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Thread: BSG Planetary System; research and prelims

  1. #1

    Default BSG Planetary System; research and prelims

    So, I'm getting ready to run a demo of the BSG rpg and I got looking at the map that's floating around.

    First off I decided to fix it as there's inconsistencies between it and the book text.

    Then I was looking at the BSG wiki and saw all the stuff that's come out since the book was published and thought "Hmmm, maybe I should try my own map."

    notesFrom Serge's Twitter)

    "Only the twelve colonies are peopled. The star cluster has a few other planets, not many."

    "Picon is sometimes thought of as "Caprica, Jr." Slightly colder overall, clean, polite, originally colonized by Virgon" (Implies it should be near Virgon)

    "All 12 colonies are on planets within a cluster of 4 stars. The arrangement is complex, but astronomers within the colonies have a thorough understanding of the forces. The key is Ragnar, an uninhabitable gas giant with two planets orbiting it at its orbit's LaGrange points. This, plus Caprica sharing an orbit with its twin planet Gemenon (hence the name), allow this tight cluster of three stars and one outlier to support 12 planets. Of course, some, like Aquarion, are only marginally habitable"

    (I find this interesting as it implies the stars are in a very tight group, which I think is highly unusual, and less conducive to life than spread out stars each with planets orbiting them. I also don't understand how Ragnar makes it workable)

    "Be careful not to confuse Aerilon with Aquarion. They are different, although located relatively close to one other."

    "Libran is largely a wildlife reserve that also serves as home to the intercolonial court system."

    "it rarely snows in Caprica City."

    "The colonies most centrally located relative to the group: Caprica, Gemenon, Tauron and Picon, were the first to be settled."

    "The colonial planets are within a star cluster, Diogo, thus days to weeks. RT @melodaf How long is a commercial trip between colonies?"

    ~~~~~~~

    I've been doing some math (That may well be wrong) based on given numbers (numbers have been rounded).

    BSG was 300 million miles from Capria in the Miniseries, which was an estimated .5 days away (Knowing that Roslin got her diagnosis the same day the Cylons attacked)

    BSG was 3 days from Ragnar at Subspace speed. That's equal to around 19.3 AUs

    Caprica to Ragnar is thus about 3.5 days at subspace or 2,100,000,000 mi. or 22.58 AUs

    One AU is 93 million miles

    That makes 6.4 AUs/Day or 595 Million Miles. That's 25 million miles/hr or 413,000 miles/min or 6,800 miles/sec. which is around 1/31 the Speed of light.

    Now, this doesn't take into account orbital positions.

    Basically, what this means is that Ragnar, the furthest planet out, is between 21 or 23 AUs from The Primary. That's a good distance.

    What does all this mean?

    That the three main stars are probably within 11 or so AUs away from each other (Equivalent to Alpha Centauri A & B). Which is far enough away to have Stable Planetary orbits of at least 250 million years. Which means compared to Earth (4.5 billion years) they are very young planets... At least in their current orbits.

    It also means that and I had too damn much time on my hands before the BSG demo game I ran.

    Next post down has the map as I have it right now.
    Last edited by Tensen01; 07-31-2010 at 06:20 PM.
    Hand Drawn Art by Derek Hand Art by yours truly. Available for Freelance or other work

  2. #2

    Default

    Here's the map I put together.

    http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l1.../colonies3.png
    (Full size image attached to post)

    Now, keep in mind that for most of the planets I just guessed or based it on some little bit of dialog/text (Such as Tauron being settled by Virgon and Leonis thus should be close)

    I also added a few non-canon planets to act as system filler.

    What do you think?
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  3. #3

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    Looks good, however according to the BSG wiki and the awesome SergeGraystone twitter account:
    Aquaria and Aerelon share an orbit and in turn share an orbit (or orbit) Ragnar.

    In one episode of Caprica they show Tauron which has a large, close-orbiting moon or co-planet that matches the description of Scorpia.

  4. #4

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    Well, The wiki and Serge's twitter says they share Ragnar's orbit at it's Lagrange points (Aerilon and Aquaria occupy Ragnar's orbit's LaGrange points, Thomas. RT @Badger_Face28 Two of the colonies orbit Ragnar, which are they?)... Which implies L4 & L5. but, I decided to put Aquaria at it's L4 and Aerilon at it's L1 because they're both very different climates. It makes sense that Aquaria, being a mostly frozen planet, is right at the edge of the habitable zone, and Aerilon being an agricultural planet needs to be closer to the sun. That's why I chose those particular L points, plus he doesn't specifically say L4 & L5. Now, I put Aerilon on it's own orbit because it still travels around the sun in an orbital path.

    Now, as for Scorpia and Tauron Serge states (in a post I didn't list) that the "planet" is Tauron's moon NOT Scorpia. "Tauron does not have a shared orbit. It does have a moon. RT @shortstack81 what planet does Tauron share an orbit with?" now, if that WERE Scorpia he surely would have mentioned it since he makes a point of mentioning Caprica and Gemenon sharing their orbit.
    Last edited by Tensen01; 08-01-2010 at 02:20 PM.
    Hand Drawn Art by Derek Hand Art by yours truly. Available for Freelance or other work

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