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This is a supplement for my planet and system generation tables.
100 Planet Names
- [6'53" of Static with Intermittent, Indistinct Screams]
- Abacus
- Abaia
- Akupara Ahtooin
- Algedonia
- Ambergris
- Antediluvia
- Antipode
- Armok-Krugg
- Aurora Abnormalis
- Autumn
- Bad News
- Balloon
- Beagle
- Billiard
- Bir Tawil
- Brahmapura
- Brindlecap
- Buerland
- Cappadocia
- Caravan
- Carcosa
- Cetus
- Chimera
- Circe
- Cleave
- Cooldown
- Coyolxāuhqui
- Crow Point
- Cursefountain
- Cydonia Prime
- D.B. Cooperstown
- Dâyuni'sï
- Dead Heat
- Didelphus Maxibene
- Drear
- Dustbunny
- Dvaraka
- Emancipation
- Florence
- Gluggaveður
- Goalposts
- Han Xiangzhi
- Hayashida
- Hellmouth
- Hundun
- Isolata
- Ixion
- Knot
- Kubaba
- Lathe
- Let's Try It Again!
- Lintukoto
- Lithomare
- Loxley
- Magetobria
- Mal Locus
- Malina
- Menelik
- Midlothian
- Montague
- Mornington Crescent
- Mwindo
- Naraka
- Nessus
- Nysa
- Octavia
- Oliphaunt
- One Angry Goose
- Pangur Ban
- Pegana
- Pharos Major
- Pisswater
- Plutomandacare
- Polyphemus
- Polyrana
- Ram Setu
- Rock House
- Scholomance
- Sekhmet
- Silverspot
- Skennenrahawi
- Squatters' Rights
- St. Germain
- St. Severian
- Suaveolent
- Sulayman Dawud
- Tanabe
- Tezcatlipoca
- The Back-Down
- Three Moths
- Uzumaki
- Vasuki
- Xi Wangmu
- Xin Zhui
- Yan Tan Tethera
- Yesod
- Yoko
- Youdu
- Zagreus
40 Planet & Planetoid Types
These are intended to whip up a planet irrelevant of what is in the rest of the system, so it is unweighted and not modified by anything. I am using the following guidelines.- Asteroid - Not enough mass to form a sphere or spheroid.
- Dwarf - Has enough mass to pull itself into a sphere or spheroid.
- Terrestrial - Sufficient mass to generate internal geologic activity.
- Mercurial - Very thin to no atmosphere. Usually close to parent star.
- Martian - Liable to lose atmosphere relatively quickly as core quiets down.
- Gaian - Can maintain long-term atmosphere and hydrosphere due to longer period of geological activity.
- Supergaian - Gaian worlds up to 2.5 earth masses. Typically dense atmospheres and high water content.
- Superterrestrial - In excess of 2.5 earth masses. Typically very dense atmosphere.
- Neptunian - In excess of 10 earth masses. >50% atmospheric water and ice.
- These are called ice giants, but can come in all sorts of temperatures!
- Gas Giant - Very, very big. Primarily hydrogen and helium, <50% atmospheric water and ice.
- A strong magnetosphere (generated by strong internal geologic activty) will protect an atmosphere from being stripped by the parent star.
- The closer you are to the parent star, the more likely it is that the atmosphere has been stripped off .
- The smaller the body is, the more likely the atmosphere gets stripped off due to weak magnetic field.
- The closer you are to the parent star, the more likely it is that the planet is tidally locked or has an extreme day/night cycle.
- "Habitable"does not mean "this won't immediately kill you."
- If you use the right habitats, everything is habitable.
- This list is as far from exhaustive as it is possible to be.
