Water in the Universe

[Brazedowl]

In "Water" the XO makes it obvious that water is extermely rare in the universe. "A grain of salt on a beach" I believe were his exact words.

Furthermore it is hinted that there are no or very few habitable worlds between the colonies and Earth. "They travled far and made their home upon a distant planet called Earth"

Now as far as we know all the planets in the twelve colonies are habitable without life support.

This begs the question of how twelve planets that can sustain human life came about in one star system. Could it be that the Lords of Kobal engenered the system? Perhaps a little terreforming?

In any case if water is as rare as they make it sound then there must be somthing particularlly special going on in the colonists home system.

[mjm800]

Good point, if water is so rare that it must be an extreme impossibility that 2 let alone 12 inhabitable planets could be found close together. The only reasonable explanation is that the Lords of Kobol terraformed the 12 colonies for them.

Good catch! ;D

[Brazedowl]

Thanks.

Honestly it didn't occur to me that they were in the same star system until they said so. "We're going to leave this solar system and we're not going to look back."

My fieance would like to point out that some may be moons, not nessicarlly panets, but that makes the situation no more likely.

[Mustex]

Moore said he believes there was a cataclysm, leading to a dark age, so the Lords were more advanced than the colonists.

[Brazedowl]

True. Did you read the proposed history of the colonies posted to the sci-fi board a few months ago? It was amazing. I would buy a book on the history of the colonies. ;D

[Blade Runner]

It's all happened before and it will all happen again. Remember the cylons have a plan

[Mustex]

Brazedowl said:

True. Did you read the proposed history of the colonies posted to the sci-fi board a few months ago? It was amazing. I would buy a book on the history of the colonies. ;D

No, I didn't read that.

[Brazedowl]

Well I can't see if I can locate it and repost it. :-D

[Brazedowl]

Well I wanted to post it but it was WAY too big. But I posted the link. ;D

[MHall]

The "facts" are:

1. Solar systems with water are rare.
2. The 12 colonies are all in the same solar system.

From this some conclude that you achieve a contradiction, and that it is highly implausible that there could be 12 colonies all in the same solar system, because water-rich solar systems are rare. I am surprised at the people on sci-fi who follow this logic. I realize that their first premise is actually "Worlds with water are rare," but they should realize that in the beginning the Earth was barren; the oceans of water on Earth came later from asteroids (with a lesser amount from comets, but that's another story), so you need to look at the solar system as a whole.

So they should instead reach the conclusion that it's likely that the 12 colonies would be in the same solar system, a rare water-rich one found by the inhabitants of another water-rich solar system, that of Kobol. Earth is also in a water-rich solar system, but it may be just a legend.

Then always come out the folks saying "No way could 12 Caprica-like worlds be in one solar system!" Use your imagination. It's just not that hard, and they need not all be like Caprica. But yes, terraforming probably has something to do with it.

[ladyrheena]

Plus, taking a completely non-scientific route, someone could say that the worlds were 'fated' to be there and so available to the human race. I wouldn't, but someone could.

And doesn't Priest Elosha read out summat at the end of the mini about the Lords of Kobol 'finding' the Twelve Worlds? Maybe for 'finding' we could read 'creating' or at the very least 'adapting.'

[Corwin]

Must have missed the place it said that all 12 colonies were in the same Solar System, where was this?

It seems odd that a Ship such as Cloud 9 has FTL capability in that case. Why would what I presume was basically a space travelling Hotel need ftl to travel between planets in one solar system?

[Big Brother]

I seem to recall a Ron Moore interview in which he admits that it would be highly unlikely for one solar system to have 12 inhabitable planets, but kept that part of the backstory from TOS because, in the long run, it didn't matter all that much.

But a 'solar system' doesn't necessarily mean one sun which all the planets orbit. Our own system has three worlds which might be made habitable, if a good-sized chunk of Venus' atmosphere was somehow moved to Mars. On the other hand, single-star systems are actually somewhat rare in the galaxy, with binary, trinary, and higher-order multi-star systems being far more common.

Many of these multiple-star systems feature stars that orbit each other closely enough that stable planetary orbits around either star would be pretty much impossible. But quite a few feature stars that orbit each other at distances where close planetary orbits would not be perturbed. The Manticore system in David Weber's Honor Harrington stories is such a system. Manticore-A is a star with two inhabitable planets (the Earthlike Manticore, and the colder and harsher world of Sphinx). Manticore-B is the companion star, orbiting at several light-weeks distance from Manticore-A, and around which orbits a third inhabitable planet, the also-cold-and-harsh Gryphon. Or do I have Gryphon and Sphinx mixed up? It's been a while since I last re-read that series.

The point is, the Cyrannus System where the 12 colonies resided may have been, say, a 4-star distant double-binary system, with each star having an average of 3 inhabitable worlds. Some worlds may be planets, some Earth-sized moons of gas giants like Jupiter (or Ragnar, for that matter). I've long been amused by the idea that Geminon/Gemen was a Rocheworld-style double planet...not that there's any evidence in canon for that, it just seems like a fun idea.