This chapter describes the game universe that is built upon the world created in the Foundation book series.
The galaxy is modeled after our actual Milky Way galaxy. A few important facts (taken from Wikipedia):
The following units are useful for calculating distances:
The game should calculate all distances in parsecs. This makes sense because the diameter of the galaxy is 9.5000E+017 km or 3.0787E+004 pc. 30787 pc is a useful number as has the same dimension as the Earth’s circumference in km (40075 km). In the Galaxy traveling 100 pc should relate to traveling 100 km on Earth. 100 km is not so far, 100 pc is also not so far with hyperspace technology.
The following tables show how km and pc can be converted.
From km to pc:
| in words | in km | in pc |
|---|---|---|
| one km | 1.0000E+000 km | 3.2408E-014 pc |
| one thousand km | 1.0000E+003 km | 3.2408E-011 pc |
| one million km | 1.0000E+006 km | 3.2408E-008 pc |
| one billion km | 1.0000E+009 km | 3.2408E-005 pc |
| one trillion km | 1.0000E+012 km | 3.2408E-002 pc |
| one quadrillion km | 1.0000E+015 km | 3.2408E+001 pc |
| one quintillion km | 1.0000E+018 km | 3.2408E+004 pc |
From pc to km:
| in words | in pc | in km |
|---|---|---|
| one nano pc | 1.0000E-009 pc | 3.0857E+004 km |
| one micro pc | 1.0000E-006 pc | 3.0857E+007 km |
| one milli pc | 1.0000E-003 pc | 3.0857E+010 km |
| one pc | 1.0000E+000 pc | 3.0857E+013 km |
| one thousand pc | 1.0000E+003 pc | 3.0857E+016 km |
| one million pc | 1.0000E+006 pc | 3.0857E+019 km |
| one billion pc | 1.0000E+009 pc | 3.0857E+022 km |
| one trillion pc | 1.0000E+012 pc | 3.0857E+025 km |
A galactic standard language exists that is spoken more or less by all inhabitants of the galaxy called Galactic Standard. Dialects exist that differ between worlds and empires of the galactic language. Galactic Standard is a dialect free standard language. Educated people will within their dialect speak a language closer to Galactic Standard than less educated people (e.g. farmers).
Many planets in the galaxy have only poor or limited self developed flora and fauna. When settling on a new planet colonists will bring flora and fauna and develop the planet. Some local plants or animals might be special and precious where others are useless. They should be preserved. Exotic local flora and fauna is a bonus (a precious delicious crop, ideal for farm colonies) or a disadvantage (dangerous wild animals).
A planetary system consists of the various non-stellar objects orbiting a star such as planets, dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and cosmic dust. Each Planetary System may or may not have planets in the habitable zone. Only Planets in the habitable zone can be colonized. More background information can be found on the extrasolar planet Wikipedia page.