Re: What Space Atlases would you like to see?
 

It's not impossible to have two habitable planets in a single star system. I randomly generated two such systems while playing with "Gurps Space".

Re: What Space Atlases would you like to see?
 

I thought as much with how much you mused on unique cultures.
I just find every habitable system an implausible freak of one in all the universe.
Either way, looking forward to your ideas.

Re: What Space Atlases would you like to see?
 

"Habitable" can mean habitable after centuries of terraforming or just that it supports life in domes.

Re: What Space Atlases would you like to see?
 

You've just been in a pissy pedantic mood of late, haven't you?
Habitable as in comfy for the indigenous technological species.
Jeesh. Responding to you is like trying to formulate wishes for an evil Jinn.

Re: What Space Atlases would you like to see?
 

I've always been a pedant, but I don't know if my mood of late has been particularly poor or not.

I've certainly not slept enough today and yesterday, however. Curse all governments and their committees, for forcing us honest citizens to work weekends.

I don't think that's what Agemegos had in mind. The planets of the setting he made are populated by human settlers, who often terraformed the planets before they could be very comfortable there.

I'll take that as a compliment. ;)

Re: What Space Atlases would you like to see?
 

In GURPS Space, "Garden" is used for any planet with enough oxygen in the atmosphere and water in the environment to support some kind of life that we would probably recognize as life. "Ocean" (or "Pre-Garden" in Traveller) worlds are those that might have life but do not have significant oxygen in the atmosphere.

"Habitable" means that human beings would be able to live on a world of this kind with minimal support. Some, but not all, Garden worlds. It does not mean "domes"--if you HAVE to live in a dome, you don't have a habitable world. It could mean a world that has been terraformed, though.

As for the original questions...

What really matters is the story. A solar system for a Space Atlas book probably should either be part of a larger fictional universe that is already dynamic in certain ways (e.g., a world for Traveller) or, if it is a stand alone world, maybe the first one in a new fictional universe, it must be at some turning point in its history. New settlements where people are struggling to tame the land and end up boss (think Deadwood--mining, trade, and intrigue of all sorts). Established nations facing some crisis or threat, either a long standing one or a sudden danger, war or civil war or cold war or proxy war, plague or supervolcano, invasion or slow erosion of power and prestige as society collapses from within or is slowly bled to death by some subtle enemy, etc. The story can begin before the major event takes place (so campaigns can either be built around trying to stop it and/or trying to take advantage of it...an example might be espionage and diplomacy in 1910) or shortly after the major event (Day of the Triffids, WWII after Pearl Harbor, Alaska a year after gold is first discovered there, etc.).

You have a huge range of options here. Feel free to steal from history. The critical issue, however, is that you want some kind of "big picture" for the campaign world, something where people can either build campaigns as part of the main plot or which uses it as context (a good example of both is the recent HBO series "Rome." I don't know how good the history was, but the stories were great.) People don't game solar systems. They game stories.

The three lenses approach is interesting, although there might be some confusion over the second one. An isolated system obviously means that only slow interstellar travel (e.g., antimatter-powered spacecraft moving at 0.01 c) are possible. And a space opera setting obviously means that FTL travel is both possible and practical. But does a "hard SF interstellar" setting mean "fast STL travel...50% c or better" or does it mean "hard sf, except we will permit one unexplained miracle...ftl travel" or something else?

Mark

Re: What Space Atlases would you like to see?
 

Not necessarily. The isolated system could be somewhere in the galactic halo, 10 parsecs from the next star, in the Traveller universe.
Or it could be almost anywhere in a universe where FTL-drive is via connected wormholes, like in the Starfire universe.
"Isolation" is a function of travel speed and distance, and space is big enough to have both FTL-drives and "isolated" systems it takes years to reach.

Re: What Space Atlases would you like to see?
 

Or you could have a situation like in the Warhammer 40k universe. FTL is through another dimention (not an uncommon idea ,hyperspace anyone) and there are stuff there ,creatures and even storms. Part of the premise to that particular world is that sections of the galaxy (sometimes just solar systems) are cut off from the rest for years or even centuries and on monster of a storm cut off FTL travel for most of the galaxy for about 10000 years. Which was after humanity spread over most of the know galaxy.

Re: What Space Atlases would you like to see?
 

Isolated can also mean "we can get there, but why bother?" In Traveller a poor system reached through a chain of three uninhabited systems won't see many visitors. If your jump drive breaks down while you're there you may be staying a long, long time.

Re: What Space Atlases would you like to see?
 

and time elementsmight be nice as a Terra-formed world might look different in a hard-science lense vs a space-opera lense... of course you probably already know that :)