Numbered planets: what method?

[Christopher]

They also bled profusely and suffered cramps without relief every single month.

Not that regularly, since they wouldn't have menstruated when pregnant or when they weren't well enough nourished to ovulate monthly. It was more typical in prehistory for women to menstruate just a few times a year. Indeed, many argue that the regular once-a-month menstrual cycle induced by the birth control pill is unnecessary.

They dealt with crises like food creation and distribution constantly.

Not as much as we tend to assume. While there were periods of famine, on the whole the hunter-gatherer lifestyle could be pretty cushy, providing ample sustenance with relatively minimal labor. Although it's true that women did most of the actual work while men mostly sat around and blustered about how superior they were. I.e. the same as always.

And they were as likely to be hazarded by carnivores and rapacious men as males (let's be honest -- more so).

Rape is another thing that isn't as ubiquitous in traditional cultures as we tend to assume. It's less common in societies with more gender equality, and pre-agrarian cultures were often egalitarian or female-dominated. It was only in sedentary agrarian societies with a stable economic surplus that you saw the development of rigid social hierarchies and inequalities of gender, class, or whatever. Also, my own hypothesis is that once humans began farming and herding and men no longer needed to hunt for food, those aggressive behaviors that evolved for hunting lost their natural outlet and got redirected into war, crime, and sexual violence.


So, about those planets...

 

[Neopeius]

Not that regularly, since they wouldn't have menstruated when pregnant or when they weren't well enough nourished to ovulate monthly. It was more typical in prehistory for women to menstruate just a few times a year. Indeed, many argue that the regular once-a-month menstrual cycle induced by the birth control pill is unnecessary.




Not as much as we tend to assume. While there were periods of famine, on the whole the hunter-gatherer lifestyle could be pretty cushy, providing ample sustenance with relatively minimal labor. Although it's true that women did most of the actual work while men mostly sat around and blustered about how superior they were. I.e. the same as always.




Rape is another thing that isn't as ubiquitous in traditional cultures as we tend to assume. It's less common in societies with more gender equality, and pre-agrarian cultures were often egalitarian or female-dominated. It was only in sedentary agrarian societies with a stable economic surplus that you saw the development of rigid social hierarchies and inequalities of gender, class, or whatever. Also, my own hypothesis is that once humans began farming and herding and men no longer needed to hunt for food, those aggressive behaviors that evolved for hunting lost their natural outlet and got redirected into war, crime, and sexual violence.

Ugh, @Christopher -- of all the posts to be pedantic to.

 

[Christopher]

I don't understand people who see sharing information as "pedantic." How is learning more stuff bad?

 

[Neopeius]

I don't understand people who see sharing information as "pedantic." How is learning more stuff bad?

Not every post needs an "Actually..." Especially that one.

 

[1001001]

Holy crap on a cracker.

All of this can be dropped. Now.

Any further comments on numbering systems for planets in Star Trek?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I don't understand people who see sharing information as "pedantic." How is learning more stuff bad?

Next time you misuse the term "mansplaining" for the twentieth time to refer to another man lecturing you, I want you to think back to this moment, where you pedantically lectured a woman about menstruation when she was trying to dispel misogynistic myths about women from another poster, because what you were doing was actual mansplaining. For future reference, unless you're their gynecologist, just assume that women neither want or need your input on menstruation. Even if you think they made a mistake, just sit this one out, champ.

You were doing so well in thread up until then, too.

ETA: Sorry Digits, I was typing this up as you posted.

Anyway, I think they should name it Planet Bob 1, 2, 3, 4...

Locutus, topical, like a skin infection.

ETA #2: I have been informed that Neopeius is not a woman, so now I feel like a freakin' idiot for making an ass out of u and mption. Christopher, turns out this was a bad example to make my mansplaining point about, so mea culpa.

 

[Neopeius]

Good evening.

Occasionally, an episode of Star Trek (pick a series...any series) will feature a planet with a number, such as Tandaris IV or Rollion 2. Is there any rhyme or reason as to how a planet's position or "rank" is determined...or is this simply a narrative tool used to establish the breadth of the various fictional planetary systems?

Normally, it'd suggest orbital placement. But planets associated with clearly uninhabitable stars like Rigel suggest a different usage. Like "Rigel 12" would be the 12th colony in the "Rigel Sector" which may or may not include the star Rigel.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Except it is bizarre and self-contradictory to call something a dwarf planet while claiming it's not a planet. Dwarf stars are still stars. Dwarf galaxies are still galaxies.

Isn't it somewhat similar in purpose to the term Brown Dwarf for an intermediate step between gas giants and stars, though?

 

[Nerys Myk]

I say leave it to the professionals

And screw you Pluto

 

[MAGolding]

That's misogynistic crap, and I'm not going to talk to you anymore.

You act like it is an insult to womento claim they are not as brave, on the average, as men. Have you ever considered that the world might be amuch better place if men and women were less brave on the average - that humans have a great excess of courage, which enables them to risk their lives to comitt various evil deeds?

 

[Finn]

How about moons? Alph and Beta? Anyone?

 

[Maurice]

ETA #2: I have been informed that Neopeius is not a woman, so now I feel like a freakin' idiot for making an ass out of u and mption. Christopher, turns out this was a bad example to make my mansplaining point about, so mea culpa.

