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End of the world Scenario

I'd hire Bruce Willis and a crack team of oil drillers to go up and destroy the thing with a nuke.

Of course, while they were up there, I'd run away with Liv Tyler to a deserted island.

On a more serious note, depending on how far away your Civilization Killer Asteroid is (also known as a CKA), you can always hook up rocket engines to it and give it a nudge out of it's orbit. Just a little push would probably keep it from hitting the planet. When you are dealing with something like that in space, it's not Earth's gravity that's pulling it, it's the Sun's gravity. And the Earth is just getting in the way.
 
If I've got 3 months, get a group of meson spinal armed ships, and slowly blast the front off until it's a cloud. That should also cause the remaining core to miss.
 
Could they pilot their trusty Sulieman at 2G for several weeks, building up velocity to a fair portion of C all the while bullseye-ing the lesser planet, until they pancake themselves and hopefully apply enough energy to change its trajectory and prevent the collision? With a rescue ship flying in formation, they could transfer in the final hours and then spend another few weeks slowing down.

Could make for some rather cinematic gaming ...
 
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Hitting it is a bad idea - if it shatters we get hit by a shotgun rather than a rifle.

Tugs are good, so are stand-off nuke/meson blasts (vapourising the surface pushes it away).
 
That depeds, Andrew; if we shatter it enough, the individual bits burn up in the atmosphere, dissapating almost half their energy as IR & visible light losses immediately, plus spread the energy dump out over time, reducig the effective damage, since damage is essentially a function of energy per unit time.
 
It's almost impossible to predict what it would do if it shatters, though. It *might* be better, but it's more likely it'd just devastate a larger area.

What we can do depends a lot on what it's made of - rock or metal? Solid or loose bits? - and how soon we detect it.
 
I'm under the impression that shotgunning is just as bad in the long run to anything living on the surface as the atmospheric heating is brutal from the hundreds or thousands of meteors entering the atmosphere. Sort of like setting the whole atmosphere to "broil".

I was thinking more like hitting the inbound planet(oid) at an angle to drive it into a all new trajectory away from the target world. Then, even if it does shatter, most of the mass misses the target. And since it's pretty much the GM's decision how effective the players' attempt is ...
 
If a meteor was fast approaching, I'd email it and tell it to land squarely in downtown LA. That would eliminate the source of 'reality TV' at least for a while. :rofl:
 
If a meteor was fast approaching, I'd email it and tell it to land squarely in downtown LA. That would eliminate the source of 'reality TV' at least for a while. :rofl:

Heh ;) I hate to break it to ya, Shape, but the modern inspiration for today's reality shows was a Swedish TV production. It was a Big Brother/Survivorish type of thing that was experimented. Not to get too media-geeky here, but the first so-called reality show was a PBS production filmed here in the US. It may have been up in Portland I think... or so I recall (mid 70s I think, or maybe early 80s).

But, anyway, back to the scenario at hand. Some good suggestions here. Would this make for a good adventure? What if the worldlette was intentionally hurled at Efate or Regina? Would your characters have the obligation to unearth the perpetrators, or merely stop the threat? :)
 
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Keep in mind, any friction induced heat/light is going to radiate nearly globally, which means only half the energy comes down (the other half radiates into space), AND the KE gains of the last 50km don't get added if it burns up in atmosphere; further still, lots of small impacts are unlikely to reveal the mantle while a single moderate one will do so spectacularly, releasing lots of greenhouse gasses and toxic fumes.
 
What if the worldlette was intentionally hurled at Efate or Regina? Would your characters have the obligation to unearth the perpetrators, or merely stop the threat? :)

If it was intentionally shoved towards a inhabited planet, I doubt the characters would have any obligation to find out who, and would be quickly 'crowded out' - every single intelligence service and military organisation would be out to hunt down those responsible. If the PC's did insist on sticking their noses in - said noses would tend to be cut off very fast by either the criminals or the law.

As for stopping it - it depends a lot on the 'target' world. In a A,B or C port the port authority would probably commandeer whatever they could, and they wouldn't take kindly to some freebooters cruising in and trying to help out on their own – a dinky PC tramp ship would be unlikely to be called up when mega-freighters and warships ordnance are available. If it was a Class D, E or X port the PC's ship may be the only thing available and it is very likely that the local government would bribe, coerce or press gang the PC's (if they have a ship).

