|
[Draft] Rockhounds Pages
|
In This Thread: Chris organizes, previews, and RFC's his notes for the Rockhounds/Greenwood pages for the Fenspace Wiki.
-- Insert Portal Page Draft Here -- -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
====== Greenwood, Unlimited ======
Greenwood, Unltd., is a holding company formed by Chris Marsden to consolidate his various enterprises under. It has no actual operations of its own. It is a sole proprietorship under the full ownership of Chris Marsden in person -- effectively his 'corporate persona'. ===== Rockhounds, Inc. ===== This is of course the famous asteroid-mining and station-construction brokerage, detailed under its own entry elsewhere. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Greenwood, Unlimited. ===== Greenwood Security Services, Ltd. ===== GSS was founded to provide basic security amenities for the residents of the Greenwood space station as that population began to grow. As reports of piracy and other problems began to trickle in, the role of this corporation expanded, becoming a full-fledged military organization with formal ranks and discipline. By the end of Operation: Great Justice, GSS would operate a fleet of several ships and a large number of fighters, having undertaken strike and rescue operations independantly and in conjunction with forces such as the Roughriders, Starfleet, the Space Patrol, and the SAM. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Greenwood, Unlimited. ===== Greenwood Colonial Administration, Inc. ===== GCA is the effective 'government' of the Greenwood space station. Marsden himself, through Greenwood Unlimited, maintains 60% of the voting stock; the other 40% is in circulation -- specifically, any person who makes the station their permanent residency is eligible to buy one share. This ownership entitles them to a vote in the semi-democratic arrangements Marsden has made for the station's management. GCA operates most city services (aside from security, which is managed by GSS), and is also responsible for most of the station's infrastructure such as life support, engines, and so on. ===== Nikaido Foundation ===== Greenwood, Unlimited owns an 8% minority share in this well-known philanthropic foundation. See the [[Stellvia] entry for more detail. ===== Ayanami & Abriel Fashion Executive ===== This little company provides clothing of all sorts, from the practical to the Impossibly Cool, from businesswear to cosplay. It began as an indulgence by the eponymous ladies in costuming themselves and their employer, at which much fun was had by many, and has since expanded into a small chain of exclusive shops. Outlets exist in Sydney, New York, Greenwood City (of course), most of the Crystal Cities, Stellvia, The Island, and more. Greenwood Unlimited provided most of the startup capital and maintains a 30% interest, the rest is split between Ms. Ayanami and Ms. Abriel. ===== Stonewell-Bellcom Aerospace ===== Kept quite top-secret until just before the launch of the first //Eagle//-class frigate, GSS //Belisarius//, SBA started life as Rockhounds' think-tank, a brainstorming unit devoted to coming up with new ideas. Their first was the need for a small armed vessel to provide security for the station that was then under construction. Several small armed spacecraft were constructed or procured, but none ever needed to reveal their intended use until 2013. At that point the //Sleipnir//'s single weapon was first fired in anger, used to support a ground force dealing with Iranian terrorists on Earth. It was not long after this that SBA's existence was announced, as were its first products: a squadron of VF-1 Valkyrie fighters. Crewed by volunteers from among GSS' human and android complement, the squadron immediately set out to assist Operation: Great Justice. ===== Greenwood University ====== AKA 'The School of Hard Rocks', this small college began as an effort to provide some effective training for miners and prospectors heading out into the asteroid belt. Founded in 2009 as a vocational-tech school focusing on small-electronic systems maintenance and repair, geology, and orbital navigation, the school expanded quickly. By 2014 it was operating as a Community College accredited to award Associate's degrees and, given the growing number of FenKinder, was considering opening a high-school division. ===== Independant Corporations ===== Many independant companies have set up operations in Greenwood City, providing various goods and services to the residents. Some examples include: * NinjaBurger * Starbucks (Yes. They're //everywhere//.) * Marriott Hotels * Greenwood Symphony Orchestra, Inc. * Stellvia Travel & Tourism, UnLtd. * Haephestus Manufacturing Inc. * Hammergirl Anime * Wizards of the Coast, Inc. * Dolomite Mining Co., PLC * Ferrexpo PLC * Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki-gaisha -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.  Quote:* Stellvia Travel & Tourism, UnLtd.Hmmmmm... I think I could run with this... A travel agency, perhaps, connecting 'Danes and Fen with independant gondoliers? -- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012 Quote: robkelk wrote:*grin* I figured given the way certain people got their start, it was kind of inevitable. Make of it what you will. And of course there's then the Wonderland Farms / Greenwood Meats co-op grocery, which has yet to be worked out... -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Heh. I'm still thinking of having the Roughriders get in on the whole Space Tourist thing. For one, inspired by the anime Galaxy Railways, I'm thinking about setting up a Space Shinkasen that hits all the major passenger points in the Sol System. And for something more laid back and much more luxurious, I'm seriously considering Bell Gede's Airliner #4. ^_^
I bring these up because Greenwood may be a place to set up shop for this sort of thing. Sure, there'll be offices in Australia, Kandor, Crystal Tokyo, Ceres, etc., but the Home Office for this operation would do best on Greenwood, I think.
