"But that doesn't seem like that much," you say. (Destiny)

by Dagoonite, Somewhere in Iowa, lost in a cornfield., Friday, March 06, 2015, 23:11 (3797 days ago) @ scarab

Preface: I WANT THAT! I WANT THAT MARS! But then it wouldn't be instantly recognizable as Mars.

I flashed this to a friend who commented that having the percentage equivalent of the Atlantic doesn't sound like a lot compared to Earth. Well... true, technically. Compared to Earth, where most of the surface is water, it isn't that much. But that's the rub -- some astronomers argue that Earth could be counted as a water world for that very same reason. Which puts us in a slightly different category, really.

But let's assume that the Traveler did, in fact, put that much water there, but it was lost due to fighting, like Durandal suggested. I want you to think about that for a brief moment. Gravity seems about normal on Mars. The traveler would have compensated for solar wind most likely, so that the atmosphere and water it laid down wouldn't disappear quickly. Temperatures seem about nominal, which means a rather impressive greenhouse, right?

So the Traveler made gobs of water (as comets wouldn't suffice due to deuterium content), made the core of Mars quite more dense than even Earth to even out the gravity due to size differences, liquified those metals (most likely with radioactive materials, again, like Earth, which also means putting gobs of radioactive materials into the core), and then moved on to the more difficult planets. Because, yes, that's still the easiest planet to fiddle with.

My mind boggles over the space magic involved. Traveler, I am impress.

(Bonus random factoid: The Earth at one point counted as a jungle world, as most of the landmass was covered in thick jungles. Wow. Science is neat!)