[Space] 'Space Opera' Setting

[Frost]

I have just started working again on an idea I have had kicking around for a few years in various forms and thought that I would run the outline past the hive mind to see if you guys can spot any flaws or possible improvements.

The basic idea is to create a 'space opera' setting in the vein of Alistair Reynolds etc by using a small number of relatively closely spaced worlds connected by fast STL ships and without any other form of super science.

History
The human race acquired an interstellar capability in the later part of the twenty first century, expanding over the course of the next hundred and twenty years to the point where settlements existed within most of the more appealing solar systems within about thirteen light years of earth. By the height of the colonial boom more than a dozen large independent settlements had been established on five more or less habitable worlds.

Only a few years after the peak of settlement activity the whole edifice came crashing down as earth found its political and economic establishment paralysed by economic collapse and subsequently global warfare. With the breakdown of the preceding golden age interstellar flight stalled and the settlements found themselves isolated for almost a century.

By the time that engineers on (a now somewhat depopulated and impoverished) earth and the closer settled worlds re-established communications in the late twenty third century the colonies had had become established and distinct cultures. In many respects although still relatively limited the larger settlements spared the destruction of the collapse by their remoteness had already begun to eclipse earth as technological, cultural and even economic centres a trend that has continued into the present day (2465).

Scope
Human settlement is currently confined to a handful of worlds within less than thirteen light years of Earth. Initially this was determined by the limitations of early interstellar propulsion and settlement technology. Later the extreme difficulty of operating new settlement projects with post collapse population and resource bases had much the same effect although with the upsurge in shipping over the past three to four decades this seems likely to change rapidly.

Commentators divide occupied space into three regions, the Inner Ring, the Arc and the Waste.

The misleadingly named Inner Ring consists of Earth and the colony planets of Toliman and Swan orbiting Alpha Centauri A and 61 Cygni B respectively. This region is the figurative centre of human society collectively dominating most fields of activity.

The remaining three colony planets collectively form the Arc. The Arc worlds retain a frontier feel and mentality absent in their sophisticated and prosperous compatriots in the Inner Ring. If it is surprising that the Inner ring planets survived the various upheavals of the collapse so well it is even more surprising that the Arc worlds survived at all. These smaller, poorer and more recent colonies faced a struggle for survival that was unequalled even in the most war-ravaged regions of Earth that has radically (and negatively) affected their subsequent development.

To call the Waste a region is somewhat misleading, as it constitutes the greater part of explored space, being those systems deemed to be unsuitable for human life (the overwhelming majority) within the area of settlement. Although for most people the Waste is an unsettling reminder of how hostile the Galaxy is to humanity it still commands a degree of fascination being home in the imagination at least to hidden colonies, alien artefacts and other somewhat unlikely wonders.

Technology
With few exceptions technological development has progressed at a slow pace along the conservative hard SF path reaching TL 10 on several of the inner ring worlds although it descends rapidly in the most backward regions of Earth and the Arc.

The principle exception to this is the existence of an STL warp engine technology. This technology (strictly speaking a family of related technologies) has served to define humanities horizons by making interstellar travel merely an expensive and prolonged process as opposed to prohibitively expensive and prolonged one. Early warp engines were able to propel a craft at approximately 0.5c and required near constant servicing. Newer second and third generation units capable of reaching 0.7-0.8c and operating unattended for years at a time have become available since the collapse permitting greatly improved interstellar communication, limited trade and possibly further expansion.

[Frost]

Earth
Although the birthplace of humanity has seen substantially better days Earth still remains a natural wonder and a political and economic powerhouse. Even with wartime loses the major nations of earth (presently three in number) represent the largest single concentration of humanity anywhere (almost 400 million as of 2455) and maintain a solid if somewhat pedestrian technical base being late TL 9 in most areas finally and very firmly edging into TL 10 in information technology, weapons and medicine.

Despite these advantages Earth remains the so-called ‘poor man of the inner ring’ unable to catch it’s smaller but less damaged rivals due to endemic warfare and widespread environmental degradation. This perceived inferiority has begun to make the already fractious planet an unwelcome wildcard in trade and politics.

[nick012000]

Why limit yourself to planets? If you're doing a Space Opera setting, why limit yourself, when you have all the sweep of the universe before you! Asteroids! Comets! Space Stations! They're all out there, and with no FTL, it makes sense that they'd want to colonize anything they can.

