Author Topic: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.  (Read 8703 times)

Sir Chaos

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #30 on: 21 November 2017, 09:20:14 »
Umm, no they didn't.

What they did was quantify the requirements to be a planet, in the process of defining not only a planet, but a dwarf planet, planetoid, proto planet etc actually were. This is one of the biggest steps in science, definitions. Without a definition, you can't be sure that every one of you is on the same page while conducting scientific research.

And poor Pluto paid the price for the advancement of science. Its sacrifice will not be forgotten.  :'(
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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #31 on: 21 November 2017, 09:24:04 »
Well, it was just a mickey mouse planet. Who can take that seriously.  ;D

I wonder if here will be enough confirmations to warrant a space probe (within my life time...) to be sent out there once they narrow in where thing is orbiting.
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Ruger

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #32 on: 21 November 2017, 11:03:01 »
Umm, no they didn't.

What they did was quantify the requirements to be a planet, in the process of defining not only a planet, but a dwarf planet, planetoid, proto planet etc actually were. This is one of the biggest steps in science, definitions. Without a definition, you can't be sure that every one of you is on the same page while conducting scientific research.

IIRC, that definition included that it was large enough to clear its orbit of most debris...however, if this so-called planet IX is in the Kuiper Belt, would it actually be a planet (as its orbit would probably not be cleared of debris)? Or do we have a large gap in the Belt?

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Charistoph

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #33 on: 21 November 2017, 11:39:38 »
Umm, no they didn't.

What they did was quantify the requirements to be a planet, in the process of defining not only a planet, but a dwarf planet, planetoid, proto planet etc actually were. This is one of the biggest steps in science, definitions. Without a definition, you can't be sure that every one of you is on the same page while conducting scientific research.

More that they refined the definition to add more qualifications.  There already was one for planet, even if it wasn't as tightly defined as what they are using today.

Again, if such a definition was altered once, it can be altered again.  That's even assuming that the Earth that grew into the Star League even bothered making such a redefinition to exclude Pluto in the first place.
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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #34 on: 22 November 2017, 03:24:37 »
Wouldn't the gasses freeze solid at those incredibly low temperatures?  The surface could be frozen methane or ammonia.

If it's big enough to qualify as a gas giant, pressure insure that it has a gaseous atmosphere due to the relationship between pressure and temperature of gasses.
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Nightlord01

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #35 on: 22 November 2017, 06:34:42 »
And poor Pluto paid the price for the advancement of science. Its sacrifice will not be forgotten.  :'(

I've never understood this attitude. Pluto doesn't give a damn what we call it, so why are people upset about it?

More that they refined the definition to add more qualifications.  There already was one for planet, even if it wasn't as tightly defined as what they are using today.

Again, if such a definition was altered once, it can be altered again.  That's even assuming that the Earth that grew into the Star League even bothered making such a redefinition to exclude Pluto in the first place.

More that the definition in place was not a scientific definition, only a literary one. So as far a scientists were concerned, we didn't have one. To be honest I probably would have preferred removal of the term planet and just used orbital bodies. /shrug.

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #36 on: 22 November 2017, 07:19:17 »
As I understood the issue, the need for a definition came to a head with the discovery of Eris (initially called "Xena" by its discoverer, who was a fan of the show).  Eris is further out than Pluto, but roughly the same size (about 50 km smaller in diameter).  So, does Eris/Xena get added to all the solar system charts?  Do we add every rock of sufficient size later found out in the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud to the charts?  Or do we settle on definitions of what qualifies as a Planet vs. a Dwarf Planet, and then simplify the solar system charts by dropping the dwarves. 

There's no argument for continuing to include Pluto that would exclude Eris/Xena.  Many argued for including everything - Eris, Haumea, etc., but the charting authorities ended up on the side of simplifying and having less clutter. 
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Charistoph

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #37 on: 22 November 2017, 15:17:13 »
More that the definition in place was not a scientific definition, only a literary one. So as far a scientists were concerned, we didn't have one. To be honest I probably would have preferred removal of the term planet and just used orbital bodies. /shrug.

The people who came up with the original definition were scientists, albeit without the same tools that we had in the 1990s.  It wasn't people who were like Samuel Clemens who were the first ones to calling objects like Mars and Jupiter, planets, after all.

If the Eris case is the situation as Mendrugo states, it makes more sense.  At lot of time redefinitions come about because of new information that causes a restructuring.  If it was a method of providing a better title to an object which provides more detail because of that new information, then great.  But just to retitle it to just retitle it, no, I don't buy it.

But again, that doesn't change the basic question, if we can redefine it in 1990, then why can't they redefine it in 2290 so that Pluto is back to being Planet IX leaving that gravitic body back to Planet X?
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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #38 on: 22 November 2017, 15:26:17 »
It wasn't just about Eris.  Other considerations went into the determination, like Pluto's extremely oblong orbit, the fact that it has a moon of nearly the same mass as it and they both orbit space between the two instead of Charon orbiting Pluto, and that it hasn't swept the area of its orbit clear of debris since its mass is so low that it doesn't have the gravitational attraction necessary to pull in most of the smaller rocks in its vicinity.  So while it could theoretically get redefined into planethood some time in the future, it's unlikely.
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Tai Dai Cultist

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #39 on: 22 November 2017, 15:27:52 »
It also remains unproven that in the BTU, Pluto ever was demoted from full planet status.   1990 is beyond the point of divergence already for the BTU from the real world history.  The Soviet Union, for example, collapses in 1988 rather than 1991 in the BTU.  More profoundly, there was never 9/11 in the BTU and in the real world we didn't fight the Second Soviet Civil War from 2011-2014.

