Category talk:Planets

This article is within the scope of the Planets WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve BattleTechWiki's coverage of planets. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

Lost Planets[edit]

Please follow this link to review and possibly contribute to the hunt for canonical worlds that, as-of-yet, haven't appeared on the maps:

Unnamed, lost or misnamed planets

How do we treat "Lost Planets", i.e. those that are mentioned somewhere but do not show up on the starmaps - Dorwinion, Ilion V, Lincoln, Pacifica, Remis III, Tsanna, Alpha Hydri or Trisha? Frabby 07:47, 15 January 2008 (CST)

From what I can gather, most of these were planets that were created for certain stories, then not canonized as planets in the atlas. Because of this situation, TPTB have had to retcon some of the information, as with Dorwinion and Pacifica above. Tsanna is probably Tsamma. For the others, sources might help. --Scaletail 20:34, 19 January 2008 (CST)
I think they are positively canon and do not need to be canonized as you put it. Some are even repeatedly mentioned in several different canon sources. Conversely, the atlases and housebook star charts are so full of errors and omissions that they cannot rule out a canonical planet/system simply because they forgot to mention it, misspelled it or misplaced it. Is it worth creating a Wiki project to gather information and try to nail down the "lost" planets, or is this Talk page enough? Any help in identifying and sorting out "lost" planets is appreciated because I only have so much time and canon material.Frabby 09:05, 20 January 2008 (CST)
Honestly, I think the CBT forums are a better place to do this simply because there are a lot more people, some of whom may already have answers (including writers). My mistake on Tsamma. I keep getting confused about its location because the Tsamma Lancers were a core part of Tancred Sandoval's force during the FCCW. If you do want to do this here, then I would suggest working within Project:Planets rather than creating a new Project as this seems to fall under its purview. --Scaletail 17:52, 20 January 2008 (CST)
I've run across this several times. If you look at the Merc units I've done, you can see that there are times where there's just no planet listed. Since they're published in the House Sourcebooks they're canon (in my estimation), but things seem to have been a little fly-by-night when those first came out. I agree with Scaletail and think we should do this within the Project:Planets. There are at least a few people doing some work on that and it seems like a good place to start collecting these lost planets. :) Bdevoe 18:05, 28 January 2008 (CST)

(Edit: sorted to top of the page, edited for brevity, added link box to CBT.com thread.) Frabby 19:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Manufacturing Centers[edit]

  • I have data for manufacturing centers, including what planet they're on and what components they product (mechs, equipment, etc). Should I update the planets to list what components they produce, manufacturing centers on planet, and also create articles for each manufacturing center? It'll be quite a big update, but it's some cool data. Nicjansma 12:25, 30 September 2006 (CDT)
    • I can't see any reason NOT too. That would be awesome Objective Raid material. --Revanche 14:22, 30 September 2006 (CDT)

Faction Details[edit]

This is a two-part question. I was wondering, is there any easy way to add faction details to every planet, for instance, in the wake of the Federated Commonwealth Civil War or before the Reunification War? All the planetary information does not reflect the current Classic BattleTech setting.

If so, I noticed there is no faction listing for MechWarrior: Dark Age. I have not followed the Dark Age fiction. Is there any source material definitively describing the borders of the 32nd century? Thanks--S.gage 01:17 EDT 11 June 2009.

  1. 1) Errrrr....not easy, no. Any information to be added by us (the average editor) would have to do it planet entry by planet entry. Nic, owner of the site, somehow created the planetary database by autopopulating with some sort of bot before he opened the wiki. As far as I know, he is the only one who has bot experience doing so (I may be speaking out of turn). Maybe contacting him to get details on what you'd need to provide him, so that he could auto-update, would be the best/quickest choice, but the 2nd best way is to get all those CBT historians that exist over at CBT forums to come and update their favorite planets. I'd much rather edit their efforts (to bring them up to our standards) than attempt to research each planet with only the active editors we have now.
  1. 2) As for bringing in DA details, that would be easier for a handful of dedicated editors to accomplish, since there is a lot less information out (so far), in comparison to CBT. There is NO reason not to add in MWDA info. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 18:55, 11 June 2009 (PDT)
Revanche is right when he states that there is no easy way. Nic posted the .txt file he used to create those pages, which I updated. I sent it off to him some time ago, so I assume he did not find a way to re-generate those pages without deleting the info that has since been posted. I have been updating some planets as I go (see Terra), but it is painstaking work. As for MW:AoD, there are no sourcebooks per se, but the MW website archive does have an interactive map of the RotS, so that's something, at least. --Scaletail 04:56, 13 June 2009 (PDT)

