Hatty Planets: Post Your Planet of the Hats Here

[scc]

OK, after looking over both of the wishlists, which now have entries for a revised Space Atlas line, it got me thinking about a possible Space campaign. One of the ideas I've had, while potentially very interesting is too short even for a Pyramid article, but I thought the form goers might get a laugh out of it. And that lead to the thought that a thread full of such planets might be interesting, something like the Reality Seeds thread.

Ever notice how when the concept of rebellion/revolution/independence is brought up in sci fi there's a good it will be linked to the American Independence in some way? Either by using that event to justify this one and/or using well known text from that, well Gliese 380 is my parody of that.

Gliese 380 was settled early on the second wave of human colonization and rushed the process to becoming a full member of the Human Confederation in hopes that it would boost the economy. While Gliese 380 now has a Representative in the Confederation Assembly, due to the world's low population she holds but a single vote and is not courted except in the closest of ballots. As a result of this a fringe fraction is calling for Gliese 380 to secede and is using the American Independence as it's justification, complete with re-issuing the propaganda, making them something of a laughing stock.

[David Johnston2]

They're not going call themselves by a catalog number. It'll be called something like "New Frontier'.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

They're not going call themselves by a catalog number. It'll be called something like "New Frontier'.

Gliese 380 is a star and not a planet. It'd have to be "Gliese 380 a" or something like that at a minimum.

Though it also seems to be known as "Groombridge 1618"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groombridge_1618

It's no9t a likely candidate fir a Earth-like planet at all being a K8 orange dwarf and a BY Draconis variable star. That means any planets in the habitable zone would be tide-locked _and_ fried by the flare activity. If they existed at all because the star is lower in complex elements than Sol too.

I'm afraid this might be the sort of feedback you'll get around here. Wetake our planetology pretty seriously.

Another fun fact is that this thread is the 8th item that comes up on Google when searching for "Gliese 380". :)

Finally, what makes these planets "hatty"? you haven't explained about the hats at all. It'd have to be a heck of a hat to protect from the stellar flares.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Finally, what makes these planets "hatty"? you haven't explained about the hats at all. It'd have to be a heck of a hat to protect from the stellar flares.

It's a trope (warning: TvTropes link) where there's an entire planet with some defining characteristic. It's a superset of the Mono-climate Planet trope.

[robkelk]

It's a quiet planet, far enough off the busiest spacelanes to be easily overlooked but not so far as to be remote. The inhabitants are nominally part of one of the more progressive alliances, but just want to be left alone.

That's the public face.

Look more closely ... and you'll probably end up dead. This planet is not just controlled by the organized crime syndicate, it's run by them. Drug-running, slave-running, prostitution rings, smuggling of valuables and people, "laundering" of valuables and loot obtained from piracy - they're all coordinated from this world. People on the Most Wanted list hide out here while their new identities are constructed by syndicate hackers.

Patrol officers assigned here are either sent out on long patrols, "on the take," or "victims of regrettable and unavoidable accidents."


(tl;dr: The "hat" is the Planet of Mobsters.)

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It's no9t a likely candidate fir a Earth-like planet at all being a K8 orange dwarf and a BY Draconis variable star. That means any planets in the habitable zone would be tide-locked _and_ fried by the flare activity.

It wouldn't likely be tidelocked. With a default solar luminosity of 0.15, the water zone is out around 0.3 AUs and Groombridge 1618 is not an old star.

[Phantasm]

As a side note: I followed a few Wikipedia links and could not find whether the distance in AU from a start involved starts at the center or the "surface" of the star. This is especially notable when you consider that some giants (red and blue) have radii that can be measured in AUs.

It probably doesn't make much difference for a system like Sol, but for some other systems it might.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

As a side note: I followed a few Wikipedia links and could not find whether the distance in AU from a start involved starts at the center or the "surface" of the star. This is especially notable when you consider that some giants (red and blue) have radii that can be measured in AUs.

It probably doesn't make much difference for a system like Sol, but for some other systems it might.

Stars much bigger than Sol don't have Earth-like planets. As size goes up lifespan goes down and probably much faster than you'd think. The largest blue giants (Type O) only spend 10 millions years on the main sequence before they go "Boom!". That's nt very long for forming even gaseous planets.

Those red giants aren't good places for planets either. The biggest ones were quite large (and therefore short-lived) as well and the wh0ole "expansion" thing does complicated but not good things to possible planets even if they had time enough for the rocky ones to cool.

You want a "hat"? You can use the "Famous Star Name Hat". Almost any star you've ever heard of will have been proved to be not good for planets. Invaders from Sirius anyone?

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Gliese 380 is a star and not a planet. It'd have to be "Gliese 380 a" or something like that at a minimum.

When we talk about "Americans" its understood we are talking about citizens of the United States, not including Canadians or citizens of Estados Unidos Mexcanos.

If Gliese 380 only has one inhabited planet, or important planet, its not impossible for it to be named after its star. It just depends on the culture of the people doing the naming. Maybe the natives have a long, involved name for their world, and call it that, but non-natives just use a semi-disrespectful "Gliese 380". Or they never got around to agreeing on one name to call the place?

[David Johnston2]

When the Human Confederation was formed one of the critical early decisions to be made was the placement of its governmental center. While Earth was the obvious choice based on its status as the human homeworld, objections were raised. The sheer size of Earth's population and the large number of major interstellar consortiums still based there already made it a political powerhouse and many of the other potential members of the Confederation were reluctant to give it even more influence over the Confederation government. So instead a mostly uninhabited agrarian world was renamed Capitoline and made the site of the Confederation Assembly. Government has become the only significant industry of Capitoline and it's lone sprawling city is filled with politicians, ambassadors, lobbyists, staff and hookers.