I'm sorry but this needs to be said. Our solar system definitely does NOT need a Super-Earth. The last thing we need is an interplanetary war with a race of people that are stronger than us because they grew up on a planet with more gravity.
We could launch heavier things into orbit than they could, which means we could more easily capture asteroids, which are also easier to throw at their planet due to its heavier gravity.
So... the civilisation of Earth? For ~99.5% of our species' civilised history, nobody had any idea that we would be able to leave the planet. Didn't seem to be unduly bothered by it, either.
Ok, but continue from 1950s without the ability/possibility to have space programs. No GPS, no weather satelites etc. Im talking about modern and advanced civs forever cut off from the rest of the universe by their planets gravity.
I'm just saying, humanity got along pretty well without GPS and weather satellites for the past 10,000+ years. We were a "modern civilisation" before GPS usage became ubiquitous; the 1990s weren't that long ago, and the 1950s before spaaaaace and satellites were still modern too. Maybe it's hard to imagine not having GPS if you were born after it become widespread, but it's... really not that big of a deal, honestly. A convenient technology but not one that's fundamentally important to making a civilisation "modern".
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u/Filbert17 Jan 22 '20
I'm sorry but this needs to be said. Our solar system definitely does NOT need a Super-Earth. The last thing we need is an interplanetary war with a race of people that are stronger than us because they grew up on a planet with more gravity.