Guide to Planets and Travel

[Roger]

Guide to Planets and Travel

So you've seen the map thread and after finally getting past that overwhelming feeling you realized you have no idea how to understand it. There's a scale down in the bottom right of each image but what the hell is an AU, right? This thread will help you better understand the 'Verse you're living in.


Index

• Terraforming
  
• Distance and Speed
  
• Communications
  
• Ship Engines

[Roger]

Terraforming

What is Terraforming and why should I care?
Terraforming is the process of modifying a planet or moon to make it habitable, i.e. to shape it to be Earth-like. The process includes altering the atmosphere, temperature, topography, ecology, and even the axial tilt and rotation to create an environment suitable for human habitation. It is the transformation of lifeless worlds into new Earths regardless of their distance from the sun, lack of any atmosphere to speak of, or other peculiarities that prohibit human habitation.

The ‘Verse is not an anomalous garden in space with hundreds of habitable worlds clustered together. Before the exodus of humanity to 34 Tauri (the ‘Verse star cluster) all worlds and moons were uninhabitable. It has been over the course of nearly 300 years that humanity has spread and converted nearly the entirety of the ‘Verse into habitable worlds, truly a masterpiece of science and engineering.


What occurs during Terraforming?
The process of terraforming includes these basic steps:

• Increasing or decreasing the gravity (by altering planet density) to equal that of Earth-That-Was.
  
• Barren landscapes need to be sculpted into continents and seas, mountains and plains.
  
• Atmospheric gases need to be adjusted/mixed/vented to achieve a balance suitable to human habitation.
  
• Barren rock needs to be turned into soil that can support cultivation.
  
• Plant and animal life is introduced.
  
• Planetary tilt and rotation are tweaked to give each world four seasons on a 365.25 day cycle, and a 24 hour daily rotation.
  
• Long term atmospheric processing stations are established to monitor the world and to periodically adjust and maintain equilibrium after the shaping of a new Earth has been completed.

Why is everything terraformed to such specificity?
As you can see from the above list, there is a great deal of standardization in terraforming. Every world is intended to be as Earth-like as possible, but that doesn’t mean that the process is perfect. Some worlds end up colder or more arid than others. Some have large oceans while others are very mountainous. Some worlds develop unique diseases and other anomalies during terraforming. So as similar as all the worlds are, they each take on a slightly unique character.

The reason for the standardization is simple. These worlds needs to support life from Earth-that-was including both human life as well as plant and animal life. Crops from Earth cannot survive on a world that has no seasons or abnormally short or long seasons, nor could they live on a world that has incredibly long days and thus very long periods of darkness. Animals would not fare much better with natural behavior to sleep during a normal length night, to migrate and breed during normal length seasons, etc. Humans would do better than plants and animals but it would still be difficult to adjust to such conditions.

Furthermore, in an interstellar society such as that which exists in the ‘Verse, it would be nearly impossible to accurately keep time across worlds without standardization. Without terraforming “day” and “year” would be measured differently on every world. A calendar could not be accurately kept between worlds. And if you think jet lag between timezones is bad, try flying to a new world and have to adjust to their much longer day and season cycles only to return to your homeworld a few days later and have to readjust.

The standardization does not end there. All terraformed worlds have gravity between 0.95G and 1.05G (95-105% that of Earth-That-Was's gravity). Therefore, although some places might have noticeably higher or lower gravity than normal, nowhere is too extreme i.e. no one is going to be bouncing around as they walk nor will you be crushed under your own weight. And adjustments to the atmosphere do not only allow for breathable air but to control temperature too.


Terrafromed or not Terraformed?
Although humanity has terraformed much of the ‘Verse, some areas remain un-terraformed. As technology has advanced and more resources have become available for terraforming, nearly every planet that could be terraformed has been, is currently being terraformed, or is scheduled for terraforming.

However, not all of these projects are completed or even started. Some moons and asteroids are also too small and insignificant to warrant the effort of terraforming. Also, not every planet is capable of being terraformed. Although the technology can and has transformed many varying worlds into new Earths, there are still limitations, namely mass. There is a point where a planet is too big or a moon is too small for it to be properly terraformed.

Londinium is just about as large as worlds can be without becoming too large to terraform. The technology limit is an inability to alter the density to properly mimic that of Earth-That-Was. Planets larger than 1.4 times Earth-That-Was and moons .067 times smaller than the Moon are outside the acceptable range. This means that any very large planets (gas giants included) are simply impossible to terraform. Unfortunately, these lessons are not merely theoretical. Six Sigma and Ita are prime examples of terraforming failures at either end of the spectrum.


