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We might need to make some changes to the traveller map: Mars has enough water underground to make an ocean 1 km deep around the entirety of the plane

W

warwizard

SOC-13

So how would we specify this on the travellermap? No surface water but drill a 12km deep hole and you can drink your fill, but watch out for 3-4 billion year old lifeforms in the water.
 
You have two options, according to CT:
  1. Atmosphere: 2 (very thin, tainted) + Hydrographic: 0 (desert)
  2. Atmosphere: 1 (Trace) + Hydrographic: 1 (ice capped)
Given the fact that the Martian atmosphere has a mere 0.6% pressure of Terra, I'm thinking that Atmosphere: 1 is the more appropriate answer in a "purist" USP update.

Why Atmosphere: 1 instead of Atmosphere: 2?
Because with Atmosphere: 2, all you need is a compressor+filter combo to make the atmosphere "breathable" using Traveller tech.
Somehow, I don't think that 0.6% atmospheric pressure can be "usefully" compressed+filtered to make a "breathable" mix for Solomani who are not wearing vacc suit protection against the LOW ambient atmospheric pressure.

Cue a few scenes from Total Recall on the topic if unclear on the concept of insufficient pressure protection in 0.6% Terra standard atmospheric pressure.

Ask any space hardware engineer about the atmospheric characteristics of Mars and they'll tell you ... "not enough to be useful, but enough to be annoying and problematic" when it comes to aerobraking and descent maneuvers towards the surface.
 
I wonder if terraforming could include grav plates perhaps a few hundred m above the ground surface pulling 6g's down, so an atmosphere could be maintained.
 
Hydrographics is explicitly a measure of surface water only.

Hydrographic Percentage: The digit indicating hydrographic percentage
represents the percentage of planetary surface (in increments of 10%) covered by
seas or oceans. For normal worlds, this will be water; on other worlds (with corrosive
or exotic atmospheres), it may instead be other liquids of fluids such as ammonia.
See the hydrographic percentage table.

It is a bug in the system, what is the hydrographic rating of Callisto, Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede, Titan, Ariel, Titania, Umbriel, Ceres, Dione, Mimas, Miranda, Oberon, Pluto, Triton, Eris, and Makemake
 
mike wightman said:
Hydrographics is explicitly a measure of surface water only.

Hydrographic Percentage: The digit indicating hydrographic percentage
represents the percentage of planetary surface (in increments of 10%) covered by
seas or oceans. For normal worlds, this will be water; on other worlds (with corrosive
or exotic atmospheres), it may instead be other liquids of fluids such as ammonia.
See the hydrographic percentage table.

It is a bug in the system, what is the hydrographic rating of Callisto, Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede, Titan, Ariel, Titania, Umbriel, Ceres, Dione, Mimas, Miranda, Oberon, Pluto, Triton, Eris, and Makemake
Click to expand...
Yeah Ice covered instead of ice capped for outer system and oot cloud moons and planets. All the tidally locked moons with the leading side showing craters and the back side farting out snow. Just goes to show how much we did not know about planets in 1976. So notes: TL for tidally locked UD, PD and FD for the stages of core differientiation. Other ideas welcome, I'm going to bed now.
 
mike wightman said:
Hydrographics is explicitly a measure of surface water only.
Click to expand...
An implicit bias in the wording (which does not state this clearly) is that the code is referring to LIQUID fluid on the surface (water being the #1 assumption) rather than SOLID material (such as ice, ice caps and even an "icy candy shell crust" in the outer orbits).

Pre-Voyager Probes discoveries, it was widely assumed that only silicates ... rocks ... could make for "solid" surfaces.
Post-Voyager Probes discoveries, we now know that at colder ambient temperatures in the outer orbits, the "geologic" processes remain substantially the same ... but the chemistry involved completely changes. You don't get "lava volcanoes" spewing molten silicate rock out of them ... you get "cryo volcanoes" spewing molten water(!) out of them. That's because, when it's cold enough, water ice gets as hard, strong and structurally "tough" as silicate rock does, meaning that when it's cold enough, water ice functions as "geology" rather than as "ocean" in the Solomani experience.

In fact, it's only after doing a lot of planetary exploration that we've finally started to appreciate the fact that the water on Terra is REALLY UNIQUE ... even though our homeworld is substantially covered by the stuff.

Hint: last I checked, there are at least 25 types of water ice which have different properties depending on temperature and pressure variables ... and even LIQUID water is ... weird ...



 
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