You know, I'll probably have the core B.5 owners/leadership having gone through Greenwood University. I had already considered the possibility that their
initial asteroid mining job might have been subcontracted throu Rockhounds (hadn't gotten around to pitching the idea to ECS yet) ___________________________ "I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin
Works for me, Timote. When would they have attended? If it's pre-OGJ then the best they'd get is some basic certification courses. Things don't
really start picking up until a bit later. -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
yeah, it would have been pre-OGJ. I just figured that if you're gonna try making a living mining asteroid, might as well learn from people who have some
experience. 8P ___________________________ "I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin
======Greenwood City======
====History==== The sheer size of the asteroid that was hollowed out to form Greenwood Station offered several opportunities to Rockhounds' construction crews. At first plans were made for a massive corporate headquarters in one of the several caverns excavated, with a park in another to provide relaxation and recreation space for the miners. The initial makeshift habitats were rather crude and cramped, and a set of 'wavetech automated construction units were deployed in the largest of the available hollows with instructions to make something better. The AS's of the bots in question took one look at their instructions, found them laughably incomplete, and proceeded to rampage through every bit of architectural and city-planning information they could find on the internet. A few hours later, they went to work. A large number of additional 'bots were constructed, first, using the materials available (most of the semi-refined metal had simply been stockpiled in the same space it had been extracted from). Their numbers thus increased, the construction of the actual city began. When someone remembered to check back on them a few weeks later, the first neighborhoods were almost ready for habitation, utilities were on-line to most of the area, and an Enhanced Visual Environment dome covered the ceiling with a programmed day/night cycling display based on Earth's temperate northern latitudes. Some constructive criticism was offered of a few of the bots' choices, plans were discussed, and after several hours of debate the corporate leadership agreed to let the bots finish what they'd started. Two weeks later, workers began moving into the residences made available, and more were invited in to staff the service industries that were growing up around the ever-expanding community. Greenwood Technical Training Institute (later Greenwood Community College, much later Greenwood University) opened its doors almost immediately, as did several well-known fast-food chains, more upscale restaurants and bars (such as the famous Valhalla), electronics suppliers, clothiers, and sundries providers such as Target and Wal*Mart. The city rapidly became known on Earth as a fine destination for people who wanted to live and work //in space//, but did not necessarily consider themselves 'Fen'. It offered a minimal tax burden, plenty of employment opportunities, and the inestimable cachet of living and working in orbit. By June of 2011, the city's population was nearing thirty thousand, and city management was handed over from the central planning authority of Rockhounds' corporate board to the publically-held Greenwood Colonial Authority. The first publically-elected mayor was Paul Cormier, a veteran businessman and community activist from upstate New York. Marsden and the rest of Rockhounds' leadership were glad to leave things in his hands as the city began to grow even further. ====Layout==== The cavern selected had a generally elliptical shape, which has been rounded off by some expansion into the rocky outer walls of the asteroid. The outer rim is taken up by one of the city's several express motorways - the decision was made early on to maintain the modern style of personal transportation, although most automobiles are electrically-powered and equipped with some mushy-tech safety devices. Alternating 'rings' of zoning regions move inwards from this, with the center dominated by a large public park. Road speeds are not high - the entire cavern is only about 12 miles long and eight across - and the rim road is screened from the weather by a force-field system to provide safe driving. The central park is about two miles long by one wide, elliptical once again, and includes a large open field, several semi-forested areas, and a small lake for swimming (and supporting the aquatic part of the city's ecosystem). It is modelled concsiously after New York's Central Park. Smaller parks are scattered around various neighborhoods of the city. ===Directions=== The city's compass is arbitrary, not having a magnetic pole or axis of rotation to base it on. 