On 7 May 2015 at 8:22, Greg Nokes wrote:

> I like this a *lot* - it also goes a long way to explaining the
> cannon TL disparity. You´d end up with mooks on the TL5 rock having
> TL5 gear and the rich folks using AirRafts and lasers.
>
> My only issue is that TL5 rock with out a survivable  biosphere.
> Then, they cannot locally produce the food and essential gear that
> they need locally to survive - so all of the environmental suits, air
> scrubbers etc need to be shipped in. You can explain a few of those
> away using the "it´s a outpost" hand wave. Then trade need to be
> large cargo shipments of essentials arriving like clockwork. a few
> small traders might be able to keep up once the colony is
> established, but I have a gut feeling that the volume of trade is
> going to be large.

Actuually TL 5 can produce food easily enough. You just need sealed
"caves" or whatever and reprocess the air & sewage using plants. And
farm small animals.

It's doable at a lot lower TL than you'd think. And you only need air
scrubbers or vehicles and suits. Though those are quite low tech as
well (lithium hydroxide cartridges deal with humidity and CO2, and
activated charcoal deals with trace gases).

Both sorts of filters can be reactivated be simply heating them to
drive off the gases. Do that it sealed chambers that pump the
resulting stuff into the artifical wetlands that reprocess the air &
sewage and you are good to go.

Yeah, it takes so large amounts of biomass and water. On the other
hand, it's repairable and maintainable with *medieval* level tech,
maybe even Roman. Artifical light is the hard part unless you pipe in
sunlight.

Ships will be "strongly requested" to dump their honey tanks and
other "organic waste" storage when they visit. Ever bit of added
biomass will help give a reserve and expand the ecosystems that
support the population.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com