I myself am partial to Dyson Trees: colonies built inside genetically engineered trees growing out of comets, and out of the hollows the roots leave in the comet. Said trees are likely to be "cyborged" with things like landing pads, airlocks, elevators, and other bits of technological infrastructure.

What about aerostat cities on Venus-like planets? Human-breathable air is a lifting gas there; you can build entire floating cities that way.

Not to mention partially terraformed planets like Mars and her interstellar sisters might be.

[Crakkerjakk]

I'm with Nick. If it's supposed to be even remotely hard SF, there's no reason everyones on planets. You can fit a lot more people in an asteroid belt converted into habitats than you can onto a planetary surface.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by nick012000

What about aerostat cities on Venus-like planets? Human-breathable air is a lifting gas there; you can build entire floating cities that way.

Human-breathable air isn't much lighter at equivalent pressure. At 1 atm v. the surface pressure 0f 90 atm you'd be getting lift but you'd have to subtract the weight of your pressure vessel.

Of course at the surface of Venus it's hot enough to melt lead so the whole thing's a non-starter there.

High enough that you'll be at 1 atm I'm still not sure you'll be cool enough and you'll have the usual problems of gas bag to habitat rations.

Oh, and the upper atmosphere of Venus is full of sulfuric acid clouds too.

I've never heard a mechanically sound suggestion of anything to do with Venus except use it as a garbage dump.

[nick012000]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Human-breathable air isn't much lighter at equivalent pressure. At 1 atm v. the surface pressure 0f 90 atm you'd be getting lift but you'd have to subtract the weight of your pressure vessel.

Of course at the surface of Venus it's hot enough to melt lead so the whole thing's a non-starter there.

High enough that you'll be at 1 atm I'm still not sure you'll be cool enough and you'll have the usual problems of gas bag to habitat rations.

Oh, and the upper atmosphere of Venus is full of sulfuric acid clouds too.

I've never heard a mechanically sound suggestion of anything to do with Venus except use it as a garbage dump.

Hmm? Wikipedia disagrees. It has about 60% of the lifting power of Helium there; blimp-like structures ought to be entirely possible. Heck, with advanced enough genetic engineering, you might be able to create plants capable of growing a carbon nanotube sheathe and giant gas bubbles out of the carbon dioxide in the air. With Collossal Carbon Tubes, you might be able to construct a space elevator, since they'll rotate around the planet much more quickly than the surface of the planet does (about 4 Earth days).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by nick012000

Hmm? Wikipedia disagrees. It has about 60% of the lifting power of Helium there; blimp-like structures ought to be entirely possible. Heck, with advanced enough genetic engineering, you might be able to create plants capable of growing a carbon nanotube sheathe and giant gas bubbles out of the carbon dioxide in the air. With Collossal Carbon Tubes, you might be able to construct a space elevator, since they'll rotate around the planet much more quickly than the surface of the planet does (about 4 Earth days).

You do mean the upper cloud layers of Venus? Even 60% of helium (which I _strongly_ doubt) isn't very impressive as a lifting gas. The Hindenburg would have taken a big hit to payload if it had used helium instead of hydrogen and 60% of helium would been far worse..

What do your floating plants use as an energy source? The opacity/reflectivity of the Venusian atmosphere is very high.

It's also a peculiar question why anything in an atmosphere that's 95% C02 would create gas bubbles of the same thing. There'd be no lift. You might be able to float on the wind like dandelion fluff but I'm not sure Venus is very windy. There are strong reasons (like uniform surface temperature) why it shouldn't be.

As to the self-grown Beanstalks/ Space Elevators rotating more quickly than the Venusian surface is not impressive. That rotates very slowly indeed and in the wrong direction too.

I don't believe you could build upwards from any cloud base either. You'd have to build downwards from orbit and what are you doing that for? In what way is the upper Venusian atmosphere more attractive than orbit? You can build big floating cities in orbit too.

Incidentally, Venus' substantial lack of a magnetic field makes its' orbit less attractive than Earth's. You'd need much thicker hulls to protect from cosmic rays than you would in Earth orbit.

I meant it when I said "garbage dump".

[Frost]

Originally Posted by nick012000

Why limit yourself to planets? If you're doing a Space Opera setting, why limit yourself, when you have all the sweep of the universe before you! Asteroids! Comets! Space Stations! They're all out there, and with no FTL, it makes sense that they'd want to colonize anything they can.

