Step by Step Worldbuilding

[caters]

I don't know(I don't usually know what happens thousands or millions or billions of years later in my story, just hundreds at most) yet but since this new solar system is important for time periods, it would be best if it remained stable. Of course, if the star or stars get bigger(which if there are multiple stars could lead to the merging of 2 or more stars into 1 or more larger stars which is a drastic event and would likely result in a supernova) this might not be the case, especially for any hot jupiters.

Some scientists think that when the sun becomes a red giant the earth will be engulfed but others think that the earth and all other planets will move their orbits outwards. Others think that the earth won't be engulfed but it will melt just like how it melted in the collision that formed the moon and in the collisions between protoplanets and dwarf planets that eventually formed all 4 rocky planets in our solar system.

Any of these could happen to a hot jupiter's surface but the gas will for certain evaporate if this happens. This means that all that is left is a small rocky planet that used to be the core of a gas giant.

This would most likely mean the end of the dinosaurs and these humans as I know it unless the aliens do a form of gravity assist where the orbit becomes stable and stays in the habitable zone regardless of whether the star will form a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole or if 1 star becomes a white dwarf and accumulates mass ejecting the other star or stars or if they both become white dwarves and eventually merge. This merging of white dwarves could get to temperatures high enough to continue fusion and thus form a star from star remnants if there are enough of them.

 

[ThinkerX]

Model your solar system off of real ones. Try googling 'extra solar planet encyclopedia.'

 

[Nomadica]

I am having a little trouble following this.

We use the lengths we do for weeks and months out of tradition, or religious belief. But if these folks go to an another place and then decide to make the orbital periods of a hot jupiter a week, that choice seems virtually random. Or what if that moon is fast or slow, do they go with a 90 day month or a 5 day month? There is no rational reason to adopt those movements to structure your life around. If they maintain the week on religious grounds than it should still be seven days shouldn't it?

There is no doubt astronomy has value for timekeeping, in the concept primarily of the day or year. But not really for the week or month. These are really cultural affectations more than anything else.

The lunar month is a pain the in math, is defined different ways, and doesn't match our culturally asymetrical calendar. Discarding it is a fine idea.

The week, or month are much more tradition based or religion based, and I don't see how those concepts transport to a new planet so well or even effectively.

Think of it this way. Our math system is decimal, would it not be much easier and more functional to have say a ten day week? Or a month based on one tenth of a year?

If you have highly rational or scientific people who get a chance to build a calendar from scratch, it simply doesn't make sense that they would choose to follow outdated superstitious or religious religious structures to do so.

It makes sense to me to tell time by a moon. It effects the tides and there is evidence to indicate it really does effect the menstrual cycle though some believe that is a myth. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3109/00016348609158228/abstract

You can use the moon to know where you are in the year, especially if your planet doesn't have seasons.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

It makes sense to me to tell time by a moon. It effects the tides and there is evidence to indicate it really does effect the menstrual cycle though some believe that is a myth. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3109/00016348609158228/abstract

You can use the moon to know where you are in the year, especially if your planet doesn't have seasons.

It makes sense if you have a moon. It doesn't make sense on a generation ship though since there are no moons. A more...standardized method of time measurement would be better than basing it off of a moon of some kind.

 

[caters]

It makes sense if you have a moon. It doesn't make sense on a generation ship though since there are no moons. A more...standardized method of time measurement would be better than basing it off of a moon of some kind.

This is exactly why I stated that this would be for once the humans are on the planet this timekeeping with planets and moons.

On the generation ship, time is kept in terms of where the earth is in its orbit around the sun(since the generation ship is basically 1 giant earth and the aliens know how to make sunlight without using the sun as a light source). The aliens would know where the earth is in our solar system at the time that they leave earth and the earth's exact orbit(they have studied our solar system a lot from its humble beginnings to now) and orbital velocity and thus know when 1 year has passed even when they are billions of miles away from the sun.

 

[caters]

And why should I model them on existing solar systems when a fictional solar system is more likely to be closer to ours in composition than other solar systems?

Most solar systems have 1 tidally locked planet orbiting around a red dwarf star(which can be as low as .08 solar masses). And most that aren't around red dwarfs only have gas giants such as hot Jupiters and mini Neptunes. And most rocky planets aren't in the habitable zone, much less earthlike. Ejected planets are relatively common and most of them are ejected because of a supernova.

So my solar system would be most like ours. My Kepler solar system has only rocky planets, no gas giants. 2 of those are earthlike both having 4 moons and 2 are binary planets.

