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Approved Submission [Yamatai territory] Yamatai Star System

Doshii Jun

Doshii Jun

Perpetual player
Retired Staff
Submission Type: Star System
Submission URL: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=system:yamatai

Faction: Yamatai Star Empire.
FM Approved Yet? No.
Faction requires art? No.

For Reviewers:
Contains Unapproved Sub-Articles? Yes
Contains New art? Yes.
Previously Submitted? No.

Notes:
The planetary articles are not ready for submission yet, but I plan to expound upon what I've written in for planetary notes on this page. The minor and dwarf planets also will get submissions.

Thanks to Arieg for the template and the art!
 
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If this were not space opera, I'd question the wisdom of hosting the capitol of an empire around a stellar body that will exit Main Sequence just in time for microbes to evolve.
 
I'd still like to have the star system's name to be written somewhere as "Kikyo Star System".

Why? Because it wouldn't change how people would still be able to say "Let's go to Yamatai". It wouldn't stop mappers from writing the names of planets on the bright dots of a starmap on the level of identifying places by points of interest, and calling it "the Yamatai system" would then probably be a common trend.

However, the reason I really want to stick to this?
It's because I think voiding the relevance of "Kikyo star system" sucks.

It's a matter of me having gone through the extra effort to learn my material and discovered that, hey, the star system planet Yamatai is in is actually called the "Kikyo star system". So, being a Yamatai-GM, I occasionally identify it so as an effort to be precise. Now, suddenly, it seems less convenient and it's going to be rubbed out?

It'll make it so that anyone reading what I wrote in the past will see me talk about the Kikyo star system, and they won't have any idea what I'm talking about.

I'm not asking that you embrace the idea that it's called the "Kikyo star system"; and I'm not going to ask that Yamatai's star be appropriatly called "Kikyo" (even though I think that would be both appropriate and awesome). However, I'd really like it if the name could be there and if it could be accepted that different people in different circumstances call it by different names (a phenomenon that's actually very common for more than one star system in SARP).
 
...just saw the latest edit Wes made.

As much as I dislike having to say: "we come from planet Yamatai, in the Yamatai star system"... at least "Kikyo star system" is referenced (even if it's as an outdated name). It's a compromise I can live with - thanks for your consideration.
 
I think we should probably use a sun-like star that way colors and lightning appear in an Earth-like way. In the RP, Yamatai's light has never been harsh or bluish. Can we recalculate it based on the above?

No problem, Fred.

I also suggest an article merge into system:yamatai.
 
The colors that are seen from Yamatai are the same as Earth; the planet takes care of that.

I'll handle the merger after I get all the calculations in order.
 
Atmosphere does a lot, but not everything. You still have a change in spectral peak intensity, especially between two similar enough atmospheres. Instead of a spectral peak around the yellow/green, you would have it around cyan, IIRC, and that will change how many colours in that range are perceived.
 
OK, so updates made:

A little about Yamatai (Planet) been added, so it's there, with more work needing to be done on the planet's actual page.

I changed the star from an A-type to an F-type (and resized things appropriately), but made it a hotter F-type, so I think that will make for a good balance. Thank you for pointing out the color bits, Soresu and BionicSamurai.

Article's been merged with system:yamatai, with the individual pages set to get backlink love when we get to them.

Anything else?
 
Unless anyone raises objections in the next 3 days, I intend to approve this. Thank you, everyone who helped with this much-needing fleshing-out of the Yamatai System.
 
I still don't like calling the system the "Yamatai star system" along with "planet Yamatai".

It starts a bad trend of naming star systems after their primary inhabitable planets. Going on the same logic, we'd have "Nepleslia system" and "planet Nepleslia"; "Elysia star system" and "planet Elysia"... and so forth.

Whereas most science fiction that takes itself seriously will name a star system after the star's name (which would not share the inhabited planet's name). For example, the Sol star system has Sol III, and inhabited planet that the natives call "Earth".

However, as things stand, we have a star - Kikyo. Planets were Kikyo I, II, III, IV, V and VI. Kikyo II was called "Geshrintall" and there are the moons Kikyo IIa "Luna Bianca" and Kikyo IIb "Midori no Umi".

Then AvaNet leaves, and Yui renamed the planet Kikyo II to "Yamatai". Fair enough.

But then in YE 27, Yui renamed the sun "Yamatai" too? That makes each major body "Yamatai I, II, III, IV, etc..." in that system, and Yamatai II is redundantly also called "Yamatai".

Not to mention that opens up a can of worm in the RP, regarding possible dialogue. "Let's go to Yamatai!" Yamatai where? The star system? The star? The planet? While were at it, which planet of Yamatai (there's also I, III, IV, V, and VI).

Now...

While my "not making past roleplays look stupid" objection has been pacified enough for me to not go up in arms if I get shot down - if you're opening ground for objection, I'll still object. This kind of nomenclature in sci-fi is neither simulationistic, nor does it sound realistic. I can't help but feel that IC Yui herself would know better because she's not an amateur like we are. I think this deserves better than just arbitrarily putting the same name on multiple places - we can do better than that.

