Rob, I considered mailing this directly to Marc, but I think it may of general interest. Could you do me the favor of forwarding it to him?
Originally posted by robject:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Response from Marc
HRM3 Personal Suggestion. Increase Feri's size from 3 to 6.
HRM3 Justification: With 600 million people apparently living on the surface of this world, there doesn't seem to be a way to make the atmosphere dense enough without it being riddled with enough heavy metals to poison any human on it.
Response This is an example of trying to change the data to fit a concept, instead of imagining what the data mean. They have hi tech. Maybe they have good pollution controls. Maybe there's a natural process at work? Note its economic extension (which is admittedly random). Resources=7. Labor=7. Infrastructure=5. and Barriers to Trade=6 (moderately high). Hmmm. I note that 2000years ago, the world name was Ferro. and before that Ushka.
No change.
HRM4 Suggestion. Hans recommends upping the world sizes of Pscias to 5 and Yori to 6.
HRM4 Justification. Due to their small sizes, he says atmospheres will be poisonous if there at all.
Response No change. I note my data shows Pscias has remark Ux Unexplained.
</font>[/QUOTE]I saw the remark at the start of this thread about being willing to accept Marc's ideas, and I had resolved to do so. But I just have to make one attempt to explain, because I don't think I managed to get the point across. One last try, and then I'll shut up. I promise.
The problem I was hoping to fix isn't Feri or Pscias or Yori. It's a lot more subtle than that.
Some worlds are possible, but unlikely. You can't argue against then on a case by case basis, because they ARE possible. But you can argue about them as a class, because when you lump hundreds of unlikelihoods together, you get to a point where the combined unlikeliness makes your willing suspension of disbelief reach its limits.
The single greatest problem I have with the UWPs is the complete disconnect between habitability and population. I don't mind a few high-population hell-holes and a few low-population garden worlds. In fact, I highly approve of them. But when there are exactly as many high-population hell-holes as there are high-population garden worlds, and exactly as many low-population garden worlds as there are low-population hell-holes (and exactly as many population X physical-condition Y worlds as any other combination of physical and social stats), then I flat out don't believe it.
So, yes, I am trying to persuade Marc to change data to fit a concept, but it's not the concept he believes; it's the concept that there will be a correlation between habitability and population size. Not, mind you, a direct correspondence, just a correlation.
The best way to establish that correlation is, IMO, to selectively improve the habitability of some pop 7+ worlds, and maybe to reduce the population of some really nasty worlds (especially those with low TL, because as long as the technology is high enough, people can just live in space). And by doing so on a case by case basis, you can also fix other problems. It would be a help in other way, for instance, if a few of the high-population worlds were a little less high population.
The thing is, if this is going to be done at all, then it makes sense to fix lesser problems (that might not rate it on their own -- the stuff that's not impossible, but is highly unlikely) at the same time.
Another problem is that many of the worlds with atmospheres and hydrospheres are too small to have an atmosphere or a hydrosphere. Now, it's not as big a problem for me as I know it is for some other people. But I must confess that I can't understand that the fact that a world is physically impossible according to the current astronomical knowledge we possess isn't a good enough reason to change it. Sure, there are the Ancients, and there are unexplained phenomena, and don't think I don't use them myself (for instance, Alell is likewise too small, but in my writeup I just mentioned that it had a higher gravity than it should have -- the "it's a mystery" explanation). But again we (sorry, I) run into the 'a few is interesting, a lot is unbelievable' problem.
So changing the size of Feri and Pscias and Yori and a lot more worlds that are too small for their atmospheres or hydrospheres (but not all of them, because odd worlds are fun -- as long as they're the exception rather than the norm) is not about changing the data to fit a concept, it's about making the entire OTU more believable.
Cordially
Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
rancke@diku.dk
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"Could you not begin at the beginning and go on until you come to the end, and then, if you are able to, stop?"
"I'll try," said his lordship, "but I always find the stopping business so difficult."
--- "Murder must advertise" by Dorothy Sayers
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