'North' is towards the 'forward' end of the asteroid, where the public docking bays are located, and the massive engines that move it (when necessary) are at the 'south' end. 'East' and 'West' are defined from that, following the gravitational plane of the city. With several loop roads in the city, reference is also made to 'spinward' (clockwise, going 'north' when on the 'west' side and 'south' on the 'east') and 'antispinward' (counterclockwise) when referencing driving directions on them. ===Landmarks=== Prominent features in the city include the Boskone War Memorial (a small area set aside in the park), the University (constantly growing), and the Mall (constantly being shopped at). Rockhounds and several related businesses have their headquarters in town, and tend to share an open, airy architectural style, with plenty of space, moving air, and growing green areas. Trees in the lobby are not uncommon. Greenwood Museum of Natural History is a popular tourist spot, including the usual educational exhibits on history, space science, and planetary sciences. The Hall of Heroes is one of its more popular attractions; the exhibit spans the circumference of the third floor of the building. It includes entries from the entire length of human exploration, such as Leif Ericsson, Christopher Columbus, the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, and of course a wide selection from the pre-Fen space programs. The final item in the Hall is labelled "The Next Great Hero", and consists of a mirror. -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Since nobody's complained about ECSNorway's first page over the last six months, and the second page applies primarily to his part of Fenspace, I'm going to toss them both onto the FenWiki and start a bare-bones Greenwood Portal for ECS to expand later...
Edit: ...which I've just done. See the FenWiki thread for URIs. -- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012 Quote:===== Ayanami & Abriel Fashion Executive =====Here's a proposed addition to this section, which ties a few Fenspace plot threads closer together. Any objections? The Stellvia franchise of Ayanami & Abriel Fashion Executive (the "textile shop on Stellvia" that Don Anthony Esposito mentions on occasion) became famous in its own right in March 2014 when its owner, Judy Bernard, designed and tailored Leda Swansen-Scott's wedding dress and the dresses of her bridesmaids. -- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
And here's another little easter-egg for you all.
This one was not supposed to be posted until I'd gotten to the appropriate point in Carcharadon Astrodontis, but since my muse is taking her time on that one... ~~NOTOC~~ ^ Registry Number: | RFF-101 | ^ Base Hull: | Stonewell-Bellcom Aerospace RFF //Eagle// | ^ Drive Type: | Acceleration Drive (Gravitic Impeller) | ^ Drive Rating: | Standard Accel: 100g, Maximum 125g | ^ Owner of Record: | Greenwood Security Services, LTD | ^ Flag of Record: | Greenwood Station | ^ Home Port: | [[Greenwood] | ^ Purpose: | Zwilnik Hunter | ^ Crew: | 64 crew, 24 fighter crews, 24 flight-deck ops, 46 marines | ^ Status: | **Active** | ^ Attached craft: | 12 VF-1 'Valkyrie' Fighters | ^ | 4 AT-10 Marine boarding shuttles | ^ | 2 C-8 Cargo/Personnel transport shuttles | ====== //Eagle// - class Frigate GSS //Belisarius// ====== //(Created by Chris "ecs05norway" Nasipak// Rockhounds, Inc. and its holding company, Greenwood Unlimited, have always had a number of secret projects under their belt. Some were difficult to hide -- it was only a matter of time before 'Project Black Book' was revealed, for example -- and some were easier, concealed in the depths of the company's asteroid home. It was always expected that there would be some form of 'black hat' activity, especially when profits from asteroid mining and station construction began to rise significantly. Accordingly, the company began laying down the first of a projected fleet of three security vessels late in 2011. The first would have been completed in early 2013, but the fall of Crystal Osaka caused a redesign that added months to the construction time. Additional space for fighters and several powerful tractor beams were added, expanding the ship's ability to capture enemy vessels and perform counter-boarding operations. Several newly-designed gravitic-focussed lasers were added as well. In light of the growing tendency towards board-and-storm operations, the Marine quarters were expanded from a single squad to a full platoon (now making up almost half of the ship's complement). Fortunately for many, it was completed just in time to join in the [[Battle of Serenity Valley]. ===== Known Vehicle Quirks ===== * //Keep a civilized tongue in your head// - The AI who does most of the real work of running the ship presents itself not as the eponymous Roman general, but as a mere Centurion from his legions, bearing the name of 