KIC 846285

As I'm sure many of you have heard, the Kepler Space Telescope found something interesting about 1400 light years away. There is an old star that is dimming over 20% at time during the last 4 years of study. Now, when a planet occludes a star, the dip in brightness is usually around 1%, so a 20% + drop is pretty astounding. If this was a young star, then it could possibly be chalked up to debris that will likely eventually become planets, but that's not the case. So what is it? There have been theories from planetary collisions, comet swarms, to Dyson Sphere objects built by an alien civilization.

In case you don't know what a Dyson Sphere is, they are hypothetical structures that would be built around a star to collect all of its solar energy output. It's the kind of thing you'd only see in sci-fi (one was part of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation).

While the idea of why KIC 846285 is dimming so much being caused by aliens is certainly an attention-grabbing headline, I sincerely doubt that is what's going on there. Still, if it is an advanced alien society building Dyson objects, that would give me hope for humanity for several reasons. One is simply for the knowledge that we are not alone in the cosmos. The ramifications of this would send shockwaves through not only the scientific community, but religion and everyday culture as well. Even if that culture has died out in the 1400 years it took that light to get here, the simple fact that there has been intelligent life other than humans in the cosmos would be amazing to say the least. Plus, since KIC 846285 is so close (cosmologically speaking), it would make the theories of Duncan Forgan, who figures there are anywhere from 361 to 37,964 intelligent species in the galaxy right now, seem like undershots. Out of the 100,000 light years, there are 2 intelligent species within 1400 light years would certainly point that the galaxy may be more densely populated than originally thought. Lastly, it would give me hope that there is a society out there that shows that survival is possible. Survival not just against everything the universe can throw at a little ball of rock, but that survival against the odds we place in our own way can be overcome. All the petty political, social, religious, racial, and financial differences can be overcome to allow not just survival, but also the colonization of the rest of the solar system and maybe beyond. I really do think that if humankind is going to survive into the far future, it will have to be in the rest of solar system. However, we can't seem to see past our own bank accounts, our own gods, even simply the color of our own skin to realize that we're all in this together. That will likely damn us to extinction sooner than another world-killer asteroid.

Since I don't think that it is aliens (I'm leaning more on the side of planetary collision or some other giant mass spreading event), is it really worth looking at KIC 846285? Absolutely. We've found something outside of the norm. Even if alien intelligence isn't the cause that's still exciting and certainly "sexy" from the standpoint of astronomers getting to study something strange that will expand our knowledge of the cosmos. That's exciting, certainly moreso than just throwing "Aliens" into a title to get the clicks.

Still, it is fun to dream...

The Article that Changed it All

Like many sci-fi fans, I take great interest in astronomy and the goings on of the world's various space agencies. Thanks to a link on the Stars Without Number Facebook Page (here is the link), I'm changing a key element of not only my sci-fi setting, but also the rules that I'm working on. Essentially, NASA could very well be on their way to creating a "warp drive." The current work is based on a paper written in 1994 by physicist Miguel Alcubierre. By creating a bubble in space/time behind a starcraft and a space/time sink in front of the craft, a starship can be propelled through space fast faster than the speed of light, but since the space around the starcraft is unchanged it is not breaking the speed of light itself and therefore not meeting with a very messy end. The idea was scrapped as unfeasible due to the mass energy needed to subject enough force on space/time would be equal to that found in Jupiter. However, further research shows that with some tweaks to the Alcubierre Drive, the mass energy needed may only be around 1600 pounds of mass energy.

If this research yields practical results in testing, this means that we could travel the 4.3 light years to Alpha Centauri in weeks rather than entire generations living and dying on the journey. Day trips to Mars (or anywhere else in the solar system for that matter) would become feasible. We could easily harvest resources from the asteroids, moons, and planets throughout the solar system and beyond. Seeing how quick new technology can develop (as stated in the article, we went from only being able to generate 5 Watts of power via nuclear fission to 4 Megawatts in a year), if the practical tests yield the desired results, we could be traversing the stars before we know it. Just thinking of the economic, political, sociological, and even theological (should we happen to find proof that life exists elsewhere in the galaxy, that is) ramifications begins to blow my mind. Sure, this tech is all theoretical now, but the very idea that such travel is at least mathematically possible is exciting in the extreme.