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #40 on: 22 November 2017, 15:28:46 »
If the Eris case is the situation as Mendrugo states, it makes more sense. 
In fact Eris was given its name (mostly) because of what it triggered.

Eris = Greek goddess of discord

And there was a lot of discord.
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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #41 on: 22 November 2017, 20:40:13 »
It also remains unproven that in the BTU, Pluto ever was demoted from full planet status.   1990 is beyond the point of divergence already for the BTU from the real world history.  The Soviet Union, for example, collapses in 1988 rather than 1991 in the BTU.  More profoundly, there was never 9/11 in the BTU and in the real world we didn't fight the Second Soviet Civil War from 2011-2014.
Fewer and fewer players go that far back in the BTU timeline (I just fudge the numbers myself) and it just goes to my original point: it's a game with very little invested in real world astronomy. We may never terraform Mars, doesn't mean we should retcon Martian colonies.
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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #42 on: 25 November 2017, 05:14:03 »
I'd like to think that Pluto and co would be used as research stations early on but basically ignored later as it becomes easier to get resources from elsewhere.  Planet 9, lets call it Vulcan is a rocky world but due to its huge gravity is uninhabitable and whilst an object of scientific curosity that has long since passed.

The belters however made use of the various Plutino's as we know there's over a Billion belters out there in the sol system.  A small world like Sedna even if its resource poor would probably be more comfortable to live on than a ship or something. 
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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #43 on: 25 November 2017, 05:50:02 »
Fewer and fewer players go that far back in the BTU timeline (I just fudge the numbers myself) and it just goes to my original point: it's a game with very little invested in real world astronomy. We may never terraform Mars, doesn't mean we should retcon Martian colonies.

Uhh, I really can't understand what you are talking about here. Are you supporting the fact that the BTU has already diverged from current reality or denying it? What does it matter if you fudge the figures yourself?

Sure, players don't go that far back, to be honest most never did, and even fewer cared. But it's undeniable that the BTU and reality diverged explicitly quite a long time ago, you even support this yourself. And while players by and large just don't care, the canon of the universe in no way follows current reality.

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #44 on: 25 November 2017, 21:40:42 »
What does it matter if you fudge the figures yourself?
It doesn't matter, it's just my own head canon. My whole point is that it doesn't matter for the table top considering most player don't go past the SL era, maybe AoW.
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cray

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #45 on: 26 November 2017, 12:15:56 »
Wouldn't it be Planet 10/X if 1980's future would still consider Pluto a planet?

After all, if we can decide on a whim to reclassify Pluto to a dwarf planet, why can't they just reclassify it as a planet later on?

In Strategic Operation, p. 133, I didn't list Pluto on the planetary transit times list because it had been demoted from planetary status. Also, Neptune and the Kuiper Belt bracketed its transit times, so it wasn't necessary to list it.
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Tai Dai Cultist

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #46 on: 26 November 2017, 12:57:00 »
In Strategic Operation, p. 133, I didn't list Pluto on the planetary transit times list because it had been demoted from planetary status. Also, Neptune and the Kuiper Belt bracketed its transit times, so it wasn't necessary to list it.

Is your decision to omit Pluto from transit times implicitly saying that Pluto was also demoted in the BTU as well as the real world, or a recognition of there being no militarily or commercially viable reason to go to Pluto?

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #47 on: 27 November 2017, 17:01:52 »
Is your decision to omit Pluto from transit times implicitly saying that Pluto was also demoted in the BTU as well as the real world, or a recognition of there being no militarily or commercially viable reason to go to Pluto?

Yes. ;)

Note that most of the BT books to ever mention Pluto (Sol's planet-ish thing) were Campaign Operations and the ATOW:Companion in their respective system generation rules, and JHS:Terra's chapter on the Terran system, which I wrote.

In JHS:Terra, I specifically called Pluto a planet: "Beyond and about Neptune is another asteroid belt of icy wordlets, the Kuiper Belt, of which the ninth planet Pluto is a member, and far beyond the Kuiper Belt is the prototypical Oort Cloud."

Meanwhile, in the system generation rules of CO and ATOW:C, I referred to Pluto as a dwarf terrestrial planet. "Dwarf terrestrial planets (in this document) are individual small bodies of rock or ice separate from an asteroid belt, but large enough to form a sphere due to their own gravity (for example, Pluto or PSR B1257+12’s companion A). Note that asteroid belts may come with dwarf terrestrials (see Step 3a)."

