 March 14, 2012 - 9:51pm | I point everyone to this neat article: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/february/slac-nomad-planets-022312.html This article points out that there might be 100,000 times more nomad planets than stars in the Milky Way. A nomad planet is a planet that is not orbiting a star but off on it's own. These can range from Pluto/asteroid size to just shy of enough mass to become a star (failed stars/large jovians). I imagine that these are what make stable jump routes so hard to create. But they also make a new plot device for mis-jumps given that mass is what helps pull a ship out of the void. You mis-jump and find yourself not near a star but out in the black and have to search for the mass that pulled you out. Hopefully you are not heading directly to it. Also it has likely deflected your jump vector and now you have to realign to get pointed back to where you were going. But where the heck are you? Where are you pointed? Most of these nomads would be cold rocks of various sizes and boring, both financially and scientifically. They are not in an opportune spot to exploit financially and scientifically there are dozens if not hundreds like them elsewhere and even in-system where it's safer to study. However there could be a few that are unique. Imagine a nomad world that is tectonically active enough that you can walk it's surface with out freezing yet cool enough that you don't have to walk on lava. There could be an atmosphere with the right gasses available for breathing at a suitable pressure. Likely some form of gas mask or scrubbers would be needed to clean out the toxic fumes from the volcanic activity providing the worlds heat. The world would be dark too, all the time. Only volcanic glows would be seen. We could think up dozens of these worlds drifting in the blank spots on the frontier map. What do you think? -iggy |
 March 15, 2012 - 2:02am | Iggy, great idea. How about a planet with silicone based life forms that do not need light and survive off the tectonic activity? Or a mining crew has secret coordinates to one and something happens while they are out there and the pc's have to go find them? |
 March 15, 2012 - 3:46am | Building on Iggy's idea, Misjump and the ship has energy sensor; There is a bit of a panic as the PCs realize they misjumped and there is no star.As pro forma the navigator runs an e scan and gets a ping from infra red- discovery of a seemingly techtonic planet radiating in the infra red. Mystery of mysteries this should be investigated. A small handful of reasons for why its techtonically active- odd ones are: alien tech- world actually has a fussion generator at its heart, or from tidal squeezing by a heavier body Right away the proposed location is mysterious and since you need protagonists its very easy to play to the mystery and that suggests tetrach or klikk, but a borg rip off could work, or something GM for just this adventure campaign. Ring world like mysteries also suggest themselves and leaving the builders a mystery could also work. Things that populate the setting Primitive alien species ala Volturnus or Star Trek's Menagerie, Your basic helpless damsels in distress that must be saved. malovent techno or bio constructs- necrons or Zenomorphs that incubate in your stomach before bursting through your chest wreckage of a frontier ship that crashed here 20 years before. wrechage of a sathar ship that crashed here 20 years before wreckage of a strange alien ship never seen before in the Frontier and not related to the planet in any fashion powerful alien entity- a bit derranged and out of its mind- wont reason and has an agenda the PCs wont like I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 15, 2012 - 6:34am | Is the term rouge planet used in the same context? What about dyson spheres. Hollow planets, someone mined all the resources leaving a shell. A planet that wad ejected from its home star broke up into large chunks, very rich deposites however the rotating chunks are hazardous. |
 March 15, 2012 - 6:50am | Thinking one factor could be how fast is the rogue planet moving? Space 1999 had the Moon moving so fast it hit a new star system every week. This also brings up an idea. A base built on the rogue planet populated by the the core four used for various purposes. Staging ground, scientific research, hidden manufacturing, pirate base, colony of a hidden cult. Maybe abandoned for a huge dungeon crawl. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 March 15, 2012 - 7:19am | I actually know some of the people mentioned in that article. Not well, but I do know them. It's an interesting topic. I think the numbers are over-estimated, but there's no doubt there are wandering or rogue planets floating around out there. I should go find and read the real scientific paper. 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 |
 March 15, 2012 - 10:47am | Reminds me of a couple episodes of Star Trek (original series and Enterprise)...  Long live the Frontier! |
March 15, 2012 - 10:50am | Maybe abandoned for a huge dungeon crawl.
This is a great idea. Could go along with Eric's "Bug Hunt" article. Sppoooookkkyyy! Also, rattraveller, your on to something. Instead of building expensive stations in the black, cutting-edge power experiments could be performed on drifting objects. Sebatta Power Systems recently claimed nomad planet BX4493J (BX for short) to conduct volatile power experiments. They built a monitoring station in Araks to track BX's movement. Soon after the multi-billion credit power complex was completed on BX, the monitoring station lost contact. Foul play is suspect. |
