Assignment for Today: After you have completed the visualizations, please write a couple of paragraphs of a scenario that describes the basics of your world and its general characteristics. Post it to on your blog and be prepared to read part of it during your visualization or make a .wav file to go with your planet as in the Extra Credit assignment below. Here is what I have written for my planet:
Kewpie By-the-Little-Rip
At what might be the very edge of the universe (unless it’s not) is The Little Rip. In The Little Rip a portion of the known universe may have expanded as much as it probably can. Just how this expansion remains localized is not, in the least, understood, in part because whenever it is probed it registers as a single point. What is clear is that molecules of special conditions spin out from this near-to-possibly-beyond infinite cataclysm. Intention seems particularly massive and slow at the event horizon of Little Rip, and just beyond this horizon the space/time sea pulses with storms of uncertain probabilities, billows of dark intentions, and malstroms of anti-time.
It's just the sort of place to catch the attention of any multi-galactic set of species that happened to inhabit the roughly nearuniverse to The Little Rip. Which it has.
The region surrounding the rip is called The Ancients Archipelago, a set of islands of the standard universe washed by waves of Dark Fluid. There are a substantial number of probable worlds in The Archipelago, but strikingly, all the worlds fit into just three categories: usual Baryonic Worlds, worlds that might be made up of Dark Matter, and a set of worlds that all seem to be Chaplygin gas giants. These worlds are distributed in no reasonable order or stable relationship but float with the tides of reality emerging from the rip.
At the presumed time of the Encyclopedia Galactica it is hypothesized that the arrangement of worlds along The Archipelago is intentional and is meant to house the three general types of entities inhabiting our corner of the matterverse. We think we may have been at war with one of those other types of entities for millenia, unless we weren’t.
At the constantly rearranging center of the Baryonic worlds, was Archipelago Prime, (called “Kewpie”) a planet along whose axis balanced on a continuum of probabilities: at the equator possibilities were fixed, mechanics were predictable, cause and effect were certain; at the poles, forces could only be harnessed by will and attention until any rules at the polar extreme into quarksands of infinite possibility, frozen desserts of dark intentions through which only wizards could roam.
Due Today: You should have completed by class today your two planet images. One, the planet skin and two, the panorama with lifeforms. Include your name in the name of the files so that we can keep track of them. These two images should be placed in a folder in google docs. Then send Howard Hochhalter, the Planetarium Manager an invitation to access this folder in your google docs. When you email your invitation to him, make sure it says Worldbuilding in the subject line so he can tell it is our class. Send it again with Worldbuilding in the subject line if you have already sent it to him. This is how your work will get to the planetarium. His email address is
HHochhalter@southfloridamuseum.org
By today you should also have completed your planet description which should include a description of the physical features of your planet and some of its signature lifeforms. Post this on your blog along with low/res versions of your planet skin and panorama.
Xtra Credit: Want to go for the A? Get Xtra credit for taking your planet description and make a .wav file of you (or someone else) reading your description. Put the .wav file in your Google docs folder along with your planetarium images. This is an experiment this year but we hope to be able to play your .wav files as an introduction to your planet as we show them. There is a ninety (90) second limit on the .wav file. This can be done using your laptop or tablet. You can look at Youtube for a tutorial.
Remember that next week we will meeting at the Bishop Planetarium at the South Florida Museum, which is in downtown Bradenton at 201 10th St. West, almost to the riverfront on 10th Street. Please be there by 8:50. We will discuss ride sharing in class and try to arrange a car pool for everyone. Uber is possible. There is also a bus that goes by the school and goes to the station in downtown Bradenton. You have to walk a few blocks from the bus station near the Manatee courthouse to the museum. Allow for extra time if you take the bus.
