How to destroy 12 planets at once

[Laevex_Esre]

Hi all. This is my first post, hopefully, of many.

I'm currently involved in a worldbuilding project that I hope will eventually become the setting of a novel.

The world's called Etarek and the premise is that the inhabitants of an interplanetary federation converged on it around 450 years ago after fleeing the destruction of their worlds. Not many people actually got away from the 12 planets in the federation, and those who did had to live under the rule of the only powers rich and influential enough to build the huge migratory ships.


One question that I'm facing is how the 12 planets were all destroyed at once.

I have yet to define how close the planets were to one another, but I'd like this to relatively plausible SF, so 12 life-bearing planets would probably cover a pretty large area of space.

The people on the planets must also have had warning of the disaster, but I'm thinking on the order of years or decades, rather than centuries or longer. This short timespan means that the migratory ships can be built, but not nearly enough to meet the needs of a multi-planetary civilisation.

I don't know much about astrology, but I'd love to learn. If you can point me in the direction of somewhere I can learn about the possible candidates, I'd be very grateful.

I did think maybe some sort of supernova could do it, but I really haven't researched the matter yet.

[Anne Martin]

Giant star near the center of a galaxy implodes creating a chain reaction of unstable giant black holes or worm holes?

The problem is with the speed of light. Few inhabitable planets are likely to exist within 50 light years, probably not 12. If they have to be able to see it coming, it likely wouldn't come through a worm hole.

In Stephen R. Donaldson's Gap series, he posits the theory of crystal resonance for instantaneous communication across light years. Perhaps you could extend that theory to a physical event that can create some kind of chain reaction. It might not happen fast, and the inhabitants will need some kind of gap or wormhole theory for interstellar travel to escape.

It might be easier to create some kind of star cluster, say 50 stars all in a 50 lyr region, near the center of a galaxy. They would be old stars, so a large percentage of them might support life. Again there might be a series of black holes near the center of that galaxy, and there might by some interaction, but I would worry that the entire cluster would get wiped out over time.

Just an idea.

[David Evil Overlord]

While 12 lifeworlds may not exist too close to each other, with interstellar travel there may be the level of tech required to terraform.

Now, just put one nova or supernova close enough for a big burst of radiation to swamp those worlds...

[juelz4sure]

I would think the best way to do that would be to somehow transform a star into a supernova; perhaps by taking some kind of advance vacuum that suck out the fuel used by a star (Carbon or Iron seem to be very common as far as fuel for stars are concerned) causing the star to collapse into itself this is the point where you have a decision to make either the star will completely collapse into one infinitely small and dense place to make a black hole or you can have this can happen with almost any star I believe, but in order for a supernova to occur the star has to be 2 times our sun's size I think. When the gravity is pulling the star into itself it can cause the star to make iron, the collapse becomes incredible violent and ends in a huge explosion (supernova)

Juelz

[pyan]

I have this mental image of a galactic pool table with twelve massive planet-sized balls on it - and one collision sets off a chain reaction that "pots" all twelve neatly into their own suns...

[David Evil Overlord]

Originally Posted by pyan

I have this mental image of a galactic pool table with twelve massive planet-sized balls on it - and one collision sets off a chain reaction that "pots" all twelve neatly into their own suns...

I think they mentioned that in one of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books.

[thaddeus6th]

Welcome to Chrons

Given the coincidence of the destruction and the widespread area the two viable options seem to be a cataclysm or a deliberate and co-ordinated act of warfare (or possibly terrorism).

The latter might seem incompatible with a few years of warning, but it could be that environmentally necessary systems were corrupted or otherwise rendered ineffective (you could even take inspiration from the original Phantasy Star series which I think featured a global computer called Mother Brain which eventually started trying to kill its own people).

Another option, which is sort of cataclysmic, could be a highly virulent virus which can survive in multiple species for a prolonged period ans is extremely infectious.

[pyan]

Originally Posted by David Evil Overlord

I think they mentioned that in one of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books.

Quite probably - and I think there was a scene-break in Third Rock from the Sun that also had the idea...

[David Evil Overlord]

That gives me an idea for one of my own destructive rampages...um, in a story, of course. The asteroid my mad scientist is aiming at a city must first be solar-heated to a molten sphere, allowed to cool, and then laser-polished until it looks like an eight-ball.

Any common or garden-variety mad scientist can drop a common or garden-variety asteroid on a city. But a true artiste does it with style! Bwahahahahahahaha!!!

[Laevex_Esre]

Thanks for all the thoughts guys. All this is really interesting stuff. Feel free to keep the thoughts coming.

Originally Posted by David Evil Overlord

While 12 lifeworlds may not exist too close to each other, with interstellar travel there may be the level of tech required to terraform.

Now, just put one nova or supernova close enough for a big burst of radiation to swamp those worlds...

I like this suggestion best so far because I'm planning on my civilisation's interstellar travel being sub-light-speed. In which case, while they have advanced technology, they probably wouldn't have been able to reach any other habitable planets, so terraforming would be a much more feasible option for the ambitious and burgeoning civilisation.

So how much of space could a nova or supernova destroy? I'm presuming more than just one solar system? Maybe my people terraformed all the rocky planets with the right levels of gravity nearby, colonising 3 or 4 solar systems within, say, a 10 light-year range. Is that feasible?

And do (super)novas destroy nearby planets, or merely severely irradiate them, stripping them of all life?

[RJM Corbet]

Originally Posted by pyan

I have this mental image of a galactic pool table with twelve massive planet-sized balls on it - and one collision sets off a chain reaction that "pots" all twelve neatly into their own suns...

Reminds me of the time I had three balls on the table: the white, the black and the pink, and I sunk them all in one shot ...

ps: Supernova will do the trick, if they're reasonably close together. For instance if the planets are 'terraformed' they're likely to be closer together than trying to find inhabited earthlike goldilocks zone planets all over the galaxy/universe? A supernova releases more energy than an entire galaxy in one sudden, huge explosion.

[Abernovo]

A supernova should destroy the planets of its system. It might send material out into other systems, but I don't know. Have you considered gamma ray bursts? Potentially effective on any star system in a galaxy, so long as it was in line with the beam of gamma radiation.

So, if you had a couple of planets in the system going nova and other inhabited systems affected by a GRB, you'd potentially have a lot of refugees. You could get some warning of a supernova (ageing of the star, deterioration of processes, etc.) so that would also allow for the escape of the populations.

[Sapheron]

A supernova is easily capable of wiping out the area you have suggested. Some of them can be quite massive. Massive, that is, when viewed in solar and galactic scales.

Depending how much warning you want you could also use the idea of errant stars. For example, if two galaxies were to get close to one another, their respective gravities mess up the formations of stars in the other. Means lots of all sorts of things flying everywhere. If a star, even a black hole, is thrown past it can put a lot of local stuff out of whack.

[RJM Corbet]

Originally Posted by Sapheron

A supernova ... Depending how much warning you want ...

It would signal itself? I'm not sure of the process, but first becoming a 'red giant' etc ...

[Sapheron]

Partly that we can work out the rough times a star will take in various parts of the life cycle already, and I suppose that anyone capable of interstellar travel and terraforming would be better at it than us.

Secondly, because the instantaneous, cataclysmic events that happen to stars are still moderately lengthy processes to people. Centuries, if not a millennium could easily pass during the easy stages before the explosion proper. During this time the star would be collapsing inwards, so it would visibly decrease in size, as well as putting out whacky amounts of radiation of different kinds. To anyone watching in detail (as for example, we watch our own star carefully) it would be hard to miss that something was going on.