I hope you all got to see the lovely rendition of the Galaxion by Daniel Maland I posted last Friday. If you haven’t, you should really go have a look!
If you recall the scene when the Survey Contact Team first stepped onto the Hiawatha’s bridge, you’ll see why the news about Captain Flynn (whom we never actually met, but was talked about in one of Scavina’s flashbacks) isn’t completely a surprise.
Ooooh, nice story-telling technique. Someone has to explain things to Carl, so we get to eavesdrop. Now, when do the bad guys turn up?
Assuming that they are in fact bad guys rather than antagonists with their own problems…
You mean protagonists? Antagonist = bad guy
Which makes me glad we didn’t see Captain Flynn in this flashbackâmight be messy…
Is there a big fat moon orbiting that planet? What is the spectral analysis of the star? Do the other planets in that system look familiar?
Translation: Is it some kind of alternate-Earth, or someplace completely different even though it looks the same?
IP Salute- Captain Flynn…
The hints dropped so far – particularly the look of the continents’ arrangement – seem to argue for “alternate universe”…
THAT’S NO MOON!
Er…
I’ve got a bad feeling about this!
=)
Unfortunately, the people who would know all of that…were on the bridge.
It is possible that there were crewmembers working directly with the scanners and they might know more. Alas, it all happened very quickly and we don’t know if either the ship’s scanners (active) or sensors (passive) were working after the jump (or if the scanner crews survived the crash). Thus it is quite possible that nobody alive has seen either the stars nor the continental layout: they could be completely in the dark.
Which brings up an interesting point: even now Carl might think he’s simply on a far off planet rather than on an alternate Earth.
Carl doesn’t have a clue, and it seems that nobody else does either. But my earlier post might be at least someplace that somebody might start. If the planet has a moon, particularly a proportionally large moon as does planet Earth, then it would be hard to miss, even from the crash-site. So right away you would know one way or the other. Confirmation of the spectral emissions from the star would eliminate Sol unless it was exactly the same. No two stars are quite alike. This information would also be available from the survivor’s camp. Crashing their ship was bad enough, but being lost as well would not be very popular with the crew!
That’s a good point about spectral analysis– I hadn’t considered it. I may be able to squeeze it into the story at some point. Cheers!
Oooh! Happy to help! All those years of reading science fiction have been worth it. I love starships!!!
We don’t need spectral analysis. Just one look at the Moon will tell them that they are on alt-Earth. The moon’s markings are pretty distinctive.
Fred, yes, but where we are now, Mal and his team found that the Horsehead Nebula looks like, ah… the other end of the horse… so who knows if we’ll see the Man in the Moon at night, or if it’ll be a Cat in the Moon here, or given how the universe likes to laugh at us, perhaps it’ll be a Can-Can Girl, instead?
But if New Z— looks like New Zealand, then the moon should look like the moon.
It occurs to me that if this moon looked different from their moon, it would have been mentioned in the briefing as a means to emphasize the fact that this isn’t their Earth. So I’m betting the moon looks the same geologically. However, if the Hiawatha crashed during a New Moon, then it could be a week before they recognize this moon as being Earth’s (after all, the lack of certain responses proves this isn’t Earth).
OTOH, once they did recognize it, they would have immediately asked why they couldn’t see any moonbases. Even if their moonbases are too small to be normally seen by the naked eye, their lights would have been easily visible against a dark moon; especially when viewed at night.
This, along with their original belief that this wasn’t Earth, would point to the probability that they traveled back in time (that or somebody terraformed this moon to look like Earth’s moon, but why go through the trouble?). Since these are military folk rather than scientists, they would be more concerned with protecting themselves over “non-interference” (not that it matters much; technically they interfered when they crashed :-O ).
The idea of an alternate Earth wouldn’t occur to anybody until they could talk with the natives and find out their history.
It’s also possible that any pertinent information about the moon was discussed at the briefing, and then glossed over in aid of moving the story along. *author hedges her bets*
It’s also possible that there hasn’t yet been time for a briefing and crew are picking up information by gossip and hearsay.
The briefing being talked about, I think, is the one on Galaxion before the SCT went down to the planet. But Fred is right, I think, that at *this* point in Carl’s flashback, it does not appear there has been time for anyone to do any sort of serious information gathering, or, if someone is doing reconnaissance, that someone has not had opportunity to share it with the rest of the crew. Or Carl, at the least – but he just woke up, so is woefully lacking in knowledge of what just happened.
Completely logical to think that. However we need more information to solve this mystery, or at least to be able to have some kind of explanation. Right now we know nothing, except that the planet looks and feels like Earth, although it is a strange Earth. The odds of another planet having a moon like the Earth’s are impossibly remote, but it could also have a moon that was different and that would make more sense. Like everything was almost the same, but just a strange coincidence. Spectral analysis of the star is just more information.
“Alternate-Earth” is a strange concept. So strange, that if it were happening to you then looking around for hidden cameras might be in order because you would have to suspect a Cosmic trick or joke. Perhaps the jump drive works by defying logic and rules and doing it anyway. Maybe there’s a “Right-hand” Universe, and a “Left-hand” one too. Maybe they messed with time and probability, maybe not. More information, please !
If the stars are different but the Earth’s continents are the same, I think there’s only one conclusion we can come to:
Those darned Magratheans.
If I find any white mice aboard Galaxion, I’m feeding them to Patty’s cat!
Fusella, I believe that would be the best course of action. Anyway, they probably deserve it!
Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask: why does Carl think this is a terraformed planet? Have they found no planets that could naturally support Earth life?
In the Galaxioverse, out of all the planets humanity has explored, they’ve only found one reasonably habitable planet (not including Earth), and that was quite a while ago. The other colonies are all the products of some sort of terraforming, or domes. So the odds of stumbling across another are quite high.
Oh wait, I might be wrong. There may be two… I’m gonna hedge my bets on that one, too.
Tara, I think you means the odds are *low* that they’ll run across another naturally habitable planet.
Since you’re hedging your bets on the number of previously explored habitable planets, I suppose I shouldn’t add a comment on that, then?
Is there a pool on wether or not the planet is an alternate-Earth?