On Fri, Jan 26, 2018 at 01:27:46PM -0500, Caleuche wrote:
> It does make me wonder why the imperial scout service exists at all
> though - given how good our TL8 RV spectrometers are, and telescope
> are, among the other methods of exoplanet detection, when you have a
> network of those instruments across many star systems examining
> every star, it's hard to imagine there would be an unknown exoplanet
> larger than an asteroid out there. Certainly the scouts shouldn't
> arrive not knowing the basic configuration of the system.

Yes, they certainly shouldn't.  They would arrive knowing all the
planets, probably most of the moons and a lot of the other significant
bodies in the system.  They would also know quite a bit about the
composition of each, likely including whether they have any large
quantity of respirating life forms.

But that's not where a scout's job ends.  That's where it starts.

- Tim