[Snail]

Wait, all of those are domes?


I'm sorry but I'm calling bull****. You can't encase an entire ****ing planet in giant domes.







Then again, this being Inferno/Mobimod, plausibility or even believability was never very high on the agenda.

[Herra Tohtori]

Wait, all of those are domes?


I'm sorry but I'm calling bull****. You can't encase an entire ****ing planet in giant domes.

Well, technically there's a term for that kind of thing.

But yeah, I have to second that. The part of my brain that does engineering just screams against it.

[Mobius]

Don't forget paraterraforming. You guys are forgetting that the EA has superb industrial capacities, and managed to build an enormous fleet plus the Icanus. In terms of construction, they're more akin to the Shivans than any Terran or Vasudan faction. How is that suprising?

Then again, this being Inferno/Mobimod, plausibility or even believability was never very high on the agenda.

Enough with this kind of comments because a) this is not a "Mobimod" of any sort and b) what the pic shows is a pure application of the EA's capacities to terraforming, which IMHO is quite plausible considering their technology. As I said, nothing to be surprised of. While you're free to criticize constructively these additions (explanations on why they're plausible will come later on, so I perfectly understand the current skepticism) I'm kind of sick of this "Mobimod" thingie someone recently came up with. Just letting you know.

[Snail]

Alright I guess the Mobimod comment was slightly out of line. Sorry.

On a more 'constructive' note, I'm just going to say that there's a massive leap between making a large fleet of ships and the Icanus and completely encasing an entire planet in atmosphere-retaining domes. It's just not plausible in any way and seriously cheapens the entire universe and background of Inferno.

I hope you at least think about this, because really the only reason I'm saying this is because I care - I care about Inferno and I just don't want to see something so ridiculous spoil the ethos and lore of a possibly very rich and interesting universe.

[Mobius]

The thickness of the domes hasn't been mentioned, so I fail to understand why the thing looks unbelievable. Also unmentioned is the time required to build all domes. Furthermore, Luna isn't a planet, it's a satellite, and that's the reason why conventional terraforming was impossible in the first place. Worldhousing something of the same size as Earth... that would be kind of difficult to understand, but Luna?

[The E]

Not to mention that this dome idea is a severely bad idea on an astral body that acts as a meteoroid catcher for another one (like the moon does for Earth). Not to mention that the moon has other severe problems, such as an incredible amount of background radiation courtesy of the sun. Then there's the issue that the moon doesn't have the natural ressources to make an operation like this profitable, especially if you've already terraformed Mars.

But again, this comes down to narrative preferences. One adage of SF is that if you keep the bat**** insane stuff to a minimum, the audience will be more able to accept the bits of really crazy technology you're introducing.
In this case, you're basically positing that this Earth Alliance or whatever it's called is, for all intents and purposes, a post-scarcity society similar in capabilities to Iain Bank's Culture. The question then becomes how anything could be a threat to them.

The thickness of the domes hasn't been mentioned, so I fail to understand why the thing looks unbelievable. Also unmentioned is the time required to build all domes. Furthermore, Luna isn't a planet, it's a satellite, and that's the reason why conventional terraforming was impossible in the first place. Worldhousing something of the same size as Earth... that would be kind of difficult to understand, but Luna?

Why terraform Luna at all? That's the question we're asking.

[Mobius]

You're posting apparent conclusions to a debate about the presumed effectiveness of the materials the domes are made of, except this debate hasn't even started. If by domes you mean conventional domes, then terraforming of the Moon should have started before the 2100s. Due to many difficulties, many of which are mentioned in your post, it was impossible to do anything on the Moon other than building some installations and cities.

As I stated a while ago, when I posted pics of an EA group near a terraformed Luna, something in the 2350s ensured suprising technological development. I can tell you that new technologies made certain things possible, but unfortunately I can't give out the details. Discussions on such technologies date back to April 2008 (I've just checked the private boards) and they required a lot of time.

Why terraform Luna? Perhaps to move citizens and increase the number of military surface installations? Population in Sol entered a period of sharp increase in the 2350s, and further colonization of Luna by Earthers and Martians alike is to boost the alliance between the colonies which just came out from a bloody war (you don't need INFASA to understand this, it can be easily deduced in the old INFA).

I see I should provide more plot-related info to prevent such comments, but the general trend in eyecandy threads is to post pics and only a handful of info. This may (and probably will) change if community members press the unplausibility alarm button.


I acknowledge it's my fault: I should definitely provide more explanations when posting pics of this kind.

[NGTM-1R]

Housing something the size of Luna is still an extremely difficult operation to accomplish. It's 1/4 the size of Earth. That is a big number; do you honestly believe we could construct a covering over 1/4th of the planet? Just bringing in enough materials for such a project would noticeably alter tides on Earth.

And we actually see Luna in the FS1 end cutscene, looking pristine and quite familar, so you have a canonical constraint on how long you can take on this.

[Mobius]

As I said, everything will be explained.

Canonical constraint on what? I wanted Luna to be terraformed at the time of FS1, but then remembered how it looked like in Endgame. At that point, I realized it'd be better to terraform it in the 2350s for reasons I mentioned above.

[General Battuta]

It's pure fantasy, but whatever, I'm rolling with it. I try to think of whatever Inferno has mutated into as being kind of like Wings of Dawn.

