And that big important aspect is, of course: Location, location, location. hmmm) so here I'll just try and sum up their thoughts on most important aspect, re-mixed for SciFi instead of SETI. Much more than a blog posts worth (I'll have to write a book. That means there's a lot of stuff been written that can help you. Not for fiction, but because they think we should be checking the sky in case there really is one somewhere. I've spent far too much time reading papers and sitting courses on the search for extraterrestrial intelligences, so I know a surprising fact: Some very very clever brains (they include Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan) have devoted serious man hours to what a huge galactic civilisation could be like. And you can't look that stuff up with Google. With a way of being founded and of expanding that makes sense. And write it a plausible sounding history. The problem is that, to help your readers suspend their disbelief, you now have to figure out a believable interstellar civilisation. You need an evil galactic empire, or a benevolent planetary federation, to set your scorching page turner of space opera in. You can find how I derived this equation here. HStellarDensity = habitable stars per cubic light-year.StellarDensity = stars per cubic light-year.HStarRfactor = HStellarDensity / ( (4/3) * π ) StarRfactor = StellarDensity / ( (4/3) * π ) But keep in mind that the HabCat dataset came out in 2003. Simplistic math on my part gave a value of 5.14×10 -4 habitable stars per cubic light year. The density of stars with human habitable planets I calculated by using Tarter and Turnbull's Habcat dataset. Currently the best estimate I could find for stellar density in Sol's neighborhood is Erik Gregersen's 4.0×10 -3 stars per cubic light year.
StarDfactor, HStarDfactor, StarRfactor, HStarRfactor: all depend upon the stellar density, that is, how many stars per cubic light year. HStarRfactor = habitable star radius factor, use 464.46 or see below.StarRfactor = star radius factor, use 59.68 or see below.Given the number of stars or habitable stars inside the imperial borders, the empire radius is: HStarDfactor = habitable star density factor, use 0.002 or see below.StarDfactor = star density factor, use 0.017 or see below.N hStars = number of stars with habitable planets.
Given the empire radius in light-years, the number of stars and habitable stars inside the borders is: If the radius is over 500 light-years the equations will calculate give an incorrect result (too many stars). Warning, the galactic plane in the neighborhood of Sol is only about 1,000 light-years thick.
It would be nice to be able to figure out how many stars are inside the empire, especially if you want to ensure that the Imperial Bureaucracy can actually handle it. The control radius between the Imperial (or Sector) Capital and the Rim give you the size of your empire. It is useful to be able to calculate a bit of geography for your interstellar empires. As previously mentioned, their empire will approximate an expanding sphere, with their homeworld at the center. Once our imperialists discover interstellar travel, they will spread to the surrounding stars in a manner similar to a watermelon hitting the sidewalk. Imagine a planet inhabited by imperialistic little opportunistic aliens, just like us, whose star is in a galaxy totally uninhabited by any other intelligent creatures (or at least uninhabited by creatures who can defend themselves). But this model more or less precludes the existence of an empire anyway, so it can be ignored by science fiction writers trying to build an empire. The much more messy and difficult to figure model of expansion is via Civilization Clusters. Starting at the origin planet the spherical colonization wave will grow at the rate of empire expansion. The simplest model of a growing galactic empire is a swelling balloon.
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