Rogue Planets & Amber/Red Zone Systems

[Ulsyus]

I have just read this article /info byte:

http://www.iflscience.com/space/curious-stellar-object-confirmed-rogue-planet

Does anyone know if there are any of these mapped in the OTU? Would they be zoned or could there be communities living there in stations & such (i.e.: not too far out of the wa).

What be thinks you?

 

[flykiller]

Does anyone know if there are any of these mapped in the OTU?

the otu was conceived at a time when such things were only vague speculation and sci-fi-fantasy had no tropes for them.

if you must have them then of course they can be mapped. simply include, in addition to the O B A F G K M system, a class 0(zero) star, maybe on a 2 out of 2d6.

 

[Timerover51]

Poul Anderson wrote about one such planet approaching a star in Satan's World, one of the Nicolas Van Rijn series.

It is an interesting concept, but remember, such a planet is going to be very, very cold.

 

[lostscout5]

Back in the early 90's I had a ref run a campaign set on a rogue planet. I forgot what the name of the mainworld was. But the rogue was in the outer system. It was taken over by a weird religious cult that renamed the planet R'lyeh. Or was it Arlyeh? Anyway it was a small planet (size 1) with odd looking ruins on it. I think he said the ruins were based on non-Euclidean geometries. Guess where he went with this?

 

[77topaz]

Back in the early 90's I had a ref run a campaign set on a rogue planet. I forgot what the name of the mainworld was. But the rogue was in the outer system. It was taken over by a weird religious cult that renamed the planet R'lyeh. Or was it Arlyeh? Anyway it was a small planet (size 1) with odd looking ruins on it. I think he said the ruins were based on non-Euclidean geometries. Guess if where he went with this?

That doesn't sound like Traveller, that sounds like a different RPG.

 

[lostscout5]

That doesn't sound like Traveller, that sounds like a different RPG.

Got it in one !

 

[kilemall]

Back in the early 90's I had a ref run a campaign set on a rogue planet. I forgot what the name of the mainworld was. But the rogue was in the outer system. It was taken over by a weird religious cult that renamed the planet R'lyeh. Or was it Arlyeh? Anyway it was a small planet (size 1) with odd looking ruins on it. I think he said the ruins were based on non-Euclidean geometries. Guess where he went with this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYW_lPlekiQ

 

[flykiller]

such a planet is going to be very, very cold.

heh, about 10K.

and not merely cold, it will have enormous thermal inertia. land a ship on it and the entire ship will be 10k very quickly.

 

[Ulsyus]

There was use of brown dwarfs (dwarves??) in 2300AD to jump between regular star systems and extend the reach of vessels down the American Arm.

So there's no way a rogue planet like this would be warm enough to offer refueling options to vessels jumping in to scoop from it?

 

[whulorigan]

There was use of brown dwarfs (dwarves??) in 2300AD to jump between regular star systems and extend the reach of vessels down the American Arm.

So there's no way a rogue planet like this would be warm enough to offer refueling options to vessels jumping in to scoop from it?

If a Brown Dwarf has not complete cooled down to 10's of Kelvins (implying that it is very old), then you ought to be able to scoop from one if it is Type-Y. Type L and T are probably way too hot, as they are still glowing thermally in the visible spectrum. There are some Y-Type Brown Dwarfs that are "room-temperature" that we have observed.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

It is an interesting concept, but remember, such a planet is going to be very, very cold.

Probably, but not necessarily. They can still be powered by an internal heat source, either from radioactive decay in the core, residual tectonic/mantle pluming activity, tidal flexing from a nearby satellite, or any combination of the three. Couple that with a thick ice crust or gaseous envelope (several gases, including hydrogen, make excellent thermal blankets), and you could have a rogue planet that's plenty warm somewhere on its body.

There was use of brown dwarfs (dwarves??)

Right the first time: brown dwarfs. This is astronomy, not Tolkein.

I correct because you asked.

If a Brown Dwarf has not complete cooled down to 10's of Kelvins (implying that it is very old), then you ought to be able to scoop from one if it is Type-Y. Type L and T are probably way too hot, as they are still glowing thermally in the visible spectrum. There are some Y-Type Brown Dwarfs that are "room-temperature" that we have observed.

It's still going to have a helluva gravity well to deal with, perhaps more than a dinky Free Trader can handle. These are objects smaller than Jupiter in diameter, yet 15-80+ times as massive. This also means that they are on average many, many times more dense any gas giant, and in fact several times more so than even a terrestrial world.

I might try it in a Suleiman, though. I bet there are lots of Scouts out there with a story or two about dipping in a brown dwarf trough -- whether or not they actually pulled it off.