And I'm not the only one whom thinks so - except that whoever else believes similarily on IRC seems to think it's pointless to raise the issue - they feel the admin will just overrule them "just because", and are "sick of arguing if it won't make a difference".

Okay, so, it's just me making a stand - I guess I have a thing for lost causes. But I care about cool sci-fi and SARP being that, so, I'm not going down quietly. :)
 
On a more technical note, i'm still a wee bit confused over a couple stats listed in the article.

1. In the system article, Yamatai's orbital distance from the star is listed as 2.5E+008 Km (1.696 au) in the little table you've got there Doshii. While in the planet article, it is listed as 1.12 AU. Which is it going to be?

2. The mass of the planet, its physical radius and the stated gravity are inconsistent with one another.

Gravity (In Earth Gravities) = Density (In multiples of Earth Density) x Radius (In multiples of Earth Radius)

Mass (In multiples of Earth Masses) = Density (In multiples of Earth Density) x Radius (In multiples of Earth Radius) ^ 3 (cubed)

Density (In multiples of Earth Density) = Mass (In multiples of Earth Masses) / Radius (In multiples of Earth Radius) ^ 3 (cubed)

If you're keeping the official 0.95 G gravity and the currently stated planetary radius in order to keep measurements on the map correct, then the planets density should be 6.43 g/cm^3 (1.165 Earth) and the mass would then be 3.78 x 10^24 kg (0.633 Earth). Of course you could keep the stats inconsistent, though you should probably explain that away as being somehow caused or believed to be caused by Yamatai's unnatural, artificial nature.
 
Going on the same logic, we'd have "Nepleslia system" and "planet Nepleslia"; "Elysia star system" and "planet Elysia"... and so forth.
Click to expand...
Fred, this is how almost every star system and planet in SARP works already. If it's a star system with one habitable planet, the planet and system probably share a name. When planet Yamatai was renamed, the system was, too.

Just to name a few star systems with planets of the same name:

Nepleslia
Essia
Nataria
Tania
Tatiana
Gashmere
Tami
Ohara
Albini
Kotori
Himiko
Daichi

I could go on...
 
That's not really much of a good argument, Wes.

At best, this means our starmap labelling is based on centers of interest.

But the issue is that there never was much thought really put into it, right? If no one never really bothered to be accurate before, it's not much of a precedent - nor a reason to hinder step beyond, especially with the material that we do have on hand (i.e.: knowing that the star system was actually called Kikyo).

On the other hand, I can reinforce my argument with plenty of real life examples of systems with exoplanets. More pertinently, the nomenclature scheme for them (this being the most relevant to our interests).

And no... I don't think the Star Map itself needs to be changed. I think it's perfectly fine if the starmap is indeed "point-of-interest" labelled. There's nothing wrong with that. Heck, that can be explained away in the star system list without needing to change anything else. And it's not like we have to scramble to give complete system names on top of planets for other systems too.

But here, we brought it up in the first place in this 'much needed star system fleshing out', so why not do it right? After all, you're the one that feels keenly about stuff in SARP not coming second place to how it is in real-life.
 
Actually. Only two of those stars/planets are Non-Yamataian/Yamataian controlled in origin in your list there Wes.
 
The distance in the system article is a little close, but not too bad. I looked at the temperature of equilibrium at .3 albedo and .25 (albedo is the whiteness or reflectivity of a body, Earth's is usually estimated at .3) and found that it is 10 to 14 degrees hotter. This can be easily compensated by varying amounts of greenhouse gasses though (Yamatai would need less than Earth has), so I can't see it as being too much of a problem.

Using that distance however, Yamatai's year needs to be adjusted to 667 days, unless we want to modify gravity while we're at it.
 
Soresu said:
Actually. Only two of those stars/planets are Non-Yamataian/Yamataian controlled in origin in your list there Wes.
Click to expand...
And you're pointing this out because...why? I found most of the examples via Yamatai's territory page. This submission is a Yamataian one.

Let's look at Nataria. The system is Nataria, the star is Nataria, and the planet of interest is Nataria. Of course everything else in the system is named Nataria (e.g. Nataria I, Nataria II) but if you say "planet Nataria," everyone knows you mean the forested one whether or not you use the planet's number.
 
Wes said:
Soresu said:
Actually. Only two of those stars/planets are Non-Yamataian/Yamataian controlled in origin in your list there Wes.
Click to expand...
And you're pointing this out because...why? I found most of the examples via Yamatai's territory page. This submission is a Yamataian one.

Let's look at Nataria. The system is Nataria, the star is Nataria, and the planet of interest is Nataria. Of course everything else in the system is named Nataria (e.g. Nataria I, Nataria II) but if you say "planet Nataria," everyone knows you mean the forested one whether or not you use the planet's number.
Click to expand...

