Notes on the races of the Solar system.

I'm better at creating worlds/universes than making plot for them, this I felt would fit well in the form of someones notes and observations, however I've always wondered about the best way to translate elves and dwarves into scifi.
I may add more later, eg notes on other races. However if anyone thinks of plot to put into this universe let me know, there is a tiny bit more to it that I couldn't see where to add in these notes.

(Nb. Here Dwarves refers to the Dwarvish race while Dwarfs refers to individuals of that race, the same applies to Elves and Elfs)

The Dwarves of Earth are a strange race, especially when one considers that their claim, that theirs is the ancestral or original Human Race. The tallest members of the subspecies barely reach 2 metres tall. Some of them begin to get clumsy even in the Martian gravity well, all of them become clumsy in any gravity well smaller than that of Mars and are completely uncoordinated in microgravity, even compared to the Martians. Even with training on Mars or Luna, none of them ever reach the agility of the Asteroid Elves or Elves of the Gas Giants’ moons, although their physical strength is, as one would expect of their ridiculous gravity well, very high.
They need frequent reminders of the most basic precautions of sealed living, lacking even the habits that Martians learn as children. Yet their industries, including those that relate to space travel (as they and sometimes the Martians, specify for what we simply call ‘travel’), rival even groups such as Asteroid Industries and the industrial branch of the Elven Union. What's more, most of those Dwarfs who choose to leave their own planet are often less phased by unexpected situations than many Elfs

Returned to check the details of the universe that I wrote. May write a tiny bit of plot to extend the universe a bit.

Call from the Wisps part 1

Dior was sailing out at the edges of the Solar system, depending on whether you included Oort cloud or not, getting to the outer edge of that would take years. He was taking a break after graduating from the Jovian University of Engineering on Europa. He had got his pilot's license at 10 Martian years old, slightly older than normal for elves but young for a Martian, his father was a Martian and his mother an elf, as sometimes happens among diplomats. Being the son of two diplomats, he was used to traveling regularly, he'd even been to the Venusian Cloud Colony, so staying on Europa for three Martian years in a row while he studied had been a strange and slightly stressful experience for him. So now here he was, on a holiday that his parent's money allowed to go further out than most people went recreationally, away from the crowds of the bigger solar bodies, out here past the Kuiper belt, just him and the stars, and perhaps the possibility of a comet. He adjusted the solar sail to take him a little further out.
Suddenly he noticed that his instruments were picking up a faint signal, possibly something similar to a beacon. But he wasn't near any of the registered beacons here, he'd been careful to avoid them as he'd wanted to be alone and not chatting to scientists or officials. He set the auto-sailor on a path to try to triangulate the source

Part 2

As he approached it, he saw that it wasn't a beacon as such, but more like a probe or pod with a beacon attached. But it didn't look like any of the robot probe designs of the Elven Union, and they were the only probe users in the outer system even research groups from the inner system used Elven probes for any research out here. Maybe it was a new prototype. Although it did look vaguely familiar from something or somewhere else, maybe like something he'd seen in a museum.

Part 3 (and if you missed the reference before, then here's another hint)

He brought it onboard and then repressurised the scoop hold before going in to look at it more closely. The inscription format on the casing was semi-familiar, but not enough for easy interpretation. Easy enough for the translation app though.
Wait a minute. Centauri! The Whispering Wisps! It was a message pod from the Wisps of Centauri! That was the museum piece he'd been reminded of. It had been over a century since the last one of these, that was why they were called The Whispering Wisps, because since the original colony ship left the only evidence of their continued survival was these occasional message pods. Interstellar transport technology hadn't yet developed enough for more than that. This was only the fourth message pod… so it might be quite valuable.
The Asteroid Industries wouldn't care for it they were industry only. Some of the Elven Universities might be keen for it, but how much budget did they have?
He'd probably get the best price from the Martian Information Trading and Technological Expansion Northern Society (no one knew why the 'Northern’ was still left in there now that they had campuses and trade offices all over Mars and not just in the old Northern Expansion city that they started in), he could use some connections through his father Beren, and didn't uncle Belegund used to work there? They were even more powerful in the info trade than the Dwarven information academies. Yes they'd be the best to take the pod to. It would be a long trip though.
He adjusted the solar sails to slow his orbit of the sun to allow his craft to fall inwards. After that the sails wouldn't be of much use for the inwards journey except for braking and a bit of steering. This far out he'd need to use the engine as well for some initial acceleration, but this far out an engine burn probably wouldn't be seen. There would be the other groups and authorities that would try to tax or seize his find, but technically their authority only extended to 1.5 light seconds beyond the orbit of their furthest moon from their planet. That wouldn't stop them from trying though. He could argue his way out of such an encounter if he had to, but he'd prefer not to.

