 November 18, 2010 - 11:48am | I was doing a little research on star clusters looking to understand the Formad Cluster after checking with Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_cluster It doesn't seem likely this could be a globular cluster and an Open cluster is unlikely as well though we might force it to be an open cluster What might be a viable possibility is a Hyper Compact Stellar System (HCSS) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercompact_stellar_system with a super dense black hole at its heart that was kicked out of the galactic center by gravitational wave recoil (damn that sounds intelligent as I type it) that managed to hang on to the stars closest to it at the time of recoil. What do you all think? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 November 18, 2010 - 12:30pm | Whatever you can imagine that is believable and makes a fun setting. |
November 18, 2010 - 12:46pm | well w00t I'm working on material for issue 17 and didn't want to blunder not getting the astronomy right. Sure the point is to have fun but I'd like to not violate science too much. I think the Formad Cluster sounds more interesting if it is a HCSS with a super dense black hole at its heart and it sounds like a managable number of stars as opposed to a globular cluster. Is it possible to have inhabitable real estate there? What considerations come into play if its used as a setting for adventure? What types of stars are possible there? are planets possible? Are there navigational hazards? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 18, 2010 - 2:54pm | believable == not violating science, at least not outright. :-) HCSS do not exist, well we haven't found one. :-P HCSS make it fun and interesting. :-)
you have been w00t'd! |
 November 18, 2010 - 5:55pm | I don't think I'd go with the HCSS (BTW, I had never heard of these before). The map shows the cluster being about 2-3 ly in diameter. Given the example in the wikipedia article, a HCSS with a mass of 50 million solar masses for the central black hole and a kick velocity of 1000 km/s would give you something about the right size. Inside that radius you'd have something on the order of 50,000 stars (assuming they averaged 1 solar mass each, in truth there would probably be more small ones). Given that number the average distance between stars would only be about 0.05 ly or 3500 AU. In such a cluster, there would never be night The light from all those stars would light up the night sky just as much as the daytime one. In addition, I'm not sure what the total radiation effect on any planet would be. It might nigh well make them all uninhabitable to the Frontier races, but maybe not. Navigation would be a pain as you could never really jump that far without running into something. Plust the thing is moving. At 1000 km/s it moves one ly every 300 years so it would be noticably bright and moving in the skys of every planet of the Frontier. With that massive of a BH at the center it would be modifying the orbits of the Frontier systems' stars from their normal orbit arount the galactic enter. It would be small, but definitely noticable. Personally, I just go with a small group of stars. You could easily have a couple of multiple star systems near each other and could consider that cluster. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
November 18, 2010 - 6:21pm | Personally, I just go with a small group of stars. You could easily have a couple of multiple star systems near each other and could consider that cluster. Ok any recommendations to tweak your suggestion to give it more interest than a trio of binary stars? since things on the inside of a dyson sphere would just fall into the sun what if a trinary system had a dyson shell around one star and the outer surface was used for habitation naturally no light from the englobed star would be seen but with other stellar bodies in close proximity that wont be a problem. EDIT: I've just learned there is a gravitational problem with trying to live on the inner surface of a dyson shell the for living on the outer surface you can use the gravity of the englobed star of course we are talking about a super technology to build such a thing and way outside of the ability of SF tech thus it has to be explain as ancient artifact/ tetrarch I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 November 18, 2010 - 8:57pm | Perhaps in the center of the cluster is the only stable worm hole in Frontier space, which the characters discover is how the Sather entered the Frontier, and they must destroy an ancient device on each of the planets in the cluster which together keep the worm hole stable, thus leaving the few remaining worms in the Frontier stranded, which leads to the Sather dying out in a blaze of glory or joining the Frontier until they can find another way home. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
November 18, 2010 - 9:35pm | Perhaps in the center of the cluster is the only stable worm hole in Frontier space, which the characters discover is how the Sather entered the Frontier, and they must destroy an ancient device on each of the planets in the cluster which together keep the worm hole stable, thus leaving the few remaining worms in the Frontier stranded, which leads to the Sather dying out in a blaze of glory or joining the Frontier until they can find another way home. Well I deffinetly think the sathar must be entering the Frontier form the direction of the Muld Cluster- repeated attacks through Zebulon and into the Rim I would not be for making it so easy to dispense with the sathar; if they die off you'd need to replace them. Plus you have sathar clans situated east of the Frontier well at least one clan that is the focus of the Beyond the Frontier campaign in the latter KH modules. However, I do like the idea of some ancient tech muddling the picture of the Muld Cluster plus the sathar and served shaken not stirred to the players. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 18, 2010 - 10:05pm | Maybe the stable wormhole might lead to another stellar civilization, Like the Concord (Star Drive). This would allow the Alternity races come to the Frontier, and the heroes could be the ones to make first contact with these newcomers just as the Sathar arrive hoping to exploit the wormhole to launch an attack on the Concord, or to destroy the ancient device keeping the worm hole open to keep the Frontier from allying with the Concord against them. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
