# What If Worlds #1: Super-Earth **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 17, 2012, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830 "2012-01-17T21:01:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/21 "2012-01-20T02:35:29Z")
> [@CutterJohn](#): > > May be pointless to think about the effects of life, but not pointless to think about the effects on technology. > > For instance, good luck getting a rocket into space on a 3g or 5g planet. Mines would be a lot more dangerous. Bridges far more difficult to construct. I assume boats float better, though, for what it’s worth. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/22 "2012-01-20T02:50:13Z")
Larry Niven posited a high gravity planet called Jinx in his ‘Known Space’ series. > **[Known Space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinx_(Known_Space))** > > Known Space is the fictional setting of about a dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories by American writer Larry Niven. It has also become a shared universe in the spin-off Man-Kzin Wars anthologies. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) catalogs all works set in the fictional universe that includes Known Space under the series name Tales of Known Space, which was the title of a 1975 collection of Niven's short stories. The first-published work in the Th... ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/23 "2012-01-20T06:31:25Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I assume boats float better, though, for what it’s worth. Neither better nor worse - the boat’s increase in weight is exactly compensated by the water’s increase in weight. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/24 "2012-01-20T09:39:36Z")
Well, the obvious thing is the inability of many large dictatorships to arise. If The Chief Dodo of your region becomes a PITA, people would just move into some ungoverned area. In fact, bad government would be a major reason for people in small settlements to even bother to move. Would there be big cities? More or less of them? Most good stuff comes from large cities with idle rich people who patronize the arts and sciences. In our world, New Zealand was the land with no mammals. Would a larger planet have more cul-de-sacs? A continent with only insects? Barefoot teenage lesbians? Would a Pacific Ocean 4.5 larger than ours ever be bested? An super Amazon ever mapped? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/25 "2012-01-20T09:54:00Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > The only way both species get to “modern times” intact is if they’re isolated from each other Which is more probable on a Super-Earth than a regular earth, is what I’m saying. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/26 "2012-01-20T13:58:42Z")
Barefoot teenaged lesbians? That sounds much more interesting than marsupials. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/27 "2012-01-20T19:37:17Z")
Well it does paint an interesting picture of having oceans so large, a modern transcontinental jet wouldn’t have enough fuel to cross. them. ---
**Author:** ![space\_loner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@space\_loner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/space_loner)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/28 "2012-01-20T19:47:38Z")
I’m not sure if a larger surface area would lead to much vaster oceans or simply more numerous, scattered continents. Certainly more remote regions may have much more unique and exotic independent cultures. Distinct ecosystems probably also result in many many times the ecological diversity. A super-earth zoo would be very interesting to visit… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/29 "2012-01-20T20:05:37Z")
You’re positing a planet just like Earth, only bigger, but the surface gravity is the same? Ain’t gonna work. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/30 "2012-01-20T21:40:45Z")
Maybe it’s hollow… ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/31 "2012-01-20T23:24:15Z")
So you get twice the surface area–populate both the inside and the outside. And have tunnels at the poles making the planet a torus with a concave inner surface. Just watch out for mahars. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/32 "2012-01-21T02:26:29Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Well it does paint an interesting picture of having oceans so large, a modern transcontinental jet wouldn’t have enough fuel to cross. them. If there are any islands they’d just do what propeller-driven aircraft did before the jet era- stop multiple times to refuel. This kind of touches upon an idea I once had for a fictional world based on the Dyson sphere concept with an interior surface area equal to millions of Earth-size planets. On one spot there’s a quasi-Earth with the familiar continents and oceans. Picture the Earth’s crust peeled and laid flat, with the dividing line through the Bering Strait just west of the Americas so that the Pacific as far as Easter Island and Hawaii is east of Asia. This cluster of continents and islands is isolated from the rest of the Dyson sphere by hundreds of thousands of miles of completely empty ocean. With some tweaking, the history of this “Earth” is nearly identical to our own up to the time of Magellen, and afterward something not too dissimilar to our current civilization emerges. Then, in this quasi-Earth’s equivalent of the latter 20th century the technology is finally developed to cross the expanse of ocean separating “Earth” from other continents in the Sphere. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/33 "2012-01-21T16:22:12Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > If there are any islands they’d just do what propeller-driven aircraft did before the jet era- stop multiple times to refuel. Sure. But it would create an interesting story-telling dymanic. > [@Lumpy](#): > > This kind of touches upon an idea I once had for a fictional world based on the Dyson sphere concept with an interior surface area equal to millions of Earth-size planets. On one spot there’s a quasi-Earth with the familiar continents and oceans. Picture the Earth’s crust peeled and laid flat, with the dividing line through the Bering Strait just west of the Americas so that the Pacific as far as Easter Island and Hawaii is east of Asia. This cluster of continents and islands is isolated from the rest of the Dyson sphere by hundreds of thousands of miles of completely empty ocean. With some tweaking, the history of this “Earth” is nearly identical to our own up to the time of Magellen, and afterward something not too dissimilar to our current civilization emerges. Then, in this quasi-Earth’s equivalent of the latter 20th century the technology is finally developed to cross the expanse of ocean separating “Earth” from other continents in the Sphere. How do ships navigate inside a Dyson Sphere since there would be no stars? (Although I suppose they could have artificial beacons. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830/34 "2012-01-21T16:42:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You’re positing a planet just like Earth, only bigger, but the surface gravity is the same? Ain’t gonna work. Among other things, one interesting problem humans might have developing on a super-earth is that they may never develop the technology of flight, since the energy requirements to fly in that gravity would be too great. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-worlds-1-super-earth/609830.md?page=1)