Create your own!
Or better yet, help with mine. ^_^
Okay, so, the fundamental concept I was running these numbers to fit with is wondering what kind of civilization could or would develop on a world with no oceans. I don't, however, want some place like Arrakis or Tatooine - this place has a little water - enough to fill some pretty impressive lakes and/or small seas... It has crustal plates like Earth's - high, low-density continental ones and low-lying basalt 'ocean plates' - and just about enough water to fill in what would be its ocean trenches. I think you should get... some rain... downwind of them. Maybe as much as the Sarengeti does.
The average temperature should be cooler than Earth's, because less water-vapor in the upper atmosphere means less of a greenhouse effect. Midday in mid-summer is still beyond all dreams of Earthly hot, though. Likewise, it would get cold at night.
The native population are - or started as - perfectly ordinary modern Homo sapiens, and were essentially dropped on the planet by accident and without much in the way of support equipment - no libraries, modular factories, etc. By the time my story picks up, they've clawed their way back up from the rock-bottom crash to about equivalent to the nineteen-teens. For entirely arbitrary plot reasons, they've yet to reinvent radio. There are also more logical places where their emphasis differs from what Earth's had, and so they're more or less sophisticated at.
I have some suspicions about what the place is like, but I'd like to hear y'all's opinions without having me prejudicing you beyond telling you the image that started this setting percolating in my mind.
It's in the middle of a tremendous, tremendously flat desert, like if Groom Dry Lake covered from horizon to horizon without a single bit of variation. The sky above is absolutely cloudless, giving an unobstructed view of the glaring sun and an earth-like planet - clouds, ocean, green plants, etc. - covering a shockingly large arc. The perfection of the plain is spoiled by two things - the first is some sort of spaceplane, maybe seventy feet long from the scale of the space-suited but helmetless human figure standing in its shadow. It's obviously crash-landed - its skin is scratched and torn, the underside is all ripped up, and there's a long scrape mark trailing out of frame where it slid to a halt. It's equally obviously never going to fly again.
About two thirds of the way to the horizon is a vehicle that looks like someone crossed a container ship with a three-trailer road train with one of those obnoxiously huge off-road dump trucks with a windjammer with Turby-type wind-turbines where its sails should be.
And just overhead is buzzing a moderately sleek biplane, like something Earth would've built circa 1930 or so, with an open cockpit but retractable landing gear.
(Note - I suspect I'm going to be changing the worlds' orbital period to somewhere around 25+ hours; longer days and nights have more time to heat up and cool down and drive the weather patterns I want.)
Planet Scour
Diameter: 18,928 km (1.48*Earth's)
Density: 4.3 g/cm^3 (0.78*Earth's)
Mass: 1.5294*10^25 kg (2.56*Earth's)
Viewing Angle: 21 degrees (42*that of Luna as seen from Earth)
Albedo: ~5.5
Orbital Period: 21.7 hours
Planet Iden
Diameter: 11,654 km (0.91)
Density: 5.9 g/cm^3 (1.1)
Mass: 4.7794*10^24 kg (0.80)
Viewing Angle: 15 degrees (30)
Albedo: ~3.5
Orbital Period: 21.7 hours
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"
Or better yet, help with mine. ^_^
Okay, so, the fundamental concept I was running these numbers to fit with is wondering what kind of civilization could or would develop on a world with no oceans. I don't, however, want some place like Arrakis or Tatooine - this place has a little water - enough to fill some pretty impressive lakes and/or small seas... It has crustal plates like Earth's - high, low-density continental ones and low-lying basalt 'ocean plates' - and just about enough water to fill in what would be its ocean trenches. I think you should get... some rain... downwind of them. Maybe as much as the Sarengeti does.
The average temperature should be cooler than Earth's, because less water-vapor in the upper atmosphere means less of a greenhouse effect. Midday in mid-summer is still beyond all dreams of Earthly hot, though. Likewise, it would get cold at night.
The native population are - or started as - perfectly ordinary modern Homo sapiens, and were essentially dropped on the planet by accident and without much in the way of support equipment - no libraries, modular factories, etc. By the time my story picks up, they've clawed their way back up from the rock-bottom crash to about equivalent to the nineteen-teens. For entirely arbitrary plot reasons, they've yet to reinvent radio. There are also more logical places where their emphasis differs from what Earth's had, and so they're more or less sophisticated at.
I have some suspicions about what the place is like, but I'd like to hear y'all's opinions without having me prejudicing you beyond telling you the image that started this setting percolating in my mind.
It's in the middle of a tremendous, tremendously flat desert, like if Groom Dry Lake covered from horizon to horizon without a single bit of variation. The sky above is absolutely cloudless, giving an unobstructed view of the glaring sun and an earth-like planet - clouds, ocean, green plants, etc. - covering a shockingly large arc. The perfection of the plain is spoiled by two things - the first is some sort of spaceplane, maybe seventy feet long from the scale of the space-suited but helmetless human figure standing in its shadow. It's obviously crash-landed - its skin is scratched and torn, the underside is all ripped up, and there's a long scrape mark trailing out of frame where it slid to a halt. It's equally obviously never going to fly again.
About two thirds of the way to the horizon is a vehicle that looks like someone crossed a container ship with a three-trailer road train with one of those obnoxiously huge off-road dump trucks with a windjammer with Turby-type wind-turbines where its sails should be.
And just overhead is buzzing a moderately sleek biplane, like something Earth would've built circa 1930 or so, with an open cockpit but retractable landing gear.
(Note - I suspect I'm going to be changing the worlds' orbital period to somewhere around 25+ hours; longer days and nights have more time to heat up and cool down and drive the weather patterns I want.)
Planet Scour
Diameter: 18,928 km (1.48*Earth's)
Density: 4.3 g/cm^3 (0.78*Earth's)
Mass: 1.5294*10^25 kg (2.56*Earth's)
Viewing Angle: 21 degrees (42*that of Luna as seen from Earth)
Albedo: ~5.5
Orbital Period: 21.7 hours
Planet Iden
Diameter: 11,654 km (0.91)
Density: 5.9 g/cm^3 (1.1)
Mass: 4.7794*10^24 kg (0.80)
Viewing Angle: 15 degrees (30)
Albedo: ~3.5
Orbital Period: 21.7 hours
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"