Here is all I have so far written of this universe
https://fredjimbob.wordpress.com/category/less-serious/fiction-and-poetry/middle-space/

The Pod

Had been primarily solar sail driven, with a magnetically enhanced sail. Similar to the previous one, but obviously slightly updated. Its travel time would have probably been a bit over 1 martian decade. It had a redundancy mechanism of being able to split into 6 smaller pods if it became significantly damaged.
It had contained, in addition to basic news, in invitation for science academies of the Sol system to ‘colaborate’ (as much as was possible given the time delay) with those of the Centauri system on the development of a technology which both systems had, by themselves, been making very slow progress. The technology of Hibernation, which would allow interstellar travel for people, indeed living things at all, as the travel time for larger craft would still take several martian millenia. As some people know, the initial colony craft had to be a hollowed out asteroid with a protocolony living inside and all necessary information, including our history until its departure, education programs and instructions and procedure for setting up a full colony upon arrival, stored on long life computers.
The pod had also contained notes, reports and articles from their own progress, including a recent minor breakthrough, for our own academies to build on and return in kind any progress on this side.
Since then, all our universities and academies have made some progress, although the breakthrough was made by the Neptunian Academy of Biotechnology (Triton). After sending our initial progress notes to Centauri immediately following that breakthrough 2 martian decades ago, NAB are sending our final animal trial, along with further notes, in 2 triton orbits.
We all look forward to hearing from the Centauri Wisps and maybe even for the first time, meeting one of them.

The Planning

Elwing was of course surprised to find that she had been shortlisted as a possible specialist for the Gas Giant Colony Project. She had only recently finished her PhD in Floatation and Atmospheric Buoyancy studies, which wasn't exactly a rare field of study. What's more, her current job at the Floatation Museum Of Steampunk and Related Styles on the city ship Vingilot (an older ci’ship, second generation, built partly from donated and partly from traded materials), she had gotten through her uncle Earendis. Perhaps he had recommended her again.
Of course the project was still in early stages yet. There was still plenty of discussion, and debate, about which Gas Giant to choose. The different factions within the Elven Union were all making bids, but the main debates were on the actual physical conditions on each Gas Giant. Whether to go with Saturn because it was larger and closer to the Sun and would get more light for solar power etc, or to go with Neptune or Uranus where the more varied atmospheric composition would make the bouyancy question easier.
The Venus Colony had originally been a joint venture between the Dwarves and the Martians. The Dwarves’ industrial expertise and infrastructure for preparation and the Martians’ experience in sealed and new environments, although Venusian dwellings didn't need to be sealed all the time. The population came from both as well, as the gravity well was in between that of the two contributors, but closer to Earth's. The Venusian Anari, now were almost as short as dwarfs, but significantly more agile. The Gas Giant Colony Colony, was now a joint project between the Anari and the Martians with some contribution from the Dwarves and of course the Elves from the moons of which ever gas giant was chosen. The Anari weren't used to permanently sealed environments, ie one with a fully hostile atmosphere or no atmosphere outside. But they were the ones who knew the most about bouyancy. It would also be lower gravity than the Anari were used to, as clearly Jupiter was too difficult to even consider as a first Gas Giant Colony.

>> It had a redundancy mechanism of being able to split into 6 smaller pods if it became significantly damaged.

Does this mean that the sail would be divided if the ship was divided, so that each module would still have solar-wind propulsion?

>> The Anari weren't used to permanently sealed environments, i.e. one with a fully hostile atmosphere or no atmosphere outside.