Because of this, I think personally that doing it from scratch the way artefexian does it, no matter how hard it is, is better than modeling it off of our solar system, much less other solar systems.

 

[Nomadica]

It makes sense if you have a moon. It doesn't make sense on a generation ship though since there are no moons. A more...standardized method of time measurement would be better than basing it off of a moon of some kind.

Agreed, I was only thinking of a situation where a moon was present.
In the world I am building the people are a tidally locked moon, Iso, which makes it very sensible to tell time partly by the phases of the planet it orbits since that's the only light they will have for a very long time and the phases will tell you how far into the dark period they are in and how long they have to go. Even if the people were advanced this would make sense.

 

[Russ]

It makes sense to me to tell time by a moon. It effects the tides and there is evidence to indicate it really does effect the menstrual cycle though some believe that is a myth. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3109/00016348609158228/abstract

You can use the moon to know where you are in the year, especially if your planet doesn't have seasons.

It does make sense to use the moon to mark time if you don't have a better or more rational method. That is why primitive people did it and we have not yet chucked it.

But if you are a sophisticated, scientific culture building a system from scratch it makes no sense at all. There are many, many more rational and useful ways to structure your time than what are effectively arbitrary timespans.

While you can use the moon's orbits (or any other fixed period of time) to tell you where you are in the year, there is no advantage or rational for doing so. The amount of time it takes for the moon to travel around the planet is an independent variable to the amount of time it takes for the planet to orbit the star. The number of lunar months in a year could be all sorts of numbers, none of which are particularly useful.

 

[Russ]

On the generation ship, time is kept in terms of where the earth is in its orbit around the sun(since the generation ship is basically 1 giant earth and the aliens know how to make sunlight without using the sun as a light source). The aliens would know where the earth is in our solar system at the time that they leave earth and the earth's exact orbit(they have studied our solar system a lot from its humble beginnings to now) and orbital velocity and thus know when 1 year has passed even when they are billions of miles away from the sun.

Would it not make more sense to transition the time keeping on the generation ship from the origin planet to the destination planet to acclimatize the travellers for their destination?

 

[Russ]

Because of this, I think personally that doing it from scratch the way artefexian does it, no matter how hard it is, is better than modeling it off of our solar system, much less other solar systems.

There is nothing wrong with doing it from scratch if you are writing hard SF, it just means you need to learn a great deal of science and math to do it well. A worthy endevour for sure.

 

[Vaporo]

And why should I model them on existing solar systems when a fictional solar system is more likely to be closer to ours in composition than other solar systems?

Most solar systems have 1 tidally locked planet orbiting around a red dwarf star(which can be as low as .08 solar masses). And most that aren't around red dwarfs only have gas giants such as hot Jupiters and mini Neptunes. And most rocky planets aren't in the habitable zone, much less earthlike. Ejected planets are relatively common and most of them are ejected because of a supernova.

The reason that we find so many "hot Jupiters" isn't necessaily because they're particularly common. They're just really easy to detect. As far as I know, watching a star and waiting for a planet to pass in front of it is pretty much the only way we can find a small terrestrial planets.

If you're looking to design a solar system from scratch, I wouldn't worry too much about making it 100 percent realistic. You can get into some pretty complicated stuff that even scientists researching them for years don't really understand. I'd just create some parameters that look semi-realistic, then run with it. You're probably not going to include a full description of the composition and orbit of each planet, and even if you did I doubt anyone would try to run a simulation of the formation of your solar system.

There's a free simulation program called Space Engine that exists entirely to create procedurally generated solar systems. The results aren't always perfect, but you can usually just look and see if planets cross orbits or something.

 

[Nomadica]

It does make sense to use the moon to mark time if you don't have a better or more rational method. That is why primitive people did it and we have not yet chucked it.

But if you are a sophisticated, scientific culture building a system from scratch it makes no sense at all. There are many, many more rational and useful ways to structure your time than what are effectively arbitrary timespans.

While you can use the moon's orbits (or any other fixed period of time) to tell you where you are in the year, there is no advantage or rational for doing so. The amount of time it takes for the moon to travel around the planet is an independent variable to the amount of time it takes for the planet to orbit the star. The number of lunar months in a year could be all sorts of numbers, none of which are particularly useful.

It makes sense in that things happen, technology fails, natural disaster messes with peoples plans. Though some people see the future technology as the cure all for world problems. But for me that doesn't feel realistic but rather idealistic like star trek. The more advanced and complex technology is the more opportunity for problem and the more vulnerable they will be the more they rely on it. One of my pet peevs is unrealistic rose colored glasses societies especially in the name of technology.

