Ross 128b

[four]

Interesting find. For reference, here's OA's existing article on Ross 128: http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/491700c65734d

I have a question. Is it possible that Ross 128b is locked in a 3:2 resonance with its star? Or is it guaranteed to be tidally locked?

If the former, I think I might try doing a large expansion of the Ross 128 article (whilst still maintaining the existing contents for consistency with other articles, of course). I have an idea, but my idea only works if Ross 128b isn't tidally locked (i.e. is presumably in a 3:2 resonance).

Unfortunately, the eccentricity of Ross 128 b's orbit is only 0.036 (plus or minus 0.092), so it is highly unlikely the planet is in anything but a tidally locked orbit. For a paper describing the link between orbital eccentricity and resonance, see here.

Radtech497

Ah, okay.

I suppose my idea might still work even if the planet is tidally locked. Here it is (so others can  decide whether it's any good).

Note that I'm not especially good at planetary science, so I've probably made a few errors in the description. Some of the numbers I've used probably aren't very accurate.

Using existing canon, the Beamrider article says "In 529 the link between Yang and Ross 128 was completed", whilst the Ross 128 article says that it's a "Red dwarf system near Sol, initially colonised by beamrider in 617". These two articles seem to contradict each other, so I'll use the earlier date. I'll assume a travel speed of 0.25c or so.

Ross 128b was first colonized in 556 AT by Beamrider ships. Despite being tidally locked, it nevertheless has a decent magnetic field due to having a sidereal day of only nine earth days. Prior to the first human landing on Ross 128b, there was no indigenous life. The surface gravity is 11.09 ms^-2 (=1.13g). Thanks to a relatively thick atmosphere (about 3.5 bars at sea level) transferring heat from the day side to the night side, the temperature difference between dayside and nightside is relatively small for a tidally locked world (average temperature in the middle of the dayside is 75 Celsius, average temperature on day/night horizon is 20 Celsius, average temperature in the middle of the darkside is -40 Celsius.) Oceans cover 40% of the surface, exposed land covers 30% of the surface, and ice caps cover 30% of the surface. The atmosphere was primarily composed of nitrogen and carbon dioxide.

Due to the colonists from the first beamrider ships originating from the Old Earth nation of Thailand, Ross 128b ended up with the name Lohim (a simplified version of a Thai word meaning "New Earth"). The Ross 128 star itself became known as "Singpad"– which was also a case of later colonists heavily simplifying the original Thai name (which was just a translation of "Ross 128" as this star system had never been given any other name).
Beamrider colonists kept arriving sporadically for the next hundred years (though this flow of arrivals was interrupted by the Technocalypse), and in total the population of Lohim in 640 AT was circa 35,000 people.

Around 650 AT, two things happened almost simultaneously that would dramatically alter the future of Lohim. Firstly, the atmosphere was declared breathable for humans– widespread seeding of life across the planet had allowed the rapid transformation of the atmospheric carbon dioxide into oxygen. Ever since 600 AT, it was well-known that Lohim atmosphere would be breathable by 650 AT, and the population of Old Earth had received news of this.
And secondly, the Great Expulsion happened, with people forced to leave Old Earth, spreading across Solsys and beyond.

Lohim was an especially attractive destination for the refugees from Old Earth, given its location on an established Beamrider route and its habitability meaning that no life support infrastructure was necessary. In the years between 650 and 690 AT, no fewer than 30 million refugees from Old Earth would arrive at Lohim, with many more attempting the journey but not surviving the process of revival from stasis. Among these colony ships were the governments of twelve Old Earth nation states along with many citizens of those countries– Canada, the Czech Republic, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Nepal, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, and Vietnam. (The governments of other Old Earth countries either voluntarily dissolved, split into various competing factions, or went elsewhere).

This dwarfed the original settler population, who formed a temporary emergency government of the planet to manage the flow of arrivals and allocate them with land. (Some raised the possibility of simply turning the arrivals away, but they soon realized that that would be impossible due to the sheer number of arrivals).

By the 700s AT, Lohim was profoundly changed. A new Lohim Confederation government was established in 706 AT, which dealt with matters regarding relations with other star systems, the other worlds of the Singpad system, and the continued terraforming and development of Lohim. For other matters, the planet of Lohim was divided up between the twelve countries whose governments arrived from Earth, as well as nine new countries.

The culture of Lohim in the 700s AT can be described as conservative and resistant to technological progress. The impacts of the Technocalypse and Great Expulsion made people highly wary of advanced technology and artificial intelligence; whilst most human-inhabited worlds in this period had not been terraformed, making the embrace of technology a necessity, on Lohim the habitable climate (in the twilight regions, at least!) made it possible to live with relatively basic technology. Many people even decided to completely avoid computers and resort to technology from the 1st century BT; another sign of the conservative culture is that the 706 constitution of the Lohim Confederation explicitly forbids the presence of artificial intelligence anywhere in the Singpad system, and also forbids mind uploading and brain-computer interfaces.

The populace of Lohim were, however, generally willing to accept life extension treatments provided that they're fully biological in nature; this made the conservative culture of Lohim even more entrenched. By 1100 AT, people over 400 years old who remembered the difficult beginnings of Lohim still had a lot of power, despite some people in younger generations being more willing to embrace technology. Additionally, the people of Lohim have by now adopted a mindset that Lohim is the "spiritual home of Humanity", due to its enduring strong cultural links to pre-Expulsion Old Earth civilizations. In particular, the Lohim-based nation of Japan has always claimed to be the oldest Terragen civilization that exists anywhere, with a direct unbroken history stretching back to the 3rd millennium BT.
Lohim is also by this point one of the few places to still use the Gregorian calendar of Old Earth– most places have long since either adopted local calendar systems or switched to the Tranquility calendar.

In 1110 AT, the Lohim Confederation decided to join the Eridanus League, despite the reluctance of many of the Confederation's members. As part of the agreement, several Confederation member states don't officially join the Eridanus League, but are nonetheless aligned with it. The decentralised nature of the Eridanus League was attractive to the people of Lohim, who saw it as a way to avoid being influenced by ai. Despite its membership of the Eridanus League, though, Etodism never became widespread on Lohim.

In 1679 AT, the Lohim Confederation amicably left the Eridanus League and declared itself to be permanently neutral. By this point, Lohim is pretty much irrelevant due to its refusal to accept technological progress.

For the next ten thousand years up to the present day, Lohim has stayed in this remarkably consistent situation. Its technological level is generally still similar to that of Old Earth in the 1st century BT and first century AT.

Nowadays, Lohim is considered to be a de facto baseline reserve under the influence of an anonymous transapient, who subtly influences the politics of Lohim to ensure that the political status quo there is maintained, though this has never been proven. Lohim is a popular tourist spot for people from across the galaxy, due to its rich cultural history and status as a low-technology world very similar to Old Earth.

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So, what do you think? Would this be a good article?