Quote:I had specifically put the Jungle moon in the first position because that put it under the most tidal stresses, and hence gave it the most volcanic activity. 'Continent,' 'Jungle,' and 'Desert' are intended to be parallels to the versions of Earth, Venus, and Mars that you see in very early science fiction...
Make the order Desert, Jungle, Water, Contient, Ice. If the desert is closest to the heat source it should be the dryest. That and considering the count of differnt human occupied worlds... I'm guessing there is a lab elsewhere in that system for whoever was studiing that group. You mentioned these are moons of a gas giant... is/are there other planet/s in that system?
Ah. Now I notice that I dropped the ball, and forgot to include the idea of a civilization that rose, flourished, and then collapsed into dust millenia before the present day on 'Desert'. With, y'know, irrigation canals and everything.
'Ice' and 'Water' just seemed like the most logical expansion of the patterns already set by those three moons.
Anyway, the Victorian-Sci-Fi-Venus was supposed to be a wet, primeval place, sort of like the day's conceptions of the Mesozoic. Hence, its parallel needed to have the highest degree of vulcanism. Anyway, that was why I mentioned the comet thing - these moons' primary gas giant is radiating a lot less heat in the modern era than it did when the system was truly 'young', and while it does make the inner moons a bit toasty, it's no longer hot enough to boil things away...
Ja, -n
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