 

[Russ]

It makes sense in that things happen, technology fails, natural disaster messes with peoples plans. Though some people see the future technology as the cure all for world problems. But for me that doesn't feel realistic but rather idealistic like star trek. The more advanced and complex technology is the more opportunity for problem and the more vulnerable they will be the more they rely on it. One of my pet peevs is unrealistic rose colored glasses societies especially in the name of technology.

While I understand your philosophy, I don't think, for worldbuilding purposes one chooses a timing system based on the assumption of complete technological collapse and knowledge loss.

I also think that the more advanced technology is, the more robust it can (and should) become. If a group can build generation ships and eliminate genetic defects in children and transport dinosaurs across interstellar distances, I suspect they can build robust watches.

Technology is an amazing lever. I think much modern fiction underestimates it power, not the reverse.

 

[TheKillerBs]

The more complex a system is, the more parts it has that can malfunction.

 

[Russ]

The more complex a system is, the more parts it has that can malfunction.

So would you rather be a passenger in an airplane built in 1917 or 2016? Or a car built in 1920 or 2016? Prefer to ride a motorcycle wearing a baseball hat or a modern race helmet?

How about the robustness of a computer in 1960 versus one with 1000X more computing power today?

Or would you prefer to be dependant on the water system say in Austria or Zambia? I can tell you which one is more complex.

Plus "more advanced" does not always equal more complex.

Your approach is kind of a gross oversimplification of the analysis.

 

[TheKillerBs]

Or a car built in 1920 or 2016? Prefer to ride a motorcycle wearing a baseball hat or a modern race helmet?

Or would you prefer to be dependant on the water system say in Austria or Zambia? I can tell you which one is more complex.

Typing on a touchscreen sucks, so I'm doing as few words as possible. Incidentally, since you're talking about newer being better, I can tell you I much prefer a regular keyboard. But your criticism that it was oversimplified is quite fair.

With that said, I would rather wear a sallet over a baseball hat or a modern race helmet if I ever got the suicidal urge to get on one of those two-wheeled death traps. And give me a 90s Corolla over either of those choices. And planes? No thanks. I like having my feet over solid ground, thank you very much. Now if only my boss could get that...

As for the Austria versus Zambia water system? I don't know either of them, but I can tell you that neither of them will be able to handle a societal collapse like a good old-fashioned well with a bucket could.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Hello everyone.

I think that it makes perfect sense, that suddenly something bad can happen and affect a technologically advanced civilization a lot. It's true that the advances of science have given us countless good things that make our lives better, but at the same time science has always had a dark side and it can open the door to many bad things as well.

The sad story of Fritz Haber and his wife Clara Immerwahr is a good example of this.

Fritz was a very talented German chemist. He won the Noble Prize for chemistry back in 1918 for inventing a process that synthesizes ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen, which resulted in massive agriculture as we know it. The truth is that billions of people today are fed thanks to Fritz Haber, so he could be considered a hero for the world...

That would be the good side of science in the hands of Fritz Haber.

The bad side is that, wishing to help his country during the Great War, he came up with the idea to deploy elemental chlorine as a weapon and he instructed the German army on how to do this. Fritz opened the door to modern chemical warfare when thousands of men died in terrible agony and fear engulfed by chlorine clouds at Ypres, April 22 1915, and that was just the start of it.

Clara was a brilliant chemist as well. She never agreed with what Fritz wanted to do, and as a result of that first chemical attack she decided to end her life and shot herself in the heart with her husband's personal gun. Clara saw the chlorine offensive as a corruption of science, but I quite disagree with her... Science is both good and evil, it's both light and darkness.

Another example is that massive agriculture is good because it produces enough food for billions of people, but as a result of that now we have an overpopulated world and various different problems are resulting from this.

The miraculous antibiotics promised the end of all infectious diseases, and for a long time it was incredible but now we are slowly returning to the pre-antibiotics era and we are not ready for it...

Today so many of us could not survive without a constant water supply and supermarkets simply because we lost contact with less advanced ways of life, and if something comparable to the Carrington event happens next week we would be in a hell of a trouble.

The Carrington storm did not cause serious trouble in 1859, but our electricity/computers-dependent world of today would be so affected by something like it that billions of people could die as a result.