If the Alcubierre Drive becomes reality, it's just another in a long line of technological advances that have been predicted by Star Trek (at least in some small way). Those shows continually show that they were ahead of their time.

What does all of this mean to my setting and system? Well, I'm scrapping the idea of Drillspace and the Elder Relays. Warp Drives are now the principle means of transportation throughout the galaxy. I may still use Relays, but they will be an invention of the current species roaming the galaxy other than some unknown ancient species. This means I need to go back and re-write some aspects of the setting background, since the Elder Relays were an integral part of the setting. Plus, the removing of the limitations of travel via Drillspace will have significant ramifications on the setting as well. That's not to say that I won't have limits to what speeds an Alcubierre Drive can attain, but space travel will be a lot more straight-forward, safer, and simpler.

We truly do live in an exciting age!

On the number of Intelligent species...

Some of the complaints I’ve often heard about Space Opera-style games/books/movies is there being too many species and too many humanoid species. I don’t necessarily agree with the first complaint, and I’ll explain why below, but the second complaint has merit. Humanoid aliens, and “forehead” aliens at that, are easy. Take a human, apply some strange or theoretical societal constructs to the beings, add some cranial ridges, and “eureka!” you have a new alien species. For TV and movies this is simply a matter of simplicity as it takes a lot more time and effort to create a believable non-humanoid alien than it does to apply make-up to an actor. However, I still see lots of humanoid aliens in literature as well, even when the hurdle of special effects are removed from the equation. I’m not calling authors lazy, but it is dramatically easier to imagine believable humanoid lifeforms than it is to imagine sentient oozes, crystals, etc. in a believable fashion.

I’ve said that I don’t agree that there are too many alien species, even in a universe as seemingly “crowded” as that of Star Wars or Star Trek. The setting I’m adapting to Stars Without Number is very much a “kitchen sink” setting. There are literally hundreds of alien species in my GM’s bullpen that I can call up to put against the players or allow the players to try out for themselves as a PC. So with the complaint of there being too many alien species (well, sentient aliens that is), I’ve come up with this justification: It is estimated that there are roughly 200 billion stars in the Milky Way. Most of those are believed to have planets, an average of 1.6 planets per star (though that number may very well increase as we discover more and more exo-planets). Now, the chance of there being a planet in the “Life Zone” of a star is pretty small, let’s say one half of a percent. That still leaves us with 1 billion stars that could support life. Out of those billion stars, maybe only 1% (these figures are obviously generous) of those have sentient life, leaving us with 10 million systems with sentient life. Even if the chances were still way smaller than that, there’s still that possibility that maybe the galaxy is more diverse than we ever thought. Plus, with this being a space opera setting, which borders on the fantastic as much as it does the scientific (even more so actually), grand cosmopolitan galactic societies appear a bit more plausible. These figures are also only taking into account that there are planets in the “goldilocks-zone” and therefore is at least in some way similar to life as we know it; not really taking into account lifeforms that may not require water or higher temperatures to thrive.

Even if we take a much more realistic view by using the equations devised by Duncan Forgan at the University of Edinburgh (source), by adding in 3 factors for how intelligent life can evolve on a planet (difficult to form but easy to evolve, easy to form but difficult to evolve, and being seeded by an extraterrestrial body) he comes up with a range of 361 to 37,964 different intelligent species in the galaxy. Those odds are nowhere as good, but both equations only think of life as we know it and don't factor in the possibility of silicon-based life or something other than carbon and water-based life (such as life here on Earth). Even then, with the possibility of anywhere from 361 to almost 38,000 intelligent species, I feel like I've got enough wiggle room to add in the species I want and still be within the confines of what could possibly be believable without straying too far into the realm of out-and-out fantasy.

My “justification” for the prevalence of humanoids in the setting isn’t really supported by any science. It’s tied more to the back-story and the mysteries of the setting. There are a lot of similar species, especially where humans are concerned, in the setting. Humans appear to be the “template” for life throughout the cosmos. There are many theories to why humanoid forms, and human forms at that, appear more than other bio-forms. These theories range from humanoid forms represent the most malleable and successful form brought forth through the trial and error of evolution to humans being the template for life selected by the “Precursor” species known as the Seeders or the Prometheans. Nobody know for certain, but with so many near-human species being found throughout the galaxy it is considered one of the great mysteries of science.

Speaking of Precursor species that will be one the next topics I cover in this series about my SWN setting…