Stargate World Construction (Planetary Physics Help Needed)

It's that time again. Time to beg the astro- and planetary physicists to come out and tell me how wrong I am- and explain how my ideas could work. I'm playing in a Stargate campaign here on the boards, and as my boyfriend is the GM I get to help him be creative. I'm working on some interesting planetary systems for use in said game.

The first one I'm looking at is an inhabited moon circling a large gas giant.

I want the planet to be dark, at least where the near-humans live. The environment I'm looking for is a fungal rainforest on a world shrouded in very dim twilight, with colored lights in the sky when the clouds part (a rare occurance). I figure the gas giant would give off a lot of radiation, so the moon would need a strong magnetic field, but that and the cloud cover wouldn't block all of it, so the inhabitants would need to be radiation resistant. That's easy to accomplish as the backhistory of these people involves some genetic manipulation by the Goa'uld (making them rad-resistant but require a certain ammount to create some of the enzimes they need to digest food- synthesizable but not by them as they're now primitive). I figure the moon has become tidally locked, and the human inhabitants would be on the part of the world that would get the least sunlight. (I need this world to be dark nearly al lthe time)

I figure the 'plants' that live on this would would 'photosynthesize' with the non-visual part of the EMS that would be given off by the parent planet, so they wouldn't be true fungus like we have on earth, nore plants like we're used to. This part is flavor, and isn't terribly important.

The main things I want to establish are this: How long could a world like this support life? (It could have been brought here long ago, and not have been generated here.) What sort of super technology, if any, would be required to make this world livable for it's inhabitants? If this part of the world is a rainforest biome, what might the rest of the world be like?

Any assistance that can be offered would be greatly appreciated. I know you folks are brilliant, and can help me make this work scientifically.

- Kemrain the Physics-rific.

Don't sweat the details . . . just say it works however you think it works.

"The sea looks like pink lemonade. And the sailors have conquistador helmets, but, otherwise, they are like regular lizardmen."
- My old DM, describing an alternative world off the Demon Web pits.

Thanks for the bump.

The thing is, I want to sweat the details, because Stargate is a game in which the science of a location can be part of the adventure. I want to be able to explain these things to the GM, so that our characters can figure stuff out by looking around and being brilliant.

- Kemrain the Scientifically Challenged.

Kemrain said:

Thanks for the bump.

The thing is, I want to sweat the details, because Stargate is a game in which the science of a location can be part of the adventure. I want to be able to explain these things to the GM, so that our characters can figure stuff out by looking around and being brilliant.

- Kemrain the Scientifically Challenged.

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My brain can sometimes tone out to the sciency babble of stargate, but looking at your posts I"m reminded of the episode O'neil aged. I'd think that there was some device that delivered nanobytes into the ground :food and water: so that the people could adapt to whatever was missing from the environment.

I'd imagine that any world in which humans could natually live would need more than just fungi. Fungi are effectively worthless in terms of nutrients (made of water and chitin, no carbs, sugars, or fats created) and would provide no fuel for people to live on.

That's gonna be one cold moon.

domino said:

I'd imagine that any world in which humans could natually live would need more than just fungi. Fungi are effectively worthless in terms of nutrients (made of water and chitin, no carbs, sugars, or fats created) and would provide no fuel for people to live on.

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Okay, that's easily helped by making the 'fungus' unlike earth fungus, and letting it 'photosynthesize' with some other wavelength of light. Then it could be structured differently and provide neutrients to the local fauna. Thanks for that little bit of info. Did not know that.

- Kemrain the Hungry Fungivore.

tarchon said:

That's gonna be one cold moon.

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Yes, but why? And how can we counteract that?

A thick greenhouse atmosphere could trap in warmth, and volcanic activity caused by the parent planet's tidal forces on the moon's core could help create heat and the right atmosphere.

...Right?

- Kemrain the Non-Physicist.

The gas giant is heavier than Jupiter, and there is actual fusion going on deep inside (or fission, or whatever), and infra-red light ("heat") comes from there, too. I recall Vernor Vinge using a similar planet set-up, so it's probably based on science.

-- N

If you make the fungi different enough, you don't even need to worry about photosynthesis. You could say they're chemosynthetic, like those tube worms that hang out near volcanic vents. Or any other excuse, really.

From what little I know, the moon would not have a core. Thus, no volcanos or whatnot. However, given that this is Stargate, you could say that it was originally a planet, that was then moved to orbit the planet for whatever reasons that you decide. Pluto, for instance, is smaller than the moon, but I'm fairly sure that it has no core either. Mars, being about twice the size of the Moon does, however.