Thats what I'd go with - honestly, I'd consider Earth/Luna a double planet system, really....
Did the definition of a planet change between ENT and TOS?
- Thread starter MAGolding
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There's just one post. While it contains phrsses reading "short post:" and "long post:" it's a single very long post.
Or rather, how many! 
I really can't be arsed to read something so long
I like Star Trek, have done for 50 years, but I'm really not all that fussed about the definition of a planet or other such subjects.
No disrespect is meant to the OP, I just don't lose sleep over such things.
It could be weirder. At least Roddenberry's Trek never had a naturally-developed rogue planet without a star yet supporting a lush local ecosystem. Sure, you had planetoids and asteroid ships like Yonada and the Kalandan outpost where the Losira hologram was located but those were artificially-created worlds and thus subject to the: "that's just what advanced alien technology can do" explanation.
A rogue planet with no star but a tropical or subtropical environment and lush life forms is a little harder to swallow.
A rogue planet with no star but a tropical or subtropical environment and lush life forms is a little harder to swallow.
Do you want to write it under every post you didn't read (whether it's because it didn't interest you or because it didn't fit into your concentration range)? Good luck and have fun!
Do you want to write it under every post you didn't read (whether it's because it didn't interest you or because it didn't fit into your concentration range)? Good luck and have fun!
No thanks, have a nice day
Planets with plentiful internal heat, volcanoes emiting carbon dioxide, a warm humid atmostphere with the right balance of green-house gases, plants that require no sunlight,
Easy.
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The problem here doesn't appear to be a pressing one. We never learn what Palamas' percentages are supposed to be. Quite possibly, it's inevitable that every Class M planet in the Milky Way show "signs" of intelligent life: the Milky Way is populated by humanlike folks, for historical reasons, and those would take care to visit Class M planets and leave signs of their presence there.
That doesn't mean that Class M planets would be found in every system, though. If Palamas is already aware that Pollux sports at least a couple of Class M worlds (again potentially likely: if those weren't relatively common to begin with, the humanlike folks would have terraformed a lot of those into existence during the billennia, and they might have concentrated their efforts on given systems, for ease of logistics), then she's quite justified in gasping when these fail to show the "signs". And we have every indication that she has the layout of the system down pat at this point.
T'Pol's 4,300 empty star systems, that is, systems with the average ten planets that are not Class M, would in this model not be included in Palamas' statistics at all. And T'Pol's requirement for the planet to "support" intelligent life is fundamentally different from the planet lacking indications of intelligent life: homeworlds giving birth to intelligence may be rare, but colonies bent by pioneer willpower and blood, sweat and tears to accommodating intelligent life may be significantly more numerous. Indeed, the default assumption might be that a Class M environment is the result of intelligence at work.
Timo Saloniemi
That doesn't mean that Class M planets would be found in every system, though. If Palamas is already aware that Pollux sports at least a couple of Class M worlds (again potentially likely: if those weren't relatively common to begin with, the humanlike folks would have terraformed a lot of those into existence during the billennia, and they might have concentrated their efforts on given systems, for ease of logistics), then she's quite justified in gasping when these fail to show the "signs". And we have every indication that she has the layout of the system down pat at this point.
T'Pol's 4,300 empty star systems, that is, systems with the average ten planets that are not Class M, would in this model not be included in Palamas' statistics at all. And T'Pol's requirement for the planet to "support" intelligent life is fundamentally different from the planet lacking indications of intelligent life: homeworlds giving birth to intelligence may be rare, but colonies bent by pioneer willpower and blood, sweat and tears to accommodating intelligent life may be significantly more numerous. Indeed, the default assumption might be that a Class M environment is the result of intelligence at work.
Timo Saloniemi
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From what we see, it seems likely that most systems have a planet with a functioning ecosphere (plant life or some other source of breathable oxygen), but most don't have native intelligent life. Indeed, most of the other civilisations we see seem to have evolved on fairly harsh planets, though much of Earth would seem equally inhospitable, so the little bits we see might not be typical.
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