[Lore] No terraformation of Venus?

[Sup3rfluiD]

Sheesh we cant even control our biome here on earth but somehow starting from scratch somewhere else would be reasonable!
Our species is truly bizarre and quite delusional.

 

[Linnunrata]

Sheesh we cant even control our biome here on earth but somehow starting from scratch somewhere else would be reasonable!
Our species is truly bizarre and quite delusional.

Well it's far more reasonable than being able to travel to the other side of the galaxy in a weekend or two.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

True, but the issue with existing ELWs is that there are probably things living on them. Some of the large and pointy teeth variety may be an issue, but worse will be the bacteria and viruses that we will have no immunity to. Terraforming at least guarantees a clean start with no dangerous indigenous life without pesky environmentalist protesters moaning when you sterilise an inhabited planet.

Very likely those bacteria and viruses don't have any chance of infecting us. Those things evolve with symbiosis on local ecosystem and species. And have highly specialised ways of doing their business especially viruses. You don't get for example wheat streak disease, and you still are more related to wheat plant than anything found in alien world.

 

[Fritz1776]

Well Venus likely is not in Goldilocks zone of nowadays Sun. Same thing with Earth in about billion years in future. Venus gets about two times solar radiation compared to Earth. So lasting terraforming of Venus would necessarily involve either moving it out orbitally, or have some huge thing shadowing Sun to reduce solar radiation. Probably you need solar shade anyways to cool planet down fast enough and allow atmosphere to condense to dry ice, to make dealing with it easier.

There also is kind of philosophical and practical question. Is it very wise to make semiterraformed world that needs active high tech measures to remain in that condition? If some kind of major civilisational mishap happens those worlds could quite fastly become deadly traps for their inhabitants.

Well if we're being honest even Earth will require comperable active measures. And I'm not talking in terms of eons, this is a few millennia sort of thing. So unless the active measures are particularly fickel, or require an absurdly high level of reliability, pretty much every habitat will have its upkeeps.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Let's be real here. Regardless of how easy or difficult it might be to terraform Venus in more than A thousand years, I'm pretty sure no one's interested in retconning however many years worth of elite lore just to substantiate someone's desire on the forum. I'd much rather have consistent history than believable science fiction

 

[5AnaHalfHatsize]

True, but the issue with existing ELWs is that there are probably things living on them. Some of the large and pointy teeth variety may be an issue, but worse will be the bacteria and viruses that we will have no immunity to. Terraforming at least guarantees a clean start with no dangerous indigenous life without pesky environmentalist protesters moaning when you sterilise an inhabited planet.

I'd really like to see that. I wish we were getting atmo planets this year instead of legs

 

[Vasious]

I always assumed it was due;
Mars terraforming failed at least once, but by the time it was successful, there were other worlds found, and easier ones to Terraform than Venus so it never reached the return on investment levels required

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

I'd really like to see that. I wish we were getting atmo planets this year instead of legs

Did something official say we were getting legs? Because i dont want you to all be super upset when it doesnt happen most likely

 

[Fritz1776]

Let's be real here. Regardless of how easy or difficult it might be to terraform Venus in more than A thousand years, I'm pretty sure no one's interested in retconning however many years worth of elite lore just to substantiate someone's desire on the forum. I'd much rather have consistent history than believable science fiction

That's why I presented options 2 and 3. 2 Is such a minor change that it isn't much diffrent from Horizon adding planetary bases. I mean these presumably were there before 3305. And of course 3 isn't a retcon at all. This stuff is ongoing. Personally I think a mix of 2 and 3 is most preferable. Retconning venus into a terraformed earthlike is a pretty big pill to swallow, but so is cloud cities and a transforming effort showing up out of the blue in the 34th century. Having a limited investment in terraforming and resource extraction based from floating cities in the clouds of venus, which players can help along and maybe even finish eventually, is a minor retcon at most.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

I agree it would be pretty cool landing and atmospheric floating station I suppose, realistically it would be awesome. but then why stop at Venus? every gas giant would be capable of supporting the same type of cloud city. All of a sudden it's extremely time-consuming for devs and game-breaking when they finally introduce it. Obviously I'm exaggerating to an extent but only a little. You see how long it takes bugs to get fixed around here or more accurately how long they go on before being acknowledged.

I'm sure I'm giving off the wrong impression though I do think it's a cool idea Im just realistic about it and don't think it would happen so I try really hard not to get my hopes up, for anything on here, at all.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Is it just me, or is the concept of terraforming in Elite kinda off anyway considering all the unused ELWs that can be reached faster than it takes me to commute.

Proximity in colonies reduces commute times, let's not forget that (presumably) terraforming a planet is easier than developing FTL travel and the lore strongly suggests that given the year (3125) on which quiridium drives started manufacturing, compare that to the year in which Mars was terraformed (2286).