'Maurice'. Furthermore, it will not interact in any language other than Latin or Greek. * //Hand of a Craftsman// - Shoddy workmanship, especially on repairs or upgrades, is simply not tolerated. This will usually be ignored if it's the middle of a battle and the system in question needs to function //now//, but the moment it becomes nonvital it will stop working again until it is properly repaired. Similarly, crewmen who keep slovenly quarters will find any system they attempt to use working at half efficiency. ===== Combat Capabilities ===== * //Spin Like A Top// - The vessel's advanced gravitic drive system allows it to maneuver to face in any direction easily. Changing its movement //vector// is a little more difficult, as it is with any accelleration drive. * //It comes standard// - The hull is structural steel, heavily enhanced by handwavium and embedded layers of Venusian Diamond. * //Launching fighters// - 12 VF-1 Valkyrie fighters are carried as a standard load, operating in three flights of four planes each. The bay can be reconfigured for VA-6 Alpha fighters instead, carrying 16 craft in that configuration. * //Stand by boarding parties// - A full dozen tractor beam emitters are spaced along the hull, designed primarily for use in capturing enemy craft and bringing them close for boarding. * //Get them out of my sky// - Each tractor beam is also matched with a grav-focused laser, capable of being used for point defense or as an anti-shipping weapon at need. ===== Dedication ===== The ship's dedication plaque is located in the traditional place, at the primary entryway to the bridge. It lists a number of Greenwood Unltd and Stonewell-Bellcom officials as supplementary plankowners, as is traditional, and the ship's motto. The latter is chosen from a favorite song of Marsden's, and reads, //And now our fragile flesh and steel, have laid our hands to a vaster wheel.// ===== Known Crew Members (2013) ===== * Commander Elza Newman - CO - Android based on the character 'Eluza' from //Gall Force//. Strong-willed, honorable, and dedicated, she makes a fine officer. * Lieutenant Commander Rabby Newman - XO - Android based on the character 'Rabby' from //Gall Force//. * Lieutenant Commander William Weaver - Science Officer - 'Redneck' from Alabama, very intelligent, friendly and casual. He has several doctorates including physics, astrophysics, mathematics, and electrical engineering. * Major Lufy Starblade - Android based on the character 'Lufy' from //Gall Force//. CO of the //Belisarius// onboard marine platoon, Lufy is a hard-driving officer who leads from in front and in a larger organization would make an excellent Sergeant-Major. She'd have a lot more fun as one, too. * Lieutenant Lafiel Abriel - Helm Officer - Cool, calm, collected, and seemingly serene, this android based on the Abh princess is a highly skilled pilot capable of driving the ship well past what any sane analyst would consider its intended maneuverability spec. Part of this is due to the Abh 'Froch' sense, but this capability has been extended to all the android crewers working for GSS. Part of it is her own skill and intimate knowledge of the ship's workings (she did help design it, after all), and part of it is that she's just that //nuts//. -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
That still kinda bugs me that this ship is obviously much more massive than the Midnight, yet has a much greater drive rating (30-50 G's more than Midnight). Do I get to do an upgrade?
Quote:Do I get to do an upgrade?Does your ship use a gravitic drive? Bigger gravity-drive engines -> bigger gravity flux -> faster acceleration (or higher top speed for a speed drive, but keep in mind the handwavium limit of 0.1c) I don't mind, considering StellviaCorp tends to use gravitic drives, too... I believe Mal and the various "asteroid racer" writers should have a say here, though. -- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Midnight's your ship, write what you feel appropriate.
If you want to write it as SBA engineers helping you upgrade the engines when the war heats up, that'd be a cool bit of story. -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
To be added when I have time: Belisarius has two sister ships, launched at three-month intervals over the course of the year.
Artorious' AI manifests as a rather attractive young girl who answers to "Artoria" or "Saber". Her motto is "Here I stand. I can do no other." Cincinnatus' dedication bears the motto "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Ahhh, so that's why so much emphasis was placed on the gravity drive. Well, now I know and next time I'll pay a little more attention. (^^
 I'll take comfort in this: Midnight has no trouble changing her movement vector at all. Think about it. She's an aerospace plane. While her main drive may be an acceleration type, she'll be damned if she's going to be constricted to nothing but Newtonian physics.
