Space Hazards: Black Stars What Are They And What Might They Do To Star Ships?

 What is a Black Star and what does it do?

Pixabay 

First a look at the rules will help us at least understand what the game designers thought.

Star Probe listed a Black Star as a possible space hazard a ship could encounter during a jump. This particular Sci Fi space hazard has only a 1% chance of being encountered in Space Probe’s rules. The hazard causes 11 Megarons of Structural Damage and causes one month to be lost. Presumably the lost time is because of the damage to the ship, in addition the next jump must be calculated which takes an additional month, these numbers are added together meaning the wayward damaged ship is stuck in that system for two months. In looking at the Hull Values for Explorer I and II ships of 25 and 20 respectively that is a lot of Structural Damage! Now Structural Damage cannot be repaired except at proper facilities per Star Empires which is additional expanded rules that build on Star Probe. This means the ship is being patched up and various repairs are being made to systems damaged or effected by the Black Star so the ship can move on, but no Hull Values go up. Star Frontiers Knight Hawks Expansion does not specifically mention Black Stars, however when comparing the Star Probe/Star Empires navigation, jump rules, and space ship information to Star Frontiers it is clear much of Knight Hawks is an updated version modified towards the role playing style versus Star Probe’s tactical war gaming style. I checked FrontierSpace to see if they listed Black Stars as a space hazard and like Star Frontiers they were vague on hazards. Both Star Frontiers and FrontierSpace treat space hazards more as useful plot elements than part of game mechanics. I do want to note one thing these games have in common; though sometimes implied more than stated; is the effect of gravity on the functionality of the FTL systems. Star Probe and Star Frontiers navigate from Star System to Star System. In depth discussions about how the “jump” works in Star Frontiers usually ends up with everyone agreeing gravity of Stars seem to have an influence and there has to be some sort of drive that kicks in at 1% the speed of light or all sorts of space stuff would be accidentally disappearing into the Void (Star Frontier’s nomenclature for hyperspace) and then reappearing in systems randomly which would be very bad for the stability of the galaxy. A look at Star Empires confirms gravity of stars do influence the jumps. In the Star Probe/Star Empire universe as your culture improves it Hyperspace Research Level and Technology the ability of one’s Star Ships to jump closer to the System’s Star improves giving your attacking fleets an edge by getting them further into the system before detection. A look at FrontierSpace’s rules reveals that a Star’s Event Horizon interferes with the FTL as well. One aspect of the FTL jumps all the games share as well is the time it takes (though varied between games) to calculate a jump, then get up to the speed required to activate the jump drive and clear the Star’s gravity that cancels out the hyperspace drive’s effect. In short the reason a Black Star is a hazard  is it cannot be seen and it’s gravity pulls a Star Ship in hyperspace out of hyperspace wrecking havoc on the ship. I am still working on converting ship statistics between the various games but based on the damage assessed in Star Probs the damage should be significant to Star Frontier and FrontierSpace Star Ships. Star Probe ships are huge and hold up to 2500 people! What I suggest for these games is significant damages to the ships hull based on their point system, a months repair work to various systems and shoring up the hull before anyone can so much as think about jumping anywhere. Then you add on the calculating and moving to jump time... I would calculate as lost, so any additional time for that added. This is where Navigational Buoys come in handy, these devices can be dropped off to help prevent these sort of problems for other ships or just the players ship... it is all in the programming and what the referee allows. Players maybe able to sell data so others can avoid that area or place their own Buoy or sell access to the player’s Buoy Frequency’s. Suggested interested parties in navigational data are various companies, governments, criminal organizations and powerful individuals.

Now that the basic arbitrary effect of the Black Star to our imaginary Star Ships is understood to be due to gravitational forces, it might be helpful to know what is a Black Star? What might it do according to Science? Is it even a legit real life space body or just the imaginations of a writer?

 I did a little reading up on Black Stars and they are theoretically possible and may in fact exist. The problem is they are black, hard to find and even if found maybe misidentify as Black Holes. Space is big and we have to be looking in the right place, at the right time with the right tools to find evidence of the theorized and then interpret what we observe from Earth. In particular they are mathematically possible in the Einstein-Maxwell-Dirac and Einstein-Yang-Mills-Dirac systems. The Black Star is a theoretical alternative to a Black Hole, or as I see it another probable out come to the variables in the mathematics and systems used to predict what is out in the Out Black. Basically both could exist, so it is a legit potential space hazard.

A Black Star is a gravitational object composed of matter. Basically it is formed much like a Black Hole. A Star that is dying, then goes Super Nova, then it collapses becoming ever denser and then this process either stops and forms a Black Star or if it continues a singularity is formed creating a Black Hole. Black Holes actually defy quantum physics rules while Black Stars do not. 

Unlike a Black Hole the mass does not collapse into a singularity but is distributed across the whole. Black Holes have an Event Horizon while Black Stars do not. When Black Stars collide they produce bursts of gamma ray bursts preceded by gravitational wave emissions. Any light produced by the Black Star is drawn back into it. Any light near the Black Star will be redshifted. Hawking radiation and thermal Planckian radiation will be present around a Black Star. 

How close is to close? Well I had trouble with that question specifically for Black Stars but did find loads of information on Black Holes and gravity, so going with what I learned about gravity, mostly the mass of the object is the issue. Looking at gravity a Black Hole with a mass of our real Sun will have the same effect on our solar system as our Sun just no light... so no planets being sucked into it, everything would just keep happily orbiting as is. Now this is useful because mass is mass and gravity is gravity thus a Black Star the mass of our Sun would have no effect on orbital patterns. This gives you the referee a point of reference in that the real issue for any star or space ship is can it achieve escape velocity of the gravitational pull of a mass? If the answer is yes, everyone lives! If the math says no, TPK on that ship. I suggest just using any rules from which ever game system you are using to figure out if a ship can or can not escape a Black Star’s gravity... simply decide the mass of the Black Star (they can have different masses) and find the closest mass in your rules and use that. 

In Star Empires technology determines how close a ship can be to a Star and enter or exit the system with its hyperdrive. FrontierSpace uses the first number of the fourth zone of the system (there is away to calculate it by hand too). StarFrontiers only really discusses planetary gravity wells as an arbitrary number of hexes around a planet, so I would extend a stars gravity well out further than a planets but it is pretty much up to the referee on where that is. If a ship is pulled out of its jump by a Black Star I don’t suggest just putting the ship into the gravity well of the Star... if you want that danger to exist a drifting ship headed towards the gravity well of a Star any Star is sufficient to scare players into action to try and get the vessel under control, maneuvering enough and powered enough, to move into a safe orbit someplace and to effect better repairs. Mostly for fleet movements it is ship damage and time in the system that effects a war tactical game like Star Empires. 

Science is currently debating what we are seeing out there in the deep dark places of the galaxy and are they Black Holes or Black Stars? For my space game hazards I have both as both seem plausible and create different space conditions for players to deal with and make for good story telling. 

This is based on my understanding of Black Stars. I just read a bunch of online science articles some better than others and did not write them all down. I am still researching this theory and maybe at a latter date I will have a nice referenced article with better guidelines for use in FrontierSpace and Star Frontiers. I do hope this helps anyone wondering at least what they are and how they might be a game space hazard.