Admitting a mistake confirms my diagnosis that you have happily not contracted a case of Correctile Dysfunction.

Congratulations!

 

[MAGolding]

Normally, it'd suggest orbital placement. But planets associated with clearly uninhabitable stars like Rigel suggest a different usage. Like "Rigel 12" would be the 12th colony in the "Rigel Sector" which may or may not include the star Rigel.

Except that the majority of habitable planets in Star Trek whose named stars are real stars and not fictional ones, orbit stars of stellar classfication which would not be suitable for having human habitable planets..

I note that astronomers were beginning to figure out which types of stars could habitable planets at least as early as the 1950s. Robert A. Heinlein said that main sequence class G stars would be the best from having habitable planets as early as Starman Jones (1953) http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1121 and Time for the Stars (1956) http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?6132

And Habitable Planets for Man (1964), Stephen H. Dole, has a discussion of the proper types of stars on pages 67 to 72. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/commercial_books/2007/RAND_CB179-1.pdf

For example the planet Dytalex B in the the TNG episode "Conspiracy" is said to be planet of the star named Mira, which has the Bayer designation of Omicon Ceti, and is a star very, very unlikely to have habitable planets. Since Mira is not called Omicron Ceti in "Conspiracy' itmight be another star which also has the name Mira and could be suitable for having habitable planets. But the planet visited in the TOS episode "This Side of Paradise" is identified as Omicron Ceti III.

Other examples of planets orbiting stars which are unsuitable for having habitable planets include Alpha Carinae II "The Ultimate Computer", Alpha Eridani "Wolf in the Fold", Beta Germinorum "Who Mourns for Adonais?", Gamma Hydrae IV "The Deadly Years", etc.

Thus one might speculate that in Star Trek advanced ancient aliens have terraformed planets around stars unsuitable to have habitable palnets, and made those planets habitable. I note that even those stars suitable for having habitable planets probably mostly do not because of chance factors in the formation and development of planets making naturally forming habitable planets rather rare. Thus Dole calculated there were probably only about 600 million habitable planets in our galaxy, and probably many scientists consider him over optimistic. But in Star Trek hapbitable planets seemto be many more times s common than they are expected to be. So those terraforming ancient aliens probably also terraformed a lot of planets orbiting stars suitable for having habitable planets.

Another posisble theory is that Star Trek happens in another part of the universe, where humans from another Earth explore the stars. And they have named the sttrs and constellations i n the skyof their homeworld,theirEarth, with the ame names given to stars and constellations on our Earth. But their stars have different luminositys and different distances from their Earth than their equivalents on our Earth, and so many of them of spectral classes acpable of having habitable planets despite their counterparts seen from our earthnot being suitable.

 

[ThankQ]

I have been informed that Neopeius is not a woman

Who's gonna break the bad news to @Neopeius?

 

[1001001]

You act like it is an insult to womento claim they are not as brave, on the average, as men. Have you ever considered that the world might be amuch better place if men and women were less brave on the average - that humans have a great excess of courage, which enables them to risk their lives to comitt various evil deeds?

What part of “this can all be dropped. Now.” was unclear?

I would be well within my authority to give you a formal warning for that.

Please don’t do it again.

 

[Neopeius]

Who's gonna break the bad news to @Neopeius?

Nobody's perfect...

Except that the majority of habitable planets in Star Trek whose named stars are real stars and not fictional ones, orbit stars of stellar classfication which would not be suitable for having human habitable planets..

Which was *literally* what I said:

But planets associated with clearly uninhabitable stars like Rigel suggest a different usage.

 

[Maurice]

Getting back to the OT, I think the simplest explanation for inconsistent naming on the shows is that, hey, different systems were used at different times and perhaps by different planets and civilizations, so bodies in space have inconsistent naming as a result, no matter what the current (to the show) standard is.

BTW, back in the day de Forest Research would often point out weird naming nomenclature and suggest alternates, but the producers did not always heed the advice.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

BTW, back in the day de Forest Research would often point out weird naming nomenclature and suggest alternates, but the producers did not always heed the advice.

I guess you can say they did not see de Forest for de Treks.

And screw you Pluto

 

[Rincewiend]

I don't understand people who see sharing information as "pedantic." How is learning more stuff bad?

Not everybody wants or needs to know everything...
Lots of dangerous information as well...

 

[drt]

Humans also like to name things after other things, so for some of the formal names it seems another explanation might be that more habitable star systems got the same name.

Sure that could lead to confusion, but when our crews are speaking they know the context of the system under discussion (to which we aren't necessarily privy). For example, in the American South anyone speaking about Birmingham is almost certainly talking about the city in Alabama not the one in England.

Which seems to be what Enterprise did for "Rigel", although maybe that name was supposed to be a homonym, I can't remember. Note that my personal preference for Rigel was the actual star with terraformed planets, but I also like @Neopeius's theory about the names being colonies in the Rigel sector. The latter might be at odds with how the it was described in "The Doomsday Machine", but I supposed it's arguable that any planets in the immediate region would have been in danger and that "Rigel system" refers to everything even if it wasn't a single solar system.