Helioforming
Gas giants can not be terraformed due to their enormous masses, however, some are capable of being helioformed (i.e. being shaped into a star similar to the Sun of Earth-that-was). The ‘Verse originally had but five stars, the centers of each of the five systems. All additional stars currently found in the ‘Verse are former proto-star gas giants that were helioformed.

[Roger]

Distance and Speed

Astronomical Unit
An AU is equal to 149,597,870.691 km or 92,955,807.267 miles. Too big, random, and impossible to remember? How about this: 1 AU is the distance from Earth-That-Was to the Sun. (Cue “Ooooohhh.”) AU is a much easier term to visualize and work with than kilometers yet it’s still large enough for us to work in the massive distances of space.


Speed of Light
The Speed of Light is 1,079,252,848.8 km/h or 670,616,629.38 mph. Yikes! Naturally that is the speed that light travels through space and theoretically (in the Firefly universe at least) the fastest anything can possibly go. For reference, light takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds to travel between the Sun to Earth (that was) which is a distance of 1 AU. Presented another way, light travels at 1 AU per 500 seconds, or 7.2 AU/hr.


Relative Distances in the ‘Verse
The entire ‘Verse at its maximum extent is 338.75 AU across (Miranda to Salisbury when the two are completely polarized from each other). White Sun is the largest system in the ‘Verse with a radius of 43 AU (for reference, the Sol system (our solar system) is about the same size from the Sun out to Pluto). Kalidasa is the smallest with a 14.35 AU radius (about halfway between Uranus and Neptune in our Solar System). This might seem like a lot, but the ‘Verse is really quite compact as you can see in the map thread.


Space Travel
Although some TV shows have faster than light travel, Firefly has no such technology. All space travel is at a speed less than light-speed. In fact, fast as it is, the average ship in Firefly goes much slower than light speed. There are no firm canon numbers, but for simplicity’s sake and with an eye toward good RP (i.e. slow enough so it takes time to get places but fast enough so it doesn't take forever) the standard speed for an up-to-date, well maintained ship is 1 AU/hr (149,597,871 km/hr or 92,955,807 mph, alternatively 0.0000098254 ly/hr or about 2/15ths of light speed). You can always go slower than that and you can also go a little bit faster (for short distances at the cost of more wear on the engine and more fuel expended). Big heavy ships and tiny under equipped might go much slower while top-of-the-line experimental military vessels might go much faster but 1AU/hr is the standard and makes for easy math.

Remember the distance figures up above? That means it would take nearly four days to go from one end of White Sun to the other, a little over one day to go from one end of Kalidassa to the other, and about 14 days to go from one end of the ‘Verse to the other. Remember that all of this is assuming a straight line (i.e. not dodging any military patrols, Reaver or pirate hotspot areas, navigational anomalies, etc.) and no stops along the way.

For more information about how exactly engines work, keep reading this thread.

[Roger]

Communications

Communication in the ‘Verse is NOT instantaneous. Ever seen the movie Red Planet with Val Kilmer and Carrie-Ann Moss? Remember how there is that communications lag between the ship and Earth? That’s because communication waves take time to travel vast distances. When we’re all on one planet, communication seems instantaneous because we’re all so close, but the further out you move, the greater the lag in communication becomes. First it's not noticeable, then there are a few seconds lag, and soon it becomes impossible to have a conversation.

Again, like ship speed there is no hard canon figure to put on this but for the sake of ease we are going to declare that communications can be sent via light beam through satellite relays on the cortex and thus can move at the speed of light (7.2 AU/hr) or damn close to it. That means that a message to a nearby planet might take a few minutes, a message to a nearby system might take a few hours, and a message across the ‘Verse would take nearly two full days. A message is always going to arrive faster than a ship, but this time lag is still something to consider from things as small as personal correspondence to something major like notification that the Unification War ended yesterday.

Remember those numbers above are just going one way. To send a message and then get a reply back it would take twice as long. This is why other than local communications, most waves are prerecorded vids.

[Roger]

Ship Engines

Planetary Drive AKA Jet/Rocket Engine
This is a conventional engine much like any type of airplane or even the space shuttle uses. It is used for atmospheric flight from one point on a planet to another. It is also used by ships when they enter and leave atmosphere. Once you've broken atmosphere, however, you should stop using this engine (*Except for maneuvering in extreme circumstances when your basic directional thrusters aren't enough e.g. in combat).

The engine is basically just a huge combustion of Hydrogen (H₂) with Oxygen (O₂) injected for added speed. As the speed and altitude of the craft increase, the engine goes through various phases transitioning from jet to rocket.

With a "lead foot" these ships can go REALLY fast. They can easily fly super sonic within atmo and when reaching escape velocity they can reach upwards of Mach 50. However, keep in mind that the planetary drive burns fuel "like a mo'fo'." For those of you not following, that mean's it's expensive as hell. Space ships are typically not as aerodynamic as intra-atmosphere airplanes. They glide like a cinderblock, and thus they require constant thrust to merely stay aloft.