Apparently, I changed my opinion between Campaign Operations and JHS:Terra, and I don't remember which opinion was final. I'd say it's open to further interpretation. :)

Interstellar Operations (and identical wording in Liberation of Terra I) and a different author mentioned Pluto in the context of SDS Drones ("M-6: This drone was a failed attempt to outfit a Texas battleship with an SDS control system. The size of the ship proved too daunting to wire with the advanced control systems and the only prototype was destroyed when it slammed itself into Pluto.")

Another Pluto is Quatre Belle's moon, and the Pluto Division (151st Mechanized) in the original SLDF. All other references to "pluto" appear either in the word "plutonium" or variations of "plutocracy."
« Last Edit: 27 November 2017, 18:39:28 by cray »
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SteelRaven

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #48 on: 27 November 2017, 18:05:10 »
Wow, I'm actually surprised there was that much about the icy rock in BT.
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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #49 on: 27 November 2017, 20:09:18 »
I'd hate see the mess that Texas would have done to Pluto when it thrusted fully into the planet.
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cray

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #50 on: 27 November 2017, 20:33:42 »
I'd hate see the mess that Texas would have done to Pluto when it thrusted fully into the planet.

Skipping over phrasing, I'd guessing a splat a couple kilometers wide in the mushy, pink nitrogen ice.
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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #51 on: 29 November 2017, 22:09:14 »
Wouldn't the gasses freeze solid at those incredibly low temperatures?  The surface could be frozen methane or ammonia.


there was a good show on Science Channel a few months back about the possiblilities of Planet 9 (it may still be on OnDemand if you have access).  When it came to the small Gas Giant possibility, it got interesting

Most of the gasses, the methane, ammonia and such, would freeze, forming a tight frozen core.  But even ot the low temperatures out there, lighter gasses like Helium and Hydrogen would stay a gas.  And since those are semi-translucent, it would give the appearence of a shimmering but transparent halo around the core.  Phil Plait compared it to a deep sea jellyfish in appearence.
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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #52 on: 30 November 2017, 17:12:46 »

So it would be a possible refueling site for BT?

But I don't know if BT can build cloud scoops (satellites that harvest gas through long tubes).
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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #53 on: 30 November 2017, 18:16:37 »
So it would be a possible refueling site for BT?

But I don't know if BT can build cloud scoops (satellites that harvest gas through long tubes).

It would be pointless if there was nothing else out there to go to.  Aside from being very well clear of the solar jump limit and research possibilities, a refueling post would be pointless.
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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #54 on: 30 November 2017, 22:48:04 »
The problem with using Pluto (or Planet 9 or X, whatever) as a refueling stop is that its orbit is so huge that even if there was something interesting out there, the planet will only rarely be "nearby" it.

That's not to say the outer reaches of the Sol system aren't uninhabited at all. There are Belters in the Oort cloud, and once some "Periphery separatists" tried to build a nuke plant there. Those kinds of folk want the isolation, of course. The main problem with putting Stuff in the Kuiper belt and beyond is that, due to how BattleTech's space craft work, they might as well be in another solar system. Put it this way: if you're going to need to use a JumpShip anyway, why not go someplace nice instead of some dark, icy rocks?
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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #55 on: 01 December 2017, 10:28:22 »
Put it this way: if you're going to need to use a JumpShip anyway, why not go someplace nice instead of some dark, icy rocks?
....most likely some dark, POISONOUS icy rocks.  A frozen lump of methane and ammonia, surrounded by clouds of hydrogen and helium, sounds like a bad place to spend one's "quality time".  Basically, there's not much reason to go there, and plenty of reasons not to, even if it's technically possible.

Let's see, we could go there for the frozen gasses, but they're far easier to get closer in the system on several moons around Jupiter or Saturn.  We can suck up the free gasses, but those are easy enough to either separate from other materials or get elsewhere.  We can hunt for some kind of rare and valuable materials, but the odds are highly against any being there versus on the inner planets with cores of much denser substances.  We can look for alien artifacts or some sort of unexplainable phenomena, but the odds of finding anything of the sort on that kind of planetoid are slim to none for a long list of reasons (including all of the same ones that make it such a bad candidate for anything else).  That leaves "the view", and it would have to be pretty spectacular and unique to make someone take a jumpship to some desolate fringe of the solar system with no other purpose for the trip.

I'm not about to invest my retirement savings in a holiday resort there, or a mining operation, to put it mildly.

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Re: Planet number 9 and how it could affect the Btech Sol system.
« Reply #56 on: 01 December 2017, 15:13:31 »
But I don't know if BT can build cloud scoops (satellites that harvest gas through long tubes).

Strategic Operations p. 141 says that diving into gas giants isn't done. Other methods of getting hydrogen out of gas giants might be feasible like the suggested cloud scoops, but why bother when you can mine their moons for ice and hydrogen for much less trouble?

What spacecraft don’t do is dip into gas giants for a quick
refill. The gaseous, impure hydrogen of gas giants would need
all the same processing equipment as cometary hydrogen extraction,
and more: a means of collecting, compressing, and
liquefying the purified hydrogen, plus all the modifications
needed to send a ship slamming into the atmosphere of a
gas giant. ... it’s much easier just to visit a comet and hack out
some water ice boulders.
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**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.