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Old 01-23-2023, 10:32 AM   #1
jason taylor
 
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Default Gamable Extraplanetary Phenomena

What are some extraplanetary especially space phenomena that can create seed for adventures?
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Old 01-23-2023, 11:35 AM   #2
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Default Re: Gamable Extraplanetary Phenomena

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What are some extraplanetary especially space phenomena that can create seed for adventures?
My immediate thought is 'astrophysicists have noted worrying behavior in a local star, indicating that it may go nova soon, causing significant problems for not only that system, but any nearby.'
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Old 01-23-2023, 11:59 AM   #3
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Default Re: Gamable Extraplanetary Phenomena

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What are some extraplanetary especially space phenomena that can create seed for adventures?
Rogue black holes, which would be detectable only by gravitational phenomena as they have no nearby mass falling in to cause them to radiate.

Or, for something a little smaller scale, even a rogue trans-Jovian planet could be a serious danger if it drifted into an inhabited system. Imagine if 'Oumuamua had been half again the mass of Jupiter...
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Old 01-23-2023, 02:00 PM   #4
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Default Re: Gamable Extraplanetary Phenomena

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My immediate thought is 'astrophysicists have noted worrying behavior in a local star, indicating that it may go nova soon, causing significant problems for not only that system, but any nearby.'
Eh, this one depends on how high the Science! dials have been set.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_Nebula

......is all about the Crab Nebula which is certainly our most studied supernova remnant.

In a long, long ago Space game I had the PC's get a copy of an ancient text that could jocularly be described as an issue of "Scientific Forerunner" talking all about a "new" outpost circling a small red dwarf near the rather large star (c. 10 solar masses) that eventually exploded and became the Crab Nebula.

Calculations revealed that the expanding nebula was going to engulf that red dwarf and it's incredibly valuable Forerunner base very soon so off my PCs went.

This was not terribly hard science-y. Even back then I knew that nothing too terrible would happen to the star but you could wave your hands about "navigational difficulties" or something.

Science-y problems that would be most likely to pop up are that supernova candidate stars are not at common and rather conspicuous too. I know Prince Charon only said "nova" rather than "supernova" but nova stars are pretty obvious too and only energetic enough to threaten their own planets. A good supernova would threaten it's neighboring systems with high energy radiation when it exploded. ISTR something about 50 light-years being the danger zone.
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Old 01-23-2023, 02:15 PM   #5
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Default Re: Gamable Extraplanetary Phenomena

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Rogue black holes, which would be detectable only by gravitational phenomena as they have no nearby mass falling in to cause them to radiate.
Don't black holes evaporate if they don't have any mass to "feed" on? Or can they "survive" for a while on internal reserves from matter they've previously "eaten," without spitting out any detectable radiation? If so, that could certainly be an interesting encounter!

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Or, for something a little smaller scale, even a rogue trans-Jovian planet could be a serious danger if it drifted into an inhabited system. Imagine if 'Oumuamua had been half again the mass of Jupiter...
I think I've seen some settings where the characters discover a star system where a large mass passing through has severely disturbed the orbits of many of the celestial bodies. To be clear, the large mass didn't even hit anything, but it had sufficient mass, and got sufficiently close to one or more bodies, that its gravity threw them off-kilter.
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Old 01-23-2023, 02:21 PM   #6
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Default Re: Gamable Extraplanetary Phenomena

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Don't black holes evaporate if they don't have any mass to "feed" on? Or can they "survive" for a while on internal reserves from matter they've previously "eaten," without spitting out any detectable radiation? If so, that could certainly be an interesting encounter!
eventually they evaporate, yes, but it takes a while.... one the mass of the sun would take 10^67 years to "evaporate". which is a stupid amount of time.
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Old 01-23-2023, 02:40 PM   #7
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Default Re: Gamable Extraplanetary Phenomena

A visitor to the solar system like Oumuamua could be interesting. A hard SF game might involve dealing with a too-close-for-comfort trajectory, or sending a team to taking samples or investigate inexplicable radio signals coming from it. A cosmic horror game might make it something whose presence "makes the stars right" for some awful event to become possible. A dungeon fantasy game might give it a treatment similar to Deep Night and the Star.
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Old 01-23-2023, 08:39 PM   #8
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Default Re: Gamable Extraplanetary Phenomena

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eventually they evaporate, yes, but it takes a while.... one the mass of the sun would take 10^67 years to "evaporate". which is a stupid amount of time.
Yes, though the larger the black hole the slower the evaporation rate and the reverse.

Some years ago at least there was some hope for sub-solar mass black holes formed some time in the early universe. One of those of about a billion tons of mass would just now be finishing its' "evaporation" process (Hawking radiation).

At long ranges it'd only have the gravitational pull of an asteroid a mile in diameter. The event horizon of such a black hole is so small that it has trouble absorbing mass at any significant rate.
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Old 01-24-2023, 01:03 AM   #9
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Default Re: Gamable Extraplanetary Phenomena

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eventually they evaporate, yes, but it takes a while.... one the mass of the sun would take 10^67 years to "evaporate". which is a stupid amount of time.
OTOH, if somebody had created tiny black holes artificially, their final stage of evaporation would look remarkably bomb-like.
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Old 01-24-2023, 01:09 AM   #10
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Default Re: Gamable Extraplanetary Phenomena

A space crew in interplanetary space could find themselves in quite realistic trouble if the radiation front of a relatively nearby supernova arrived while they were in interplanetary space. Radiation levels too low to be dangerous on the surface could be quite problematic in open space.

Sol doesn't have any likely supernova candidates very close right now, but a different star system might.

A gamma ray burst at the right distance could likewise be dangerous in space even if it was safe at sea level.

A Carrington-style solar burst might do nasty things to a spaceship's electronic systems, and likely to the crew, too.
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