As fast as Mach 50 sounds, the ship can actually go 2500 times faster than that.


Interplanetary Drive AKA Pulse Engine
Once a ship has broken atmo, it switches to this form of propulsion. A pulse engine gets its name because the engine very literally fires pulses out the rear to propel it. These pulses are actually thermonuclear explosions occurring within the ship. Rather than igniting hydrogen fuel as the planetary drives do, this drive is propelled by Hydrogen fusion.

The secret to how this manages to super-propel ships through space rather than blowing them up is the gravity drive (more on this below). In simplest terms, the gravity drive creates a shield between the reaction and the ship while simultaneously directing the force of the pulse backward. This makes the ship jump forward at incredible speeds while dissipating heat and radiation away so it doesn't kill everyone on board (unless you're a reaver and like a healthy bit of radiation leaking out into the ship). The interplanetary drive is MUCH faster than the planetary drive and also uses less fuel. There is, however, very little maneuverability while traveling on a pulse.

You also can't fire a pulse while in atmo (going "full burn"). First of all it's likely to be very bad for you and your ship. In a worst case scenario as the pulse is fired, it creates a "blow back" in atmo and the gravity drive doesn't save you from blowing up. If you're lucky enough that you don't blow up, there will still be an incredible shockwave that will likely cripple your ship. You then may or may not blow up as a result (or you will vent atmo, die from the concussion, drift through space if you managed to break atmo from the failed pulse, or if you didn't break atmo die when your ship crashes to the surface).

Okay, so it's bad for the people doing the pulse. It's also bad for the planet/moon you do it over. Keep in mind that this is like detonating a nuclear weapon. That city you just took off from now got vented with the heat of the explosion, the incredible shockwave, and tons of radiation for good measure. Unsurprisingly, if you actually survive the ordeal, you'll typically be executed by the authorities for doing it. Fortunately, all drives have safety measures so they will not function until at a safe distance (these safeties can theoretically be tampered with but who in their right mind would do that?).


Gravity Drive AKA Ship Core
The gravity drive is the key to modern interstellar flight. (The gravity drive is that big spinning thing.) It serves four primary functions:

• Gravity Generation - The drive creates artificial gravity for the ship. People can walk around the ship as if they were on a planet, they can work with ease, they can shower, cook, etc. all without things floating away. It facilitates all the things you take for granted.
  
• Equilibrium - On a long steady flight, artificial gravity is easy. However, when transitioning from weightless space to planetary atmosphere, when suddenly changing course or decelerating in deep space, or when performing any maneuvers in atmosphere (see "loop-de-loop") that gravity is going to count for shit. With the aid of smaller gravity dampeners throughout the ship, the drive helps to manage these changes and keep people and items from flying all over the place.
  
  The system is far from perfect. Often you might feel a slight jolt as the internal ship gravity conflicts with the external gravity. In extreme conditions, you might want to buckle yourself in because the dampeners are going to do jack shit. However, the key is that the gravity drive and dampeners err on the side of no gravity rather than conflicting gravity. That means that you might get tossed around a bit inside as the system cuts out briefly, but you are never going to have your head explode nor is the ship going to crack and buckle from the forces fighting each other.
  
• Maneuvering - The gravity drive assists the imprecise ship engines in actually driving the ship and steering in the right direction. Without the gravity drive, space ships would be a lot more sluggish. They also ensure that the ships don't tear themselves apart from their own engines. Many ships have external engines like the Firefly that if left alone without a gravity drive's protection, would quite literally break off from their small anchoring wings when firing at maximum thrust. The gravity drive helps better distribute that force across the entire ship.
  
• Containment/Propulsion - As mentioned above, the gravity drive also serves the important purpose of keeping the ship from blowing up. Without a gravity drive, the pulse drive would merely be a big suicide machine. The drive both shields the ships from the pulse and also focuses it into a usable burst of speed.
  
  Fortunately, gravity drive failure is not a death sentence (although it can be). If the drive fails in between pulses then the ship is merely "dead in the water" until it can be fixed. If it fails during a pulse then a failing drive will "go out a hero" by using its last hurrah to focus on shielding the ship. In most cases this is enough protection to allow a crew to abandon ship and reach a necessary safe distance. And of course, not every issue is a total failure. Sometimes the drive simply doesn't function properly and might leak small amounts of radiation or something of that sort. Bad as that is, there have been no recorded incidents of such leaks seriously irradiating anyone before being detected. If ignored it can cause serious issues but again, there is always the chance to abandon ship in the event of a horrible leak or for lesser leaks one can always attempt (and often succeed) in repairing it.