The planet Lucifer (Sirius system)

[Staarlord]

Does anyone with cannon knowledge have any information on as to what kind of planet Lucifer is exactly? Has it always been a part of Sirius? Was it ever mentioned? Perhaps in a book?

This is a planet that Sirius system gets energy from, via, coils wrapped around the planet...according to the Elite Dangerous Wikia page, but little else is said on it. There's something about this system. Something really weird.
First the noted planet called Waypoint, which may very well be acting Waypoint to somewhere, from somewhere. I know in the Zurara ship discovered in the Formadine Rift was out to establish Waypoints. There might be others...there may be Waypoints to discover, but I'm getting off topic. The main point of fact being the odd nature of Lucifer. What kind of "energy" is this that generates through coils? It just doesn't seem in character with a typical metallic/ rock bodied planet.

 

[GroundxZERO]

You ever watch the Doctor Who episode The Satan Pit? Yeah, my money is on that.

 

[verminstar]

I landed on it couple nights ago...didnt see any coils or rings around it...it is a very spectacularly normal planet\moon far as I can see. I have little to no interest in the lore so maybe they invisible to non believers ^

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Does anyone with cannon knowledge have any information on as to what kind of planet Lucifer is exactly? Has it always been a part of Sirius? Was it ever mentioned? Perhaps in a book?

Deeply unpleasant to live on. The heavy radiation from the white dwarf is pretty dangerous.

Yes, it's been part of the Sirius system since that was added in FE2.

One of the short stories that came with FFE is set there. No idea how much of it is still canon.

 

[Han_Zen]

The lore of Sirius was introdused in the FE2 Gazetteeer: http://www.dream-ware.co.uk/frontier/books/gazetteer/

Lots of strange things about the system. I wrote a few posts about this in th Raxxla thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/168253-The-Quest-To-Find-Raxxla/page75

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/168253-The-Quest-To-Find-Raxxla/page108

 

[Bounder]

Never been there in ED, but in FE2 & FFE Lucifer is a small, highly volcanic world, much like Io at Jupiter - its mass and gravity are low, but it's in a tight and fast orbit around its host white dwarf, Sirius B.

The immense gravitational forces of the white dwarf are alternately squeezing and relaxing the planet in its slightly-elliptical orbit, resulting in its extreme geological activity.

The EM induction coils 'wrapped around the planet' are presumably submerged beneath the constantly-erupting flood basalt plains. Massive currents are induced in these coils as the planet orbits through the white dwarf's intense magnetic field.

In FE2 / FFE the planet has some very high volcanoes and ridge systems concentrated around its northern hemisphere, dropping away to expansive flood plains of thin, constantly-rejuvenating mantle, type stuff (i'm not actually a proper geologist).

Spoiler

[video=youtube_share;mJirNJ_mnmE]https://youtu.be/mJirNJ_mnmE[/video]

'Waypoint' is presumably so-named because it's a stepping stone into or across the system, and Sirius was the first corporate system, being close as it is to Sol. 'Lucifer' seems self-evidently descriptive of its hellish environment.

Does the Sirius Corporation even still exist in ED?

 

[Sapyx]

Yes, the "coils" generate energy as the planet passes through the intense magnetic field of the white dwarf star. Sirius Corp used this energy to create exotic antimatter-based military-grade fuel for sale to both the Federation and Imperial navies during their early conflicts, a thousand years ago. The revenue raised from playing both sides of the war (and thus prolonging the conflict much longer than either side actually wished it to go) made Sirius Corp the richest and most powerful corporation in human space.

Does the Sirius Corporation even still exist in ED?

Of course, silly. They control the permit needed to access the Sirius system, and Marco Qwent, the engineer you need to befriend in order to be introduced to Professor Palin and his G5 thruster upgrades, lives in Sirius. So at some stage, everybody interested in min-maxing their ships has to get friendly with Sirius Corp.

Sirius Corp also founded Sothis, Ceos and the other systems along the Sothis Spur in an early CG. Most of those outpost star systems founded in that CG have names linked to Sirius in some way via ancient Earth cultures: "Sothis" is the Greek form of the ancient Egyptian name for Sirius; "Takurua" is the Maori name; "Te Kaha" is the eastern Polynesian name; "Almagest" is the Arabic name. "Ceos" is an ancient Greek island city-state which worshipped the star; they used a radiate dog (symbolic of Sirius) as their national symbol on their coins. "Robigo" was a minor Roman deity to whom dogs were sacrificed in order to prevent pestilence on their crops.

 

[Jenner]

Love Sirius and its lore.
Even I, an ardent supporter of the Empire, have several times just gone to Sirius and RPed a loyal corporate drone. (I owe it to my old 'boss', Commander Rollo anyway. )

It would be awesome of the coils were actually something you could see in the game, though. FD should really do that.

 

[Bounder]

The coils would by now be derelict and in pieces, at least, those sections that were still above ground. The whole energy-generating exploit was a one-shot deal - superficially, one might presume that the energy source was the star's magnetic field, however this is not the case; rather, it was Lucifer's orbital angular momentum through that magnetic field... and it is a low-mass planet, hence generating electricity this way applies a braking torque against the whole planet that is equal and opposite to the voltage induced in the coils, via Lenz's law / Newton's 3rd law.

Hence over time, Lucifer's orbital velocity - and thus the strength of currents that can be induced in the coils - must've dropped off dramatically, as the planet's orbit widened in response to its slowing orbital velocity, in turn weakening the magnetic field density as a function of rising orbital radius. In a nutshell, Sirius Corp simply converted Lucifer's orbital kinetic energy into potential energy stored in the military fuel it was producing, and as that reservoir drained, the pressure and thus generating capacity dropped accordingly.


It would be interesting to cross-check Lucifer's orbital radius from Sirius B between FE2/FFE and ED... it should be further out, and with a longer year (per Kepler's law), in ED..