The type of rogue planet I am referring to is a terrestrial planet that has been ejected from it's solar system during it forming. The planet has a thin atmosphere and has no star, because of this the planet's oceans have froze in an almost twenty mile deep ice cover. This takes place in the Star wars universe, a group of people were on an exploration mission into the Unknown Regions when the group's hyperdrive malfunctioned and launched them deep into the strange region on the edge of the galaxy. The group of around eighty people had the resources to set up a small base and a few mining equipment but, how would they turn that into a civilization into the center for a powerful empire?
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1$\begingroup$ VTC what is here to scientifically deduce - or they have sufficient tech capacities and vison to do so, or they do not or they fail for reasons beyond they control. There are 1000's ways for success and billion ways to fail. What kind of objective clarity, scientifically plausible improvements can we bring here - use nanomachines and portable teleporters with 10ly range and you have all things for success $\endgroup$– MolbOrgJul 9, 2021 at 17:05
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2$\begingroup$ This is the Star Wars universe, although it is advanced it is also strangely not. The exploration team would only have one or two air tight domes, one smaller ship capable of carrying a few passengers. The composition of the Unknow Regions would make it hard to even find another planet, they would have to stay close to the planet and any surrounding bodies. They do have equipment capable of extracting resources from the planet they land on but how would they expand outward? $\endgroup$– AsherJul 9, 2021 at 17:20
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1$\begingroup$ What exactly are you asking? How to establish a settlement or how to turn a small settlement on a rogue planet into a powerful empire? These are two very different questions, with the latter being way too broad. Please edit your query to clarify your question and to add all the additional details you mention in the comments. Comments tend to disappear and people do not really pay enough attention to them. $\endgroup$– OtkinJul 9, 2021 at 17:36
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1$\begingroup$ @Asher WB.SE rules do not allow multiple questions in one query. Please edit your query to limit it to one question. Please consider that if you want to focus on expansion, the information that you have provided is not sufficient. Empires require people, wealth, and military power. Your query does not allow figuring out how to get those three things. We do not even know how far from other settlements your rogue planet is, what resources are available, and if recruiting is even possible. $\endgroup$– OtkinJul 9, 2021 at 17:52
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2$\begingroup$ To have an empire you must have victims to conquer. Hard to find rich cities to conquer on a barren planet. $\endgroup$– AlexPJul 9, 2021 at 18:45
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3 Answers
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A caveman teleported naked from the sauna would die, sure. But in this case there was a technical problem with the hyperdrive, which is to say, you spilled your beer in it and this time it shorted out. You popped out in the middle of nowhere with all the hafnium nuclear isomer used up; worse, the reserve tank ... well, you look in the back and the reserve tank is the one you meant to change but never got around to. Barely enough fuel to hop 200 AU to the nearest rock.
After a miserable couple weeks of ample recriminations and astronomy measurements, you hone in on the planet's largest water ice plume. (Lucky for you, there's enough radioactivity to keep a subsurface ocean going, which is a very good sign for heavy elements) The engineer says you could probably improvise with induced plutonium decay and lead shielding, but (looking at you) somebody would have to ride outside.
Obviously enough, you land in the cryovolcano, and use a few hundred-gram nuclear mining charges to open it up a bit. The vaporizing ice clears out most of the fallout in no time, and you have yourself a cozy little mining base. Just expand your origami graphene enclosure to fit, keeping a little extra density toward the vacuum to prevent accidents. What a relief not to be sharing a hundred square feet with seven people who are mad at you about something.
Now at this point, your settlement is being warmed by evaporating water vapor from beneath, which is a source of hydrogen and oxygen from your nuclear isomer reactor. You're still spending power to heat it, though not much by space travel standards. It would be prudent to get a backup energy source just in case anything (ahem) happens to the reactor. Besides, you're here to mine, which means, it's time to drill baby drill. Lucky for you, your ship has more space for drill casings than for its crew, and the drill itself is built into the ship and powered off the reactor. The casings are the newest dynamic model, capable of the same restructuring on the fly as a graphene habitation dome, but faster, over a smaller range of motion. You can drill down and expand the cryovolcanic vent to get to the ocean pretty quickly.