~~NOTOC~~
^ Registry Number: | (Various) | ^ Base Hull: | Stonewell-Bellcom Aerospace //Island Three// | ^ | Later Models Island Fancy, Unltd //Island Three// | ^ Drive Type: | Acceleration Drive (Gravitic Impeller) | ^ Drive Rating: | Standard Accel: 10g, Maximum 15g | ^ Drive Options: | Custom Spaceframe with FTL or other drive module | ^ Owner of Record: | (Various) | ^ Flag of Record: | (Various) | ^ Home Port: | (Various) | ^ Purpose: | Mobile Habitation | ^ Crew: | Minimum 30 plus robotic support for basic maintenace | ^ | Recommended 100+ for optimum support of population | ^ Passengers: | Varies with configuration, maximum recommended: 10,000 | ^ Status: | **Active** | ^ Attached craft: | Various personal spacecraft | ^ | 50 "Space Bus" Passenger Transport Vehicles (default order) | ^ | 100 C-8 Cargo/Personnel transport shuttles (default order) | ^ Armaments: | Ships with point defense only | ====== // Island Three // class Mobile Habitation ====== //(Created by Chris "ecs05norway" Nasipak// Construction of the //Island-3// space habitats began shortly after the completion of the Boskone War. The leadership of several factions was seeing an increase in Daneside interest in their activities and Greenwood was one of several who welcomed further emigration out of the gravity well. To encourage this end they commissioned Stonewell-Bellcom Aerospace to design and begin construction of a series of large-scale habitats specifically intended for sale to Daneside customers. The result was the //Island-Three//, inspired by the smaller components of the //Macross Frontier// colony convoy. The basic form is a cylinder with rounded ends, four kilometers long and approximately one kilometer diameter. The cylinder is divided roughly in half lengthwise, the "lower" portion divided into 15-meter-tall decks and allocated for life support equipment, manufacturing spaces, hydroponics/aeroponics, and consumables storage. The "upper" half is entirely devoted to a single residential deck, which can be constructed to customer specification or rebuilt by the customer after purchase. Most commonly this will include some space set aside for parkland and/or agriculture with other areas built up into an emulation of an earthside cityscape. Unlike the O'Neill Cylinder that they resemble, the Island modules do not rotate to provide synthetic gravity, but employ sealed-unit handwavium-generated gravity modules. Similar sealed gravitic units provide the basic drive system, although that can be swapped out for an alternative system should the customer request it. The first batch of habitats used Hephaestus-built thorium-fission reactors as their primary power supply. By 2019, data from the ESA/JAXA fusion project had allowed Greenwood tech teams to complete an abandoned TSAB retro-engineering product and begin producing He3/H2 fusion reactors to provide power. Sale of the Island class habitats rapidly outstripped that of Space Rocks, with many buyers pointing out the more convenient size and the open nature of its build plan. Construction was mostly automated, making extensive use of the excess nickel-iron extracted during asteroid mining and space rock construction, allowing the initial batch to be completed very quickly. By 2020, at least two independant Earthside groups had purchased habitats with a stardrive module to enable interstellar emigration and colonization, several governments were establishing their own colonies in various regions of the Solar System, and Greenwood had purchased several internally for their own interstellar expeditions. ===== Known Vehicle Quirks ===== * //"I canna' break the laws of physics, Captain!"// - Being of almost entirely hardtech construction, the Island habitat is (mostly) subject to the normal Newtonian/Einsteinian laws of physics. -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
What means "finished very quickly" ? I mean, its still 3km long and 750 m diameter... ^^
As in, 'capable of building more than one per year'.
-- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
~~NOTOC~~
^ Registry Number: | GSV-701 Prydwen | ^ Base Hull: | Stonewell-Bellcom Aerospace //Island Three// x2 plus custom spaceframe | ^ Drive Type: | Acceleration Drive (Gravitic Impeller) | ^ Drive Rating: | Standard Accel: 50g, Maximum 70g | ^ Drive Options: | Utopia Planitia Spacewarp Generator x2 | ^ Owner of Record: | Greenwood Colonial Administration | ^ Flag of Record: | Greenwood | ^ Home Port: | Space Station Greenwood | ^ Purpose: | Exploration/colonization expedition | ^ Crew: | 750 human, 6 A.I., 1,250 A.S. | ^ Commanding Office: | Captain William Weaver, GSS | ^ Passengers: | 10,000 | ^ Status: | **Inactive** | ^ Date of Commission: | July 4, 2018 | ^ Date of Decommission: | November 20, 2019 | ^ Attached craft: | Various personal spacecraft | ^ | 50 "Space Bus" Passenger Transport Vehicles | ^ | 100 C-8 Cargo/Personnel transport shuttles | ^ | GSS-402 //Artorius// (Eagle-class Frigate) | ^ | GSS-517 //Tycho Brahe// (Science survey vessel) | ^ | GSS-527 //Robert Fitzroy// (Science survey vessel) | ^ Armaments: | Numerous laser and coilgun turrets | ====== // GSS Prydwen // Science Survey Expedition ====== //(Created by Chris "ecs05norway" Nasipak// Greenwood's first interstellar expedition was planned around massive redundancy and plans for any possible contingency. With sufficient space for over ten times the actual population of the mission and supplies of fuel and food that would last a century or more, the expedition made the assumption that they might end up stranded at their destination (or worse, in deep space) and need to wait a considerable time for rescue. They were also prepared to provide disaster relief, refugee transport, and many other forms of emergency support. Fortunately, they didn't need any of that. The ship itself was built around two of Stonewell-Bellcom's //Island 3// habitat modules, with a large support module connecting them and a pair of Utopia Planitia spacewarp generator nacelles attached to this central module. The expedition arrived at their planned destination, the Eta Cassiopiae binary system, in late 2018 and began survey work. By February of 2019 they had discovered a habitable moon orbiting one of the primary star's gas giants. The planet, christened Gwynedd by the survey team, had a surface gravity about 0.8g and a vibrant ecosystem. Much to the science team's bewilderment, every life form they examined could easily have been an undiscovered species of terrestrial origin. They used the same amino acids, the same proteins, even the same base-pairs for DNA. The team was forced to the uncomfortable realization that either an astronomically unlikely coincidence had taken place, or all life on Gwynedd shared the same source as life on Earth. After much debate, Captain Weaver decided to land one of the habitat modules to serve as a base for exploration, while the other (with the survey ships and stardrive frame) would remain in orbit as a backup and to continue surveying the rest of the system. The //Artorius//, meanwhile, would be dispatched to Sol to hand-carry his report to the Greenwood Colonial Authority. With the delivery of this report, //Prydwen// was officially decommissioned as a starship and re-designated to colonial status. -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.  Quote:Much to the science team's bewilderment, every life form they examined could easily have been an undiscovered species of terrestrial origin. They used the same amino acids, the same proteins, even the same base-pairs for DNA. The team was forced to the uncomfortable realization that either an astronomically unlikely coincidence had taken place, or all life on Gwynedd shared the same source as life on Earth. As per space-opera general rule #75, most life in the galaxy unless it's like really weird will share the same basic chemical structure. Not always 100% identical but close enough that even a 100% match wouldn't be that disconcerting. So, yeah. However! I have a potential solution if you're interested. What if instead of simply Gwynedd life sharing a source the lifeforms are actually adapted from Earth life from somewhere like say, somewhere around this period? That's far enough back for adaptation to create some interesting new things but close enough for a naturalist to say "hey, wait a minute..." Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information "I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Noted. There -is- something else to be found, as we've discussed on IRC, but I'm not prepared to detail it yet.
-- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
It isn't that unlikely - at least one amino acid has been discovered in a comet in our universe, after all, so the idea that life comes from somewhere else isn't completely bonkers. (When I say "comes from somewhere else," I mean "carried on solar winds from other stars, over millennia," not "somebody brought it here.") Whether that life has DNA or something else is a matter of conjecture, of course.
-- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Yeah. The question I need to ask, then, is how much would genuine planetologists and biologists have known about what's already been found by other expeditions by the time this one launched. I wrote the initial writeup with the expectation that they wouldn't have seen it, and thus were expecting -alien- alien life, rather than very earthlike alien life.
After some IRC discussion with Mal, however, I'm inclined to the view that they -would- have heard those reports (and closely analyzed them), and have been expecting Earthlike life. The first shock is, therefore, not that they've found /compatible/ life, but life that clearly shares direct evolutionary roots with current terrestrial life. As if it might have come /from/ Earth, say, around a half-million to a million years ago. Of course, there's a second secret, that won't be found until the second (or possibly third) expedition arrives. (I also badly underestimated the carrying capacity of an Island when setting up the initial timeline... those things are -big-. No need for four of them.) -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode. |
|
« Next Oldest | Next Newest »
|
