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New World - A Trek BBS "Game"

BolianAuthor

Writer, Battlestar Urantia
Rear Admiral
Okay, first of all, if this is not the place for this, a Mod can move it, but I placed this here because it has to do with "hard science" and is meant to be serious.

I have an idea for a Trek BBS "game" that is basically a cross between the Sims and a focus group. My idea is this...

All of us here on the BBS (who wish to play) will participate in the creation of an entirely new world, from absolute scratch. My premise is to take a hypothetical newly-discovered Earth-like planet in the Goldilocks Zone of its parent star (or stars), and basically colonize it, and develop/build it from the ground up.

This means that we could select and choose everything... what types of government(s) we have, what nations we have, civic planning, infrastructure, military, economic system, energy source(s), you name it. The goal being to see how we humans would make our world if we could start with a clean slate today, knowing what we know now about what has worked, and what has not worked.

So to begin with, here are the few particulars I have right now, to clarify and get us started...

- The planet will be Earth-sized, and be named Fortuna, for the Roman Goddess of fortune and luck.

- Fortuna is basically exactly like Earth... only the landforms are different... you CAN come up with new life forms, if you wish, but there is NO intelligent humanoid life that is native.

- Fortuna has two small moons... one almost exactly like Enceladas, and the other almost exactly like Io, and the two moons have polar opposite orbits to each other.

- The Fortuna System has an asteroid belt, along with a few gas giants, and one "Venus-like" planet, as well as an Oort cloud.

- Fortuna orbits a yellow G-Type star just like Sol.

The basic opening scenario is this... the nations of Earth have banded together to fund a massive expedition to Fortuna, in the hope of establishing the first extrasolar human colony. A fleet of massive colony ships set sail from Earth to Fortuna carrying thousands of human colonists, along with all the very basics needed to survive and establish basic settlements from which to begin using native resources to create the new native infrastructure.

Upon arrival and offloading of the colonists and materials, the ships will remain in orbit, cut off from those on the ground, while crews on the ships construct orbital infrastructure, which will link the surface of Fortuna to space, and provide a means from which to access the two moons. Among the orbital infrastructure, will be resources needed to establish resource collection operations on both moons, and travel links from Fortuna to the moons and the orbital infrastructure.

Upon completion of the orbital infrastructure, the colony fleet will depart Fortuna, and head back to Earth, leaving the colonists behind, to do for themselves, and establish their new home on their own. And this is where we come in...

We can collaborate to create an entirely new world, developing everything from individual civic codes and street names, to huge nation and fleet-building... we can create a whole new history on a new world, and like the real world, everyone here would have a hand in it... people of varying opinions, backgrounds, faiths, politics, etc. That makes it more genuine than something just one man comes up with in his imagination.

I imagine the continent layout on Fortuna to be something like this (I used a manipulated image of Jurassic Earth):
fortuna.gif


So, if you would like to give this a try, cool... a Mod can sticky this thread somewhere, and we can start planning life on Fortuna. If not, then oh, well... I figured I'd throw the idea out there anyway. So, what say you all?

- BolianAuthor
 
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*Enceladus
I'm curious about the polar opposite orbits . . . how does that work?


-Though Earth-Sized, Fortuna is less dense. Her radius is 5% larger than Earth, the oceans are 25% deeper, and at the surface, gravity is 0.89G.
 
^

Polar orbit here means that each moon orbits directly opposite to each other around the world... unlike how in a lot of science fiction moons are depicted virtually right next to each other.
 
Well, like I said, if anyone wants to seriously give this a shot, great, otherwise a Mod here can delete it, because I'd rather it not turn into a junk thread.
 
Yep, there's a reason you don't see 2 objects sharing the same orbital path in reality.

As for this thread, it might be better suited to the fanfic or lit thread. Since it is the classic definition of fictional world building.

As for my contribution:

As part of the infrastructure in orbit, the colony ships brought along and installed a beanstalk. This allows for access from ground to space without having to first develop an industry to build craft that can reach orbit.

Before actual planetside colonization begins a wide survey is done of the planet with large areas set aside as "national parks". The most fertile sites are chosen for farmland along with sites for probable mining.
In order to keep the colony from just expanding out from one central location, two "cities" are established from the start. One is the location of the beanstalk and the other the seat of government separated by at least 250 kilometers. The first large works project after establishing farms (gotta have food first) is a rail system between the two cities for cargo/passengers. This will channel colony expansion along the rail corridor much like urban sprawl tends to follow major highways here on Earth.

The beanstalk city will be a hub of transportation and by it's nature located on the equator. Preferential would be a coastal location with a deep harbor.

Should additional colony ships arrive they will be used to start new cities expanding away from the beanstalk or Capital with additional legs of the railway system.
 
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