Planetarium: Rasmussen’s Guide: Tidally Locked Planet Utopia

Welcome to Rasmussen’s Guide, a tool for those wanting more science in their science fiction.

It is for GMs running campaigns who need an alternate world with a logical ecology. Admit it, game worlds need internal logic, after all. Living animals do not spontaneously generate from nonliving matter, nor do they magically appear out of thin air. All living things metabolize, reproduce, grow, and adapt. They do not do these things in a vacuum. This planetary guide is a concise look at these lifeforms as they might evolve on a variety of planets, moons and celestial objects, using each world’s surface gravity to define its primary vertebrate Superclass and maximums.

Tidally Locked Utopia

From space at a distance, Utopia’s lighted side is very bright due to a thick, white cloud cover. When the surface can be seen, it looks like a hemispheric bull’s-eye. On a closer inspection from orbit, the bull’s-eye’s composition of superhumid provinces can be seen. The super stellar point (hot pole) is surrounded by dark green, which is then surrounded by concentric circles of medium and lighter greens. Upon closer examination, the bull’s- eye is punctuated with multiple lakes. Where the tan or brown ground can be seen directly, it sparkles.

If the dark side of Utopia could be seen from space at a distance, it would look like a doughnut hole rolled in crystal sugar. On a closer look from orbit, the dark side is shiny and crystalline, with a pure white polar ice cap. Upon closer examination, strong convection produces thick water clouds near the sub stellar point (cold pole). At the surface, white clouds made of water vapor appear in a blue sky. The surface appears silver with yellow to green to bluish-black iridescent crystal boulders and rocks. The plentiful boulders are rock- hard silicon carbide.