Monday 15 October 2007

Pic of the day: In the RPG Oblivion there are two moons quite unlike our own, but the plant life and terrain are quite familiar. It is a step in the right direction, though. But there is much more where it comes from...

Short: Fantastic virtual worlds

I hope that in the future there will be made persistent game worlds based on other planets and solar systems. Of course there is scientifically speaking very few of these that are likely to be habitable, and fewer the less earth-like the planets and their solar systems are. But this does not need to stop the human mind. I'd love to watch the play of light and shadow on a planet with two or three suns, especially of different color. Or how about the intricate cycles of light and darkness on a near Earth sized moon circling a gas giant, and the sister moons coming and going? We should also let our creativity loose on the plant and animal life (if any). Go back to Burgess Shale and forget the world we know. What would happen if you stepped on the first worm and some other lifeform became dominant and gave rise to the majority of later animals? How about nobody ever invented flowering plants? It may take countless millennia for us to travel the galaxy and check on God's creativity. But it might only take a decade or two to employ our own.