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Gebohq
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Real life star setting inspirations

Fri 08 Nov 2019, 00:29

While the Alien RPG does a fantastic job of not only providing a map dotted with pre-written star systems and places and the like, and also provide various means of generating your own, I'm curious if anyone intends to draw from any known real-life sources for inspiration. I might be glancing at the following to see what might be within roughly the Outer Veil and then the Outer Rim areas:

List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs (within 5 parsecs)
List of star systems within 25-30 light years
Local Interstellar Cloud (roughly 9+ parsecs)
Stars within 10 parsecs

I'm also curious to see if any are already referenced, as I haven't gone checking at this point yet.
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Bengt Petter
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Re: Real life star setting inspirations

Sat 09 Nov 2019, 12:31

There are also something called rogue planets or nomadic planets, planets that don’t orbit a particular star. I think those could be really interesting and very different. Imagine such a planet with bizarre life or maybe ancient ruins from an extinct civilisation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_planet
 
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aramis
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Re: Real life star setting inspirations

Sat 09 Nov 2019, 20:57

The problem with rogue planets is that there should be very little chance of life on them. To remain warm enough, they need to be massive. To be kicked out, they need to be small enough. For a system to be chaotic enough to eject them, it looks like they'd be skewed youngish. And youngish skews against interesting life. Smaller skews against surviving surface life. Smaller also skews against surviving surface and near-surface life, as it means faster cooling due to the square-cube law. (Blackbody radiation energy loss is a function of temperature and surface area; energy stored is a function of the volume. double the radius, quadruple the area, but octuple the heat to radiate away - so it stays warm twice as long.)

On the other hand, Trappist 1 is on the map; we know there are at  least 7+ worlds... What's on them?

 And a scream-tastic range of other systems not detailed. Lots of room for adding habitations, and lots of use for the world generation rules.
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Bengt Petter
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Re: Real life star setting inspirations

Sat 09 Nov 2019, 23:23

Life on a rouge planet might have been formed in ways that are unkown to mankind. It might also have been seeded to fit an extreme environment. The Alien creatures are just... alien, they are simply quite different from life on Earth. Something similar or totaly different could be find on a drifting, nomadic planet...

A planet could also be nomadic because of an ancient war and heated through a technology unknown to mankind. Or the the planet itself might be a designed object, a giant vessel.

And of course, a rouge planet doesn’t have to be habitable to be interesting. As I said, there might be ruins, derilicts or other remains in some form. Or maybe just visitors, hiding in a bizarre place.
 
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aramis
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Re: Real life star setting inspirations

Sun 10 Nov 2019, 00:02

Chemistry below 200 Kelvin is inadequate for interesting yet believable life, Bengt. Below 150 Kelvin,most chemistry is stopped. 

Life is chemistry. When the chem stops... The life either pauses or dies, depending upon how fast it got that cold and just what freezes.
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Bengt Petter
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Re: Real life star setting inspirations

Sun 10 Nov 2019, 00:22

Aramis, I think you should read my post again. A rouge planet can be heated for several reasons (artificial heat, volcanic activities, or maybe heat generating organisms etc.) Civilizations that are far more advanced than mankind could probably change entire planets, perhaps even create or design entire star systems.
 
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aramis
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Re: Real life star setting inspirations

Sun 10 Nov 2019, 19:44

Aramis, I think you should read my post again. A rouge planet can be heated for several reasons (artificial heat, volcanic activities, or maybe heat generating organisms etc.) Civilizations that are far more advanced than mankind could probably change entire planets, perhaps even create or design entire star systems.
No, I find the idea of aliens doing so utterly lacking in credulity and totally inappropriate for the setting. It's Star-Wars level space fantasy. 

Life on one should be rare. And largely extinct or cryosuspended.
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Diego
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Re: Real life star setting inspirations

Sun 10 Nov 2019, 21:08

I'm just going to leave this here in the hope of opening some minds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7CkdB5z9PY
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Bengt Petter
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Re: Real life star setting inspirations

Sun 10 Nov 2019, 22:54

I'm just going to leave this here in the hope of opening some minds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7CkdB5z9PY
Exactly. With such a large number of rouge planets in only our galaxy they must come in many forms, sizes and looks. To say that it’s impossible that they might host life is just strange to me. I would rather say that is both more realistic and true to the logic of this franchise that life at least might have existed on a rouge planet. I’m not saying life should be common or goofy like in Star Wars. Read my posts again.

I think a major point of the Alien franchise is that the xenomorph really feels alien. They are something else. A simple thing to say, but still worth considering. To me it would also make sense that extraterrestrial life really is different from life on Earth. To just consider creatures that are like Earth based life but just a little different is not very creative. So that’s why rogue planets might be an interesting option. Simply because they are different and could have an interesting past. They might have been drifting in space for millions or billions of years.

Seeing the Alien franchise from a Lovecraftian point of view - where humans are insignificant beings in a much larger context of time, distances, and life - I would imagine many forms of other worlds that are unfamiliar to human knowledge, even in the Alien time frame. Think big, not small.
 
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Gebohq
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Re: Real life star setting inspirations

Fri 22 Nov 2019, 07:38

A neato video for inspiration I found that, incidentally, fits within about the space of the star map given in the Alien book. :)
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