to be really close to its sun to support liquid water, and a planet around a large white or blue star has not enough time to develop. Also, a star with a different colour will also mean that animals, including intelligent beings, have a different perception of colour. This might affect their art and their culture (the way we associate red with blood, for instance) and it may allow them to see infrared radiation (don't know if that would require a redder or a bluer star). Plants would also have a different colour: I have read somewhere plants on a planet around a red or orange star would probably be brownish or blackish to our eyes instead of green.

As for different colouring, nah. Remember that their eyes would have evolved to match the light of their star.

Seeing near infrared would be a redder star. If they are able to see infrared, that could change the colors of objects, but as we can't see infrared, there's no real way to say what color everything would be to them, and it might be easier to just use the same colors that we know, maybe with some infrared containing colors thrown in if necessary.

Evolution could be done in great lines: outlining only the kingdoms (animals, plants), phyla (molluscs, vertebrates (OK, technically that last one is a subphylum)), and classes (birds, mammals) with simple rules. For example, "vertebrates" would be "Multicellular, with a backbone, never more than four appendices". This way, there's no need for millions of years of evolution, as long as organisms are placed within a system, to create a credible conworld biology. But if you want to create prehistoric monsters as ancestors for modern-day animals, go ahead.

If it's fantasy, you can screw evolution, take modern animals and add fantastic stuff to it. This fantastic stuff can then be explained by magic.

HANDWAVES! [/guitarsolo]

You have a point there, but credible conworlds are usually the best. And (back to astronomy): why does it need to be a planet? The world might be flat as in Discworld, and I've never heard of a cube world. (The problem here is: how do you explain the existance of a horizon?)

That seems like an interesting idea for making an outline for the life.

Also, cube worlds would be tricky to work out things like gravity on... At least a flat world has a simple method for gravity. (There's a specific down that's the same everywhere)

What we need is a relatively small detail to remind people it is not our Earth. Almea's three moons are a good example of this. It doesn't have any major impact on life on the planet, but it reminds people the world is different (I had to raise an eyebrow when I encountered them in the document about Uyseic logographs.) We don't want something which completely messes up all we know about our planet: setting the conworld on a moon of a gas giant would probably result in massive winters when the moon is on the dark side of the planet. A differently coloured star would result in having to recolour everything: even "universal" colours (the colour of water or rust) would look radically different from the perspective of our humans. Jeez... It's difficult to think of this detail which doesn't mess up the entire climate. A change in axial tilt would mean heavier or less heavy differences in seasons. More or less gravity means animals (and architecture) are either flatter and plumper or taller and leaner (the reason the Na'vi from Avatar are so tall, they live on a (smaller-than-earth) moon of a gas planet.) Both of those are not too hard to implement, but must be kept in mind all the way through the project.

Why would a world that's actually the moon of a gas giant cause massive winters? When the planet is on the dark side, there's simply a solar eclipse, it's just longer and more regular than the ones on Earth. It would occur once per "day" (one orbit, Jupiter's moon Io takes about 42 hours for an example) and would only occur for a small percentage of the orbit. Also, only the side of the moon that is facing the planet even sees such an eclipse, the other side never does, and the people living there wouldn't even know they're on a moon until they travel far enough. (Or learn though knowledge exchange with people who live on the other side.) Actually, I'm interested in doing a moon of a gas giant world.

Rust would be rust colored. Just call whatever color they consider rust to be "red" or some such.

Fuck this project.

I hereby assume you have resigned from your role as leader?

Can I run it?

[KathTheDragon]

Of course, if you feel up to it!

[cromulant]

Fuck this project.

I hereby assume you have resigned from your role as leader?

I think he said that in his capacity as Leader. As in, that was a command.

[Torco]

I HEREBY COMMAND THIS PROYECT TO FUCK ITSELF

ALTERNATIVELY, I COMMAND EVERYONE IN THE THREAD TO RUB THEIR GENITALS AGAINST SAID THREAD VIGOROUSLY

[KathTheDragon]

A good assumption to make is that we are going to place this either in our universe, or a universe that is very similar to our own. Similar enough so to call it identical.