Because. IRL, our Solar System is called Sol and the star is Sol or 'Sun'. In terms of planets we have thus: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. In order from closest to furthest. I don't need to name everything the same to know which planet supports life. So, if we name everything Sol, then I would have to go either by number, or look at a map of our solar system to figure out which we live on. Otherwise I may end up trying to get gas on Mars, and wintering on Mercury. But if I say I want to go to Earth, everyone knows I'm talking about Earth because there is only one Planet Earth in the Solar System, and not Sol I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII.

It doesn't take much to use a generator and name a solar system, the sun the same name as the solar system, and the planets the same name as the solar system and sun. But it does take effort to name the system, and sun. Then give each world its own unique identifier. The author has to actually work, flex his brain muscles a little, and put some effort into it. Not only does it look good on them, but also the site because we're growing the place not in uniformity but encouraging our authors to grow along side it.
 
"Nataria X" doesn't pose that much of a problem, seeing that it's probably never been named as a planet, and wears the name of the star - so there's probably no problem calling the system itself the "Nataria star system".

For most of the systems in this roleplay, save some (such as Nepleslia), that's probably the case too.

"Planet Yamatai", though, is a different situation. It's one where we have a distinct planet name (we've had two, actually), and that we historically have a star system which has had a name established for it.

Using the argument "it's always been called Yamatai, yadda yadda" works poorly, though. I get that there's a sense of 'being used to something'. I get that wanting to streamline/exfolliate the wiki might be another facet into this. I get that calling everything "Yamatai" is this might be construed in making things more simple/streamlined in Wes' eyes.

But I'll be blunt: lately, I'm seeing a lot of questionable decisions coming from Wes, in an effort to streamline/narrow down things. But for the most part, I think what those decisions have been doing go more along the trend of devaluing things we had unique to this setting more than anything else (from nekos having four fingers on each hands; to chickening out of the NH-29 establishing a 'true neko race' and declaring neko bodies as objects; to brute-forcing the use of new-but-redundant neko bodies; to deciding to homogenize the name of a star system, it's star, and it's primary inhabited planet).

I think the point is to make things cleaner. But I don't think it really helps. SARP has legacy, a boast that it's been around for a decade, and a wiki repository of knowledge to store that information. We can't be too afraid of using it; it's what makes our setting rich.

Part of that richness is knowing that the star the Empire's capital world orbits around is called Kikyo, that the homeworld is the second planet around Kikyo, and that it's named "Yamatai".

This enriches us. It adds flair and depth to our setting - just like our front page promises. It has attention to detail which doesn't come second place to commercialized space-based sci-fi we could find elsewhere (i.e.: Star Trek). It gives us interesting tidbits of information to access through the wiki.

Now, I've made my case, and repeating it further is not going to be of much more help. Tomorrow is also the third day when Wes intends to approve this. Now it's up to Wes to decide if he'll do this taking a step forward for his setting, or a step backward.
 
Khasidel said:
On a more technical note, i'm still a wee bit confused over a couple stats listed in the article.

1. In the system article, Yamatai's orbital distance from the star is listed as 2.5E+008 Km (1.696 au) in the little table you've got there Doshii. While in the planet article, it is listed as 1.12 AU. Which is it going to be?

2. The mass of the planet, its physical radius and the stated gravity are inconsistent with one another.

Gravity (In Earth Gravities) = Density (In multiples of Earth Density) x Radius (In multiples of Earth Radius)

Mass (In multiples of Earth Masses) = Density (In multiples of Earth Density) x Radius (In multiples of Earth Radius) ^ 3 (cubed)

Density (In multiples of Earth Density) = Mass (In multiples of Earth Masses) / Radius (In multiples of Earth Radius) ^ 3 (cubed)

If you're keeping the official 0.95 G gravity and the currently stated planetary radius in order to keep measurements on the map correct, then the planets density should be 6.43 g/cm^3 (1.165 Earth) and the mass would then be 3.78 x 10^24 kg (0.633 Earth). Of course you could keep the stats inconsistent, though you should probably explain that away as being somehow caused or believed to be caused by Yamatai's unnatural, artificial nature.
Click to expand...

Basically, what's going on is that Arieg was kind enough to generate the planet pages along with the overall system page, but I haven't touched those planet pages (or Yamatai's original page).

That's left those articles inconsistent with the table I've been working on.

The planet pages will get updated with the table statistics, but right now I'm not putting them up for formal approval — just the system article.

First two cents: +1 to all of what Fred says.

Second two cents: Wes, I get you don't want to relabel the ancient starmap, but hey, this might be a good time to relabel things and switch to one of the newer maps on the wiki, yeah? Wasn't Khasidel or Exhack reforming it? Making it look fancy?

Bottom line: All those "systems" aren't labeled because of the star, but the habitable planet. Only the past couple years have we expanded those systems to actually acknowledge their stars and fellow planets. So the map doesn't reflect that: it just names the white dots after the planets inside them that we care about.

We can change that for the better. We don't have to be lazy.
 
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