Colony on Tidally Locked World... (for 40K Fanfic Again)

[Zinegata]

Okay, been thinking up some interesting new worlds for my 40K fanfics, and came across these sorts of worlds:

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitabili ... rf_systems

Basically, a tidally locked world is one where the planet's rotation and revolution is the same, so that one side of the world is always facing the star and another is always facing the darkness.

I was thinking of the possibility of putting a colony / society into a world like this, wherein most of the population is in the "terminator" sector - the boundary between the light and dark sides of the world. Basically, the colony lives in an area where the sun literally never sets and the weather is mild enough to support agriculture - which incidentally has a ton of cultural implications.

Still, given the temperature differences there's apparently a good chance that the world might turn into an airless rock (the "sun" side eventually evaporates all the water, while the "dark" side freezes all the water until the atmosphere is gone). So I'm thinking of adding a few more elements to the mix:

1) The planet has a strong magnetic field (due to its geological composition - a lot of heavy metals and stuff) to ensure minimal atmosphere loss.

2) The planet is tidally locked with a brown dwarf, which has only minimal luminosity so that the "sun" side is not simply baking itself to death all the time. Instead, the "sun" side is only warm enough to turn all the ice there into oceans.

3) The planet is part of a larger stellar system (probably a binary system), where the second star occassionally "shines" over the dark side to warm it up and cause the ice to melt, which replenishes the oceans on the "sun" side.

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Any comments on how viable this world is? Or should I just go "Screw it, 40K magic makes it work!"

[Dr. Trainwreck]

There are the Mordians, which proves that 40k engineering can already make habitable zones out of these places. That's a hive world, and hives regularly withstand all kinds of things you wouldn't believe (including the sheer pressure of supporting a structure with a 10km height). The problem is that sheer temperature difference will create air currents that make Earthlike hurricanes look like a bitch fit, which will go on all the time. In short, the air doesn't blow, it sucks.

Creating habitats there is... well. It has to be mostly subterranean. Most of the colony is below ground living on artificial light, hydroponic plants and air filtered from above. A small part is above ground, which is massively fortified to withstand the elements. In this setup, I don't think an agricultural world is feasible. A mining planet is more sensible there. And as an aside, these cities can run on geothermal energy.

Also, your communication with the outside world is gonna suck. You cannot land shuttles and such on the terminator zone because of the wind, and can't land them elsewhere for obvious reasons. I don't know if this is realistic, but perhaps you can have a 'calm' season for a few weeks when the winds do not strip flesh from bone, at which time shuttles will land. Sticking a space station is also a good idea (prefabricated and towed into orbit by the Navy).

Now, this planet's population won't exceed one billion, probably much lower. Cities can only be located dead center on tectonic plates, and communicate with each other via tunnels. What this planet does have is mineral resources in abundance, and presumably advanced know-how to create sophisticated shit, which means good quality Guard regiments. The Admech might maintain a good presence on the planet as well.

These are in no way certainly correct. I'm just throwing out ideas, which any more seasoned neckbeard can correct.

[ryacko]

Is the magnetic field homogeneous?

Brown dwarfs pale in comparison to even red dwarfs in luminosity.

[bilateralrope]

There are the Mordians, which proves that 40k engineering can already make habitable zones out of these places. That's a hive world,

Then there is Adumbria, which isn't a hive world. The population lives above ground in the twilight band.

[Zinegata]

Doc->

Ow, forgot about the weather factor. I was hoping to minimize those by giving the world a quasi-day/night cycle via other nearby stars.

Ryacko->

Most homogenous unless some funky effect is needed to make it otherwise. And yeah I was aiming for lower luminosity so the sun side isn't simply baked to a crisp.

[ryacko]

Ryacko->

Most homogenous unless some funky effect is needed to make it otherwise. And yeah I was aiming for lower luminosity so the sun side isn't simply baked to a crisp.

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

Note that brown dwarfs are at the bottom of the scale, and that there is roughly an million times difference in magnitude by my calculations between the moon and a Brown dwarf (not certain about this).
And according to wikipedia, the difference in apparent magnitude between the moon and the sun is 398,359 times.

[Zinegata]

Ryacko->

Most homogenous unless some funky effect is needed to make it otherwise. And yeah I was aiming for lower luminosity so the sun side isn't simply baked to a crisp.

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

Note that brown dwarfs are at the bottom of the scale, and that there is roughly an million times difference in magnitude by my calculations between the moon and a Brown dwarf (not certain about this).
And according to wikipedia, the difference in apparent magnitude between the moon and the sun is 398,359 times.

Probably better go up to a red dwarf then because a brown dwarf is too cold?