We also don't know if and how other ships travel between systems nor if there are ships not capable of FTL travel.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Solar irradiance is probably the least of all significant terraforming concerns, as this could be mitigated via solar shades or the like.

Reintroduction of hydrogen seems to be the largest barrier.

And also a magnetic field which deflects solar wind.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

And also a magnetic field which deflects solar wind.

Plus adding planetary rotation or otherwise means to produce some kind of feasible day night cycle. Arctic and antarctic species are only ones in Earth who can deal with months long days and nights. And keeping human habitable climate going with extreme long days and nights may be problem, so for terraforming Venus that needs to taken care...

 

[Maolagin]

Plus adding planetary rotation or otherwise means to produce some kind of feasible day night cycle. Arctic and antarctic species are only ones in Earth who can deal with months long days and nights. And keeping human habitable climate going with extreme long days and nights may be problem, so for terraforming Venus that needs to taken care...

Fun factoid! Right now it's looking like the most common type of "Goldilocks zone" planet in the (real world) galaxy is going to be rocky bodies tidally locked to an M dwarf star. So it's a question of much interest whether such worlds with permanent day and night sides can be habitable. Early models are leaning towards yes, but expect lots of instruments to be pointed at such systems in the coming decades to try and find out for certain.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Plus adding planetary rotation or otherwise means to produce some kind of feasible day night cycle. Arctic and antarctic species are only ones in Earth who can deal with months long days and nights. And keeping human habitable climate going with extreme long days and nights may be problem, so for terraforming Venus that needs to taken care...

Indeed, Venus has a very long solar day. Given the asymmetry in the irradiance, weather would be rather extreme.

 

[Bryan K]

Venus likely isn't all that easy to terraform. Without a magnetic field to protect it, essentially all of its hydrogen (necessary for water) has been stripped away by ultraviolet radiation and the solar wind. That's why CO2 and SO2 are the dominant oxides in its atmosphere now. Compare to Mars - which also lacks a magnetic field, and has probably lost 90+% of the water it originally held, but might still be salvaged by large reserves of water safely locked away as subsurface ice. All of Venus' geological water was long since baked out into the atmosphere.

That said, I'm all for cloud cities on Venus. Every time it comes up, I say, that's the easy way to introduce atmospheric planets, without the hassle of working out atmospheric surfaces all at once.

Don’t forget the fact that Mars is at least in the habitable zone, whereas Venus is not, and even with a perfectly Earth-like atmosphere would still be too hot to support liquid water.

EDIT: slow-motion ninja’d on that one.

That, and Venus may still be extremely volcanically active (hard to tell via radar mapping, but heat plumes in the atmosphere may correspond to volcanic eruptions). If that’s the case, there will always be more sulfer compounds in the atmosphere.

I’d personally use Venus as a prison planet. Break out and be crushed, melted, and dissolved at the same time.

 

[Morbad]

And also a magnetic field which deflects solar wind.

Only relevant on huge timescales (millions of years) and would be significantly mitigated by the solar shades used to cool the planet in the first place.

If a magnetic field were required (I think it would be vastly easier to just replace anything lost to the solar wind than to try to hold on to it all over geologic timescales), a wholly artificial one created by satellites would still be easier than trying to get the planet to generate one.

Plus adding planetary rotation or otherwise means to produce some kind of feasible day night cycle.

Far easier to do with solar shades and mirrors than trying to increase it's speed of rotation.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

They tried with nanites but it got out of control and they have a grey goo situation and quarantined the planet.

 

[Linnunrata]

We also don't know if and how other ships travel between systems nor if there are ships not capable of FTL travel.

The number of FTL capable ships must be considerable considering I've taken out several thousand of them and get paid just loose change even when I'm participating a war. And I'm far from the most ruthless killer in the galaxy.

Colonization of Mars before FTL drive seems like a good explanation, but doesn't cover the current terraforming projects - it can't really be a ship cap considering that current populated, colonized ELWs in the bubble already have populations reaching millions, hundreds of millions, billions.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

If a magnetic field were required (I think it would be vastly easier to just replace anything lost to the solar wind than to try to hold on to it all over geologic timescales), a wholly artificial one created by satellites would still be easier than trying to get the planet to generate one.

Though on other hand Venus is geologically alive, it probably has molten heart, likely somewhat similar as Earth. Local "geodynamo" maybe just spins too slowly. So putting some rotational speed to planet would perhaps give free magnetic field as bonus.

One nasty long term problem remains. Nowadays Venus does not have plate tectonics, maybe it had when it was younger and when water lubricated things. So it has no gentle way to get rid of internal heat buildup, like Earth has. What Venus does, is that it'll resurface whole planet periodically with nice new coat of magma, in catastrophic volcanic events. Those quite likely play havoc with new atmosphere and new oceans. Plus any settlements built there.