Sky world (RAR)

[SMJB]

Here's an idea of mine that's practically tailor-made for this board--utterly bizarre magic that requires a ridiculous amount of scientific knowledge.

So once there was this world that had this magitek civilization, but there was also this gas giant of at-least-Jupiter-mass with a ridiculously unstable orbit, which eventually was going to rip the inhabited world into pieces due to tidal forces. When doomsday came, the people were prepared, however--the planet itself had been enchanted so that each bit of it would retain gravity and atmosphere and such to a certain distance. A ring around the gas giant was formed by the remnants of the original world, and stabilize the gas giant's orbit gyroscopicly.

I'm thinking of the ring itself having a magically-retained atmosphere, but I'm having trouble explaining how they were able to mine it out of the gas giant (I am not giving these people the ability to magically create more than their planet's mass in matter (I calculated)), and besides, in some ways it just makes things difficult--the rocket equation was never meant to take drag into account, after all. Then again, in other ways it makes things easier. All the magic is being used to keep things stable, and the survivors' tech level has gotten up to about steam punk. (Because why not?)

Incidentially, I still have no idea if I'm using "RAR" right, as no one bothered to explain it to me the last time I did it.

[Dass.Kapital]

Well...as a similar thing you might want to look up and read Niven and Pournel's story (I think there a couple of books in the series?) called "Smoke ring"?

The premise is that there is an entire 'orbit' of atmosphere. No gravity just a huge, doughnut shaped cloud of gas around a star. I've only read the second in the series, many moons ago, so the details are a tad hazy.

As for your idea? Simple something else caused the gas giant to meet the 'roche' limit and get ripped apart by the gravity of...say the parent star? Some other large body? Basically...gravity tears the gas giant apart and its remains get smeared/spread into the shape you want?

[Formless]

A brief history of the RAR. This would be more of a normal worldbuilding thread (at least, as defined in fantasy as normal). RAR's usually have some sort of game-y aspect to them, like putting the participants on the spot and asking them to make a decision or formulate a plan with the resources given (the latter is especially characteristic of Zor's original style of hypotheticals), or guess at how they would react to the sheer craziness of it all happening to or around them. I could post one I've had percolating for some time if you want to see how they work, but I would need a little bit more legwork to get the frame story down.

As for your question "how might they get the Gas Giant's atmosphere strewn across space" have you considered having them magic up a way to ram their planet into the gas giant? The sheer energy should be more than enough to shred the atmosphere of both AND create a nice set of floating continents for everyone to live on (a nice fantasy image if I do say so myself). Other than that, I second the suggestion of reading Niven's sci-fi novel The Integral Trees. Its a bit different than what you are going for (it was an excuse to do a setting entirely in microgravity/freefall), but considering some of the actual planets that have been discovered, its not that implausible scientifically.

[krakonfour]

Isn't there an option the heat one side of the gas giant, or one particular spot, enough so that the gas would expand enough to create a visible bulge? A close-orbiting moon might even enter this cloud.

[Ahriman238]

If they'd been preparing for this for some time, why not use their magitek to siphon a large quantity of the gas giant's atmosphere? For that matter, you could have it imperfectly done, leading to hazardous regions of vacuum.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Another reading suggestion; The Shattered World by Michael Reaves. It lacks the gas giant aspect, but it is set on the shards of a shattered planet, each shard kept in a stable orbit and with a livable atmosphere by magic. Magic also kept the population alive during the breakup too, including the demonic "Chthons" who burn in sunlight and are seriously unhappy that their underground homes aren't underground anymore. It was a magical war and not passing too close to a planet that broke it up, though.