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How long does terraforming take?
- Thread starter Fay
- Start date
MoonMan
Inactive Member
I'm not sure Star Army even has a terraforming procedure.
I know Nepleslia doesn't bother with large-scale terraforming; if it's not near-instantly livable, then that just means less cheap apartments and hot-dog stands and more room for mining rigs. Yamatai might have a method of terraforming, but so far I haven't really seen it in play.
I know Nepleslia doesn't bother with large-scale terraforming; if it's not near-instantly livable, then that just means less cheap apartments and hot-dog stands and more room for mining rigs. Yamatai might have a method of terraforming, but so far I haven't really seen it in play.
Fred
Retired Staff
It goes at the speed of plot.
More precisely, it makes more sense for it to take years or even decades... but I think I recall the YSS Nozomi terraforming a planet on its own - New Kohana. It didn't sound like it took more than days or weeks.
Conflictingly, the Kohanians on the planet were considerably older than a couple of days or weeks =P
* * *
My take would be that Wes would need to come in this thread and re-evaluate the whole thing for consistency's sake.
More precisely, it makes more sense for it to take years or even decades... but I think I recall the YSS Nozomi terraforming a planet on its own - New Kohana. It didn't sound like it took more than days or weeks.
Conflictingly, the Kohanians on the planet were considerably older than a couple of days or weeks =P
* * *
My take would be that Wes would need to come in this thread and re-evaluate the whole thing for consistency's sake.
It would depend on the technology being used. Using the ultimate terraforming tool, Nodal technology, it would just be a matter of how much energy you had to create the nano-machines to alter the environment. Otherwise, it could take a considerable amount of time, depending on the starting condition of the planet and the desired state.
This is all I could find:
https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?do=se ... =terraform
https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?do=se ... rraforming
None of these seem to have a timeframe listed. I imagine with SARP tech, it'd take 2-5 years.
There's also a bunch of mentions on the wiki.Destiny Colonization Starship said:
https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?do=se ... =terraform
https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?do=se ... rraforming
None of these seem to have a timeframe listed. I imagine with SARP tech, it'd take 2-5 years.
Zack
Inactive Member
You could make a planet's atmosphere 'livable' in a matter of days.
Of course you'd have to do it the real way instead of relying on slower nanomachines. In a nutshell, grab a bunch of comets with your FTL drive and smash them into the planet. The chemical reactions would produce Oxygen and Water. You wouldn't even need to use FTL drives if you know the chemical composition of the planet's atmosphere and have enough of the appropriate elements when you arrive.
Of course you'd have to do it the real way instead of relying on slower nanomachines. In a nutshell, grab a bunch of comets with your FTL drive and smash them into the planet. The chemical reactions would produce Oxygen and Water. You wouldn't even need to use FTL drives if you know the chemical composition of the planet's atmosphere and have enough of the appropriate elements when you arrive.
Itkatsu Kiyoko
Inactive Member
I was basing the terraforming of Kazumi around a roughly one year time frame based on a response I got from Wes when I queried him about it back when I started the project. Admittedly it was a very loose time frame, and now that the planet has been abandoned (due to the NMX war) it's set to blow out.
A
Anonymous
Profit~
Legix
Well-Known Member
I would really like to see some information in relation to this. I'd been digging a bit due to the fact that Dhaval's group will be working with minerals/materials that could be useful for terraforming/colonization efforts in the Dig-It plot. These links were bunk/broke, so I'm curious if there's anything currently in the wiki in relation to this field of technology that isn't an unfinished WIP?
Navian
Inactive Member
Rather than rant about the time and finesse it takes to create an atmosphere and a living ecology, I'm just going to skip to the pros and cons of having terraforming take centuries vs. those of it being possible within the RP.
If terraforming takes centuries, that means the focus is on finding and coveting habitable worlds, not creating new ones. Each one is special, unique, and irreplaceable within the RP's timescale. If a race loses their homeworld, they have to find and adapt to a substitute, not just create a new copy of the old one. When someone finds a new world that already has life, they have to survey and study it, not just reforge it.
Races that have been stable and had advanced tech for centuries will have more habitable worlds in their core spheres than fast-growing empires. Less advanced ones could still manage, if they'd had thousands of years. Sure enough, they don't have many other advantages in SARP, so this would be a nice one to have.
If terraforming takes years or less, players can feel they're making an impact in real-time, and see all stages of the process without having to visit works in progress. The chaos of the land rush might create interesting plots, though we'd really have to ignore all the NPCs who would be doing this on thousands of planets at all times. The setting would logically be overwhelmed with habitable worlds in a decade, so logic would have to be ignored.
Note that creating artificial habitats can already plausibly be done in the same length of time--years or less--and with very much similar consequences. Players don't normally use a whole planet, anyway, so making a single dome city or orbital station might be a more reasonable project.
If terraforming takes centuries, that means the focus is on finding and coveting habitable worlds, not creating new ones. Each one is special, unique, and irreplaceable within the RP's timescale. If a race loses their homeworld, they have to find and adapt to a substitute, not just create a new copy of the old one. When someone finds a new world that already has life, they have to survey and study it, not just reforge it.
Races that have been stable and had advanced tech for centuries will have more habitable worlds in their core spheres than fast-growing empires. Less advanced ones could still manage, if they'd had thousands of years. Sure enough, they don't have many other advantages in SARP, so this would be a nice one to have.
If terraforming takes years or less, players can feel they're making an impact in real-time, and see all stages of the process without having to visit works in progress. The chaos of the land rush might create interesting plots, though we'd really have to ignore all the NPCs who would be doing this on thousands of planets at all times. The setting would logically be overwhelmed with habitable worlds in a decade, so logic would have to be ignored.
Note that creating artificial habitats can already plausibly be done in the same length of time--years or less--and with very much similar consequences. Players don't normally use a whole planet, anyway, so making a single dome city or orbital station might be a more reasonable project.
A
ArsenicJohn
I am of the opinion that it should take hundreds of years to complete terraforming projects. Maybe we could stumble on some worlds that a civilization started terraforming but died out from a plague or something before it could be completed. There could be planets within this civilization's sphere of influence at various stages of terraforming. Anyone interested in RPing terraforming a planet could use these hallway finished planets. I think some planets would be easier to terraform, so probably not all planets would be worth the effort and they would be ignored or just have habitable domes built on or under the surface.