Of course in this case possibilities abound - various governments fighting to 'be the hero of the world' and in charge of the mission, doomsday cults thinking it’s a sign from <insert god here> and sabotaging attempts to stop it, people throwing vast sums of money to get offworld before impact, a riot in the starport causing the hydrogen fuel tanks to blow...meaning no fuel to stop the rock...

IIRC - there have been one or two adventures about comet hit the planet scenario. In one case it was an asteroid ship out of control and the other was a comet but with valuable archaeological artifacts on it.
 
If it was intentionally shoved towards a inhabited planet, I doubt the characters would have any obligation to find out who, and would be quickly 'crowded out' - every single intelligence service and military organisation would be out to hunt down those responsible. If the PC's did insist on sticking their noses in - said noses would tend to be cut off very fast by either the criminals or the law.
OR...
While all official channels are madly charging down investigating every direction, somone in autority who has dealt with the PC's before might have a bit more to go on, or suspect that the energy needed to carry this out can only be in the hands of someone with fleet rank...
So they may just need a hardy and proven band of independants...

Mind you, the simple fact this happens does not obligate the PC's to dig into it. They just need to either help, appear to be helping or not be seen as hindering the rescue efforts.

To say that independants would be blasted for getting involved shows a limit to how this could be gone about. And igonres the wonderful fun the GM can have when the PC's make a mistake and are noticed...

As for stopping it - it depends a lot on the 'target' world. In a A,B or C port the port authority would probably commandeer whatever they could, and they wouldn't take kindly to some freebooters cruising in and trying to help out on their own
Unless they were part of that "whatever they could". There was a great and long running play by post a while back where an entir biosystem was poisened. One ship got out and one crew on that ship survived uninfected. When the word was raised, that ship was decontamed and that one survivor became a PC in the campaign. But all the ships in port suddenly found themselves commandered by orders of the local Port, Marquis and Imperial Naval Brass. So the PC's became part of the relief effort.
I can not see a port so desperate for options writing off any ship just because of its size. At the very least they can get refugees off if needed.

Open up your imagination here!!!

If it was a Class D, E or X port the PC's ship may be the only thing available and it is very likely that the local government would bribe, coerce or press gang the PC's (if they have a ship).
Now that's more like it!

IIRC - there have been one or two adventures about comet hit the planet scenario. In one case it was an asteroid ship out of control and the other was a comet but with valuable archaeological artifacts on it.

Paya was hit by a comet in the 1070's in the OTU. I used that as a "way back drop" for the reason for civil unrest decades later in the "Republic of Inthe" IMTU :D

IMTU, fleeing Payans passed through the Inthe system and a number of vargr refugees orignally crossing the border for asylum after the Fourth Frontier War settled in the port city to become a second class citizen work force. As a result of that and the lack of justice, gang justice and gang organizations rose and the players just happened into a smuggling investigation... Muhahahahah So I did not use the comet impact itself, but used its lingering sociological effects in near by systems.

Marc
 
OR...
While all official channels are madly charging down investigating every direction, somone in autority who has dealt with the PC's before might have a bit more to go on, or suspect that the energy needed to carry this out can only be in the hands of someone with fleet rank...
So they may just need a hardy and proven band of independants...

Mind you, the simple fact this happens does not obligate the PC's to dig into it. They just need to either help, appear to be helping or not be seen as hindering the rescue efforts.

To say that independants would be blasted for getting involved shows a limit to how this could be gone about. And igonres the wonderful fun the GM can have when the PC's make a mistake and are noticed...
Commander gets a star :)
 
When two worlds collide...classic SF.<sigh>

It is doable, if both worlds are very small...say to major Planetoid bodies like Charon and Pluto or Ceres and 106 Dione would be altered. As it could be a result of Near C bombardment or long abandoned Ancient experiment. Or perhaps, it a Worldship then would be the challenge to figure the navigation system. Quite frankly, I would not mind seeing something akin to Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud, in which, the "planet" was sentient therefore requiring a whole new means of communication be formed.

I would rather not have a collision but the story of avoiding a total planetary kill would be more interesting story could be the Recovery mission for a crack Imperial Science Team.
 
There will be a noticable bulge as they approach each other. Objects, especially the smaller asteroid (looks more like a/the moon to me considering it's size relative to the Earth(?)), of that size in the video will see the closest surfaces start to tear apart into small objects while still a few hundred miles apart. It would have the look like the two objects are being melted or welded together instead of a tranquil ocean awaiting the asteroid's impact and sending out a pressure wave from the impact.
 