Major Problem with Coords[edit]

Hey folks. Has anyone else noticed that the coordinates are completely incorrect? The X and Y are always the same and there are maybe 5-10 planets for which that is true (if not just the one - Terra). I know they were all auto-generated, but it seems like they were generated incorrectly. I was checking some things would with Scaletail's edits changing references from Blue Diamond to Menkent, but noticed that the coordinates were way off. So, beyond the fact that they're all incorrect, without going through all 3k planets in the IS, how do we fix this? :) Bdevoe 14:00, 18 August 2007 (CDT)

Apparently Nic has all of the original data that was used to auto-generate the planets, so if that could be modified and re-uploaded, it would be fixed, but (as far as I can tell) that would negate all of the edits that have been made previously. Scaletail 16:02, 18 August 2007 (CDT)
Dang! You guys are right. Let me see how I can regenerate all of the pages w/out blowing away what others have contributed to the planets. I should be able to do it. Nicjansma 10:39, 20 August 2007 (CDT)
That would be awesome. :) Thanks! Bdevoe 14:56, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

Geographic Features of Planets[edit]

The current search engine gives a brief overview of the loyalty of a planet (given an era), as well as common jump routes and other local planets. There is plenty of fiction describing not only the industries but also the local climates, geographic features and demographics (for instance, Tharkad is cold; New Avalon is beautiful and temperate; Twycross is rugged; Kooken's Pleasure Pit is full of lowlife and scum; Huntress has large swamps, mountains, etc., ...)?

I knew I should not have donated my BattleTech fic to the local library...— The preceding unsigned comment was posted by 98.216.185.129 (talkcontribs) on 25 December 2008.

Planet names[edit]

So long as we're not adding things like "Oh yeah, and this planet also was named the same in episode X of Doctor Who," is it OK to add derivations for the names of planets when there is either a 99.9% certainty of a name's origin (such as Krung Thep being named after the city of Bangkok), or a great likelyhood that the designers intended a certain name as a reference (such as the planets Maxwell, Silver and Hammer in such close proximity possibly being a reference to the Beatles song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer")?216.52.210.41 00:39, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

If you know the origin 100%, I say you should feel free to add the information. Just be careful, sometimes you might suspect an origin, but the etymology of a planet's name might be explained in a completely unexpected manner. For instance, I would personally never have guessed the planet Taurus was "...so named after [Samantha] Calderon's second husband, Victor Taurens, who had perished during the initial penetration of the Hyades asteroid field." (The Periphery (sourcebook), pg. 15.--S.gage 01:29, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

XY Coordinate[edit]

Done with the y coordinate correction in all sections (A-Z).--Doneve 19:35, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Wrong Maps?[edit]

The maps on this page differ significantly from those in the Handbooks. Take a look at the 2750 Steiner-Marik border for example. Which maps are canon? Harry 11:06, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, when BTW was first stood up, the utility Nicjansma utilized to auto-create the maps was working off incorrect coordinates. These maps are not canon. Hopefully, someone will initiate a project to correct these sooner than later. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 17:52, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

More Lost Worlds[edit]

I don't if these have been added. Masterton & Brinton. Masterton was world assigned to the Hyades Light Infantry's 2nd Battalion in the The Periphery (1988). Brinton was found in The Periphery (1996) as garrison world for the Hydas's 2nd battalion. The world is profiled, but not physically on map in same book. I've looked in later publications and Historical Major Periphery State showed both in the 2750 map, but 3025 when periphery book lists in. Masterton was garrison as of 3058, which is even stranger...-- Wrangler 17:15, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