November 18, 2010 - 10:08pm | Actually, you could live on part of the inside of a Dyson sphere if it was rotating. But the amount of energy to get something that big to properly rotate and stay centered on the star is fairly staggering. Niven touched on that in his Ringworld books and a sphere would be even harder to work with than his ring. I don't really have anything specific you could use to spruce it up other than maybe make the stars themselves interesting for some reason, either astronomically (maybe its a huge complex 20 star system that is all gravitationally bound), or maybe they are young metal-rich stars and any planets you do find, whether habitable or not, will be very rich in mineral resources. That actually makes it attractive as a Sathar base. Assume the planets in the cluster are rich in metals, then you have a lot of resources very close by. Maybe it's the primary Starship Construction Center for the Sathar War Machine, with mining, refineries and construction yards all over the place in the various cluster systems all feeding to a final massive starship construction yard around the one system with a habitable planet. (This one is actually kind of interesting given some of the other ideas you've come up with.) I'm conservative so I wouldn't do anything as exotic as a wormhole or Dyson sphere. Maybe it's actually the last little remaining core of the larger open cluster that formed all the stars of the Frontier (of course that wouldn't work with the higher metal content idea above). The Frontier itself is large enough to be just about the right size to be one quadrant of an open cluster. The only problem with that idea is that then the stars (in the cluster or the Frontier) would not really be old enough to have evolved life on them as they'd only be a few hundreds of millions of years old. That's not actually a problem for the Core Four since they supposedly came from elsewhere but is for all the other races that are supposed to be "native". Or mabye it is just a very small cluster of stars that possibly has a high velocity relative to the Frontier and is just "passing through" over the next few million years. Anyway, those are some ideas. I guess the bottom line is "What do you want it to be?" We can always come up with a way to make it so. At least most of the time. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 November 19, 2010 - 8:03am | I like the young metal rich system idea. The sathar could have just set up shop there with AZ Gamer's construction yard. The players discover it and call in some help. Frontier wide disaster averted! -iggy |
November 19, 2010 - 8:48am | In defense of the Stable worm hole idea, I have a love for the epic, and I figure that having three stars that close together creating a stable worm hole would be such a rarity that would make it a unique feature in the Frontier, and taking a page from Star Trek or Disney's black hole could have either a derelict base (perhaps built by an ancient race near it) or a long lost Frontier exploration vessel now captained by an insane scientist and crew of security drones and a large red warbot. The heroes may have been sent as a scout force to take command of the ancient space station which could lead to a great many adventures as the sathar try to either infiltrate it, or destroy it, and it would allow for many exploratory missions beyond the Frontier. Or in the other scenario, the heroes are captured by the mad captain and have to team up with two hovering maintenance robots to escape before the mad captain sends his ship into the wormhole. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
November 19, 2010 - 8:57am | Personally I don't like the idea of the sathar in this area, for this reason; it would be all conflict without the other elements of the game, IMO. I do like the idea of Shadow's pirate horde having operations in this area (where did I read that). Which, if the sathar were here, undetected perhaps the pirates have to defend against them and ask for assistance from the frontier sector (system militia's, UPF, etc) in order to stop the onslaught. I'm intrigued of the idea having characters and others work side-by-side with pirates. The other idea I like is an area to explore that is literally out of the world! Just wanted to share because sharing is 1/2 the battle! |