[Kosh]

Wait, all of those are domes?


I'm sorry but I'm calling bull****. You can't encase an entire ****ing planet in giant domes.

Well, technically there's a term for that kind of thing.

But yeah, I have to second that. The part of my brain that does engineering just screams against it.

Hasn't it been theorized that it would take several planets (meaning sextillions of tons) worth of materials to build one?

Not to mention that this dome idea is a severely bad idea on an astral body that acts as a meteoroid catcher for another one (like the moon does for Earth). Not to mention that the moon has other severe problems, such as an incredible amount of background radiation courtesy of the sun. Then there's the issue that the moon doesn't have the natural ressources to make an operation like this profitable, especially if you've already terraformed Mars.

Exactly. Mars and to a lesser extent Venus are much better candidates for terraforming.

[mr.WHO]

Exactly. Mars and to a lesser extent Venus are much better candidates for terraforming.

Yeah, I think that Venus is theoreticaly possible to terraform within present day, real life technology (albeit extremely slow and too expensive):

- Venus gravity is near perfect
- Venus rotation speed can be increased (might be much easier/faster with FS tech).
- Venus atmosphere can be thinered and altered (easy stuff with FS tech).
- Venus higher solar energy input (due to the smaller distance to Sun) can be deflected (or bettter deflected by harvesting) using the large number of space solar panels & deflectors, placed between Sun and Venus (should be really easy with FS tech - if you can build 20 cubic km instalation, then you can build a very thing but thosand cubic km large "solar deflector/collector" - not to mention it would be econnomically worth if you could store that energy for further use).

 

[The E]

Exactly. Mars and to a lesser extent Venus are much better candidates for terraforming.

Yeah, I think that Venus is theoreticaly possible to terraform within present day, real life technology (albeit extremely slow and too expensive):

- Venus gravity is near perfect
- Venus rotation speed can be increased (might be much easier/faster with FS tech).
- Venus atmosphere can be thinered and altered (easy stuff with FS tech).
- Venus higher solar energy input (due to the smaller distance to Sun) can be deflected (or bettter deflected by harvesting) using the large number of space solar panels & deflectors, placed between Sun and Venus (should be really easy with FS tech - if you can build 20 cubic km instalation, then you can build a very thing but thosand cubic km large "solar deflector/collector" - not to mention it would be econnomically worth if you could store that energy for further use).

 

Wrong, very, very wrong. Venus' atmosphere is far too toxic for terraforming to ever be possible.

[ShadowGorrath]

Exactly. Mars and to a lesser extent Venus are much better candidates for terraforming.

Yeah, I think that Venus is theoreticaly possible to terraform within present day, real life technology (albeit extremely slow and too expensive):

- Venus gravity is near perfect
- Venus rotation speed can be increased (might be much easier/faster with FS tech).
- Venus atmosphere can be thinered and altered (easy stuff with FS tech).
- Venus higher solar energy input (due to the smaller distance to Sun) can be deflected (or bettter deflected by harvesting) using the large number of space solar panels & deflectors, placed between Sun and Venus (should be really easy with FS tech - if you can build 20 cubic km instalation, then you can build a very thing but thosand cubic km large "solar deflector/collector" - not to mention it would be econnomically worth if you could store that energy for further use).

 

Wrong, very, very wrong. Venus' atmosphere is far too toxic for terraforming to ever be possible.

Yeah, and freespace is far too realistic to ever allow Venus or Luna to be terraformed. How can anyone even consider that.

[The E]

You are not getting the point. There's a fine line in SF, where being very realistic in some areas allows you to be very unrealistic in others. Also, think a moment about what the technological capability to terraform Mars, Luna AND build a supermassive fleet on top of it means. Question is, how can an economic entity capable of all that be threatened by anything?

[jr2]

Shivans.

[T-LoW]

They have a super massive fleet but are supposed to live entirely in space - so they have no need for terraforming

[jr2]

That wasn't the question.

[Snail]

Shivans.

Well that's the thing. The Shivans are supposed to be unknowable; a semi-mystical species that has resources and influence that can only be speculated at. They introduce a slightly mythological angle to the FreeSpace saga. What this is on the other hand, is a very human faction that in around 15 years (!!), has gone from being a space faring society to possessing practically godlike power. It just doesn't make any sense.

[Mobius]

It does make sense when you know why and how it happened. I have to correct misinformation in your last post: 1) nobody here has stated at 15 years after the Great War Luna will look that way; it's a slow process, hence the reason why I said that it started in the 2350s. In the 2380s, it may be still in process. 2) there's no such thing has the "human faction" you mentioned. Factions changed over the time due to alliances, wars, and discoveries, so you can't act pretty much as if the GTA as you know it will suddenly become capable of terraforming Luna and building enormous fleets.

jr2 got it right: Shivans. Technology of the EA is more akin to Shivan technology (that's why any conventional assumption on economical efforts is not precise) for reasons that will be explained. It is convenient, and even a lot, but the EA will pay the price of such technology since the first encounters with the Shivans in INF SCP. I can't tell you more about the matter, however.


Oh, because someone has mentioned Venus, I'd like to say that it won't be terraformed at the time of INFASA. While terraforming is cool and necessary to explain the EA boost, it's not going to be overused.