With that, we must then ask, 'could such a (insert item) possibly exist'? For a discworld, sadly not. Not in the way you want. There is a reason why there are not flat objects made of solid rock: gravity pulls things towards the centre of mass. For a disc, this is the centre. Which results in a sphere. Again. Same logic applies to a cube. Or any other shape that's not a sphere. For any sufficiently heavy object, it's shape will tent to a sphere. Course, it can be distorted and dimply, but it won't be carrot-shaped. Or potato-shaped. It'll be ball-shaped.

I think anywhere between K and A type stars would be reasonable. This give us a decently long year, and a familiar range of colours.

I think that yes, we could easily have the sun rise in the west and set in the east. It only means that everything else should have a default spin of opposite to our solar system.

Orders to the effect of 'drop this project for no good reason' are hereby ignored.

[Sacemd]

There's one major second problem in a gas giant moon world: the side that faces the planet never faces the sun, simply because whenever it's on its day side the planet is in the way. If the side away from the planet faces the sun, it's night on the planet side. As such, it only receives moon-like light reflected by the planet. This might be enough to support plant life, but if it isn't (And that's very probable, I think), we'd have a world with a north pole, a south pole, and an east pole (or a west pole, depends on how you look at it).

[kanejam]

I was going to suggest two or three moons until I read that Almea already has that.. It would create some very interesting mythology and calendars and the like, I'm not sure what zompist has done with it though.

Well another idea might be a twin planet system, so from the perspective of the world's inhabitants the moon is massive. It really depends how different and incredulous we want this to go; there's no reason we can't have an incredibly different geography without bending the science behind it. Maybe a planet with several landlocked seas and no big connecting ocean or an ice world or a sulphurous hellhole. On the other hand we could have a flat disk for a planet or the inside of the sphere with a tiny internal sun (that maybe orbits it's own tinier planet to simulate day and night).

However I'm in favour of an earth like geography orbiting a sol like star. Maybe with a few extra moons and slightly lower gravity than on earth. Little magic mainly found in ancient artefacts.

[KathTheDragon]

Land-locked seas - piece of cake. Ice world - pushing it. Sulphurous hellhole - there's a reason there are no Venusians. Inverted sphere - No. Just no.

[Torco]

I get the feeling lower gravities are much preferred than higher gravities.. i wonder why that is

Orders to the effect of 'drop this project for no good reason' are hereby ignored.

rightly so

[Sacemd]

Some interestening geographies:
- Archipelago: No continents, just islands
- Land-locked sea(s)
- Pangaea: just one continent

High gravity means "small, plump and fat".
Low gravity means "tall, lean and thin".
That'll probably be it.

[Lyhoko Leaci]

There's one major second problem in a gas giant moon world: the side that faces the planet never faces the sun, simply because whenever it's on its day side the planet is in the way. If the side away from the planet faces the sun, it's night on the planet side. As such, it only receives moon-like light reflected by the planet. This might be enough to support plant life, but if it isn't (And that's very probable, I think), we'd have a world with a north pole, a south pole, and an east pole (or a west pole, depends on how you look at it).

A (tidally locked to its planet) moon orbiting a gas giant has roughly the same day-night cycle as a planet that rotates at the same rate. Only if the moon's right up against the planet would the eclipse cover the entire "day" period, but the moon would be ripped apart by the planets gravity in that case because it would be too close. Jupiter seems to be a bit less than 20 degrees wide as seen from Io. Big, but that's far from covering the entire sky. The sun will only be eclipsed around noon or so (at least for the part of the moon directly facing the planet, the eclipse will occur at different times for different positions on the moon), sunrise and sunset and most of the time in between will be the same as on an ordinary planet.

A double planet system would be similar, but the eclipses would be shorter.

Judging by the discussion, it seems that for the most part the planet/moon/whatever should be realistic. For starting out, we should decide just what sort of planetary arrangement there should be, from there then we can work on the geography of the planet/moon/whatever.

There seem to be three different options here:

Moon of a gas giant
Double planet system
Single planet

[Sacemd]

I vote for gas giant (I can't think of any more scientifically inaccurate arguments against one ) (Okay, I feel really stupid now.)

Is an earth-sized moon of a gas giant credible? (I don't feel much for a world with a gravity much different from earth's in addition to it being a moon instead of a planet.)
Also, how long would its day be?

[KathTheDragon]

Going by Ganymede (largest moon in our solar system, bigger than even Mercury!), we can get close.

I vote for double planet (only because it's the only option I haven't already done).