If the Anari live on Venus, they WOULD be accustomed to a hostile atmosphere, with air heated to at least 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Or is this a magical Venus that has an Earth-like atmosphere like in sci-fi movies produced before 1960?

The pod
Yes. Individual sails. Probably smaller replacement sails that would unfurl when released.

The Anari
Venus's lower atmosphere is very hostile but Venus's upper atmosphere is a lot less hostile, some say similar to earth's atmosphere, which I am assuming here. I may not have gone into much detail about that.

Settling in the Winds

The first ci’ship was named Foundation. While the name sort of made sense for starting a colony, it was mostly a joke. After all, not only was it a ci’ship, ie without any foundation, it was also sailing on a gas giant, with no ground to use as a foundation. They had eventually settled on Uranus, because of buoyancy and because of the interesting thermal columns with potential for power generation opportunities.
Now, in the (2nd/3rd?) generation, the descendents of the mixed Martian and Elven initial population called themselves either Teleri or Sindar, depending on whom you asked. Teleri the Sailing Elves referring to the obvious fact that they were Elves in ships or Sindar the Grey Elves being a mix of Martian and Elven as well as being further from the sun. The namesakes were related anyway and some were suggesting to leave Teleri for when Saturn might be colonised.
The dialect was gradually starting to not only merge but even shift as well, from Martian and Uranus Orbit Elven, as had to be specified now. The Martian dialect of course, as the second oldest solar dialect, came from the original Dwarven dialect, except that the dwarves have more than one language, and so there was some linguistic variety in the founding of Mars although subsequent shifts were only natural shifts. The various Elven dialects and sub-dialects came from both Dwarves and Martians, but the shifts were partly artificial. Once the Elves started calling themselves Elves, they started to incorporate into common use, words from the artificial languages devised by the ancient dwarf writer from before they were called dwarfs. Tolkien the Scholar. In England on Earth, where stories grow old.

They had brought Foundation down to circle around one of the equatorial thermal columns. The equator was the best place to start on a barrel rolling planet, otherwise you'd get nearly half an orbit of darkness. Already they had finished recycling the aerobrake faring and were working on constructing their second ci’ship with both the recycled faring and material donations from the colonisation contributors. One suggestion for the name was M`ore Brithil, the Black Pearl, a mix of Quenya and Sindarin, another was to bring in some Norse mythology and call it Jotunheim. One of the most popular suggestions was to name it after one of the Narnian islands or one of the cities thereof, such as Narrowhaven, and follow with a series of ci’ships with the same naming pattern.
This one wouldn't be quite as big as Foundation, but it would be big enough, and hopefully soon they'd be able to start trading for materials for more ci’ships.

The Anari were already expanding their industry. Venus had originally been colonised simply to see if it could be. The same as Uranus. So it's industries hadn't been planned at the start. It already had some before the planning of Uranus however, and was now expanding, presumably hoping to climb to equal standing with the other players in the solar economy. Hopefully Uranus would eventually follow suit, it would probably need to at least be self funding before any other gas giant would be colonised.
The​ Anari of course had made their industries primarily based on mining the various substances which made Lower Venus so dangerous, such as Sulfuric acid and some sulfates as well as a bit of deuterium, to sell to processing branches of major industrial groups such as the Dwarves or Asteroid Industries. This mining however required either dive craft or crane ships to quickly access Lower Venus and return, and while it generated income for the Anari economy, it generally wasn't especially we efficient. Now though, they had apparently diversified into processing as well, and there were rumors that they were planning something called Minas Perelandara.
The Sindar could probably consider selling a little bit of deuterium as well. However they would need to start exploring a bit more before setting in their initial industry. More thorough exploration than the pre-colonial exploration. Of course any new colony had some tourism opportunities as well.

I thought it might be time to add a little bit more here. Especially when I found out that Neptune has slightly higher gravity that earth.

In later generations both the deuterium and tourism industries on Uranus expanded and normal hydrogen could still be profitable, especially when it was already cooled like on Uranus and then research opportunities also grew in the high pressure depths and even a bit of diamond farming when the pressure squeezed them from lower methane clouds.