I limited the setting to planetry settlements for a number of primarly narritive reasons. As appealing as they are artificial habitats do tend to remove some of the justification for long range colonisation. If you can build a decent habitat and persuade people to live in it why bother spending upwards of ten years in hibernation to play pioneer in the back of beyond?

Secondly they are by definition highly controled environments, this can limit their usefulness as settings.

Undoubtedly such places will exist but at least for the time being they are likely to be auxilary to planetry settlements. Whether this will chainge when I get around to writing campaigns within this setting and start to flesh out future developments remains to be seen.

[thtraveller]

Originally Posted by Frost

Despite these advantages Earth remains the so-called ‘poor man of the inner ring’ unable to catch it’s smaller but less damaged rivals due to endemic warfare and widespread environmental degradation.

This implies that the environments of alien "habitable" planets are more benign than the ravaged Earth. Seems unlikely unless Earth is a near wasteland.

Though the vastly reduced population implies multiple things:
- that AI and/or human uploads are not established,
- that life extension technology has not been particularly successful,
- that extremely nasty warfare has taken place.

[thtraveller]

Originally Posted by Frost

I have just started working again on an idea I have had kicking around for a few years in various forms and thought that I would run the outline past the hive mind to see if you guys can spot any flaws or possible improvements.

Space opera often means that people haven't changed whilst technology has, whereas hard science often means people have changed with the technology - often markedly as with Transhuman Space or Orion's Arm.

The basic idea is to create a 'space opera' setting in the vein of Alistair Reynolds etc by using a small number of relatively closely spaced worlds connected by fast STL ships and without any other form of super science.

Warp ships that can do 0.5C or more is technically super science.

History
The human race acquired an interstellar capability in the later part of the twenty first century, expanding over the course of the next hundred and twenty years to the point where settlements existed within most of the more appealing solar systems within about thirteen light years of earth. By the height of the colonial boom more than a dozen large independent settlements had been established on five more or less habitable worlds.

What was the imperative that drove the colonial expansion? A wealthy Earth, private individuals, existential angst, external factors, something else?

Only a few years after the peak of settlement activity the whole edifice came crashing down as earth found its political and economic establishment paralysed by economic collapse and subsequently global warfare. With the breakdown of the preceding golden age interstellar flight stalled and the settlements found themselves isolated for almost a century.

That is quite a radical and prolonged economic hit to Earth - which is presumably far and away the most populous world. That is unparalleled by a mere depression or even any previous world war. Is the implication global nuclear war?

Is the implication also that starship production and maintenance was centered on Earth? High maintenance drives implies that the engineers were on the ships not the planets. So why would communications between the colonies stop? Why did the ships stop? Also is there no interstellar radio/laser comms?

Also did advances in intelligence augmentation and/or AI fail to deliver improvements and mitigate any breakdown?

Or was the economic collapse somehow brought about by the expansion or intelligence augmentation/AI?

By the time that engineers on (a now somewhat depopulated and impoverished) earth and the closer settled worlds re-established communications in the late twenty third century the colonies had had become established and distinct cultures. In many respects although still relatively limited the larger settlements spared the destruction of the collapse by their remoteness had already begun to eclipse earth as technological, cultural and even economic centres a trend that has continued into the present day (2465).

It seems reasonable that the brightest and best, or alternately that surviving/adaptable types, would be colonists. Though it is possible that some just went low tech. New worlds should be relatively benign on the disease and predator front (as they are extremely unlikely to have native life that are human compatible).

Scope
Human settlement is currently confined to a handful of worlds within less than thirteen light years of Earth. Initially this was determined by the limitations of early interstellar propulsion and settlement technology. Later the extreme difficulty of operating new settlement projects with post collapse population and resource bases had much the same effect although with the upsurge in shipping over the past three to four decades this seems likely to change rapidly.

Resources of space are abundant and easy to get to with fast interstellar capable drives, in both mineral and energy terms, so is the implication that the collapse cut off space which then contributed to the collapse? That seems like an easily reversible fix. So why is it a prolonged problem?

Although for most people the Waste is an unsettling reminder of how hostile the Galaxy is to humanity it still commands a degree of fascination being home in the imagination at least to hidden colonies, alien artefacts and other somewhat unlikely wonders.

Alien artefacts? Do you mean technology or just natural things from alien worlds? Relics of a collapsed alien civilisation might lead to existential angst - which should be good for the space program.