Artifexian - a worldbuilding guide

[Artifexian]

Hi everyone,

I'm new here so I hope this is the right place to post this.
My name is Edgar. I started a youtube channel called Artifexian not long ago.
Artifexian aims to teach sci-fi writers/game designers/table top players etc how to achieve a high level of plausibility and realism in their creations

Here's my most popular video to date on how to create accurate planetary systems
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5xU-8Kb63Y

Hope that this video, and perhaps my channel as a whole, might inspire someone out there. I would love to hear any constructive criticisms people may have. Really need to hear what people think in order to make Artifexian as entertaining and informative as possible. Thanks you all so much for your time

...Edgar out!

[Synvallius]

Very intriguing, I've watched only a few so far, but the information is helpful. I've started upon making multiple solar systems, and if I continue to make more I'll certainly be using the formulae in the video. I do have a few non-video related questions, if you'd be willing to answer them: 1, would it be possible for planets beyond the frost line to be rock planets, and not gas giants, or is that not possible? 2, if a planet (the non-gas giant kind) was able to exist beyond the frost line, could it sustain life (not necessarily be the origin of life forms, but could life live on a planet beyond the frost line at all)? 3, Could a star trap a nebula within its gravitational pull (similar to how an asteroid belt is trapped within a specific orbit), or would a nebula not be affected in the same way as asteroids are? Those are my only questions,(at least for now), the videos are very interesting, and pretty funny, quite frankly, do you do all the drawings yourself or are there collaborators aiding in that?
In addition to that, the Other Planetary Systems video was whatever the equivalent of the term mind-blowing, for me, would be (I'm not fond of that term).

[Artifexian]

Hi thanks for replying. Glad you enjoyed my stuff.

1) Yes its possible...probable maybe not. But its thought that most gas giants have rocky cores. Theres a critical level around about 10 earth masses, above which the core will start sucking in all the gaseous material around it. This is what creates gas giants. You could just say that such a core never got to this critical mass and thus never became a gas giant. Alternatively you could just say that the initial conditions of the planetary disk didn't contain enough material. So perhaps one big gas giant formed and any other world were deprived of the material necessary to form giants. But for the record it would definitely not be rocky like earth expect such a world to be covered in a deep layer of ices.

2) Intelligent life probably wouldn't form out here...I'd imagine all you get would be microbes. For example we think life may possibly exist on the likes of Titan for example. But we certainly aren't expecting to see bipedal organisms with opposable thumbs. But an sufficiently advanced civilisation could well colonise such a planet. They probably have to terraform it in a similar manner to how we would set about terraforming Mars.

3) No on this one unfortunately. If a star was close enough to a nebula to make this situation somewhat viable it would be blasted by the nebulas high energy particles. Remember nebulae are the result of dying stars. They look all peaceful and beautiful from our pics of them...but they're not. Also stars can obviously trap material with their gravitational pull but the speed of these particles would definitely moving at way above escape velocity. But perhaps would just want exotic look of a nebula to add to flavour to a setting. May I suggest then that you create lifeforms that are capable of seeing a greater spectrum of light...that would yield some pretty amazing results. Vsauce says it better than I do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lR7s1Y6Zig

I do everything myself. All the research, illustration, narration etc. Its a one man bedroom sort of thing . Really glad to hear that you liked the Other planetary systems video. It was one of my favourites to make and research.

If you have any other questions please feel free the ask.