I think that even a very powerful Interstellar civilization could perhaps fall prey to some kind of weapon or dangerous experiment created by their own science, or perhaps the disaster could come from encountering a different and not very friendly civilization that starts attacking them... Who knows, so many possibilities.

Science is like a dragon with two heads to me, one good and one bad.

 

[Nomadica]

So would you rather be a passenger in an airplane built in 1917 or 2016? Or a car built in 1920 or 2016? Prefer to ride a motorcycle wearing a baseball hat or a modern race helmet?

How about the robustness of a computer in 1960 versus one with 1000X more computing power today?

Or would you prefer to be dependant on the water system say in Austria or Zambia? I can tell you which one is more complex.

Plus "more advanced" does not always equal more complex.

Your approach is kind of a gross oversimplification of the analysis.

Not the right questions, to simple. An AR15 is more likely to fail than old bolt action. Id choose a bolt action over an AR in a wilderness survival situation but not in a modern war situation. Its good to have both, the AR doesn't replace the bolt action completely.

 

[Russ]

Not the right questions, to simple. An AR15 is more likely to fail than old bolt action. Id choose a bolt action over an AR in a wilderness survival situation but not in a modern war situation. Its good to have both, the AR doesn't replace the bolt action completely.

For the discussion I was engaged in they were the right questions.

The assertion was that things that are more complex have more parts that can fail. While mathematically that is simply true, it is not an accurate reflection of why, generally, advanced technology is better than older technology it has replaced.

Modern airplanes and cars are orders of magnitude more complex than older versions, and they are also faster, safer and more reliable. More complex does not automatically equate to worse. In fact with good design principles you can have more complex with greater reliability and effectiveness. The evidence for this is all around you.

And, as I noted above, more advanced does not neccessarily mean more complex or less robust either. For example a modern knife made with modern materials can be lighter, tougher and hold a better edge longer, and more corrosion resistant than an older more primitive knife. The final product (the knife) is no more "complex" than its ancestor, but the new knife is more robust and superior to its ancestor.

Overall, advanced technology offers many advantages over older more primitive technologies.

The AR comparison is not really a useful one either. The AR is (to my mind) a particularly poor piece of equipment and more importantly it is not designed as a wilderness survival or hunting rifle. An MBR is not a wilderness survival tool. It is kind of like suggesting that a current KTM motorcycle is not as good as a 1950's Case tractor in plowing fields. True, but irrelevant.

Personally for wilderness survival I would choose a modern Marlin or Weatherby, not a flintlock. Which brings us to another point I was trying to make. The bolt action weapon is, in operation, simpler, than older firearms, thus proving that "more advanced" does not mean more complex.

While societal collapse scenarios are entertaining and offer great opportunities for symbolic writing, they are not realistic, and complexity and "advanced" systems and techniques make such a collapse less likely and more easy to recover from than at any time in history. that is become that in recorded history catastrophe's have tended to be local or at least not global. Now, when a region is devastated by a catastrophe, aid can come pouring in from other locations at rates, quantums and effectiveness never before imagined. It is virtually miraculous how fast we can, and do, get aid to isolated areas where there is a disaster. I have a friend who does this kind of work overseas when earthquakes etc happen, and he and his team are there within days of the initial disaster, usually arriving by aircraft, guided by GPS, and delivering medical care and rescue aid that was impossible even a decade and a half ago.

By all means have a hand water pump in your backyard. But if you are engaging in social engineering (real of fictional), take Austria's water system over Zambia's.

 

[Russ]

I think that it makes perfect sense, that suddenly something bad can happen and affect a technologically advanced civilization a lot. It's true that the advances of science have given us countless good things that make our lives better, but at the same time science has always had a dark side and it can open the door to many bad things as well.

So you are talking about two different things here.

The first is that a natural disaster can have a significant impact on a technologically advanced society. The second is that technology has no conscience and can be used for terrible purposes in the wrong hands or by misguided worldviews.

On the second point I agree with you totally. Science and technology are tools, not guiding principals. The more advanced technology you have the more harm its misuse can have, and the more dangerous the deviant individual can become. Very true.

The Carrington event is an excellent example. It could, if handled badly, cause power outages in some places for as long as a year. But if that is the risk, then the natural next question has to be what do you do to avoid that risk?

Do you not use GPS? Dump cell phones and replace computers with slide rules just to be safe? Or do you drive your science to become more advanced so that you can give more advanced warning of those type of events (which we now do, up to 20+ hours actually), and design more robust equipment that won't fail catastrophically when faced by such an event?

I think the answer is pretty straightforward.