 

[Spartan159]

* break *

:rofl: Snow G2 and the seven M1 Vs :rofl:

Grinning ducking and running *very* fast

* back to the topic at hand *

 

[whulorigan]

There was use of brown dwarfs (dwarves??) . . .

Just as a matter of trivia (please pardon the sidetrack):

The proper plural for Dwarf is "Dwarfs", as G. Kashkanun Anderson mentioned.

As a philologist, when Tolkien was developing his "race" of Khâzad for Middle Earth, he asked himself what the Old English word "Dweorg" would have become if it had been in regular verbal use the way more common words were, and had survived in common use down to the present day. For example, in modern English the plural of "staff" is "staves", "wharf" is "wharves", and "scarf" is "scarves", and "life" is "lives".

The progression was:
O.E. "Dweorg" ==>
M.E. "Dwarrow" (pl. "Dwerrow") ==>
Early Mod. Eng. "Dwarf" (pl. "Dwarfs") ==>
(Hypothetical) Modern English "Dwarf" (pl. "Dwarves")

The plural term "Dwarves" is only ever used properly of the race of beings belonging to Middle Earth. For everything else it is "Dwarfs".

 

[Epee]

Here ya go:
http://www.space.com/24467-brown-dwarfs-failed-stars-explained-infographic.html
With Traveller tech any spacefaring society would be well aware of and have mapped the brown dwarfs in their part of space.


Brown Dwarfs differ significantly from rouge planets. Rouges can be anything from terrestial balls of nickle/iron like Mercury to ice worlds like Pluto to Gas Giants like Jupiter (which produces more heat than it recieves from the Sun and so, even in deep space would still have a gaseous atmosphere).

In a Traveller adventure, rouge gas giants might play a role like secret oasis; allowing raiders and traders passage through seemingly impassable voids of space.

 

[mike wightman]

Wouldn't the pink glow be a dead give away?

 

[aramis]

Just as a matter of trivia (please pardon the sidetrack):

The proper plural for Dwarf is "Dwarfs", as G. Kashkanun Anderson mentioned.

As a philologist, when Tolkien was developing his "race" of Khâzad for Middle Earth, he asked himself what the Old English word "Dweorg" would have become if it had been in regular verbal use the way more common words were, and had survived in common use down to the present day. For example, in modern English the plural of "staff" is "staves", "wharf" is "wharves", and "scarf" is "scarves", and "life" is "lives".

The progression was:
O.E. "Dweorg" ==>
M.E. "Dwarrow" (pl. "Dwerrow") ==>
Early Mod. Eng. "Dwarf" (pl. "Dwarfs") ==>
(Hypothetical) Modern English "Dwarf" (pl. "Dwarves")

The plural term "Dwarves" is only ever used properly of the race of beings belonging to Middle Earth. For everything else it is "Dwarfs".

I know some severely height challenged folk who prefer the "dwarves" spelling for themselves. One was a next-door neighbor.

 

[flg]

the otu was conceived at a time when such things were only vague speculation and sci-fi-fantasy had no tropes for them.

"When Worlds Collide" was made in 1951 and had a rogue planet colliding with Earth (they call it a "rogue star", but I distinctly remember it looking like a planet). So it was definitely an idea that was around in scifi.

 

[Epee]

Wouldn't the pink glow be a dead give away?

Since our current tech has confirmed the existance of one or more rogue planets it's not an all or nothing situation. It would depend on the detection threshold of the instruments in Imperial use, if the dim, tiny spot is distinguished from the darn-near innumerable, far-distant and extra-galactic sources, and if otherwise empty parsecs would be explored. Sounds like a job for the Scouts...:smirk:

 

[Epee]

"When Worlds Collide" was made in 1951 and had a rogue planet colliding with Earth (they call it a "rogue star", but I distinctly remember it looking like a planet). So it was definitely an idea that was around in scifi.

Rogue planets and such were a popular feature about that time. "When Worlds Collide" was a rogue solar system; planet and star. "The Man From Planet X" (well worth the watch) featured a rogue planet.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

Rogue planets and such were a popular feature about that time. "When Worlds Collide" was a rogue solar system; planet and star.

I have the book, and if I remember correctly, it's just a pair of rogue planets in that case. One of them lasts just long enough to cue-ball Earth into oblivion; the other one settles into a decent orbit afterward. There's also a dead civilization on that world -- hinted in the book, detailed further in the sequel (or so I'm told).

The book is from 1933, by the way. And it was based on a collection of short stories written in '32-33.