May I refer you to the discussion I just put to the top of this page, and the link to my little project collecting "Lost, unknown or misnamed planets and systems" on CBT.com? :) Frabby 19:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Nearby Planets[edit]

Ok, i revamp at 1st the Nearby Planets section, (a big thank to Neuling for his table idea).--Doneve 20:25, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Systems vs. Planets[edit]

Okay, the elephant in the room: This entire category is misnamed. We're working with star systems here, not individual planets. Consequently, the category should be renamed. Frabby (talk) 14:31, 8 February 2020 (EST)

I have been thinking this myself for a while. Rename, maybe not, but I would propose we better define it, and create a new "systems" or "star systems" category leaving this one more as an actual planets category. Given the way that we currently handle things I see Carver being in the systems category with Carver IV, Carver V and Liberty in the planets category but in effect being a redirect to the appropriate section of the system article in a similar way to how the support commands are handled.--Dmon (talk) 16:42, 8 February 2020 (EST)

Subcategories by faction[edit]

The system vs. planet argument holds true for the subcategories as well. But I am not convinced of the usefulness of these categories, at least not when compared to the maintenance effort: As is, these categories have a massive overlap along borders, and do not accurately depict a given realm at any one point in time. What is the value of such a category? I can't think of any that isn't better served on either the system article or the realm article in question. Frabby (talk) 14:31, 8 February 2020 (EST)

Definition of system[edit]

I raised some questions at Category talk:Independent Planets that seem better to raise here. What is the definition of `system' in BattleTech? on Sarna? And is that definition stated anywhere? This category page currently does not have such a definition nor does it link to such a definition. My first reflex would be that `system' means `planetary system'. But does BattleTech and/or Sarna use the same definition? A similiar term would be a `star system', but my inkling is that we are always assuming at least one planetary body for a system in BattleTech. But is this the case? Are there any systems in BattleTech that have no planets? In other words, would a star system with no orbiting non-stars be considered a system. Anyways I am not an expert on BattleTech's in-universe stellar cartography (or cartography classifications), but a clarification of the term `system' would seem appropriate to have somewhere.

If I understand correctly, there are instances of systems with more than one planet. So in converting planet categories to system categories, some care may be needed to update the definition of those subcategories. But establishing a clear definition/understanding of this root category Category:Systems may help with that. --Dude RB (talk) 09:17, 2 July 2022 (EDT)

Generally "Systems" are what would be considered "Planetary systems" but we do have some out in the Periphery like Wolf 82 and Transfer Station J239H2 that might fall under "Star Systems" but for our purposes I do not feel it actually matters, On Sarna a system is anything that gets a dot on the stellar map and all the stuff involved in marking territory on said map, hence the (faction) system being the new standard.
Converting planetary categories to system categories is pretty simple. No individual planet should be appearing here at all, that is what the planet category is for. At present there has never been an instance of a system with more than one planet having divided loyalties that I am aware of, BT simply does not seem to take that into consideration, similar to the way that virtually every planet has a unified planetary government with virtually no "countries", in the real world I imagine most planets would split into several countries or states and the planetary governments being more a 'Supranational union' than a true planetary government.
Currently the only real exception to this is systems like Aalzorg that we have no real detail about so it occupies both system and planet until we get enough info to split it off.--Dmon (talk) 11:15, 2 July 2022 (EDT)
Then perhaps the following would serve as a functional definition. 'In BattleTech, a system denotes a region in space in proximity to a specific star (or star system) including any orbiting non-stellar objects (e.g., planets, asteroids, space stations). A system's name may, and often does, differ from the name of the star itself. Systems are the points of interest on a star map and represent, albeit in somewhat simplied form, the destinations when traveling via jumpship. See Jump Point for further details regarding jump destinations.' --Dude RB (talk) 14:16, 2 July 2022 (EDT)