November 20, 2010 - 8:56pm | RE: Sathar in the Area: they have to come from somewhere on the west side of the map as they have consistently have entered the Zebulon system and the KH's campaign game shows that they must first enter Zebulon before hitting Truane's Star. So their start circle is some where within reasonable jump distance of Zebulon. Plus since they have a long history of troubling the Rim before the Capellan Free Merchants entered the Frontier that "star circle" is likely a system withing easy reach of both Zebulon and Osak (I assume that the first few sathar incursions in the Rim began at Osak since that is the only Rim system with armed space stations- two of them). According to information leaked from the Second Sathar Summit there are only 3 likely locations for that starting point for invading the Rim and Frontier: Mechano, the Formad Cluster, and the unexplored system a few light years south east of Capella. No doubt there are stars just beyond the map's edge that they can link to but its almost certain that they are using one of these systems and its possible they have a presence there as well- whether a listening post, supply depot, or a full up military base. RE: spinning a dyson sphere- according to the reading I did spinning a dyson sphere to simulate gravity on the inside would result in everything pooling at the equator for some reason. Since a dyson sphere is super tech if you use it you might as well not spin it and say it has artificial gravity. I like the black hole and the allusion to the disney movie as well. though a worm hole would work for me as well- maybe thats how the sathar on the east and west of the map are communicating. plus I like the idea of some sort of ancient tech in the Formad Cluster but maybe something that is ill understood. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 November 21, 2010 - 3:55pm | My take on the Formad Cluster was always this: three close binary systems, possibly gravitationally bound. As its west of Capella, its something that the Rim Coalition has data about, and something of a mystery to the UPF. I've always wanted to throw in other civilizations beyond the Frontier, and that could be a strategic point for such. This also brings up something that's always bothered me. Why no development of binary systems? As I understand it, most companion stars are far and cool enough that a Sun-like primary could support an Earth-like world. SF seems to regard binaries as uninhabitable and worthless. In my own expanded Frontier, there are several binaries with habitable worlds. Just my two cents... Long live the Frontier! |
 November 23, 2010 - 10:16pm | Binaries like Earth and Jupiter from the movie 2010? I could see that. Big Sun in the middle and a smaller Star orbiting it, in about the same area as Jupiter. Minus the silly Monoliths though.... The bombing starts in five minutes. |
 November 25, 2010 - 12:08am | I think you will find reading about Transversable wormholes very useful in your concept. BTW I use such concepts extensively in my Frontier Space Game Setting. I know a lot of our hard science friends Cringe when I even mention it, but it does make for a very fascinating plot device. |
November 26, 2010 - 2:30pm | @dmoffett: Actually, I mean more like Alpha Centauri, where the companion is larger, but further out. But, yes, the Sol/Jupiter could work too. Long live the Frontier! |
 September 17, 2011 - 11:57am | I would take on such a project for a 'clean slate' perspective, building the Ifshnit presence, the Sathar Threat, and the Formation of the Lose Coalition... in it's total 400yr (or there-about) history... as if it was a stand alone setting. Then tie in the last century of interaction with the Frontier Council. The emphasis would be on making the region a self-dependent setting that need not be seen from the perspective of the core-four to be understood... as detailed as the Frontier in history, diversity, and scope... but alien, non-humanocentric and non-homocentric. The Rim-Three would be the Ifshnit, Oskar, Humma ... and to that I would add Zuraqqor, Mechanon, and S'sessu as the secondaries of reduced technology, and society, and even less cohesion than the already loose coalition... the 'dependants' Then there would be the host of regular baddies... Sathar Terrorists, Humma Pirates, Zuraqquor Xenophobes, Mechonon Supremists... and Klikk-Clack Doomsday Devices, Tetrarch Toolsheds, Enora Environmental Disaster Refugees. For the most part this seems to be about where everyone is heading, and what the material being worked on supports, but I thought I'd chip in my overview of the Capellan Freetrade Region. --- I also don't think the HCSS is quite correct for Formad, the requirement of a black-hole and the density and over-all size is too high. At 3500 ly distances that is a sun at every Oort Cloud... not a lot of room for stability of the planets, but a few might exist with wild seasons. Is there some reason we can't just call Formad a distant simplex sextuplet system, with possible smaller innocuous companions ignored from this designation? I found Mizar and Alcor as a sextuple system... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_system http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RjesFB-o6o Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
 October 15, 2011 - 1:42pm | I think you will find reading about Transversable wormholes very useful in your concept. BTW I use such concepts extensively in my Frontier Space Game Setting. I know a lot of our hard science friends Cringe when I even mention it, but it does make for a very fascinating plot device. Its also the parameters that made the Star Fire Grand Campaign what it was, along with the David Weber books based on it.With the way that science is going this day, finding out new 'stuff', it won't be a GASP!!!, but "'bout bloody time - what took ya so long?!?!" "If we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" -A Einstein |
October 15, 2011 - 2:17pm | I think you will find reading about Transversable wormholes very useful in your concept. BTW I use such concepts extensively in my Frontier Space Game Setting. I know a lot of our hard science friends Cringe when I even mention it, but it does make for a very fascinating plot device. Its also the parameters that made the Star Fire Grand Campaign what it was, along with the David Weber books based on it.With the way that science is going this day, finding out new 'stuff', it won't be a GASP!!!, but "'bout bloody time - what took ya so long?!?!" bloody awesome quote!  |