Keep in mind, any friction induced heat/light is going to radiate nearly globally, which means only half the energy comes down (the other half radiates into space), AND the KE gains of the last 50km don't get added if it burns up in atmosphere; further still, lots of small impacts are unlikely to reveal the mantle while a single moderate one will do so spectacularly, releasing lots of greenhouse gasses and toxic fumes.

The Tunguska object was only ~20m and exploded several km up, but it still flattened an area of 2000km2. Over a major population centre, that could kill millions.

Rocks bigger than 50m will reach the surface - smaller blast radius, but they'll flatten a city, cause earthquakes/tsunamis, and kick up a lot of dust.

100m+ could destroy a civilization.

The dinosaur-killer was 10km. Anything over 1km is game over for most people.
 
The Tunguska object was only ~20m and exploded several km up, but it still flattened an area of 2000km2. Over a major population centre, that could kill millions.
There's a quite vocal minority who insist that the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was caused by a Tunguska-like event.

It's not widely known, for instance, that the Chicago Fire was not the worst one to occur in that region on that day. The town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, about 200 miles to the north, spontaneously erupted into flames at exactly the same time as Chicago did; over 2,000 square miles (5,000km2) of land was scorched in the Peshtigo blaze, and as many as 2,000 people may have lost their lives. Deadly fires also simultaneously sprang up in perhaps a dozen forests and towns in the neighboring state of Michigan -- again, on the same date and time as Peshtigo/Chicago. All of this seems to have occurred within a conical region of the Upper Midwest spanning tens of thousands of square miles in area.

Here's how the opening moments of the Peshtigo fire are recounted:

At sundown there was a lull in the wind and comparative stillness. For two hours there were no signs of danger; but at a few minutes after nine o'clock ... the people of the village heard a terrible roar. It was that of a tornado, crushing through the forests. Instantly the heavens were illuminated with a terrible glare. The sky, which had been so dark a moment before, burst into clouds of flame. A spectator of the terrible scene says the fire did not come upon them gradually from burning trees and other objects to the windward, but the first notice they had of it was a whirlwind of flame in great clouds from above the tops of the trees, which fell upon and entirely enveloped everything.

And from another report:

The illumination soon became intensified into a lurid glare; the roar deepened into a howl, as if all the demons of the infernal pit had been let loose, when the advance gusts of wind from the main body of the tornado struck. Chimneys were blown down, houses were unroofed, and, amid the confusion, terror, and terrible apprehensions of the moment, the fiery element, in tremendous inrolling billows and masses of sheeted flame, enveloped the devoted village. The frenzy of despair seized on all hearts; strong men bowed like reeds before the fiery blast; women and children, like frightened specters Hitting through the awful gloom, were swept away like autumn leaves.

And then there were the 'fire balloons':

Your readers may wonder what I mean by fire balloons, and I confess that I hardly know myself, and only use the term because it was so frequently used by others in conversation with me. All of the survivors with whom I conversed said that the whole sky seemed filled with dark, round masses of smoke, about the size of a large balloon, which traveled with fearful rapidity. These balloons would fall to the ground, burst, and send forth a most brilliant blaze of fire, which would instantly consume every thing in the neighborhood. An eyewitness, who was in a pool of water not far off, told us about the balloon falling right down on the Lawrence family, and burning them up.

Chicago is the most famous fire in American history; Peshtigo is the deadliest. The conditions were such at the time that you wouldn't have to rely on a cometary event to justify them happening simultaneously... but still, it's a remarkable coincidence.
 
Rocks bigger than 50m will reach the surface - smaller blast radius, but they'll flatten a city, cause earthquakes/tsunamis, and kick up a lot of dust. 100m+ could destroy a civilization. The dinosaur-killer was 10km. Anything over 1km is game over for most people.

Here's an article about a theoretical impact at the end of the last Ice Age about 12,000 years ago that supposedly killed of the Clovis pre-Native American culture. We might only all be here now because this theoretical object impacted into the glaciers instead of dirt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_event

Here's another article with a radiocarbon dating of 11,600 years ago.

http://www.earthage.org/floodevidences/more_flood_evidences.htm

That would be 9600 B.C. Punch that date into a wikipedia search. Click on the third entry that shows up. You'll be surprised at what you see.
 
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