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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 1923252" data-attributes="member: 27012">Agreed, though I could probably imagine a collapse that takes place in stages.  Could created an interesting cataclysm cycle for a setting.Sure, but like Niven's Smoke Ring, nobody said that a setting had to be stable or eternal.  A setting only looks at a slice of time and that slice is what needs to work.The Arcadian Mountains in New York State are a bit over 300 billion years old.  But a part of my point was that none of those mountains started out being as large as Olympus Mons, which rises 25km above the surrounding plain.  Start out with really big features and, sure, they'll wear down but it could take billions of years.Being from the Northeast, the "small stuff" can still be mighty interesting.  Actually, thinking of the "small stuff" around here, there is another mechanism that can push up some land.  The Watchung Mountains are a terminal moraine.  Of course those same glaciers also took their toll on those Arcadian Mountains in New York.As I think I said in my original reply, the bigger problem you'll have with a solid core is that you won't have a magnetic field.  That leaves the solar wind ripping against your atmosphere, among other things.  But as Venus shows, the absence of a moon does not necessarily mean the absence of a molten core.  I'll agree that a solid core would not be my first pick for a setting, no would no moon, if for no other reason that it eliminates an interesting astronomical feature that we're really used to.I think that erosion would still have some work to do on Olympus Mons, even with Earth's erosion.  I understand your point and it's a good one.  My point is simply that it could take a billion years for features the size of Olympus Mons to wear down to the size of Whiteface Mountain and that sort of mountain is plenty big enough to make a role-playing setting interesting, if there were some other compelling reason to set up that geology.  And, yes, like Niven's Smoke Ring, it's days would be numbered, as are Earth's in the big scheme of things.</blockquote>

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