The ocean isn't just a source of warm water - it's a place to launch mining submersibles that can prospect the depths for nodules. The water itself may contain interesting impurities. There are some strange chemical imbalances in the water - let's not call them life forms, since that would massively bloat the claims paperwork - but there are some real opportunities there to spear yourself some complex hydrocarbons.
At this point, it's almost easy to forget you're still marooned until you collect enough 178m2 or other nuclear fuel to try another jump. It would be just another mining mission, except ... the cook sabotaged the beer recycler. Cruel man.
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$\begingroup$ You basically wrote that part of my story for me, this was very interesting. I will use some of these concepts I just couldn't figure out how to explain this. There are a few problems but that's not that big of a deal, can I use this with some changes and not as many metaphors to explain the civilization.? $\endgroup$– AsherJul 9, 2021 at 17:36
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$\begingroup$ As far as I recall Stack Exchange is free licensed anyway, but sure, by all means go ahead! If I actually wrote a percent of what I like to daydream about, maybe I'd be more of a hoarder... Plus, I see you've been busted for creativity without a license, so if you don't use it, it is all wasted anyway. $\endgroup$ Jul 9, 2021 at 19:41
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They would die.
If they are "suddenly teleported", they would not have the tools with them to survive. They would freeze to death.
20 miles of ice cover is a lot of ice. You need a lot of energy to get through it. And the only energy you could extract would be by decomposing the water into hydrogen and oxygen and use a nuclear fussion reactor to get energy. But of course you do not usually carry one of those in your pocket, and you would need a lot of work to get the fussible fuel refined first.
Then there is the issue that what they could eat. Of course with energy and equipment (which they do not have) they could setup an hydroponics plant to grow the seeds/algaes that they (again) do not have, but that would take time to setup and to get results.
In short, your are setting a situation which requires lots of specialized equipment and preparation, and want to ignore that. Remember that technology is not magic(*): you require not only the knowledge but the basic techniques and the time and effort the develop the infrastructure.
To put an analogy, you could be the best Artic explorer in the world. But if you were suddenly teleported to the North Pole right now, you would die because you are not wearing right now the kind of equipment needed to survive there.
(*) Yes I do know that quote. OP's would be better served with magic, though.
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$\begingroup$ I should have been more clearer, I will edit my question now $\endgroup$– AsherJul 9, 2021 at 16:36
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$\begingroup$ Yes please, state what you want to ask in your question. We are not able to read your mind so we can only answer to what you write. If your mind and fingers are disconnected, there is nothing we can do to help you. $\endgroup$– SJuan76Jul 9, 2021 at 16:38
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$\begingroup$ That sweet suffering of a person not clarifying things in comment section, lol. In origin edit OP stated advanced tech, and clearly it needs to ask what it means, before to jump first in line to get free internet points. Depending on what that advanced tech means outcomes can be different. However not a bad answer to point some problems with OPs q. $\endgroup$– MolbOrgJul 9, 2021 at 16:58
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$\begingroup$ Some problems, hm, I have to say it is flawed at its core as opinion based q, now instead to have no answers and vanish from wb, it will stick there forever, because u pinned it, or someone else with similar jump in attitudeds will do the same. $\endgroup$– MolbOrgJul 9, 2021 at 17:02
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The only energy that might be available on a rogue planet would geothermal energy due to active volcanism. Due to the limited resources your space travelers have, they don't have the means to access such energy.
If you want to want to have a stronger scientific basis for the story it might be better to shift the focus of the settlement to one of the moons orbiting the rogue planet.
Moons can have geothermal energy due to their own radioisotopes providing heat for geological activity and geothermal energy, but they can also generate heat via gravitational interaction with the planet they orbit due to tidal flexing.
... far from the warming rays of the sun, water stays liquid thanks to heat generated from friction, when a moon is warped by its planet's gravitational pull, as well as that of other moons.