Originally posted by far-trader:
Yes its possible to have TL8 (or even TL9) with those stats, even correcting for the impossible Hydrographic of 9 (max is 7 for an Atomoshphere 2 with the basic CT system that was likely used to generate this, so the 9 seems to be an error).
Actually, the max hydrographic in CT (assuming this is a mainworld) is 2d-7 + size, which in this case is 11 (I don't spot any negative modifiers for a Type 2 atmosphere). If it's in the outer zone then it gets the -4 modifier to take it down to 7, but we don't know that's the case here.
Anyway, it could still be in the habitable zone and not have liquid water - if the surface pressure is only a few millibars then you won't get liquid water, period... regardless of the surface temperature. I wasn't quite correct in what I said earlier - if the water is frozen it doesn't have to be
cold... the pressure just has to be low enough that it can't exist in liquid form on the surface (in which case it's either not there are all or locked up in solid form where it's exposed to atmosphere, as permafrost or ice).
One might argue that this is a fluid world rather than a water world, but I don't think there are any ocean-forming liquids (ammonia, methane, or nitrogen) that can remain in liquid form at such low pressures either.
I agree with much of what you say but I think the Baron was looking for something non-canon busting since its part of his landgrab (I think).
I can't see any way around this that isn't 'canon-busting', unfortunately. I think the only way around it is to assume that the hydrographics represent water hidden below the surface, most likely in a world ocean beneath an ice shell. There *might* be a precedence for this, depending on what the CT UWP for the planet Darkmoon is (one of the GT Planetary Surveys). Darkmoon is also a Europa-like water world with an ocean under the ice - if that has a hydrographic percentage then we can justify it for Vueegmala (though that falls down when you consider the lack of hydrographics in the UWP of icy worlds known to have oceans).
I suspect something has to break here.
I've always interpreted the Government 0 "family bonds" bit to be something more like clans or tribes as a form of government, rather than a family unit.
It
does explicitly say 'family bonds', which rather strongly implies
any kind of family unit (or just 'no government at all')
. It's very hard to imagine any kind of reason why 9 people would want to form or run a 'self perpetuating oligarchy'. It can't be a family since that would be code 0, it can't be a base set up by a company or the scouts because that would be code 1...
Flykiller's idea that the rest of the population is transient might work (is there a precedence for this?), in which the permanent 9 members may all represent the self-perpetuating oligarchy... but then where do their underlings come from and go to, and why? I doubt that there are thousands of the latter anyway... I'd imagine the total population of the planet at any given time probably barely reaches four figures.
