Moving plans
Dec. 11th, 2003 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenAfter reading various news items, this one included, and reading through the blogs of friends-of-friends, I have come to a conclusion that I should have reached some time ago.
This planet is broken, as are most of the people on it, and it's time to take it back to the shop and get a new one that works properly. Since I am in any case going to be moving in the next couple of months, when our current lease expires, I would like to organise the planetary-replacement business to happen at the same time so I don't have to move twice. Disruption to the rest of the human race will be minimal, since most of them (present company excepted) will be staying here.
Besides finding out how to return the current planet and arrange a replacement, this means I have to start thinking about what sort of planet I want. While the current one had some nice things going for it, it seems to me that there's room for improvement, particularly now we have a better idea of what works and what doesn't.
Size: I think about one-quarter the size of Earth would be nice; that way, when I meet fascinating people on the Internet, they will not all turn out to be at least ten hours' journey from where I live. This will also decrease the escape velocity, making space travel more affordable and accessible.
Sun: Something like the one we've got, but with reduced UV emission to make life easier for those of us with fair skin. Oh, and most of us seem to run on about a 26 to 28-hour cycle by preference, so let's not be stingy with the length of the day either. Since we'd like to be around for the long run, let's *not* have large numbers of potentially world-shattering comets intersecting our orbit, OK? Such things serve no useful purpose.
Satellites: Two moons, of slightly different size and/or colour, would be really neat. But I'm willing to be flexible on this one.
Geography: Earth's not too bad on this. Lots of interesting shapes, from oceanic trenches to pointy mountains. Not much I'd change here, except position things so the oil, minerals, etc etc. are clustered at a few industrial locations that can be tapped without ripping up the entire planet to get at the goodies.
Climate: Again, current model (pre-global-warming) isn't too bad, but could do with a bit more cloud cover. Bright light hurts my eyes.
Fauna and flora: Bring back megafauna - cave bears, dire wolverines, ten-foot-tall meat-eating kangaroos, diprotodons, etc etc. These things look really neat, and could be genetically modified to eat only stupid people.
One or two ambulatory plants would be interesting, too.
Inhabitants: A few dozen people carefully selected on the grounds of their ability to get along with one another and not ruin things for everybody else. They will also be allowed to invite their own choices, and so on, because if they invite the wrong sort of people the megafauna will take care of the problem. If the ambulatory plants don't beat them to it.
Any other suggestions for ways to improve on the planet?
This planet is broken, as are most of the people on it, and it's time to take it back to the shop and get a new one that works properly. Since I am in any case going to be moving in the next couple of months, when our current lease expires, I would like to organise the planetary-replacement business to happen at the same time so I don't have to move twice. Disruption to the rest of the human race will be minimal, since most of them (present company excepted) will be staying here.
Besides finding out how to return the current planet and arrange a replacement, this means I have to start thinking about what sort of planet I want. While the current one had some nice things going for it, it seems to me that there's room for improvement, particularly now we have a better idea of what works and what doesn't.
Size: I think about one-quarter the size of Earth would be nice; that way, when I meet fascinating people on the Internet, they will not all turn out to be at least ten hours' journey from where I live. This will also decrease the escape velocity, making space travel more affordable and accessible.
Sun: Something like the one we've got, but with reduced UV emission to make life easier for those of us with fair skin. Oh, and most of us seem to run on about a 26 to 28-hour cycle by preference, so let's not be stingy with the length of the day either. Since we'd like to be around for the long run, let's *not* have large numbers of potentially world-shattering comets intersecting our orbit, OK? Such things serve no useful purpose.
Satellites: Two moons, of slightly different size and/or colour, would be really neat. But I'm willing to be flexible on this one.
Geography: Earth's not too bad on this. Lots of interesting shapes, from oceanic trenches to pointy mountains. Not much I'd change here, except position things so the oil, minerals, etc etc. are clustered at a few industrial locations that can be tapped without ripping up the entire planet to get at the goodies.
Climate: Again, current model (pre-global-warming) isn't too bad, but could do with a bit more cloud cover. Bright light hurts my eyes.
Fauna and flora: Bring back megafauna - cave bears, dire wolverines, ten-foot-tall meat-eating kangaroos, diprotodons, etc etc. These things look really neat, and could be genetically modified to eat only stupid people.
One or two ambulatory plants would be interesting, too.
Inhabitants: A few dozen people carefully selected on the grounds of their ability to get along with one another and not ruin things for everybody else. They will also be allowed to invite their own choices, and so on, because if they invite the wrong sort of people the megafauna will take care of the problem. If the ambulatory plants don't beat them to it.
Any other suggestions for ways to improve on the planet?