- Asteroid, rocky
- Asteroid, metal
- Asteroid, icy
- Dwarf planet, rocky
- Dwarf planet, icy
- Dwarf planet, ice-rock mix
- Dwarf planet, europan (rocky core, ice shell, subglacial oceans)
- Dwarf planet, titanian (icy, thick atmosphere, liquid methane hydrosphere)
- Dwarf planet, molten
- Terrestrial, mercurial
- Terrestrial, molten
- Terrestrial, hot arid martian
- Terrestrial, cold arid martian
- Terrestrial, watery martian
- Terrestrial, frozen martian
- Terrestrial, gaian (<25% water coverage)
- Terrestrial, gaian (25-50% water coverage)
- Terrestrial, gaian (50-85% water coverage)
- Terrestrial, gaian (85-100% water coverage)
- Terrestrial, frozen gaian (majority of water is ice)
- Terrestrial, greenhouse gaian (hot, high atmospheric CO2 content)
- Terrestrial, pressure-cooker gaian (very hot, dense atmosphere that still permits liquid surface water)
- Terrestrial, exotic gaian (high quantities of atmospheric chlorine, sulfuric acid, etc)
- Terrestrial, venusian (extremely hot, extremely dense atmosphere)
- Terrestrial, icy
- Terrestrial, titantian (icy, thick atmosphere, liquid methane hydrosphere)
- Supergaian, continental (any% water coverage)
- Supergaian, panthalassic (total ocean coverage)
- Superterrestrial, rocky
- Superterrestrial, icy (liquid interior oceans possible)
- Superterrestrial, arid martian
- Superterrestrial, panthalassic (total ocean coverage)
- Superterrestrial, venusian
- Superterrestrial, titanian
- Superterrestrial, molten
- Superterrestrial, cthonian (core of a neptunian or gas giant stripped of its atmosphere)
- Neptunian, hot
- Neptunian, cold
- Gas giant, hot
- Gas giant, cold
The Simple d10 Terrestrial Table
Something useful I found while turning this all over in my head was buried in the Wikipedia page for planetary habitability - reference to a paper which categorized terrestrial planets by the state of water upon them, splitting them into four classes. I've taken those classes and added my own to round it out to ten options:- Class 0 - The planet's conditions do not and have never supported liquid water.
- Class I - The planet has the right conditions to support liquid water on its surface.
- Class II - The planet previously had conditions for liquid water, but cannot maintain them and either is losing or has already lost its hydrosphere.
- Class III - Planets that have liquid water oceans beneath a layer of ice.
- Class IV - Planet with liquid water layers either above or between layers of ice.
- Class V - All water on the planet is in the form of ice.
- Class VI - Planet is covered entirely in liquid water.
- Class VII - Planet is undergoing a period of extreme glaciation.
- Class VIII - Planet possesses a high percentage of exotic compounds in the atmosphere.
- Class IX - The planet possesses an artificially-established hydrosphere.
GENERAL CHALLENGE: Use the tables here and in the other post as the basis for a Mothership 1 shot.
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, have fun looking up which names are references to what.
Armok Krug, after the dwarven God of Blood Armok, but also the living fortress Armikrog from the disappointing spiritual successor to The Neverhood of the same name.
DeleteUnintended on the latter, but appropriate.
Delete"Sulayman Dawud" is from KSBD.
ReplyDeleteCarcosa is from the King in Yellow, *but* I'm guessing it's a reference to the planet in Mass Effect.
ReplyDeleteAll references to Carcosa are simultaneously references to all other references to Carcosa.
DeleteBad News and Let's Try It Again! sound rather Nivenesque, along the lines of We Made It. Or possibly, Douglas Adams' NowWhat.
ReplyDeleteTezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror, I'm guessing has a thick atmosphere of high albedo and a surface of black rock. (Not to be confused with Xipetotec, mineral-rich and strip-mined to exhaustion. Capital: New Xibalba. Don't go there.)
Niven has some great stuff for the background setting but his foreground writing gets a big old Y I K E S from me.
DeleteThat is the appropriate response. Good alien concepts and fun tech/physics gedankenexperiments; discard anything having to do with humans, and ESPECIALLY anything Pournelle-adjacent.
Delete